Memoirs of a Board Gamer

With the almost 20 inches of snow dropped on us in the last few days, the board games just had to come out. We invited some friends over and we first went sledding and for a walk in the woods. And then after a quick lunch, we sent the kids out in the snow to play and pulled out Thurn & Taxis - Power and Glory. The husband of the couple is in my normal gaming group so he is at least familiar with the style of games I have in my cabinet but his wife is not a 'gamer' by any means. However, once the game got under way I think she started getting into it. I had a great time with the game and thought it was a good introduction for her since the game features little to no direct confrontational play which I thought might be turn off.

After a break to play in the snow a bit we threw some dinner together, ate, and then broke out Thebes. I chose this game since it's a step up in complexity from Thurn & Taxis but shares some common elements in play: a field of face-up cards and an action to clear and replace all cards. I also thought, as a group, we'd enjoy the anticipation of the dig. As it turns out, I was right. There was an endless stream of whoops, hollers, and groans from the digs (especially when I miraculously pulled 6 treasures in a row for a 100% hit rate digging in green). It was a an entire day of fun with friends playing in the snow, preparing and eating good food as a group, all surrounding the game play. A fantastic day.

As luck would have it, my order from Game Surplus arrive the following day making me the proud owner of Mission Red Planet and In the Year of the Dragon. I failed in an attempt to trade for Mission Red Planet so I sold my copy of Pillars of the Earth for cash and turned the money over (with some additional cash) into these two games.

I'm a big fan of Steam Punk and Mission has it all. From what I've read, the game began with the theme and some artwork and they wrapped the design & mechanics around it. Somewhat backwards from most games but I'm all for it if it turns out looking like this one does. Mission hold quite a bit of chaos and elements of backstabbing but I don't have many games of that sort and I think in the right moment and with the right group it can be quite fun.

In the Year of the Dragon is a more serious game with a victory point engine at its heart likened to Notre Dame. However, instead of just plague-ridden rats there are many bad things thrown your way all trying to tear down your engine and your ability to keep everything running smoothly. The game has been described as brutally difficult to keep the engine going. A great theme and a strong set of mechanics can't be all bad. Sounds like fun.

In between shoveling the driveway five times trying to stay ahead of the foot of snow that fell last night and today, Lisa and I broke out Nautilus, a game I recently picked up in a BGG trade. The kids walked down the block to a neighbor's house to play in the snow so we figured we had a few hours to kill (re)learning the game.

I'd read through the rules before hand but we still took a leisurely stroll through the setup, drinking tea and chatting about the snow. About the time we were ready, the kids and our friends showed up so we broke for more tea, scones, and some popcorn. Getting back to the gaming in a few hours, we drove straight through to the end with Lisa pulling out the win by 4 points! She played very well.

Nautilus is an enjoyable game with a relatively strong theme. It is however, a little on the long side for what it gives back. The game is not an economic engine style of game where you need to build/consume/produce/sell items driving victory points and/or money and for that I'm actually grateful. I already own several games of this nature so its lack of it compliments my personal library very well.

Nautilus is a game of exploration. You begin the game with the bulk of the money you'll have for the entire game. There are two ways to earn money during the game but in general your supply trends towards zero (or close to it) at game end. Your turn comprises three phases 1) buying and placing manned habitation and unmanned research modules on the sea floor, 2) moving researchers around the network of connected modules and activating research modules, and 3) launching and driving subs from an activated research module out into the ocean in search of treasure. Activating one of the five module types with a researcher grants you the ability to move up chits on a 'scoring' chart that grant not only more powerful abilities but the potential to score higher at game end. The activated research module types determine how far you can move your researchers within the station, how far your submarine can move, the effectiveness of your sub's sonar, how many hidden treasure chips you can peek at when you uncover an Atlantis treasure, and how much money you'll receive when you uncover a treasure chest.

There are also various forms of other treasure that when collected by your sub, affect your score. All of these treasures come together to form an overall score and it's this score that is multiplied by a score you receive for the number of activated research modules. This final product plus the money you have left at game end represent your score.

The game does lends itself to analysis paralysis in that players may take a long time over analyzing their move. Other players can use this time to plan to some degree but your options may change dramatically based on another players move. Money management is very tight throughout the entire game and players will strive to minimize cost. To do that, one needs to determine when to place modules, how many researchers to deploy with your habitation modules, and where and how often to dig for treasure. Although the game is relatively complex and of a different style than she's accustomed to, Lisa and I had a good time and I look forward to many more plays. Lisa commented that she'd need to play it several more times before she could begin to feel comfortable evaluating a good move from bad and how the finer details of that move can affect future options. The final scoring had her stumped and she was truly amazed that she pulled out the win. It really came down to my spending a few extra bucks to protect a lead in the sonar module that proved unnecessary. Had I instead, gone for dominance in another type of research module I probably could have pulled out the win.

I've not played this game since April of 2006 at a CABS session that drug on until about 4:30am. It was the memory of that single play that triggered my desire to perform the trade in the first place. I'm happy with it and look forward to introducing it to my normal game group. As a side note, Nautilus comes with paper money in two denominations. Having extra "Rubium" from a money replacement in Nexus Ops, I used some of that to give the game a better tactile feel than the paper even if it is somewhat out of context. Maybe the gems represent goods found from previous expeditions.

I hosted the March 2008 installment of Analog Game Night at my house. Like last month we had six players and again I (we?) felt it a difficult number to deal with. I share the role of undesignated "rule knower" with one other gamer and I plan ahead for most game nights by tracking the number of confirmed attendees and organizing a list of candidate games for that target number. The night before I try to scan the rules of the list of games for several reasons:

1. So I can feel more comfortable and more prepared to (re)teach the game
2. So others don't have to feel like they must spend some undesirable period of time while I stumble through a poorly presented and ill-remembered rule set
3. To maximize the gaming by streamlining the process. I'd much rather play two meaty games than one meaty game and a light filler.

So, on Sunday night while perusing my game cabinet, Lisa started chuckling and asked me why I work so hard at planning when I know it's not going to work out anything like I'd expected or hoped. Of course she's right...she always is. So I resigned myself to just wing it and not feel responsible for the happiness of the group and to remove some stress from my gaming experience. Just go with the flow so to speak.

So Monday night arrived, and five people stood in my dining room with expectant eyes. We all stared at each other for a bit before two people said they had only enough time to play one meaty game due to starting a new job the next day and having to open up the church for Ohio's primary voters the following morning. So, I recommended splitting into two groups to shorten the playing time for those that needed to leave and to allow for the opportunity to play one of my 3-4 player games. The other group decided to play Union Pacific since, as a group, they were the most familiar with that rule set. My group, on the other hand got to do something I've been hoping for for weeks...years...yes...Tigris and Euphrates.

But wouldn't you know it, I was ill prepared to teach it well and it had been awhile since I'd played (almost exactly two years!). So, after stumbling through the rules we finally got started and in the end I think we did okay. This time, I remember no rule infractions and having now only found the reference to my previous play (fiasco?), it's difficult to not have done better. In any event, I would love to establish T&E as a more regular game for game night. Similar to Caylus, there's just so much going that it feels like there are always positive options and many, many paths to victory. Although I've only played a few times, T&E could easily be my favorite game.

The Union Pacific group finished slightly ahead of our game due to a game ending double dividend situation with many cards left in the deck. After boxing up the two games and saying our goodbyes to the early nighters, we dropped down to four and I pulled out Arkadia.

Lisa and I enjoy Arkadia as a two player game but I have played it at a game night in the past with four. However, this time, the three other players were new to it.

It started off a little clunky; probably my "winging it" approach affecting my delivery...oh why do I listen to my wife! There was a fair amount of confusion over when you can use your architecture banners, when you are allowed to evaluate your holdings, what cards are useful on the draw, and how many people to place seemed a crap shoot to everyone. However, as the game progressed I think it started to grow on them and by the end they'd gathered some more respect for it and its subtle features. I like the game with two and with four, although different and more difficult to score big, it's still a very enjoyable experience. We tend to play without the screens to take away the memory/tracking aspects of the game which seem to just increase mental work without increasing fun.

Keith, purchased a couple of coasters from The Board Game Gift Shop so I thought I'd share some close ups to give you all a chance to see the kind of quality you can expect.

Not to get overly promotional but I was wearing an Amun-Re shirt from the store as well.

I was on a photography kick last night and set up a convoluted area in my basement where I thought I might be able to get some well lit shots using some strong work lights. My goal was to get some ideas for the Board Game Gift Shop but there were a few in there that I decided to upload to Board Game Geek.

On a side note, these photos kicked up my total BGG thumb count to 4000. Thanks!

After 27 shots at trying to time the drop of the cube(s) at the precise moment I finally captured an image that I felt had that je ne sais quoi that I was striving for. Dropping cubes in the castillo in El Grande not only gives you that feeling of hiding something from your opponents but it also gives the game the added tactile dimension of sound and motion.

Next up was this fairly straightforward image of the El Grande king and all his 'men'. Each player uses a stockpile of cubes (caballeros) and strategically places them on the board in an attempt to garner dominance and therefore points during the various scoring opportunities throughout the game.

In this shot , from our cheapo Milton Bradley Yahtzee game, I was again looking for that moment of action and movement when the player is anticipating the outcome. Like the castillo shot above, it took numerous times to capture that moment. I'm particularly happy about the luck of the triple sixes in the image and if you'll notice, you can just make out another six deep in the cup. I can almost hear the dice rattling on their way out...

We met at Paul's house this month. Thanks for hosting Paul! While we waited for our sixth player, we started a round of Formula Motor Racing by Reiner Knizia. The game is still new to me having only played once with my kids but there's not much to it. After a five minute rule presentation we got started and took our lumps in the chaos that ensued. All twelve cars are in play regardless of the number of players so with five, one controls only two like-colored cars with one "uncontrolled" pair of cars going along for the ride. In the end, we might as well have just flipped a coin to determine the winner but by having cards in one's hand and by having bits on the table I suppose one would call it a game. From the way the cars progressed, I'd say all of them were fairly "uncontrolled". The copy of the game that CABS owns has little soft-ish rubbery cars and my copy has hard plastic cars. I enjoyed the little rubbery ones better. They looked...I don't know...yummier? Like little gummy cars.

About half way through the chaos, our sixth arrived and so after we finished FMR, we broke out Union Pacific. We'd played this at Paul's house recently so after struggling with the cards a bit (I'd arranged the dividend cars appropriately through the deck twice only to realize that I'd forgotten to deal shares to everyone and then forgotten to flip up the face-up draw pile first) we got started building the links. Every time I've played, the final dividend card has come up within the last 10 cards and last night was no exception (next to last!). However, this time the first three dividends flopped out very early in the game. Most everyone was busy focussing on retaining dominance in non-UP links only to have the dividend card flip up causing that nauseating wave of realization that we had once again missed out on the UP dividend payout. How can that dividend card come out again so quickly! Damn you purple dividend card!

I enjoy Union Pacific and I greatly enjoyed being able to replay a game with my group. Jason mentioned to me that we have fun as a group playing all the new games but that we're missing another level (not better just different) of fun when everyone is familiar with the game. I'm beginning to agree with him. It is satisfying to play a game that we're all comfortable with. But damn you purple dividend card!

Tim, Keith, and Jason cut out after UP so Rich, Paul, and I talked a bit about Railroad Tycoon. I got out the board and we talked at a high level about the game. I really want to play again! It was starting to get late so the three of us closed with Hey! That's my Fish!, a neat abstract that warms up the brain nicely.

Thanks everybody for coming and see you all next month.

I felt that the rules for when you should pay for a river crossing when entering a city was ambiguous so I went digging. I ran across this thread on BGG that helped clarify the costs. I was taught that you needed to look very closely at the position of the river in relationship to where the track enters the city. Although you can make a decision using this method, I don't think the artwork was intended to be used in this very detailed manner.

If I'm not mistaken, we were paying extra to build track a few times for river crossing when technically we shouldn't have. The diagram above (created by BGG's coldark) depicts the widely(?) agreed upon 'standard' for the rule interpretation (AFAIK). So, although the artwork may depict a track and a river entering one of the six hex sides, the ordering with that hex side is irrelevant to determining cost. For example, using situation 3 above, assume the river and the track connect with a city in position 6 on the hex. Although the artwork may depict the track entrance on the 5-ish side of the 6, I feel that the track builder would not pay the extra $1000 since both features are within the boundaries of the hex's position 6.

The bottom two figures depict how, if taken individually, there would be no cost to cross the river. However, if the link at some point clearly crosses the river, then the extra cost would be incurred on the tile that completes the crossing.

This thread has yet another description of the rule that I'm not sure I would agree with. I'm going to stick with the diagram.

Once I'd ordered Railroad Tycoon I asked Jason, a coworker; game group member; and experienced player, to come over and teach me. I looked back in my photo archives and realized that it's been almost a year and a half since the first and only time I'd played so I knew I'd need one game to learn and another to feel like I wasn't lost. In a game with as many variables as RRT, it's a pipe dream to expect competitive play after only a game or two.

The goal was to get at least three of us together to play two back to back games. Unfortunately we only got to play one game since our third player had to leave. However, I feel like I have a much better feel for what's going on and might be able to play somewhat intelligently the next time. There are so many choices to be made and many things to watch out for unless you want a runaway winner.

Jason launched out to a huge lead early in the game and never looked back. Jon and I were neck and neck for most of the game but I foundered by being encumbered with shares and driving too late for the Western Link to be of any value. Jason's unchecked growth in the south east set up a huge delivery factory that was unstoppable. Had we realized what was going on earlier, we should have jumped in there and mixed it up. Ah...the next game...

The game is awesome and I'm looking forward to more plays. Thanks for teaching it Jason.

I also wanted to mention that I struggled for several days trying to make a decision about trading Power Grid. My decision was tough because it is one of my few six player games and my game group hovers around six. I could never get PG to the table since it is a fairly long game and we just never committed to just playing it. I was also never sure that I truly liked the game either. I enjoyed the resource market and the pressure to use your income wisely across cities, plants, and resources but it felt too mathy, too much like work for my tastes. So...off it went and in return, I received a copy of Nautilus.

I do have a concern that it will sit unplayed next to many of my other great four player games but I'm bound and determined to get them on the table by hook or by crook. I played Nautilus at CABS over a year ago and greatly enjoyed it so I'm looking forward to more plays of that as well.

Lisa cajoled the kids into picking a family game this evening and we ended up with Ticket to Ride. There seemed to be a fair amount of grumbling from everyone early on about the initial two route tickets but we gritted our teeth and got to work. Lisa (yellow), Sophie (black), and I (red) were crowded in the east while Noah (blue) was initially free to roam in the west. As the game progressed, Lisa grabbed more routes and expanded westward while I had to settle for struggling for a newly obtained twenty point route across the northern border. Sophie ended up grabbing another almost completely overlapping route and Noah was struggling to weave his way through the tangle in New England to meet his initial two routes.

In the end, Noah plopped down a four train route ending the game with only two remaining trains denying Lisa a chance to get a final white to connect her north west route with her southern route.

Ticket to Ride is a great family game and a great gateway to many of the more complex games I play on a regular basis. I've played TtR many, many times and grab for it when introducing alternative games for non-gamers or when wanting to play something relaxing & comfortable. If you've not given it a shot, take a chance on it and introduce your family to something new.

I have several games on my shelf that I enjoy but rarely play and I organized an impromptu game night with the explicit goal of playing some of them. In my normal game group, we routinely stack up games and go through the process of deciding what game we'll play given the number of people we have. We've had many discussions about splitting into two tables when we have six or more or trying to find something that we can play as a single group. We're not overly organized and in general we try to stick together in a single game if possible. We routinely have at least five so many of my really great four-player games languish on the shelf.

My goal was to get three or four players together and play as many games as possible on the following list: Reef Encounter, Tigris & Euphrates, Amun-Re, Notre Dame, and Caylus. Okay, so the last three can be played by five players but I also don't get to play those games much and they'd still play well with three or four players. To get a quorum I invited six people since in the past impromptu gaming has a fairly low turnout. However, wouldn't you know it that five of the six came so with me we had six.

Initially I was bummed somewhat since my plan was really to play Reef Encounter and/or T&E and then anything else was icing on the cake. But, I decided to give up the fixed goal and just relish in the opportunity to play games with some great people regardless of what we played.

Initially we split up into two groups so I opened up the dining room table (effectively doubling the playing area) and on my end, I set up a three player game of Caylus with two new players. At the opposite end, the other three set up San Juan since two had played it before and the third was interested in learning. Caylus is a rather time consuming game to teach to new players (one of which is a relatively new gamer although he does pick up rules quickly). The lawyer wasn't coming out so I rushed both the bailiff and the bottom king's favor to grab the additional buildings after batching. I'd never participated in a a game that played out in that fashion and had a great time stretching some new muscles. Both Jason and Brian seemed to enjoy the game a lot and I'm sure they'd play again if asked.

Before we could finish Caylus, San Juan ended and the far end of the table set up my copy of Carolus Magnus. CM is the leading candidate for my favorite three player game. I love the dual nature of the bidding chips that not only determine turn order but also determine the distance the king can move. Add the tension of placing paladins in your court or on the territories and you've got a great recipe for fun.

Carolus Magnus and Caylus finished at roughly the same time and Keith decided to sit out and browse the web on his iPhone. With five, we set up Amun-Re and after running through the rules to the four new players, we got started. The first round was rather uneventful but by the end of the old kingdom I think everyone was moderately interested. It had been a long time since I'd played and I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed in the game. My previous plays had been fun but this time I was finding it much more fiddly than I remembered. Juggling the power cards and the money cards, making change, buying and placing farmers, swapping bricks for pyramids, making sure people got their free stuff from the provinces they'd won during the auction phase, etc. It just felt tedious. We played out the game but I must say that we did discuss only playing the first kingdom. In general, everyone felt the game was okay but it just didn't light any fires in anyone.

I had a great time and I hope everyone who participated had a great time too. Thanks for coming. Since I didn't get to play Reef Encounter or Tigris & Euphrates, I guess I'll have to just organize another impromptu event to get that accomplished. Sorry we keep our house colder than most of you are accustomed to. The added benefit of the programmable thermostat dropping the temperature after 10pm didn't help. We routinely wear sweatshirts in the house. Heck, Lisa wears a headband most nights. And no Rich...the dining room never gets colder than the refrigerator :-)