Author: matt

Five of us met at my house for August’s installment of Analog Game Night. We expected to get in a game of Witch’s Brew, Carson City, and High Society but we decided to dig into Carson City first.

Carson City is touted as being Caylus-like and since we groove on that game we dug into the rules explanation and with all the moving parts we didn’t come out into the light until about an hour later. Yes…an hour. With the iconography and the in-game/rule text inconsistencies it took us a long time to understand relatively simple concepts that become clear after the first full play. For example, we kept thinking that a parcel was represented by the player’s colored square and that was confusing us when the Ranch payouts referred to free parcels. Once we understood that a parcel was any plot of land in the grid, then it made more sense.

Carson City is a odd bird. It’s a cross between Oregon, Caylus, and Bang!. Players first, according to turn order, choose a role placard that grants the player a special ability or action and indicates the players turn order in later phases of the round. In addition, the placard indicates how much money the player is allowed to roll over into the next round. Once selected, players place cowboys on a track of “actions” somewhat like the Caylus “road” but it’s prebuilt and the buildings on the road are pulled randomly from a bag.

Besides buildings, the road contains various actions and payouts. Players are allowed to place their cowboys on the same spot as others but in most instances that triggers a duel. In addition to the road, players also place cowboys on a grid of land parcels on the board indicating a desire to establish ownership of the parcel or steal income from an existing property. Once all cowboys have been placed (players can pass before placing all their cowboys), the actions of the road are taken one by one, duels fought, parcels purchased, payouts granted, etc. until the items on the road are exhausted.

When buildings are purchased, players build them on owned parcels and certain bonuses are granted based on what other properties are near the building (similar to Oregon) or on the board. Depending on the building built, additional houses or roads must be built to satisfy placement requirements.

The duels can be relatively devastating. They’re played with dice augmented by a number of gun tokens amassed during play. One role card affords the owner a boost of three guns for the round. The loser of the duel gets his cowboy back which acts as an additional gun in subsequent duels this round but also rolled over into the subsequent round affording the player an additional “worker” for placement. At round end, players must shed all moneys larger than their role affords them by either dumping it or buying victory points at an exorbitant price of $10/pt, and then take a fixed number of cowboys indicated by the round (carrying over any cowboys that lost duels).

At game end players score their owned parcels and buildings, shed money by buying victory points and the player with the most is the winner. I liked the game but there are a lot of moving parts. In my opinion is a much harder game than Caylus to predict the payoff of any particular move. The duels introduce a bit of chaos in the game but it’s the sheer number of variables that go into making a decision that make my head spin. I’d like to play again but I may need some ice water handy to cool off my brain once in a while.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to play Witch’s Brew but closed the night with a quick game of High Society. HS is a filler game much like For Sale that I may actually like a bit more although it’s a hard call to make. Well, thanks for coming guys and see you all next month.

Six of us got together for our monthly game night; thanks for hosting Jared! Our sixth was going to be a bit late so we tossed out a 5 player Dominion game using 5 randomly chosen base game cards (Cellar, Festival, Library, Remodel, Witch) and 5 randomly chosen Seaside Expansion cards (Caravan, Embargo, Explorer, Haven, & Island). I like using Dominion as a “filler” game but with five, the speed of play is a bit slow for my tastes. I like the Seaside expansion but using more than one version seems to unnecessarily complicate and extend the set up and tear down times.

By the time we finished, our sixth had arrived and we played a couple quick games of Werewolf. Yeah, we know it blows with 6 but a few people had not played so we played a couple of games to introduce the concept.

We split up into two groups of two mainly so that I could teach Roll Through the Ages to a couple of people while the other end played Hanging Gardens. We finished up RTtA relatively quickly and broke out Dice Town and burned through that quickly with three to end not long after the other group finished up their game.

We lost three to having to get up early but three of use stayed for a game of The Golden City to finish up the night.

Thanks guys and as usual, I’m looking forward to next month.

BGG classifies The Golden City, a Michael Schacht design, as an area control/area influence, auction/bidding, and route/network building game. I’d throw in set collection as well.

Three to four players attempt to build connected networks of wooden buildings across the four terrain types that lead to the Golden City at the center. Outside the outer city walls, each terrain type (desert, mountain, grassland, forest) comprises ports and a network of pathways connecting villages that eventually lead to the city walls that form a circle of 12 segments (3 of each terrain type). The rural areas are separated from one another by rivers that also leads to the city’s center. Inside the walls and within each pie shaped quadrant of the city there exist three segments of the city: two outer segments and one inner segment. City segments are connected by bridges.

Players begin their journey to the Golden City at the ports, building businesses (placing wooden bits) in the connected villages along the pathways outside the city. Eventually, players enter the walls of the city and hopefully make their way into the center of the city. Along the way, players earn “letters” (victory points) and the player who earns the most by game end is declared the winner.

Play is relatively straightforward. Each round, a deck of “landscape” cards, depicting terrain types and ports are drawn and placed face-up (equalling twice the number of players in two columns). Players place “hands” on pairs of cards indicating a desire to take those two cards. Subsequent players may either place their hand on an unclaimed pair of cards or kick someone off at a cost that increases every time it’s done within the round. In essence, players bid on pairs of cards and eventually all of the pairs are claimed, the bids paid, and the cards allocated to the players hands.

In turn order (always clockwise), players build zero, one, or two businesses (place wooden bits) onto the board. To place a bit on a port, the player must play a single port card. To place a bit in a rural area or in one of the two outer segments of a city, the player must play two matching landscape cards that depict the appropriate terrain type of where the building is being built. Two matching terrain cards can be played as a single wild card for any desired terrain type. When building a building, the only restriction is that you must be able to traverse the pathways to a neighboring village or city segment where you’ve already built a building. Ports and rural villages can only contain one building. City segments can contain multiple buildings but only one of each color.

All building locations come with a bonus for the builder that takes the form of an extra landscape card, money, bonus cards, keys, or goods. Players build their network of buildings towards the city center but sometimes branch out to gain the favors represented by the individual building locations. The key favors are especially critical in that when one gains a key, it allows them to unlock one of the cities central segments for placement of a building. The key is good for one use and given that the game only contains 6 keys, they’re a highly contested item for players trying to gain the big rewards of building in the city center.

After all players build (or opt not to), a scoring round occurs. An individual scoring card (flipped up each round) determines two fixed scoring goals for the round granting “letters” (victory points) to those players who have managed to obtain a matching goods card, have built along a river that separates the rural segments, or have built in the specified city segment.

An additional bonus deck of cards allows players (when building in the appropriate villages) to obtain end-game scoring letter bonuses for building in specific locations or acquiring specific items of interest (e.g. goods).

In my opinion, The Golden City is a simplified form of an earlier Schacht title China which was itself a simplified form of an even earlier Schacht title Web of Power. The Golden city throws in the auction mechanic and the simplified but more varied scoring opportunities for the delicious tension provided by the end game scoring in China. The ability to block access to keys seems relatively easy and unbalanced. Although the 10 letter swing in points gained by being the first in the city’s inner segment may not make or break the game it is a significant swing in points.

Landscape card play is identical to China but there is no penalty for “opening” a new region. In fact, The Golden City makes it even easier to start a new network of buildings by requiring only a single port card to establish a “disconnected” presence in a terrain type.

The flipping of the “score” cards each round do provide short-term goals but in many situations it’s very difficult to do anything about them given that it can take several turns to build up to some goal. It might make more sense to introduce a house rule similar to Kreta or Dos Rios where multiple cards are visible each round and you can plan on building presence towards an eventual scoring N rounds from now.

There is an official two-player variant provided by Michael Schacht that I have yet to try but it seems that game would work best with four. With three there doesn’t seem to be enough competition for rural land spots as well as less competition for the auctioned cards. Looking forward to more plays to see if my hunches proves correct or not.

I like The Golden City and, as I said, I’m looking forward to more plays. It definitely is a fairly simple gateway-style family game that’s easily picked up by even those that don’t play games that often. Given this position in my collection, I’m targeting it for a group of couples that gather at our house once a month and for a opener/filler for my more meatier gaming group. Unfortunately it only goes to four players so it might not see the table as often as I’d like.

Due to the pressures of life, I was only able to commit one day to Origins this year but I had a great time. I didn’t spend a lot of time playing games but instead spent the time in the exhibit hall talking to people and looking at the current state of the gaming community.

I arrived at the Columbus Convention Center about 10:15 on Friday June 25th. I had intended to arrive a bit earlier but on my way downtown, while waiting at a light, my position in line allowed for a front row seat for a relatively horrific two-car accident that left the two drivers unhurt but shaken and lots of debris, fluid, air bags, glass, and pretty much the front half of one car in the roadway.

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Origins but I must say that they’ve remained consistent in their level of confusion. I think they would do well to hire somebody to organize the visual aspects of the event or fire the person they’ve been using. Don’t even get me started about the web site. Yes, it was better this year than last but it stands as a testament to confusion. I’d wanted a single $5 Exhibit Hall Day Pass and arrived to see several lines at “booths” clearly marked Registration as well as a single long line at what appeared a coat check booth with an Origins Logo projected onto the wall above and numerous paper signs taped over the opening; all of the them drooped over occluding the text describing the purpose for the line. I could hear many around me asking what line they were supposed to be in.

On close inspection the droopy paper signs, printed one large block word per sheet of paper read something like “Exhibit”, “Pass”, “And”, “?”, “Event”, “Regist”, “ration”. Even if I could read the “?” sign I still might not understand that the “One Day Pass”, as stated on the web site, was the same as the item described as the “Exhibit Pass”. Luckily, my hunch was right and after paying my $5 and getting a paper wrist-band I was on my way through the doors and into the melee of the Exhibit Hall.

Front and center in the hall were the Mayfair, Rio Grande Games, and Queen booths. Mayfair’s booth was clearly marked and gigantic. The play tables were filled throughout the entire day.

Somewhat tucked around the back but still clearly visible was the RGG booth which sported a small but functional area for purchasing games and a dozen or so tables for playing games. They had copies of Assyria, Egizia, Macao, Albion, etc. for playing but I was only lucky enough to slip in on the first 2/3 of a game of Assyria. I checked back regularly but was never able to find an open spot.

15 minutes before the closing of the hall, I was able to get a shortened demo of Albion. Seemed like a relatively simple game of putting crap on a board to gain stuff with a bit of schadenfreude thrown in to dice it up. The demo “docent” kept stressing that he thought the game was mis-themed (a space theme would have worked better) and that the game was relatively deterministic 4 or 5 turns from the end.

On the other side of the Mayfair booth was the Queen Games booth which, in my opinion, was not well marked. I’d received an email about finding time to meet Rajive Gupta, the CEO and boy is he a hard man to track down. I hovered around the booth off and on for over an hour but finally caught him when he stood still for once and was able to have a nice chat. I’d love to get my hands on a copies of Fresco and Samarkand: Routes to Riches for review.

Near the back of the Queen booth was a manufacturer that specialized in fancy gaming tables. The one shown above was listed at some 20k USD so I’m sure they sold out of all 1000 copies they brought 🙂 They did however have a pretty neat coffee table that made my woodworking juices start flowing a bit. If I only had more hours in my day to play.

I snuck down to the CABS Board Room and although I didn’t have a ribbon, George let me sneak in for a few shots and for a shot of the stack of over 100 copies of Wallenstein that Queen donated.

Given all the give aways and the free food that Rio Grande Games was giving away I wish I’d could have spent more time and been able to focus on the Board Room. Unfortunately I wanted to check out the miniatures.

I’m not a miniature player but my middle school summers were almost completely taken up by camping out in a friend’s rec-room where we build plaster of paris mountains and glued on grass and trees for a realistic setting for his trains. You can do a lot with 2 4×8 sheets of plywood, let me tell you. The miniature hall brings back lots of memories and I can appreciate the work that goes into building those dioramas. I did get to see a bit of the Gettysburg Soldier battle that took place in the evening and talk to the guy that was running the game. Very cool stuff.

All in all, my short trip to Origins was a great one. I managed to get in games of Drive, Hansa Teutonica, and Ra The Dice Game spread out from North Market to the Beer Haus and didn’t make it home until after midnight. Now I’m itching for CABS’ own Buckeye Game Fest later this year…

Over the years, Michael Schacht, a relatively well known German board game designer, and I have gotten to know each other fairly well via email and BGG “geekmail” and we’re currently embarking on a business relationship for an earlier game of his for the iPhone platform. Too bad we live on opposite sides of the planet; I’d love to meet him in person. In the meantime, I’ve gotten a bit of air time on his website. Use the rolodex under the book to jump to the “M”s.

June, 2010’s installment of Analog Game Night has, sadly, come and gone. We originally had eight but a couple of the guys had some late-breaking family items to attend to so we ended up with six. We started out the night with a six-player game of Medici. I must say that Medici is starting to become my go-to game for a shorter, but meatier, 6-player game. It can be a bit mathy that I think some of the players in my group really like but if my win/loss ratio is any indication, you can be successful playing by your gut.

Medici is a relatively theme-less auction/set-collection game of drawing goods tiles blindly from a bag and auctioning them off to place in bays on ships. When all the goods are sold, everybody ships the goods they purchased in hopes of converting those goods into the highest profit. Players generally must focus on buying and shipping specific goods to maximize profits. Because of this, the auctioned lots of goods have differing values to different players and therefore players must evaluated the end value of the goods once shipped to understand what they’re worth in the auction. Of course filling your ship with goods takes several auctions so the value of any particular lot is a bit difficult to predict since your cannot predict what other lots you’ll be able to purchase (and what others have purchased) in subsequent auctions that affect your return on your investment.

All players start with the same amount of money and the player with the most money at the end wins. We just think of the money as victory points since you use a little wooden goods bag on the board to indicate how much money you have. It could just as easily been victory points. Winning an auction requires you to move your money indicator back on the track and when you deliver the goods, your money indicator goes up; essentially victory points. The game is a Knizia so, as you’d expect, the mathematical underpinnings of the game are rock solid, the rules are clean, and the game although good, may be a bit dry and the mechanics easily detached from the theme.

We split up for the next round of games with three of us in the kitchen and Bob kept two others in the dining room. The dining room pulled out a very cool looking game, Cyclades. I must say, the game looks awesome and I wish I would have been able to play. It was Bob’s first attempt at teaching the game (and playing it) so I think it went rather slowly with lots of rulebook checks etc. However, that’s to be expected. Although our competitive juices still start flowing, winning and losing really takes a back seat to just exploring the mechanics, the bits, the cause and effect of different moves, understanding the high-level and course-grained cause and effects of play, etc. I wish we had a large enough block of time sometimes that when we learn a game that we’d play it…and then immediately play it again to help solidify what we learned and to step into the realm of fun that only occurs when you can explore the finer-grained nuances of the game.

At my table, I finally got to pull off the shrink and teach the game of Hansa Teutonica. I’d only played the game once, in November of 2009, in a five-player nightmare. In that game, I came in last by a mile and wished I could have played again immediately after realizing the importance of different aspects of the game. Hansa Teutonica is basically a cube pusher that, to me, feels a bit like Endeavor. Each player has an individual “escritoire” divided into areas that depict the limits imposed upon the player when taking actions. It’s the player’s job to raise those limits through intelligent game play allowing more powerful actions in subsequent turns.

As I mentioned, the game falls solidly in the cube pushing genre since your actions involve placing cubes on roadways that connect cities. By filling the roadway between two cities with only your cubes, you get the option of opening up an branch office in the city (placing a Kontor) or, depending on the city, removing a limitation from your escritoire. Where to place, move, or otherwise manipulate your cubes during your actions is up to you. There is player interaction since one action allows you to kick other cubes off a road that you want to occupy (at a cost to you and a benefit to the other player). There is a bit of randomness in the bonus markers that are randomly drawn and placed on three of the roads but during your turn, all information is known and visible.

The game also features a somewhat inverted scoring mechanism. In many games you earn the bulk of your points during the game and at game end there may be some additional “end-game” points awarded depending on your final position, resources acquisitions, remaining money, etc. In Hansa Teutonica though, the end game is, in most cases, triggered by the first person to reach 20 points. However, that person is not necessarily the winner. Instead, most points are awarded after the game ends. This inversion of point allocation causes an interesting increase in tension as players get close to 20 points. At times, you may wish to make a particular set of moves but to do so you might trigger the end of the game so you must determine an alternate path to victory. At other times, you want to force the end game sooner so purposefully give other players points to drive them over the point limit.

All in all, I like Hansa Teutonica but would not recommend it with three. There just doesn’t feel like there is enough conflict. I purposefully stayed away from much conflict and focused on lowering my privilege limits and then focused mostly on the lower left Privilegum track. Periodically I’d grab and extra action, place a Kontor, and of course, obtain more merchants but in generally tried to stay out of harms way and won handily. Of course, with two new players, the game may be much different on subsequent plays.

While the dining room table finished up Cyclades, Jared and I played a game of Roll Through the Ages and a game of Ra the Dice Game.

Thanks for coming guys. Some of us are heading down to walk the Origins Exhibit Hall on Friday (June 25) so if you happen to see me, stop by and introduce yourself.

Got in games of Dice Town and Drive (three player) this weekend. Lisa and I had played Dice Town before but I finally got a chance to pull the shrink off my own copy and play it with my kids. Just so you know, the fun doesn’t begin until your own children start calling you names when you out-roll their 5 queens with your own set of 5 queens and you’re the sheriff! Oh…and mom’s don’t like it when dad’s have 5 queens. They don’t like it at all!

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Sebastian Sohn (BGG’s chaosbreaker and an assistant teacher for a game design class at the Arts Institute of Los Angeles) concerning my Ingenious implementation here on Marquand.net. Sebastian maintains one of the coolest geeklists on BGG albeit with one of the most unwieldy titles Sebastian Sohn’s SoftBoard Games: Free, Commercial, and Abandoned Computer Version of Board, Card and Role-Playing Games with Computer AI (Artificial Intelligence) Opponents with Screen Shots. In his email, he was curious about how I’d managed to keep my implementation of Ingenious up and running when so many other sites have been forced to remove them. After exchanging several emails, he decided to “interview” me for The Game Cookery, a web site dedicated to games and game design.

I was surprised and a bit flattered to be interviewed because I’m not a person of significance in the world of board games. I’m just a guy who carries on normal life activities in the middle of Ohio, has a rather questionable number of board games stacked in his house, wrote some code on the side, and wishes he had more time to play games. I don’t really know what horn I’m tooting here but it feels like I’m tooting something. Maybe I’m just plain tooting. In any case, you can find the article here if you so desire to read more.

Thanks Sebastian. Hope I didn’t screw up.

It’s about time for another summary of Matt’s unplayed list. In looking back at my list from January 2009, I’ve managed to whittle the eleven unplayed games down to just eighteen! At this rate I’ll be done by, well, never! Only two of the original eleven made this list, four were traded, and five got played. In rereading the original list I got a chuckle out of my comment about Dominion:

This card game for 2-4 players only lasts 30 minutes but there are 500 cards and the game features a “deck building” aspect much like a collectible card game. There’s something daunting about that for me. Maybe it’s feeling like I’d have to play it so many times to feel like I know what I’m doing.

Sheesh, Dominion is almost a filler game now. Great yes but not a thinky game by any means. You can play it almost on autopilot. If you don’t have a copy, pick it up and play it a few times and then inflict it on your extended family during the holidays or weekend get-togethers.

Okay, embarrassing as it is, let’s get on with the list:

• American RailsMy copy of American Rails is one of only 130 copies designed and crafted by Tim Harrison from Games on the Brain. The game only recently arrived and I won’t say much about it since I wrote about it just a few days ago.

  Having just gone through the rules, I’m itching to play it in the wild. I’ve played Chicago Express and enjoyed that well enough but the board-mounted dials seemed a bit gimmicky. The three phase action driven variable turn order of American Rails may just clean that part up for me.

• AndromedaOkay, I’ve got to come clean on this game. For consistency, I probably should have included this game on the previous list. I have played the game, once, years ago but not this copy. It’s an “okay” game, an older design (a bit more simplistic?), but holds a bit of nostalgic interest and features some, albeit simplified, tech-tree building mechanics. Well, and it has the cool comic ash-tray of death!

  The game boils down to set collection (cards) but requires players to make “offers” of cards to other players in hopes of enticing them to trade cards with you. The selection of the offer triggers the same sort of feel to the player as does composing the offer in Oasis or the goods selection in Medici.

  Andromeda is one of those games I’d love to play but I can’t really see when I’ll get it to the table. There are many other better games and although I currently have it up for trade, something about it makes me want to keep the copy.

• AntikeI rationalized buying a copy of Antike because of the roundel. I liked Hamburgum (one of the five that got played from the last list) and thought to myself, “Self, it’s got the roundel…what’s not to like!”

  Unfortunately, it hasn’t seen the table and I doubt it will. I don’t know what I was thinking. It looks like a great game but with the 120 minute play time and the complexity of the rule set it just isn’t going to happen. It’s not overly complex or anything but just not worth the level of effort to relearn it well enough to teach it given my current gaming tastes. To the trade pile it goes!

• ContainerI’ve mentioned Container several times and still hold out hope that I’ll get it to the table. Months ago I played some sample rounds in an attempt to learn the game and, at the time, had a pretty good grasp of the rules. However, it has a bit of a circular nature to the rule set (A leads to B which is important to maximize C which affects your ability to do more A) and the fine points are again lost (not that I even grasped them in the first place). I’m beginning to think my gaming tastes are changing.

  Off to the trade pile.

• Funny FriendsPicked this one up in a CABS Math trade. I have no idea what I was thinking. On the trade pile.
• GheosI hypocritically do not classify myself as an abstract game lover but deep down I must be. I tell myself I don’t enjoy simple area control games and I don’t usually do well at playing them but if that’s true, why am I drawn to them? Gheos is a relatively simple tile laying abstract with a pseudo-combat theme draped over it in much the same way that thematic clothes adorn Attika. I’ve only ever played solo sample rounds to learn the rules but I’ve never pushed to get it to the table. There are so many other “better” games, whatever that means, that I’ve never really thought it a contender. Again…to the trade pile it goes.
• Hansa TeutonicaTechnically speaking, I’ve played Hansa Teutonica before at last year’s Great Lakes Games but I’ve never played this copy. I have high hopes for getting this one to the table so it’s not going to the trade pile. Definitely a “gamer’s game” in that there are a lot of options, multiple paths to victory, and a rule set complex enough to ward off casual gamers. However, it does massage that cerebral charley horse that crops up every now and then.

  Hansa Teutonica falls in the same category of complexity as Caylus, Vasco da Gama but I find it plays most similarly to Endeavor. Both games feature exploration of “roads” leading to “cities”, area control within “regions”, tech-tree building allowing more powerful moves on subsequent turns, etc. Good stuff.

• Key HarvestI was pumped when I managed to obtain a Pro Ludo version of Keythedral and even more pumped after playing the game in the wild. My new found interest prompted me to start looking for other games in the “Key” series. My trek led me to scoring a copy of Key Harvest in an auction and when it arrived I tore open the box, put out the bits, opened up the rules and thought to myself…”This was dumb, why didn’t you look at the rules on BGG first! Idiot!”.

  Keythedral just seemed so much more straightforward. The artwork, like Keythedral is top-notch stuff but the Key Harvest rules seem opaque enough for me to mentally check out while reading. I imagine others feel the same about my beloved Reef Encounter (which, strangely enough, I don’t have difficulty with) but I wouldn’t mind if my copy of Key Harvest was joined with golf balls and rope in a risky “junk shot” attempt to plug the BP oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Up for trade.

• Leonardo da VinciGot in a Tanga Deal of the Day for something like $10. I should have just taken the money and stuffed it directly in the jar where I keep the loose change I use to offset the cost of my impulse buy aversion therapy sessions. Up for trade.
• Louis XIVI played this once years ago (2006 maybe?) and thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed the El Grande-like management of workers in this “worker placement” game before worker placement was a term. If I remember correctly after that one play, the end game’s resolution of the little blindly drawn tokens seemed a bit off. After having many more games under my belt in the last 4 or 5 years, I wonder what I’d think of it now. Picked up the copy in a CABS Math trade last year and there it sits, still in the shrink.

  I’m not willing to trade it just yet but if it doesn’t see the table soon, it might find itself on the slippery slope to the compost pile.

• Lucca CittaNot much to say here. This game was thrown in a BGG Trade as a bit of a sweetener. Never played but supposedly pretty good. Probably not worth the postal costs of sending it anywhere so I should either play it or throw it in the box of other card games to slowly fade to obscurity.
• New EnglandA hold over from the previous list. New England is a simple “family-weight” tile laying game with some interesting bidding for turn order mixed in. The decisions you make when deciding where to placing your tiles is usually pretty straight forward but when to “flip” tiles for points and how much to bid for the actions and therefore turn order adds an interesting twist.

  However, again it just never pops out as a game I want to push to get to the table. I thinks there’s potentially too much of the “cult of the new” going on inside my head. I’m sure the game is good but like Andromeda, is it good enough? Up for trade.

• Railways of EuropeI’ve mentioned before that I think of myself as a closet “train gamer” but drag me into the light to play and you’d witness suckage beyond that which you’d ever thought possible given that I play by my gut and not by the math. I have in my head that to be a good train gamer, you’ve got to be able to calculate future worth and evaluate how much to bid in auctions, pay for track building, timing shipped goods, etc. If you can’t evaluate the ROI, you’re gonna suck. That’s me…suck, but oh the theme is so enticing.

  I can’t imagine trading Railways or its parent game Railroad Tycoon. Why you ask? Well, probably because I’m stupid. Next!

• RichelieuI really have no comments on this game other than I received it as a complimentary copy from Michael Schacht along with a copy of Crazy Chicken. I’m currently working with two other developers on an iPhone Application for Crazy Chicken licensing the game from Michael. We discussed that Richelieu might make a nice follow on game but it’s since been removed from consideration due to some other deals Michael has going on. So, there it sits on the shelf still in the shrink.
• Tal der KonigeTechnically speaking, I’ve played this game before and it was the copy I now own. However, it was at last year’s Great Lakes Games convention and it was still in the possession of the original owner. He’d not played it in years and we struggled a bit through the rules and I think we got several things wrong.

  So, I’m calling that play a mulligan and I want to play again. The game, long out of print, routinely goes for $50-$75 and I couldn’t pass up the copy for a no-ship $40. However, if I don’t play it, I might as well have put the money in my “jar” (see Leonardo da Vinci above).

• WallensteinI received this copy in a BGG trade in which I felt like I made out like a bandit. I traded a copy of After the Flood which I’d gotten for free by mistake when I’d ordered a copy of Tinners’ Trail. Getting good three or four player games to the table is difficult enough let alone a three-player only game so I was willing to trade it straight up for a mint copy of Wallenstein. But…there it sits. The awesome cube tower just mocking me from inside the box. Some day, cube tower…some day.
• Witch’s BrewRecently picked this up with the hopes of it filling a niche of lighter weight card games for a group of casual gamers I play with on a monthly basis. I haven’t gotten through the rules yet but in just browsing them I’m starting to wonder if my “light weight” filler might end up being too heavy weight for the group. Ah, what the heck, it’s worth a shot at least once.
• ZendoI’ve always been intrigued by this game but mostly because of sheer weirdness of it. The game’s odd positioning as something that crosses the line between party game and actual competition I thought it might fit my casual group. Like other “party-ish” games where a single player represents the “leader” and others follow (e.g. Apples to Apples & Dixit), a Zendo “Master” uses small plastic bits and constructs structures that conform to some hidden set of rules. Other players attempt to guess the rules through inductive reasoning through trial and error at building their own structures.

  For the few plastic bits that are in the box, this out of print game routinely goes for $40-$50 so I’m not about to trade it. I got the copy in a CABS Math trade and just haven’t made the push to the table yet. Its time will come.

Broke out American Rails and started going through the rules. You can certainly see the Chicago Express influence on the design. The game features six train companies each with different numbers of stock certificates and track (cubes) available and players vie for investing in the companies that earn them the most money by game end.

Through a series of stock auctions and several “years” players extend the lines of the companies by placing track (cubes) across the eastern United States. Money used to win the auctioned shares goes into the company coffers and is used to build track. The cost of track is determined by how many cubes are in a hex and what type of terrain the hex represents (plain, forest, and mountain). Some hexes can be “developed” increasing their value to the company when dividends are paid to shareholders at the end of each round. Each city you connect to increases your dividend. If you hold the city individually you get more than sharing the city with another company.

The turn structure within a round reminded me vaguely of Tinners’ Trail. There is no time component of your move affecting turn order but the the action phases within a round feature three columns of actions. As you take an action you place your disc on the action followed by everyone else. Turn order for the next action phase follows top down from the column. Choose a more powerful action this phase and you’ll go later in the turn order in the next phase.

I haven’t played a full game solo nor played “for real” but it seems money is very tight and you’ve got to be smart at knowing how much to bid and how best to use the money that the company amasses by auctioning shares. It appears that making a mistake can be costly.

I suspect I’m no good at the game since I play more by my gut than “by the math” but it does feel intriguing. Looking forward to learning more.