Author: matt

We started October’s AGN with a round of Winner’s Circle. The intent wasn’t to play an entire game but to just test the waters with a round to see what people thought of it.

Overall, I just got a “meh” sort of feeling. We played with the Royal Turf “variant” where all of the horse cards have differing “horse head” values as well as playing with the “zero” betting chip. Matching the colors of the cards to the appropriate horse was problematic and a pain in the horses ass so I may look into what others have done (if anything) to combat this.

After rolling, the decision as to which horse to move seemed pretty straightforward. Which three horses made it across the finish line seemed left up to the luck of the die. I’m unclear whether much thought has to be put into which horse to bet on or is it a crap shoot.

I’m sure it’s not but I’ll definitely need more plays to raise my rating and to revive the hopes I had in the game.

We split into two groups of three with the near end playing Taj Mahal and my end playing Santiago. I look a little bored (the guy wearing the hat) but I assure you I wasn’t.

It was my first playing of Santiago and I like it. I can see real potential in the game. I know it doesn’t shine with three but it’s clear that the game is good. Especially if all players play with the same style. Analytical players that can work through the math quickly are at an advantage over those that don’t since they’ll be on top of what a bribe should be to come out ahead. However, if all players are either analytical/mathematical or “play by the gut” I think you’ve got a sweet game.

The game features an auction component for players to bid on turn order to select the plantation tile of their choice. You only get a once around the table shot at bidding so you’ve got to plan ahead. After obtaining a tile you must place it and put some cubes on the tile. Your goal is to create clumps of like colored tiles. The bigger the clump and the more cubes you have scattered on that clump, the better off you are. However, there are two very important catches. Every tile in the clump must be watered (adjacent to a blue irrigation stick) and the placement of that stick is up to the person who placed the last tile in the round. Players are allowed to bribe the player with money to place the stick in an area that’s advantageous to them. Unwatered tiles slowly atrophy (potentially over several rounds) until turning to desert creating a blighted spot in the clump.

Another important point to note is that money equals points so every time you bid you’re losing points relative to other players. In addition, every time a player accepts your bribe you’re giving that player some of your points.

Three of us hung for the final game of Stone Age. I decided to try the “starvation strategy” without really knowing very much about how to pull it off. The starvation strategy represents an approach to playing where you ramp up your caveman counts as quickly as possible while ignoring feeding them. Although you take a 10 point hit every round if you can buy enough points every round your gains will eclipse your losses. Well, I’m happy to report that I failed miserably and came in a distant third. I suspect most of the problem was my ignorant execution but I did get burned a few times on uncharacteristically bad die rolls closing me out of buying multiple buildings in the same round. I ended up with seven buildings and a five multiplier in civ cards but that was all I could accomplish. I’m unclear if the strategy works better or worse with more players. I’ll try it again some time and report on how it goes.

I wasn’t actively looking to acquire any new games but a member of my game group contacted a BGG member about purchasing a couple of games from his collection so I looked through his collection and sent him an offer for New England and Santiago. He was coming to Columbus for the annual CABS gaming convention so I met up with him this morning to pick up the games. Both games are in excellent condition; I was flabbergasted that New England is still “unpunched” (meaning the cardboard bits are still attached to the sprues).

New England and Santiago are older games (2003) designed by Aaron Weissblum, Alan R. Moon and Claudia Hely, Roman Pelek respectively. New England is a tile laying game for 3-4 players and lasts about 90 minutes.

From BGG:

There are three types of land in the game, land for settlements, land for crops, and land for animals. Players each start with some of each land. Each round, players bid (using a new mechanic) to buy more land, to build cities, to plant crops, and to graze herds. There are also ships to buy and Pilgrims to entice to your land. Players always want to both acquire more land and to develop their land, but you can only do a limited number of things each turn, so there are tough choices to be made throughout. You need money for everything of course, and you never have enough!

Santiago, is also a tile laying game for 3 to 5 players and lasts about 75 minutes.

From BGG:

This game is about cultivating and watering fields. To accomplish this, a number of tiles denoting various plantation types come into the game each round. The tiles are auctioned off such that each player gets one, and the tiles are then placed onto the game board along with an ownership marker that also indicates how plentiful the tile’s yield will be. Whoever bid the lowest in each round gets to be the canal overseer and decides where a canal will be built that round. The other players may make suggestions to help the canal overseer decide, and back up their suggestions with money. The final decision is always wholly up to the overseer, though.

At the end of each round, players determine what the water supply situation looks like. Should a plantation not be sufficiently watered, its production drops dramatically; should it happen more than once, then that plantation may revert to fallow ground. At game’s end, naturally only the cultivated land counts. Each plantation is counted according to type – the bigger the better. But since the ownership markers play a role as well, the same plantation can give drastically different points for different players.

I initially shied away from both games because they both include an auction/bidding component that, in the past, was a turn off. However, as I play more games, an auction/bidding component doesn’t drive me away like it used to. I’ll hold back on describing my reasons as it would take an entire blog post to cover the topic. I’ll save that for another time.

Right after opening the box, I was pleased with the production quality of Hermagor‘s components. The wooden bits are nicely painted, glossy, and well formed. The color scheme is very pleasing and the artwork is superb providing a rich experience and without getting in the way of discerning your position on the board.

At a high level, the game reminds me somewhat of hybrid of Elfenland and Thurn & Taxis with a economic market thrown in for spice.

Your goal is to earn the most money and to do that you must first obtain goods to sell on your travels around the map on the board. To obtain goods, you “bid” for them by placing tokens in the market in the rows and columns and on top of the tiles/goods that interest you paying for your placement. At the end of bidding, a mini-area control game determines the winners and losers. After awarding tiles and money for the placement of your bidding tokens, numerous actions are performed by players in an attempt to move a traveler around the map selling the goods you’ve purchased in cities willing to buy them.

The catch however is that you must be clever in choosing what order to sell your goods because only certain cities purchase certain goods and you can only stop and sell in each city once. Purchasing the right tiles in the right order and organizing your travel plans based on what tiles you managed to obtain (and keeping your travel costs to a minimum) will make your brain swell in a good way.

For added goodness, the tiles you purchase can also allow you to increase the value of the goods when sold as well as determining the value of having sold that kind of good at the end of the game. As if that’s not enough, there are bonuses for selling in all of the cities in distinct regions on the board and along a “the main” road.

After reading the rules and playing a few sample rounds the mechanics of play seem relatively straightforward. Like most games, knowing what move to make and when only comes with practice and numerous plays. Game night is coming up and I’d like to get this to the table. La Citta or Hermagor…or both. Hmmm. So many games, so little time.

My order mixup from Game Surplus arrived today so I packed up Hamburgum and Ys and I’ll take them to UPS tomorrow. Part of me doesn’t want to part with them but with six new games staring me in the face I really can’t complain about send back two more.

I pulled out La Citta tonight and set up the board to walk through some sample turns to get a feel for the rules. I really enjoy learning how to play a new game. There’s just some inner portion of my psyche that gets a kick out of seeing how all of the parts play together. I like exploring the mind of the designer through the end result. For some, I’m sure, learning a new game by reading the rules is pure torture but I’m weird that way. I’ve even been known to download the rules to games I don’t own just to see how they work. Like most things, reading rules takes practice and over time it gets easier and easier to absorb what would have otherwise taken hours of concentrated effort.

La Citta is a territory building game. The board is made up of paths that wind through tiles depicting wheat, stone, and water. Players seed the board with castles and play progresses by building buildings next to your castle expanding your territory along the pathways leading to connectivity with high valued areas of stone (which produced gold), water (which keeps your people healthy), and wheat (which keeps your people fed). Little plastic people inhabit your city and represent the growing population of your city. At the end of each round, players must be sure to have built buildings in areas that will produce enough food to feed their ever growing population. When cities encroach one another, some of the population may defect to cities that provide services that the people choose are important for that round. However, if you grow too fast you won’t be able to feed your people (stiff penalties in the following round if you can’t) and if you lose too many people, your buildings fall into disrepair and your cities decay (weakening your position on the board).

I’m really excited about getting this game to the table. I think many in the group will like the ebb and flow of the population growth and the numerous mechanics you need to juggle to pull off what you are trying to accomplish.

So many games…so little time devoted to gaming…

I had a gift certificate for Game Surplus burning a hole in my pocket so I ordered four games: La Citta, Saint Petersburg, Hermagor, and Yspahan and when I got home the box was sitting in the living room just waiting for me.

Unfortunately, as you can tell from the image above, two of the games were mysteriously missing and as a substitute I received a copy of Hamburgum and Ys. Both games are highly rated on BGG and I’ve thought about obtaining a copy in the past but not on this order. I sent off an email to Thor at Game Surplus and we’ll see how it goes.

Double unfortunately, both Hermagor and Yspahan are now sold out at Game Surplus due to a free shipping event today that brought in a lot of new orders.

Edit: Just heard back from Thor. He’s crediting my account for the shipping of the original order, he’s sending out copies of Hermagor and Yspahan, and a shipping label to send back Hamburgum and Ys.

In the Shadow of the Emperor and Winner’s Circle arrived in the last few days and I’ve started slogging through the rules of the former hoping to get to the latter later this weekend.

My first impressions of Shadow are good. The rules are somewhat convoluted but the game has a lot of moving parts and decisions to make so it’s difficult to get your head around the game by reading. However, although the game reads as slightly complex it has the feel that play will not be complex.

Shadows has a rich theme. Players vie for retaining the role of the Emperor which grants special privileges. Players allocate barons, knights, couples, and cities to areas of the board (Electorates) and take actions and special privileges of controlled electorates. Allocated “people” then age providing a unique twist on your ability to retain control of an Electorate (aged people are removed from the board).

Changes in who controls the Emperor’s seat, negotiation between players for marriages of descendants, obtaining enough votes through strategic placement of people and card purchases, etc. all make for a rich and rewarding game. I’m looking forward to my first game. No if only I can get my group to be willing to slog through a learning game.

I also received Winner’s Circle but I’m not up to speed yet on that one much. I traded for the game mostly because I don’t own a “race/betting” game like it and it came highly rated on BGG. The fact that it supports up to 6 players and has a fairly short playing time (60 minutes) I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the standard Euro-fare that can get a little monotonous over time. Time will tell. Unfortunately the box came with a pretty severe crush that appears to have occurred during shipment. The game was not packed with much internal padding and so it suffered the blow as well. It doesn’t appear to have injured the game itself…just the box. That’s the risk you take when trading though.

It’s getting a little old not having power now. Supposedly, our power will return tomorrow but I’m not holding my breath. We played Lexio last night by candlelight. That’s the first time Noah and Sophie have played and they asked to learn so I can’t complain about that.

Oh, In the Shadow of the Emperor came in the mail yesterday. Unfortunately it was getting pretty dark when I got home so I didn’t get a chance to fondle the bits very much.

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I’ve opened an Ultimate Trade on Board Game Geek starting with On the Underground with a goal of finding Hermagor. If you, or anyone you know, are interested, take a moment to have a look at what games are currently in the chain(s). The trade attempt closes no later than 7am September 15th.

BGG supports a very active boardgame trading system but the software only handles locating and transacting direct one-on-one trades. However, an Ultimate Trade starts with a game and usually a target desired game. BGG members post entries on the trade list that name what game they wish to receive (a game already being offered on the list) and in turn they offer another game up for trade. If anyone offers up the target game (or a game the OP is willing to take in lieu of the target game) then the trade is complete, the list closes, and everyone simply sends their game to the next guy in line and the multi-step trade is complete.

Forks are usually allowed meaning that there isn’t necessarily just one end of the chain. For example, if I offer game A and I’m looking for game D, a person might post that they’re willing to take game A and offer B. For game B, yet another person offers game C making the chain A->B->C. A new person also wants game B so rather than being left out of the loop, they create a fork from B offering D making the chain A->B->D. At this point, since D has been offered (my ultimate goal) I can select the winning chaing (A->B->D) and close the list. The person offering game C is left out of the trade loop.

Played Jamaica with Sophie and Noah tonight.

Over a year ago I got my first look, via the web, of a game called Jamaica. The artwork was outstanding and when coupled with the board, the themed rules, and the treasure chest-like box it made for some eye-popping gaming goodness. Unfortunately, the game was a special order given to GameWorks SàRL by ASSURA SA, a Swiss insurance company. From what I understand, the game was to become a gift to some of their special insurance clients.

Designed by Sébastien Pauchon, Bruno Cathala & Malcolm Braff, Jamaica followed Pauchon’s success in 2006 with Yspahan and a relatively unknown game named Animalia. ASSURA SA had a hand in Animalia, contracting the game’s production to be used as a promotional tool for their line of pet insurance products. ASSURA SA controlled the entire print run and unfortunately, few have had hands on experience with the game; a shame because the artwork, by Mathieu Leyssenne, is fantastically rendered.

Roll forward a year and a half and Asmodée Editions secured the rights to reprint Jamaica for the US market. When I heard the news I started waiting…and waiting…and waiting for someone to list it for sale. It was supposed to be available this month but I have yet to see anyone have any copies. However, last night Pozy.com was listing a few copies for only $37.99 in their “steal of the day” section and I managed to secure one before the “you’re too late” button showed up.

So, I’ll be home swabbin’ the deck getting ready to play.