3rd August 05.....................................................13 Players

With a turnout of 13 we decided to run one table in the bar downstairs. I always lead these summaries on a head count because it will make my job easier come the day I go through noting the attendance and how it has changed over the months. I might even get around to working out an average weekly attendance and putting this at the bottom of each of the monthly web pages.

We had new member Chas with us on his first visit. I gather Chas had fun and will be back.

Power Grid – 90 minutes

We played on the German side of the board. I ended the game on the 7th turn. My city count went 1, 2, 5, 5, 10, 11, 17. I powered my 5 cities on the 3rd and 4th turns using just one 2 coal plant, coal I was picking up for 2 or 3 Electros a piece. It was during these mid game turns I bagged a healthy amount of money. I think I only brought 5 plants thought out the game, every one a coal plant. Dave was the only player who got to react to me building my 17th city which allowed him to neatly take 2nd place. Mark had a good board position should the game have run another turn. 

Alhambra – 75 minutes

Mark’s table chatter convinced me that Alhambra is a game that has more depth than I had initially thought. I know that building Gardens is a bit of a lame theme but there is plenty of thought needed to play this game well. I particularly like the scoring of the walls at the end of every round because you get that lovely dilemma of enclosing your city to gain a good wall score verses keeping the garden open to allow more flexibility on which tiles you can place.

Just to show I am not a fool (in this regard anyway). I have quoted below the section from the English rules that instruct players to score the walls at the end of the game only:

“In each scoring round, points are awarded to whoever has the most of each type of building. Players are also given points for the length of the wall around Alhambra's at the end of the game.”

The German rules say to score every round and this is apparently how it is intended that it should be played. So the guy who taught me to play this at Baycon (thanks Keith) was right.

Puerto Rico – 90 minutes

Richard is even beating Toby at Puerto Rico. He is becoming unstoppable. Nice result Dean, PR is a tough game to do well at when playing more experienced players.

Quo Vadis – 50 minutes  bgg

Steve can chalk this victory up alongside his Sunken City win 3,000 years ago :)

Mississippi Queen – 90 minutes  bgg

Raj – 25 minutes

Four hands were played and the results combined to give the above totals. This is a neat, simple bluffing game which only takes a few seconds to explain and a few minutes to play.

Carcassonne – 40 minutes

10th August 05.....................................................10 Players

There were 10 of us tonight though I am not sure Ben counts as a full mark in the attendance register seeing as he only played a game on his own.

It was nice to see Lisa. I would love to get ladies to the club either on a regular weekly basis, once a month or just as a one off. One day Karen might be back with us, she is occasionally in touch with me (hello Karen). We would need things to be “nice” if we are to attract the fairer sex. We could look at some more social whole-group filler games like Apples to Apples. Maybe a themed night planned in advance where we just play Settlers or Poker or Ticket to Ride at least then visitors would know what to expect.

If anyone knows of a way to get their partners to come to the club please put your suggestion up for discussion.

There has been some conversation over the last couple of weeks about the suitability of the bar for use as an overspill room. For one off use it is ok. It is only really going to become an issue should we regularly get over 12 players. I am keen that if the club is to grow further that it should be free to do so without folk feeling they are putting us out by being the “one person too many” in the upstairs room. The message we need to put forward is that we have lots of capacity and everyone is welcome. We need the attendance to double again before we can seriously consider renting the function room. This is not an impossible prospect. It is a wonderful that the venue provides us with different room options.

Ra – 60 minutes

First Epoch was the longest with few Ra’s drawn. I got out first with a 5 bonus for 3 different civilizations. Dave came out with a lot of monuments. Chris got stuck with no pharaohs. Richard got most pharaohs. Steve got the most rivers. Richard must have been ahead at this point.

Second Epoch was unremarkable. I think Chris again got least pharaohs again. Richard was probably again ahead.

Third Epoch was the shortest. In a 5 player game the monuments are shared out more than when there are fewer players which reduces the impact of the end of game monument bonus. I think we all got monument bonuses of about 10 points.

This was a pleasant game of Ra, though not as dynamic as usual, with our positions set in the first epoch and not changing through to the end.

Ticket to Ride Europe – 75 minutes

This is the 3rd time I have played the Europe version Ticket to Ride and it was my favourite session to date. There was no going round after round drawing cards blind off the deck which I find happens a lot in the basic version of the game. Steve won without drawing extra destination tickets. Steve and I both got the longest route bonus.

Formula Motor Racing – 30 minutes

* I Presume ;-)

Ben happily played this on his own while the adults played PR. There was half a game of Niagara played towards the end of the evening which Ben did join in with but it was not finished or scored.

Puerto Rico – 100 minutes

This playing of PR ran a bit longer than usual. I have mislaid the scores. I know they were low. Matt was busy shipping lots of corn via a Warf. Dave and Chas drew for third place but Dave had more doubloons which is the tie breaker. This was Chas’ first ever game of Puerto Rico.

17th August 05.....................................................10 Players

10 of us tonight. There was a pleasant laidback atmosphere with the games starting a little later and finishing a little earlier than usual.

We have Debbie coming over next week with her soon to be released game “Cash Trap”. There is a web site with more details on the game www.cash-trap.com. I will not be around myself and unfortunately several others are off as well but hopefully there will be enough people about to see the game played a couple of times with different players.

In the Shadow of the Emperor – 120 minutes

There was a little discussion after the game about who came the most second. You all get equal points but for psychological reasons I have put Richard at the bottom of the table, it gives us all hope.

Niagara – 40 minutes

I had an evening playing with Steve’s two wonderfully polite and gentle children. They really were a pleasure to be with.

Sunken City – 40 minutes

I don’t get why this game came out amid so little interest. It is a great family game with enough substance to appeal to gamers.

Niagara – 40 minutes

James was keen to play Niagara again. I think he got quiet a bit of satisfaction from his sisters result this time round.

Industrial Waste – 75 minutes

San Juan – 45 minutes

This was our most played game last year. Dave and I had come to the conclusion that not much shipping took place with 3 players which took a significant element away from the game. This playing was different in that Mike and Steve were producing back and forth however they did not win so I remain unconvinced that producing in a 3 player game is a viable strategy. Steve got a big bonus for a guild hall and lots of production buildings.

24th August 05.....................................................8 Players

Thanks Mike for circulating the session summary in my absence. I have added the tables. Did we buy a club copy of Cash Trap? I am interested in how the idea of Cash Trap came about and I would like to know which board games Debbie has played and enjoyed and her take on Euro games in general. I will catch up with all the chat on Wednesday:

With Gordon taking a short break I'm afraid you're lumbered with Mike doing the report, no fancy tables or running totals for the trophy I'm afraid, hopefully Gordon can tidy it all up in the final report for August next week.

This week saw 8 players turn up for something very different - a play test of a new game Cash Trap invented and self-published by our guests for the evening, Debbie and Rory who came all the way from Cheshire!  I intend to write a full review soon, but in brief it's a well-produced abstract game (think Halma on steroids) aimed at families but which allows more serious gamers plenty of scope to be beastly to each other, not earth-shattering but I certainly enjoyed it.

Cash Trap – 80 minutes

Certainly the more vicious no-holds-barred game of the two played, with some impressive flurries of obstacle building to mess people up, particularly John who had 2 of his 4 pieces boxed in for most of the game (and my problem being that until he moved them I couldn't occupy their position with my pieces to win the game either!).

Cash Trap – 80 minutes

This game played completely differently, far fewer obstacles but instead a huge traffic jam in the middle of the board.  A good sign when a game can offer two entirely different experiences and yet amazingly they both finished within minutes of each other.  I think Richard gained a clear advantage towards the end and the others tried valiantly to throw him enough problems to catch up but ran out of spoiler cards to stop him.

San Juan – 45 minutes

Yet another outing for this, Matt and John's first experience of it and they both liked it a lot.  John fell behind on the building race mid-way and never clawed it back, Matt and I both hit a high-volume producer/trader strategy which I think I manipulated a little better to pull ahead of him despite his Chapel (experience rather than skill, I suspect), Dave seemed to pursue a more mixed strategy but crucially got his main 6pt building in harmony with the rest of his builds (for the 3rd game running I had a total lack of them in the mid-game, finally pulled one and had to completely change direction, but it was too late) and he didn't even need his final Palace build to give him the win.

I still like the game but have now had such rotten luck with finding 6pt buildings when I need them recently that next time I might just hoard the first one I get and hope that having a 'dead card' in my hand for a while before I get to build it doesn't hurt too much.

Memoir 44 – 40 minutes

From what I could see an early disastrous parachute drop for D & C gave them a disadvantage they never managed to reduce as groups of units were then traded off tit-for-tat as casualties.

Dave's comment

It certainly was a disastrous parachute drop as we were the Germans! We just couldn't get effective orders through to the left flank to halt the charge of the American horde and despite Obergruppenfuhrer Chas' last-ditch assault on the hill on the right flank we got steamrollered.

31st August 05.....................................................16 Players

This is the final session to fall in the kids summer holidays. We got a grand turnout of 16 helped out by the presence of 5 of our children. Dave Cooper did a fantastic job, taking all the kids downstairs for a game of Super Giant Monster Showdown. Daniel is always asking me “will Dave be there?” prior to our arrival and “why don’t you have good games like Dave?” and other such praising comments. Dave is certainly the jolly uncle, the pied piper of boardgaming, as far as the children are concerned.

I re did last months Cash Trap points and changed John to Duncan so the final August scores below should be correct.

Maharaja – 130 minutes

I have been pushing to play this game with 5 for ages and tonight was the night. Dave was rather indifferent to playing but then he is not keen on either Puerto Rico or Settlers, the other two proposed games, so he resigned himself on the bases of best on offer. I think the rest of us enjoy the game. I like it a lot, especially with 5 and will be pushing to get it played again soon.

By mid game we were all down to 4 palaces and it all looked very tight. I liked Steve Hilton’s position, at this point, with 3 central palaces. Steve G had no central palaces. I considered the acquiring of the central city position to be key to winning the game but this does not seem to be the case.

There was lots of manipulation of the city track this game. I think I selected the track manipulation option 5 times during the game. The collective seemed to be conspiring to stop the Maharaja visiting the cities I scored well in.

It all came down to the last couple of turns when finally my persistence at manipulating the track paid off and my favoured cities got scored. Most of us did not place any new houses in our quarry’s beyond the 6 we started with, with 5 players most of the villages are fully occupied and so the desire for houses is a little less than with fewer players. Personally I could not find a turn when I could justify taking up an action for quarrying.

Puerto Rico – 120 minutes

Richard won by concentrating on buildings. I used to always play this way and it seemed to serve me well but there are many ways to succeed at this game. Generally I think I am right saying that the more turns a game goes on for the more likely a policy of focusing on shipping will pay off over a policy on concentrating on income / buildings. I am glad Matt now owns the game as it puts another copy into circulation and makes it more likely to get played.

Super Giant Monster Showdown – 90 minutes  bgg

Daniel and John like this game a lot. James and Charlotte seemed a little more reserved about it. It certainly held their focus for 90 minutes amid the distractions of a public bar. The children will be back to school next week.

Congratulations to Richard who comes out on top for the 3rd month in a row. Richard won Puerto Rico twice this month and he won a game of Ra and Cash Trap.

Average attendance 11.4

Revised Trophy Points system introduced beginning of June 05

Trophy points are calculated separately for each game, the winners points are calculated by multiplying the game length in minutes by the number of participants. The second placed player gets half the winners points, the 3rd placed player gets half the second players points etc. The last placed player gets zero points. All players’ points go back to zero at the end of each month. There are 3 special situations that are dealt with below: 

  1. Points awarded for draws are calculated by averaging the points that would normally be scored for the drawn position and the skipped positions. Eg in a 6 player 120 minute game the results are Player A gets 15 victory points, B-15, C-15, D-10, E-10 and F 5, so there is a 3 way draw for 1st place, a 2 way draw for 4th place and F comes 6th.  Players A,B and C will get (720+360+180)/3, players D and E will get (90+45)/2 and player F will get 0 trophy points.
  2. In games that involve team play, a team is a player, for the purposes of calculating trophy points. Eg in a 100 minute game of Scotland Yard there is one player playing Mr X and 3 players playing the detectives, the winner (either the player playing Mr X or the players playing the detectives) gets 200 trophy points and the loser(s) get 100 trophy points (each).
  3. In some cases the results of a game might be unclear. Eg Games that are not completed or the results are hard to call because of a rule misinterpretation discovered half way through play. In these cases a common sense result will be called. In the cases where the decision is controversial we can reach a solution by the consent of the effected players and if an arbitrator is required the ultimate decision goes to the player who is least effected by the controversy.