1st December 04.....................................................9 Players

There was a good attendance tonight with 9 of us splitting into 2 tables, one of 4 and one of 5. It was nice to see Julian who has not attended the club for years. Peter showed up even though he was feeling a bit off colour and we had Ben the young beaver with us.

The great news as far as I was concerned was that we got to play two Knizia games included my beloved Taj Mahal.

I have added a bit to the web site. You can now view data on the results for certain games. I have started with New England, Taj Mahal and Lowenhertz but I will add more. The “past results” link will send you to the relevant page. I am labelling someone as a Club Champ if they have won more times at a given game than anyone else. In the case of draws for number of victories, I have gone with number of second places, and if it is still drawn then the award goes to the one who won most recently. You need to have recorded at least 2 victories to warrant the accolade. From the archive you can now also view the games played each month by hovering the mouse over the text on the side bar.

Taj Mahal – 100 minutes

Only Julian was new to the game, the rest of us are old hands. This probably gets more play by Mike and I at conventions than at the club and Steve, Mike and I have played a couple of online games. If we are getting an attendance of 9 on a Wednesday then we can get to play the games that are kept off the table because one individual has a dislike to them.

There were two unusual aspects to this playing of Taj Mahal compared to other games I have played.

Firstly the amount of cards we each held built up to the extent that the end game points for the longest sets averaged between 6 and 10 a player. Nobody ran their hand completely out during the course of play. This indicates that the game had few vicious card battles. The largest confrontation was probably between Mike and Steve in the mid game when they had a large elephant war. Are we getting cannier at dodging a fight?

Secondly there was an unusual evenness in the distribution of province tiles. Nobody had more than 3 tiles or less than 2 at game end.

Mike notching up the +2 princess points for more turns than anyone else managed. I had a couple of cards with the green figure on in my opening hand so I tried to focus on connecting temples with the help of the grand mogul but it is an uphill struggle in a 5 player game. I am left feeling I could have done better. I think Taj Mahal rewards strategic planning more than any other board game I know. Forward planning, tweaked with tactical opportunism seems to be the way to play.

If one of the last 3 province tiles had been scooped by Richard he would probably have won. As it was the game remained tight throughout with Steve, Mike and Richard all taking turns at the front.

Julian got to grips with the games essentials very quickly. I think we have a future contender in our midst!

Katzenjammer Blues - 40 minutes

Only Julian and Mike go back far enough to have been around when the game saw it’s last playing at the club. We all had a fun time putting bands together to entertain cool mice, or something like that. What the hell, it is a Reiner game so we can forgive a dodgy theme. We played for 3 rounds with only Steve scoring positively every time.

Lowenherz - 140 minutes

With the intensity of Taj Mahal I did not get a chance to look in on this game. The decision about what amount to bid is particularly difficult. I am impressed that Ben coped with this game because of the bidding element. My Daniel is not good with bidding games because he is so easy to draw into over spending. Steve P has this game and Keith and I have played a couple of times recently on a Monday night. I like it though I suspect that with none gamers I would like, the remake, Domaine, more. Domaine removes the bidding element of the game which would lose a dimension of play but I understand that this is countered by a decrease in game length and it makes the game more playable by kids. I’m trying to talk myself into buying a copy of Domaine.

It has been a good start to the month by Dave D and Steve. Steve is continuing an amazing winning streak. I believe he has won 7 of the last 8 game you have played.

8th December 04.....................................................7 Players

Even without regulars Dave C and Mike we managed a turnout of 7 tonight which allowed us to again split over two tables. Mark Stretch joined us for the first time, more about him later. The lead story for this week must go to Steve Pagetis who has been called away for a year long stint on a London stage. Steve will be dearly missed. What a top bloke. In a short period of time he became both, a gaming comrade and a personal friend. All the best Steve, pictured on the right.

Now back to Mr Stretch, our newbie player, pictured on the far left. I have known of Mark for a couple of years though we have never gamed together. Mark attends a number of conventions and he has some articles on the web. I have also seen his name prominently featured on a play by mail site. Clearly he has some knowledge of the hobby. Mark plays in a different league to the rest of us. This was demonstrated in the 3 games Steve H, Julian and I played with him. I have come away from the evening with the feeling that I need to spend my, between Wednesday’s, gaming day dream time, more constructively analysing how I can improve my play. When I sit down to my next session I need to focus and perform. Gee this is sounding like hard work.

Mike, Steve H and I are meeting up at the Taj Mahal Server at 8pm on Friday. Everyone is welcome. You will need to visit the site before hand to download the software.

Puerto Rico – 70 minutes

We have not played PR at the club since January which is bordering on the scandalous. Julian had not played for 3 years and Steve and I were both real rusty. This is one truly great game. As far as I know it is the most challenging multiplayer game ever designed.

Mark, took us apart with a succinct demonstration in how to pull off a neat victory. He used what I suspect is a well known (in the right circles) strategy which I have seen Mike use in the past:

Buy a small market

Get a variety of plantation types

Buy a factory then a harbour then a Wharf

Buy the big building that gives additional points based on how many victory points you have gain by shipping

I particularly appreciated the way Mark planned ahead. At one point he brought a sugar mill prior to having a sugar plantation with the knowledge that there was a plantation up for grabs. I am sure he did a ton of tactical stuff which was way over my head. Anyway it was an impressive victory.

Julian catches on quickly. He simplified the game by concentrating on Corn.

Steve ended up with a wharf which came in useful in the later turns. I did not notice a clear cut strategy from Steve but he came out ok on shipping and finished nicely with a big building.

I got stitched up near the beginning of the game when I had my first coffee to trade and I was forced to ship it. This locked up the biggest ship just for coffee which only I produced. Naturally I would far rather trade coffee than ship it. I knew early in the game that I was going to get stuffed if it was a long game due to the amount everyone else but me was shipping. I wanted to end the game quickly by topping out on buildings. The plan did not work and I came dead last.

The game end came when the colonists ran out. By a bit of colonist juggling Julian, under advice from Mark, managed to prolong the game an extra round which benefited him slightly more than the rest of us.

Web of Power - 50 minutes

I have always admired the uncluttered game play of Web of Power. It would have been so easy to have added extra elements to the game but that is not Michael Schacht’s style. There are times when it is desirable to join forces with an opponent to, bolster up a regional Cloister score or cross border advisor score. Nearly all the cloister spaces were taken by game end due to the small number of advisors played. Unfortunately I had invested heavily in advisors and received little help in building up the courts with shared occupancy. Mark won without playing a single advisor.

Incidentally I am not sure I recorded the scores for this game correctly. I was under the impression I came second and Steve third but that is not what I wrote down. Please let me know if I got it wrong.

Metro - 45 minutes  bgg

We have played this game before at the club but not since we have been keeping records. It is a nicely presented game with simple rules and an easy to grasp objective. There is a bucket load of chaos with 4 players. I imagine with 6 all control would be lost. I enjoyed it. Steve did not. Steve is building up a complex over train games. Again Mark dominated the scoring though this time it was at least partially due to luck.

Vinci - 100 minutes

Richard was the only one new to this playing of Vinci. I hope he liked it because the game sees quiet a bit of play at the club. I like the theme and feel of the game but I don’t enjoy the game play if players get whinny or aggressive, something which I have only experienced at a convention. Because of the free flowing nature of the game anyone can attack anyone else and so convincing other players that you are not the leader can enhance your chances of doing well. I consider it unfair that a quieter player should suffer because they are doing the polite thing and leaving the active player to draw their own conclusions. As I have mentioned before my worst ever board game experience was playing a highly charged game of Vinci at Baycon with players who, as the game progressed, turned into aggressive bullies. I could do with a couple of warm fuzzy games of Vinci to get over this bad experience.

Family Business - 45 minutes

It is the, silly card game, time of the night, with a quick up against the wall and shoot um game of Family Business.

15th December 04.....................................................4 Players

Report by Dave D: 

There were just the four of us tonight having had some big attendances in recent times, so it was time for a couple of four player games as follows.

Following the session, some discussion took place regarding the display in Stourbridge Library and it was agreed that we need to find out the nature of the display cabinet we talking about. Dave C commented that if we are to do this, especially if we are going to spend money on it, then we should endeavour to make the display look as good as possible and we wondered if Gordon could lend his expertise in this regard. Steve was of the opinion that we should make sure we have planned exactly what is going into the display before we mount it, I thought that Mike had a particular date in mind, if so can Mike confirm this. Finally Dave C raised the question of insurance, if we are to be exhibiting games that we own, many of which can be quite expensive and in some case out of print, again could Mike find out where we stand in this regard.

Torres – 90 minutes

This is a game that I like as I find it gives a great deal of tension throughout in the same sort of way as Power Grid, although with the shorter play time it does not lead to the same sort of mental exhaustion at the end of the game that the latter does. We played the version where each player has their own deck of cards to draw from. There is a "master" version of the game where each player has all their cards in their hand so taking out the random draw element, I would like to try this version, although others have suggested problems (analysis paralysis was mentioned) and this may turn out to be the case.

The game was close throughout, with Steve holding the lead after the second phase, he suffered in the final scoring due to being the only one not to get the final King's bonus and Julian and I were able to overtake.

Dave C’s Comment:

I like this game (esp as it's mine), but this was one of the best games I've ever played of it. The end was close, certainly Steve pipped me by converting unused AP into VP on at least two occasions (whereas I never had any unused AP). I wasted a move by moving a knight across the board into the king’s castle, it would have been better to have placed a new one. Julian remarked that he would like to play again soon, so I'll carry it around.

San Juan - 45 minutes