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December 06 |
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New Blog http://halesowenboardgamers.blogspot.com/
6th December 06........................................................8 Players Caylus – 150 minutes
Playing this game puts the rest of the world on hold for a couple of hours, completely immersing me. Other games that provide me with such a complete two and half hour escape on a Wednesday night are Power Grid and Antike. I don’t think it is a coincidence that these are the 3 most played games at the club. Maybe we are all just looking for a bit of harmless escapism.
Gordon. I went for the building track on the Kings favour table. I felt I did a reasonably job of tapping into the games rhythm. I slowed the game down by sending the Provost back on a couple of turns and I spent most of my resources on castle building. I finished with a blue building. Mike also took the building track. He had one really misjudged turn early in the game which caused him to have to pay the penalty for going into the castle but not building, this through Mike off the Caylus “rhythm” which he normally rides so well. He finished with a blue building. Simon went with the victory point track. He built several buildings during the game and managed to convert a few coins into vp’s via the church. Toby took the money track. Like Simon he built a number of buildings. The sudden end to the game caught him out. He finished with most gold.
On the Underground – 80 minutes
Around the World in 80 Days – 70 minutes
13th December 06........................................................8 Players Antike – 70 minutes
Games of Antike are taking less time to play with each session. The individual turns of this game were not played at a blistering rate, we just finished up the game in fewer turns. I so like this game despite it so often ending with in an anticlimax.
Gordon. I was focused on taking territory and building cities. I managed to get my nine points with 4 king cards, 2 of the boat cards, 2 development cards and a temple killing card. I didn’t build any temples and I had little in the way of developments. I was second to play and I started on Gold then Arm for 3 units, Knowhow for Currency at a cost of 3, manoeuvre and brought a couple of cities on Iron, then went to collect Iron. I was Greece. Matt was first to play. He had the central board position. He built a temple early on gold and I think he took a total of 4 of the development cards. He kept himself tight. He opened with gold, Marble, Knowhow and took the Currency development card. Dave C had the north of the board, he got 3 king cards and a 3-temples card. Keith was in the South East, at the far corner of the board from me, which was probably as well as we tend to fight when put next to each other. Keith was out producing everyone by game end and was the only person to have got all 8 developments. He started on Gold then Marble, Knowhow for Currency at a cost of 3 and then flew round to Marble to buy a temple which he built on a Marble space. If the game had gone on for many more rounds then his mighty production would no doubt have been ploughed onto armies and had the game gone on long enough he would have enveloped the entire board.
We don't "do" diplomacy at the Halesowen club. This is fine by me because games bog down if players are negotiating over their in game relationships throughout the evening. I don't like free for all diplomacy within games, I am in it for the strategy and to a slightly lesser extent the tactics.
In the case of Antike the uneven starting positions need to be evened out and an ideal solution is by the use of diplomacy. However I don't like free flowing diplomacy and it simply does not happen with us. Here is my suggestion to try and encourage structured diplomacy within Antike:
I hope this will encourage structured use of diplomacy causing players to look up beyond their own development. It is unlikely that you will offer a peace treaty lightly because you run the risk you will have to pay a coin only to have the treaty cancelled by the other player on their next turn so they don't need to pay you a coin.
I think in our game Matt would have had pressure applied to him by Dave and Keith to not be at peace with me in "exchange" Matt would have expected peace agreements with Dave and Keith.
Richard D:
I think it's unnecessary. Of course,
what you do on a Weds is entirely up to you, but when we play this on a
Weds in Burton there's *some* diplomacy (or table talk - it hardly takes
any time at all to say to the Persian "Listen - you smack the Greek while
I get medieval on the Egyptian"). Though I find the starting setup pretty well balanced - being in a corner is no advantage at all IMO. If the Greek player has an advantage on the Eastern board (because players generally don't build enough fleets to threaten him), it's the fault of the other players not the game. And I've not found anywhere else to have the slightest advantage.
Mark S: Another easy win for the Greeks, eh? Proves that side of the board isn't as well balanced.
Don't understand the point myself of the suggestion. There's nothing wrong with negotiating things over the board. We did that at Halesowen last time I played Antike there.
Ave Caesar – 70 minutes bgg
I have ordered my own copy of this game to play over Christmas with the family. It provides a laugh and the blocking and jostling is all in the spirit of play so hopefully the kids will not end up falling out. We played 4 3 lap races and I think Keith came 1st, 2nd and 1st in his first 3 races which meant he could only be caught up if he was eliminated in the final race. It is very difficult to get eliminated. It can only be done by not Hailing Caesar which is a very easy thing to do. Keith got stuck just before the “pits” needing anything but a 6 to land him in front of Caesar, by a wild bit of misfortune all 3 of his cards were 6’s so he missed the salute and got eliminated from the final race. I won the last race and managed to draw level to share the overall win.
Power Grid – 150 minutes
This was played using one of the new boards, I am not sure which. Dave seemed to go with all coal plants throughout the game. Steve had oil and green plants when I looked over. Very close results. 20th December 06........................................................11 Players I have fallen behind with the reports. This is last week’s.
Mission Red Planet – 90 minutes bgg
This is one of the games Julian brought from Essen this year. It is a simple game by the designer of Citadels. I imagine it would play well with families. I think us gamers knocked most the fun out of it by over pondering / discussing our moves. For me Citadels also suffers when players give their turns too much thought. I hope Julian brings this along again soon and so we can give it another go, at pace, with fewer players now we are familiar with the rules.
Guillotine – 10 minutes
Guillotine – 10 minutes
Royal Turf - 35 minutes bgg
Sopwith – 60 minutes bgg
These are my final words to be published on this site. It has been fun but life moves on for me.
New Blog http://halesowenboardgamers.blogspot.com/
Average attendance this month 7.8 |
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