6th July 05.....................................................7 Players

We had a turnout of 7 tonight our lowest turnout for a while though still impressive. Many notables were missing without letters from their parents and all will receive a cross in the register :-). Steve H was off at a cricket match and Dave C was away on holiday. It was nice to have the company of Jonathan and Mark Stretch.

St Petersburg – 60 minutes

This is one game that I go into with a confident swagger. My experience must have far exceeded the combined total of Richard’s and Simon’s. Simon’s victory was gained by playing totally differently from the way I am used to. He won with only 5 Aristocrats. The game had fewer rounds than normal, ending when the buildings stack was cleared. Simon purchased several building upgrades during the game which provided him with money and victory points every building round. Simon made this a short game by taking many low value building cards which prevented Richard and I getting as many different Aristocrats as we would have liked.

I don’t think I would play any differently having witnessed this game because I still believe going all out for Aristocrat’s is the most consistently successful way to play though I just might be tempted to try to pull off a victory via “Simon’s Strategy”, using building upgrades and multiple cheap buildings, if I am faced with a really nice upgrade building in the first upgrades round.

St Petersburg – 60 minutes

Simon wanted to beat us all over again so we went straight into playing a second game. I just managed to manipulate things so the game ran an extra round which guaranteed my win though if it had gone one round less Simon would have been close to pulling off another victory by concentrating on buildings. Richard had two observatories and not a great deal of luck drawing different Aristocrats.

Acquire – 70 minutes

Mark Stretch has written an introductory article on Acquire and an article on opening theory. The most useful part of Mark’s piece to me was an observation about the effect the number of players has on your choice of early chains. Basically Mark points out that money is more plentiful with more players because more total start game money is injected into the game, with more tiles laid by other players and fewer rounds between mergers. The implication is that your money is more likely to run out with fewer players. Conclusion – In the early game, all things being equal, in a 5 player game select an expensive chain to start up and in a 3 player game select a cheap chain.

Mark explains it well and has a lot more to say besides.

China – 40 minutes

Jon stormed to victory with a connected network of advisors. It was touch and go on the last turn if he would get to place a pivotal politician. That’s how I understand it from the conversation I overheard after the game.

Corsari – 30 minutes

This playing of Corsari was a lot more successful than the game we played in Burton. We blew out the end game condition in 2 rounds which I suspect is a lot fewer rounds than the game would take if we had known what we were doing. I hope that the game will not lengthen too much with better play because I like the card games I play to be no longer than the shortest board game. At 30 minutes this game is a winner for me, if it goes over 45 minutes I would rather pass. I suspect that the game length will prove to be highly variable.

13th July 05.....................................................8 Players

There were 8 of us tonight. It is good to see John again. I had become a little concerned that the club had too many stuffy 40 year old male members to hold the interest of hip youngsters such as John and Duncan.

Duncan mentioned bringing Attack next week. There are some favourable comments on the geek. It should just fit into the 3 hours we have available. 

Matt:

Just a quick not to let you know that I haven't been frightened away by the horde of 40-somethings- I will be back. Between work and a family holiday I think July is a complete write-off. I'll see you all again on August 3rd. I went down to FromeCon at the weekend and had a good time. Mostly a 'beginner' type con with a sizable demo team that rivalled the delegates at some points in the day. Fun though, played Memoir 44 (and liked it), lots of Carcasonne (but still didn't win a game- think I’ve got the scoring sorted though), Settlers, Hive, Coppertwaddle (surprisingly good) and had a look at the new Arkham Horror game from Fantasy Flight which looks interesting.

Vinci – 120 minutes

I have a problem with Vinci. I know it is only a game but it feels personal. I can’t distance myself from my need to be a pleasant social being. I simply feel bad for making a decision that can be interpreted as a personal affront. I really feel the need to apologise to Dave for making an aggressive play towards the end of the game which took him out of contention for the win and I also want to apologies to Julian for laying into him when Richard was clearly winning and finally I would like to apologies to Richard for tainting his victory slightly by stealing some of the credit for him getting the victory.

The civilisation combination of note was picked up by Richard and brought on when he was at about the 85 point mark. With perfect timing Richard landed Militia and X2 meaning anyone who attached him had to do so at the cost of an additional 2 units. 

Dave’s Comment:

There’s no need to apologise to me, what you did was aggravating, but I don’t think unreasonable from your point of view. Although that move hurt, it did not really take me out of contention, I did that myself on my last turn, by completely writing off my chances and not thinking about my redistribution. If I’d realised what Julian could do to Richard and redistributed right, I’m sure Richard could have been denied at least 2 points. Vinci has never felt personal to me, as opposed to games like Risk, Game of Thrones or Diplomacy, where you only have one empire. In Vinci, it is the nature of the game to be beaten down in one place to rise again in another.

 

Steve:

Don’t be so wet the pair of you. Crush your enemies and then shake hands afterwards! Futile death and destruction is fun! And who are you calling 40?

Niagara – 50 minutes

This game went on longer than normal because the river spent most of the game set at +2. I had 3 same coloured gems landed and the 4th of that colour in a boat a couple of spaces off shore but it did me no good. I was stolen from and shortly after I lost both boats over the fall. The “Ebb and flow” of this game is lovely with a real feeling of fighting against the current and competing with fellow adventurers to land the requisite treasure. We all had a shot of winning at least once during the game. Richard won with 7 gems and I think he also had one of each colour. The rest of us had 5 assorted gems each.

Amun Re – 110 minutes

This was John and Duncan’s first playing of Amun-Re. This is the first time I have seen Daniel delighted with a second place. He is normally upset with any position other than first. Amun Re is a two hour game typical of the games we play at the club. The very way this game represents the stereotypical modern Euro game will likely make it seem dated in say 15 years time. I wonder what style of multiplayer boardgame will be played by “gamers” in 2020?

20th July 05.....................................................11 Players

I am going to have to wiz through this weeks report because I had some “real” work to complete first and now it is late. There were 11 of us this week split over 2 tables.

Medici – 60 minutes

I really like this one Mike, definitely a good buy. With fewer than 6 players it will compete for table time with Ra but when there are 6 of us looking to fill an hour this is an excellent choice of game.

Canyon – 100 minutes  bgg

Mike actually won about an hour into the game but we went on to play out the other positions. This has given the game a rather unrealistic length for the purposes of calculating the Trophy Points but what the heck.

Attack! – 120 minutes  bgg

This is the first game Duncan has brought to the club and it unfortunately did not go down well (It was me who suggested he bring it). I hope he will not be discouraged from bringing other games. Attack! did not finish. Maybe it will come out again when there are fewer players. Because we only meet-up once a week and are generally busy people, our time is precious and we can’t often justify indulging ourselves with longer games that might not finish or that take a long time to learn. This has generally precluded us from playing wargames. This is a shame because I would like to see board wargames getting some play time on a Wednesday night. I hold out hope for the, as yet unreleased, re-themed version of Wallenstein.

27th July 05.....................................................16 Players

We had our biggest ever turnout tonight with 16 of us. For the first time we had to use the downstairs bar as an overflow room. It is the first week of the summer holidays so there were a number of children. It was nice to see Charlotte and Dean, neither of whom has been before.

Settlers – 90 minutes

This was a first playing of Settlers for Jon. It looks like he got the hang of it, coming equal second in a very close game.

Corsari – 30 minutes

Dean told me he enjoyed this game. It is a game that, for me, needs to be explained leading on the theme. I suffered a bit for playing my first game using the garbled original translation of the rules and I have since struggled to match, in my mind, the mechanics to the theme. One more game and I’ll get there. I am glad Dean got-it.

Puerto Rico – 75 minutes

Richard was the first to produce coffee which generated him quiet a bit of money at the trading house over the course of the game. In fact Richard had rather more money than he could spend most of the game which did see him ending on 2 big bonus buildings with all his city spaces filled.

Julian had only played once before which put him at quiet a disadvantage. I think Julian was frustrated for most the game with lack of money. His cash resource was coffee which came online a turn or two after Richard, the player to his right, thus denying him the trading income.

Simon was one big building off winning the game. By the last round or two he was generating more vp’s than the rest of us with his harbour and wharf combination. Also he owned a factory which could be said to be greedy.

Gordon, I went for an early harbour and a diversity of goods which saw me finish with a total of 31 shipping vp’s The Customs House gave me a nice bonus. I would normally go the buy lots of buildings and forget about shipping route. It was good to win a game via shipping. It is kind of more satisfying somehow, a bit like winning Taj Mahal by connecting palaces as opposed to elephanting the province tiles (maybe that is a bad example – see below). I could not call the game until we all totalled up at the end.

Taj Mahal – 60 minutes

Okay I confess that if all the other players added their total number of games of TM together they would not total my number of plays and that is without counting the games I have played on the PC against AI opponents and the odd game Steve, Mike, Daniel and I have played online.

As with the game of Saint Petersburg I played with Simon the other week, he again surprised me by winning when I felt I played perfectly. This has made me re-consider my long held view on the infallibleness of the, well executed, single minded, elephant strategy (providing everyone else is not doing the same thing). When I reflected on the St P game I considered that Simon’s play gave a statistical long shot at victory and though I respect it, I ain’t changing my ways. Simon’s Taj Mahal play has affected me differently. I want to lay the scenario out for my own indulgence and because I think Mike and Steve will be interested:

I managed to avoid any painful battles, or none that I lost anyway. I believe I picked up all but one of the available double elephants shown in the face-up row throughout the entire game. I had the Purple bonus elephant from round 3 to round 12, only losing it for a single round mid game to Richard. I finished with 6 Province tiles, yes 6. On top of all this the way the province numbers came out was not particularly conducive to getting a high palace score.

Simon won by mixed play. Most of his points were via commodities but he picked up a handful of +2 princess points, had a useful run of palaces and seemed to acquire a mass of the little bonus tiles. His commodity types were well matched.

I will change my game following this experience. Nothing radical but I will be less single minded when going for province tiles. I will keep an eye on what others are doing whatever strategy I pursue and I will try to mess with the plans of the lead player.

Buccaneer – 60 minutes  bgg

Thanks Dave for running this game. The kids had a good time. The geek says this game was first published in 1938!

Chaos Marauders – 90 minutes  bgg

Daniel loves this game. He keeps talking about it. I think he has memorised every card.

Zombies – 90 minutes   bgg

This game gets a bit of a panning on the geek. The game was not finished. The results were called when the noise of the organ music from the old folks knees up forced Steve to join us up stairs.

Richard gets to keep the Trophy for another month. He had 3 good victories in the middle weeks with Vinci, Medici and Niagara. Mike nearly topped him despite missing week two.

Average attendance 10.5

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.