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December 06 |
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5th July 06....................................................5 Players We had a single table turnout tonight. Play was in the downstairs bar because of a committee meeting in our usual room upstairs.
I have posted the Rosliston report to the web site. Manorcon is coming up in a couple of weeks if someone wishes to report on it I will add it to the site, a picture or two would be nice if possible.
Power Grid - 140 minutes
We played the German side of the board. One of the central sections was out of play with all of us crowded into the northern half of the map.
Dave D spent most of the game as the only user of Uranium which he was picking up for a couple of Euros a time. Dave defended his Uranium monopoly by buying nuclear plants as they came up. This did leave him with a couple of awkward mid range plants powering 3 and 4 cities. He had a central board position which gave him the entire southern half of the map to build into.
Steve H was generally generating power using coal. He triggered the end of the game by building to 15 cities even though he could only power 14. The gamble worked and he took second place off Dave.
Richard and Luke both generated power for little cost. Richard triggered the second phase by building to 7 cities. He piped under Dave to gain access to the southern part of the board. Luke brought a little plant on the last plant buying part of the game so he could power more than Richard and avoid last place.
Gordon. I must have paid twice as much for my fuel over the course of the game as anyone else. I stuck with big oil plants throughout only buying 4 plants in total. Generally I was in 2nd place just behind Richard in the turn order. My builds went 1,2,3,5,6,11,12,15 (I think). I was blocked in and inefficient at 6 cities, one under the second phase trigger, so I was glad that Richard went through 7 cities when he did. Only Richard and Dave had the space to trigger the second phase.
12th July 06....................................................13 Players An all adult turnout of 13, this is more like it! The World cup took its toll on attendance over the last few weeks and it was nice to have the room buzzing again with 3 games on the go. We got guest appearances from Peter and Keith. Both of them show up for about 2 sessions a year which is not enough, try harder :-).
I could have got some good pictures tonight but my little camera is playing up and some of the shots I took were not saved. Steve G is looking rather sinister in the picture below. I will probably get a new camera for the summer holidays.
News from Chris: I'm not sure if the games weekend on the link below is generally known - I was asked by one of the organisers, the owner of Shire Games in Hanley, to let you all know about it which I have now done. http://www.thecastaredice.co.uk/
Cleopatra and the Society of Architects - 60 minutes bgg
Steve P has been thinking of getting this game so it was nice for him to have a chance to try it out. I am not sure of the general view but I understand he enjoyed playing the game tonight but it is not what he is looking for to play at home. A game where Dave Dudley gets eaten by crocodiles can’t be all bad.
Ideology - 80 minutes bgg
The only other Andrew Parks game I know is “Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean” and Steve tells me the similarities are definitely there, most noticeable the big table full of cards but also the fussiness of the game play. I get the impression that the game was enjoyed but with some reservations. Comments appreciated.
Settlers - 75 minutes
Peter, Mike and I have met several times over a game of Settlers. I particularly like the moments before a classic game begins when all the players are totally at one with the rules and equally matched and ready to embark on a focused hour or so of competition. This is a classic game and we were all up for it.
The board was well balanced with probably 4 equally good spots to place a first settlement. Not the sort of board you want to go first on. Wheat and ore were slightly less prevalent than the other resources which slowed up the building of cities and the buying of development cards. Halfway through the game Chris blocked Peter off from joining his starting settlements. If it was not for this I imagine Peter would have won. At that point Peter had been looking like taking both largest army and longest road for a quick victory. With more favourable development card draws Peter could have won on the last round but play went through to me and I got to play a 3rd soldier and take largest army and the victory.
Chris got the wood and brick ports muddled up which did not help him. This was slightly compensated for by the unusually high number of 2’s that were rolled which only he benefited from.
Ore came up on a 4 and a 5. In the early rounds there were more 4’s than 5’s which took away Mike’s advantage for being the only presence on the 5 ore.
Poker - 40 minutes
We decided before the game that we would play for 40 minutes. We took the 280 trophy point total that the game would pay out (160+80+40+0) and converted that into 320 chips (actually I messed up my sums and thought the total available tp’s was 160 so I have had to do a slight adjustment to the trophy points awarded to make things correct). When time was up we converted the chips back to trophy points. Blinds were kept at 1 and 2 throughout.
I thought this played very well. It is nice to have a filler in our repertoire that can play in a set time.
I was only a few chips behind Chris on the last hand when he went all in pre flop. Peter wisely folded. I unwisely called. With an Ace 3 I was not looking great but I could not resist the potential rush I would have got from steeling the game especially as I had worked my way back from being down to a handful of chips. If it had been anything other than the last hand I would have quickly folded to such a large raise. I thought Chris was making a flash end of game gesture. Wrong. He had pocket aces.
Struggle of Empires - 135 minutes
Dave’s comments: Struggle of Empires is scheduled again for next week. Ideally if we can get started without having to explain the rules then all three wars can be fought in the evening. We got to the start of War #3 last night. Another 40 minutes might have done it.
10 Days in the USA - 30 minutes
My apologies go to Mike for botching the rules explanation. There was a mix up with the way the planes worked which meant that Mike thought he had won when he in fact had not. We carried on and Chris won fairly a couple of rounds later.
19th July 06....................................................10 Players We were down stairs in the bar tonight with the upstairs room commandeered for use by the Conservative club committee.
Paul, the proprietor of the online retailer Gameslore, visited us for the first time tonight. He was a little late due to having problems finding us and when he did arrive he was immediately whisked off into an intense all evening game of Antike. So not much time to chat but my perception is that Gameslore is the largest online retailer of boardgames in Britain and I believe Paul has run the company for a couple of years as a full time venture. I am jealous of anyone who manages to make their living from an interest they are passionate about.
Vinci
- 135 minutes
This game always seems to go down well.
Antike - 135 minutes
Only Luke and I have played before. The first time you play Antike it is not easy to play competitively. It is similar to Power Grid in this respect. The way to win is not intuitive. This is a game about acquiring victory point cards by expending the fewest actions. The most prudent route to gaining cards might mean spreading units uncomfortably thinly from a military perspective or buying developments counterintuitive to your requirements.
I held myself back from taking gold as my first action even though first in was open to me. It seemed unfair to gobble up the cheap development cards while helping out 3 of the other players with the mechanics of a new game. It turned out that by game end the 8 knowhow cards were fairly distributed between us with nobody getting more than 2.
Paul made the most aggressive start, occupying 5 then 10 territories ahead of the rest of us.
I built 3 temples before moving from my start spaces and yet still managed to take 2 of the land territory cards before they ran out. This was a passive game. Land grabbing was done slowly with many early actions expended on marble and temple resulting on all the temples being used up by mid game.
We planned to use the Rio Grande rules for exchanging resources at the rate of 2 to 1 if you own all 8 of the developments. Nobody achieved this so it did not affect the game. The other adjustment made by Rio Grande is to award every player who gets the 8 developments with a victory point card to be taken from the stack with the most remaining cards. I am really sceptical of this. I think Luke or I could have ended the game several rounds earlier if we had implemented this change and virtually no fighting would have taken place at all.
26th July 06....................................................13 Players I am starting to note, with the use of asterisks, when players are playing a game for the first time. I hope to make an adjustment to the trophy point system in the coming weeks and the change will probably include awarding some bonus points to those playing a game for the first time.
Union Pacific - 100 minutes
This is our 3rd recorded game of Union Pacific over a 3 year period. It really deserves to get played more often. This is my favourite Alan Moon game just edging out New England, Capitol and Ticket to Ride Europe for my affections.
I was first in Union Pacific shares for the first scoring round and from then on it was Dave D who had most. Paul was always last in UP shares. Our results show that being first in UP does not necessarily win the game.
Thurn and Taxis - 50 minutes bgg
This is the new Spiel des Jahres winner recently acquired by Dave D. I can’t see it bringing new gamers into the hobby myself, it is rather abstract and dry, a bit like a Web of Power with knobs on. Web of Power / China are elegant games in my opinion. I don’t see this elegance in Thurn and Taxis. This was very much a learning game for me so I will be interested to know what I get out of my next playing. What did the rest of you think?
Poker – 2 x 40 minutes
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Starting
settlements are highlighted. Play order went Gordon, Mike, Chris and
Peter.
The
game was called when time ran out. This game needs to be pre arranged so
it can be up and off by 7:30, at least until players gain familiarity and
play speeds up. We did this with early games of Power Grid and now we are
in the swing with that game and it runs smoothly within a session.
