2nd June 05.....................................................10 Players

We had a few regulars missing tonight but we still managed a turnout of 10. The 3 children brightened up the atmosphere. The last couple of times the boys have been with us they have got a bit raucous but this time thanks to Dave’s supervision they were kept in check and I hope we would all agree that it was a pleasure to have them around.

There were a lot of approximately hour long lighter games played tonight. I am usually a fan of the heavier games for a Wednesday night but the games selected fit the prevailing mood well and I for one had a great time.

I am introducing a revision to the Trophy point system. I have been contemplating a change for a while. The old system awarding poor results too generously, just turning up saw you with a large number of points. This would be fine if everyone turned up for every session but that is not how it goes. If you did not turn up every week you were pretty much out of it. I want it so those who miss a session or two a month, can still be in with a shot at taking the trophy. I did not want the system to get more complicated. I want to be able to do the calculations for the results tables in my head. This is what I have decided on:

The person who comes first gets points as before equal to the game length times the number of players. The other players get half the points of the player above them with the exception that the last player gets nothing.

New Trophy Points = game length x number of players x 2 / (2 to the power of your position)

Exception: Last place always gets zero points

That sounds messy as an equation but in practise it is simple.

Eg 120 minute 5-player game

Eg 40 minute 3-player game

If you come first or second, both systems award the same points, so no change there. Beyond 2nd the points awarded by the new system are less generous than we have been used to.

Niagara – 40 minutes

Richard and myself have played Niagara before. I have only played it with children and I was keen see how it stood up to more intense play. My one slight complaint is that the rules for collecting gems are not altogether instinctive. I do not see why you cannot collect a gem in the middle of a turn. This game looks great with the novel three dimensional river, solid game play and short play time, this must be a prime candidate for the Spiel des Jahres. Matt showed up after the game had started and watched. I was a splash away from the line with my 4th like coloured gem after about 20 minutes of play but along came Dave to steal it off me. Julian and myself went over the edge late into the game partly thanks to the rain dance Dave had preformed to speed up the river. Dave won by getting 7 gems.

Ra – 60 minutes

The first and second epochs were both low scoring. I probably went into the 3rd epoch very slightly ahead but no more than a point or two between us. The 3rd and final epoch was when it all happened. Richard was out of the epoch first with a good run of monuments. Matt finished up with the highest sun totals winning his first ever playing of Ra.

Carcassonne – 40 minutes

This game is seeing a lot of play at the moment. It was a new game to Matt who got a bit trampled on when scoring the end of game farmers. We did not play with the river because I don’t see it as necessary with just 3 players.

The Great Balloon Race – 30 minutes

I enjoyed playing this. The balloons bob backwards and forwards as we try to guide our own colours home and push other colours back. It is very like Ausbrecher AG which is a game that was released a couple of years earlier and must have been an influence on the design.

Pirate’s Cove – 90 minutes

Balloon Cup – 35 minutes  bgg

Chaos Marauders – 90 minutes  bgg

Dave told me afterwards that this game could have finished much sooner but the lads were enjoying the experience so much they kept playing even though Dave had clearly won.

The Great Balloon Race – 30 minutes

Robo Rally – 45 minutes  bgg

This game was started knowing they would not have time to finish. Good fun all the same.

8th June 05.....................................................10 Players

We had Duncan and John show up for their first visit. We hope to see them both again. They are Magic players with some experience at the big box miniature board games. We are all talking the same language and so I think they should both feel at home. We got a total turnout of 10.

Dave Dudley commented that the new Trophy system, like the old system, makes too much of a points difference between first and second, so a person can win a full session 5 player game and cruise the rest of the month to win. Steve says his pub quiz league award the lowest attendees points to any missing teams. I am acknowledging these remarks just to show I listen and am ignoring them because I’m a fascist who knows best. I suspect that on the whole you are happy for me to bumble on and do whatever I like, but if I do detect a common consent for change I will ultimately pay heed and succumb to the views of the collective.

In the Shadow of the Emperor – 140 minutes

I have been looking forward to playing this game for a while. John was also new to the game. Richard and Dave had played previously with 3 players. John was emperor for the first couple of turns then me for a turn, then Dave and finally back to John. Richard never put up a challenge for the top job but did just fine without it. John and I spent most of the game battling for the kingdom of Bohemia for the additional voting right. Dave took Palatine on the first turn to get a free noble. John and I got all 3 of our cities down early. I did not take in the extent to which Richard was picking up vp’s presumably by exchanging the top spot in a couple of provinces most turns. Richards understated presence at the board has helped crown him as the clubs “Games Guru” for In the Shadow of the Emperor.

Liberte – 165 minutes

I believe Dave is putting together a report on this game which will be pasted into this slot when this e-mail hits the web site. The game was completed, unlike on other occasions, because there was no need for a rules explanation, so they could get straight into it. Julian got his first “Game Guru”.

Carcassonne – 40 minutes

Carcassonne has been played at the club more times so far this year than any other game. Mike picked up a massive 32 points from the main farm.

Matt’s comment:

....which was over a third of his points total and nearly half of mine. To me this degenerates the game into a farmer struggle for the big fields; given that roads score next to nothing for a reasonable investment in tiles and creating small cities would seem to be a bad idea as you can't be sure that you will not be giving the lead farmer double the points you get from forming it.

 

A quick check on BGG shows the following farmer scoring methods:

 

German 1st Ed and Rio Grande:

1) Look at each city

2) total up all the farmers for each player in all the fields adjacent to that city.

3) the player(s) with the most farmers scores 4 points for that city.

 

German 2nd Ed:

1) look at each city

2) if a player has the most farmers in any one of the fields adjacent to the city he scores 3 points.

 

German 3rd Ed:

1) look at each field

2) the player(s) with the most farmers in that field scores 3 points for each city adjacent to that field.

 

And it would seem we were playing none of those if I am reading the 1st ed. scoring method correctly. We are playing 3rd ed. field scoring with 4pts/field rather than 3. I think we should adjust the scoring slightly to downgrade the effect of farmers a little to make other scoring strategies a little more worthwhile.

 

Which is not to say i wouldn’t play it again anyway- it’s great?

 

My comment:

In my English Rio Grande version of the game, farmers are scored differently to Mike's:

 

1) Look at each city

2) Total up all the farmers for each player in all the

fields adjacent to that city.

3) The player(s) with the most farmers scores 4 points

for that city.

 

I have played in games where each city is scored only once and the number of farmers within adjacent fields is totalled with 3 points going to the majority player. This system has the advantage of not being too generous and it is neat to mark off each scored city with a counter. I think this equates to your method 2.

 

The whole farmer scoring thing is a mess which was sorted out in the follow up game of Hunters & Gatherers. Hunters and Gatherers also better valued Roads (rivers) and took the sensible line of awarding no points for incomplete roads (rivers) and cities (woods) at the end of the game. It also awards completion of woods (cities) by awarding a bonus go which makes for a neater looking layout.

 

Unfortunately I am not keen on the graphics for Hunters & Gatherers. In all other respects it is the superior game.

 

Mike’s comments:

The nice thing about a field-based system is that you can simply vacate the field of farmers after it's been scored.  I don't like H&G as much - I agree about the graphics, and there is at least one special tile ('The Oracle'? ) which is ridiculously powerful and can swing the game in a single play, there's nothing like that in the original.

Alexandros – 60 minutes

I know Mike likes this game. It does not offend me but it does nothing positive for me either. I would be interested to know what Duncan thought of it, it is well removed from Magic the gathering or any American board wargames.

Niagara – 30 minutes

Mike taught the rules straight out of the rule book. No one had played before. Does anyone know of any other game where the chaos is lessened by having more players? The random factor is how far the river goes and with more players someone is more likely to play a low number which slows the river down and makes the game a little less chaotic.

Magic the Gathering – 10 minutes  bgg

15th June 05.....................................................10 Players

There was another great turnout of 10 tonight. We split into 2 tables of 5.

Power Grid – 70 minutes

Thanks go to Dave for explaining the rules succinctly, twice, for Steve and latecomer Matt (who had to work late).

This was quiet the oddest playing of Power Grid I have experienced. The game ended during the second phase, on the 6th turn, within 70 minutes, with 5 players! We got a big lump of mid to high value power plants up for auction early in the game. Without the presence of low value plants the big plants found their way onto the top row of the market and we were all kitted out with efficient plants after only a few turns. Three of the wind power plants were also in circulation. This meant the resources did not go down like they normally would so fuel was cheap. This in turn meant I was not penalised anything like would normally happen for being the lead player. I went from 1 city to 3, 5, 8, 9, 15. No stalling. I also had the only trash plant and virtually no competition on oil. Link all this with a great board position and the winning seemed very easy.

I consider one of the strong points about Power Grid is that usually players remain in contention right up to the end. I hope Matt and Steve G can look through this odd playing and see the gem of a game within.

Dave D’s comments:

While we are giving thanks, I should point out that it was Steve H who gave the first explanation of the game. It does amaze me that the rules can be explained so succinctly, considering the mess that is the rule book. Gordon is right about this being a strange game, while the power planet distribution was odd, I think may be this was one of the cases where board position had a big impact and may be Steve H and I were guilty to a certain extent on not occupying the South East area of the board from the start, also I wonder about the change of end condition for 5 players. When you go from 4 to 5, you add an extra region, so both players and board area are increased by 25%, so why is it necessary to reduce the number of cities required to 15, when it could remain at 17 without effect? This seems strange to me, as it means that players will not overall need to be as active in the Plant market, meaning they will have more money to build cities (of which they need fewer) and this can magnify the effect of Board position. It may be interesting to try playing to 17 next time we have 5 players and see what happens.

 

My reply:

I agree that the 15 city finishing requirement in 5 player Power Grid seems odd, leaving it at 17 cities as with the 4 player game seems more sensible. It must have been play tested so maybe there is a possible situation we are not seeing. In this particular game I had such a momentum behind me that I would have played to 14 as I did and use the payout to pass 17 the next turn.

 

Steve Hilton says:

I think the reduction to 15 by the designer must be a reflection of the pool of power stations, ie you have to share the 7s, 6s and 5s between more players. That ignores the fact of course that you don't have to power them all (which I think is a slightly bizarre winning situation anyway - in the real world what's the point of an empty pipeline?). So there is really no logic in making that reduction for five players unless you have to also power at least 15. I think I would favour that as a fix rather than going for the 17, because a) it's more "realistic" and b) as money is secret but power capacity is not, you can't be "ambushed" like last Wednesday.

 

Dave:

I’m up for another game next week. My first thought was may be that the reduction was due to the Power Station pool, but looking at the mix, there are enough high value plant for all 5 players to power 17+ cities, also 4 random plants are removed in the 4 player, so the situation could then be a lot worse for 4 players if these were all high valued. The only reason I can think of is that of game length, since having more players means longer turns, so reducing the city target probably reduces the number of turns. That wasn’t an issue on Wednesday of course and Gordon is right about his momentum allowing him to win the following turn, but as I said in my original mail I think that was a lot down to letting him have good board position from the start.

 

I’m not in favour of saying you have to power all your cities as I think it would take something out of the game, also I don’t think it would have changed things on Wednesday, all Gordon needed was an extra one point in capacity, and even if that wasn’t possible on the same turn as he did win, he would have had no problem the following turn.

 

Mark Stretch says:

It plays well with 5. It should be no more than 2 hours with a group who know the game. You do occasionally get a funny game when all the big plants come out at the same time.

 

Matt:

Poking about on the net, I came across this bit about board position that was interesting:

“....we all agreed that when playing on the new German board the player who  goes first and choses the Ruhr as his starting position has an enormous advantage (the connections being incredibly cheap).”

I have not played the German board, but even if it is an enormous advantage, it should be self-correcting. Others will build near there making it less attractive. On the US map, usually only one or two players start out on the western half of the board and the rest of the players fight over the areas with cheaper connections. And if this doesn't work, if placing the first city is such an advantage, it still isn't a problem. It's not like the first player to place is chosen at random. It is whoever wins at auction the 3 power plant. I doubt the Ruhr is such a huge advantage to someone who has just spent 25 Elektros to buy the 3 plant.

Koalition – 60 minutes  bgg

Steve G clearly has had much fun with this game over the years and it is his enthusiasm which allowed me to see beyond the foreign text and the need to keep pencil and paper scores. This is a game that I am sure Mike would really like.

Dave D’s Comment:

Yes this is a nice little game, but it surprises me that it took an hour, which seems a bit high for what it is. That said, it did not seem like an hour.

Medieval Merchant – 80 minutes

It was March last year when this game was last played. It deserves more table time.

Mike’s comments:

an underrated game in many quarters (very few people I've discussed it with  dislike it, it just doesn't seem to have 'star quality) but I think it's a superb game, especially for five.  There is a learning curve to it, but now everybody else has got over the curve general opinion is to try and play again pretty soon, so this one stays in my games bag and I very much doubt I'll repeat what was a fairly comfortable victory!

Medici – 60 minutes

This game was generating all the right noises. From what I have read it is good with six players and that puts it in an elite group.

Mike’s Comment:

Medici got a very positive reaction from everybody who played last night, best first reaction I can remember since 'San Marco'. Virtually first play for everyone, but this immediately proved a big hit.   By the way, yes we play it correctly, if you can't buy then you don't run the auction.  I'm intrigued about thoughts on optimal player numbers for this.  6 means every card is available, which may increase skill but make it dull.  5 adds a little spice with the few card removals but I can imagine the game sometimes playing a little 'safe' with five commodities, with all players going for clear 1st in one commodity and clear 2nd in another (indeed it was my 2 ties for 2nd place which probably got me last place).  Cutting down on players further increases the lottery of which cards are removed, which may not be good?

Perhaps with 4 players we could remove 1 of the '5' cards from each commodity before game start to keep the balance?

22nd June 05.....................................................11 Players

We had a turnout of 11 tonight with the appearance of Simon and Toby after a few weeks off. It was a nice summer evening and I enjoyed having a drink after the games. I am sure Barry was glad of the business. There is a risk of us coming over as a group of regular guys with all this hanging around the bar socialising. This is most unbefitting to our nerdy image.

We played Shadow of the Emperor on two tables. Later we also doubled up on Settlers and two games of Medici were played as well.

Far left table from left to right; Steve G, Simon, Chris and Dave D. Far right table from left to right; Duncan, Matt, Toby and Mike. Near table left to right; Richard and Steve H.

Shadow of the Emperor – 110 minutes

This game has been dished as a game to play with 3 players but it is not that bad. It worked ok, with a couple of the emperor elections going to Richard with the combined vote of Steve and me failing to get him sacked. It is possible to beat the combined vote of the other two players. This is a good weight of game for a Wednesday night but I am not convinced yet that is has the spark that will see it still getting table time once its honeymoon period is over.

Shadow of the Emperor – 130 minutes

Dave got away with not having Richard in his game. Not fair. I think Richard should have had a seat at both tables, chess grand master style, to even things out. Simon liked the game a lot.

Settlers – 50 minutes

I understand that Toby was the underdog at mid game. He was almost blocked from building more settlements but managed to escape with a long coast road. Is Mike always destined to come second at this game? In the 5 recorded games of Settlers which Mike has participated in he has always come second.

Settlers – 50 minutes

I took largest army early in the game. Steve had the longest road and Richard had the most on the board victory points. On my last go I could have ended the game either by taking the longest road off Steve or by building a city. If I had taken the longest road I would have put Steve into last place with scores of 11, 7 and 5. I built a city instead to tie Steve and Richard. I am not sure what etiquette dictates in these circumstances.

Medici – 45 minutes

Medici made its debut last week and now it’s getting played twice! This is a hot game.

Medici – 45 minutes

29th June 05.....................................................9 Players

We had a turnout of 9 tonight which split into two tables.

Power Grid – 150 minutes

For the first time we played on the German side of the board and I thought it played very well. There are two cheap areas on the board, one of which I shared with Matt. Steve probably came off the best from the initial start with the second cheap area. (A picture tells a thousand words – I’ll take a photo, be back soon). I would like to watch through a recording of the playing of this game to find out just how we got to the result we got. The game lasted 8 turns (9?). As with our game of PG two weeks ago, the early presence of green plants took the pressure off the fuel market. Note to Matt and Julian – it will not always be this way, fuel can get very expensive or even run out.

Steve. Primary fuel – Coal. Secondary fuel – Trash. Got to build first and claimed the best board position and brought a lovely 5 city coal plant early in the game. There was some competition for coal with Dave but nobody was paying too highly for resources. Steve could have built a 16th city at game end but would not have had the plants to power it.

Dave. Primary fuel – coal, Secondary fuel – oil + green. Getting to place last in a 5 player game is tough but it did not do Dave as much harm as it might have. He had a big chunk of the map left to him and as such he suffered from less competition for city spaces than the rest of us. Dave’s early builds squeezed us which limited the number of cities we could build to. I suspect Dave was paying a little more than the rest of us to fuel his plants. I was surprised in the last power plant auction phase when Dave did not buy the 7 city trash plant, I later realised he had nowhere near enough money to buy it, fuel it and put 16/17 cities on the board. I badly misjudged Dave’s money reserves.

Matt. Primary fuel - Oil. Matt brought just about every oil plant that came onto the market.

Julian. Primary fuel - Nuclear. There were few nuclear plants in play and the fuel thus got very cheap.

Gordon. Primary fuel – Green. Secondary fuel - trash.  I got 2 early 2 city green plants. I paid nothing for fuel for 3 consecutive turns (turns 2,3 and 4). I doubt I paid more than $30 for all my fuel for the entire game. My start spot was very odd. I am not sure what I was thinking about. I got away with paying base price for all my plants. I brought 6 plants during the course of the game. By the 4th turn I had built up a reasonable reserve of money which I managed to maintain till the game end.

For a larger copy of the picture follow the link.

Puerto Rico – 60 minutes

This was a high scoring game. Toby must have been shipping like crazy. 

Mike:

Puerto Rico : actually Toby probably shipped less than anyone, he won mainly with buildings (had 2 10pt ones).  He played very well, got the Hacienda/University combo working which Steve said can be quite difficult to get right (not something I've seen tried before I think, so I can't comment), but I can't help thinking we made it too easy, we let him get 3 or was it 4 quarries - just because he wasn't producing much didn't mean he couldn't win!  As for me, I 've always considered myself one of those strange gamers who are good at some games and not others - I couldn't beat a chimp at Chess, but was one of the top Go players in the UK whilst at Uni (reached 4 kyu, for those who know these things).  Sadly PR looks to be one of those games that I enjoy but don't fit my thought processes - I can win, including one convincing victory at Manorcon against some experienced players, but the moment something throws a spanner in the works for my plans I don't seem to be able to improvise an alternative.  This time, starting with Corn, I needed a second commodity and the ideal choice was Coffee, but when it came around there was none so I panicked and went for the next highest value Tobacco instead of biding my time and switching to Sugar, and never recovered.

 

I have bought the University but normally towards the end of the game, typically the purchase one or two before my 10pt-er (and I would always go for Harbour or Wharf before it, again is that inflexible thinking?).  Toby bought it as his 1st big building, the Hacienda-University combo means you never have to pick Mayor and in essence simplifies the game (which is why I like the Factory - gives a role which is always good for you so again it eases some decision making).  I still think if we'd matched him on quarries (I don't think Richard took a single one) he's have come unstuck, he was I'm sure producing a single Indigo for much of the game.

 China – 30 minutes

The vibe I got when I was talking to Richard, Toby and Simon in the bar afterwards was that this first playing of China was a bit flat. Nobody is saying they will not play it again, it just did not seem to be generating any excitement. 

Mike:

China : needs to be played more than once to appreciate the subtleties I think.  I love the original Web of Power, but it's not a barrel of laughs so 45 mins is ideal.  The main difference to the original (apart from the Forts variant we didn't use) is there's effectively only one scoring round. Can’t decide after only one game whether this makes for a better or worse game (or just different!), as usual I was rubbish and staked too much on a key area which I then proceeded to lose monopoly of.  Need to get back to Acquire or Taj Mahal where I can be a worthwhile opponent again.

Katzenjammer Blues – 10 + 10 minutes

The Trophy goes to Richard. Richard played 13 games this month and came second in 9 of them. He won two games of Shadow of the Emperor earlier in the month and China tonight. The only game he did not come first or second in was tonight’s last 10 minute game of Katzenjammer Blues.

Average attendance this month 10

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.