4th May 05.....................................................8 Players

Tonight there were 8 of us, which we split into two tables of 4. We were missing Dave Dudley, our most regular member. Richard was at Maycon at the weekend where he played among other things Wallenstein, a game I nearly got to play at Baycon. Did I hear this game was getting re-themed and printed in English? Now I look I can find no mention of this on the geek or gamefest so maybe I dreamt it.

Amun-Re – 120 minutes

This was a real slugfest of a game. The tension went on until the final scores were counted. This is one of the games I consider that, as a group, we play to a high standard. Acquire and Taj Mahal are two other games we could take on the world at.

Steve came out of the first epoch clearly ahead with 20 more money than anyone else and a handful of power cards. Steve also beat everyone on the scoring for the second epoch. Steve only did not win because he had least money and received no end of game bonus. He wanted a big sacrifice on the final turn to push his temple score up, thus he spent up at the end but none of the rest of us had the motivation to bid high and he could not manage to push through without our help. I think if we replayed just the last turn or 2 over and over, 9 times out of 10 Steve would have taken the victory.

This was a very exciting playing of one of my favourite games.

Carcassonne – 40 minutes

I have not known a game of Carcassonne get so entangled. I now see why the river tiles were added to later additions of the game. We all got our meeples locked into the central mass of tiles. I do like the clarity of the graphics with the basic version of the game and I am getting to accept the silly farmer scoring system. Good game.

Evo – 90 minutes  bgg

Toby seemed to stomp all over the competition.

Settlers – 60 minutes

This game was played with the desert replaced by a gold mine. The gold mine gives a resource of your choice if the number comes up and you have a settlement or city next to it. When I looked over at the game it looked like Matt was leading, I am guessing it was a close run thing between Matt and Toby.

11th May 05.....................................................7 Players

We ran two tables tonight with 3 of us at one and 4 at the other. Both games lasted a full session. We were missing Matt but it was good to have Julian back with us, in one piece, following his African Safari.

Mike, Steve Hilton and Richard are going to Beer and Pretzels in Burton this Saturday. I will probably go and Dave Dudley is considering going for a few hours. I am not sure about Dave Cooper. I fancy playing Mike’s Medieval Merchants. I will probably take Maharaja and maybe Age of Mythology with me.

Power Grid – 120 minutes

I was the only player who had played before which really meant I was destined to win. The end game comes quickly and even experienced players can get caught out, new players are always going to suffer but it is only the final turn that hurts, I believe the rest of the game is good fun regardless of a persons experience.

The administration involved in Power Grid is part of the enjoyment for me. One player needs to manage the resource market, another player the power plant auction, another the bank and the game needs someone to take on the role of master of ceremonies in order to keep the game flowing. There is a kind of on-the-job team spirit about this side of the game that adds to the playing experience.

Toby was generally into oil and later Uranium. He took us through the 7 plant barrier then hung back from the front so he could get his resource cost down. Toby was badly wrong footed by the abruptness of the game end.

Chris was first into trash. He had a good board position with lots of space to expand into.

Julian got into trash towards the end of the game. He had the ability to power 17 plants, which would have won him the game if he had been able to build one more city. If Julian had not stockpiled fuel for another turn he would have won the game by having the cash to build a 17th city.

I got an early 5 city coal power plant which strayed into the market at an opportune time. This was the reason I broke from the pack to build 5 cities. I stayed in the lead for an uncomfortable couple of turns during which time I brought another stinky coal plant to keep it from others as much as for my own benefit. I made the lunge to end the game. I did this from the last place position which gave everyone a chance to react but only Julian had the plants to power more cities than me and I rightly guessed he did not have the money to put 17 cities on the board. It was close.

In the Shadow of the Emperor – 140 minutes

The victory points are secret until the game end. I understand Dave and Steve were surprised to find out that Richard had won. I have read the rules for this game and am looking forward to playing it soon.

I am at a Wedding in London next Wednesday afternoon and it is touch and go as to whether I will make it back to Halesowen by 7:30. I would appreciate it if someone would bring a mobile next week so I can make contact if I need to.

18th May 05.....................................................11 Players

It was great to have such a good turnout tonight with 11 of us split initially into 5 and 6 player games. Later the 6 split into 2 threes. It was the first visit for Simon who narrowly missed out on the traditional newbie first game victory. Simon is far from new to the scene with “Diplomacy” roots, similar to many of the group.

Footmania – 140 minutes bgg

On the geek it only says this game takes up to 4 players?

Speed Circuit – 90 minutes

We played on the Blue Monaco track, which has short straights and narrow 2 lane sections. We assigned 5 points to create our cars. I believe Mike’s winning car had 60mph start speed, 40 acceleration, 60 deceleration, 5 wear and 140mph top speed.

It took 2 of the races 3 laps for even the slightest gaps to open between the cars. Mike held the lead throughout this period. By the 3rd lap Mike had broken free leaving the rest of us scrapping. Dave made a mistake setting his speed on one of the corners and it took him out of the race. If it was not his game (should have known better), or it was not so excruciatingly congested (group was relieved to lose a car from the pack) I think we would have let him re-plan his move. I am sure Dave will dust himself off and get back behind the wheel, to compete again soon.

I spent 2 laps clawing my way from 5th through to a brief period as second. The ware on my car to achieve this was too much and in the last lap I slipped back. I marvel at how this game captures the feel of motor racing.

Eden – 50 minutes

This is the second time we have played this game at the club. Any feedback will get pasted into this entry when it gets published on the web site.

Web of Power – 30 minutes

This was a reasonably high advisor scoring game with fewer cloisters getting placed. England was never started and Franken was only occupied partially. The game felt a little more controlled than most of the times I have played. This was partly due to just having 3 players and partly due to the group’s reluctance to open new territories.

Carcassonne – 40 minutes

Richard placed an early farmer who finished up in the biggest farm at the game end along with another farmer Richard wormed in. Mike shared this big field by getting 2 of his farmers in. I broke into the field with a single farmer only to add a couple more cities to the scores of Richard and Mike, yet another farmer I had in an adjacent field never quiet got to break in and neutralise the big score by awarding it to each of us.

25th May 05.....................................................6 Players

Back down to 6 of us tonight with the big Liverpool game keeping many members at home. Next week is half term and we are expecting a large turnout. Dave and I had a chat with the powers that be and we have secured the bar room downstairs if we run out of space. I think our current room is ok with up to 12 so we probably will not need the extra space but it is nice to have the option.

I have changed the timing on the Speed Circuit game last week to a more accurate 90 minutes, which altered all the trophy points. If I could figure out getting FrontPage to access data stored in an online directory I could get the figures into a spreadsheet and automate the calculations. I am aware these reports would be better as an interactive web site rather than an e-mail, an example of a club site I think works, in a rather functional way, is the Piddinghoe Gamers site.

Eden – 40 minutes

This is a neat little game, rather chaotic and not to be taken seriously. There is a bit of an Acquire tiles-on-a-grid feel. The whole game is a preparation for the end game launch to reach 20 points. I look forward to playing again. We decided not to distinguish between the second and third positions, it is a game you either win or lose. 

Acquire – 90 minutes

In half the games of Acquire I play someone ends up having a bad run of it. Dave got no breaks in the early game and thus no money for the mid game and no shares in the final chains for the end game. I felt very much in control and if anything was surprised I did not win by a larger margin. To keep my head from swelling please follow the link to see how I did in the Acquire tournament at last years Manorcon. In the one tournament game I played I don’t think I got first or second in any mergers, that is how it felt at the time anyway.

Mark Stretch's sarcastic e-mailed comment:

Well done in your acquire tournament. Need some lessons?

PS. See

http://devel.diplom.org/manorcon/res03.htm#Acquire

http://devel.diplom.org/manorcon/res95.htm#Acquire

http://devel.diplom.org/manorcon/res93.htm#Acquire

Liberte – 120 minutes

Dave and Steve are both fans of this game. I understand they and Julian are going to have another game in a couple of weeks. The 2 times it has been played at the club there has not been the time to finish all the turns.

Look at the design of that boards with the clunky "Order of Play" and "Victory Point Track" labels. Come on Warfrog commission someone creative to put your board graphic together!

Average attendance this month 8

Trophy points are calculated separately for each game by multiplying the game length in minutes by the number of participants and dividing that figure by a player’s final position. 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 100 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 (600+300+200)/3, players D and E will get (150+120)/2 and player F will get 100 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.