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December 06 |
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3rd May 06.....................................................11 Players We were down stairs in the bar this week. James dropped by at the start of the evening. He has experience of a number of boardgames. Jim is new to the area, we hope that another time he can stop for the whole session and join in with whatever takes his fancy. Duncan’s friend Pete also visited us for the first time. Hope to see you again Pete.
Power Grid – 150 minutes
Matt Started boldly by occupying the 3 Paris centres on the first build round. He got into Nuclear power in a big way which made for cheapish fuel costs but unfortunately the plants could not power enough cities at the end of the game. Matt was certainly the perceived winner during the first stage. Dave D was the one to trigger stage 2 and I felt that he took the lead during the whole of the middle stage. Dave was primarily into coal. Gordon. I spent all the game competing with Dave for coal. I also had a very useful 3 city wind plant and I finished up with a 7 city oil plant. I think I brought fewer plants during the course of the game than any of the other players. Richard playing for the first time stood little chance of winning due to the quirky nature of Power Grids end game. I believe Richard had fun with the clunky yet oddly beautiful mechanics of this game. He brought lots of trash plants and managed to occupy many of the boards cheapest connected cities.
I am looking forward to trying the Italian map sometime. The game will feel different again with the reduced coal supply and the long thin land mass.
Struggle
of Empires – 130 minutes
This is the 2nd time Dave has brought this game to the club. I understand it was well received again.
Torres – 45 minutes
This is a lot of game for such a short play time.
Java – 70 minutes bgg
Steve has been keen to play this game for sometime now. At just over an hour this is a much shorter play time than I was expecting.
10th May 06.....................................................11 Players We were missing Luke tonight. He has gone off to Japan for a couple of weeks. Pete was with us for a second week so we can’t have scared him off, then again he is a friend of Duncan’s so he must have low expectations from life :-). Next week we should have James back following his pop-in last week and I am hoping Stephen Fessey, who I have been exchanging Geekmail with, will also drop in next week.
I know our hobby is fun but is it fun in a healthy mainstream kind of way or is it fun in a minority fetish fun kind of way? The run of new faces we have had recently and the fact people are returning, nice normal people, makes me feel a little less of a dirty man in a raincoat for playing boardgames.
Pete: Aye, I don’t look for much in life , and consequently teamed up with Dunc.... The only person i can thrash consistently...........At Games. Obviously. Your definition of "normal" might need some tinkering with. :))) Cya next week
Antike - 150 minutes
Chris was the Greeks. By the game end I would have put Chris down as having the strongest board position and yet he came last! Antike is not intuitive to play. Conquering and then shoring up your defences to guard the captured land, is not the style of play that is rewarded with victory points. Lunging for the simplest to gain vp card does not always match up with what would militarily make sense. Matt was quick to gain Democracy to give his cities a plus 2 defence. His central board position was always going to be the target for attacks. Matt was involved in a mighty sea struggle with Chris. Mike played a defensive game. I don’t think he was involved in any battles all game. Steve P came out fighting, picking iron as a first order then arm then manoeuvre then iron, arm, manoeuvre and he pretty much kept that pattern going. His aggression trailed off once the king cards had gone, he never quiet managed 15 territories to gain a 3rd king card. Gordon. As all the northern players seemed to be battling each other I hid myself away and took all the progress points I could. I had 3 temples at my height with all of them on gold spaces. I eventually occupied all 8 of the progress spaces so I could use my resources all as if they were coins. I did not have Mr Stretch as a neighbour to mess with my plans this game. Steve G was the only player completely new to the game. He took Steve P’s lead and armed early. Like Chris. Steve captured land then defending it with a strong front line.
Comment e-mailed in by Luke: How dare you all play Antike while I'm away! In protest I shall explore Tokyo for a mysterious games shop and buy something bizarre and force you all to play when I get back.
Mark Stretch: Worse, how could they let Gordon win? Surely you all know to watch the other players and do something about them if they are on Gordon's strategy.
Steve H: My usual strategy is to have an all-out war with Gordon and see who’s left standing (usually him). Unfortunately I was on the other table losing because I can’t add up as fast as Dave.
Power Grid – 120 minutes
Pete’s first game of Power Grid, I don’t know what Duncan’s excuse is! Players seemed to have a real mix of plants with everything turn upside down due to coal and oil being pricey and trash and Uranium being cheap. Pete had 3 wind plants at the point when I looked in at the game. This was the first time out for Dave’s copy of the game.
Katzenjammer Blues – 15 minutes
17th May 06.....................................................8 Players Report by Mike: We welcomed James back for a second time, and Steve Fessey was paying his first visit.
Vinci - 110 minutes
An incredibly close game throughout, with Dave just managing to squeeze one last point out to snatch victory. Some unlikely Civ combinations proved surprisingly powerful.
China - 40 minutes
Duncan's first play of this game. I tried a different strategy this game, concentrating on monastries rather than a mix with emissaries, but this is fatal in a 3-player if another player tries the same tactic, the other player (Dave in this case) just cleans up with alliances. I managed to spoil a couple of alliances but had left it too late to respond properly.
Struggle of Empires - 150 minutes
As far as I know this game got a favourable response again, but is proving difficult to finish in time so may need to be arranged in advance to make a prompt start.
James’ comments: My first taste of 'Struggle of Empires' left me with an impression it was an fairly enjoyable 'plate-spinning' game which taught me as much about my fellow players as it did about the rules. Money really is the sinews of war and once Prussia had created a nice little earner in the East Indies we were all playing catch up. I felt this was a potential weakness of the game although it also represented a collective failure either to prevent Prussia from doing it, or to combine to curtail it. Spain concentrated his efforts on contesting the relatively unimportant Africa while France and myself neglected to squash Prussia in Europe which was entirely achievable at the start of the second war.
Dave C’s comments: I agree, there’s no doubt that money = power. Letting Steve get both the East India companies was a mistake. The economics are finely balanced, to fight you need armies, to get them costs population which gives you less income at the end of the war and cost more in upkeep. So, effectively, each military unit built in a given war costs you 2 gold. Having said that, his income could have been reduced if one (or more) of us had been prepared to go to the East Indies to take his control markers; he only had two fleets there, so Army Training wouldn't have counted. But then, you're back to "battles cost." Love the game, so many options. And you were right, with hindsight I should have attacked that single unit in Central Europe. Also, if I'd done a Government Reform rather than taking Navigation then Steve would have had more Unrest than me and would have gone back 4 VP's, leaving me in the lead. C'est la vie.
I'll leave it to Gordon to sort out the tables.
I will miss the next two weeks, see you in June.
24th May 06.....................................................5 Players We have a larger pool of players these days at the Halesowen club than we have ever had and yet the attendance though higher on average than last year, fluctuates more than it used to. The hard core membership is not putting in a week in week out attendance anymore. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It used to be the case that there was a certain pressure on you to show up, even if it was inconvenient, because if you didn’t there might well be no games night at all. Three years ago it was not unknown to have nights when just 2 showed up. So at least now, with the enlarge pool of players, we can take a night off without scuppering it for others.
Keythedral - 90 minutes bgg
I first played this game 18 months ago and it seemed a bit flat which got it relegated to the bottom of Steve’s cupboard. Steve, Michelle and I pulled it out again last week and it went down well. I am not sure why the change of heart, both times it was played with 3 players. I enjoyed tonight’s 5 player game, it scales fine. Steve took a number of the lower point early seats while the rest of us were busy spending our resources elsewhere. I had a card that, if I had thought about it, I could have played to extend the game another turn by making the last seat unaffordable for Richard. An extra round would possibly have helped James and me, we certainly had the most cubes so one of us would likely have brought first go in the new round.
10 Days in the USA - 20 minutes
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This
was a tough game. We used the French map for the first time. I thought
that the slightly higher connection costs, the increase in Uranium and the
taking away of the 13 wind plant all went to make a subtle but enjoyable
change to the way the game played. The changes made for a game with a
couple more turns than we usually get which contributed to the power plant
deck getting used up by the end of the game. With no face down cards the
final plant buying round was a bit calculated with both Dave and Matt
getting into a bidding war for the one power plant they both had to own to
stand a chance of winning.
Unlike
the last 6 player game of Antike we played when only Mark Stretch was
aggressive early on, in this game units were getting built straight away
by most of the players. Steve P expanded quickly with Matt and Steve G
arming up early in defence. Generally the game split into aggression in
the north and peace in the south.