Midcon 2004                                                                                                              Dave Cooper

Saturday

Arrived 10.15, having travelled in on the bus with Mike Head. Couldn’t check in ‘till 2pm so went upstairs and grabbed a table in the Wroxton. Said hello to a few people, then settled down for the first game of the weekend: - Formula Motor Racing. Five players, with green as the neutral player, Mark (?), Pete Bethell, Tony (?), Mike and me. Three races later, it transpired that Green was the overall winner! Then settled down to play Medieval Merchant, a game that I disliked when I owned it, but now like it since I sold my copy to Mike. A good game, I thought initially that I had made an error in my starting position but I actually finished in a strong position. A break for lunch, then Gordon joined us to play El Grande. I haven’t played this for a long time so somewhere along the line I lost the plot. The last three turns I was just hanging on in there. I still prefer El Caballero, but I have played that more. Pete B. then had to leave and we gained Alan (?) for a game of Puerto Rico. Arrgh! Again, a personal favourite but I haven’t played for ages. Gordon went for a quick kill on the buildings, whilst Mark on my left was the corn man. However, I was also into corn and managed to turn the tide into shipping first into the smallest ship, so Mark couldn’t ship everything and had to buy warehouse space. I was very strapped for cash the entire game. The end was very strange. Gordon had two big buildings and Mike had one. None of them were staffed. Gordon ended the game by filling San Juan, but was then relying on someone else taking the Mayor so that he could staff his buildings. Mike didn’t, instead he took the Craftsman so I produced lots of corn. I then took the Captain and loaded the ship. On the VP count, that clinched it and I won, although it was very close.

            Mike and I then went to check in. We had booked a twin room, but the hotel thought that it would be more fun to put us in a single room. After some negotiation, interrupted by someone whose room hadn’t got air conditioning, we ended up with a single room and a mattress on the floor. At least they only charged for the single room and I still got breakfast (one of the high spots of Midcon.)

            Returning upstairs, we settled down to Taj Mahal. A game I know how to play, but I don’t know that I know how to play it well. I was doing okay up to the mid-game, but then it all fell apart.  Alan professed to have never played before, but we had our doubts, especially as he was doing horribly well, picking up loads of stuff cheaply. It ended with Mike and Alan tying for first and Gordon was 1 point behind in second. It was now time for evening meal; Gordon disappeared off to check in, fully expecting that he’d be on the roof or something. Mike and I ordered food, and then played Lost Cities whilst we were waiting. After chasing up our missing side salad, then eating, we were rejoined by Mark and Mike (?). We played Bakschisch, a game of bidding for influence in the Caliph’s palace with the ultimate aim of reaching the throne. Mike H. finally did and locked the door so the rest of us couldn’t get in. We were then introduced to Bang! by Mike (?). It’s a card game of a Wild West shootout; one person is the Sheriff and the others are outlaws etc. The problem is that everyone knows who the Sheriff is [i.e. e: me in this case], but all other identities are secret and the Sheriff loses if he accidentally kills his deputy. It is apparently a big hit in the game world but I wasn’t impressed (and I like Wild West games.) After that, it was time for the last big game of the day, Princes of Florence. Five players, again a game I like but haven’t figured out how to play well. Also, and this is perhaps a feature of playing against new opponents at a “con”, on the first bidding round Mark paid 900 F for a jester. That set the trend, prices were going way over what I’m used to paying. The other thing that amazed me, Mark went the entire game without a single building and still produced five (!) works. I produced three and desperately needed some form of urban renewal.

By this time it was late, Mike and I played a final hand of Lost Cities and then retired to bed. 

Two comments on the overnight stay.

1) We found the guy’s missing air conditioning. Bits of it were stuffed into our mattresses.

2) The hotel was on form. They forgot our wake-up call. Fortunately Mike hadn’t trusted them and had set his phone alarm.

Sunday

Breakfast was excellent as usual, apart from the toast. This was brought round by a waitress and, frankly, you could have made better toast by leaving a stale slice of bread on top of a radiator for an hour.

Back into the Wroxton and a game of Alexandros with Mike, Geoff Williams and Pete Card. A game I hadn’t played before, despite many airings at the club. I got totally stitched, not helped by being half-asleep (big breakfast + diabetes = sleep.) I liked it though and must play again soon. After this, and having woken up, I got into a game of Struggle of Empires with Geoff, Pete and Richard Drewsbery. Struggle of Empires is the latest from Martin Wallace/ Warfrog and it is brilliant! A Dip-style Empire building game but playable in three hours. Lots of options, lots of strategies. I came fourth, but there was only four points between second place and fourth place. Plays up to seven, I think this would go down well at the club. Meanwhile Mike, Gordon and Pete were engrossed in a mega-game of Power Grid*. I can’t comment further as I’ve never played it; I would like to but I think I’d need to solo the game first to get the hang of the rules. I then got into a game of Kablammo. This is a totally silly game of the Russian Roulette, where you load your gun with bullets, most have special effects that change the game situation and a few kill you. Once you’ve loaded your gun you can’t look at its contents. You then fire your next shot and, basically, see what happens. On a luck to skill rating it’s around –3. Fun, especially on the first game when the last two players blew their brains out on the same round (so no-one won.) The second game dragged a bit but I won eventually. I’d play it at a con, but I wouldn’t buy it. Mike appeared to be brain-dead from Power Grid so we called it a day and headed home.

            Bought ‘Monsters Ravage America’, one of AH’s last gasps. I thought Ben would like it. As it turns out. he does, we tried it on Sunday evening and we think its good. Basically, you control a monster rampaging across America, and you control one faction of the US armed forces trying to stop them (especially if they belong to an opponent.) Eventually it ends up in a massive slugfest and may the best monster win!

[A plug here: if you like monster/anime/stamp on things style games then try and find Super Giant Monster Showdown + Expansions #1 & #2] 

Overall

Midcon is a high point of my gaming calendar; it’s great to see familiar faces and see/try new games. It’s just let down by the hotel; it’s just a shame it can’t get College/Halls of Residence premises.

 * Comment from Gordon on Power Grid:  “Incidentally our 4 hour monster Power Grid game saw all 6 of us within 2 points with positions 2,3 and 4 within £1 with money the tie breaker.”

 *Comment from Gordon on the hotel: “I did not have a problem with the hotel. My bed was comfortable and the room was not overly hot, something I often have a problem with in hotels. Sure they tried to charge me for someone else's meal and bar bill and they called me to checkout when I had already checkout but overall I was ok with it.”