6th October 04.....................................................7 Players

There were 7 of us this week which split nicely across 2 tables. There had been some planning going on via e-mail to get a game of Power Grid running. This gave tonight’s meeting an air of pleasant anticipation for me. Now we seem to be regularly getting 2 tables on the go it makes pre arranging the playing of longer games a lot easier. It is not something we will do all the time but once every so often seems to work well in my opinion. I would like to get a 3 player game of Age of Mythology together one week, it is a 3 hour game so we would have to get started promptly and the rules would need circulating prior to the meeting but I think it would work. I’ll mention it again in a few weeks and see if I get any takers.

Dave C's Comment:

Just a thought, how about running a 'waiting list' system like they do in postal games mags. Eg, you open a list for Age of Mythology and put in in the newsletter. When the list hits the trigger no of players etc, then set the date for the game.

Power Grid – 150 minutes

The only new player was Peter and he had taken the trouble to read the rules prior to us meeting so we only needed to give a brief explanation and then we started. As it happened the game was finished quiet easily in the time we had available. One of the things I so like about this game is that everyone stands a chance of winning right up to the game end.

Peter made a steady progression through the game not doing the staggered bursts of building the rest of us preformed. Most of the game Peter led with most cities and the rest of us huddled behind not wanting to suffer the consequences of being the lead player. Peter could power the most cities the turn before the game ended and it was debated a little after the game whether he could have reached 17 cities to trigger the game end a turn before Dave did. If Peter had been able to do this he would have won and I suspect I would have come last. The game is all about preparing for the final end game surge, I think we are all more aware of this now but as a new player the suddenness of the end game can be a shock. I’d vote for Peter as man of the match.

Steve H had some very efficient plants and sole requirement for Uranium. He must have had the most money which he could have used to win if he had drawn for most powered cities. If Power Grid rewarded the neatest business model Steve would surely have won. Being out of the coal race was a good move.

Dave D again played an aggressive end game. No dithering he just went for broke, took all the coal from supply killing 1 of Peter’s plants and hitting 17 cities to close the game. Dave would make one ruthless entrepreneur. The ramifications of this move decided all of our end game positions. Steve was caught out because he wanted at least another turn, Pete was knocked from first to last due to not being able to power a plant and I was gifted the victory because I had more money than Dave. Dave knew all this when he made his last move but considered it the best he would come out with. I respect Dave’s decisiveness.

Gordon, me, well I was lucky to get a 7 plant in the last bidding round. I was dreading the game would finish the turn before it did but as it happened it fell perfectly for me. The only time I felt I led the game was for the briefest period fortunately for me that was when the game ended. A round more or a round less and I would have been stuffed. Oh and yes Dave I believe I would have ended the game had you not done so and then you would have been the one with most money resolving our draw with you in first place :-)

Camelot Legends – 80 minutes  bgg

This was the first of Steve P’s games to be played on a Wednesday night. I understand that Mike saw problems with the mechanics that spoilt the first playing. I have just read through the comments and a review on the geek and the game seems to have been well received. I wonder if the initial impression would prove wrong if the game was given another go? The artwork looked beautiful.

Mike's Comments:

Camelot Legends was a bit of a strange game - although I don't mean to be derogatory when I describe it as 'Magic' meets 'Top Trumps'.  Beautiful cards with ridiculously small text, and far too much 'chrome' typical of some American games, the game would have been better with fewer allegiances (perhaps 4 instead of 8) and character abilities (4 instead of 6) and I'd drop the Heraldic Events completely.  It developed into a 'Kingmaker' type situation, where the player with the biggest stack of cards stomps on everybody else, and the fact that some characters are considerably more powerful than others (I got 'Gareth's Dwarf', Steve got 'King Arthur'.....) isn't balanced by a cost system which gives 'Magic' a considerable edge.  I think there may be a good game well-hidden in here (maybe as a 2-player?), but as it stands it's just too fiddly for my taste.

 

My Comments:

Your comments are well articulated. I am intrigued by the game but you mentioning "fiddly", "too much chrome" and "ridiculously small text" puts me off.

 

Mike retorted:

I think that part of the problem is that you would have to play the game several times at least to become familiar with the meaning of the event cards and eliminate the need to keep looking at them to remind you of what they do.  The character cards move around and frequently change their characteristics as a result - nightmare!  Also, there are certain event cards which act like locations : in a game which clearly intends to be stylish I think it would have been a better idea visually to have proper big location cards like Camelot and Cornwall which hit the table when the event happens.

 

Dave C's Comments:

I read the stuff on Geek as well after I got back on Weds. I began to wonder if we'd been playing the same game! I like Arthurian stuff so I really would like to like this game. I notice the designer spoke about starting with the basic game then moving on to the standard/advanced game. Maybe that's where we went wrong. I would like to try it again, and as a two -player.

 McMulti – 90 minutes  bgg

This is a respected game from the 80’s involving drilling for oil then getting it to market for the best price. Steve mentioned that there is a bit of a battleships thing going on. Lots of money seemed to be changing hands.

Dave C's Comments:

McMulti is a classic that everyone should try at least once. Got some bad press due to an appalling error in translating the rules (the translator failed to notice that 'rotpunkt' means 'red point', thus messing up the economic system.) OOP now and commands some high prices on eBay. Securicor guard my copy when not in use.

13th October 04..................................................... 6 Players

We made up two tables of 3 tonight. I can’t think of anything of note at this point so on with the summaries. Oh yes there was a lot of kafuffle going on in the street during the evening which we could see from the window. Blue lights flashing all around. I found out later that there had been a fire at a local school and a number of roads had been closed.

I have not compressed the pictures as aggressively this week which has improved the quality a little. I am hoping Mike does not complain about the slight increase in byte size.

La Citta – 130 minutes

I have played this game 3 times, all within the last month. Dave has played once before a year or two ago and Steve has played a handful of times. Steve fair took us apart with some very solid play.

Dave built up one killer city which drained citizens from both of my adjacent cities throughout the game. Steve took citizens from Dave’s weaker city and from my very week central city. I bought a third city at the start of the game. Steve brought a third city a turn before the end. Steve and I both managed to score for 3 cities at the game end and Dave only got to score for one. We could all feed our citizens. That is Dave’s hand in the picture piling yet another of my citizens onto his castle

I am so not qualified to speak about how to play this game seeing as how I have lost all my games. I need Steve to give me some advice. Every time I have played I go for the strategy of placing an early third city and every time it is my undoing. I must fight my instinct and play differentially next time. I have this urge to establish a farm and quarry base and land grab early. The successful route, as I have observed it, is to go to war early (war means building municipal buildings – this is a German game!) or at least build early with a view to defending. Once your citizens start to leave to join an opponent’s better equipped city they will generally keep leaving turn after turn.

New England – 90 minutes

This is the 4th game of New England on record. It is almost a year since the last time the game was played at the club. This is the 2nd time it has been played with 3 players. I understand that Dave scored well as the game went on and got the most boats bonus. I have never found boats particularly useful so I was interested to hear Dave talk afterwards as if they where key to his victory. It sounds like you had a great game. It would be nice if one of you would give a written account so I can include it with this entry when I upload at the end of the month to the archive.

Vom Kap Bis Kairo – 50 minutes  bgg

This is the second time this rail road building game has been played. Mike was the only experienced player. Last time we played this game we counted one person as the winner and the other players, whatever their position, counted as joint second. Mike has given me individual scores so I am awarding first second and third. Please let me know if this is not how you want it scored.

20th October 04.....................................................5 Players

We were down to one table tonight with a turnout of 5. It is a while since we have played a 5 player game which opened up a range of tasty possibilities. Puerto Rico, Amen Re, Princes of Florence, El Grande and Taj Mahal were all put forward. Dave D did not want to play any of them! Finally Ra was chosen which is rightly a solid group favourite.

Ra – 90 minutes

First Epoch This was a short opening epoch with low scoring all round. I got no additional points, Steve H was up 5 or so and everyone else was down below their opening 10 points. Steve H was first to use up his suns.

Second Epoch The majority of the civilisations turned up in this phase. Nobody scored negatively. Steve H was still leading having scored 5 for 3 different civilisations. I was scoring the most pharaohs as I did throughout the game. Mike was lining up a nice collection of monuments.

Final Epoch This was probably the longest of the epochs which did not go to Steve H’s liking because he was again early out. I collected a load of rivers, most pharaohs and a rather lucky run of 7 different monuments. An unfortunate disaster spoilt a big run that Steve P took at the end. Steve P took points for the most suns and Steve H got hit for minus 5 for having least.

This is the 8th recorded game of Ra we have played at the club in 15 months. All the games have either been won by Dave D (3) or me (5). I have won the last 4 games I have played at the club and I won the 2 5-player games I played at Manorcon. This is by far my best results for any board game and I have no idea why. I have no theories on how to play. I just go off a gut feeling. It is nice to have something to brag about. In the interest of balance please note I came dead last last week for the third consecutive time at La Citta.

Guillotine – 20 minutes

Ben joined us for the final game. Dave D had to go because he needed an early night to be bright for his exam in the morning. First in line for beheading was Robespierre. Mike took his head and the rest of the line was released. There must be some good historic reason for this. Anyhow it gave Mike an early lead which he kept throughout this rather short game.

27th October 04.....................................................6 Players
We were missing both the Dave’s tonight and Steve P. It is half term so there were a number of children about though only Daniel and Ben participated in a recorded game. Becky was kind of floating around and James was sat at Steve’s side keeping a sharp eye on our game of Amun-Re.

Now Mike has broadband we are going to try and have an online game of something on Friday. I have proposed Taj Mahal. We can make up the numbers with AI if needed.

http://hilinski.net/games/online/tajmahal/

You will need to download the Game Box software and a Java program. I did this about a year ago so my memory of the procedure is a bit rusty. I do remember wrongly downloading a massive 88Mb Java program then realising I only needed a much smaller version of the Java software. I will leave you to work it out. It is a lovely clear smooth rendition of the game and the AI is disturbingly good. I can not justify spending much time gaming on the PC but the odd game on a Friday evening suits me fine.

Amun Re – 120 minutes

This game does not get easier the more you play. Familiarity leads you to realise just how clever and subtle the mechanics of this game are, increasing the thought needed. It is interesting that some games get simpler and quicker to play the more experienced you get eg San Juan, Ticket to Ride and Settlers. Other games actually get harder and slower to play the more you realise what is going on eg La Citta, Ra and Amun-Re. Our first game of San Juan took about 2 hours, we are now finishing a game in an hour yet our first game of Amun Re took 2 hours and 7 games later we are still taking as long. It is a good sign that a game has slowly revealed depth if you are still agonising over play after many games.

I need everyone to check their 2nd epoch scores. I think Steve’s score was actually 28 for the 2nd epoch giving a total of 49. I think the score of 54 was a mistake probably made when we got the coloured scoring markers muddled up at the end. I have attached the photo I took just prior to taking the final round gifts from the Pharaoh. You should be able to zoom in enough to see the board.

Steve's response:

I've checked and you're right - my score was 28 for the second epoch making 49 in all.

This was a fairly high money game with no camel provinces coming out in the first round of play and not a lot of stolen gold coins from the collection. Steve’s 21 first epoch score must be the highest we have ever had, he paid 11 gold in the last blind bid to push his 3 temples up to a value of 12. Every one of the areas got a pyramid so there were no bum territories for the second epoch. I was lucky to take the most pyramid bonus on one side of the Nile with a single pyramid and 1 block.

I was getting exasperated gasps from the rest of you when I kept pulling extra farmer cards and +1 scoring, round after round. The game felt it was going all my way but I never managed to close the gap on Steve who kept low key during the second epoch always purchasing provinces for next to nothing. Steve got the most end of game money.

It should be noted that at every turn Mike missed out, always a gold coin behind on the sacrifice or picking an unfortunate card from the bonus pile. It was in keeping that Mike lost the third place money bonus on a tie break and then the third game position on a tie break.

Memoir ‘44 – 60 minutes

Ben struggled to hold focus on this game which was a disappointment because I thought this would be a good game for the boys to play.

Guillotine – 20 minutes