Played a few games lately...

Wed night I played a game of the original Crossbows and Catapults with my nine year old.  What an amazing game.  The rules as listed are pretty vague but imagination takes over.  Flicking those discs and making plastic blocks fly is always fun fun fun.

At the German Club last night I managed to get in two games.  First off was Africanus.  I must admit my second play was a lot better than my first, even though I lost this time.  I think Michael Schacht (spelling) got the balance pretty exact.  I picked up three wild cards through the books but I needed one more turn to overcome the 10 point penalty and alas it didn't happen.

To end the evening we played Union Pacific.  UP is one of my favourite games of all time.  I struggled this time through, however, not able to get any majorities.  You need majorities in some of the larger companies by mid game to stay on top.  For those of you who are newer to the scene I heard Airlines Europe (the third incarnation of this system) is just as good.

Cheers,
Michael

Chad - my good friend Bruce Beckett gave me a rundown about D&D 4th vs Pathfinder.  I appreciated his commentary.  Here is what he said:

"Second system that I like is D&D, it might not be the best from a lot of people view but it is still the biggest and for some good reasons.  I liked 3.5 and played it a fair amount, switched to pathfinder when it came out, then tried 4th edition but I and most in my group did not like it.  If we wanted to play a video game we would have played a video game.  I still like the D&D idea and still like 3.5

The third system is pathfinder this is the one I have played the most in the last few years and likely the one I will be playing for a while.  I prefer it to D&D 3.5 and 4th edition.  All the reasons I like 3.5 are included in pathfinder but pathfinder has cleaned up a lot of the rules and generally makes the games flow smother.  The player`s manual is very comprehensive and eliminates the need for a DM guide book and it is a good price for people trying to get into the system.  Very good price considering the size of it.  I find the book very well laid out (an index would have been nice though) and easy to read.  It is generic enough that you can adapt almost any D&D world or module to it without a lot of work and that means you have a large library of material to pull from or pick and choose what you want to allow in.  The modules from paizo are really good and the campaigns are VERY good.   I really want to play the kingmaker campaign but it would not work well with my group.

Bad points:

Customization of characters is hard, a fighter is good in combat and not much else a rogue has lots of skill points always.  There is not much difference between an evil or good cleric (at least on paper). 

D&D and pathfinder are combat systems plain and simple.  The standard roll vs. role playing argument.  I tend to disagree with this argument to a degree.  I agree that the pathfinder rules are primarily about combat as is the experience generation but I think they have to be.  It is very difficult to write rules for player interaction for roleplaying this must be handled `on the fly' by the DM and the party has to agree to spend time interacting with the environment but all of this is outside of the rules and cannot be quantified easily.  In short there is as much role playing as the players want, to force them to role play more or less then they want is not desired."

I forgot to mention the third game:

The Bottle Imp.  This is another trick taking game but their are only three suits (red, yellow and blue).

The price of the bottle at the beginning of each hand is always 19.  The player left to the dealer leads the first trick.  Players must play in the led suit if possible.  If all players play above the bottle value high card takes the trick.  If one or more player plays below the bottle value it is sold to the highest card below the current value.

Example: The bottle value is 19.  The lead is a yellow card above the bottle value.  Second player plays a yellow 14 (not sure if the 14 is yellow - just as an example).  Next player plays their yellow 3 and the fourth player plays their yellow 2.  The second player takes the trick and now owns the bottle and it's value changes to 14. 

In the end you want to avoid ending the hand without taking the bottle cause  you only score negative points.  All other players score all cards (coin symbols) earned.

First player to 200 or 500 points wins.

Some players cannot get their head around the game.  There is a certain groupthink that needs to be altered especially if you are used to more standard trick taking games.

I think it is beyond clever and it is a wonderful three player experience!!

Michael

Last night at the German Club I managed to get three games in:

Tichu - a staple with our group.  It has been a while since I last played and it is still the premier trick taking game for four (besides Bridge).

German Railways - there are a bunch of really neat things happening here..  First of all there are eight train company's.  Up for grab are three shares per company.  One share is auctioned from each at the start.  On your turn you can only do three things: 1) auction a share (the third share of a company cannot be auctioned until two of all the others are sold).
2) place track to increase the railways value (i.e. by connecting cities).  This action may also trigger a dividend round if railways connect.
3) pass

Each company has a unique rule when it comes to dividend payouts and placement of track.  Some build faster, some pay less for different terrain, some don't pay dividends until they reach Berlin, etc.

Like many money games having the correct shares in companies which are likely to merge is a key.  And having more shares than your opponents helps as well.  I felt my opponents overspent their cash in the opening sell.  I had a bunch of money so everytime my turn came around i bought a new share for relatively cheap.  This in essence helped me lead most of the game and I won with a large margin.

There is only one other caveat.  Your current position in the game determines how many tokens you put into the bag for turn order. 

Example: Let's say I own one share of the blue, red, and black lines.  If the value of these companies is 18 that is my current position.  If opponent a has a value of 10, opponent b has a value of 15 and opponent c has a value of 19 here is what would happen: opponent c puts one token in the bag, I put two, opponent b three, and opponent a four.  Four tokens are then pulled one at a time.  This determines the turn order for the next round.

With my early jump I likely played only half of the game and I still won.  Only one token was going into the bag each turn.  I deliberately created some ties with my opponents to mitigate the effects of the system (i.e. they put less tokens into the bag).

I am not sure if this runaway leader problem would happen often.  It did in our first game but that definitely wouldn't stop me from playing it again.  Simple and fun!!

The only thing I want to gripe about is the colour choices made.  Player colours were the same as railway company colours.  And the yellow and orange were hard to tell apart as were the brown/black.

I am sure next game the money will remain much tighter.

On a different note, I cannot get Wings of War out of my head the past few days...!!

Michael

Last night at the German Club I was able to play two games:

Power Grid First Sparks - Their is something to be said for streamlining a game.  Removing areas which seem to take a long time (auctions) is a great thing.  Unfortunately we played with incorrect additions each round for each food group.  So the market was somewhat way understaffed.  This led to the game being a bit longer than it should.  Also it meant I was nickel and diming my way into more resources to increase my clan.  I would like to give it another go but I doubt the game will surpass a 6 or 7.  There is something I love about the original power grid system (yes I own Funkenshlag) despite the extra length...

D-Day Dice - I had the pleasure of reviewing D-Day Dice when it was part of the Canadian Board Game of the Year challenge.  Everyone who played it back then loved it.  And now that it has finally been released to the world and I think we should rejoice.  I didn't have enough time to go through the rules in the detail I would have liked so we played the very basic basic trial run two player.  Playing without sector rules or specialists or tools left the game way too basic.  We should have added them in.  I forsee this game getting to the table a lot over the next few months.  WIth the line for life I have (all things D-Day Dice will come to me) I have a lot of material to get through.  yikes...  I am really hoping I can round up my nine year old on this one.  My grandfather participated in World War II.  His last name was Zachary (my moms maiden name) - and when my ex-wife and I decided on a name for a boy it was universal and immediate.  Hence my sons first name...   I want to make sure both of my kids learn about the history of WWI and WWII and this will give me the perfect excuse to do so.

On Saturday night I managed to play two games: High Society and Dominate Species.

High Society is a light filler.  Basically everyone starts with a bunch of money.  A prestige card is flipped and a bid begins.  If the card is a positive card (riches and fame from 1 - 10 points) only the highest bid pays.  If it is a negative card (-5 points, 1/2 score, or a thief) any money bid is lost when someone finally takes the penalty ccard.  The player which takes the negative card keeps their bid.  That is really all there is to the game but the tension is amazing.  And the player who has the least amount of money left in their account (hand) at the end of the game cannot win despite their score.

Dominate Species - This was my second play of the game.  The first play was with the full compliment of players and it was ruthless.  This time we had four players and the game allowed a bit more freedom.  I think there are a few too many cards in the game.  Taking out 5 - 10 at the beginning of the game would probably shave an hour.  The first play was a bit overwhelming... there is lots to consider each turn.  I found that your positioning is quite volatile.  You can have a huge lead in species on a territory and the next second your tokens are wiped...  So there is a fair amount of chaos in the cards.  But the game is very well put together.  The theme is wonderful.  And I really look forward to my next play.

Michael

Played a game of Peurto Rico last night.

Easily one of my favourite games.  And having been there once as well helps bring back some great memories.

I picked up coffee and the small market quite early.  I managed to lock up a ship for 1/2 of the game as I was the only person with coffee.  Add in 5 corn production, a small warehouse to ensure no spoilage, and a wharf and I sailed to victory by a 10 point margin.

Amazing game that I could happily play anytime, anywhere.

Michael

Last Thursday at the German Club I manged to get in a few titles:

Lords of Waterdeep:  My first play.  Very puzzle like game where you really need to manage resources to score victory points.  Very thin theme based on the beloved Forgotten Realms setting.  I was hit with two "forced" missions and this took me out of the running for a very close end game.  No other players recieved any forced missions this game so that left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Vegas: This one is up for SdJ.  Again my first play.  I managed to get a win by a fairly considerable margin.  I was quite hesitant to play this to be honest.  But it was good fun and on a similar weight scale to Alea's Royal Turf.  A lot more fun than expected and yet another good dice game with simple rules.

Euphrates and Tigris.  This was one of the first true German Games I purchased.  I bought it right after it was released by Hans Im Gluck.  Had to search the net for the rules translations.  I love this version a million times better than the more recent Mayfair editions.  One of my favourite games of all time.  Ryan managed to score duel monument points for a few turns and won by a slight margin.  Jim mentioned that he plays this all the time online - can't remember which site he plays on though... and that a normal score is around 40 points... Obviously they have created new rules or mistranslated the game online.  Our games usually have a winning score of 7 - 10 points with four players.

Cheers,
Michael

At the Frag Games Day I was able to get in a few plays:

Wiz War - The more I play the new edition the more I like it.  I started playing this game in high school... so I have a special bond with the system.  I tend to play the game with all of the old school rules - i.e. using the entire deck of spells, and creations which are on the map do not need to be maintained (i.e. they do not work against your 7 card hand size).  We also play with victory conditions that if both of your treasures are placed onto opponents home squares you go poof, and that you need two opponents treasures or to kill all opponents to win the game.

Pastiche - a neat game and my first play.  You play tiles to gain colour resources.  You then can then trade these resources to get what you need to complete your paintings.  If anything it offers a good lesson in pigment blending... lol  Weng ran away with things as he had played a few times before.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle - I own way too much stuff for Warhammer... like 5 display cabinets of mostly unpainted but built stuff... and boxes and boxes and boxes of blisters and boxed sets still in packaging).  I am actively going to start playing and painting again.  I honestly dislike painting figures.  I want them to look like something in the pages of White Dwarf but don't want to spend the time taking them there.  I like building terrain much better.  Even so... it was my second game of 8th edition (played a game when the new rules came out about a year ago).  The game was Orcs vs Orcs and Stu my opponent.  I like the system quite a bit.  The game was going very well for me... my big unz destroyed his big unz... and then pursued and caught his force.  This led me straight into the line of fire of two bolt throwers.  Eight causualties later I failed my panic test and they moved a 1/4 inch over the table edge.  Our moderator insisted the unit was removed... although I thought that was a very wrong call...  In the end Stu won by 104 points (pretty close game for 1000 points).  And I am excited to start playing on a regular basis again.

If you are into fantasy miniature wargaming Mantic currently has Kings of War.  The rulebooks are free to download.  I think it is around 25 pages.  Very, very easy system where you can use any scale or models. 

The game is trying to encourage the movement aspect of the game.  Side and rear flanking have some pretty incredible advantages.

It is still relatively new system designed by a bunch of ex-GW guys.  Kind of looks good imo after having bought ALL of the army books for Warhammer Fantasy Battle over and over and over again.  I have almost everything they ever made for the sytem - from 1st ed - current.

Michael