Six of us (me, Peter C, Nasty Nick, David, Richard & Keith) settled down last night to play Power Grid on the Korea map, while the Formula De championship was in progress.
Before I forget, Keith commented on how I had pointed out his 3-week losing streak & that I need to make sure I mentioned that he won (have I already said so?!)
I have played Korea a couple of times before, but it was good to try it out again with the maximum number of players as I was expecting the two resource markets to be heavily contested & possibly run out of coal, oil, garbage or nuclear at some point, but neither North or South did. Which was a little bit surprising, just as Keith's victory was!
In the early game, 5 of us started our connections fairly close to the centre - David deciding to connect 3 in the first or second turn was a bit unusual, but he mentioned something about taking control of the area early or something - while Richard huddled away in the South-East. Richard quickly had plants 13 & 27, both wind farms, so didn't buy many resources & I began to wonder if this might be a strategy to save money on resources? I soon had a nuclear monopoly (2 plants, with a hybrid plant to keep them company) going while Nick, Peter & Keith seemed to be going down the coal & oil route.
Mustn't forget Keith won...
As the game progressed, I worked my way mostly to the south & what building inland I did was an attempt to deliberately block Peter, Nick & David ;-) not sure it worked though! Keith spread up to the North somewhat. Despite us all having different plant type combinations & building connections with varying costs, it didn't feel like there was a stand-out leader... everyone was probably doing a good job of keeping their money hidden from me, especially Keith, who clearly was rolling in it... he won, by the way! We moved up the city connection track as a pack msot of the game.
The penultimately turn, Keith almost ended the game when he got to 13 connections (14 to trigger game end in a 6-player game) & could've had 14 on that turn, had I not had my opportunistic eye on for the cheapest connections for myself! The following turn, I triggered game end, building 3 extra connections to 14 cities. Nick & Richard also got 14, but Keith got to 15 & was able to power them all up, so (no surprises) he won!
Excellent game & a worthy expansion to the Power Grid line with its 2 resource markets.
Final scores:-
1st & winner - Keith, powered 15 cities
joint 2nd - Nasty Nick & Richard, powered 14 cities & 7 Electros left
4th - Matt, powered 14 cities & 2 Electros left
5th - Peter, powered 13 cities?
6th - David, not sure what his position was?
Oh, don't forget -Keith WON!
Friday 28 November 2008
Monday 24 November 2008
Addicted...
Time for a confession; I'm addicted to playing Dominion on-line on BSW.
This is an elegant & brilliant card game which stormed the Fairplay rankings at Essen 2008 - me & Jason both bought it, loved it from the outset. But I hadn't played as often as I'd've liked due to a lack of face-to-face opponents here at home, unless I drove out.
Then I discovered Dominion on BSW (thanks Damen) & keep having to have 'just one more game...'! I need a cure & right now, playing Dominion seems to be doing the trick!
Village, Village, Village, Market, Festival, Festival.... play my Gold - Province! YES! Eat that, you b*stard!
This is an elegant & brilliant card game which stormed the Fairplay rankings at Essen 2008 - me & Jason both bought it, loved it from the outset. But I hadn't played as often as I'd've liked due to a lack of face-to-face opponents here at home, unless I drove out.
Then I discovered Dominion on BSW (thanks Damen) & keep having to have 'just one more game...'! I need a cure & right now, playing Dominion seems to be doing the trick!
Village, Village, Village, Market, Festival, Festival.... play my Gold - Province! YES! Eat that, you b*stard!
20th November - Taj Mahal (mini session report & review)
Last Thursday saw the outing of an old game, perhaps somewhat showing its age; just like a grey-haired grandpa (perhaps we'll call this theoretical grandpa Nigel) in a games nightclub surrounded by younger & fresher games...
Perhaps that's a bad analogy, but you get the idea. Taj Mahal shows a lot of signs of being an older Euro-game when compared to the Agricolas of today - however that isn't a bad thing. Amongst its simple rules lies a game of area control, tension & 'push your luck'.
The board shows 12 regions, each of which has 4 (I think!) cities to build a palace of your colour in. Create continuous chains of your colour into other regions from the current region, the better you score. To place palaces, you play 1 card a turn (plus a white special/standard card, if you wish) of one colour only per round. Each card have two symbols from; 4 persons, elephants or a grand mongul. To win anything you need the majority of at least one symbol compared to everyone else & then withdraw - depending on what you win, you can build palaces and/or take a region tile, both of which ultimately help you score points. When you claim two of the same person tiles, you get a special white card which grants you an unique bonus in the game until someone else is able to claim it off you with two of the same tiles.
The catch is, you have a limited number of cards in your hand &, as previously mentioned, you can only play cards in one colour only per round, so this is where the tension, bluffing & push-your-luck comes in - there were a couple of occasions when somebody would end up winning three of the contests & someone else won nothing. Many times I thought Taj Mahal was a game that Huggy & possibly Damen would have enjoyed taking part in the screwage aspect.
A fantastic game & I'm thankful to Michel for suggesting it.
As for the game we played; 5 of us in total played. Michel took an early lead by picking up a few region tiles & scoring multiple points for the different symbols on them; I wasn't far behind at the start, building a few connections into other regions & holding the special white card that score +2 points each time it was played - think I picked up about 10 points before I was claimed by just about everyone else! Keith was very quickly lagging behind & never really recovered. As the game progressed, I seemed to lose my way :-( as Andre overtook me & was jostling with Michel for the first spot. Ultimately, Michel's scoring of multiple points from his region tiles & small symbol tiles was the winning factor for him. Final scores approximately:-
Michel - 50
Andre - 45?
Matt - 33
Sam- 30?
Keith - 20?
Good game, should bring it again another time.
Perhaps that's a bad analogy, but you get the idea. Taj Mahal shows a lot of signs of being an older Euro-game when compared to the Agricolas of today - however that isn't a bad thing. Amongst its simple rules lies a game of area control, tension & 'push your luck'.
The board shows 12 regions, each of which has 4 (I think!) cities to build a palace of your colour in. Create continuous chains of your colour into other regions from the current region, the better you score. To place palaces, you play 1 card a turn (plus a white special/standard card, if you wish) of one colour only per round. Each card have two symbols from; 4 persons, elephants or a grand mongul. To win anything you need the majority of at least one symbol compared to everyone else & then withdraw - depending on what you win, you can build palaces and/or take a region tile, both of which ultimately help you score points. When you claim two of the same person tiles, you get a special white card which grants you an unique bonus in the game until someone else is able to claim it off you with two of the same tiles.
The catch is, you have a limited number of cards in your hand &, as previously mentioned, you can only play cards in one colour only per round, so this is where the tension, bluffing & push-your-luck comes in - there were a couple of occasions when somebody would end up winning three of the contests & someone else won nothing. Many times I thought Taj Mahal was a game that Huggy & possibly Damen would have enjoyed taking part in the screwage aspect.
A fantastic game & I'm thankful to Michel for suggesting it.
As for the game we played; 5 of us in total played. Michel took an early lead by picking up a few region tiles & scoring multiple points for the different symbols on them; I wasn't far behind at the start, building a few connections into other regions & holding the special white card that score +2 points each time it was played - think I picked up about 10 points before I was claimed by just about everyone else! Keith was very quickly lagging behind & never really recovered. As the game progressed, I seemed to lose my way :-( as Andre overtook me & was jostling with Michel for the first spot. Ultimately, Michel's scoring of multiple points from his region tiles & small symbol tiles was the winning factor for him. Final scores approximately:-
Michel - 50
Andre - 45?
Matt - 33
Sam- 30?
Keith - 20?
Good game, should bring it again another time.
Wednesday 19 November 2008
Huggy BASHING!
Is good fun indeed! Please post here if you have anything to add on the subject, the more derogatory the better!
Welcome to my world...
Hmm, not sure what to write for my first 'blog' or what I hope to achieve by creating a blog. Ultimately, anything gaming-related will obviously go into this - session commentaries, reviews, random thoughts &. undoubtedly, a lot of crap!
For those of you who know me in Newport Pagnell & wondered 'where the hell does he store all those?' this is your answer! Thought for the day - I wonder how many are still unplayed...?
For those of you who know me in Newport Pagnell & wondered 'where the hell does he store all those?' this is your answer! Thought for the day - I wonder how many are still unplayed...?
Hopefully, it will be one less than today by tomorrow evening if the planned game of Taj Mahal goes ahead... speaking of which, must dash & read the rules!
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