Played a good crop of games recently, but time (or the lack of it) prevents me from writing a full review for everything so here is a condensed list:-
Through The Ages x2
Le Havre
Dominion x2
Age Of Steam
Age Of Steam is a new one to me; I played it for the first time last week & loved it - even though I did terribly & Huggy declared my score was 'embarrassing' & that his 'Auntie Mildred could have done better'! I really like the difficult decisions to make over how many shares to take each turn as taking to many could mean you'll pay out too much to the shareholders when calculating income & debt. Take too few & you may not have enough to do what you want each turn. Genius! AoS is also very competitive as each player wants to get his/her tracks into the best positions on the map - especially if there is a lack of a coloured city or cubes - as it may force other players using their tracks to deliver goods & thus bumping up their opponent's income.
Now I know why they say this is Martin Wallace's Magnus Opus!
Monday 9 March 2009
Sunday 1 March 2009
27th Feb (Julian & Ester's)
Not content with just the previous evening's game, I went to Julian & Ester's for some more gaming on Friday evening. We first played a quick game of Kingsburg, which I really like, but J & E weren't as keen. I won by a clear margin.
Next we played the combined game of Zooloretto & Aquaretto which we had spoken about trying since I had the former & they had the latter. I had wondered whether it would feel like too much to contend with since this is effectively two games as one. Surprisingly, it works quite well - the rules remains the same for Zooloretto under its rules & Aquaretto under its rules, but when you place tiles in the trucks at least one truck need to be filled with Z tiles & another with A tiles. Also, you cannot put Z tiles with A tiles (have you noticed I'm fed up with typing the same names already?!) so there is an extra element of considering which tiles you want to place & there can be difficult decisions when more than one truck has tiles you'd really like & which you'd need most.
The game did last a long time but we enjoyed it & I did not end my 100% losing record to Zooloretto/Aquaretto to them - Ester won on 53pts, Julian had 51pts & I had 47pts.
We then got St Petersburg out for J&E to try, but it didn't seem to be going down well & we agreed to switch to something else. So we had a couple of games of Felix:The Cat In The Sack. This is a fun & quick game of blind-bidding & has some screwage factor involved. The three of us (plus a dummy 4th player) gets a hand of 10 cards (one is removed at random before the start) with cats, dogs & a rabbit. There are 7 cats with points of 15, 11, 8, 5, 3, -5 & -8, one rabbit with 0 points & two dogs (used to scare away cats). Each round, all players choose a card (random for the dummy) to put face-down in a row & the first one is put face up. The players then bid to buy the whole row; when the first player passes, he/she takes their bid back & gets 4 more coins. The 2nd card in line is then turned face-up & the remaining two players bid - the person who passes also takes their bid back & gets 6 coins. The winner pays his/her bid to the bank & turns the two face-down card up - if a Big dog has been played, it scares away the highest value cat. If a Small dog is played, it scares away the biggest negative (or lowest positive) valued cats; if there are two or more dogs, they all cancel each other out. The game proceeds for 9 Rounds in total & the winner is the one with the most points & money remaining combined. I won one & Ester won the 2nd.
Next we played the combined game of Zooloretto & Aquaretto which we had spoken about trying since I had the former & they had the latter. I had wondered whether it would feel like too much to contend with since this is effectively two games as one. Surprisingly, it works quite well - the rules remains the same for Zooloretto under its rules & Aquaretto under its rules, but when you place tiles in the trucks at least one truck need to be filled with Z tiles & another with A tiles. Also, you cannot put Z tiles with A tiles (have you noticed I'm fed up with typing the same names already?!) so there is an extra element of considering which tiles you want to place & there can be difficult decisions when more than one truck has tiles you'd really like & which you'd need most.
The game did last a long time but we enjoyed it & I did not end my 100% losing record to Zooloretto/Aquaretto to them - Ester won on 53pts, Julian had 51pts & I had 47pts.
We then got St Petersburg out for J&E to try, but it didn't seem to be going down well & we agreed to switch to something else. So we had a couple of games of Felix:The Cat In The Sack. This is a fun & quick game of blind-bidding & has some screwage factor involved. The three of us (plus a dummy 4th player) gets a hand of 10 cards (one is removed at random before the start) with cats, dogs & a rabbit. There are 7 cats with points of 15, 11, 8, 5, 3, -5 & -8, one rabbit with 0 points & two dogs (used to scare away cats). Each round, all players choose a card (random for the dummy) to put face-down in a row & the first one is put face up. The players then bid to buy the whole row; when the first player passes, he/she takes their bid back & gets 4 more coins. The 2nd card in line is then turned face-up & the remaining two players bid - the person who passes also takes their bid back & gets 6 coins. The winner pays his/her bid to the bank & turns the two face-down card up - if a Big dog has been played, it scares away the highest value cat. If a Small dog is played, it scares away the biggest negative (or lowest positive) valued cats; if there are two or more dogs, they all cancel each other out. The game proceeds for 9 Rounds in total & the winner is the one with the most points & money remaining combined. I won one & Ester won the 2nd.
26th Feb - down on the farm again...
A couple of weeks ago (or three); me, Nick, Keith, Julian & Ester had played Agricola. We all wanted another game, so had arranged it for last Thursday. Nasty Nick had borrowed my copy of the 'Gric the week before to take a proper look at the cards & Paul B let Nick's secret out; he had been practising! Apparently it was a couple of games, but who knows what the truth really is...!
I decided to try out a combination of the E, I & K decks; dealing out 3 from E, 2 from I & 2 from K for each player's Occupations & Minor Improvements. The early part of the game was notable because the action boards suddenly filled up with bonus goods/food. Nick had a couple of great Minor Improvements that were also cheap; Private Forest (cost 2 Food - get 1 Wood on each even-numbered space) & Chicken Coop (cost 2 Wood/2Clay & 1 Reed - get one Food for the next 8 Rounds), while Ester also played the Pig Whisperer Occupation (giving her 3 Boar at various Rounds).
At first, it seemed as though me & Nick were doing better out of the 5 of us; I had got a good field/grain supply & conversion (to Food) going courtsey of my Field Watchman (when you take 1 Grain, you may also Plow one Field) & my Wood-Fired Oven (convert any number of Grain into 3 Food with the Bake Bread action). Nick was swimming in resources - I can't remember if he had also played any further cards or whether he had been taking them when they had stock-piled at least once, but whatever he was doing was clearly working so I had no doubt he would be putting them to good use! Keith, Julian & Ester were also chugging along fine without looking like they were really struggling.
Now, I don't know what happen to me but it somehow went belly-up for me at some point. Perhaps I hadn't developed my farm enough or didn't have enough Family members, but suddenly it seemed as though I had too many things to do and - the horror! - my Food supply looked like drying up as I was committing my workers to other actions than Bake Bread. In an effort to salvage my farm, I played the Ceramics Minor Improvement (receive 2 Food, the Pottery (Major Imp.) now costs you nothing) & this is where I think I was beginning to have a bad day; somehow, I missed the words 'costs you nothing' & so didn't pick up the Pottery until near the end of the game - D'OH! That would have been a big, big help had I taken it earlier. To make things worse, on the penultimate turn, I forgot all about Food & did other actions... then realised I didnit have any Food for my two Family members. Nada, zilch, zero! So I had to give up FOUR Grain to feed them & then on the last turn, I took lots of Clay which gave me 2 Food & 3 Bonus points with the Pottery. I still had to take TWO begging cards!!! I felt like throwing my toys out of the pram as a result of my own stupidity...!!!
By game end, both Nick & Keith had got a larger Stone Hut with 4 or 5 Family members each & approximately the same number of unused spaces. Though I thought it was most likely Keith had won since he had something of everything & Nick had no Fields, Grain or Vegetables...
Final scoring;
(Fields/Pastures/Grain/Vegetables/ Sheep/Boar/Cattle/Unused Spaces/Fenced Stables/Clay Hut rooms/Stone Hut rooms/Family members/Points for cards/Bonus points)
1st - Keith: (2/4/1/1/2/2/1/-3/2/0/6/15/1/0) = 34pts.
2nd - Nick: (-1/4/-1/-1/2/1/1/-4/2/0/8/12/8/2) = 31pts.
3rd - Ester: (2/4/1/-1/1/4/1/-2/1/2/0/6/2/0) = 21pts.
4th - Matt: (3/2/-1/-1/2/3/-1/-4/2/3/0/6/4/-3) = 15pts.
5th - Julian: (-1/4/-1/-1/3/-1/3/-5/2/0/0/6/1/0) = 10pts.
I decided to try out a combination of the E, I & K decks; dealing out 3 from E, 2 from I & 2 from K for each player's Occupations & Minor Improvements. The early part of the game was notable because the action boards suddenly filled up with bonus goods/food. Nick had a couple of great Minor Improvements that were also cheap; Private Forest (cost 2 Food - get 1 Wood on each even-numbered space) & Chicken Coop (cost 2 Wood/2Clay & 1 Reed - get one Food for the next 8 Rounds), while Ester also played the Pig Whisperer Occupation (giving her 3 Boar at various Rounds).
At first, it seemed as though me & Nick were doing better out of the 5 of us; I had got a good field/grain supply & conversion (to Food) going courtsey of my Field Watchman (when you take 1 Grain, you may also Plow one Field) & my Wood-Fired Oven (convert any number of Grain into 3 Food with the Bake Bread action). Nick was swimming in resources - I can't remember if he had also played any further cards or whether he had been taking them when they had stock-piled at least once, but whatever he was doing was clearly working so I had no doubt he would be putting them to good use! Keith, Julian & Ester were also chugging along fine without looking like they were really struggling.
Now, I don't know what happen to me but it somehow went belly-up for me at some point. Perhaps I hadn't developed my farm enough or didn't have enough Family members, but suddenly it seemed as though I had too many things to do and - the horror! - my Food supply looked like drying up as I was committing my workers to other actions than Bake Bread. In an effort to salvage my farm, I played the Ceramics Minor Improvement (receive 2 Food, the Pottery (Major Imp.) now costs you nothing) & this is where I think I was beginning to have a bad day; somehow, I missed the words 'costs you nothing' & so didn't pick up the Pottery until near the end of the game - D'OH! That would have been a big, big help had I taken it earlier. To make things worse, on the penultimate turn, I forgot all about Food & did other actions... then realised I didnit have any Food for my two Family members. Nada, zilch, zero! So I had to give up FOUR Grain to feed them & then on the last turn, I took lots of Clay which gave me 2 Food & 3 Bonus points with the Pottery. I still had to take TWO begging cards!!! I felt like throwing my toys out of the pram as a result of my own stupidity...!!!
By game end, both Nick & Keith had got a larger Stone Hut with 4 or 5 Family members each & approximately the same number of unused spaces. Though I thought it was most likely Keith had won since he had something of everything & Nick had no Fields, Grain or Vegetables...
Final scoring;
(Fields/Pastures/Grain/Vegetables/ Sheep/Boar/Cattle/Unused Spaces/Fenced Stables/Clay Hut rooms/Stone Hut rooms/Family members/Points for cards/Bonus points)
1st - Keith: (2/4/1/1/2/2/1/-3/2/0/6/15/1/0) = 34pts.
2nd - Nick: (-1/4/-1/-1/2/1/1/-4/2/0/8/12/8/2) = 31pts.
3rd - Ester: (2/4/1/-1/1/4/1/-2/1/2/0/6/2/0) = 21pts.
4th - Matt: (3/2/-1/-1/2/3/-1/-4/2/3/0/6/4/-3) = 15pts.
5th - Julian: (-1/4/-1/-1/3/-1/3/-5/2/0/0/6/1/0) = 10pts.
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