Cooperative Tile Laying Games

As I was reading the rules of Hacienda the other evening I realised that the rules of the game would influence how the players laid out the tiles. "Realised" is too strong a word, maybe I just began thinking about that. This idea has been floating around my head since learning Key Harvest, and it's inspired by Key Harvest's rule that your largest group scores one point per tile and your second largest group scores 2 points per tile. That simple rule encourages you to make your groups of tiles the same size. And as the rules point out, that's what Keywood, the ruler of Keydom, is trying to encourage. Keywood understands that the rules are a mechanism by which the players can be coerced to form a pattern of the designer's understanding. In that sense, by competing, the players cooperate to form a pattern of the style intended by the designer.

In Hacienda the goal pattern is long chains of land tiles with herds attached. However large herds don't score much, whereas connecting to markets does, so the herds tend to be small. Well, it depends on the map I suppose, but there are certainly times when it's much better to make more small herds. The rule that land groups only score if they contain 3 or more tiles prevents players from laying a single land tile near a market and attaching a herd to it - players tend to have only a few land groups.

Consider what would happen if we changed the rules of Carcassonne so that everybody who has a meeple in a city scored it. Joining into a city would about as good as before, but everybody in the city would be trying to complete it, compared to just those players who are currently leading in the city. This slight change in motivation would probably lead to more completed structures and fewer ugly gaps in the map.

Other tile laying games where the players cooperate to form a pattern include:

• Architekton - except, as mentioned in my previous post, there is motivation to make the pattern ugly.
• Attika - you're encouraged to play your group together and not build many settlements. If only that would work for me!
• Ingenious - players generally form clumps of one colour, until the blocking starts. Ending the scoring track at 20 rather than 18 would cause slightly larger groups of each colour.
• Java / Mexica / Torres - in these games the rules are more complicated because there are more types of tiles and Mr Kramer has more complicated intentions for you. I just realised Hacienda is very much like those games, though a bit simpler.
• Santorini - does a good job of encouraging the players to form that lovely Greek island landscape with very simple rules.
  
• Go - OK, so nobody explicitly designed Go as far as we know, but the rules create some beautiful structures. Sometimes it's really messy, too.
• Taluva - the desire to place your towers and temples causes settlements in the mountains. Quite simple rules generate gorgeous mountain villages. I don't understand what there's not to love about this game.
• Gheos - This is an example of a game where the rules completely fail to generate a nice map. A player builds a continent with a civilisation and the next player tears it down. It's like building sandcastles with your 3 year old son - nothing remains for very long. This is probably the major reason the game didn't work for me. I *like* the cooperative nature of tile-laying games, and Gheos is all about breaking things.
  

THE SEVENTH GUEST

I just realised I'm a long way behind on session reports for The Gathering of Friendless. It's because I've been playing squash... of course... I play on Saturday morning, and I'm a useless lump of whining lard until Tuesday at least.

Anyway, Episode 3 of The Gathering of Friendless occurred a couple of weeks ago. The title of the episode was chosen because I was desperately trying to avoid having exactly 7 guests. Seven is the crappiest number for board-gaming. After you've played Shadows Over Camelot you're down to party-style games like Saboteur and The Great Dalmuti. They're fine games, but I prefer 3 or 4 player games on average. Sadly, 7 is a small enough number that it *seems* like there should be some better games to play, so people are reluctant to split into 2 tables. My theory is that with 6 players we could play, with 8 players I could convince people to split into 2 tables, but 7 is just very difficult so it's better avoided.

I took the approach of inviting 9 people and warning all of them that exactly 2 people not coming was unacceptable. They took me seriously, and 4 people didn't come along, leaving us with ... you do the maths... which is a fine number for games.

We started with Carcassonne in honour of the kid who'd visited the real place during the week. I realised that the game is much cleverer than I'd thought, and despite being flogged by CyberKev I increased my rating for it on BGG. All the tile types work together to contribute to the tension, and it's just such a clever game. I can't wait for the collectors' 3D edition (no, I haven't heard of such a thing. I made that up).

We then went on to Word Tower, because the ladies at the table like word games. For whatever reason, the ladies at the table were all at sea with this game, and it was a battle between CyberKev and I to rush to the win. CyberKev scored 4, I scored 5, Hubertus scored 1, and the ladies scored nothing at all. I believe male and female brains are different, and it seems this was a male-brain game.

We then tried out Tsuro, a very useful game which takes from 2 to 8 players. I've tried it with 2 and 5 and it was fine with both of those numbers. Scrabblette made the mistake of coming to attack me while sitting on my right. The second she approached I ran her off the board. A combination of experience and luck allowed me to see off the others well.

It was getting late, but we still had the stamina for Cartagena II. Actually, Jane didn't have the stamina. Jane had a nap. But the rest of us guessed what the rules were from the German and some discussion on BGG, and at least agreed on some rules to use in the absence of anything better. I figured out how to control the boat between the islands, and had 6 of my pirates in town before anyone else had 4.

I enjoyed the evening a lot. I played two games I'd bought but hadn't got to the table before, and we didn't have to play Shadows Over Camelot over and over and over.

New Games Played On Holiday

So here's why I've been so quiet since Scrabblette got back: we've been on holiday. We went down to the Blue Mountains to Euroka Homestead for a week with some other gamers. Not to say that Scrabblette is a gamer, but she can approximate one when she needs to. We did a couple of trips into Sydney to visit friends and do some of the tourist things including seeing an exceedingly dull exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Luckily, I played several new games during the week.

Flaschenteufel - this is a nasty little card game where one player gets screwed each hand. It's fun to plan for it to not be you. I think with experience it would be excellent.

Expedition - ho hum and double ho hum. This game reminds me a lot of Australia which I really don't like. Luckily the theme doesn't suck anywhere near so bad. I dislike both of them because some players can have long turns and get heaps of stuff, often leaving other players to have a boring turn and get nothing. Maybe that's because those players have skill, but maybe it's just because the games suck? Anyway, I wasn't excited by it at all.

Mü - I'd heard good things about this so I was keen to try it, and as we went through the rules it sounded exciting. Soon I realised it sucked. My fundamental problem is that if 1s are trumps I can have a blue 1 and not be allowed to play it on a blue trick. I know why, I know it's the rules, it just sucks. If I wanted to play a game where some trumps changed suit I'd play 500.

Phoenix - I played half a game of Phoenix and quite liked it. I'll have to buy my own copy and play some more.

Carcassonne - Hunters and Gatherers- I like the idea of a different Carcassonne with nicer tiles, but as I played it I realised that the different tiles just made the board look busy and the bonus mechanism, although it encouraged people to complete forests, wasn't very exciting most of the time. The game seems to be a bit more complex than the original with not many advantages to compensate. Ho hum.

Mystery Rummy: Murders in the Rue Morgue - Not really a new game, as the kid and his mum and I have played this many times. However it was new to play 4 players which made the game a very interesting partnership game. We played against our usual Tichu opponents, and I liked it a lot.

Elefantenparade - I like the theme of this game, I liked the simplicity, but it has really failed to deliver both times I've played it. The first time I got by the world's biggest ever kingmaker move, and the second time we got stuck in analysis paralysis trying to figure out how to prevent people from winning. Scrabblette suggested playing in two teams of two so that you can validly choose to help your partner and avoid kingmaking. I hope to try that.

Take it Easy - This is a weird little game which is half solitaire puzzle and half solitaire puzzle. Umm, let's add that up. I don't know if it's actually very interesting.

My Word! - This is the sort of word game I'm very good at. Everyone else played for second place. That means I like it a lot but will rarely get it to the table.

The Battle of Lanka - Scrabblette brought me this from India. It's a simple card game and I was worried that it might not work at all. We played three games with CyberKev and Mrs CyberKev. The first two games were won after one turn when the first player felt they'd got lucky with the deal and were in a strong enough position to win. In both cases they were right. We then decided that it should be compulsory to play all the way through the deck, which rule change caused us to play the game we thought the designer probably wanted to design. It was OK - nothing super, but an interesting experience.

Maharaja: Palace Building in India - I've been looking forward to playing this for a while, but I was amazed as I heard the rules that you could do so little on a turn. It didn't seem right to me. It turned out that the rules work OK but I can't add 12 and 2 and managed to screw up my first turn. I struggled to find a strategy based on screwing up your first turn and lost interest as the players who were doing well took their time making moves. I'd like to play again, but maybe just with Scrabblette for a while. She liked and beat me in the 4 player game.

That's all the new games I played while on holiday, but some other things happened on the way back home. There's a shop called Mal's Toy Store on the highway in Taree so of course we pulled over and had a look. They had a copy of Batik for a good price, which my FLGS has not so far supplied, so I bought that. I was going to buy 50c worth of lollies but the nice lady gave them to me. Then she mentioned she hadn't learned Tantrix so she couldn't sell it, so I showed her how to play the solitaire version.

Later in the day we stopped at The Big Banana. There's a puzzle shop next door, so we took a look. I found two games I'd never heard of called Landlord and Spin and Trap, and it turns out that BGG hadn't heard of them either. So I bought them for $A30 each. Scrabblette and I tried to play Landlord while eating a banana split but we didn't really understand the rules and have to try it again with our improved understanding. At the same shop Scrabblette bought a word game called Snatch which leaves an opening for some pretty appalling double entendres which I won't go into here.

I had a good session of Batik with BIL this evening, and although it's not a brilliant game it works OK. It LOOKS beautiful. I love Gigamic games - I have 3 now and plan to acquire more. After watching BIL and I play, 6yo nephew demanded a game and played against Scrabblette... he kicked her butt. He's a gamer, that lad, you mark my words.

Anyway, that's most of the gaming news from the holidays. Maybe I could tell you the story about... nah, if I even tell you what the story's about Scrabblette will... er, better not say that either.

Has It Got Legs?

In the five and dime discussions on spielfrieks someone asked posters of five and dime lists to comment on whether they thought the games "had legs", i.e. would they maintain their number of plays this year. That's an interesting question, so I'm going to go through my five and dimes and answer it. Get a cup of coffee, we could be here for a while.

Ca$h'n Gun$ (20 plays) - Will probably get to 10 plays again as it's a favourite of medium-sized kids and I know a few of those.

PitchCar (18 plays) - May get to 10 plays as I carry it around in the car for those times when I discover myself in a social situation with lots of non-gamers. Won't be played as much as it was last year.

Quoridor (17 plays) - Will get to 10 plays again this year as it's quick. I have a lot of 2 player abstracts, but most of my family are potential opponents.

Werewolf (17 plays) - Will probably get to 10 plays as it's popular at larger gaming gatherings where we often play a couple of games.

Liar's Dice (15 plays) - Will certainly get to 10 plays because it often comes out at the end of the night at Critical Mass.

Lost Cities (14 plays) - May not even make it to 5 plays this year as both of the women I played against last year are no longer gaming with me, and I'm not sure that it's Scrabblette's style. Personally, I would rather play Battle Line.

Nacht der Magier (13 plays) - Will probably make it to 5 plays but not to 10. This year it was a novelty and I will try to bring it out whenever I can this year. However I do want to get Waldschattenspiel which will compete for table time.

Gobblet (13 plays) - Will make it to 10 plays again this year as I am not finished with it yet and have plenty of opponents.

Cartagena (13 plays) - I expect this will only get to 5 plays this year. I played a lot early last year and got a bit burnt out, but it's such an easy game to explain that I'll probably teach it a few more times this year. My 6yo nephew likes it.

Coloretto (12 plays) - I still like this game but it's hard to get people to play it regularly. Maybe only 5 plays this year.

Coda (11 plays) - One that CyberKev often suggests and that I always agree with. Will get at least 5 plays.

Scrabble (11 plays) - Definitely on the Dime list again this year. I've played 3 games already.

Poison (10 plays) - Will not get to 10 plays again this year and almost certainly will not get to 5. There are other games I'd rather play and I'll probably stop carrying it around for a while.

Ingenious (10 plays) - Will not get 10 plays again this year unless Scrabblette likes it. Most of my plays last year were solitaire and I'm past that now.

Diamant (9 plays) - Will almost certainly get 10 plays this year. In fact I'll probably put it in the non-gamer's box which lives in the car. It's so easy to teach and quite a lot of fun so it's easy to get it played.

Poison Pot (9 plays) - Won't get to even 5 plays this year unless I can convince Scrabblette to play against me. I like it but almost nobody else does.

Cloud 9 (8 plays) - Will probably get to 5 plays again this year as the kids like it. Diamant will compete with it.

No Thanks! (8 plays) - I won't volunteer to play this very many times this year, but I suspect I will on occasion. Maybe not even 5 times though.

Once Upon a Time (8 plays) - I bought my niece the Dark Tales expansion for Christmas so we will play Once Upon a Time a few times this year.

Saboteur (7 plays) - Another good game for large groups. Maybe not 7 plays, but 5 is perfectly feasible.

Ra (7 plays) - Another that I won't volunteer to play but probably will anyway. Yes, it is my favourite auction game, but I hate auction games!

ZÈRTZ (7 plays) - A definite yes - I want to play this game at least 10 times this year, and I have a number of suitable opponents.

TAMSK (7 plays) - I'm not so keen on TAMSK, but not so unkeen that I won't play it. Hey, was that a triple negative?! If I bring it out a couple of times it will get to 5 or 10 plays easily.

For Sale (7 plays) - Probably won't get to 5 plays this year, I find it a bit boring.

Tichu (7 plays) - Considering that we were playing this once a week and Scrabblette likes it, this might become my most played game of 2007. Maybe we'll get sick of it, who knows?

Puerto Rico (7 plays) - The BGG #1 was a game I desperately wanted to play this year, and finally did. I even had a streak where I won 3 games in a row. But now it's almost a case of been there, done that, and I don't need to play it so many times this year. I think knowing that it's possible to play better than I do stresses me.

Commands & Colors: Ancients (7 plays) - I enjoy Ancients a lot and would like to play many more times this year. On the other hand, my opponent Arnold Horshack and I both now have BattleLore which will compete for table time. I'm hoping we can make time for both.

Chrononauts (7 plays) - This got played a few times last year because it was a Christmas present to the kid. When we tried to play it with serious gamers it became quite monotonous, and unless someone requests it it won't be played again this year.

Cathedral (6 plays) - Scrabblette gave me a copy of this for Christmas so it will be played quite a bit this year. It only takes 5 minutes, after all.

Bohnanza (6 plays) - The big year for Bohnanza was 2005, so 6 plays in 2006 were mostly incidental. I used to play with my sister, BIL, and my ex, which is unlikely to happen again, but we might be able to convince Scrabblette to play and Bohnanza will be back on the table again. If so, it might compete with Frank's Zoo and Mystery Rummy for table time.

DVONN (6 plays) - Another two player abstract which I like and have opponents for.

Tongiaki (6 plays) - This is fairly popular at Critical Mass and I've taught it a few other times, so I expect it will see 5 plays again this year.

Frank's Zoo (6 plays) - I mostly played this with CyberKev, but I also taught sister, BIL and ex and they liked it. I hope I can find time to play it a few times this year.

The Great Balloon Race (6 plays) - 6yo nephew's copy is still in the mail from Germany, so when it arrives we'll have to play it a few times. I expect it will get to 5 plays again this year.

Nodwick: The Card Game (5 plays) - This game is popular with medium-sized kids, but I'd probably teach them Ca$h'n'Gun$ first, so it will be struggling for plays. Probably won't get to 5 plays in 2007.

Pick Picknic (5 plays) - 6yo nephew has this and I like it, but whether we'll get to play it 5 times is another matter. I expect not.

Gang of Four (5 plays) - This game is very much in the same space as Frank's Zoo and Tichu and isn't as good as either of those, so I don't think it will see much play this year.

GIPF (5 plays) - Scrabblette likes this, and so do I, so it will see a bit of play for sure, probably more than last year. After all, we've got to do something in bed on Sunday morning, don't we?

San Juan (5 plays) - I bought this in 2005, so the 5 plays in 2006 were as many as I could manage to scrape up without particularly much enthusiasm. I'd like to maintain that number this year, but I expect I won't.

China Moon (5 plays) - I like China Moon a lot but it does have some flaws which means I'll struggle to get it to the table. I'd be surprised if it made 5 plays again.

Xe Queo! (5 plays) - I like this game a lot, and it's easy to teach, so I'll cart it around and try to play it with all and sundry. That means it will probably be played about 5 times.

Scopa (5 plays) - This is an Italian card game that I played only with a lady I was seeing during the year. It wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the lady, so I suspect I won't be playing it again this year.

Rumis (5 plays) - I have an unopened copy of this, and it won't stay that way very long. I think the kids will like this. I can see it being played 5 times this year.

Give Me the Brain! (5 plays) - This game comes out occasionally and will probably continue to do so, but maybe not 5 times in 2007.

Gulo Gulo (5 plays) - This is a great game for little kids, but there are not so many of those in my life at the moment, so it might not see much play in 2007. Maybe if I take up smoking dope it might see some use.

Bamboleo (5 plays) - I bought myself and my sister the kleeblatt edition for Christmas, so it will be played a few times. Maybe even as many as 10.

Igel Ärgern (5 plays) - I like this cute and simple game but not everybody shares my enthusiasm. It will get to 5 plays if I push it, but I suspect I won't. However I'll probably carry it around and it will be played a couple of times.

PÜNCT (5 plays) - I haven't really explored this one yet, and I'd like to. The kid and BIL like it, so I suspect I'll find time for 5 plays in 2007.

Carcassonne (5 plays) - Carc is not a game I go out of my way to play, but other people really do like it. As the kids seem to like it, I suspect I won't be able to avoid it in 2007 and it will see 5 plays again.

Hamsterrolle (5 plays) - Only 5 plays of this beautiful game... what a shame! I expect it will see about the same number in 2007 unless I sell it to Mikey for $5.

Queen's Necklace (5 plays) - This was bought as a back-up Christmas present for my niece last year due to the very unreliable internet store we have here in Australia. I ended up playing it myself. I don't see a need to play it again.

Carrom (5 plays) - Scrabblette is good at this, and I have ambitions to beat her, so we should play it a bit this year. I'd like to see it played regularly which would push it over 10 plays.

Make 'n' Break (5 plays) - This is pretty popular with the kids, so it should see a bit of play this year. I expect 5 plays.

Of course, as I learned last year, you never can tell what's going to happen next.

What Makes a Really Great Game?

Some games are fun. Some games are interesting. Some games are more than that. I tried the other day to explain to an email correspondent why I like games, and I think I had an insight - games are a world in which players can interact in ways that are not permissible in the real world, and a great game is a game that supports richness of that interaction. The game is an abstract lens through which players can see each other as they could be.

What does that mean? Take Carcassonne as an example. It's often the case that I have a tile that could be played to help you or to hinder you. I can choose to be nice or nasty. In the real world, I would choose to be nice. In the game, I can choose to be nasty and you won't resent it in the real world. I can also choose to be distant from you, or in your face. Our relationship in the game may be quite different from our relationship in the real world. The game lets us interact in ways we never would in real life.

I play many abstract games (Gipf series, Gobblet, Quoridor) against by brother-in-law BIL. In those games I often find a particularly cunning move which lets him know that I've seen what he was up to and I've found a foil to it AND I've backstabbed him at the same time. His inevitable comment is "Oh, you bastard!" And he sometimes does the same thing to me. As abstracts are particularly easy to make stupid mistakes in (Gobblet has a rule that if you touch a piece you must play it), we also act much stupider on average in the game than in real life.

In a game you can be aggressive, nasty, annoying, nice, tricky, cunning, aloof, bizarre, and in general behave in ways you can't do in real life. Citadels, which I played again last night, allows for a large range of nasty and tricky behaviour which you wouldn't otherwise get away with. It's a great game, though emotions do tend to seep into real life a little.

I find two player games to be particularly good, probably because each player has more control and can express more of their personality through the flow of the game. Even Scrabble (which must be played two player to be at its best) supports all the things I've mentioned. I've been known to play a fairly poor word down the side of the board mostly with the intention of keeping my opponent away from the Triple Word Score. Nasty, but accepted behaviour. And if my opponent didn't do it to me I'd wonder what she was up to.

The GIPF Project games are great, but I find them a little too abstract to express a great depth of player emotion, which is why I haven't rated any of them a 10 despite having very high regard for them. I think you just need a little more complication, such as you find in Trias or Domaine or Citadels, to be a really great game.

I think I'll eventually explore this idea further. Opinions?

Love in the Time of Carcassonne

CyberKev has been bitching that I've been in a blogging drought, to which I have the answer he should have expected - there's a woman involved! And if at any time there's not a woman involved, it's the lack of a woman that's causing trouble. In any case, my life is as finely balanced as a game of Puerto Rico - there's only 168 hours in the week, and you can follow the Love Life strategy or the Game Geek strategy, and the more you do of one the less you do of the other. Maybe I should rename this blog "Sex and the Single Gamer". But that would be misleading :-(. Anyway, CyberKev should be grateful that he has managed to hijack my love life and turn it into a quest for a 4th for Tichu.

So, on Sunday I went to visit my sister who has introduced me to hardly any of her single friends. I wanted to play a game with her and the kids, but Dogville was too long and Escape From Atlantis only takes 4, and there's 5 or 6 of us depending on whether BIL is playing. In desperation as I rushed out the door I grabbed Carcassonne. It's like going out on the prowl and having nothing to wear but a faded pair of jeans. So embarrassing to be seen playing something so dowdy.

Of course, my sister hadn't played it before, and it was completely new to the kids, so I had to teach them how to play. Out of respect for the newbies, there were no such things as farmers, not even lying-down ones. Anyway, it was disturbing seeing people who didn't know how to play Carcassonne. It was new to them. It was like seeing someone discover the sky was blue, or that you could drink water. Or that chicks really dig faded jeans.

Anyway, son and sister conspired to build a big city. I could see myself getting shut out of the game, so I tried to invade and they blocked me. I tried to invade again and succeeded in preventing them from completing the city. Meanwhile, I started a small city and was joined by 5yo nephew. As there were no farmers, I invested in a lot of roads as well - I had my guys out working for me! Son could have played better by taking small points with his extra meeples, but he just doesn't get that every point counts. Oh, and everybody loved doinking - you can't knock a game where doinking is taken seriously.

My attacks on the big city succeeded in keeping son and sister out of the winning position. Niece played respectably but didn't get involved in any major cooperation. Nephew made enough points out of our city to get into second place, but I beat him by about 5. They did seem to like the game - building a city, meeples, doinking - it does have a lot going for it. And finally they know what my Meeple People shirt is about.

On the same evening BIL and I played a few games of Gobblet, yet another of my underplayed two player abstracts. It's a very good game as well, though not quite as popular as Quoridor. We'll have to play more because we're still not out of the "losing due to stupid mistakes" skill level.

Anyway, enough blogging. I've got a strategy to execute.

The Curse of the Cloister

As Cyberkev is off to Albury to claim his rightful title as Australian Carcassonne champion, we had a game of Carcassonne at Book Realm last night. Three players, so not quite tournament rules, but all practice is good practice. I was lucky enough to draw at least 5, maybe 6 cloisters during the game. However a good blocking move by Cyberkev made it impossible to complete two of them, and along with my usual policy of going for the fields early, suffered an extreme shortage of meeples all through the game. To add insult to injury, trying to claim the fields was a case of getting into a pissing war with Cyberkev, which is never good. RealmKeeper totally flogged both of us. Fields didn't even decide the game, as there weren't many completed cities. I'm going to need some more experience if I'm going to win this game with a stream of cloisters.

Why doesn't the Australian Games Expo have tournaments for some good games? Oh OK, Settlers is a good game.