ConVic is a weekend-long games convention hosted by unhalfbricking.com in Melbourne twice a year. Scrabblette, the kid and I went down for the weekend - the third time that the kid and I have been. Every time we go we have a better time as we know more of the people from the previous time and are less stressed about dealing with Melbourne :-). This post is about the new games played on our trip, but I would like to mention what great guys brendanm, karlsen and aaronseeber are for giving us lifts around town.
Tier Auf Tier - For some reason I was enchanted by the pictures of this game and imagined it would be super fun. Instead, it was just a bit ho-hum. I tried my best to make life difficult for my opponents, but the structure seemed to be a bit more stable than made for a good game. However if a cute little kid asked me to play with them, I would.
Ingenious: Travel Edition - Scrabblette demanded that I buy this when we were visiting Mind Games in Swanston St. It is a lot more convenient than the big box of the standard game, and we played while waiting for dinner in an Italian restaurant. The scoring track could be better - sliders would have been much nicer.
Streetcar - I played a 6 player game of this which lasted a bit too long for my tastes, but with fewer players I think it would be OK. It seems to be very much my sort of game, but I found the other players interfered with every plan I tried to hatch, and I just got frustrated. Scrabblette says I should buy it, I say I might when I've learned to like it.
Flaschenteufel - I have played this before, but we used the wrong rules. We USED to play that whoever had the bottle scored all of their points negative, which meant people regularly spent the whole game negative. This time we played that only the kitty scored negative, which didn't scare Brendan at all as he manipulated the cards so as to claim the last 5 or so tricks, and the kitty was a minor inconvenience in comparison. THAT obviously wasn't right either. aaronseeber suggests that maybe the bottle means you score negative for the kitty and nothing for your tricks. We'll try that next time.
Himalaya - I've played this before as well - the first game I every played against CyberKev, and I remembered it fondly. This time I remembered that the other players kept ruining perfectly sensible plans, and my opinion of it dropped a little.
Axiom - aaronseeber was the brave man who tried to understand the rules of this game and explained it to me. It certainly is a brain-burner. We spent a few turns discussing what good and bad moves were. Then Darren came along and started discussing with Aaron how best to beat me. When they missed a potential attack by me I decided to win while I still could and claimed the victory to their shock. I'd like to play it again - it's quick and intriguing - but I might eventually end up disliking it.
Race For the Galaxy - Just like San Juan! Yeah, but with a crappy theme and more complicated. Yes, there was something interesting in there, but I'm not really a huge fan. I had the military starter hand and implemented a military strategy fairly effectively, but lost to aaronseeber's produce / consume / buy VPs strategy. Meh... I'd play it again.
Key Harvest - I really really wanted to play Key Harvest, so I put it on the table and as I hoped, some people came. This was a game I added to an order to get free shipping, and although I researched it pretty carefully I wasn't sure I was going to like it. It has strong connection elements, but I wasn't sure about the sales mechanism. It turned out I did like the sales mechanism (quick summary - I choose what's for sale and set a price, you can pay me that much for it, or I can pay the bank that much) as I set high prices which reflected what the field was worth to me, and when people paid it I felt I'd screwed them down. Brendan played a very good game and I think I beat him by a point. I like Key Harvest a lot.
Kingsburg - This is another I've done research on, and I suspected I'd like. I was right, and I like it even more than I expected to. I was taught by Neil from Albury. I was wary of the invasions, and pursued a defensive strategy which worked just well enough to win the game. I'm thinking about getting it - it's good, but is it good enough to be played regularly?
Pandemic - This was my number one priority to play, and when I had the chance I grabbed Randy and made him teach me. We played very quickly so as to finish before the Take It Easy tournament, and as Randy was the experienced player he made a lot of suggestions which I followed. He was the dispatcher and I was the researcher, and we won almost comfortably. I did like this, and will get my own copy if I can. It will be a good solitaire game, though I suspect as with most cooperative games it will suffer from the "do what the most experience guy says" syndrome.
Caylus Magna Carta - I didn't like Caylus much, but since Agricola came out I can see that it did some good things. I figured that if they could put the good things into a much shorter game it might work. Y'know... I really really hate the provost. If he just moved at a constant rate that would be OK, but I do not like the mechanism of being able to pay to move him backwards. That costs both games 2 or 3 rating points from me. Magna Carta was better than Caylus, but I think I still only rate it a 5.
Tri-Virsity - This is a rummy game with letter cards where your melds have to be words. Scrabblette suggested I buy it, and we've played three games of it already. It is a bit frustratingly random, as one player can go out on their first time and another player can have a fistful of consonants, but it's OK.
Showing posts with label Caylus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caylus. Show all posts
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Yes, Agricola Really Is That Good
I spent this evening at CyberKev's house playing the print'n'play version of Agricola. This version is a combination of Melissa's translation and (someone I forget)'s paste-up art, all printed on cyberkev's printer. In case you think that's illegal or immoral or something, cyberkev and I both have preordered it - Zev is getting money out of us anyway! So, onto the game.
Agricola combines the good bits of Puerto Rico, Caylus and Roads and Boats, which is pretty clever because I didn't even realise Caylus HAD any good bits. The good bits of Caylus were that you could put a token on a building to do stuff. In Agricola that bit is translated to "you have a person who goes and does some work". The bad bits of Caylus were building ownership, bailiff / provost backstabbery bullshit and stupid theme about building a cathedral or castle or something that only served to interfere with the rest of your plans. Agricola has none of that crap.
I found the selection of actions to be much more like Puerto Rico (and hence San Juan) where you're just hoping that the other player won't take the action (role) you want to take. Even better, if the scum does take it, there's often a second-best alternative. In our 5 player game the number of available actions seemed to be just enough so that even if you got an action you didn't really want you didn't feel like you were completely doomed, you just had to change plan. That way I remained engaged with the game instead of wishing I was somewhere else.
The similarity with Roads and Boats is in the extremely simple yet effective economic system. In Agricola it's simple - two animals produce a baby, a field produces a fixed amount of produce like a Roads and Boats mine, more family members can do more work. The costs of things were such that I managed to usually buy the things I wanted without wasting turns saving up. The balance of the economic system was pretty sweet in the way that Puerto Rico and Power Grid's fuel system have done before.
We played the family game. As I was first player I started with some wood but was left at the mercy of the other players to show me a strategy to implement with it. I started sheep farming, built some pens and stables, got some more sheep, branched out into boars, had a baby. I felt like I hadn't achieved much but then I built a huge pen which took up most of my land. As the game closed down I tried to maximise points and put in a vege patch and a wheat field. I ended on 29 points due to having no unused fields, and the two winners only had 31. I felt like that was a creditable performance. Furthermore, the game only took 3 hours in a group where even Klunker seems to take an hour.
I'm so excited about this game that when my copy arrives I'll probably play with myself for days... My prediction is that Agricola will reach at least #2 on BGG.
Agricola combines the good bits of Puerto Rico, Caylus and Roads and Boats, which is pretty clever because I didn't even realise Caylus HAD any good bits. The good bits of Caylus were that you could put a token on a building to do stuff. In Agricola that bit is translated to "you have a person who goes and does some work". The bad bits of Caylus were building ownership, bailiff / provost backstabbery bullshit and stupid theme about building a cathedral or castle or something that only served to interfere with the rest of your plans. Agricola has none of that crap.
I found the selection of actions to be much more like Puerto Rico (and hence San Juan) where you're just hoping that the other player won't take the action (role) you want to take. Even better, if the scum does take it, there's often a second-best alternative. In our 5 player game the number of available actions seemed to be just enough so that even if you got an action you didn't really want you didn't feel like you were completely doomed, you just had to change plan. That way I remained engaged with the game instead of wishing I was somewhere else.
The similarity with Roads and Boats is in the extremely simple yet effective economic system. In Agricola it's simple - two animals produce a baby, a field produces a fixed amount of produce like a Roads and Boats mine, more family members can do more work. The costs of things were such that I managed to usually buy the things I wanted without wasting turns saving up. The balance of the economic system was pretty sweet in the way that Puerto Rico and Power Grid's fuel system have done before.
We played the family game. As I was first player I started with some wood but was left at the mercy of the other players to show me a strategy to implement with it. I started sheep farming, built some pens and stables, got some more sheep, branched out into boars, had a baby. I felt like I hadn't achieved much but then I built a huge pen which took up most of my land. As the game closed down I tried to maximise points and put in a vege patch and a wheat field. I ended on 29 points due to having no unused fields, and the two winners only had 31. I felt like that was a creditable performance. Furthermore, the game only took 3 hours in a group where even Klunker seems to take an hour.
I'm so excited about this game that when my copy arrives I'll probably play with myself for days... My prediction is that Agricola will reach at least #2 on BGG.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Lust
There are a number of new games out and about that I'd like to comment on.
Caylus Magna Carta - Rick Thornquist reviewed this and it sounds like a streamlined card game version of Caylus. What good news that is! I may be tempted to play it.
Tannhäuser - I don't know what appeals to me about this game, I think it's the grim theme and excellent artwork. It may be something like Doom: the Board Game but without the ripped-off Space Hulk mechanics. I don't really like war theme, but when you add demons to it that changes everything. Check out the publisher's promo material.
Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg - this was reviewed on boardgamenews.com. The review explains the game well and I want it pretty badly now. Oops, looks like BGN has gone and exceeded its CPU quota again.
Thurn & Taxis: For Power & Glory - this is an expansion to Thurn & Taxis which is a game I like to look at but don't much want to play. The map on the expansion looks just as pretty as the original. Do I buy it just to look at?
Caylus Magna Carta - Rick Thornquist reviewed this and it sounds like a streamlined card game version of Caylus. What good news that is! I may be tempted to play it.
Tannhäuser - I don't know what appeals to me about this game, I think it's the grim theme and excellent artwork. It may be something like Doom: the Board Game but without the ripped-off Space Hulk mechanics. I don't really like war theme, but when you add demons to it that changes everything. Check out the publisher's promo material.
Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg - this was reviewed on boardgamenews.com. The review explains the game well and I want it pretty badly now. Oops, looks like BGN has gone and exceeded its CPU quota again.
Thurn & Taxis: For Power & Glory - this is an expansion to Thurn & Taxis which is a game I like to look at but don't much want to play. The map on the expansion looks just as pretty as the original. Do I buy it just to look at?
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
New Year's Ambitions
Wow, what a year last year was! Let's be blunt: what a fuck up! I spent half my time playing games and the other half agonising over women. This year I'd like to focus on just one woman and a whole heap of games. I'll be happier, the kid will be happier, the dog's always happy. She loves everyone.
Last year I recorded 793 plays of 267 different games, 198 of which were new to me. That's almost 4 new games each week. Goodness! I played 60-something percent of the games in my collection. Given that I've only played 78% of them ever, that wasn't bad, but it's a number I hope to improve this year one way or the other. My collection needs to be cleaned up.
I've invented the "Friendless" metric which I've added to the Quick Stats table on my extended stats. This metric recognises that geeks will always have games that they haven't played, and have favourites that they've played a lot, but that of course we'd like to have the good ones in our collection and dump the ones that just won't be played. To calculate the Friendless metric, you look at your collection and order the games by descending number of plays. For each game at the beginning that you have at least 10 plays of, you're forgiven one at the end that you have the lowest number of plays of. You then take the number of plays of your least-played game remaining, and that's your Friendless number. My ambition for 2007 is to increase that number to at least 1. After that I'll see where I can take it.
This metric rewards:
BTW, why 10 plays? Well for the games I've played 10 times I feel I know the game well and could teach it and have probably received value for money for my purchase. Also, it has more digits than 9.
On the other hand, it's my duty as a loud-mouth (erm, enthusiastic and frequent commentator) to know whereof I speak. Therefore my second ambition is to play more of the BoardGameGeek Top 50. This ambition has recently been boosted by CyberKev sharing it with me, and we've played a couple of them over the last week (more on that below). I'd also like to play more of the Spiel des Jahre winners. That's why those numbers have been added to the Quick Stats as well.
That's all the ambitions I can think of at the moment. I won't include one about buying games because I think if I can successfully manipulate the Friendless metric my game buying will match my game playing and so will suit my lifestyle.
Now, onto the Top 50 games. I spent most of last year having played 26 or so of the Top 50. The ones I hadn't played were games I thought I wouldn't like or else hadn't had the opportunity to play. In the last couple of weeks CyberKev has organised for us to play a few of them so I'd like to comment on the reality compared to what I expected.
Caylus - as mentioned in an earlier article, I found this one pretty complicated. I thought there was too much stuff in it. I'd play it again, but I'd definitely weight the time I was going to spend against the chance to play several other games. I rate it a 6.
BattleLore - my first play, against the kid, was disappointing. I think playing against Arnold Horshack or the Evil Count von Walduck would be more rewarding. I currently rate it an 8, but that may improve.
Railroad Tycoon - I was so glad when I played this game that "shares" were to be sold and not bought. I really don't get off on US railroads games at all, and I didn't like the auction for first place - to me, auctions are scary hard work things and should be replaced with a different mechanic wherever possible. Having said that though, I didn't mind Railroad Tycoon too much and it's conceivable I could play it again one day. However it was even longer than Caylus and it's not particularly likely I'd have nothing better to do. I rate it a 5.
Go - I did play this years ago, and even went to a Go club a couple of times. I never really got past the "learner" stage, and would have to play against someone at my level to enjoy the game regularly. My recent game reminded me what a beautiful game it is, and if I happen to find the right opponent I will play this regularly. I rate it 7.5.
Twilight Imperium 3 - I blogged about this earlier. Apart from the broken rules and massively long play time, it was OK. I rate it a 4.
Ticket to Ride Märklin - Another train game, but refreshingly on a German map rather than an American one. That really does matter to me. I thought the cards were better and the passenger mechanic worked well. I won by a long way which is maybe why I rated it as high as a 6.
Overall I find that my expectations of a game are generally met, though I liked Ticket to Ride Märklin more than I expected. BattleLore I liked less than I expected, but I still have faith in it. Other games in the Top 50 that I'm looking forward to playing (along with my preconceived opinions) are:
Last year I recorded 793 plays of 267 different games, 198 of which were new to me. That's almost 4 new games each week. Goodness! I played 60-something percent of the games in my collection. Given that I've only played 78% of them ever, that wasn't bad, but it's a number I hope to improve this year one way or the other. My collection needs to be cleaned up.
I've invented the "Friendless" metric which I've added to the Quick Stats table on my extended stats. This metric recognises that geeks will always have games that they haven't played, and have favourites that they've played a lot, but that of course we'd like to have the good ones in our collection and dump the ones that just won't be played. To calculate the Friendless metric, you look at your collection and order the games by descending number of plays. For each game at the beginning that you have at least 10 plays of, you're forgiven one at the end that you have the lowest number of plays of. You then take the number of plays of your least-played game remaining, and that's your Friendless number. My ambition for 2007 is to increase that number to at least 1. After that I'll see where I can take it.
This metric rewards:
- playing games you regularly play
- playing the unplayed games in your collection
- getting rid of games you'll never play
BTW, why 10 plays? Well for the games I've played 10 times I feel I know the game well and could teach it and have probably received value for money for my purchase. Also, it has more digits than 9.
On the other hand, it's my duty as a loud-mouth (erm, enthusiastic and frequent commentator) to know whereof I speak. Therefore my second ambition is to play more of the BoardGameGeek Top 50. This ambition has recently been boosted by CyberKev sharing it with me, and we've played a couple of them over the last week (more on that below). I'd also like to play more of the Spiel des Jahre winners. That's why those numbers have been added to the Quick Stats as well.
That's all the ambitions I can think of at the moment. I won't include one about buying games because I think if I can successfully manipulate the Friendless metric my game buying will match my game playing and so will suit my lifestyle.
Now, onto the Top 50 games. I spent most of last year having played 26 or so of the Top 50. The ones I hadn't played were games I thought I wouldn't like or else hadn't had the opportunity to play. In the last couple of weeks CyberKev has organised for us to play a few of them so I'd like to comment on the reality compared to what I expected.
Caylus - as mentioned in an earlier article, I found this one pretty complicated. I thought there was too much stuff in it. I'd play it again, but I'd definitely weight the time I was going to spend against the chance to play several other games. I rate it a 6.
BattleLore - my first play, against the kid, was disappointing. I think playing against Arnold Horshack or the Evil Count von Walduck would be more rewarding. I currently rate it an 8, but that may improve.
Railroad Tycoon - I was so glad when I played this game that "shares" were to be sold and not bought. I really don't get off on US railroads games at all, and I didn't like the auction for first place - to me, auctions are scary hard work things and should be replaced with a different mechanic wherever possible. Having said that though, I didn't mind Railroad Tycoon too much and it's conceivable I could play it again one day. However it was even longer than Caylus and it's not particularly likely I'd have nothing better to do. I rate it a 5.
Go - I did play this years ago, and even went to a Go club a couple of times. I never really got past the "learner" stage, and would have to play against someone at my level to enjoy the game regularly. My recent game reminded me what a beautiful game it is, and if I happen to find the right opponent I will play this regularly. I rate it 7.5.
Twilight Imperium 3 - I blogged about this earlier. Apart from the broken rules and massively long play time, it was OK. I rate it a 4.
Ticket to Ride Märklin - Another train game, but refreshingly on a German map rather than an American one. That really does matter to me. I thought the cards were better and the passenger mechanic worked well. I won by a long way which is maybe why I rated it as high as a 6.
Overall I find that my expectations of a game are generally met, though I liked Ticket to Ride Märklin more than I expected. BattleLore I liked less than I expected, but I still have faith in it. Other games in the Top 50 that I'm looking forward to playing (along with my preconceived opinions) are:
- Die Macher - long, but I might like it.
- Wallenstein - long and aggressive, but let's see.
- Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage - I'm in favour of the theme but it sounds long.
- Taj Mahal - looking forward to this.
- Hammer of the Scots - looking forward to this as well.
- Crokinole - hard to get in Australia! Probably similar to Carrom which I already have.
- Amun-Re - I once played half a game and it was OK.
- A Game of Thrones - maybe too backstabby for me but I loved the books.
- Dune - I'd like to see how it goes. If I don't like it I'll trade away my copy.
- Roads and Boats - 4 hours with lots of bits! It had better be good!
- Maharaja: Palace Building in India - looking forward to this as well.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Do You Like Games You Don't Understand?
I played Caylus for the first time today, and I was kind of meh. It's an interesting game, but there are too many things to think about and I'm not sure I'd ever do a good job with it. I like the building track, and if Caylus was simply an economic game trying to build the right sets of buildings so that my economy functions more efficiently than yours, I think I'd like that. I find that adding the castle and the royal favours makes Caylus so complicated I'll probably never do a good job with it. I can't grok the long-term consequences of my actions.
I think Princes of Florence is somewhat similar - there are just too many things going on. I'm all at sea when I play that, and consequently I don't enoy it so much. I suspect Goa and Louis XIV are a bit like that as well. Maybe just a bit too complicated. I like games that I can get my head around, even if it's only just, such as Tikal, Tigris and Euphrates, and Elfenland. They're the limit of complexity that I'm comfortable with and consequently a challenge to play. Easier games like San Juan, GIPF and Hare and Tortoise that I understand really well become old favourites that I can play to relax.
What I want to know is, do people often like games which confuse them? Are all the people who rate Caylus highly super-mega-smart? I have a Ph.D. and a genius IQ, but it confuses me. Are Caylus fans the absolute intellectual elite of the planet? If not, what's so good about a game that's confusingly hard? Do people like playing a game where they feel lost? Is there some different sort of intelligence that they have and I don't? I need feedback here, because it just doesn't make sense to me.
I think Princes of Florence is somewhat similar - there are just too many things going on. I'm all at sea when I play that, and consequently I don't enoy it so much. I suspect Goa and Louis XIV are a bit like that as well. Maybe just a bit too complicated. I like games that I can get my head around, even if it's only just, such as Tikal, Tigris and Euphrates, and Elfenland. They're the limit of complexity that I'm comfortable with and consequently a challenge to play. Easier games like San Juan, GIPF and Hare and Tortoise that I understand really well become old favourites that I can play to relax.
What I want to know is, do people often like games which confuse them? Are all the people who rate Caylus highly super-mega-smart? I have a Ph.D. and a genius IQ, but it confuses me. Are Caylus fans the absolute intellectual elite of the planet? If not, what's so good about a game that's confusingly hard? Do people like playing a game where they feel lost? Is there some different sort of intelligence that they have and I don't? I need feedback here, because it just doesn't make sense to me.
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