Life's Too Short to Play Twilight Anything (Again)

Following my ambition to play more of the BGG Top 50, CyberKev and I sat down yesterday afternoon to play Twilight Struggle. I hadn't really heard much about it before, and had no particular prejudice against, but I was worried by the play time listed at 3 hours. Due to the rest of my life crowding in on us, we only had 4.5 hours available to play. I took the USSR and CyberKev took the USA.

I'd read the rules on BGG so I sort of knew what was going on. The big mistake I made was misunderstanding about playing scoring cards. I thought the rule that says scoring cards must be played meant that scoring cards took effect at the end of the turn even if you hadn't played them. That's not true - you must use one of your actions to play them. So when I found myself with 2 scoring cards in my first hand, I wasn't entirely satisifed. In the first turn we scored 3 regions despite having not much time to do anything in them.

I also struggled with the Space Race. I hate hate HATE HATE HATE HATE the mechanism where you roll a d6 to see if something works for you. You spend your card on the Space Race and if you roll right you can advance. If you don't, you get nothing. What, are we playing Talisman here? That's not a mechanism for a proper game! It's especially bad because you can't do anything to influence the result of the roll. In any game where the rule is "if you roll 1-3 on d6 you succeed, otherwise you fail" what's going to happen is that one player is going to succeed all the time and the other player is going to fail all the time. Game designers: don't do that!

Games which use d6 rolls properly include Igel Argern where you can space out your hedgehogs so as to take advantage of a wide variety of rolls; D&D where you roll fistfuls of the things so the numbers even out; and BattleLore where even if you roll Lore which doesn't kill anything, you still get some stuff. Talisman is the chief sucker paramount with regard to d6 rolls, where depending on the result you will become rich or totally screwed. Way too random for my tastes, and I was amazed to find such a mechanic in such a highly rated game.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah... the Cold War. So CyberKev started off really strong in Europe and took a commanding lead on points. He maintained his lead for several turns until I realised the value of military action and started coups in a few places. He allowed me to make up some points in mil ops, and some lucky play by me got me into the lead.

Let me share my thoughts on coups and realignment. By placing influence points you can gain up to 4 influence. A coup can potentially gain you 8 influence, and I can't remember the numbers for realignment but it can be handy. Therefore placing influence is often not the best option, and I think for the first few turns we didn't really appreciate that. Anyway, back to the game.

I really like the event cards - they're well designed. I don't like how most turns I had a fistful of American cards that I needed to try not to play - that caused a lot of anguish, especially as the Space Race was so clearly a waste of my resources. When I did have Soviet cards I wanted to play them for events AND for points, so there was a lot to think about there.

We found that the game involved a lot of racing around to different continents when we figured out that scoring was going to happen there. Bluffing might work, but I wouldn't depend on it. I felt a bit rushed - I was always trying to win one more battleground country so I could dominate, whilst making sure CyberKev didn't have all the battleground countries somewhere else. The other continents simply didn't exist for that turn. That felt strange. Also, I didn't much like the idea of battleground countries. Sure, I presume they were countries where the Cold War was contested particularly fiercely, but we're recreating history here - I would have preferred the option to choose our own battlegrounds.

After 6 rounds I lead by one point. At that point we'd been at the game for 4.5 hours, and it looked like we needed another 3 hours to finish. In my opinion, 7.5 hours is way too long for any game except cricket. For that reason alone I will never play Twilight Struggle again. Although the game implemented its theme very very well, it didn't really excite me. Yes, I agree, it's a decent game, but it's not a game for me.

So who won? Well I asked CyberKev to do a final scoring after I left because although I was ahead on the VP track I didn't feel like I was doing so well. Indeed, the USA was 10 points ahead after the final scoring after Turn 6. Hmm... if it had been much worse than that I think a thermonuclear war would have looked good. Last I heard Mrs CyberKev was battling on in my place, and the war continues...

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.

Achtung!

My order arrived from Magnus Spiele during the week. As well as a few games which I'm going to give as presents, it had a few that I ordered for myself.

Gelb Gewinnt! (Yellow Wins!) - As I like to play yellow this was a compulsory buy. It turns out to be a not very interesting modification of Scopa.

Igel Argern (Hedgehogs in a Hurry) - A Doris and Frank game which is a very cunning roll and move. It's very easy and I like it a lot. I wanted to play it with the kids last night but we ran out of time because we were busy playing...

Diamant - from Bruno Faidutti and Alan Moon. When this game first came out I was so interested I had to read the rules in French. Then it cost the earth to buy, but I've now got the second edition (no board) for a reasonable price. We played with 11 players at Critical Mass and 6 players with the kids, and it's a very good game. Lovely bits, quick and fun to play.

Ursuppe Extension - Primordial Soup is an interesting game but it really works best with exactly 4 players and doesn't work at all unless you have exactly 3 or 4. The expansion increases the range to include 5 and 6 players as well. I hope to get this played some time next month.

Asterix & Obelix - One of the newest Kosmos two player games, but I'm having trouble finding an English version of the rules which makes sense. Scrabblette likes the characters, so I hope to get it played a few times.

After Christmas I'll post a list of what games my relatives got lumbered with...