My mum once told me "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all". I think at the time I'd been served curried sausages for dinner. Anyway, my personality is such that I was a whole lot quieter after that. But she never mentioned anything about blogging.
I've been watching the amazing events at BGG for the last few days and wondering what side of the argument I'm on. I like free speech, but I want people to shut up. I respect Aldie's decisions, I wish he didn't have to make them. I like Barnes' wit, I can see how he rubs people up the wrong way. But rather than go down that path too far I'm going to give honest opinions on games.
I can't tell you what Ameritrash is but I know it when I see it. Railroad Tycoon. Axis and Allies. Twilight Imperium 3. Many many games that I choose not to play. I'll admit it, I'm not a big fan of Ameritrash. Yes, I'm a Eurosnoot. So shoot me... with your tiny little plastic guns. I'm a mathematician at heart and I love to see mathematics at work. A Steiner triple system is mathematics, totalling the result of 2d6 is not.
BattleLore: I'm a fan of the Command and Colors system, rating each of them about an 8. Do they count as Ameritrash? It's hard to classify a game published by an American company that sells because of its tiny little plastic armies as anything else. So I have to admit I do like the C&C Ameritrash.
Railroad Tycoon: Takes way too long and isn't very interesting. The bizarre financial exploits of the 19th century railroad barons should be confined to history's shame file, not celebrated in games. I rate it a 4 because I was feeling kind that day.
Twilight Imperium 3: Takes way too long and isn't very interesting. The designer took some Euro ideas for this game but they didn't save it. Aimed at people who don't have a life, this game is completely unrewarding as you spend several hours building an economy so you can build space ships that you can lose with a dice roll. Only Americans can love this game - it gives them an opportunity to understand the Star Wars program. It's also aimed at people who think you should wage war just because you can... as opposed to Eurosnoots who know that you only engage in conflict if you expect to gain more than you lose, such as petrodollar hegemony for example.
Arkham Horror: As much as I aspire to despise all American culture, I often fail. Violent Femmes are awesome. House M.D. is awesome. H.P. Lovecraft is awesome. This game does a fine job of animating Lovecraft's milieu, and I admire it a lot. On the other hand, I try to avoid playing it against other people. It takes a very long time and you're at the mercy of the cards. It's also quite complex. I give it an 8, but I only want to play it as a solitaire game.
Heroscape: I bought a couple of sets of this because the bits are so cool and they were very cheap. We played once and even the kid didn't like it. Cool bits, no game. You've got to ask - are these people selling games or are they selling plastic? Of course Hasbro doesn't care. I gave it a 4.
Runebound: This game is similar to Arkham Horror in that I love the theme so much that I must play the game, but allowing other people to play as well would spoil it for me. I like to go off on a trip by myself... This is my favourite solitaire game and ... well just read my lengthy session report. I give the game an 8.5 at the moment, and I'm still buying expansions.
Nexus Ops: I only have time for one more item, so I'll make it a different one. I very much admire the design of Nexus Ops, I just didn't have fun playing it. I think the way VPs are awarded for small goals is very very good, much better than TI3, but I don't really want to play a game where I build stuff and then people trash it. It's too depressing. There's not enough maths. It's just being horrible to people, even though there is a good reason. I'm torn between disliking this game for that and admiring it for its success in achieving what it set out to do, so I sat on the fence and gave it a 6.
It seems the only Ameritrash games I like are those that play with 1 or 2 players. Sitting around a massive game board for 6 hours with people beating on me is just not my idea of fun. I'd rather play St Petersburg.
Showing posts with label Railroad Tycoon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Railroad Tycoon. Show all posts
Friday, March 16, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Pigs Might Fly
When you're on your way to your next board gaming event, keep an eye out for portents and omens. Burning bushes, holes in the sky, whales beaching themselves, the player to your right producing coffee, that sort of thing. Make a haunt roll now. Something very strange has happened.
I found a train game that I like.
Of course there's already Metro, which is not particularly about trains but more about connections. And indeed, my new friend, TransEuropa, is also about connections. But it has trains in it, and I like it, and so it counts.
I was particularly attracted by the thought of a game with extremely simple rules, and based on a map of Europe. I'm in love with the history of Europe and looking at a map of Europe evokes so many wistful thoughts... whereas a map of America reminds me how many Republican voters there are in the world. So Railroad Tycoon, Ticket to Ride and so many of the others immediately alienate me just by looking at the map. TransEuropa has a very nice map.
I've also been reading about connection games in this book. As TransEuropa is not abstract it has a little more going for it than Hex, for example. It's also cheap and scales from 2 to 6 players, so it was worth trying it. Also, nice sensible European people share railway lines, unlike all those stupid American railway people!
I tried to play a quick game with the kid before dinner last night and after rescuing BIL from the bathroom where the door lock had broken we abandoned the game. He showed me that he was going to Kick My Butt. That got me thinking about strategy. It's almost inevitable that the rail networks are going to become connected, so whatever I've done is going to be available to my opponents. So I want my track to be of as little use to them as possible. If there's a long hard slog across the continent to be done, I want someone else to do it and then I want to join on and take advantage of their work.
Armed with those thoughts I sent the kid to bed and challenged Scrabblette. It took only one round for Scrabblette to make the same strategy deductions, so after conceding 3 points to me in the first round she started playing warily and it was an interesting game of cat and mouse. I refused to make any play that could possibly benefit her until it was the best thing I could do for myself as well. Scrabblette tried to do the same thing, and succeeded, so she won the next two rounds and we were even at 10 points each.
However the following round was something of a strategy disaster for Scrabblette. She had a long track across southern Europe, and I had a network in the northeast. I needed to get from Warsaw to Dublin and couldn't see how connecting to her track which went to Barcelona was going to help me, so I struck out across northern Europe to get there by myself. Scrabblette didn't want to have to do all the work of connecting to me, even though she still had to get to Vilnius or somewhere, so deliberately avoided connecting to me. While she made fancy-shaped tracks, I approached Dublin. Eventually she had to connect to me, but by then I was at Dublin and with only one more piece of track got to Firenze to win the round. Poor Scrabblette scored 5 for that round, which was the worst score either of us had all game. So although cat and mouse is a useful way to play, you still must remain focused on the goal!
After a couple more rounds I finished her off. I think we played 7 rounds, which took 90 minutes. The box says the game plays in 30 minutes, but that sounds to me like they're assuming players score more points per round than we were doing. I suppose with more players the game would actually speed up as someone could get unlucky and do badly. As it was, I thought the game had very little luck and and was quite beautifully balanced. I like it.
Anyway, I must go now. I think I can hear a wolf howling outside.
I found a train game that I like.
Of course there's already Metro, which is not particularly about trains but more about connections. And indeed, my new friend, TransEuropa, is also about connections. But it has trains in it, and I like it, and so it counts.
I was particularly attracted by the thought of a game with extremely simple rules, and based on a map of Europe. I'm in love with the history of Europe and looking at a map of Europe evokes so many wistful thoughts... whereas a map of America reminds me how many Republican voters there are in the world. So Railroad Tycoon, Ticket to Ride and so many of the others immediately alienate me just by looking at the map. TransEuropa has a very nice map.
I've also been reading about connection games in this book. As TransEuropa is not abstract it has a little more going for it than Hex, for example. It's also cheap and scales from 2 to 6 players, so it was worth trying it. Also, nice sensible European people share railway lines, unlike all those stupid American railway people!
I tried to play a quick game with the kid before dinner last night and after rescuing BIL from the bathroom where the door lock had broken we abandoned the game. He showed me that he was going to Kick My Butt. That got me thinking about strategy. It's almost inevitable that the rail networks are going to become connected, so whatever I've done is going to be available to my opponents. So I want my track to be of as little use to them as possible. If there's a long hard slog across the continent to be done, I want someone else to do it and then I want to join on and take advantage of their work.
Armed with those thoughts I sent the kid to bed and challenged Scrabblette. It took only one round for Scrabblette to make the same strategy deductions, so after conceding 3 points to me in the first round she started playing warily and it was an interesting game of cat and mouse. I refused to make any play that could possibly benefit her until it was the best thing I could do for myself as well. Scrabblette tried to do the same thing, and succeeded, so she won the next two rounds and we were even at 10 points each.
However the following round was something of a strategy disaster for Scrabblette. She had a long track across southern Europe, and I had a network in the northeast. I needed to get from Warsaw to Dublin and couldn't see how connecting to her track which went to Barcelona was going to help me, so I struck out across northern Europe to get there by myself. Scrabblette didn't want to have to do all the work of connecting to me, even though she still had to get to Vilnius or somewhere, so deliberately avoided connecting to me. While she made fancy-shaped tracks, I approached Dublin. Eventually she had to connect to me, but by then I was at Dublin and with only one more piece of track got to Firenze to win the round. Poor Scrabblette scored 5 for that round, which was the worst score either of us had all game. So although cat and mouse is a useful way to play, you still must remain focused on the goal!
After a couple more rounds I finished her off. I think we played 7 rounds, which took 90 minutes. The box says the game plays in 30 minutes, but that sounds to me like they're assuming players score more points per round than we were doing. I suppose with more players the game would actually speed up as someone could get unlucky and do badly. As it was, I thought the game had very little luck and and was quite beautifully balanced. I like it.
Anyway, I must go now. I think I can hear a wolf howling outside.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
My Love Affair With Train Games
Long-term readers may remember my heretical article where I mentioned that I didn't like Ticket to Ride, nor train games in general. So my love affair with train games is somewhat like my love affair with my ex-wife, except she had the good grace to leave me. (I sound like an Australian liberal DW Tripp, don't I?) Let's just say that although we're on speaking terms, relationships between train games and I are strained.
That is not to say I'm no good at them. The last time I played Ticket to Ride: Europe, I won. The last time I played Ticket to Ride I played the "ignore tickets buy long routes" strategy and came second. The time I played Union Pacific I won. Then I discovered that I don't mind Metro at all, and after losing my first game I won the second. (But I don't think Metro is really a train game.)
Over the Christmas-New Year period I played a few more train games, mostly as part of the BGG Top 50 project. The first was Railroad Tycoon. Despite advice from generalpf to go northeast, my tycoon card said I should become the rail baron of Chicago. So I did that. Because I wasn't stressed about winning I managed to get by with only one share for the entire game, and my 8 points for routes out of Chicago and my 6 point advantage for having no shares just got me the win.
Later on it was time to play Ticket to Ride: Marklin. I don't know why, but I didn't mind this one so much. I definitely liked the 4+ wilds - they seem to make it a bit easier to get the cards you need for a long route. I didn't mind the passenger mechanic, although I often complain about that sort of thing feeling tacked on. And I did like the proper sized cards. I won this one as well, for no obvious reason.
That same night we played Metro again, and I played nasty and was unstoppable and won easily. Much later that night, we played it again, and several people took it upon themselves to prevent me from winning for a third time in a row. All good things must come to an end.
The big black cloud on the horizon is Age of Steam, which I haven't played yet but is ranked #10 at BoardGameGeek. It looks really serious. And long and boring. I don't much want to play it. I'll probably win.
That is not to say I'm no good at them. The last time I played Ticket to Ride: Europe, I won. The last time I played Ticket to Ride I played the "ignore tickets buy long routes" strategy and came second. The time I played Union Pacific I won. Then I discovered that I don't mind Metro at all, and after losing my first game I won the second. (But I don't think Metro is really a train game.)
Over the Christmas-New Year period I played a few more train games, mostly as part of the BGG Top 50 project. The first was Railroad Tycoon. Despite advice from generalpf to go northeast, my tycoon card said I should become the rail baron of Chicago. So I did that. Because I wasn't stressed about winning I managed to get by with only one share for the entire game, and my 8 points for routes out of Chicago and my 6 point advantage for having no shares just got me the win.
Later on it was time to play Ticket to Ride: Marklin. I don't know why, but I didn't mind this one so much. I definitely liked the 4+ wilds - they seem to make it a bit easier to get the cards you need for a long route. I didn't mind the passenger mechanic, although I often complain about that sort of thing feeling tacked on. And I did like the proper sized cards. I won this one as well, for no obvious reason.
That same night we played Metro again, and I played nasty and was unstoppable and won easily. Much later that night, we played it again, and several people took it upon themselves to prevent me from winning for a third time in a row. All good things must come to an end.
The big black cloud on the horizon is Age of Steam, which I haven't played yet but is ranked #10 at BoardGameGeek. It looks really serious. And long and boring. I don't much want to play it. I'll probably win.
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.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Hey, You Should Play...
My augmented BGG stats have changed a little in the last couple of weeks. I changed the front page quite a bit so that users have more character - I link to your BGG avatar, show your number of plays, how many of the top 50 you've played, and since 1am this morning, what game you need to play soon. The number of plays and number of the top 50 are simply to promote pissing matches between users of the stats. I was pleased to note that only Karlsen, TMJJS and ekted have recorded more plays than I have. And I thought you guys were hard core! 36 more plays and I can get myself into second place...
On the page for each user I have added "Games You Like But Don't Even Own". What if your geekbuddy who owns Puerto Rico leaves town? Or someone puts the robber on him? What would you do for your Puerto Rico hit then? Here's my top 10 games I like but don't own:
* Rheinlander - CyberKev has it, but I want to get it so I can play it against someone other than him so I have a chance to win
* Hare and Tortoise - is on its way from unhalfbricking as we speak. I know just who to play it against, too.
* Tikal - Critical Mass has a copy, but I haven't bought it yet because there's a limited number of people I would play it against. I might even buy Mexica and Java first, but to be honest I don't get many chances to play games of this complexity.
* Euphrat & Tigris - I know a couple of people with copies, but I don't have a ready source of respected opponents. When I find the perfect woman who plays Gipf, she will probably play this one with me as well.
* Puerto Rico - let's be fair, this game is as common as muck :-). I might buy it just because the rule book is beautiful.
* Evo - I definitely need my own copy given how difficult it is to get hold of Mikey Hayes these days!
* Himalaya - a good game that you don't see around, and I am excited about the other Tilsit titles in that range as well. When Funatical starts importing these I will probably get the lot.
* Attika - I've only played once so my 8.5 rating is not solid. I can't think of a consistent source of opponents for it.
* Ra - another Mikey Hayes "I'll teach you this great game then go do something else" Special. Aren't this and Puerto Rico from the Alea big box series? Might as well get all of them, I know I'll need Princes of Florence some day.
* Key Largo - the kids I play with will love this game one day, but we have to wait till the littlest can actually read and add up. I don't think it will get consistent play with adults. Another of the Tilsit range.
The latest feature added (this morning) is analysis of what games you like but haven't played recently. I figured I would just combine your rating and the days since you'd recorded a play for it, and that seems to be working quite well. I tweaked the weightings till my own list looked sensible. As I play some of those games and my list evolves I will consider whether it's working or not. Here's my top 10:
* DVONN - I last played in about November I think. It was the first of the GIPF series I played, and I now own all of them. Yes, I do need to play it, and that's a good recommendation. If only my slave boy liked it.
* St Petersburg - we haven't played since winter (Down Under) last year, and I would like to play it again.
* Hansa - played only once at ConVic2, and I'd like to play it again. It's a strange game, my rating may move after I play it.
* Set - played for a brief period in July last year, and haven't found an appropriate audience since. I was obsessed with it for a few weeks.
* Vinci - last played in December with Brendan and Amanda. Because I rate it a 9, it ranks up there with the 8s I haven't played since July. That makes sense to me. I might take it along to Critical Mass soon.
* Trias - One of my favourite games - an analytical game where you're trying to screw people and not be screwed yourself. It fires the same synapses as Domaine does. I know I've played it this year at GWAN, but I rate it a 10 so it's time to do it again. Mr Lapdance wants to play, so when I find him we can do it.
* Runebound 2e - This is a weakness in the system. I played Scepter of Kyros a couple of weeks ago, but recorded it as a play against the expansion rather than against the base game. I am in no rush to play the base game again. We need some extension metadata :-(.
* Doom - we haven't played for at least 15 months, but I want to get the expansion and then we can give it a go. It's not that I don't like the game, it's just difficult to find the time to play it. Also it's an experience game, when I prefer analysis.
* Settlers of Catan - I did play this several times late last year, but my last play of the game was only in June and was recorded against the anniversary edition rather than the base game. Another expansion metadata problem!
* Odin's Ravens - Maybe slave boy will play this against me? Since the disruption to my family life we have been playing fewer games at home together. We have a game of Return of the Heroes which has been in progress so long I have forgotten the rules.
The game recommended for you to play on the front page of the stats is simply the top of your list. I'd be interested in hearing how the recommendations work for other people.
On the page for each user I have added "Games You Like But Don't Even Own". What if your geekbuddy who owns Puerto Rico leaves town? Or someone puts the robber on him? What would you do for your Puerto Rico hit then? Here's my top 10 games I like but don't own:
* Rheinlander - CyberKev has it, but I want to get it so I can play it against someone other than him so I have a chance to win
* Hare and Tortoise - is on its way from unhalfbricking as we speak. I know just who to play it against, too.
* Tikal - Critical Mass has a copy, but I haven't bought it yet because there's a limited number of people I would play it against. I might even buy Mexica and Java first, but to be honest I don't get many chances to play games of this complexity.
* Euphrat & Tigris - I know a couple of people with copies, but I don't have a ready source of respected opponents. When I find the perfect woman who plays Gipf, she will probably play this one with me as well.
* Puerto Rico - let's be fair, this game is as common as muck :-). I might buy it just because the rule book is beautiful.
* Evo - I definitely need my own copy given how difficult it is to get hold of Mikey Hayes these days!
* Himalaya - a good game that you don't see around, and I am excited about the other Tilsit titles in that range as well. When Funatical starts importing these I will probably get the lot.
* Attika - I've only played once so my 8.5 rating is not solid. I can't think of a consistent source of opponents for it.
* Ra - another Mikey Hayes "I'll teach you this great game then go do something else" Special. Aren't this and Puerto Rico from the Alea big box series? Might as well get all of them, I know I'll need Princes of Florence some day.
* Key Largo - the kids I play with will love this game one day, but we have to wait till the littlest can actually read and add up. I don't think it will get consistent play with adults. Another of the Tilsit range.
The latest feature added (this morning) is analysis of what games you like but haven't played recently. I figured I would just combine your rating and the days since you'd recorded a play for it, and that seems to be working quite well. I tweaked the weightings till my own list looked sensible. As I play some of those games and my list evolves I will consider whether it's working or not. Here's my top 10:
* DVONN - I last played in about November I think. It was the first of the GIPF series I played, and I now own all of them. Yes, I do need to play it, and that's a good recommendation. If only my slave boy liked it.
* St Petersburg - we haven't played since winter (Down Under) last year, and I would like to play it again.
* Hansa - played only once at ConVic2, and I'd like to play it again. It's a strange game, my rating may move after I play it.
* Set - played for a brief period in July last year, and haven't found an appropriate audience since. I was obsessed with it for a few weeks.
* Vinci - last played in December with Brendan and Amanda. Because I rate it a 9, it ranks up there with the 8s I haven't played since July. That makes sense to me. I might take it along to Critical Mass soon.
* Trias - One of my favourite games - an analytical game where you're trying to screw people and not be screwed yourself. It fires the same synapses as Domaine does. I know I've played it this year at GWAN, but I rate it a 10 so it's time to do it again. Mr Lapdance wants to play, so when I find him we can do it.
* Runebound 2e - This is a weakness in the system. I played Scepter of Kyros a couple of weeks ago, but recorded it as a play against the expansion rather than against the base game. I am in no rush to play the base game again. We need some extension metadata :-(.
* Doom - we haven't played for at least 15 months, but I want to get the expansion and then we can give it a go. It's not that I don't like the game, it's just difficult to find the time to play it. Also it's an experience game, when I prefer analysis.
* Settlers of Catan - I did play this several times late last year, but my last play of the game was only in June and was recorded against the anniversary edition rather than the base game. Another expansion metadata problem!
* Odin's Ravens - Maybe slave boy will play this against me? Since the disruption to my family life we have been playing fewer games at home together. We have a game of Return of the Heroes which has been in progress so long I have forgotten the rules.
The game recommended for you to play on the front page of the stats is simply the top of your list. I'd be interested in hearing how the recommendations work for other people.
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