We played Big-Ass Trias at Critical Mass last night. I felt I was in a good position, but the game ended before I thought to try to convert that position into points and I ended up coming last. I'll try to write up a session report.
Showing posts with label Trias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trias. Show all posts
Saturday, May 03, 2008
The Fate of the Dinosaurs
It wasn't a meteor that killed the dinosaurs, it was a great big hand descending from the skies.
We played Big-Ass Trias at Critical Mass last night. I felt I was in a good position, but the game ended before I thought to try to convert that position into points and I ended up coming last. I'll try to write up a session report.
We played Big-Ass Trias at Critical Mass last night. I felt I was in a good position, but the game ended before I thought to try to convert that position into points and I ended up coming last. I'll try to write up a session report.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Pimp My Trias!
This was the source of all the trouble:
A tub of brightly coloured plastic dinosaurs and a game I like a lot. They belonged together. That's why I bought the dinosaurs several months ago with a vague plan of using them for a bigger version of Trias. Last week I bought a colour laser printer, and was interested in seeing what it could do. As, when I'd installed it, I'd got the scanner going as well, I had the necessary technology. For some reason, on Sunday, I got the motivation as well. I started by scanning the tiles:
I then cut out the images and printed out copies large enough to fit 4 of the plastic dinosaurs on. I stuck the large hexes onto two sheets of cardboard I had lying around from some ancient abandoned project using spray glue I bought at an art shop - aerosol spray glue is brilliant stuff for this sort of work. Here are the hexes for the two player game:
And here are the others:
That all took a while to dry, but I had housework to do anyway:
When it was dry came the long job of cutting the hexes out. It soon became apparent that it wasn't going to be easy, as the cardboard was seriously tough. In fact, on the second hex, my craft knife snapped in two.
What the heck, we had to do the grocery shopping anyway. I bought a Stanley knife and continued cutting. For hours and hours and hours.
Some time late at night, the cutting was done. My hand and back still hurt. But the hexes look OK.
The next evening, after a visit to the art shop, I spray-lacquered the hexes to try to protect them. The lacquer has had no noticeable effect on the ink.
All that remains is to get someone to play the game with me! Here's what a two player set-up could theoretically look like:
While I was at work Scrabblette tidied up the dinosaurs. Things are only neat if they're orthogonal. :-)
If I can do something like this, you can too.
A tub of brightly coloured plastic dinosaurs and a game I like a lot. They belonged together. That's why I bought the dinosaurs several months ago with a vague plan of using them for a bigger version of Trias. Last week I bought a colour laser printer, and was interested in seeing what it could do. As, when I'd installed it, I'd got the scanner going as well, I had the necessary technology. For some reason, on Sunday, I got the motivation as well. I started by scanning the tiles:
I then cut out the images and printed out copies large enough to fit 4 of the plastic dinosaurs on. I stuck the large hexes onto two sheets of cardboard I had lying around from some ancient abandoned project using spray glue I bought at an art shop - aerosol spray glue is brilliant stuff for this sort of work. Here are the hexes for the two player game:
And here are the others:
That all took a while to dry, but I had housework to do anyway:
When it was dry came the long job of cutting the hexes out. It soon became apparent that it wasn't going to be easy, as the cardboard was seriously tough. In fact, on the second hex, my craft knife snapped in two.
What the heck, we had to do the grocery shopping anyway. I bought a Stanley knife and continued cutting. For hours and hours and hours.
Some time late at night, the cutting was done. My hand and back still hurt. But the hexes look OK.
The next evening, after a visit to the art shop, I spray-lacquered the hexes to try to protect them. The lacquer has had no noticeable effect on the ink.
All that remains is to get someone to play the game with me! Here's what a two player set-up could theoretically look like:
While I was at work Scrabblette tidied up the dinosaurs. Things are only neat if they're orthogonal. :-)
If I can do something like this, you can too.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Hunch Gaming
The kid and I have occasionally, very occasionally, been inviting CyberKev and Mrs CyberKev over to play games of a Monday night. By carefully managing the invitations we ensure that there are exactly 4 players which means we can play those pesky 3-4 player games. As I insist that we play at the gaming table, which is rather low, CyberKev has christened the event "Hunch Gaming".
At the first Hunch Gaming we played my Settlers of Catan anniversary edition.
To be honest I forget who won, I think it might have been me. I do remember that the kid ate a lot of M&Ms and was very very tired by the end of the game.
At the second Hunch Gaming we played Thurn & Taxis.
Notice from the picture that as well as having a low table, my lounge room has bad lighting which we tried to rectify by adding the fluoro lamp which mostly served to blind CyberKev without illuminating very much. My other best gaming spot, the back deck, has the same lighting problem. Whoever lived in this house before me didn't care for seeing things very much.
Anyway, Thurn & Taxis seemed to go a bit shorter than Settlers and the kid was not so exhausted by the end. CyberKev won, and I struggled into third place only managing to beat the kid. In my 3 games of Thurn & Taxis, I've come third in all of them.
That's all the Hunch Gaming sessions we've had so far. With the hassle of looking after the kid it's hard to get organised for it. With the addition of Scrabblette to our household we would now have 5 players for Hunch Gaming, and that just screams Trias to me. If only I could get organised.
At the first Hunch Gaming we played my Settlers of Catan anniversary edition.
To be honest I forget who won, I think it might have been me. I do remember that the kid ate a lot of M&Ms and was very very tired by the end of the game.At the second Hunch Gaming we played Thurn & Taxis.
Notice from the picture that as well as having a low table, my lounge room has bad lighting which we tried to rectify by adding the fluoro lamp which mostly served to blind CyberKev without illuminating very much. My other best gaming spot, the back deck, has the same lighting problem. Whoever lived in this house before me didn't care for seeing things very much.
Anyway, Thurn & Taxis seemed to go a bit shorter than Settlers and the kid was not so exhausted by the end. CyberKev won, and I struggled into third place only managing to beat the kid. In my 3 games of Thurn & Taxis, I've come third in all of them.
That's all the Hunch Gaming sessions we've had so far. With the hassle of looking after the kid it's hard to get organised for it. With the addition of Scrabblette to our household we would now have 5 players for Hunch Gaming, and that just screams Trias to me. If only I could get organised.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
My 10s
I'm trying to work on the stats here! I've got everything I need - time, working computer, red wine... but boardgamegeek is down or busy or something. Aaargh! So instead, I'll blither on about the games I have rated 10. No point wasting good red wine.
So a strange thing happened last week. I decreased my rating for Domaine from a 10 to a 9.5 in recognition of the fact that at the moment I don't feel like playing it. I haven't figured out why that is, maybe it will come back into favour when I do play it. This article is not about what's wrong with Domaine, this article is about what's right with the others.
I find myself wanting to play Scrabble. I swear, it's nothing to do with the seductive nature of the ladies at the Scrabble club. I like the game. Finding words and anagramming really work for me. Memorising word lists doesn't, which is why I'll never be a great Scrabble player (actually, I have another 40 years I suppose, it might happen), but I really do like the struggle of finding a decent word worth decent points and getting the sucker on the board.
I really like Mystery of the Abbey as well. I like deduction games a lot, maybe because I often do well at them. In fact there aren't enough of them around. Cyberkev disses MotA, saying too much card passing goes on, but as part of the game is to know what cards to pass I don't find that a problem at all. And I love, absolutely love, the meta-game where you can ask other players "are you going to accuse..." and then try to steal the win from them. Not to mention that the bits are beautiful, and I'm a tart like that.
Lord of the Rings - the Confrontation is an absolute genius of a game. I forgot how much I liked it till I played Ozvortex a couple of months ago. The sides are so different, and it's so beautifully balanced. Yes, you do need to know every detail of the rules to play really well, but I just wish I had a handy opponent who would play frequently. My kid doesn't like it :-(. He will when he grows up, and then I'll unlock his bedroom door. Ungrateful wretch.
My final 10 is Trias. It has fairly crappy bits, though dinomeeples are cool. But I like the way you can drown other people's dinos, and sometimes they like that, then you fill the verdant shore with happily grazing dinos sneering into the water at the struggling swimmers. I'm sure if I was good at it I'd be able to look at the board as a map of low and high potential zones and be able to identify optimal fault lines, but until then I will just stick to opportunistically drowning the opposition. Maybe that's why I like Tongiaki as well.
So a strange thing happened last week. I decreased my rating for Domaine from a 10 to a 9.5 in recognition of the fact that at the moment I don't feel like playing it. I haven't figured out why that is, maybe it will come back into favour when I do play it. This article is not about what's wrong with Domaine, this article is about what's right with the others.
I find myself wanting to play Scrabble. I swear, it's nothing to do with the seductive nature of the ladies at the Scrabble club. I like the game. Finding words and anagramming really work for me. Memorising word lists doesn't, which is why I'll never be a great Scrabble player (actually, I have another 40 years I suppose, it might happen), but I really do like the struggle of finding a decent word worth decent points and getting the sucker on the board.
I really like Mystery of the Abbey as well. I like deduction games a lot, maybe because I often do well at them. In fact there aren't enough of them around. Cyberkev disses MotA, saying too much card passing goes on, but as part of the game is to know what cards to pass I don't find that a problem at all. And I love, absolutely love, the meta-game where you can ask other players "are you going to accuse..." and then try to steal the win from them. Not to mention that the bits are beautiful, and I'm a tart like that.
Lord of the Rings - the Confrontation is an absolute genius of a game. I forgot how much I liked it till I played Ozvortex a couple of months ago. The sides are so different, and it's so beautifully balanced. Yes, you do need to know every detail of the rules to play really well, but I just wish I had a handy opponent who would play frequently. My kid doesn't like it :-(. He will when he grows up, and then I'll unlock his bedroom door. Ungrateful wretch.
My final 10 is Trias. It has fairly crappy bits, though dinomeeples are cool. But I like the way you can drown other people's dinos, and sometimes they like that, then you fill the verdant shore with happily grazing dinos sneering into the water at the struggling swimmers. I'm sure if I was good at it I'd be able to look at the board as a map of low and high potential zones and be able to identify optimal fault lines, but until then I will just stick to opportunistically drowning the opposition. Maybe that's why I like Tongiaki 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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