As mentioned in earlier posts, I've been doing a big clean-up of the game collection. You guys are noticeably NOT volunteering to trade my dross away from me. However, anything half decent is being snapped up, and I've completed some trades this month.
Nexus Ops for Africa - Nexus Ops is a very sweet game- nice bits, very good mechanic for encouraging war without turtling or complete player destruction, and easy enough to play. However even that much player confrontation doesn't really work for me, and I couldn't see myself getting much play out of it. On the other hand, Africa is a decent mid-weight Euro that I quite like, and I've already played 3 times. I think I liked the 2 player games better than 4 players, as with 2 players I expect the screwage (e.g. the kid dumped an antelope where I was about to put a camp for 5 points), and with 4 players I feel picked on.
China for Java - I like Tikal and Torres a lot, and am very interested in trying out the rest of the Mask series. I bought China because I wanted Web of Power, and it turns out that I wanted the theme more than I wanted the game. I'd much rather control Frankreich than Wu. China will be missed by people other than me, but if I can get Web of Power I may be forgiven.
Thurn and Taxis for Ticket to Ride: Marklin - Thurn and Taxis is a beautiful beautiful game, but I could never make any sense of the strategy, and that bugged me. In fact I never came better than third in a game, until I played 2 player when I actually won. So I traded it to the guy I beat... so he can lose at it? On the other hand Ticket to Ride is a game of which my opinion varies from "brilliant" to "boring". It's sort of a good connection game, but it's sort of boring when people block your routes... I can't make up my mind. But the big issue is that Scrabblette likes it. Scrabblette particularly likes the U.S. map (which is why we own TransAmerica as well as TransEuropa), so I will also have to get the base game, and I'll probably get Switzerland as well while I'm at it. I got Marklin as a stop-gap, and because I like the model trains and the 4+ engines.
Showing posts with label Ticket to Ride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ticket to Ride. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Big Magnus Spiele Order
Following my series of articles earlier this year (last year?) "They Have Some Really Good German Games in Germany", I rounded up some of Brisbane's most spendthrift gamers and made a big order from Magnus Spiele. The first box arrived on Friday so I carefully took photos so you could all share in the excitement.
As you can see, the box was wrapped in brown paper and sealed with wax, as well, so it was obvious customs / quarantine / drug lords hadn't opened it. Feeling like Howard Carter, I removed the outer layer of wrapping.
A perfectly preserved box! Wondering what treasures lay inside, I carefully cut the tape with the knife previously used on hundreds of IKEA flat packs.
Inside I found newspaper (German, I presume, though I didn't look) and plastic bags full of authentic German air. The very air that Einstein breathed! Hundreds of German air-borne viruses! If a butterfly's wings can cause a tornado, what disasters will result from this disruption of the natural order?
Nestled inside, the treasures themselves! Also, some German games catalogues and a Ticket to Ride Lite edition software CD. Should I play it myself or share it with the guys?
With trembling fingers I extracted the games themselves. Then I applied name stickers to each of them, while Scrabblette told me I was going to be late if I didn't have dinner the VERY INSTANT. I bet Howard Carter didn't get that.
Anyway, more news soon. Because the order was so big Magnus Spiele had to split it into two boxes. This is the small box.
BTW, the kid says "nothing happenin here. at shatoe manshion thing love u 2 bye!"
As you can see, the box was wrapped in brown paper and sealed with wax, as well, so it was obvious customs / quarantine / drug lords hadn't opened it. Feeling like Howard Carter, I removed the outer layer of wrapping.
A perfectly preserved box! Wondering what treasures lay inside, I carefully cut the tape with the knife previously used on hundreds of IKEA flat packs.
Inside I found newspaper (German, I presume, though I didn't look) and plastic bags full of authentic German air. The very air that Einstein breathed! Hundreds of German air-borne viruses! If a butterfly's wings can cause a tornado, what disasters will result from this disruption of the natural order?
Nestled inside, the treasures themselves! Also, some German games catalogues and a Ticket to Ride Lite edition software CD. Should I play it myself or share it with the guys?
With trembling fingers I extracted the games themselves. Then I applied name stickers to each of them, while Scrabblette told me I was going to be late if I didn't have dinner the VERY INSTANT. I bet Howard Carter didn't get that.Anyway, more news soon. Because the order was so big Magnus Spiele had to split it into two boxes. This is the small box.
BTW, the kid says "nothing happenin here. at shatoe manshion thing love u 2 bye!"
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Mind The Gap
At Critical Mass last night I was happy to see the kid get himself involved in a game of Age of Empires III (which is his kind of game but not mine) so I had time for a proper game of something else. We were about the start a 5 player game of On The Underground but elphiecoyle arrived and we couldn't expand to 6 players, so two players split off to play Ra with Elphie while aaronseeber and Keith and I played OtU.
Regular readers of this blog may remember my rants about train games and wonder why I'm playing this, let alone owning it. It's all Cameron Browne's fault. I read his book on Connection Games and about the same time unhalfbricking.com was offering TransEuropa for $A45. I took a chance and liked that game a lot. When I read that On the Underground was similar but more complicated that interested me too, and I took another chance. So now I have three train games I like (because Scrabblette bought TransAmerica as well) and I think I know what it must feel like to discover you want to be a woman. It's confusing, and...hmm... better not take that analogy too far. Let's just say I'm wondering whether I'd like Ticket to Ride more if I tried it again.
Anyway, with 3 players in OtU you get 3 colours (lines) each. I started building my long blue line (20 pieces) on the central loop as there was a quick 3 points to be gained connecting cameras. Aaron and Keith developed their lines according to the desires of the passenger and took the lead in points. I wanted to develop the blue line - get a loop, connect some symbols - and then make some branch lines out to the suburbs to scores some passenger points.
My plan was working well, in that I had a good solid blue almost-loop but trailed on the scoring track. Then on Keith's turn two passenger cards to the northwest were drawn. Aaron built the line from Earl's Court to Acton Town which I'd wanted for myself. The two more cards to the northwest were drawn, and I had to build a line from Acton Town to Sudbury to make sure I got more than my fair share of those points.
Having been almost too late to score those points I decided I had to start my other line from Woodford to Mile End before the passenger dragged my opponents over there. Meanwhile Keith was building a black line to rival my blue, and Aaron's pink and red lines were sneaking all over the middle of the board sucking up valuable passenger points. I completed the blue loop for a 9 point bonus and caught up with them.
Aaron continued to score well, but Keith seemed to get bogged down with branches. Aaron was leading and Keith fell behind. I could see the pile of passenger cards dwindling and decided I needed to get some good points so in one turn I terminated both ends of my Uxbridge-Ealing Broadway line. On my next turn I branched the blue loop to Hammersmith to connect to the symbol there. Then, the draw pile emptied and the passenger was removed from the board just before my turn. I had the last turn of the game with no possibility of passenger points - but Aaron was only one point ahead of me. I took a branch marker, played to a terminus, took another branch marker and played to a national rail connection, and moved two points ahead of Aaron for a hard-fought come-from-behind victory.
I really do like this game. I could imagine with AP-prone players it would bog down and that would suck, but when it moves along it's very good. It's pretty, you can make and execute plans, and there's plenty to think about.
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.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Gigamic Hits the Shelves
The kid and I went to the FLGS yesterday. When I say F, I mean they came to Critical Mass and gave us discount vouchers, that's how F they are. So we had to go and buy 2 games to use out discount vouchers. The good news is that they now stock the Gigamic range of games, in particular the beautiful wooden ones such as Quoridor and Quarto. The very good news is that more shelf space has been granted to board games with a new section holding Thurn and Taxis, Emerald, Ticket to Ride Marklin, Hansa, El Grande and I forget what else. I could have spent $A200 without thinking, but having been to the vet earlier in the day I was a bit scared of doing so (or maybe it was the liver treats upsetting my stomach?). In the end, the kid chose to get King of the Beasts (you don't often go wrong with Reiner), and the kid chose for me to get Quoridor. How come the kid chose both? Because I'll play anything and he has to be the opponent.
We haven't played King of the Beasts yet, but we did have 2 games of Quoridor. It's good! In my troubled sleep overnight I was thinking of cunning and nasty ways to play. It is a 2 player abstract so it's not to everyone's taste, but if you're into that sort of intense thought it is very interesting. You're often wondering whether to block your opponent, advance yourself, or to place a wall that will ensure that your opponent can't block you. I want to play more of it! Unfortunately 2 games might be all the kid can handle, because he got fairly badly beaten. Oh well.
We haven't played King of the Beasts yet, but we did have 2 games of Quoridor. It's good! In my troubled sleep overnight I was thinking of cunning and nasty ways to play. It is a 2 player abstract so it's not to everyone's taste, but if you're into that sort of intense thought it is very interesting. You're often wondering whether to block your opponent, advance yourself, or to place a wall that will ensure that your opponent can't block you. I want to play more of it! Unfortunately 2 games might be all the kid can handle, because he got fairly badly beaten. Oh well.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Train Games and Alan R. Moon
Oh, the anguish... we were gaming last night at Cyberkev's place and he suggested Union Pacific. It's an Alan Moon train game. I have been lukewarm on train games since the Great 1830 Trauma of '87 (or so). I have been lukewarm on Alan Moon train games since I played Ticket to Ride. So I wasn't particularly keen on Union Pacific, but I trust Cyberkev and Pushing Tin Phil to choose decent games, and agreed to play.
I can hear you screaming "back up! back up! What was that about Ticket to Ride?! You didn't like it?" No, I didn't like it, much, it's the train thing. But also, it's nowhere near intense enough for me - I like brain burners. I would play Ticket to Ride, but with gamers I would prefer something like Tikal or E&T or Through the Desert. Having seen recent SdJ winners, I think TtR is a deserving member of that sequence, but those are not my sorts of games. Niagara was MUCH worse.
Anyway, then I discovered that Union Pacific was ALSO a stock game. Oh dear... the 1830 thing was coming back to haunt me, not to mention my incompetence at majority control games... Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Unless I suddenly found out it was also a stripping game - I was NOT gonna go there.
As it turned out, the game was kinda like Ticket to Ride crossed with Acquire, and it was alright. Cyberkev and I got into a pissing war over the Union Pacific shares, which he won, as he always does with pissing wars (must remember to exploit that if I can). Strangely and stupidly, neither of us remembered to play them in time for the first UP scoring, and Trevor and Phil got big points they didn't work hard enough for. Other than that, I did particularly well in the third scoring with first or second place in the top 3 or 4 companies. I don't quite know how I managed that - I had decided that playing shares was a very worthwhile exercise, and nobody was able or willing to go with me. I also had the only share in one of the smaller companies, and made good money there.
Anyway, I managed to win the game. I seemed to have good shareholdings most of the time, although why they were better than other people's I don't know. It was pretty tight, something like 117, 109, 104, 96. Overall, I would say it is a decent game, I just wish it wasn't about trains. If only Alan Moon would come up with a game on some different theme, say elves or something, I would think he was great!
I can hear you screaming "back up! back up! What was that about Ticket to Ride?! You didn't like it?" No, I didn't like it, much, it's the train thing. But also, it's nowhere near intense enough for me - I like brain burners. I would play Ticket to Ride, but with gamers I would prefer something like Tikal or E&T or Through the Desert. Having seen recent SdJ winners, I think TtR is a deserving member of that sequence, but those are not my sorts of games. Niagara was MUCH worse.
Anyway, then I discovered that Union Pacific was ALSO a stock game. Oh dear... the 1830 thing was coming back to haunt me, not to mention my incompetence at majority control games... Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Unless I suddenly found out it was also a stripping game - I was NOT gonna go there.
As it turned out, the game was kinda like Ticket to Ride crossed with Acquire, and it was alright. Cyberkev and I got into a pissing war over the Union Pacific shares, which he won, as he always does with pissing wars (must remember to exploit that if I can). Strangely and stupidly, neither of us remembered to play them in time for the first UP scoring, and Trevor and Phil got big points they didn't work hard enough for. Other than that, I did particularly well in the third scoring with first or second place in the top 3 or 4 companies. I don't quite know how I managed that - I had decided that playing shares was a very worthwhile exercise, and nobody was able or willing to go with me. I also had the only share in one of the smaller companies, and made good money there.
Anyway, I managed to win the game. I seemed to have good shareholdings most of the time, although why they were better than other people's I don't know. It was pretty tight, something like 117, 109, 104, 96. Overall, I would say it is a decent game, I just wish it wasn't about trains. If only Alan Moon would come up with a game on some different theme, say elves or something, I would think he was great!
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