- If a meeple falls in the forest, does it still score 2 points?
- A penny saved is a penny put aside for your next game order.
- Let a smile be your strategy.
- Don’t put off until tomorrow the game you can play today.
- Idle hands means it’s not your turn.
- Look before you leap or you’ll soon fall behind in VPs.
- Fish and visitors stink in three days but some games stink right away.
- He who lives in a glass house has a house-sized display case for his games.
- A fool and his money are soon out of the game.
- Don’t look a gift meeple in the mouth.
- A rolling stone will be chased by the cat and batted under the refrigerator before you can grab it and put it back on the table.
~~~~~~~
O.k., that’s enough of that silly stuff. What’s been on my mind lately?
Quite unexpectedly I find myself curious about other types of war games besides the C&C system. I read the rules for Combat Commander: Europe and followed some threads on BGG. This left me interested but still hesitant. A lot of people are enjoying it very much but when I asked myself what I was really looking for, here’s what I came up with:
1. Freedom. I want the freedom to move whatever units I feel the need to move and attack wherever I feel the urge to attack.
2. Short. I think 2-2 ½ hours is a good length for me and my husband.
3. Rules. I need rules that make sense so that I can remember them instead of constantly looking things up. And preferably without dozens of steps/phases in each turn.
Everything else is up for grabs: minis or counters, hexes or point-to-point, card-driven or not.
Someone pointed out the video of Tide of Iron, which I watched and found interesting enough to follow up on the Geek. A day later, the rules were posted (thank you very much, Fantasy Flight) and I’m totally intrigued by this one. It sounds like it has everything I want and more. Tanks, troop transport, specialized units, three levels of elevation, squad building and transferring men between units. And rules that, for the most part, make sense. Yep, I’m very interested!
So what happens next? The release date gets postponed, of course! Oh, well; that gives me more time to devour the rules and make sure it’s what I really want. You know the old saying: Purchase in haste; repent at leisure.
Mary
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Index for Gone Gaming 08/06 - 01/07
Index for 08/05 - 01/06 can be found here.
Index for 02/06 - 07/06 can be found here.
BGIAs: announcement / nominations / results
A six month index, Aug '06 - Jan '07 (tags are arbitrary and inconsistent):
--
Gone Gaming has been, and remains the foremost board gaming blog. It started with immensely talented people, and though the contributors cycle, there remains equally immensely talented people to carry it on. Any and all of you are also welcome to join the roll, as full time, part time, or occasional contributors.
Thank you Coldfoot for the initial invitation, and to all of my co-bloggers during the last year and a half. Thank you for all the comments.
And with this, I too must take a break from Gone Gaming. I invite all of you to continue to follow my madcap gaming exploits, poems, thoughts, and random humor on my personal blog Yehuda.
Yehuda
Index for 02/06 - 07/06 can be found here.
BGIAs: announcement / nominations / results
A six month index, Aug '06 - Jan '07 (tags are arbitrary and inconsistent):
--
Gone Gaming has been, and remains the foremost board gaming blog. It started with immensely talented people, and though the contributors cycle, there remains equally immensely talented people to carry it on. Any and all of you are also welcome to join the roll, as full time, part time, or occasional contributors.
Thank you Coldfoot for the initial invitation, and to all of my co-bloggers during the last year and a half. Thank you for all the comments.
And with this, I too must take a break from Gone Gaming. I invite all of you to continue to follow my madcap gaming exploits, poems, thoughts, and random humor on my personal blog Yehuda.
Yehuda
Saturday, January 27, 2007
14 days at the beach, 2 children, no television, 10 kid’s books, 53 plays of 16 games, 2 rainy days, 13 books read and a working washing machine.
We just got back from a fortnight (fourteen days or two weeks) at Lorne. The weather was OK, we visited the beach most days, but there were no, what we would call, hot days (35 C or more).
In retrospect we took way too many games (now there’s three words in a row that you will rarely see me use), we only played about half of those that we took with us. Daughter the Elder, eight and half, and Daughter the Younger, almost four, are both avid game players. Both of them wanted to play games and they would demand games often, when they were not demanding trips to the beach or trampolines that is.
Games
In order of appearance the games we played were:
Gulo Gulo
Daughter the Younger is a big fan of this and is very blasé about the way she just grabs eggs from bowl. Her main strategy, which seems to be common amongst three year olds that I know who play this game, is to flip the next tile. Due to her small fingers she can and does win this game against competitive adults. Six plays.
Marrakesh
This is one that Daughter the Younger learnt by osmosis, she is now fully conversant about how to play and will actually choose the red market tiles because they are generally worth more instead of the colour that she likes at the moment. She also understands the how all the tiles work. It’s a game that she and Daughter the Elder can play with one or two adults and no handicapping is required. Four plays.
Blink
Daughter the Elder plays this very fast, if Daughter the Younger is playing we need to play slower or give her less cards. She knows what she is doing, but just doesn’t have the speed of the other family members. Four plays.
Cluedo
We introduced Daughter the Elder to this a few days before we went down to Lorne. She liked it a lot. Initially we introduced a handicap where Melissa and I would wait two turns after we had deduced the answer before making our accusation. After giving her a few tips on what sort of information she would probably want to make detective notes on we have reduced that handicap to one turn and it will probably get dropped entirely in the near future. Daughter the Younger also likes “playing” this. She has her own piece, take her turn and rolls the dice and moves it around the rooms and puts weapons in the room just like the rest of us. It is good, she is pleasantly occupied and involved and the rest of us can play the game. Six plays.
Jambo
Part of Melissa’s Christmas loot, this is the only game that we actually played without children. I quite like it, although my results seem to be progressively deteriorating. Three plays.
Gopher It!
A game that Daughter the Younger will request. She seems to have better luck in the push your luck aspect than adults do, but I am sure this claim would not stand up to scientific investigation. Two plays.
San Juan
Quite often played with Daughter the Elder as a two player before bed game. She is currently favouring the Chapel and does quite well with it too. Four plays.
Connect 4
We had a little travel edition with us this year as Daughter the Younger managed to break Daughter the Elder’s set early last year. The travel set is only five by six instead of seven by six and this seems to have thrown a spanner into Daughter the Elder’s set plays as I managed to beat her three games in a row which is something I have never done with the proper set! Three plays.
Puerto Rico
Daughter the Elder has been bugging us for a long time to let her play this, especially every time she looks at the back of the San Juan box. We relented at Lorne. She has watched us play before and her background in San Juan made her familiar with role selection and the idea of the buildings giving benefits for particular roles. I wouldn’t recommend San Juan as a pre-requisite for Puerto Rico for an adult gamer, but I must admit it was worthwhile for Daughter the Elder. In the first game Melissa and I gave her a lot of tips and general advice and picked on each other instead of her, but the requirement to do this quickly dropped off. She is favouring a colonist strategy with the Hospice and University, which paid off for her in the second game, which she won. We are trying to educate her to the idea that different strategies are sometimes required depending on the situation and also what works one game may not work the next as the other players try something different. For example in our most recent game Melissa and I both went for a shipping strategy. We noticed that three player Puerto Rico is much less cutthroat than four or five players. Neither of us had actually played three player before, we usually play two or five player. In fact two player Puerto Rico is usually our standard two player game down at Lorne, but we didn’t manage a single two player play this year. Four plays.
Frank’s Zoo
For some reason we only seem to play this down at Lorne, we all like it, so should try and get it out at home more often. A full three player game does take over an hour, so possibly that is what is keeping it off the table. Daughter the Elder’s card play strategy is not quite up to that of ours, so we allow her to go out when she has one card left. One play.
Settlers of Catan
We hadn’t played this for about six months, early in the first game Melissa and I were both of the opinion that Daughter the Elder had the game sewn up, she had two cities on good numbers and was rolling in resources. However as the game progressed she concentrated on getting development cards and didn’t build any more settlements for a long time and thus didn’t manage the expected win. So as an educational and intellectual exercise we played twice more using exactly the same board layout and starting positions as the first game. The first game lasted for 89 rolls, the second abnormally short at 45 rolls and the third a more usual 77 rolls. In game three where she did not concentrate on development cards so much, she did achieve a higher score. She still favours ports and cities though. Three plays.
Flix Mix
Daughter the Elder likes this and we sometimes get Melissa to play too. This game seems to be very hard to obtain outside Germany which is a pity, it’s a good family game and more families should be able to easily be exposed to it. Five plays.
Duell
Daughter the Elder is good at this. We usually have to play the full eight rounds to determine the winner. She had the better of me again. One play.
Balloon Cup
Daughter the Elder is an old hand at this, given that she has been playing it since she was five. Another one that I lost :-) One play.
Go Fish
What’s a holiday house without a deck of cards? I don’t think Daughter the Elder and I have played Go Fish since we were down at Lorne last year. Five plays.
Catch the Match
Daughter the Younger still likes this a lot. Simple pattern matching. Two plays.
Books
Read aloud, many, many times, to Daughter the Younger (with BGG style ratings):
Albert Le Blanc – Mark Butterworth (6)
Billy Tibbles Moves Out – Jean Fearnley (7)
Fix It Duck – Jez Alborough (3) [Good cadence, but I dislike the main character immensely]
Oww! – Michael Rosen & Jonathan Langley (7)
Badness for Beginners – Ian Whybrow & Tony Ross (7)
I Want to Be – Tony Ross (8)
If you going walking in Tiger Wood – Alan Durant & Debbie Boon (7)
Zigby Dives In – Brian Peterson (6)
Wilfred to the Rescue – Alan MacDonald (8)
The Hedgehog’s Balloon – Nick Butterworth (7)
Read, not aloud - mostly science fiction or things found at the beach house:
Stiff– Shane Maloney (9)
Trouble with Lichen – John Wyndham (6)
Our Children’s Children – Clifford D Simak (5)
The Autumn Land and other Stories – Clifford D Simak (6)
The Seeds of Time – John Wyndham (7)
The Gray Ghosts of Taylor Ridge – Mary Francis Shura (7)
King Solomon’s Mines (1907 edition)– H Rider Haggard (6)
Nebula Award Stories 9 – Kate Wilhelm ed (8)
Science Fiction: The Great Years – Carol and Frederik Pohl eds (7)
Legacy of Heorot – Niven, Pournelle & Barnes (6)
Radio City the first 30 years of 3RRR– Mark Philips (9)
The Salzburg Connection – Helen MacInnes (6)
Consider Her Ways and Others – John Wyndham (6)
In retrospect we took way too many games (now there’s three words in a row that you will rarely see me use), we only played about half of those that we took with us. Daughter the Elder, eight and half, and Daughter the Younger, almost four, are both avid game players. Both of them wanted to play games and they would demand games often, when they were not demanding trips to the beach or trampolines that is.
Games
In order of appearance the games we played were:
Gulo Gulo
Daughter the Younger is a big fan of this and is very blasé about the way she just grabs eggs from bowl. Her main strategy, which seems to be common amongst three year olds that I know who play this game, is to flip the next tile. Due to her small fingers she can and does win this game against competitive adults. Six plays.
Marrakesh
This is one that Daughter the Younger learnt by osmosis, she is now fully conversant about how to play and will actually choose the red market tiles because they are generally worth more instead of the colour that she likes at the moment. She also understands the how all the tiles work. It’s a game that she and Daughter the Elder can play with one or two adults and no handicapping is required. Four plays.
Blink
Daughter the Elder plays this very fast, if Daughter the Younger is playing we need to play slower or give her less cards. She knows what she is doing, but just doesn’t have the speed of the other family members. Four plays.
Cluedo
We introduced Daughter the Elder to this a few days before we went down to Lorne. She liked it a lot. Initially we introduced a handicap where Melissa and I would wait two turns after we had deduced the answer before making our accusation. After giving her a few tips on what sort of information she would probably want to make detective notes on we have reduced that handicap to one turn and it will probably get dropped entirely in the near future. Daughter the Younger also likes “playing” this. She has her own piece, take her turn and rolls the dice and moves it around the rooms and puts weapons in the room just like the rest of us. It is good, she is pleasantly occupied and involved and the rest of us can play the game. Six plays.
Jambo
Part of Melissa’s Christmas loot, this is the only game that we actually played without children. I quite like it, although my results seem to be progressively deteriorating. Three plays.
Gopher It!
A game that Daughter the Younger will request. She seems to have better luck in the push your luck aspect than adults do, but I am sure this claim would not stand up to scientific investigation. Two plays.
San Juan
Quite often played with Daughter the Elder as a two player before bed game. She is currently favouring the Chapel and does quite well with it too. Four plays.
Connect 4
We had a little travel edition with us this year as Daughter the Younger managed to break Daughter the Elder’s set early last year. The travel set is only five by six instead of seven by six and this seems to have thrown a spanner into Daughter the Elder’s set plays as I managed to beat her three games in a row which is something I have never done with the proper set! Three plays.
Puerto Rico
Daughter the Elder has been bugging us for a long time to let her play this, especially every time she looks at the back of the San Juan box. We relented at Lorne. She has watched us play before and her background in San Juan made her familiar with role selection and the idea of the buildings giving benefits for particular roles. I wouldn’t recommend San Juan as a pre-requisite for Puerto Rico for an adult gamer, but I must admit it was worthwhile for Daughter the Elder. In the first game Melissa and I gave her a lot of tips and general advice and picked on each other instead of her, but the requirement to do this quickly dropped off. She is favouring a colonist strategy with the Hospice and University, which paid off for her in the second game, which she won. We are trying to educate her to the idea that different strategies are sometimes required depending on the situation and also what works one game may not work the next as the other players try something different. For example in our most recent game Melissa and I both went for a shipping strategy. We noticed that three player Puerto Rico is much less cutthroat than four or five players. Neither of us had actually played three player before, we usually play two or five player. In fact two player Puerto Rico is usually our standard two player game down at Lorne, but we didn’t manage a single two player play this year. Four plays.
Frank’s Zoo
For some reason we only seem to play this down at Lorne, we all like it, so should try and get it out at home more often. A full three player game does take over an hour, so possibly that is what is keeping it off the table. Daughter the Elder’s card play strategy is not quite up to that of ours, so we allow her to go out when she has one card left. One play.
Settlers of Catan
We hadn’t played this for about six months, early in the first game Melissa and I were both of the opinion that Daughter the Elder had the game sewn up, she had two cities on good numbers and was rolling in resources. However as the game progressed she concentrated on getting development cards and didn’t build any more settlements for a long time and thus didn’t manage the expected win. So as an educational and intellectual exercise we played twice more using exactly the same board layout and starting positions as the first game. The first game lasted for 89 rolls, the second abnormally short at 45 rolls and the third a more usual 77 rolls. In game three where she did not concentrate on development cards so much, she did achieve a higher score. She still favours ports and cities though. Three plays.
Flix Mix
Daughter the Elder likes this and we sometimes get Melissa to play too. This game seems to be very hard to obtain outside Germany which is a pity, it’s a good family game and more families should be able to easily be exposed to it. Five plays.
Duell
Daughter the Elder is good at this. We usually have to play the full eight rounds to determine the winner. She had the better of me again. One play.
Balloon Cup
Daughter the Elder is an old hand at this, given that she has been playing it since she was five. Another one that I lost :-) One play.
Go Fish
What’s a holiday house without a deck of cards? I don’t think Daughter the Elder and I have played Go Fish since we were down at Lorne last year. Five plays.
Catch the Match
Daughter the Younger still likes this a lot. Simple pattern matching. Two plays.
Books
Read aloud, many, many times, to Daughter the Younger (with BGG style ratings):
Albert Le Blanc – Mark Butterworth (6)
Billy Tibbles Moves Out – Jean Fearnley (7)
Fix It Duck – Jez Alborough (3) [Good cadence, but I dislike the main character immensely]
Oww! – Michael Rosen & Jonathan Langley (7)
Badness for Beginners – Ian Whybrow & Tony Ross (7)
I Want to Be – Tony Ross (8)
If you going walking in Tiger Wood – Alan Durant & Debbie Boon (7)
Zigby Dives In – Brian Peterson (6)
Wilfred to the Rescue – Alan MacDonald (8)
The Hedgehog’s Balloon – Nick Butterworth (7)
Read, not aloud - mostly science fiction or things found at the beach house:
Stiff– Shane Maloney (9)
Trouble with Lichen – John Wyndham (6)
Our Children’s Children – Clifford D Simak (5)
The Autumn Land and other Stories – Clifford D Simak (6)
The Seeds of Time – John Wyndham (7)
The Gray Ghosts of Taylor Ridge – Mary Francis Shura (7)
King Solomon’s Mines (1907 edition)– H Rider Haggard (6)
Nebula Award Stories 9 – Kate Wilhelm ed (8)
Science Fiction: The Great Years – Carol and Frederik Pohl eds (7)
Legacy of Heorot – Niven, Pournelle & Barnes (6)
Radio City the first 30 years of 3RRR– Mark Philips (9)
The Salzburg Connection – Helen MacInnes (6)
Consider Her Ways and Others – John Wyndham (6)
Friday, January 26, 2007
Complexity in the Galaxy
I recently checked out a news item on Comsimworld that announced that a gentleman named Charles Duke had designed a galactic empire game called Down with the Empire. From the description, Down with the Empire sounded a lot like Freedom and the Galaxy (designed by John Butterfield and Howard Barasch in 1979), the old SPI game which was an homage (ripoff) off the Star Wars movies.
I own Freedom in the Galaxy, but the game always seemed more fun in theory than in practice. How could anyone but an oh-so-serious grognard resist the theme? Lead an array of cute and wacky characters as they rebel against an evil Galactic Empire. Or direct the forces of oppression and treachery as they blow up whole planets in their dread quest to stamp out the fires of interstellar freedom. Old fashioned space opera turned into a strategy game. Great stuff—at least potentially.
But Freedom in the Galaxy always seemed to me to be a sad mismatch between theme and design. The theme seemed to be crying out for a beer-and-pretzels game that players could play in one sitting (maybe a very long sitting, but still…). Instead, SPI gave the gaming world an intricate simulation with a playing time estimated at ten to twenty hours or more (I’ve never finished a game). The art work was appealingly comic book, but the actual design seemed aimed more at lovers of Highway to the Reich than gamers who were looking for something only twice as complicated as Axis & Allies. Although some people were enthusiastic about the game (and it was reprinted by Avalon Hill), I always thought that SPI missed a great opportunity by not designing a space opera game that was more accessible to the casual gamer.
So it was not bad news to me that Down with the Empire seemed to be a game in the same ballpark as Freedom in the Galaxy. It’s not as if we have a whole lot of popular space games. Fantasy Flight’s Twilight Imperium 3rd edition seems to be the reigning galactic monarch, and there don’t seem to be many successors on the horizon.
I followed the links to the Dan Verssen website and learned that Down with the Empire can be bought as either a vassal download game, or as a pdf make-it-yourself game. Either version costs $20. Not bad, if you don’t mind playing on your computer, or cutting and pasting all the maps and counters that are required.
And I saw that the rules could be downloaded for free. This is always a good sign. It’s almost like being able to test drive a car before buying. After downloading I saw that the rules ran 82 pages. Well, actually, 82 pages of rules and another 30 pages or more of appendices and designers notes.
Even a quick scan of the rules revealed that Down with the Empire seemed to be a do-over of Freedom in the Galaxy. The characters perform lots of the same missions, right down to the prisoner interrogation mission. There is a secret rebel base and an Imperial planet-destroying mega-weapon. Down with the Empire seems to be Mr. Duke’s attempt to get Freedom in the Galaxy right.
Well, more than once have I found myself wishing that someone would re-design some games that are a near miss. And this re-design impulse can certainly lead to some good games. Ed Beach’s appreciation for the flawed A Mighty Fortress led him to design Here I Stand. I can’t comment on the quality of Down with the Empire because I haven’t played it, but it looks to be a labor of love. Quick rip-off games don’t have rule books that are 80 plus pages of double-column small type. There may be sci-fi gamers who end up being profoundly grateful to Charles Duke for giving them an alternative to Freedom in the Galaxy.
But why did it have to be more complex than the original? (Mr. Duke might answer: “To squeeze in all the things I thought should be there.”) The Appalachian Gamers had trouble with the 40 or so pages of Here I Stand; I wouldn’t be so foolish as to try to sell them on the complexities of Down with the Empire.
The gaming community doesn’t desperately need another Star Wars-type game anymore than it needs another Lord of the Rings game. But if Lucasfilm were to try to create a new Star Wars strategy game aimed at the same gamer audience that made War of the Ring a success, I would hope the game would have roughly the same complexity as War of the Ring. There is a huge gap on the complexity spectrum between Star Wars Risk and Freedom in the Galaxy, and maybe someday it will be filled.
Meanwhile, those gamers with a love of space opera who have a higher tolerance for complex rules than yours truly might want to check out Down with the Empire (www.dvg.com).
I own Freedom in the Galaxy, but the game always seemed more fun in theory than in practice. How could anyone but an oh-so-serious grognard resist the theme? Lead an array of cute and wacky characters as they rebel against an evil Galactic Empire. Or direct the forces of oppression and treachery as they blow up whole planets in their dread quest to stamp out the fires of interstellar freedom. Old fashioned space opera turned into a strategy game. Great stuff—at least potentially.
But Freedom in the Galaxy always seemed to me to be a sad mismatch between theme and design. The theme seemed to be crying out for a beer-and-pretzels game that players could play in one sitting (maybe a very long sitting, but still…). Instead, SPI gave the gaming world an intricate simulation with a playing time estimated at ten to twenty hours or more (I’ve never finished a game). The art work was appealingly comic book, but the actual design seemed aimed more at lovers of Highway to the Reich than gamers who were looking for something only twice as complicated as Axis & Allies. Although some people were enthusiastic about the game (and it was reprinted by Avalon Hill), I always thought that SPI missed a great opportunity by not designing a space opera game that was more accessible to the casual gamer.
So it was not bad news to me that Down with the Empire seemed to be a game in the same ballpark as Freedom in the Galaxy. It’s not as if we have a whole lot of popular space games. Fantasy Flight’s Twilight Imperium 3rd edition seems to be the reigning galactic monarch, and there don’t seem to be many successors on the horizon.
I followed the links to the Dan Verssen website and learned that Down with the Empire can be bought as either a vassal download game, or as a pdf make-it-yourself game. Either version costs $20. Not bad, if you don’t mind playing on your computer, or cutting and pasting all the maps and counters that are required.
And I saw that the rules could be downloaded for free. This is always a good sign. It’s almost like being able to test drive a car before buying. After downloading I saw that the rules ran 82 pages. Well, actually, 82 pages of rules and another 30 pages or more of appendices and designers notes.
Even a quick scan of the rules revealed that Down with the Empire seemed to be a do-over of Freedom in the Galaxy. The characters perform lots of the same missions, right down to the prisoner interrogation mission. There is a secret rebel base and an Imperial planet-destroying mega-weapon. Down with the Empire seems to be Mr. Duke’s attempt to get Freedom in the Galaxy right.
Well, more than once have I found myself wishing that someone would re-design some games that are a near miss. And this re-design impulse can certainly lead to some good games. Ed Beach’s appreciation for the flawed A Mighty Fortress led him to design Here I Stand. I can’t comment on the quality of Down with the Empire because I haven’t played it, but it looks to be a labor of love. Quick rip-off games don’t have rule books that are 80 plus pages of double-column small type. There may be sci-fi gamers who end up being profoundly grateful to Charles Duke for giving them an alternative to Freedom in the Galaxy.
But why did it have to be more complex than the original? (Mr. Duke might answer: “To squeeze in all the things I thought should be there.”) The Appalachian Gamers had trouble with the 40 or so pages of Here I Stand; I wouldn’t be so foolish as to try to sell them on the complexities of Down with the Empire.
The gaming community doesn’t desperately need another Star Wars-type game anymore than it needs another Lord of the Rings game. But if Lucasfilm were to try to create a new Star Wars strategy game aimed at the same gamer audience that made War of the Ring a success, I would hope the game would have roughly the same complexity as War of the Ring. There is a huge gap on the complexity spectrum between Star Wars Risk and Freedom in the Galaxy, and maybe someday it will be filled.
Meanwhile, those gamers with a love of space opera who have a higher tolerance for complex rules than yours truly might want to check out Down with the Empire (www.dvg.com).
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The News in Thongs / Old Puzzler / New Fortnightly Puzzler
The News in Briefs will be replaced today with the News in Thongs. This is due in large part to my overall obliviousness of today's date and its implications with regards to my writing this column.
Ahem.
I woke up today at 8:30am, ate the breakfast that Annie had made for me (cereal, bananas), and walked to work. On the way, I read Gandhi's autobiography and realized that he too was totally lost in his twenties. I got to World Games of Montana, opened it up, and did a few chores around the store. I then ate lunch and read The Order of the Stick (www.giantitp.com) web comics. Holy geez. This is one funny strip. And, yes, it seems I bounce from genre to genre, from serenity to stupidity. But I ask: how is this different from anything else in this twisted life? I finished lunch and worked on a new game which is rapidly turning into a kind of maze. I'll just go where it takes me. I rearranged part of the store (much better now), cleaned it, and when Jonathan relieved me from duty, went off into
***********************************************************************
The News in Thongs is real. Anyone offended by my mundane life should
really appraise their own mundane life.
***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************
Old Puzzler
Q: What's the worst opening move in a 1 through 9 Shut-The-Box if any first roll is possible?
A: Best I can tell, it's rolling a 12 and knocking down 1, 2, 3, and 6. This increases the likelihood of failure to 11 over 36 (that is, 36 possible dice combinations).
***********************************************************************
New Fortnightly Puzzler
What pronoun (pronoun in this case is meant to encompass every possible variation, not just the personal pronouns) is also a group that people tend to fear?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The Gone Gaming 2006 Board Game Internet Awards
The Gone Gaming: Board Game Internet Awards results are in. A big thank you to the tireless staff at Gone Gaming for their work in selecting the winners, and especially to Shannon for tabulating the votes and creating the award images.If your site has won, you may display the "Winner" image here on your site with a link to this post's URL or the main Gone Gaming URL.
Here are the results:
Best game resource site
Winner: Board Game Geek
Surely no surprise to anyone, Board Game Geek is the behemoth of board game websites, with information on over 27,000 games, hundreds of thousands of registered users, and everything from player aids to online contests. Scott Alden, Head Geek, quit his job at the beginning of 2006 to run the site full time, and this year saw many new improvements and features to the site.
Having won two years in a row, Board Game Geek becomes our first Hall of Fame winner, and will be ineligible for this category next year.
Runner Up: Bruno Faidutti
Best publisher site
Winner: Days of Wonder
For the second year, Days of Wonder wins this award for providing a user-friendly all-comprehensive site with everything that anyone could want, from rules, to forums, to online play.
Days of Wonder is our Hall of Fame winner in this category, and will be ineligible next year.
Runner Up: Fantasy Flight Games
Best game club site
Winner: East Tennessee Gamers
Once again we pick Greg Schloesser's East Tennessee Gamers club site for it's clear navigation, rich session reports, complete bios, and other game information.
East Tennessee Gamers is our Hall of Fame pick for this category and will be ineligible next year.
Runner Up: Long Island Boardgaming Organization
Best online magazine
Winner: INDEPTH
INDEPTH is a complete full-color monthly magazine full of session reports, reviews, product information, and bonuses galore, and is our pick for best magazine or journal.
There is no Runner Up in this category.
Best online gaming site
Winner: SpielByWeb
SpielByWeb continues to be an easy-to-use online gaming site with great games and no problems.
SpielByWeb is our Hall of Fame pick for this category and will be ineligible next year.
Runner Up: BrettspielWelt
Best blog
This year's winner was a tie vote.
Winner: Gathering of Engineers
Sadly ending mid-year, Gathering of Engineers was a joint blog with weekly discussion topics by some of the best game bloggers. Lucky for use, some of these bloggers continue to write elsewhere on the web.
Winner: NYC Gamer
NYC Gamer has a rich gathering of reports, reviews, analysis, and interesting writing. It jointly earns the win in this category.
Best podcast/videocast
Winner: Board Games With Scott
BGWS sneaked in with a win at the end of last year, but this year really came into its own, with useful, humorous, and fluid videos about games.
Board Games With Scott is our Hall of Fame pick for this category and will be ineligible next year.
Runner Up: The Dice Tower
Best new site (2006)
Winner: Mike Doyle's Art Play
Mike Doyle's Art Play is not only a unique blog about art and form in board game design, but an incredible gallery of his unique and beautiful designs and redesigns for existing board games.
Runner Up: Journal of Boardgame Design
Best strategy article (2006)
Winner: The Tao of Gaming: Six thousand words about Caylus
A huge, comprehensive, and enjoyable strategy guide to the year's hottest heavy Euro-game.
There is no Runner Up in this category.
Best review article (2006)
Winner: Board Game Geek (Tom Rosen): Carcassonne as heavy as Tigris and Caylus?!
Tom writes a clear and useful review of one of the core games of the decade, along with two of its expansions. With pictures.
Runner Up: Board Game Geek (Tom Rosen): Power Grid – Friese’s Fiddly Funkenschlag Flop
Best session report (2006)
Winner: Board Game Geek (Diane Close) : How To Play Doom Like A Girl!
A surreal, humorous, and engaging first play of Doom by a woman who would prefer to go to sleep.
Runner Up: Board Game Geek (Tom Rosen): Pappenheimer Surprise
Best industry article (2006)
Winner: Chris Farrell: Here I Stand, and big decks
A thorough and interesting analysis of the effects on a card-driven war game by varying the size of the decks.
Runner Up: Boardgamers' Pastime: Fill in the Blank
Runner Up: My Play: An Introduction to Elegance
Best humorous article (2006)
Winner: Board Game Geek (Diane Close) : How To Play Doom Like A Girl!
I didn't forget to mention humorous, did I? Diane wins again for this great session report.
Runner Up: Gamer's Mind: Meeting of the Minds
Best article series (2006)
Winner: Board Game News (Jeff Allers): Postcards From Berlin
Jeff Allers writes from a unique perspective about what it's like to live and game as an American in Berlin.
Runner Up: Board Game Babylon: The Demise and Rise of the FLGS
Best downloadable board game
Winner: Scott: Pocket Civ
What more could you ask for than a portable pocket-sized game of Civilization? Thanks, Scott!
Runner Up: Axis and Allies.org: Axis & Allies Revised Historical Edition
Congratulations to all the winners and runners up. And thanks again to all of our readers for participating in the nominations.
The Gone Gaming Staff
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Spread the Joy
For most of my life, I have been the preeminent “gaming guru” of my social circle. That doesn’t mean I’m the best player, but it does mean I’m the most enthusiastic about games. There are many advantages to being the local guru, as I tend to be the game supplier on any given gaming night I can be sure to bring games that I want to play. This also means I tend to be the game teacher, so have a slight leg up on the competition as I’ve spent more time thinking about a game before it comes to the table for the first time. However, there are some drawbacks. As the designated guru, it falls upon me to find the next interesting game. Now, this isn’t too bad as I enjoy spending some of my time researching new games on the internet and trying to calculate if it is a game that I would enjoy and would be one that could be brought to the table for playing. Any hardcore game fan will realize both of those conditions are necessary for a good game. It doesn’t matter how much I think I will like a game if I won’t be able to ever arrange a time and a place to play it. The biggest drawback comes in as the supplier of boardgames. While it is nice to have a bit more control over what gets played on any given evening, it also means that if I don’t own a game and can’t afford adding it to my collection, I just won’t ever get to play it. This also means I tend to never get to play some of the older classics, as I typically have my eye on the newest and brightest stars on the horizon and don’t have the cash to go back and pick up some of the older “classics”.
With the creation of a regular gaming group over the summer, I have found myself with an excellent opportunity to observe the birth and growth of several new gamers as they enter the fold of full-fledged gaming enthusiasts. After several months of playing games primarily from my collection, the Christmas season hit and a wealth of games has entered into the homes of members of our gaming group. In fact, one has even gone so far as to try to establish a definitive beginner collection of boardgames. You can read his thoughts over at a very well-thought out GeekList at the boardgame geek: Starting Your Game Collection - A Guide for Advanced Newbies . Not only do I now have access to several titles that I have never played before, but I have a real paternal sense of having brought a new gamer into the fold. Introducing folks to boardgaming is always fun for me as it brings me new opponents and thus more opportunities for gaming, but in the case of our fledgling gaming group, I feel as if I got to watch the entire life cycle of a gamer unfold. First there was the wonder and enjoyment of finding out about “these games of ours”, next came a hunger for testing the waters of various new games combined with a desire to give a few select games a really good work-over to explore their depth. We’ve now reached the final stage of acquiring and establishing a game collection so that they can independently propagate the joys of gaming.
Everyone have a virtual cigar, on me!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Recent games played:
With the second edition/printing of Twilight Struggle by GMT Games I’ve finally had the chance to give the game a try. Surprisingly, it was actually a pretty good hit with my wife. While she is highly intelligent (being a physics professor and all), she is not much of a game fan and typically plays only to spend more time with me (isn’t she so nice). While one might thing a quasi-wargame based on the cold war wouldn’t be the ticket to draw her in, she actually enjoyed the game quite a bit despite falling behind early and never being able to catch up. I attribute this to two main reasons. First, even though she was behind on points, there was always something for her to do. Just because I had more points didn’t mean she wasn’t able to significantly affect positions on the board. In fact, due to the way some of the cards work a player who is behind will often get a greater benefit from card events than if they were ahead. Secondly, the game is highly historical. Both my wife and I enjoy learning just about anything and taking a stroll down recent historical events in the last century was a blast. The rules thankfully have a short paragraph explaining the event(s) associated with each card, giving players a handy resource to learn more about that interesting era.
My only beef with the game comes in the randomness. There are die rolls that can really make or break you, but typically only affect things in the short term and they tend to average out over time. A larger problem was if one player was dealt less valuable cards (values of all 1’s and 2’s with no cards worth 3 or 4) for an entire hand. That meant an entire hand of cards could go by while one player felt rather impotent to significantly change their position on the game board.
On the whole, we both enjoyed the game and look forward to future plays. I am anxious to show it off to the social studies teachers at our local high school where I teach. I can see why the game won several awards last year.
With the creation of a regular gaming group over the summer, I have found myself with an excellent opportunity to observe the birth and growth of several new gamers as they enter the fold of full-fledged gaming enthusiasts. After several months of playing games primarily from my collection, the Christmas season hit and a wealth of games has entered into the homes of members of our gaming group. In fact, one has even gone so far as to try to establish a definitive beginner collection of boardgames. You can read his thoughts over at a very well-thought out GeekList at the boardgame geek: Starting Your Game Collection - A Guide for Advanced Newbies . Not only do I now have access to several titles that I have never played before, but I have a real paternal sense of having brought a new gamer into the fold. Introducing folks to boardgaming is always fun for me as it brings me new opponents and thus more opportunities for gaming, but in the case of our fledgling gaming group, I feel as if I got to watch the entire life cycle of a gamer unfold. First there was the wonder and enjoyment of finding out about “these games of ours”, next came a hunger for testing the waters of various new games combined with a desire to give a few select games a really good work-over to explore their depth. We’ve now reached the final stage of acquiring and establishing a game collection so that they can independently propagate the joys of gaming.
Everyone have a virtual cigar, on me!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Recent games played:
With the second edition/printing of Twilight Struggle by GMT Games I’ve finally had the chance to give the game a try. Surprisingly, it was actually a pretty good hit with my wife. While she is highly intelligent (being a physics professor and all), she is not much of a game fan and typically plays only to spend more time with me (isn’t she so nice). While one might thing a quasi-wargame based on the cold war wouldn’t be the ticket to draw her in, she actually enjoyed the game quite a bit despite falling behind early and never being able to catch up. I attribute this to two main reasons. First, even though she was behind on points, there was always something for her to do. Just because I had more points didn’t mean she wasn’t able to significantly affect positions on the board. In fact, due to the way some of the cards work a player who is behind will often get a greater benefit from card events than if they were ahead. Secondly, the game is highly historical. Both my wife and I enjoy learning just about anything and taking a stroll down recent historical events in the last century was a blast. The rules thankfully have a short paragraph explaining the event(s) associated with each card, giving players a handy resource to learn more about that interesting era.
My only beef with the game comes in the randomness. There are die rolls that can really make or break you, but typically only affect things in the short term and they tend to average out over time. A larger problem was if one player was dealt less valuable cards (values of all 1’s and 2’s with no cards worth 3 or 4) for an entire hand. That meant an entire hand of cards could go by while one player felt rather impotent to significantly change their position on the game board.
On the whole, we both enjoyed the game and look forward to future plays. I am anxious to show it off to the social studies teachers at our local high school where I teach. I can see why the game won several awards last year.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
What would Buffy do?
What Would Buffy do?
It may not be a thought to live your life by, but it's one of those vexing questions that has been known to trouble me in the early hours of the morning, especially at the beach, where my life is ruled by the trivial: What boardgames would the fictional characters in your life enjoy?
Of the Buffy crew, Jonathan would play the Buffy game with a custom Jonathan figure. Xander would be more a Finstere Flure kind of guy, and Giles would have a secret collection of some sort of collectible game like Creepy Freaks (but he would only play it by himself when no-one was looking). Buffy would prefer something like California, I should think.
I think the cast of Coupling would enjoy Bausack. Patrick would get all the really BIG bits, Jane would build her own tower, and Susan would win and try (unsuccessfully) not to look smug. If we were really lucky, the losers would do the Spiderman dance when they finished. For Sally, we could retheme Arkham Horror as a fight against old age and sagginess.
The cast of that really bad DaVinci Code-esque archaeology show with the Philiminator look-alike would play Mystery of the Abbey, I'm sure. They'd probably study the cards for hidden messages.
As for the kids' shows, well Bob the Builder and his gang would surely enjoy a good game of Make'n'Break. And the colourful Wiggles and their pre-school audience seem perfectly suited to Gulo Gulo - now there's a marketing opportunity!
We already know that the Desperate Housewives play Poker when they are all together, but what about other times? I think Edie would be a shark at Acquire, and Susan and her daughter probably play Carcassonne. Lynnette and Tom would play some really evil 2-player game where they could pick on each other ruthlessly.
The cast of Lost are trickier to settle. We know that Locke plays wargames (I'm thinking, block wargames or those older ones like World in Europe or Campaign for North Africa that take nearly a week just to set up but Fraser says he would prefer Axis & Allies or another miniatures game). Jack would probably enjoy a game with a physical component like Dart Wars; Kate would be a shark at Tichu; Charlie might enjoy Schrille Stille; Hurley strikes me as someone who would love a good round of Diamant; and Sawyer, we know, goes for gambling and bluffing - he might be a natural at something like Can't Stop.
On Battlestar Galactica, I reckon they play Settlers of Catan. Starbuck picks on Apollo relentlessly (and vice versa), but, depending on where they're at in the storyline, they vary between helping the other win rather than letting anyone else get to 10VP first, and ruthlessly kingmaking to block the other's victory.
And Captain Jack Harkness? Chrononauts, for sure.
-------
It's raining at the beach today, so we should get a fair bit of gaming in. So far, I'm averaging just under 3 games a day. The winners (by a country mile) are Gulo Gulo and Cluedo.
See you next time!
xx
Melissa
It may not be a thought to live your life by, but it's one of those vexing questions that has been known to trouble me in the early hours of the morning, especially at the beach, where my life is ruled by the trivial: What boardgames would the fictional characters in your life enjoy?
Of the Buffy crew, Jonathan would play the Buffy game with a custom Jonathan figure. Xander would be more a Finstere Flure kind of guy, and Giles would have a secret collection of some sort of collectible game like Creepy Freaks (but he would only play it by himself when no-one was looking). Buffy would prefer something like California, I should think.
I think the cast of Coupling would enjoy Bausack. Patrick would get all the really BIG bits, Jane would build her own tower, and Susan would win and try (unsuccessfully) not to look smug. If we were really lucky, the losers would do the Spiderman dance when they finished. For Sally, we could retheme Arkham Horror as a fight against old age and sagginess.
The cast of that really bad DaVinci Code-esque archaeology show with the Philiminator look-alike would play Mystery of the Abbey, I'm sure. They'd probably study the cards for hidden messages.
As for the kids' shows, well Bob the Builder and his gang would surely enjoy a good game of Make'n'Break. And the colourful Wiggles and their pre-school audience seem perfectly suited to Gulo Gulo - now there's a marketing opportunity!
We already know that the Desperate Housewives play Poker when they are all together, but what about other times? I think Edie would be a shark at Acquire, and Susan and her daughter probably play Carcassonne. Lynnette and Tom would play some really evil 2-player game where they could pick on each other ruthlessly.
The cast of Lost are trickier to settle. We know that Locke plays wargames (I'm thinking, block wargames or those older ones like World in Europe or Campaign for North Africa that take nearly a week just to set up but Fraser says he would prefer Axis & Allies or another miniatures game). Jack would probably enjoy a game with a physical component like Dart Wars; Kate would be a shark at Tichu; Charlie might enjoy Schrille Stille; Hurley strikes me as someone who would love a good round of Diamant; and Sawyer, we know, goes for gambling and bluffing - he might be a natural at something like Can't Stop.
On Battlestar Galactica, I reckon they play Settlers of Catan. Starbuck picks on Apollo relentlessly (and vice versa), but, depending on where they're at in the storyline, they vary between helping the other win rather than letting anyone else get to 10VP first, and ruthlessly kingmaking to block the other's victory.
And Captain Jack Harkness? Chrononauts, for sure.
-------
It's raining at the beach today, so we should get a fair bit of gaming in. So far, I'm averaging just under 3 games a day. The winners (by a country mile) are Gulo Gulo and Cluedo.
See you next time!
xx
Melissa
Friday, January 19, 2007
Investor Wargames
The Appalachian Gamers played Britannia last weekend, and while we all enjoyed ourselves, when we next met, some of us talked about how unenthusiastic we were about the game once we had some perspective on it. There seemed to be few interesting decisions in Britannia; the game lists which territories provide each tribe with the most victory points, and so each player’s course of action is programmed into the game. This might have been alright if the game had a complex combat system or a production system in which a player chooses which type of unit to create. But combat in Britannia is plain vanilla die-rolling, and only a couple of nations have anything other than simple infantry units.
For us, Britannia pales when compared with two new sophisticated euro-wargame hybrids that share similar mechanisms: Perikles and Imperial. Both Perikles and Imperial are what I call investor wargames because players are not assigned nations or forces at the start of the game. Instead, players use mechanisms to gain influence over nations in the game, and they only control armies once their influence dominates a particular nation. Control of nations can shift during the game, and the games treat nations like companies that players can invest in to get a payoff.
Perikles is Martin Wallace game, and it is a rather abstract version of the Peloponnesian War that is played in three turns. Each turn, players place influence markers in various Greek city-states. Once leadership in each city has been determined, some random tiles are drawn that represent contested areas in the war. Players then use the armies they control to attack or defend these tiles in order to get victory points. In the subsequent round, leadership of each city-state is likely to shift, although players still have a sort of investment in the success of cities they have once led. Perikles has a mounted game board, but it is not a map. Armies do not maneuver; they are simply placed on opposite sides of contested tiles.
At first glance, Imperial (from Mac Gerdts who also designed Antike) looks like a conventional wargame, or maybe a redesign of Diplomacy. The mapboard shows Europe and North Africa in the pre-World War I era divided up into six super-power nations and several smaller countries that are available for conquest. Players represent international financiers who loan money to the super-powers, and who then take control of the nations where they are the biggest investor. A rondel gives players a choice of actions that can be taken each turn; the main choices are production of armies and navies, maneuver, taxation, and investor payout. Nations that grow and conquer gain power points that increase the value of investments in these nations.
The Appalachian Gamers played Perikles a couple of weeks ago, and we played our first game of Imperial on Wednesday of this week. (For Imperial, we used a much-discussed variant I spotted on the Boardgamegeek that gives any player who doesn’t control a nation one million dollars when the Investor card is activated. This variant makes it less likely that a player will be stuck without control of a nation for long periods of game time. I recommend it). Reaction to both games was positive, although Imperial garnered the most praise. I can’t remember when our group has responded so enthusiastically to a game. In spite of my dismal performance in Imperial (I came in dead last in a six player game) I enjoyed Imperial immensely, and it may become one of my favorite games.
How do Imperial and Perikles differ? Possibly the biggest difference is that Imperial is a luckless game with no dice and no cards and with perfect information available at all time, while Perikles has a good amount of randomness built in, and hidden placement of armies. Gamers who prefer to avoid luck-factor games will enjoy Imperial more than Perikles.
For me, another thing that Imperial has in its favor is the conventional map board and standard army units. It looks and feels more like a wargame without the complexity that usually drives euro-gamers away from wargames (in combat, units simply eliminate each other in mutual destruction on a one-to-one basis). This is not to say that conventional wargame tactics are the path to victory in Imperial. My attempt to use to the might of the British navy to conquer the northwest corner of the board wasted huge amounts of time and resources while other nations used taxation to gain the power points that made their nations triumph.
Although some of the gamers in my group may prefer Imperial to Perikles, I’m not going to claim that Imperial is a better game. At least one member of our group said that he liked Perikles more, and it is possible that even those who liked Imperial more may be expressing a slight preference, not a large one. Ted Cheatham said that Perikles reminded him of Liberte, another Martin Wallace design, in that he finds it hard to devise a strategy in a game where armies or political parties shift from one player to another. But this very difficulty may appeal to gamers who enjoy the challenge of games with depth.
In one of my first essays for Gone Gaming, I wrote how the blending of wargames and euro-games are resulting in interesting hybrids. I think that both Perikles and Imperial are good examples of this trend. I hope that more designers will go down this road. I hope that Perikles and Imperial are merely the vanguard of an approaching army of interesting hybrid wargames.
For us, Britannia pales when compared with two new sophisticated euro-wargame hybrids that share similar mechanisms: Perikles and Imperial. Both Perikles and Imperial are what I call investor wargames because players are not assigned nations or forces at the start of the game. Instead, players use mechanisms to gain influence over nations in the game, and they only control armies once their influence dominates a particular nation. Control of nations can shift during the game, and the games treat nations like companies that players can invest in to get a payoff.
Perikles is Martin Wallace game, and it is a rather abstract version of the Peloponnesian War that is played in three turns. Each turn, players place influence markers in various Greek city-states. Once leadership in each city has been determined, some random tiles are drawn that represent contested areas in the war. Players then use the armies they control to attack or defend these tiles in order to get victory points. In the subsequent round, leadership of each city-state is likely to shift, although players still have a sort of investment in the success of cities they have once led. Perikles has a mounted game board, but it is not a map. Armies do not maneuver; they are simply placed on opposite sides of contested tiles.
At first glance, Imperial (from Mac Gerdts who also designed Antike) looks like a conventional wargame, or maybe a redesign of Diplomacy. The mapboard shows Europe and North Africa in the pre-World War I era divided up into six super-power nations and several smaller countries that are available for conquest. Players represent international financiers who loan money to the super-powers, and who then take control of the nations where they are the biggest investor. A rondel gives players a choice of actions that can be taken each turn; the main choices are production of armies and navies, maneuver, taxation, and investor payout. Nations that grow and conquer gain power points that increase the value of investments in these nations.
The Appalachian Gamers played Perikles a couple of weeks ago, and we played our first game of Imperial on Wednesday of this week. (For Imperial, we used a much-discussed variant I spotted on the Boardgamegeek that gives any player who doesn’t control a nation one million dollars when the Investor card is activated. This variant makes it less likely that a player will be stuck without control of a nation for long periods of game time. I recommend it). Reaction to both games was positive, although Imperial garnered the most praise. I can’t remember when our group has responded so enthusiastically to a game. In spite of my dismal performance in Imperial (I came in dead last in a six player game) I enjoyed Imperial immensely, and it may become one of my favorite games.
How do Imperial and Perikles differ? Possibly the biggest difference is that Imperial is a luckless game with no dice and no cards and with perfect information available at all time, while Perikles has a good amount of randomness built in, and hidden placement of armies. Gamers who prefer to avoid luck-factor games will enjoy Imperial more than Perikles.
For me, another thing that Imperial has in its favor is the conventional map board and standard army units. It looks and feels more like a wargame without the complexity that usually drives euro-gamers away from wargames (in combat, units simply eliminate each other in mutual destruction on a one-to-one basis). This is not to say that conventional wargame tactics are the path to victory in Imperial. My attempt to use to the might of the British navy to conquer the northwest corner of the board wasted huge amounts of time and resources while other nations used taxation to gain the power points that made their nations triumph.
Although some of the gamers in my group may prefer Imperial to Perikles, I’m not going to claim that Imperial is a better game. At least one member of our group said that he liked Perikles more, and it is possible that even those who liked Imperial more may be expressing a slight preference, not a large one. Ted Cheatham said that Perikles reminded him of Liberte, another Martin Wallace design, in that he finds it hard to devise a strategy in a game where armies or political parties shift from one player to another. But this very difficulty may appeal to gamers who enjoy the challenge of games with depth.
In one of my first essays for Gone Gaming, I wrote how the blending of wargames and euro-games are resulting in interesting hybrids. I think that both Perikles and Imperial are good examples of this trend. I hope that more designers will go down this road. I hope that Perikles and Imperial are merely the vanguard of an approaching army of interesting hybrid wargames.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Last Season's Hot Games: A Top Ten (or so) from Nurnberg 2006
Last year I posted a list of ten games worth watching from Nurnberg '06. I'd been hoping to post some followup on all ten games to talk about what was good and what wasn't, but it took forever for the Nurnberg games to actually hit the U.S. shores, and to date there's still a few that I haven't gotten to play.But, before the next Nurnberg rolls around I wanted to post my notes on the 8 games that I had gotten to try out. So: Nurnberg 2006. Some of these games are a bit old by now, but they nonetheless represent some of the more interesting games of last year, and if you haven't tried them out yet, here's some more info.
#1: Blue Moon City (A)
My Thoughts: Review (11/06)
Authors: Reiner Knizia
Synopsis: card management, city development, majority control
Background: Blue Moon City, after the war
U.S. Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
I was expecting to like Blue Moon City, and I wasn't disappointed. It's an interesting Knizian resource-management game that doesn't have quite the weight of his classics, like T&E and Samurai, but is nonetheless one of the deepest games he's released in the last few years (up there with Beowulf and before that Amun-Re).
You're constantly managing a hand of cards that you can alternatively use to build up Blue Moon City or to take advantage of certain special powers. At the same time you're trying to manage the topography of the board (because your limited movement always seems to result in you being opposite where you want to be) and the limited resource of time. There's a lot of thoughts, and a lot of tactics, but not too much of each either.
By the by, if it weren't obvious the mechanics have nothing to do with the Blue Moon card game.
The theming, on the other hand, does, and it's wonderful. You get beautiful cards because of all of the art already being produced for the card game. Further, you get to see the return of the various Blue Moon races, each of which has a special power which is reminiscent of how they were portrayed in the original, but not the exact same thing.
I'd originally ranked this below Thurn and Taxis, which you'll find next, but I think it stands up better to long-term play. Strategies are more different from game to game, and more dependent upon board positioning and how other players interact, thus giving the game more staying power.
This is a strong Knizian release; what more need be said?
#2: Thurn & Taxis (A)
My Thoughts: Just this article.
Authors: Andreas Seyfarth & Karen Seyfarth
Synopsis: connectivity, set collection
Background: Germany, recent centuries
U.S. Publisher: Rio Grande Games
I had really high hopes for Thurn & Taxis. Much as with last year's Around the World in 80 Days I really wanted it to be another Ticket to Ride. Around the World with 80 Days was an entirely fine game, but without the tension needed to get it to the table. This one, however, it's a contender, and thus one of my top rated games from last year's Nurnberg.
T&T has a simple set of mechanisms. You're trying to create long routes by collecting cards, and you're doing so in such a way as to get to place houses in certain cities, and thus gain bonus points for placing everywhere in a region (or in each region). For an additional factor there are also four roles, which basically act as resources because you only get to use one each turn to give you a slight edge.
As with any truly good game there's a set of choices that are constantly in contention. Do you build long for quick bonuses or short to get more houses out? There's also some great tactical management as each turn you figure out how to make the best use of various limited resources (those roles, your cards, what you can keep in your hand, etc).
T&T isn't quite as deep Ticket to Ride because there's not such a wide-open variety of choice. In TtR you'll often ignore some fraction of the board each game, while in T&T you usually have paid attention to most of it by the time the games over. However, it's a lot deeper than Around the World was, and like both it's got the same strengths of good cardplay, a bit of press your luck, and some interesting and at-odds resource management.
With time this game has faded a little bit, because of that lack of depth, but it's still a top contender from last year, and well deserving of its awards.
#3: Ticket to Ride: Marklin Edition (A)
My Thoughts: Review (03/06)
Authors: Alan R. Moon
Synopsis: connectivity, delivery, set-collection
Background: Germany, recent centuries
U.S. Publisher: Days of Wonder
The new Marklin edition of Ticket to Ride was one of my starred releases from Nurnberg which I had the highest hopes for, and it didn't disappoint. Though I'm a bit burned out on Ticket to Ride, having played 81 face-to-face games of all the variants since the release of the original, I can still recognize the elegant design of this new edition.
The map is Germany, and the graphic design is more colorful and vibrant than any of the others to date. Every time I get a new Ticket to Ride game I feel like it's a little better tuned than the ones that came before, and this is no exception. The map works like clockwork, and a split of the tickets into two halves, representing long and short routes, really helps the development of the gameplay.
The big new element is this version is passengers. Every city has merchandise on it, and you can place passengers who rush around and pick this up. It turns out to be another subgame of brinkmanship, because you constantly have to figure out when to take advantage of your limited passenger moves, and whether other players are going to swoop in and pick up the merchandise. Thanks to the passengers, merchandise, and split tickets, I also think this game is more strategic than Europe, which was in turn more strategic than the original (perhaps following the same trend that I noted for Carcassonne, where as the SdJ gets more distant, the publishers slowly retrofit the game for a more gamer's market).
When I was six months into my play of the original Ticket to Ride I would have killed for another map, and this fits that bill and more. Thus, it's highly recommended for Ticket to Ride enthusiasts. Because of the strategic improvements, it's likewise recommended for more serious gamers who have been leery of the franchise thus far, but curious. If you have burned out on Ticket to Ride, this probably won't be enough to get you back, but that's my only caveat.
#4: Augsberg 1520 (B+)
My Thoughts: Just this article.
Authors: Karsten Hartwig
Synopsis: auctions, economics, resource management
Background: Germany, 1520
U.S. Publisher: Rio Grande
Everyone goes into the newest Alea game hoping it's going to be the next Ra or Taj Mahal, and we're perpetually disappointed because Alea just isn't making games like that any more. However, though I personally found Augsberg to be a bit dry--to the point where I'd trade it away if it didn't fit into my Alea collection--I'm delighted to say that Augsberg is actually the next Louis XIV. They're similarly dry yet well-designed economic and auction games, and if you like one you'll probably like the other.
Augsberg 1520 is a game that I've labeled "brutal". And, that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are lots of really tough choices. You're engaging in strangely baroque auctions (where you first bid a number of cards to bid, then blindly bid those cards, then reveal them, then grant victory to the player who bid the single highest value among the set they played) for various resources. The resources can grant you privileges, but those can later be taken away, thus you have to balance what you can win, what it costs you, and what the chances are of losing it afterward.
A particularly innovative element is the fact that you can't exceed certain scores without building certain structures, and the game is so tightly designed that it's another brutal choice when to try and make those leaps.
As a logistical game, Augsberg is great, and it's also hard to complain about it as a gamer's game if you like this type of deep challenge. I'm suprised it hasn't gotten more commentary since its release.
#5: Gloria Mundi (B)
My Thoughts: Just this article.
Authors: James Ernest & Mike Selinker
Synopsis: card management, resource management
Background: Rome, c. 500
U.S. Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Gloria Mundi is another example of a good indy game design that could have been great with some more professional development. To start off with, the theme is engaging. You're fleeing Rome while Goths slowly stomp toward Rome, destroying everything in their path. The mechanics are Settlers of Catan turned on their ear: you produce resources based upon your lands (represented by cards), but it's those exact lands which are in danger from the Goths. Add on to that a building system that is reminescent of San Juan--you get to place these new buildings on your lands, and they can give you new special powers when you produce.
The game overall has some very innovative mechanics, particularly in deciding when to pay off the Goth, and the blend of tradition resource-management and special buildings is well done. My only complaint with the core mechanics is that they run too long. At 1.5 hours, the game is a bit lengthy, while at 1 hour it would have been entirely delightful.
And then we come to the development: not only was there no good development work to polish up the buildings, which would have resulted in a simple and consistent set of powers, but in fact decisions made during publication notably damaged the game. The rules are, to start off with, bad: overly complex, confusing, and not careful enough about their wording. Worse, the iconography on the cards is some of the worst that I've ever seen. For example, "resource = resource", "resource -> resource", and "resouce : resource" all mean different things, and some of the explanations are outright confusing. Our whole first game through we were never sure that we were playing some cards right. Our second game through we had a reference sheet that showed every card. It's the only way to rationally play that game, but we found at least one mistake on the reference sheet too.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed both of my games of Gloria Mundi. And, if you're an anti-Ernest snob, let me further say that this is different than anything else he's done (though all of his high-end games have actually been moving toward European design for a while). But I'm a bit sad that this game didn't end up at Hans im Gluck or Alea where it would have received top-notch development, and have been one of the games that everyone was talking about last year.
#6: California (B)
My Thoughts: Review (12/06)
Authors: Michael Schacht
Synopsis: house development, resource management, tile laying
Background: California, modern-day
U.S. Publisher: Uberplay
I've been really enthusiastic that Uberplay has been publishing these long, thin Michael Schacht games, a series that also includes China and Hansa. Of the three, California turns out to be my least favorite, but it's nonetheless a game that I enjoy and find original.
The object of California is to rebuild your house, and you do that by refurnishing rooms and putting furniture into those rooms. Generally rooms are a worth a point each, and furniture can be more than that, depending on whether you're able to grab bonus tiles and guests that are wandering the premises.
California's most interesting feature is a (totally non-thematic) method whereby you choose whether to take money or a building tile each turn, but where doing the first makes tiles cheaper for all the other players, thus creating another interesting variant of the Dutch auction. Since everyone is drawing from a central pool of tiles and money there's also considerable ability to engage in brinkmanship and to screw your neighbors when they do the same.
If this game fails, I think it's ultimately in its sameness. Though I can take a chance and curse an opponent when he foils my plans, there's no opportunity for particularly great moves, and that ultimately keeps the game at a more pedestrian level. Nonetheless, it's clever, it's fun, and it's fairly short.
#7: Cleopatra & The Society of Architects (B-)
My Thoughts: First Thoughts (05/06), Second Thoughts (05/06), Review (05/06)
Authors: Bruno Cathala & Ludovic Maublanc
Synopsis: card management, palace development, brinkmanship
Background: Egypt, 1st century BC
U.S. Publisher: Days of Wonder
When I first wrote about Cleopatra last February, I said that I expected the production would be superb, and that I'd be perfectly happy with the lightness of the game. I was right on the production. The game is full of beautiful plastic bits that are quite evocative and add a great visceral feel to the game. Yes, it's overproduced, but on the other hand I've got plenty of $50 games which give considerably less bang for the buck.
In short: the game's about collecting cards to build various monuments, but besides balancing your card resources, you also have to balance corruption which some cards (and some other actions) give you, because whoever has the most corruption at the end loses, no matter how much money they made.
I can enjoy purely light games without problem, but this game actually ends up combining high randomness with brain-burning tactics in a combination that I find very uncomfortable.
On the lightness side you have: partially hidden card draws which you don't have a lot of control over, and which do control what you build; as well as the chaos of what other players might do between your turns, which really cranks up if you play this with 5 players.
On the brain burning side you have: six different types of monuments which can be built; a handful of cards which often allows you to build a large number of permutations of those monuments at any time; and a geometrical pentomino-based tile placement system which rewards very careful cutting off of empty spaces.
It's not a combination I like, and I think it contributes to a feeling of uneasiness about this game. I also have issues with downtime in a 5-player game and the opaqueness of not really knowing what's a good move.
Don't get me wrong, this is a perfectly OK game. I enjoyed my 4-player play, though my 5-player play lagged. There are also some clever systems, particularly the corruption system, and the card dealing system which involves flipping half of the cards upside down. However as a serious game player it's too awkward and too creaky for me to be able to truly lose myself in the game.
I think it might be more enjoyable to casual gamers or to serious gamers who can turn their gamebrain off, but I suggest keeping it to 4 players or less.
#8: Tempus (B-)
My Thoughts: Just this article.
Authors: Martin Wallace
Synopsis: civilization building & warfare
Background: Generic Hexland
U.S. Publisher: Cafe Games
Tempus was actually on my 2005 Essen list, but it finally made its way to the game store shelf last summer. Thus I've given it space alongside other hot games from 2006.
Tempus was widely hyped as a Civilization Light, a tag that was also used for Antike and Parthenon over the previous years. Indeed it's a war game where you manage resources and you advance up a technology track while trying to capture territory, so it meets some of the criteria. However, as I wrote in Give Me a Light ... No, Civ Light the lack of real technology and trade really drops it out of contention.
Instead Tempus is actually a resource management game where you try and take advantage of minor differentials with your opponents by temporarily jumping ahead in technology or making better use of resources than them.
The game's got lots of clever elements and the resource management is engaging. It's suffered somewhat from overhyping, because it turns out to be good, but not brilliant. However, I also find it pretty staid with not a lot of real choices, but instead a slow, monotonous expansion that isn't necessarily interesting or strategic. Worse, I think a rule implemented to avoid player elimination actually offbalances the game. My rating has thus dropped from interested to unenthusiastic over two plays and at this point I think only the serious resource manager will like it ... but then that's the same large group that probably likes Power Grid too.
The three games whic