Session Summary – 20 February 2007

We had 8 people this week, the largest attendance on a non school holiday for some time so we were able to split into 2 groups of four.
On my table Dave C, Ben, Paul & I played Khronos. At the start of the game, going third, I drew a hand including 3 civic cards and decided to pay and discard them, picked up a couple more civic cards but at least I picked up a military card and built a keep in the age of might close to where Dave had started and a couple of couple of Hamlets adjacent leaving me the possibility of later upgrade to a Castle. Paul followed and also swapped cards, which I think he ended up doing on 4 of the turns during the game, which would be costly at the end. He setting up to the North of Dave and also placed another Hamlet next to my Keep, which prevented me from doing an easy upgrade.
As the game moved toward the first scoring, I continued building my little patch adding a monastery, which rippled into the age of faith, while Paul expanded his domain to the North upgrading his keep to a castle and linking to Dave's area using a couple of towns, he also built another keep and town in the east and sent one his adventurers to the age of faith, building a chapel to score the 3 points in that age, unfortunately I robbed him of that with a monastery next to his keep which rippled into the age of faith giving me the points. That left him, only scoring in one age, but he still managed to get a score of 14 to my 10, although I think we were still about level at that point due to Paul's extra expenditure on the likes of swapping cards and moving between ages. Dave had taken a big hit when Paul took over his main area in the age of might and I think he only scored about 6 point although he was still about level having spent less and scored some more for building in the age of faith. Ben lagged behind with a few small scores.
In the final 3 turns, there was not a lot of action in the age of might, with Dave, Ben & Paul moving down to work in the age of reason, although Ben did build a castle in the North west and I upgraded my first monastery to an abbey, unfortunately I hadn't planned ahead very well and the upgrade couldn't ripple forward because it would have linked to a lone hamlet printed on the board in the age of faith. I ended up doing the same upgrade in the age of faith, which didn't seem the most efficient use of my actions, but the upgrade had to happen there so I could link to the large domain which made Paul so many points in the age of might. Paul meanwhile got some extra points in the age of reason by playing 3 civic cards to seize control of a domain from Dave.
At the end of the game I was surprised to win by a point, having grabbed control of a couple of still unlinked pre-printed hamlets on my last turn, things would have been different if Paul hadn't spent so much money on swapping cards or if he'd had another blue card in the final turn to take over my domain in the age of might. I like this game but it does seem to suffer from the random card draw. You can spend a not insignificant 2 to exchange cards, but you have no way of knowing whether you'll draw something just as bad. I see from the new rules posted on the Rio Grande website that they include an optional rule allowing the exchange of cards with a set of face up cards at the beginning of a turn allowing more control of the cards you have. The rules say that this is at the expense of letting the others see your cards, but that does not seem much of a disadvantage as you're probably going to play them immediately so the cards will be seen before anyone else gets a turn anyway.
The scores

Khronos 80 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	38
Paul	2	37
Dave C	3	29
Ben	4	27

 
Next up was Race for the Galaxy which, although I love it, compared with many people on the geek I have obviously not played nearly enough, this being only my seventh game, but I think I am starting to get the feel of it. I played this one a little differently to normal having received New Sparta as my home world, suggesting Military conquest might be the way to go. I started off by developing an expedition force, allowing the draw of an extra card on explore and giving my military the power to conquer the Rebel Underground. I then developed New Military Tactics, which went unused throughout the game as I developed Space Marines allowing me to settle the lost Alien Warship.
My military power was now 7, which was enough and I only had one good on the Alien warship, I was also concerned that I had not acquired a 6 value development useful to a military strategy. I sold the good for 5 using the Trade action and went into exploration mode. I developed the 6 value Galactic renaissance for its ability to draw 2 extra cards and keep an extra 1 when exploring. From that point I could play explore + 5 and draw 10 cards, keeping 2 or explore +1,+1 and draw 6, keeping 3, the hope being that I would in drawing so many cards, find something like Galactic Imperium or New galactic Order. I never found either of these, despite drawing what must have been something like 50 cards during the later stages, but what I did find was the 3 big Rebel Military worlds, which I could conquer and the Galactic Survey: SETI, which, in addition to giving me the ability to draw another 2 cards when exploring, gave me points for things with explore powers and for any world, of which I think I had 7 at the end.
I thought I had made a mistake at the end, when on the penultimate turn, I explored when I should have Settled and was caught out when everyone else went for consume, giving everyone points except me, but this turned out not be fatal and I finished next turn with 13 cards on the table. The game was close as I expected, because I could see Paul had a lot of VP chips in front, while I had none, but I don't think he had a 6 value development, so my big scoring worlds, together with the Galactic Survey were able to take it.
Scores

Race for the Galaxy 50 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	43
Paul	2	39
Dave C	3	30
Ben	4	19

 
We finished off with a few hands of Parallel Worlds (I think that was the name), which Dave had been sent with a request to try it out and give feedback. The game is a whist type trick taking type, which is played as a partnership game with 4 players. From the little experience here the game seems vaguely interesting, but was let down to some degree by the fact that the suits are not identified by numbers or some other identifiable sequencing but are named and you have to know which order they come in (I had to keep looking it up). In normal circumstances, the Emperor is highest and Gatekeeper is lowest, but I found myself getting confused by the Archangel, which I would have expected to be near if not at the top, but was actually fairly low down. We played a few hands and then called it as time was moving on. Once everyone is familiar, the game should be quite quick as each hand only has 5 tricks.

 

Parallel Worlds 20 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1=	8
Dave D	1=	8
Paul	1=	8
Ben	1=	8

 
Over on the other table, Mike, Barbie and the 2 Steves first played El Caballero, which I seem to recall playing once some years back and seem to recall not being overly bothered about. My opinions may of course have been tainted by view of El Grande (I just typed that and missed the space out, the spell checker came back with Elrond as a possible alternative. Is there another meaning for that word or is whoever compiled the dictionary a Tolkien fan, I wonder?)
Scores

El Caballero 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	74
Barbie	2	67
Steve Pe	3	62
Mike	4	47

 
After that they played Saga, which I haven't played, but I do remember that Steve Perkins brought it along once before.

Saga 50 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	60
Steve Pe	2	45
Barbie	3	44
Mike	4	20

Until next week.

Session Summary – 13 February 2008

This was half term week, but Dave C was off so Steve was entertaining the youngsters he had brought along, that left Matt, Mike & I to engage in another game of Power Grid. As I have commented twice recently, this game was a strange one, which might be an indication that all Power Grid games are strange and there's no such thing as a normal one. Anyway this was a plain vanilla (Matt's words) game played on the USA board with the standard plant deck.
The areas selected for play (I think randomly, but I wasn't watching) were the 2 western most areas together with the North central area including Chicago. This meant that while there were some areas with cheap connections, these were connected by very high costs, unlike the numerous cheap ones present in the east coast areas. In light of this I decided that I would try to be last to build on the first round, but this was a forlorn hope as Matt had last choice to bid and I ended up second in the building, having bought the 5 plant, Matt had the 7 and Mike the 4.
Mike set up to the North East in Minneapolis, while I picked up both Cheyenne and Denver connected by the zero cost link. Matt then of course started immediately to my west in Boise and Salt Lake City, I don't know whether it's paranoia, but in every game I've played recently, people seem determined to start right next to me (probably not paranoid, just need to re-evaluate my choice of starting locations).
As it turned out, I don't think board location was that significant a factor in this game, more the action in the Power plant market which delivered a string of low capacity plants in the early stages. Normally I, and I think the others, would be looking to make their third plant one that would last the game, but in this game it was a choice of either buying low capacity plants or being unable to power cities. Everyone opted for being able to power the cities and when we all had 3 plants in front of us, our highest total capacity was 6. In retrospect, it might have been better to power 3 or 4 cities more efficiently than 5 or 6 and wait for a big plant to arrive, but then maybe not as those powering more cities would have had more money on hand to buy the big plants. Any way I think it was at this stage that Mike laid the ground work for his victory as he had the 18 wind plant, which was a very good one in that situation.
The game proceeded with plants continuing to come out in something approaching their numerical order and the price of Coal soared, while that of Oil drifted down as there seemed to be a shortage of Oil plants, the trash and Nuclear rates stagnated as soon as a plant of that type was bought. Step 3 finally occurred on the bureaucracy phase on the penultimate turn, giving 1 shot at the enlarged market, Mike managed to make 17 capacity and I was fairly sure he could finish the game and win, while Matt had 15 capacity, I bought a plant last and vainly searched for the possibility to be able to buy a plant that would give me 16 capacity and be able to build 16 cities for second place. I couldn't make my money stretch and could only afford 15 cities, so when Mike won as I expected I ended up third on the money tie break.
Examining the plants out of the game revealed unsurprising 4 out of 8 were decent Oil or hybrid burners.

Power Grid 110 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Mike	1	17
Matt	2	15+
Dave D	3	15

Over on the other table Citadels was played and it looks like Steve did all right, after that they started a game of Munchkin, which was not complete when the rest of us left and Steve did not expect they would finish, so that game is not recorded. Steve if the game did finish, please let me know the results.

Citadels 80 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	33
Charlotte	2	30
Richard	3=	27
James	3=	27
Mathew(2)	5	25

Until next week.

Session Summary - 6 February 2008

6 players this week and we split 4 & 2 with Dave & Ben playing together as Ben wanted to play Chaos Marauders, the score as below. I can't remember how to play this game which I had once, but Dave left a note that the apparent wide disparity in the scores was due to a major attack made by Ben, which went badly wrong, but could possibly have won him the game if it had succeeded.

Chaos Marauders 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1	1430
Ben	2	340

The other game they played was Khronos, a game that I have quite enjoyed in the past; the positions were reversed in this one.

Khronos 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Ben	1	41
Dave C	2	38

Over on the other table, our major game for the evening was Power Grid, this one played on the French board using the big power plant deck variant with the expansion plants. Essentially you mix the two decks together, but only one of each number is permitted in the game, so when the first of a number comes up it is thrown out and the second of that number is used when it appears. There are still a number of plants to be removed depending on the number of players, so at the beginning the second plant of a number is also thrown out. This means that in this version of the game the missing plants are definitely known as opposed to secret as we would play using a single deck.

After some discussion we eliminated the two southern most regions and the game started. As a result of the variant played the game got off to a stuttering start as many power plants had to be turned up and discarded before a new plant found its way into the market, but this was largely eliminated after the first one or two and the game moved into its normal rhythm. I started and bought the 4 plant from the new deck (1 hybrid powers 1), while Steve picked up the number 1. Mike ended up with the new number 6, which is a definite improvement on the old powering 2 cities for a trash rather than a single. Julian went with the 5 from the new deck which also powers two. Starting off the city building, Steve went for a central location in Orleans, while I took one of the Paris locations and Julian set up shop, I think in Le Mans and Tours. That all left Mike with a large choice of starting position and he went out in the east (I think Nancy and Besancon).

In the early stages of the game I got somewhat boxed in and managed to find just 4 10 value locations before step 2 arrived, Steve had managed to grab the first plant powering 5 cities (the old 20) and expanded North to my east, while Julian moved around to my west. I suppose I may have expanded quicker to grab the cities before others could but did not want to exceed my capacity to power them. I don't think I was in that bad a position because I had picked up a 3 capacity wind plant and could power those four for the cost of 1 a turn, such was the price of oil due to a lack of plants of that type, but as it turned out step 2 happened immediately.

In step 2 we came across a peculiar effect that may have been due to how the 2 decks mixed together, I think that often where a 5 plant corresponds to something lower in the other deck, that we often seemed to get the lower one in the game. Although a few 5 powering plants appeared of which we somehow allowed Steve to pick up 3 and I picked up the old 30 powering 6 for 3 trash, after that we ran into a situation where the maximum available plant capacity was 4 and having built up to a certain level, things really stalled with even the future plants not worth 5 (there's nearly always a mid range stall but this seemed different somehow).

So we just sat there with Steve sitting pretty on 15 capacity, which he couldn't improve, but the rest of us were stuck below that figure and either couldn't improve or could only improve so slightly that the only reason to buy a plant was to nudge the market along, which would of course have meant taking a hit to everybody else’s advantage. So the money just accumulated until Steve had enough to end the game, which I was, maybe able to delay by a turn by buying up enough trash to stop him firing a plant at one point. Step 3 did actually happen when the lowest power plant was discarded when nobody bought in the last turn, but of course that meant no one got a chance to buy in the newly expanded markets.

Final scores were as below, Mike lost out to Julian in the tie break by 219 to 218, every one having a load of money on hand except Steve who had paid to end the game, but no power plants to spend it on.

Power Grid 110 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	15
Dave D	2	13
Julian	3	12+
Mike	4	12

Finally another outing for Taluva, the first time I had played with 4. As might have been expected this ran longer and the game ended with the exhaustion of the tiles rather than a player building all of 2 of 3 building types, which has been the case in all the 3 player games I've had. It was possible that someone might have finished that way in the last round of placement, but Mike was able to stop Steve from getting his last temple down, while Julian in turn blocked me from placing my last temple.

I think everyone enjoyed the game although Steve did comment that it was not really his kind of thing, comparing it to Carcasonne, I understand his point of view although to my mind there is a lot more to this when compared, certainly to the Basic Carcasonne game (I can't comment about the expansions).

As the game came to an end I've scored it 1 to 4 rather than just a winner.

Taluva 45 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Mike	1	3
Dave D	2	2-2
Julian	3	2-1
Steve H	4	2-0

That's all for this week. Just to note that I've finally got round to updating the stats for last year and also for this January, I'm still thinking about the 2007 review.

January 2008

It has been some time since I last posted a report, this being due to various problems with access to a PC, primarily its been too damn cold to spend a deal of time in the room with it and then the process of reorganising the room to bring the radiator into play meaning I couldn't get to it. But hopefully now these things are all OK, I've got to the radiator and I can get to the PC, also I've got a lap top and wireless access. All in all I've no more excuses so hopefully normal service will be resumed.

As it’s the end of the month, I've decided to post a summary for the complete month rather than separate weekly ones, which should resume in February. I'm also going to post an annual summary for last year. Anyway here's what happened in January.

2 Jan

The first week of the year meant we had Steve's children and Ben's friend Matthew along who Dave looked after along with Ben, while Mike, Matt, Steve and I set up Britannia. Steve so enjoyed this when he was introduced to it at Mid Con that we had agreed that we would play another game, starting on a Wednesday and finishing on a Friday at someone's house. We scheduled the completion of this for the 11 Jan at what ended up being at Matt's. Just as we were about ready to start, Julian appeared and there was some discussion about whether to abandon Britannia in favour of something for five, but eventually it was agreed that Julian would move over to join Dave and the youngsters who were not role playing but doing board games that week.

The story of the Britannia game is here. On the other table the games played were Kill Doctor Lucky and Ave Caesar. Julian won the first and then left, I gather that they created a house rule with regard to the spite tokens, when the game looked like going on forever. Apparently a full set of races did not take place in Ave Caesar and Dave mentioned that he did not get the chance for his big comeback. The scores were

Ave Caesar 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Mathew	1	10
Charlotte	2=	7
Ben	2=	7
James	4	6
Dave C	5	5

9 Jan
This week there were 5 of us and it was the turn of Kremlin.

I took the early lead with 5 IP giving me control of Nestor Aparatchik, Julian had first taken control with 1 IP and played a card to cure him of his illness, this was very kind of him as when I took over at the parade he was able to wave without rolling as he was also the following turn before dying. I managed to get Karienko into the top spot, but unfortunately Julian matched me in influence and of course the other tipped control in his favour. Karienko fell ill at this point and could not wave before I took a flyer and took control using my turn 3 extra IP. It did not come off as Karienko snuffed it.

It was now Steve's turn to take control as Sergei Eatstumuch was promoted to KGB head. He took to the Sanatorium after going down with a case of the sniffles, but came back for the funeral commission following the death of Karienko to conduct the election of the new chief in the absence of a foreign minister. Neither of his nominations was acceptable to the Politburo so he somehow became party chief after spending the early part of the game as a bit of a laughing stock in the ministry of sport. Because of circumstances hew had to return to the sanatorium after the funeral commission and so was unable to wave but he returned the following year and for 2 years he waved twice and conducted a reign of terror together with Steve’s other lackey Schootemdedsky at the KGB before both died.

In the remaining 4 turns no party chief was able to wave and the game was called a tie between me and Steve, but special note must be paid to Natasha Nogoodnik (Matt had played a great bureaucrat card on her), who somehow managed to remain in a top tier slot for the entire game despite hostile party chiefs, before being sent to Siberia in a purge right at the end.

Kremlin 150 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1=	2
Steve H	1=	2
Matt	3=	0
Julian	3=	0
Mike	3=	0

16 Jan
A new face this week, who is a male and goes by the name of Barbie, but I don't know the story behind this. Dave introduced him to Martin Wallace's game Brass, with the results as below.

Brass 150 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Julian	1	126
Dave C	2	113
Barbie	3	98
Ben	4	66

At the other table it was a first outing of the year for Power Grid, this played on the Central European board with the large deck variant from the expansion, so we were playing on a board of 32 cities with 20 required to trigger the end of the game. I got off to a reasonably good start picking up a couple of early plants powering 5 cities a piece. Features of the game seemed to be an abnormally long stall in mid game when only poor plants were available, which was to be expected after a lot of more powerful ones being available early and a shortage of Nuclear plants, I think Steve picked up a good one early on but only lower power ones came out late and no one was interested. We discovered afterwards that 3 powerful nuclear plants were among the five thrown out at the beginning of the game. The result of this was that Steve watched with joy as the price of uranium fell through the floor, while the prices of oil and coal rocketed. Step 3 of the game was delayed due to inaction in the power plant market and a situation was reached where nobody could end the game because the cities weren't available. Of course that this meant everyone had loads of money to finish when step 3 did start and it was a case of who could get the best plants in the final auctions. I dropped out of a battle with Steve for one plant and was happy to see the number 60 (8 cities for no fuel) plant appear. Mike didn't compete with me much for it as he knew he could not win because he would be denied fuel for his oil plant.

Power Grid 120 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	18
Steve H	2	17
Matt	3	14
Mike	4	12

23 Jan

It was nice to see Steve Perkins and also Paul who we haven't see for about 6 months. When I arrived they were playing Mordred with Dave & Ben. A black pall obscured the board as the forces of darkness swept to victory with Dave winning on the basis of being least evil.

Mordred 30 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1
Steve Pe	2
Paul	3
Ben	4

On a split to 2 threes, there was another outing for Brass, which Steve enjoyed and I must play again having had a go at Midcon, scores below.

Brass 150 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	175
Dave C	2	159
Paul	3	143

On the other table Steve and I played Race for the Galaxy with Ben. This was a pretty close fought game between me and Steve and the scores seem to be getting bigger although from reading comments at the geek we still have some way to go. Still this was my first time into the fifties.

Race for the Galaxy 45 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	56
Steve Pe	2	48
Ben	3	24

Following this Steve introduced us to Taluva, which is a tile laying game and definitely one with depth that belies its simple mechanics. Basically you lay tiles to form an island and place huts towers and temples to build up settlements. The game goes on until all the 48 tiles are placed or until one player exhausts his supply of 2 of his 3 building types. In the first case the winner is the one with the most temples, followed by the most towers, then the most huts or in the second case the winner is the one who ended the game. What makes the game in my view is the ability to build up the island by placing tiles on top of others, possibly destroying existing huts and dividing settlements. Towers can only be place on level 3 or higher. The game is short and we played 2 games, both finished by a player running out of 2 of 3 building types.

Taluva 30 mins
Player	Posn.
Ben	1
Dave D	2=
Steve Pe	2=
Taluva 30 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave D	1
Steve Pe	2=
Ben	2=

30 Jan

The last meeting of the month saw 5 players and we started with everyone gathered together to play Citadels. Steve won this game with a strategy of building few buildings but of high quality. It was Mike who finished the game using the Architect to build 2 buildings in a turn, but just missed the win despite the finishing bonus. I thought I might have stood a chance had the game gone on another turn, being on 7 buildings and having a completed all 5 of the colours for that bonus on the turn Mike ended it. Dave suffered badly from being assassinated, being collateral damage from assassins after Steve, but never managing to find him.

Citadels 70 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	26
Mike	2	25
Dave D	3	23
Ben	4	17
Dave C	5	13

Following that we split 3 & 2 with Dave introducing Steve to Memoir 44, which I gather he enjoyed despite losing a close fought contest on Sword beach.

Memoir '44 70 mins
Player	Posn.
Dave C	1
Steve H	2

Ben, Mike & I played Taluva, which I enjoyed the previous week and consequently gone out and bought my own copy. Ben had also greatly enjoyed it. Both game finished with a player running out of building types as had both the previous week's games. This might be a characteristic of the 3 player game, because you would not get so many turns with 4. The first game was close with no one very far away from the win. In the second game I was behind early on courtesy of some volcanic eruptions instigated by Mike, also by not thinking through my tile placement sufficiently well.

Taluva 35 mins
Player	Posn.
Mike	1
Ben	2=
Dave D	2=
Taluva 25 mins
Player	Posn.
Ben	1
Mike	2=
Dave D	2=

Right, that's all for January, hopefully regular weekly reports should now resume with February.
I now need to debug the stats sheet, because the new 2008 copy seems to have developed bugs (Done).

Britannia - 2 Jan/11 Jan

So Britannia began with the Roman invasion (Steve playing yellow), sweeping northwards almost wiping out the Belgae (Matt blue) who briefly submitted before revolting under Boudicca almost immediately not that it helped them much. The Romans also made inroads against the Welsh (Mike green) and forced submission from the Brigantes (me red). Everything seemed to be going extremely well until they entered the highlands of the Picts and were heavily defeated with the loss of many troops. This weakened their ability to defend their forts with the result that many were lost to the arriving Angles, Saxons and Irish as well as counterattacks from the Welsh.

Moving into the middle game, my Saxons became the dominant force and everything seemed to be going well at this stage, with the Irish also doing well, Mike's Jutes appeared briefly and settled in Kent as is their wont before falling before being quickly wiped out by the Saxons. The remnants of the Belgae lingered in Lindsey for a short time as did the Romano British in Downlands, but neither made any real impression, while the Scots established a small area up north.

For a few turns everything seemed OK as I achieved successive Bretwaldas and a couple of Kingships until everything went wrong with the arrival of Mike and the Danes, who caused much destruction. In a short period the Brigantes, Irish and Norsemen, who had not achieved much were all eliminated and the Saxons were seriously damaged, I failed to score a single points after turn 13.

In the end the game was close for first and second, with Matt and the Normans coming out on top after a decisive battle with Mike's Danes but I can't remember where it took place. Steve took third place due to the decisive Battle of Chester where Harald Hardrada was victorious over Harold, although he was soon to fall victim to the Normans or the Danes. So William the Conqueror was again victorious albeit that the events were different to expected.

Final Scores

Britannia 300 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Matt (Blue)	1	268
Mike (Green)	2	264
Steve H (Yellow)	3	201
Dave D (Red)	4	200