The Games We Play

The Games We Play

A repository of reports on the Wednesday night sessions of the club and anything else related to the club or boardgaming in general, which may be of interest to anyone who may be passing by.

Friday 22 February 2008

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
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
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
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.
Player
Posn.
Points
Steve H
1
60
Steve Pe
2
45
Barbie
3
44
Mike
4
20
Until next week.

1 comment:

  1. Saga - very nice game until you get close to the end, where it becomes a bit of a 'stand-off'. Basically, you get most points for the VP cards you hold at the end of the game, but you can take a VP card and then lose it within a turn. So you sit there trying to ensure you know when the last turn is (i.e. somebody runs out of cards), then make your move, but if you miscalculate how many cards others have or somebody picks up cards afterwards and therefore lengthens the game, you're stuffed. Would try this again, perhaps with experience I could better judge how the cards will pan out.

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