Session Report 18 February 2009

Half term this week and Dave was running a large Corporation adventure in the bar downstairs for the younger members. He has written what seems to be a quite extensive write up of the goings on, which you can read if you go over here.
That left 7 of us to split 3 & 4. Andy, Steve H & I played Sumeria, this is a prototype of a new game, due to be released at this year's UK Games Expo, which Andy is play testing. The nominal theme of the game is that players are putting traders into 8 city states in a effort to gain control of them (via a simple area majority), but there is the added twist that the value of the states varies with time due to the fact that every time a trader is placed in a state, its prestige is increased and it displaces the state immediately above it. Only the 3 most prestigious sates pay out each time, with the first and second place players receiving cardboard chits, labelled with 1 of 4 letters (which I can't now remember, but I gather they represent something) and after they pay out, these 3 states are moved to the back of the list, with the highest becoming last for the next turn, so if you win the most valuable state, then you will have to do more work to get it back up the order. This seems a genuinely nice mechanism. At the end if the game, you score points based on the number of each type of chit that you have collected, the scoring for each type going up in a triangular series from the third onwards so it is an advantage to try and concentrate on particular letters, rather than spreading your collection over all type.
As to the game play, I ended up screwing up right at the beginning, having forgotten the business of upgrading the states where you place a trader and ended up downgrading the area where I had most strength and things went downhill from there, as I said it's a nice mechanism but not a type that I enjoy very much. Steve however picked it up straight away and won quite well.
At the end Andy asked for scores out of 10, which I had to think about, coming to the conclusion that as a game, it'd probably be 7, but on the geek rating scheme (indicating willingness to play), it would be no more than 4. This is based on the fact that I just didn't enjoy it much, the theme is so thin as to be nonexistent, it could easily be a simple abstract, or have many other different themes pasted on without any need to change anything else, i.e. Rename the city states as Star Systems and the game will work just as well with a Science Fiction theme. Regarding the existing theme, I know pretty much nothing about that, but Steve and Andy were suggesting that the people of these states were more likely to be hacking each other up with swords, rather than indulging in trading. I also thought there may be an issue if the total number of turns is not a multiple of the number of players as there is a clear advantage to placing last in a turn. I don't know whether the number of turns is varied to take this into account, but I got the impression that this was not the case.

Sumeria 50 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	39
2	Andy	29
3	Dave D	15

After that we went for a game of Power Grid, choosing the Benelux board with the central 3 areas (with the lowest connection costs) to allow for the quickest possible game.
Everyone did pretty well, getting up to 17 cities, although I ended up last which was a bit irritating as I could have boosted my capacity to 18 on the last turn by buying the 46 plant, but dropped out of the auction, giving the plant to Steve, by forgetting that the 2 northern cities that I had access to (I was building first) had the 15 value spot available, rather than the 20 values. This meant I could have afforded to bid 10 higher, which apparently would have been enough to force Steve out. Andy would still have won, but I would have been second. Oh well.

Power Grid 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	18+
2	Steve H	18
3	Dave D	17

Over on the other table, the game was Container, I gather with the expansion, scores as follows.

Container 160 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	133
2	Paul	126
3	Steve P	~90
4	Steve Pe	~75

 

Session Report 11 February 2009

We had our largest attendance of the year so far on Wednesday with Gordon and Steve Paget attending for the first time and we split into 2 groups of 5. On one table we had Power Grid, most played game at the club for the last 2 years and also overall (since records began), but it has a big margin to make up this year if it is to overhaul Battlestar Galactica, which I suspect will get a bit more play yet before the year is out.
This game was played on the Korea map, which we had only played once before and the players were myself, Andy, Simon and the 2 Bens. It was Ben T's first game of Power Grid. We excluded the purple area on the middle of the west side, which meant the 4 areas of Seoul with zero connections between them, together with the 3 other adjacent cities with low cost were all out and we were left with the 2 northern areas and 2 southern areas with a narrow corridor which narrowed to one city wide (Wonsan) at the north end linking the 2.
I don't seem to have great recall of much of the game (especially what was going on in the south of the map), but giving a short description of the play, I set up in the North West, taking Anju and Pyeongyang, having bought with Andy occupying Wonsan to block the north of the eastern corridor. Simon was as the South of the corridor, while the 2 Bens set up in the wide open spaces of South Korea.
I would have been happy to stay in step 1 for a bit, having built to 6 cities, being able to power them with the 31 (1 Nuclear for 5) and the 11 (Wind power), but things worked out quite well as people also built 6 cities and Andy bought the 32 plant, so that when Ben C triggered step 2, I was low enough in the order and had accumulated enough money to immediately build down the corridor to Chungju giving me access to the cities in the south and also taking Hamheung to make it very expensive for anyone other than me to build into the northern cities where only Andy was currently. This was actually one more city than I could power, but I thought that I could afford the extra city for the sake of board position as I had no serious resource problem, both Uranium and Trash (for the 27 plant) being reasonably priced in the Southern market.
The following turn I did not buy a plant or build, but had bought 2 nuclear to give me flexibility in the resource market on the next turn, which I knew should be the last (I may have been potentially vulnerable here if anyone had been able finish the game as my capacity had fallen behind several people). Several people built past me to 12 and this caused the 12 plant to be discarded from the market and triggered step 3.
The next turn was the final one and, I was 4^th I think in the turn order and was able to sit back and wait for a plant to drop at the end of the auction phase, I picked up the number 46 (2 coal 7 cities) which gave me 16 capacity and I was able to build this number of cities. Andy and Ben C finished on 15 with Ben winning the tie break, Simon was on 13 with Ben T on 12.
The set up we used worked to my advantage as Andy & I essentially had the North to ourselves and the north east area was very useful, although it caused Ben C problems when he started there in the first game we played on this map.

Power Grid 130 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	16
2	Ben C	15+
3	Andy	15
4	Simon	13
5	Ben T	12

After Power Grid the Colosseum game was still going, Andy and Ben T left at this point, while Ben C and I introduced Dominion to Simon. We played using the started combination of cards and it was a close game. Simon had some trouble getting money into his hand early on but was able to buy some Duchies and came on well towards the end to give a close finish. I think he enjoyed the game.

Dominion 35 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	40
2=	Simon	36
2=	Ben C	36

Over on the other table, Gordon won the game of Colosseum. This is a game that I did play once last year and was underwhelmed and I gather that Dave was not that impressed. It seems to be the way of things with me and Days of Wonder games, all those I have played (that is Ticket to Ride (and TtR Europe), Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Pirates Cove and this) have seemed to me to be very flashy and over produced affairs, but deeply disappointing as games. This is why I am somewhat concerned as to how the upcoming Small World will turn out, I hope it is good and will probably end up buying it, but I wish it was any other publisher than Days of Wonder.

Colosseum 150 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	81
2	Steve H	77
3	Steve P	71
4	Mike	62
5	Dave C	49

Session Report 4 February 2009

We had 7 this week and split 4 & 3. Steve, Mike, Ben T & I played Battlestar Galactica again and I continued my run of never being on the winning side, although I'm no longer worried about being a Cylon all the time as I've now been human 3 in a row.
This was a 3 player game with me as Laura Roslin, Mike as Boomer, Steve as Tom Zarek (that's 3 times I think, I wonder what affinity Steve has with shady politicians) and Ben as Colonel Tigh. So I was president and Ben was Admiral.
Things went well for the humans in the early part of the game with no Cylons to disrupt progress, so much so that a certain human saw fit to create a bit of dissention themselves. This was Tom Zarek who decided he wanted to be president and so went to Administration and called an election to take the office from me. He won of course, being a politician he had the right mix of skills for the check and I didn't because I was also a politician and all my cards supported the check. So Zarek became president, but the problem was that on my turn, I moved to Administration and held another election, but now I held the cards that I couldn't use on the previous check and so won the office back. We had now played quite a few of our good cards and it was just as well there were no cylons about. Later in this phase I had the chance to look at Zarek's loyalty card and he was human, but the cylon detector must have been malfunctioning.
Just before the jump which triggered the sleeper phase, a crisis occurred that could have dropped one of the resources (food I think) into the red and we discussed whether we should let it drop so insuring that the sympathise would support humanity, we decided not (big mistake). The sleeper phase arrived, Boomer was the sympathise and headed off to the cylon fleet where she spent her time on the Caprica location hitting us with crises, which soon resulted in nearly all the available cylon ships congregating around Galactica, after that is, she gave her 2 remaining loyalty cards to Tigh, so there I was, knowing I was human, but looking at an Admiral with 4 loyalty cards, the problem was neither he nor Zarek did anything that convinced me that they were definitely a cylon and although I had the Arrest order Quorum card and could throw either of them in the brig, I knew that if I made the wrong choice, the situation could be even worse.
Eventually we got to the situation where we were 1 away from Kobol and at -3 on the jump track and 2 fuel left, we would be OK if we didn't lose more than one fuel, we had plenty of population, and could have jumped again at -3 after reaching distance 8. I thought we had a good chance but it turned out that both of the destinations drawn (as revealed afterwards) lost us 2 fuel, so the Cylons won again.
It was revealed after that although Tigh had 4 loyalty cards, it was Zarek who was the Skinjob.

Battlestar Galactica 160 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Steve H
1=	Mike
3=	Dave D
3=	Ben T

Over on the other table, Dave, Ben & Simon played Tinners' Trail and Galaxy Trucker.

Tinners' Trail 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	88
2	Simon	76
3	Ben C	74
Galaxy Trucker 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Ben C	64
2	Dave C	14
3	Simon	9

 

Session Report 28 January 2008

8 this week including new member Ben Tate, who contacted me via the geek on Monday, also we welcomed back Pete Bethel, last seen in 2006 I think, Mike having contacted him, organising a game of Settlers. It was an easy split of 4/4 with Steve joining Mike, Pete and Andy for the Settlers game, while Ben joined me, Dave C & the other Ben.
To get the Settlers out of the way first, this was, I gather, not quite a standard set up but maybe Mike will fill in more details. Apparently Andy picked up the game quite quickly.

Settlers of Catan 120 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Andy
2=	Mike
2=	Steve H
2=	Pete B

Over on the other table, our first game was Race for the Galaxy, suing the cards from the Gathering Storm expansion. We really must play using the goals at some time, but every time we play there seems to be a new player and I am reluctant to throw in that extra complication. Once we have tired them, maybe I will discover that they are straight forward enough not to worry. In this game Dave (starting with Earth's Lost Colony) managed to get a good production/consume engine going, also adding the Terraforming Guild. I starting with Epsilon Eridani and with Galactic Imperium and Space Marines in hand at the start, initially went for military conquest of the rebels, but seemed to have trouble finding decent targets, unfortunately Ben C conquered the rebel base and Ben T also picked one up, so I modified things slightly with the Pan-Galactic League, picking up a few other small military worlds. Ben T seemed to pick things up fairly well for his first game and we'll have to try again soon before he forgets (with the goals this time).

Race for the Galaxy 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	46
2	Dave D	36
3	Ben T	30
4	Ben C	24

After that we introduced Ben to Dominion (using the suggested starter setup), I decided to try a more money based strategy than normal, mixed in with a couple of markets, a Smithy and a Woodcutter and it seemed to work OK as I was able to pick up 6 of the 12 provinces for a good win.

Dominion 35 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	39
2	Ben C	27
3=	Ben T	18
3=	Dave C	18

After that we joined together, with Pete and Andy having left for a quick game of Tsuro. Mike didn't seem to do as well as usual and ended up taking himself off fairly early. I got myself into a tight spot, but thought I had spotted a way out of it, unfortunately Steve blocked my escape route when he played the tile that resulted in him taking himself and Ben T out of the game, so I ended up off the board on my following turn leaving us to see which of the Coopers could stay alive long enough. It was Dave.

Tsuro 15 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Dave C
2	Ben C
3	Dave D
4=	Steve H
4=	Ben T
6	Mike