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.

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Sessions 26 August – 23 September 2009

2 comments

26 August

With 6 people, this was the first try at Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus expansion. The players were Ben – Caprica 6, Steve H – Ellen Tigh, Dave F – Helo, Myself – Dee, Mike – Boomer and Dave C – Tom Zarek.

Zarek was President from the beginning, but Ellen was eager for power and immediately went to Administration, despite our best attempts she was able to become president. I took this opportunity to point out that she must be a cylon, which seemed to be a reasonable assumption and also allowed me to divert attention from myself, as I was a cylon. Soon after I was able to check her loyalty card and confirm that she was indeed a cylon and in very few turns, Ellen & also Helo were able to check mine, so we cylons knew each other's identity.

The game went in a surprising way from the beginning with a series of crises that saw morale tumble rapidly and when it came to my second turn it stood at 3. This left me with an awkward decision as if it were drop to 2, Dee would have to shoot herself and be automatically revealed as a Cylon. I decided to reveal at that point so proving that my ally Ellen had been truthful in her pronouncements about me and drawing off suspicion from her.

Of course as things went, morale stopped falling at this point although things did not improve for the humans who were stopped at 6 distance due to loss of fuel, having failed to reach New Caprica.

Battlestar Galactica 170 mins.

Posn.

Player

1=

Dave D

1=

Steve H

3=

Ben C

3=

Dave C

3=

Dave F

3=

Mike


2 September

We had a good gathering this week with 7 players, first I played Ra: The Dice game with Steve Perkins and Dave F, while Steve Pagett, Mike, Gordon and Andy played Chicago Express. We then rearranged the groups, with Andy joining Steve and me for another game of Ra, followed by Keltis the card game. The other group played Rheinlander.

Andy's thoughts on the games he played

"Chicago Express

This seems to be becoming an emerging club favourite among certain members.  However the jury is still out on whether the game is good or we are just fascinated by the fact that none of us really know how to play the game properly!

After winning my first game a number of months back I've been investing in a long term strategy of exploring all the mistakes one can make in order to become a future grand master of this game.  Some would argue I'm just a bit rubbish at it, but I'm sure they're just befuddled by my maverick ways!

Four of us played; myself, Mike, Gordon, and Steve Perkins.  Only Steve hadn't played before.

It's a train game, and like most train games it involves investing in shares, building tracks and receiving dividends.  However unlike most Train games the rules are simple and plays in around an house.  Despite this it packs in a hell of a lot of game in this time.

The game is all about creating incentives - you want others to people helping you on their turn, yet you wanting to making moves that mainly benefit yourself on yours.

The trouble is it is really difficult to judge what company to invest in at what point, and it is really easy to overbid on a share and then have someone else win the same company's shares for a fraction of the price straight afterwards.  A mistake Gordon made to his immediate horror. (I made an even worse mistake in overbidding for a share that did me no good!)

I managed to get myself into a position whereby I helped Mike at least as much myself not matter what move I took.  Gordon got into a similar position with Steve, but didn't fritter his money away making futile attempts to remedy this.

The result was a joint win for Mike and Steve.

RA: The Dice Game

First game for me and Steve Perkins, second in a row for Dave Dudley.  As I've not played the original Ra before, this was completely new to me.

The game is quite a light dice rolling game, which is good fun if played on that basis.

We rolled a lot of 'suns', which caused the epoch to end quickly each time.  We therefore struggled to achieve a positive net score in each epoch - the lack of civilisations usually being the killer.

I had a narrow victory by dominating the pharoah track for the first 2 epochs, which just pipped Steve's long-term investment in Monuments.

Keltis: The Card Game

A German import I brought along.  This is the card game of the board game of the card game - Lost Cities.

It is broadly similar to Lost Cities but playable up to 4 players and with some minor additions such as Wishing Stones to consider.

As can be seen from the scoring the game cam very close.

Not an outstanding game, but a decent filler, with the bonus of it coming in a very small, easily transportable box - which could see it getting some regular play on that basis alone!"

For myself, I enjoyed a somewhat lighter session, both Ra: The Dice game and the Keltis card game played well. Ra the Dice game is Ra with dice but without the auctions and as would be expected provides a somewhat different experience, with more a push your luck element. I think both versions of the game are well worth playing. I actually found Keltis to be superior to Lost Cities, which I always thought had a problem with the opening, I don't know whether this thought is due to the fact that it is multiplayer or maybe the ability to build sequences in each direction (up or down).

Chicago Express 65 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1=

Steve P

72

1=

Mike

72

3

Gordon

56

4

Andy

40

Rheinlander 60 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Mike

52

2

Dave F

49

3

Gordon

30

4

Steve P

25

Ra: The Dice Game 60 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Dave D

76

2

Steve Pe

71

3

Dave F

69

Ra: The Dice Game 40 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Andy

24

2

Steve Pe

23

3

Dave D

15

Keltis: The Card Game 30 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1=

Andy

16

1=

Steve Pe

16

3

Dave D

15


9 September

Just Mike and me, we played 3 games of Ra: The Dice Game and 1 of Industrial Waste, I won 2 to 1 in Ra, although I have since discovered a rules error we made regarding civilisations, I don't know what difference that would have made to the scores in any of the games, although they were all close enough for a potential change of winner.

Mike won at Industrial Waste by finishing the game quickly; he was behind in innovation but had the edge on growth and money.

Ra: The Dice Game 30 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Dave D

50

2

Mike

42

Ra: The Dice Game 20 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Mike

41

2

Dave D

29

Ra: The Dice Game 20 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Dave D

51

2

Mike

47

Industrial Waste 25 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Mike

39

2

Dave D

34


16 September

Back to Pegasus, characters were Myself –Leoben, Steve H – Admiral Cain, Dave F – President Baltar, Mike – Starbuck, Andy – Helo, Donald – Apollo and later Roslin after Apollo's premature demise.

Another game where new Caprica was not reached as the humans ran out of morale at distance 6, this was despite the fact that it had briefly increased to 11 (above its starting value) early in the game. The humans were really on a hiding here, with 2 hidden cylons (Starbuck and President Baltar) from the start. I initially tried to help them from the beginning because I need them to reach distance 6, giving them the illusion of hope before bringing about their doom.

There was some discussion about this afterwards and I think we will try the optional rule of leaving out the cylon leader next time.

Battlestar Galactica 160 mins.

Posn.

Player

1=

Dave D

1=

Dave F

1=

Mike

4=

Andy

4=

Steve H

4=

Donald


23 September

4 of us played Power Grid on the German map, taking out the Red & Brown areas, leaving the northern green area isolated. I placed first in Hannover and was able to expand south making it very expensive to get in behind me.

We reached the stage where only Steve and I were in a position to start step 2 and as I was running somewhat less efficiently, I thought I would have to, but Steve beat me to it.

Coming to the end of the game in step 3, the lack of efficient fossil plants had caused both Oil and Coal to be in a position of being either run out or extremely expensive and this put Steve in a good position as he was able to run, partly on cheap nuclear power. On the final turn, I was last in the order and was the beneficiary of good fortune when the number 50 plant (2 nuke ->8) fell in my lap. If this hadn't happened, the game would still have finished and I would have been tied with Steve on 16, but he had a lot more money than me. As it was, I was able to win with 17.

Power Grid 120 mins.

Posn.

Player

Score

1

Dave D

17

2

Steve H

16

3

Mike

15

4

Donald

14