Britannia – 19 September 2010

Mike & I gathered at Steve H's house for a game of Britannia, we had been having difficulty finding a fourth player, but at the last moment Steve's son James stepped in a put in a good performance, I guess Steve had been coaching him.

This was the first time I'd played since August 2008 and that is too long a period not to play this game. We distributed factions by consensus, giving James the Greens as they are probably most straight forward for a new player. I played Blue as I have played all the others in my most recent games and I felt I was due for it. Mike played Yellow with Steve as Red. The individual faction scores are as shown below in movement order.

Romans	102
Romano- British	4
Belgae	26
Welsh	98
Brigantes	42
Caledonians	52
Picts	82
Irish	28
Scots	8
Norsemen	31
Dubliners	8
Danes	62
Norwegians	44
Saxons	114
Jutes	16
Angles	114
Normans	52

Things started reasonably well for the Romans of their first turn and they made good progress, only losing 1 legion, but everything went wrong after that with the Belgae destroying the fort in York and then on following turns Mike was to suffer probably the unluckiest series of die rolls I've ever witnessed. I was saying early on that I didn't think it was a very good Roman score, due mainly to losses of forts and that although the Brigantes were forced to submit, neither the Welsh nor the Picts were. All that said however I have looked over the scores for all the games I have played using the FFG version (5 games total) and see that this was (by a very small margin) the best Roman score in all of those games, though it has to be said that Yellow has not come better than third in any of those games, I don't think any of us is really proficient with that faction, except perhaps Steve who won with them at Rosliston this year in a game I didn't play. In this game Yellow really suffered due to the performance of the Romano-British, Scots & Dubliners (all of which were the worst of any of the games I have recorded), particularly the Scots who managed to accumulate just 8 points (6 of them from destroying a Roman fort). The Norwegians at the end of the game performed well with the best score in my 5 recorded games with Harald Hardrada controlling the North at the end.

Red probably suffered most due to underperformance by the Brigantes, who were forced to submit to the Angles (the first time I've seen this). The Irish and Norsemen performed OK if not spectacularly, while the Saxons performed well (claiming the crown at the end of turn 13)although they did not quite make it to the end, being finally wiped out in a battle with the Normans in South Mercia on the last turn, where William killed Harold.

Green performed well, particularly as it was James' first game. The Caledonian performance was the best in the 5 recorded games as they were able to expand into the Scottish mainland after about 5 turns. Although they were eventually forced out by first the Picts and later the Norsemen, they survived until the end of the game. The Jutes did well enough considering that they were the Jutes and the Welsh again performed strongly throughout the game, although they did not succeed in their turn 8/9 run at York due to the strength of the Angles at that time in the game. The Danes did well initially and succeeding in crowning Cnut before the army withdrawal after their turn 14. They did not do so well at the very end holding a few territories in the East, despite Svein having been killed by William in the Battle of Essex.

This was the first game I have won of the 5 recorded having a reasonable performance by the Belgae at the start before their inevitable demise, claiming a toll on Roma forts and legions. The Picts performed strongly throughout, always controlling their 3 major scoring areas in East Scotland, while at various points taking other areas at the expense of Caledonians and Brigantes. The strongest performers were the Angles, in the mid game, maintained essential control of the North and Midlands before the arrival of the Danes on turns 11 & 12, winning all the Bretwalda elections, with help of the submitted Brigantes in Galloway. The biggest problem I had at this point is that there were so many units on the board that I never had enough in stock for full population expansion. At the end the Normans performed well enough with William killing 2 of the other 3 claimants to the throne, although the Norwegian strength in the North meant that the crown was not claimed.

All in all a great game and I hope it isn't another 2 years before the next one.

The Game Graph.

Session Report – 15 September 2010

7 people for a 4 & 3 split.

Over on our table we had Industrial Waste, returning for the first time this year and continuing the record of hitting the table every year since 2003.

From my point of view it was not a particularly happy return as the scores show, it being one of my worst performances at this game, I think it all really went wrong on one round where I was the only one who didn't get a raw materials card at a time when everyone wanted raw materials and in a game when the cost was generally high.

A good performance from Donald in what I believe was his first encounter with the game (certainly here at the club), just losing out to Dave on the money tie breaker.

Industrial Waste 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	51
2	Donald	51
3	Mike	44
4	Dave D	31

Next was Thurn & Taxis for the second week, this time Mike was fully aware of the carriage rules but it did not seem to help him much, despite again being the one to end the game.

I think this was another game that was a first for Donald and he went for a policy of building long routes to gain the bonuses for 5,6,7 lengths and probably lost out due to being slow in developing in the carriage race. Another tie break between Donald & Dave (this time for second place) was decided in Donald's favour on this occasion, although I have to say that I think the Thurn & Taxis tie break in the situation when the game ender is not part of the tie is probably the most ridiculous I know of in a game.

Thurn & Taxis 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	21
2	Donald	15
3	Dave F	15
4	Mike	14

On the other table 2 games of World Without End were played, that making 11 plays for the year and it is already easy to see that it is going to be the top played game when I compile the list at the end of the year, certainly based on player time and probably on total games played, unless some filler gets a lot of games before year's end. It is a very good game, but I'm starting to get a yen for some other games. I notice that Mike hasn't had a game of this yet.

The first of these games was very close, the second not so much.

World Without End 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	50
2	Steve H	49.5
3	Colin	32.5
World Without End 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	50.5
2	Colin	44.5
3	Andrew S	42

 

Session Report – 8 September 2010

7 this week, split 4 & 3.

First up on our table was Factory manager, which was last seen late last year. I haven't been bringing it along due to the impression I got that there wasn't that much interest, but recently Mike had indicated that he wanted to play it again. I think I was probably reading too much into remarks by Steve, who is definitely not that keen.

This is a fairly dry game, but with (to me) good theme. We used the new player rule setting the first energy price increase to zero, which was probably just as well as I don't think anyone was really on top of it in this playing, with all either in the position of being new to the game or having sufficiently forgotten too much about it in the long period since the last play. This resulted in nobody managing to achieve earnings above 90, when I can recall figures of 120-150 in previous run outs. I was rather inefficient in storage area on the first turn, but was able to catch up with Dave towards the end of the game. I think I would have been a bit closer on the last turn, if I had done the maths right and made a different buying choice.

Factory Manager 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	228
2	Dave D	208
3	Mike	184
4	Colin	141

Next was an even older game, Thurn & Taxis, which was played a few times when it first came out and then shelved. I was of the opinion that after a few games this would become predictable, but after not playing for a good length of time, this was not the case here.

Colin suffered due to having to discard a route early on, while Mike and Dave misheard the rule that only the highest value carriage card counted in final scoring and consequently thought they were doing better than they actually were. I had been surprised at Mike making comments as if he thought he was winning, when I was confident that I had the best position. The mistake explained this.

Thurn & Taxis 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	25
2	Dave F	19
3	Mike	13
4	Colin	2

Over on the other table there were also 2 games played, neither of which I know anything about, these being Viktory II.

Viktory II 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	11
2	Steve H	9
3	Andrew S	6

Followed by Marracash.

Marracash 45 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	3400
2	Andrew S	3300
3	Steve H	1450

Session Report – 1 September 2010

There were 8 of us this week.

On our table, we played Power Grid, this being played on the Brazilian map, excluding the 2 western areas, meaning that there were a lot of cheap connections.

I got away with a good starting position in the east, when Andy placed in the north after Mike had taken a spot in the south, which meant Paul, placing last was faced with the choice of competing with Mike or myself and chose Mike.

The game was unusual in the number of low value plants that turned up early on, normally at least one decent one finds its way into the current market in the first few turns, not so this time as at one point the number 18 plant was discarded to bottom of the deck as highest plant at the end of the turn. Because of this I think everyone was forced to buy plants that they would not have considered in another game, in my case I bought the number 27 wind plant and operated it for most of the game. Additionally the transformer station came out early and could not be attached to an end game plant, even then Andy operated it to near the end connected to a 2 city plant.

Because of the way the game went, there were several turns when no plant was bought and as s result step 2 was a virtual none event with the step 3 card appearing in the following auction phase so the 20 spots became available on the same turn as the 15 spots.

As would be expected on this map, coal was in short supply and I was able to deny Mike and Andy the ability to fire their coal plants on the penultimate turn, resulting in them losing money, before finishing the game on the following turn by expanding into the very cheap southern areas where Mike and Paul started (5 zero connection cities).

Power Grid 135 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	17
2	Mike	16
3	Paul	16
4	Andrew S	16

On the other table was another run out for Homesteaders.

Homesteaders 135 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	56
2	Donald	50
3	Steve H	48
4	Dave F	35

Session Report – 25 August 2010

6 this week with a 3/3 split.

One table I played St. Petersburg with Dave F & Donald, this being Dave's introduction to the game. We played using the full expansion and that combined with the fact that we only had 3 players of course led to much bigger scores than the previous game we played. The use of the expansion of course adds to the number of cards available and leads to a longer game. That does not really bother me as I feel that this one can bear the length, but it is possible to reduce the number of cards if required.

I felt happy with the way this was going for most of the game, having built up a good amount of income both through workers, including most of the ship builders, many of which were upgraded to Ship Yards and also through aristocrats including the Mayor early on, which was combined with a lot of cheap early buildings.

The bulk of the scoring came at the end. By the end of the game I was left with 100 roubles to spare and finished up with 12 different aristocrat types so I had about 145 points from the last round + game end scoring.

Saint Petersburg 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	279
2	Dave F	253
3	Donald	242

After that we finished with Guillotine, which I gather was Donald's first play.

Guillotine 25 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Donald	30
2	Dave D	27
3	Dave F	25

On the other table was Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, another of Andy's Winsome railway game, I get the impression that this was thought to be OK but nothing more than that.

Gulf, Mobile & Ohio 105 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	36
2	Mike	34
3	Colin	22

Followed by China, which was the first play since June 2006, although Web of Power which is very similar was played in October of that year, that's a long time for such good games to be away from the table. I think only Mike had played before so it is not surprising that he won, but it looks like it was very close.

China 45 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	44
2	Andy	42
3	Colin	32

August 2010, Meetings 4, Games 17, Average Attendance 7.75