Stats Review 2017

This is the 2017 review of games played at the club, corresponding articles for 2008 - 2016 are linked from the "Previously" box to the left, usually under January of the following year, but sometimes under December of the year in question. As last year I include a comparison with the previous year. Full details are on the Stats Pages on the website. There is also a geeklist of all the games played here. I also tweeted the top 10 @halesowenBG.

As in 2016, we held a couple of Saturday sessions, in addition we also played a 6 player game of Advanced Civilisation. Unlike previous years I have now decided to report the combined figure for Wednesdays and Saturdays in this article, although I will also refer to the weekday only figures to allow a like for like comparison.

Games Played

We played a total of 365 games this year (up from 316) spread over 159 titles (compared with 135 in 2016), both of these figures are the highest on record. 65 games were played for the first time this year while 81 games which  were played in 2016, failed to be played this year. The total player time for the year was 1668 player hours, up 12% on 2016, on this measure the year is second best on record.

When making a direct comparison againsts the 2016 Wednesday only figures the games played were 323 (compared with 274) and player hours were 1452 (compared with 1329) in both cases the figures best and second best on record as with the all session figures.

The most played games (in terms of player time) were as follows:

1. Terraforming Mars(23 plays, 213.00 player hours)
Up from last years number 2 and gaining more than double the player hours of the number 2 game and still seeing heavy play throughout the year.  I expect this to remain high up in 2018 as it has the advantage that it plays well at all player counts. As I finish writing this the game has already had 1 play for the year in our opening session last night.

2. Risk Legacy (14 plays, 93.67 player hours)
The original legacy game was brought to the table by Mark W and a group of 4 have been playing through the campaign. I beieve there are only 1 or 2 games remaining  to be played so that this will not reach this height in 2018 and is likely to end up being a 1 year wonder as I would guess will be the fate of most Legacy games that we play.

3. Power Grid (8 plays, 74.50 player hours)
Remaining at number 3. I'm going to be doing some pushing on this since I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms having not played since August. I have the High Voltage DC promo and hope to add the fabled expansion to add a bit of extra variety to our all time top played game.

4. Industrial Waste(11 plays, 54.17 player hours)
This one's a bit of a surprise. It is the only game to have been played in every year of our records but usually gets just 1 or 2 plays a year and last year came in 115th in the all session figures. This year I got it to the table early on, but the difference has been Mike acquiring a copy and championing the game throughout the year. It will be interesting to see if this continues this year.

5. Advanced Civilization(1 play, 48.00 player hours)
This could not have appeared here if only Wednesday play was being considered because it just could not be played in an evening. We arranged a Saturday where 6 of us gathered at the Stag just to play it and 1 play is enough to push it high in the rankings. Maybe we'll repeat that this year, alternatively there's supposed to be a smaller (and cheaper) version of Mega Civilization due out which I'm interested in getting so maybe we may see that instead.

If we only consider Wednesday play as last year the top 4 remains the same while the number 5 is taken by The Voyages of Marco Polo instead of Advanced Civ.

In terms of games played Love Letter remains on top with 23 plays spread over 3 versions, but this year is in a tie with Terraforming Mars.


What happened to last year’s top 5?

2 of last year's 5 are still up there with Terraforming Mars moving up a place and Power Grid retaining its position. Last year's number 1 was Scott's Kingdom of Kiralysag which was played once and stands at number 61. Number 4 was Grand Austria Hotel and this has dropped to number 7 with 4 plays. Number 5 was World Without End which is now at number 6 with 5 plays. So 4 of the previous top 5 are still getting good play.

The 2016 rankings in the above paragraph are all based on Wednesday play only so a like for like comparison is made.

Games that have stood the test of time
Industrial Waste was played again this year remaining the only game to have recorded play every year since 2003, although this year has seen a marked upswing in play for this game as mentioned further up.

Below is a table of the top 10 games listed by the number of years that they have been played at the club from April 2003, this top 10 still lists the same games as last year with all but Vinci gaining at least 1 play over the year.

Industrial Waste	15
Power Grid	14
San Juan	14
Amun-Re	13
Acquire	13
Guillotine	13
Ra	12
Vinci	11
Saint Petersburg	11
Katzenjammer Blues	11

Players
A total of 40 different people have played at the club’s sessions in 2017, the player with most plays was Rob L on 112 followed by myself on 111.