Stats Review 2018

This is the 2018 review of games played at the club, corresponding articles for 2008 - 2017 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.

In 2018 we didn't have any Saturday sessions, so all figures are for Wednesdays only (and 1 Tuesday). We must get back to holding the Saturday sessions in 2019.

Games Played

We played a total of 270 games this year (down from 323) spread over 139 titles (compared with 142 in 2017). 68 games were played for the first time this year while 93 games which  were played in 2017, failed to be played this year. The total player time for the year was 1171 player hours, down 20% on 2017.

The 5 most played games (in terms of player time) were as follows:

1. Terraforming Mars(11 plays, 101.25 player hours)
Retaining the number 1 position and augmented by further expansions since last year. Expect to see this one high up again in 2019.

2. Pandemic Legacy Season 2 (17 plays, 79.67 player hours)
This was played once last year when we just played the prologue and is up from #120. This year a group of us have been playing this mostly "in real time" starting in January and finishing in December. We had a terrible February & March but mostly won from there on in finishing with a 9/8 winning record. As we've finished I don't expect to see this on the list next year unless another group plays it, may be another legacy though.

3. Brass: Birmingham (7 plays, 70.50 player hours)
An update of the original Brass, which also had a new version (Brass: Lancashire) which was #11 for the year. It's nice to have a game with our local area on the map and it's a wonderful game.

4. World Without End (9 plays, 43.33 player hours)
Up from #7 last year, this one is well liked by a few of us and it seems that Steve H will always notice when it is brought along. It is the most popular of what is now 3 games based on Ken Follet's Kingsbridge series and sits at #6 in our all time list

5. Pulsar 2849 (5 plays, 48.00 player hours)
This was played a lot at the beginning of the year but not since May (althouhg I've been carrying it around) I'll have to push it a bit more come the new year. It's an interesting dice drafting game set a thousand years after the 1849 California gold rush when there's a new rush to harvest energy from pulsars.

In terms of games played The most play goes to Pandemic Legacy on 17 as mentioned above.

What happened to last year’s top 5?

Apart from Terraforming Mars the top 5 is all different in 2018. Last year's #2 was Risk Legacy which was mostly finished at the end of the year, it comes in at #19. Power Grid was at #3, but has not been played since May, falling to #10, another one I want to get back to the table. Industrial Waste has only been played once and is at #87. Advanced Civ at #5 was not played this year as we haven't had weekend play. Based on Wednesdays only, the #5 was Voyages of Marco Polo which this year lies at #12.

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 13 (a 4 way tie for 10th) games listed by the number of years that they have been played at the club from April 2003. On this list all the games except Vinci & Ra had at least 1 play over the year.

Industrial Waste	16
Power Grid	15
San Juan	15
Amun-Re	14
Acquire	14
Guillotine	14
Ra	12
Saint Petersburg	12
Katzenjammer Blues	12
Vinci	11
Caylus Magna Carta	11
Race for the Galaxy	11
Animal Olympics	11

Players
A total of 37 different people have played at the club’s sessions in 2018, the player with most plays was Steve W on 101 followed by Rob L on 89.