Session Report – 13 January 2010

There was no meeting last on 6 January due to the weather conditions. I did take the bus down on the off chance that someone else would turn up, but (not much to my surprise) no one did. When I looked at the Weather last night, things seemed to be, if anything, worse than the week before, so this time I stayed at home. I was a bit surprised to learn later that 3 hardy souls had been in attendance.

The game played was Louis XIV, game I remember there being a bit of a buzz about when it first came out, although I have to say what I read did not enthuse me enough to do much investigating at that time. Mike has now picked up a copy and it sound as though a good time was had with it. Mikes notes are as follows.

First released in 2005, I've no idea how this slipped under our radar until now, but it really got 2010 off to a good start.  At its heart is an area control game, where the areas are diagonally touching (like a small draughts board) tile portraits of court characters, each of which can give players various benefits, into which you place and move your meeples.  There are three different types of scoring however when everybody has finished their placements : some characters only give a benefit to the player with the majority of meeples, some characters give the benefit free to the majority player but the losers can pay for the benefit, and some give everyone the benefit as long as they place enough meeples.  The winner in the first two scoring types thus gets a clear advantage - but a nasty after-effect.  They lose their meeples to a central stock, from which they'll have to retrieve them (which wastes valuable time), but the losers get theirs back immediately.  The character tiles can get flipped over after scoring, to give a completely different way of gaining the benefit in the next turn, and this makes the placement tactics tricky every round.  Winning benefits can give you shields (worth 1VP), benefits for future rounds, or mission chits, pairs of which are needed to fulfil missions, which not only score 5VP but give the owner advantages which can usually be used in every subsequent round (there are always 4 rounds).  Sounds a bit complicated, there's a bit of extra chrome, but the learning curve finished after the first turn and soon we were discovering what a cleverly designed, meaty game this is.  It's also, if the first game is any indication, a game where losing players can catch up - I must have been 12 points behind at the end of 3rd round, after winning rather too many scorings outright in the 1st round leaving myself short of meeples for rounds 2 and 3, but because the other two then concentrated on fighting each other I scored impressively in the final round and nearly caught them.  I want to play it soon with 4, but I think it's probably better with 3 to give players more feeling of control during the meeple movement, when I'm guessing subsequent plays will clock 80-90 minutes.

Louis XIV 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	50
2	Steve H	48
3	Mike	47

The weather seems to be scheduled to improve over the next few days, so hopefully we'll have a better turn out then, although I get the impression from forecasts that we may not have seen the last of it yet. But then what do weather forecasters know?

Stats review 2009

This time last year I posted an article, reviewing the games played stats for 2008, 12 months later it seems like time to do the same for 2009, so here it is. This year I will compare with the corresponding figures from the last article and we'll see how things have changed. I have also got all the tables prepared to post on the stats site, but I seem to be having a bit of difficulty uploading to that at the moment, so they are not online yet.

Games Played

We played a total of 150 games during the year including 62 different ones. 34 games were played only. 30 games were played for the first time this year.

The number of games played is up from 142 in 2007 and the total player time at 740 player hours is up from 656 (an increase of 12.8%), as last year all school holiday role playing games are excluded.

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

1. Battlestar Galactica (11 plays, 147.7 player hours)

I turned up at the first meeting of the year and Dave C had this. As we had 6 we gave it a go and I was quite surprised at how well it was taken to. The first game went unfinished but I think all the others were completed. More recent plays have been with the Pegasus expansion.

2. Power Grid (7 plays, 60.0 player hours)

Last year's number 1 still seeing a good amount of play and I suspect there would have been a lot more if not for the emergence of BSG. This is the first year that the number of games of this played in a year has dropped, down from 11 last year. We currently have 1 board that we haven't played (Spain/Portugal) so that is one we must give a try soon.

3. Dominion (19 plays, 42.6 player hours)

This just made it into 2008, with just the 1 play in December. Interestingly it hasn't seen any play since July, possibly because I haven't been carrying my copy about regularly. I see the game more as a filler and more recently other games have come along to fill that niche that take up less room in my bag, although I'm sure this one will see more play in 2010.

4. Race for the Galaxy (7 plays, 32.6 player hours)

I'm a bit surprised to see this one so high up, but I think that's possibly because we probably take more time over it than many groups do, also we have tended to play it with high numbers of players which drives up the player –time.

5. Small World (6 plays, 32.2 player hours)

This initially saw a flurry of plays being a fantasy update of old club favourite Vinci, but I have to say that I do prefer the former. The hidden scoring and fixed turn length together with loss of the cohesion rules detract from the game for me. Additionally the use of individual counters for each race (typical Days of Wonder style over substance) can make it difficult to differentiate who's units are who's (particularly when in decline).

The most played game in terms of games played was Dominion.

What happened to last year's top 5?

The only game of 2008's top 5 still remaining there is, of course Power Grid. The number 2 game was Pillars of the Earth and that dropped to number 7. Number 3-Agricola saw just 1 play and stood at number 46, while number 4-Brass saw no play. The fifth game was Tinners' Trail which garnered 2 plays to take position 22.

Games that have stood the test of time

Last year I noted that there were 4 games which are recorded as played in every year from the start of my records in 2003, but this has now dropped to 3 with Acquire and Amun-Re getting no play in 2009, although I'm sure they will return. Of the survivors Vinci was played once, while Industrial Waste had 3 plays. I also noted a further 3 games that had seen play every year from 2004 (the first full year's records), these were San Juan, Power Grid and Kremlin, each of which has been played again this year.

Now let's see what 2010 brings.

 

Wedneday 6 Jan Meeting.

The first meeting of 2010 is scheduled tomorrow, but things aren't looking to promising at the moment with the amount of snow on the ground.

I've just seen a man from the RAC on the TV giving the usual advice not to go out tomorrow if you don't really need to and I think that might be good advice, particularly if you have some distance to come. Depending on how things are I might get the bus down, but if things are like they are currently, my car will be staying at home.

Sessions – December 2009

2 December

5 in attendance and just one game played, this was Endeavor, which seemed to go down well with everyone, except me. To me it seems just another variation of the normal mechanics of picking up pieces of cardboard, trying and failing to evoke the theme of the age of European colonisation.

Endeavor 100 mins.
Posn.	Player
1	Dave F
2=	Donald
2=	Andrew
4	Steve H
5	Dave D

9 December

First up Middle Earth Quest, I played Sauron, while Steve, Ben and Andrew took the part of the heroes, this game went unfinished as I suspected it would do, being the first try with the game having a fair few fairly fiddly(I wouldn't say complex) mechanics. The early turns went well for me with some early plots enabling me to advance my yellow marker, representing my search for the ring, as required by my mission card, however things were getting sticky as we came to a close, with Eometh (Ben) descending on Barad-Dur to deal with the rescue of Gollum, while Thalin (Steve) Steve took a boat from the Grey Havens, reaching Minas Tirith to interfere with my machinations there.

I found a couple of mistakes afterwards of course (no influence in Havens and heroes don't get to remove influence from Shadow strongholds). I think the game should move a lot quicker and should be doable in an evening with repeated play. I do wonder whether 3 players might be the ideal though.

Middle Earth Quest 150 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave D
1=	Ben C
1=	Steve H
1=	Andrew

On the other table Dave F introduced Roll through the Ages. I got to give this a try the following week and it is a fun little dice game that should serve as a good filler. The obvious comparison is Ra: The Dice game, which I think I prefer, but have no problem with either. I think Roll through the Ages is possibly more predictable in its game length so perhaps would be a better bet if time is short.

Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 45 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	12
2	Donald	11+
3	Dave F	11
4	Mike	3
Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 50 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	22
2	Donald	19
3	Dave F	14
4	Mike	12

After 2 games of RTTA, Dave C introduced, Fagin's Gang, which I was given an overview of by the designer at the first Games Expo. I wasn't inspired to buy the game at that time. I get the impression that from what others have said that I didn't miss much in this one.

Fagin's Gang 30 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave C
1=	Donald
1=	Dave F
1=	Mike

16 December

6 people, split into 2 threes, which were rearranged at half time. Gordon, Andy & I first played factory Manager, which of the few games I have so far played from Essen 09, is by far and away my favourite, although I know that Steve does not share my enthusiasm. I cannibalised my earlier comments here and turned them into a review on BGG . Gordon got off to a good start in this one, but I thought I had pulled him back at the end; problem I didn't account for was that he spent next to no money on the final turn.

Factory Manager 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	243
2	Dave D	222
3	Andy	185

On the other table Endeavor got another run out.

Endeavor 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew	62
2	Dave F	53
3	Steve H	44

We then rearranged the groups and I got a chance at Roll through the Ages, which I mentioned further up. I actually triggered the end in this game and ended up losing as can be seen. With hindsight I should have built something in the first turn (I had the chance), which would have brought the game to an end earlier, which would have reduced the others scores somewhat.

Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave F	19
2	Andy	16
3	Dave D	11

On the other table Ra got a run out, a very high scoring game, apparently both Steve and Gordon got 8 out of 8 monuments. Edit: Looks like I forgot to paste in the scores, here they are

Ra 45 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	63
2	Gordon	60
3	Andrew	39

23 December

No meeting due to snow.

30 December

A good attendance to end the year, with Dave running a Golden Heroes RPG session, unfortunately I was feeling a bit unwell, with a cold and when I got into the room with the windows open causing an icy draft (unfortunately the alternative would have been closing the windows and getting far too hot, which would probably have been just as bad) and the noise from the GH game, I decided to call it a night so the others could have a 5 player game, rather than splitting 3 & 3. I felt rather lousy for the next couple of days, but on the road to recovery by Saturday evening.

Games played were (thanks to Steve for the results) Chinatown, an old and well regarded game now republished. I watched the early stages before leaving and I can't say that it looked like a game I'd like, being basically a negotiation game.

Chinatown 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Gordon	1000
2	Steve P	900
3	Andrew	830
4	Steve H	790
5	Mike	770

Also played was the Sherlock Holmes card game. Considering the scores and game length, I would guess that quite a few hands were played. According to the records, I see that the last time this game was played was in January 2004, I must admit I thought it was more recent than that.

Sherlock Holmes Card Game 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	107
2	Andrew	131
3	Gordon	213
4	Mike	273
5	Steve P	282

Happy New Year to You All.

23 December - No Meeting

Owing to snow fall tonight's meeting is cancelled. I'm trying to get in touch with most people. Merry Christmas to All.

Session Report – 18, 25 November 2009

18 November

With 5 players, we all played on the same table. First was Small World using Andy's copy, adding in the 2 new expansions based on a competition for user submitted content. There are interesting new ideas here but nothing that really makes the game any better or worse than before. It is still a reasonable reimplementation of Vinci, but seems to be inferior due to the dumbing down of the basic mechanics of its predecessor, while at the same time complicating many of the special powers, the simplicity of which was one of the strengths of the original game.

This game was a close contest except for Mike who suffered from my use of Ransacking Kobolds, Ransacking is a new power, which allows you to take points off someone else and Mike suffered the misfortune in having his territory arranged in such a way as to make the most inviting target and so earning the most points, rather than attacking a player further up the order who would not yield such a great bounty. I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of this sort of power per se, it does not lead to the controlling player earning excessive points, but I do wonder if there is a problem in that it is the only such power available, possibly leading to the situation where one player suffers disproportionately.

Small World 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy	89
2	Donald	84
3	Dave D	82+
4	Dave F	82
5	Mike	53

After that there was time for a game of Nottingham, which was possibly the closest I have seen for this game.

Nottingham 40 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Donald	88
2	Mike	87
3	Dave D	86
4	Dave F	74

25 November

Newcomer Andrew joined us this week, along with the crew from Telford, Paul bringing with him my copy of Middle Earth Quest. We split into 2 groups, with Battlestar Galactica on one table, Power Grid on the other, played on the Brazil map. I joined the BSG game, but it was a tough decision.

We played BSG using the full Pegasus expansion with the option of a Cylon Leader. The characters were myself – Ellen Tigh, Andy – William Adama, Andrew – Starbuck, Steve H – Leoben, Mike – Laura Roslin. With Steve taking on a Cylon leader, this meant there would be only 1 secret cylon and I received this card on the first deal, but decided that I would take special care to try to avoid drawing suspicion to myself with the hope of pulling off the win by a premature jump away from New Caprica.

Steve received the "Show Their True Nature" agenda requiring that the cylons win and that he be incarcerated at game end or he has been executed at least once. He accomplished this part of the agenda by making no pretence at helping the humans by sending some Civilian ships to their doom by using Communications, which got him thrown in the brig in short order at which time President Roslin ordered him executed using a Quorum card. Having achieved that part of the agenda things initially went well as population tumbled approaching New Caprica, but he was somewhat worried at the apparent absence of his secret ally.

New Caprica was reached with few Civilian ships to evacuate and all had already launched by the time Galactica returned. When it finally got round to my turn I was just about able to force the cylon win, by seizing the Admiral's title from Helo (this was Andy, Adam's execution having been earlier ordered by Roslin in response to a crisis) using Ellen's once per game power. Morale was on 3 and there were 3 humans still on the ground, if I had been delayed another turn, one of the humans would have moved off the surface and the plan would have failed, which suggests to me that this tactic is not the all powerful automatic win that it is made out o be in certain quarters.

Battlestar Galactica 160 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave D
1=	Steve H
3=	Mike
3=	Andrew
3=	Andy

Over on the other table, the result was as below, I have no further details. We still must get the Spanish board on the table with its strange nuclear surge in step 2.

Power Grid 130 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	17
2	Dave F	16
3	Paul	15+
4	Nigel	15

Session Report – 11 November 2009

6 players and a 3-3 split. On one table we played a couple of games of Power Grid-Factory Manager (hereinafter referred to as Factory Manager), the new game by Friedemann Friese.

I will admit that the association of Power Grid with this game is what attracted my attention to it, but reading about it made it sound interesting and I decided to buy. Although the game has very little in common with the earlier game, it plays quicker and provides an interesting game in what should be about half the time.

The game is unusual (or at least it seems so to me) among many modern games in that it is won simply by having the most money, without having any systems to earn Victory points. It is played over 5 rounds, all of which follow the same pattern.

1. First there is a turn order auction, which is the only real similarity I see to Power Grid, other than the artistic style. You bid for tiles which have a number from 1 to 12, the player order will then run from lowest to highest, with the higher numbers having a discount on purchases for that turn to compensate for acting later in each phase.
   Bids are made using workers and because each player only starts with 7, with the potential to hire a maximum of 2 seasonal workers, the auction does not take long, with positions often being sold for nothing, since workers used in the auction are unavailable for other tasks later in the turn.
   
2. Once turn order has been determined, each player in turn must add tiles to the market according to the number of workers they have available (which must be a minimum of 1), the last player also has the chance to move a number of extra tiles (depending on the number of players into the market). These tiles represent machines that produce goods, together with storage for those goods, robots (which increase a machine's production or decrease its manpower requirement) and control and optimisation systems which reduce energy requirements together with increasing production and/or reducing manpower requirements.
   The tiles are laid out on a display and the cheapest of each type must be brought into the market before more expensive tiles of the same type, so it is an interesting situation if you are early in the turn order as you may have to bring down cheap tiles in the hope that those later in the order will being down the more expensive tiles of that type that you may want to buy. Conversely if you are later in the order, you may be able to bring down the tiles you want, but run the risk that someone earlier in the order may buy them before you get the chance.
   
3. Next is the purchase of new tiles and placement in the factory, together with the removal of existing tiles. Again you need workers for this, 1 worker to buy a tile, 1 worker to remove a tile. The cost of a tile is the number printed on it, less any discount that you may have due to you turn order tile. It is that this stage, following all other actions that you can hire seasonal workers, which will be usable until this stage next turn at the cost of 7 each, again less turn order discount.
   The reason you may want to remove existing tiles is due to limitations of space, the factory can hold a maximum of 10 machines robots and storage tiles (increasable to 12, by paying 10 per space) and 1 each of control and optimisation systems.
   
4. In practice, this phase of the game has tended to be merged into phase 3 in the games I've played, with players moving straight on to carry out the necessary changes needed to their factories as soon as they have bought tiles, while the next player carries out their phase 3. This speeds the game up, but Strictly speaking all players should complete phase 3 before the first player moves on to phase 4.
   In this phase players decide which of their machines/robots are used and adjust their production storage and energy tracks, at the same time setting aside the necessary workers to operate the factory in the canteen. These workers will not be available in the following turn for bidding or use in phases 2 and 3. Finally after all players have made the necessary adjustments, the energy price rise (from 0 to 2) will be revealed.
   
5. In this phase, players collect income which is determined by the lower of production and storage less the cost of energy determined by the amount used multiplied by the cost determined in phase 4. The income is doubled in the final round, so this is something to bear in mind.
   

I like this game, it is different to Power Grid and I have heard some people say they like it more, while others prefer the former game. I'm not yet willing to say I like it as much as Power Grid, that is one of my favourite games and I do have slight doubts as to the replayability of this one, although it has to be said that here has been plenty of variety in the games I have played so far, with some games where a lot of people go for a lot of machines, compared with other where robots are much in demand and further variation in whether people go for production robots or personnel robots. There has also been variation in demand for optimisation/control tiles. The one thing you can guarantee that will be wanted is storage.

This variation has possibly been driven by the fact that the low end of each type of tile is maybe not very good and if no one is prepared to bring the lesser value tiles into the market, then the higher value ones never get bought, although it is possible to move past the lower end tiles without buying them if players cooperate. It is possible that a more predictable pattern will appear with more play, but that remains to be seen, I think there is a fair bit of life in this.

Our 2 games this Wednesday were markedly different; the first was very close, suing the beginners' rule, which sets energy cost increase to zero in the first round. In the second game, the energy cost went up by 2 in the first round and I made the mistake of thinking that that meant it went from 1 to 3, in fact the 2 is a column shift on the table, so the rise should have only been to 2. This was combined with Donald having done a better job of controlling his energy use on the first round than Steve and even more so than me and as a result, it was something of a runaway. I played a further 4 more games at Midcon, some with, some without the beginners rule and all were close, interestingly they also tended to be higher scoring than these 2 games, although this may have been connected to all being played with 4 or 5 players.

Factory Manager 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	178
2	Donald	172
3	Steve H	148
Factory Manager 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Donald	238
2	Steve H	195
3	Dave D	122

Over on the other table, 3 different games were played.

Caylus Magna Carta 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	46
2	Julian	41
3	Dave F	39
San Juan 40 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	37
2	Dave F	28
3	Julian	14
Katzenjammer Blues 20 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	6
2	Julian	4
3	Dave F	0