Session Summary - 25 April 2007

A somewhat delayed posting of the play last Wednesday. We welcomed back Gordon and Steve P for the first time in a while and hope they will not remain strangers, we actually got to break even on the room hire.

Onto the games

Big City 70 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	70
Dave D	2	61
Steve P	3	60
Gordon	4	56
Dave C	5	36

It's been a fair time since this was last on the table. Steve was able to get a good early lead by building a triple residence next to the street car line and was never in any danger after that. I just edged Steve P in the close battle for second place while Dave was a distant fifth having altruistically built City Hall and started the street car, to the benefit of the rest of us. There was a general agreement that this is the sort of game that is probably better with fewer players, due to the loss of control due to the massive changes that can take place between turns. See attached picture.
















Next onto a game that I think is best with more players.

Citadels 80 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Gordon	1	31
Dave C	2	24
Steve P	3	22
Steve H	4	18
Dave D	5	15

A comfortable win for Gordon. I did try to stop him by trying an assassination on the last turn, but deciding that it was a choice between the King and the Warlord, I picked the wrong one. I was handicapped by only seeming to draw building of value 4 or more and only got 4 down by the end of the game. Oh Well.

I have updated the stats pages for April

Until Wednesday

Session Summary - 18 April 2007

It was 5 this week, with Dave C minding Ben, so they settled down to Runebound and the rest of us played

Power Grid 100 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	17+
Mike	2	17
Steve H	3	16

This was played on the French map using the 3 areas running from left to right across the middle from Brest in the west to Chamonix in the east. Power plants ended up as me with 3, Mike with 4 and Steve with 5, leaving me with first buying rights in the following rounds, after buying raw materials I started in Le Mans, Mike put himself next to me in Orleans and Steve sat on his own in Lyons.

As step 1 unfolded Steve built to 6 cities, while Mike and I intertwined ourselves splitting 5/5 amongst the cities in the north (including the 3 in Paris) with relatively cheap connection costs. It was round this time that I got in a bit of a mess with the power plants. Mike had picked up the dirty coal burning no. 20 and I then let Steve have no.29 without much of a fight being a bit reluctant to take a plant that would only power 4 and would therefore need replacement. I hoped to see something better drop, unfortunately I was left with the option of no.24, the trash price was way too high and with only 3 players not coming down fast. So I sat on my total 3 capacity hoping for an improvement or at least for the trash price to fall. It didn't happen and I eventually decided in the end to pick up plant 12, which had the advantage that it was cheap, the fuel was cheap and it allowed me to power my cities, if some what uneconomically. I was fortunate, I think that no one pushed earlier into Step 2.

Things broke eventually of course and I was able to pick up plant 26 at the same time as Steve grabbed 34 and he then pushed the game into step 2. The following turn as things turned out, I was last to pick a plant through having delayed building cities and 30 dropped into my lap triggering step 3 with the replacement, Steve had picked up plant 28 giving him 13 capacity (5-4-4), I had 13 (6-5-2), Mike had now fallen behind. In the building phase I increased my total to 11 by filling up the '15' spaces where Mike had taken the '10's. This left me to bid first and build last in the next turn.

Now step 3 had been reached there were plenty of good plants to buy, I got no.50, Steve had 36 and Mike had 32, I now had 17 capacity but not enough cash to trigger a finish so I did not build further, knowing I would be first to build the following turn as the others had moved past me in cities.
On that turn, I did not buy a plant and neither did Steve, hoping that neither Mike nor I could end the game, Mike had bought a plant, enabling him to match my 17 capacity. Following raw materials purchases, I built to 17 cities, grabbing the '15' sites in the south where, Steve had started. Steve built to his 16 capacity and Mike was able to match my 17, but as he built last he was left with mostly 20 cost sites and ended up losing the money tie break.

We always enjoy a game of Power Grid, but I'm not sure any of us covered ourselves in glory this time out, I managed to get my self in an early mess, while the other two, I think, let me off and ended up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Another unusual thing was that there was not at any time in the game, any appreciable fuel shortage problem, this may have been due to only 3 players, but even so I don't recall such as friendly game in that respect, even with three.

I have also posted the above on the geek

Next there was time for

San Juan 35 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	41
Mike	2	31
Dave D	3	30

Congratulations to Steve on his first win at San Juan, although he did shuffle the cards and I don't think I can recall seeing a worse run from my point of view. Steve made the Carpenter/Quarry combo work nicely and was able to add City Hall, Triumphal Arch and a full set of monuments, Mike had City Hall and Guild Hall. The only 6 building I saw all game was the Palace, despite copious councilling. I did also have a chapel and toward the end of the game I was just chucking cards at it on the grounds that they were worth as much in there as they would be to build and it was cheaper. If I'd done that earlier I might have beaten Mike. Congratulations to Steve on his impressive win, I'm not bitter really.

Until next week.

Session Summary - 11 April 2007

Easter Holidays still and Dave C was running a Star Wars RPG scenario down in the bar, which left Steve and me upstairs. We had agreed in advance that if there were the 2 of us it would be a rematch at Fury of Dracula and this time Steve was to be the Count.

I had planned to write an elaborate story of how the brave vampire hunters vanquished (or didn't vanquish) the dark power, however as the game went unfinished as these games often do I'll give a quick rundown.

Having spread the hunters round Europe, I drew the Evasion event card allowing Dracula to "teleport" anywhere on the board before Steve's second move, this being far too early for the card to be very helpful. The first game day passed without a trace of the count although Newpasper reports did reveal he had started in Santander and Van Helsing checked ou the Iberian peninsula, the count being long gone due to the evasion.

The break came just as Dracula had gone to sea, when further reports revealed that he had been in Strasbourg Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming discovered traces in Frankfurt, Berlin and Leipzig (where Seward dispatched a vampire). I deduce that he had put to sea from Hamburg and after 2 sea moves, he was revealed to be in Cadiz by hired scouts, and the hunters closed in.

Dracula made his way to Santander and into the Bay of Biscay, but was forced into Nantes by Stormy seas, but was able to slip though the closing net using unearthly swiftness and then lead the hunters on a chase to the east, reaching Bucharest as we finished, Mina having just dealt with a vampire in Vienna.

I don't have the details of the Star Wars game, but believe Dave will post them (as he now has in his comment).

Until next week.

Session Summary - 4th April 2007

Yet again, just Dave D, Mike, Steve H and myself; along with Ben and Matthew. I understand from Mike that there are some uncollected T-shirts; these will be paraded on TV in due course. Anyway, with only Ben and Matthew along I decided not to play AD&D; instead we played Runebound (2nd ed.) This is a boardgame of exploring a fantasy land; aiming to gain experience and allies to take on the big baddie (the Dragonlord) or to collect three Dragon Runes (equally as tough a challenge). The game in some ways is similar to Talisman, however in Runebound there are a lot more decisions you can make and you have more control over how you achieve your goals. For example, you may see an Ally you'd particularly like (because they complement your characters abilities.) The Ally is in Town x and costs y gold to hire. So you know to head for that town and how much gold you need to get from encounters. Movement is by rolling a set of unique dice showing terrain symbols and moving into the allowed terrain. Thus, mountains are harder to move through (because there is only 1 mountain symbol on each dice). The encounters are graded from Green (easiest) to Red (hardest , and how you win). But it's your decision when you change from Green encounters to going after the Yellow (the next hardest). Back to the Ally example. Need quick gold? Then go and beat up a few greens (be warned, they're not all pushovers!)
The game started fairly leisurely (as Matt was new to the game (in fact, is new to these sort of games overall)). Ben fell foul of an Assassin encounter early on and took it really personally. He finally killed them on the fifth attempt! (Like Talisman, you don't die as such but you lose stuff and start again from the nearest town. You keep the same character however, and whatever it was that done you in sticks around, fully healed, available for anyone to take on. Ben was insisting we left it alone). I had to run away from my first encounter, fortunately my Special Ability was to automatically escape from combat. This meant I could scout out the opposition and run off if I thought they were too tough; so I went for some early Yellows.
As the game progressed, Matt and Ben got more into planning their moves ahead ('to get to that encounter I need two hills and a swamp so if I don't get them then I'll head for the Town' etc.). We didn't finish the game so when time was up we scored off earned experience points.
Dave 16
Ben 12
Matt 12
Ben and Matt decided that Ben was second as he had more money than Matt did.
Overall, give it a go. Talisman wasn't a bad game overall (but did have some bad points). Runebound is better and a worthy successor.

Dave D taking over here. On the piece of paper Dave gave me he lists the scores as follows, the order's the same but the scores slightly different:

Runebound 150 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave C	1	17
Ben	2=	14
Matthew (2)	2=	14

Over on the other table, we had:

On the Underground 90 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	62
Mike	2	56
Steve H	3	46

This game seems to go in 2 ways, either they are very close, or very spread out, this one tending toward the latter, I can't think of much else to say since although I love the game, I can't think of anything prompting a massive narrative.

Industrial Waste 60 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Dave D	1	63
Mike	2	51
Steve H	3	43

Steve strayed from his usual all out green strategy and started by innovating his workforce requirement, I think this was more due to the unusually high availability of hiring and firing cards. I don't think he plans to try this again. Although I don't hold that the only way to play is to get your waste production down as quickly as possible, generally preferring to lean toward the raw materials track, I do think that the workforce requirement is probably the lesser of the three.

Until Wednesday

Session Summary - 28th March 2007

DD said he wouldn't get so verbose on the next update, so I decided to instead.
Following the success of the 1856 game last Sat; the four of us turned up again Weds (ie: Me, Dave D, Mike and Steve H). Where's everybody gone? I know I've been absent for some time but that's over now and I'm getting back into the mainstream.
Anyway, we decided to play Air Baron, one of Avalon Hill's last games before being sacrificed on the altar of commercialism. AB is a game of running an airline and gaining control over domestic and foreign air routes in the USA. The winner is the first to gain the largest market share in cash and overall control of the various Spokes and Hubs.

"I was robbed." This was DD's comment at the end of the game. Hm. Ultimately, AB,despite its cash, events and all the other trappings of a financial game, is actually a wargame. You spend the first part of the game establishing a power base, but it is impossible to win without doing takeovers (attacking) other players. And takeovers are a 2d6 roll with mods, highest wins; defender wins ties. You can gain favourable mods by how you've taken control of Spokes/Hubs/Foreign routes, but to stand a real chance you need to be in Fare Wars; which gives you a +2 die bonus (good on a 2d6 roll) but forgoes you any normal income whilst you are in Fare Wars. And it costs you money to attempt takeovers. And income depends a random chit draw anyway.
In some ways it's similar to Risk. You get to a stage when you go all out to try and seize control and win; but if you don't succeed then the next strongest player will try and do the same, and there is little you can do about it. As for the player in last position (me in this instance), takeovers are counterproductive to a large degree as you are usually helping the main rival of whoever you 'attack'.
Back to DD's comment. Yes, I think he was. Not detracting from Steve's eventual win, but DD must have been within a few dollars of winning, but due to the fickleness of the random turn order and by the way that losing just 1 (one!) Spoke can lose you up to 60 points on the Stock Market, meant that with just two bad die rolls, DD dropped to third place from first.

Air Baron's not a bad game; but the end game does drag on for some time and could get impossible if the last placed player played the part of Kingmaker. It is a 'bash the leader' game (but so is Kremlin.) I do suspect, however, that we've all got used to Eurogames with fixed game lengths, or 'first past the post' like Vinci (AB is 'first past the post' admittedly, but in Vinci you don't get knocked backwards for losing a battle). Good for the occasional play (and go for the Government Contract, it paid out a fortune to DD and Mike over the course of the game).

Just to add the scores:

Air Baron 140 mins
Player	Posn.	Points
Steve H	1	334
Dave D	2	299
Mike	3	242
Dave C	4	98

1856 - 24 March 2007

Earlier in the year we played a 6 player game of this and later Steve suggested that he'd like to give it another try, but thought that 4 might be a better number. Mike and I were happy to agree as we are big 18XX fans, although we rarely get the chance to play, and I also thought it would be a chance for Dave C to join in, having missed the earlier game. So it was that we gathered at my place on Saturday.

We all started a public company at the beginning. Mike had the GW, I had the LPS, Dave the WGB and Steve the CPR. In the early stage of the game I was able to make some quick money with LPS and at the first opportunity I had it buy the Great Lakes Shipping Company off me at the same time putting money in my pocket and increasing the LPS revenue by using the port. During this time Mike built up the GW and I was able to link into his track allowing me to run to London for further revenue, Steve slowly started building up the CPR, while Dave was stuck in the middle without easy access to a big city and no other company close by to help in the WGB development. As we moved out of this early stage I had been able to build up enough cash to start another company (the CA) which seemed like a good combination with the LPS. Soon after Mike started the BBG and Steve took the Welland.

It was here I think that things started to go wrong as I should have kept more money in LPS while the pickings were good. When the the first 6 train was available, I found myself with a lot of money sitting idle and used it to start the CV. Having looked around I had thought that all the companies would be able to repay their loans, the WGB was vulnerable but I was able to help it to its destination before the CV bought the 6 train, so releasing the necessary funds. As it turned out the Welland could not repay and so the CGR was formed from this one company. At this point I was terribly vulnerable. I had considered folding one of my 2 companies into the CGR, but this was not possible as they had too much money to default on their loans (the CA actually had none outstanding) as a result both were left sitting on a single 4 train each which was liable to be rendered obsolete at any moment on the purchase of a Diesel and not a huge amount of cash. If this had happened I would have been destroyed, fortunately Mike who had the GW with a 6 & 4, which was making the most revenue, chose not to trade in for the diesel, instead carrying on, while seeing his share price rise. The CGR, having formed in a corner of the board without immediate access to the wider network, would take several rounds before being able to buy a diesel and the other companies, already having permanent trains were content to keep paying dividends, rather than saving for another train. I was able to use these few rounds grace to build up the LPS and CA treasuries before buying permanent trains (in the LPS case the 6 from the CV). During this time the LPS & CA share prices fell though the floor, but I was able to keep a good personal income from the CV and major minority holdings in the GW and CPR.

Once all the companies were on a stable footing the game moved to a fairly swift conclusion, during it was a case of Steve using CGR tokens to block stations limit the revenue of other companies, while I desperately tried to bypass the blocks using the combine efforts of LPS, CA and CV. The game ended about 8pm for a total playing time between 6 & 7 hours.

Scores as follows
Dave D $9486
Steve $7982
Mike $6521
Dave C $5967

If I had been Mike I think I would probably have bought the diesel and caused me much pain, but he considered that even if he had done so he would only have given the game to Steve instead and he is probably right. What I think the game does show is we could all do with a lot more practice (but how to find the time).

Session Summary - 21 March 2007

I am somewhat late posting this one, on account that I have been busier than usual (for me) in the last few days and also because of the 1856 game. It was another disappointing attendance with just 2 people. Hopefully we should have Mike, Steve H and Dave C next week and from Gordon's comment on the last post he should have moved house by then, so I look forward to seeing more of him and maybe Steve P, work always permitting. On another note I notice Luke was Geek of the week last week over on BGG and there is some interesting reading there including the explanation as to why he has been missing recently.

On to the game, admittedly I had a different opponent this week but even so it was some surprise that Steve suggested this.

Fury of Dracula 140 mins
Player	Posn.
Steve H	1
Dave D	2

In many ways, this probably is best as a 2 player game, as it is basically a game of 2 sides. It really needs to get started quickly as the game length is often long. In this case, I as Dracula led the hunters on a long chase round Europe, starting in Italy, during which time they got close many times, but never quite caught me until the end. Along the way I dropped a Vampire in Cagliari, but the hunters got there just in time, not so with the one in Le Havre, which I was able to protect with enough encounters to get to maturity. Unfortunately Seward caught up with me in Alicante (in retrospect it was probably asking for it to head to and Mediterranean port from Madrid knowing that there was a hunter in the Med, but there you go). This is where the problem arose, because Seward with his pack of Dogs was essentially unbeatable and I had no chance to escape, Game Over with 4 out of 6 Vampires on the board.

I have puzzled over Dogs before, thinking surely this is so powerful as to break the game, but I have realised that I have misinterpreted the use of the word initiative on the card, due to the change in use of the word since the GW edition, so Dogs do not add 4 to the combat roll (which was called the initiative roll in the original), but only has an effect in the case of a tie when initiative numbers are compared. Oh well, still I had an enjoyable time and Steve has suggested he'd like to be Dracula next time.

Until tomorrow.