Session Report – 11 August 2010

8 this week including my (and Mike and Dave C's) old school friend John, who was in the area again on a quick visit. We split into 2 groups.

John, Colin, Andy & I played Coast to Coast Rails, which Andy has been carrying around for a bit, this is another Train game set in the USA, the idea is to invest in shares in various companies attempting to build railways from coast to coast and is played in alternate stock rounds, where 3 shares are auctioned in each of the companies, followed by building rounds.

It is the nature of the game that it is possible to calculate with a good degree of accuracy the potential earnings of the company and use that to base your bidding on, unfortunately at the start of the game I was failing to take into account the system that you were bidding for 2 shares rather than 1 so I was underbidding. The game is such that there is definitely a rich get richer tendency and although I would not say there was a runaway leader problem (there isn't) I definitely see that if you screw up at the start (which I did) then you should forget it for that game and wait for another try (if you are so inclined (which I'm fairly sure I'm not).

The game, to me, has the same issues I have with Chicago Express in that you buy shares and they earn you money, but then they never go down in value and are not worth anything at the end of the game. In addition to that, in this game, you buy your shares which you would expect to be used by the company to fund its building, but it actually goes into a black hole never to be seen again and it is then left to the players who have already paid for shares to dig into their pockets again to pay for the track building. This all seems thematically nonsensical to me.

I have said in the past that I like train games, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that this should be narrowed to the 18XX series, which were my first introduction to train games, and the Mayfair Crayon rails games.

Coast-to-Coast Rails 100 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	John H	318
2	Andy	271
3	Colin	258
4	Dave D	226

After that we played Pandemic, using the characters and special events from the On the Brink expansion, but not any of the advanced challenges. As some players were new to the game I prepared the deck with just 4 epidemics.

The roles drawn were the Epidemiologist (John), Medic (Colin), Troubleshooter (Andy) and Archivist (myself) and resulted in a fairly easy win for the players, the roles seemed good with both Andy and I being able to fly about the board without using up cards, while John's ability was helpful for gathering the cards needed for a cure together. At the same time Colin was able to deal with treatment, even better when the first cures were in place.

I took a mental note to make it a bit more difficult next time (but see next post).

Pandemic 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	W
1	John H	W
1	Colin	W
1	Andy	W

On the other table there was Cyclades, which I don't know a great deal about, other than it has an Amun-Re style auction mechanism.

Cyclades 120 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve H	NA
2	Dave F	NA
2	Mike	NA
2	Andrew S	NA

And another run out for The Speicherstadt.

The Speicherstadt 45 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	29
2	Dave F	25
3	Steve H	24
4	Mike	16

T Shirts

I started to write this last week and then got sidetracked, but have been just been reminded seeing Mike's email. Mike organised the production of the T shirts and we charged £2 each, with the remainder coming out of club funds, the shirt is shown below (design by former member Luke Morris).

This is really for those who may not have seen Mike's mail, but may read this. If you're interested and have seen the mail, reply to that, otherwise reply here or use one of the contacts on the Contact page (Members Only).

Session Report – 4 August 2010

After 3 the week before, we were up to 10 this week. We split the group 4, 4 & 2.

We played St. Petersburg, which I had put back into my bag after playing a couple of weeks ago. We included the New Society expansion but left out the Banquet as it was Donald's first game, Colin I think had played before.

This game seemed a low scoring affair, which could be explained by the fact that the big points scorers among the aristocrats came out late in the game, with neither of the Mistresses of Ceremonies appearing at all. Steve won on the strength of his buildings which he was increasing during the game; Colin did well with Buildings early on but did not develop this as the game progressed. I did well with workers and aristocrats, which weren't scoring enough points, but my buildings were not scoring enough until too late in the game, I was able to catch Steve up a bit in the end game scoring and leapfrog Colin, but may aristocrat advantage was not enough to make up for the points lost earlier.

Donald enjoyed the game despite coming last and was talking about getting hold of his own copy.

Saint Petersburg 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	88
2	Dave D	73
3	Colin	63
4	Donald	42

Next up was Race for the Galaxy (including all expansions, but with no takeovers) and Donald made up for any disappointment in St. Petersburg with a comfortable win, building a nice engine mainly based on Rare Elements with good capacity for building prestige. None of the rest of us did very well, Steve taking second place from Colin by virtue of early points he gained as sole (or joint) prestige leader in the early stages, Colin had a powerful military and won the highest military goal, but his tableau points were low. As were mine, I played Contact Specialist very early on which quickly turned into a liability when the only military worlds I was drawing were Alien ones, which the card does not affect, in retrospect I might have been better playing some of the military developments I had, but was put off because of the penalty from Contact Specialist. The bulk of my score (about 12 points came in the last round of the game, adding a veneer of respectability.

This is a game I need to play more than I do, and I think I'll be spending a bit of time the AI, now Keldon has updated it for Brink of War (See here).

Race for the Galaxy 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Donald	53
2	Steve Pe	39
3	Colin	37
4	Dave D	33

Also played was Chicago Express. According to the records this was the first play of this this year, which surprised me as I thought it had been played more often. I know Mike and others are big fans of the game, although I can't say I care for it much. One of the reasons for this is that I have issues with its origins, although there are other issues as well, the main one being that shares are worthless at the end of the game, which to me is ridiculous and destroys any connection the game would otherwise have with its theme.

This reminds me that I shall have to dig out Steam over Holland, or organise a game of something like 1861.

Chicago Express 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	66
2	Andy	63
3	Dave F	52
4	Andrew S	35

Next up was Medina, which is an old game that I think Andy picked up second hand. I have no knowledge of the game at all with the exception of pictures I have seen on the geek at one time or another.

Medina 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	35
2	Andy	33
2	Mike	33
4	Dave F	29

Dave & Ben played Twilight Imperium, this being the second edition of the game, rather than the more recent 3^rd edition, which adds in enough to make it unplayable in an evening. Dave won this game playing the Haken, while Ben played the Nor (my apologies for my almost certain misspelling of these names as I haven't looked at the game and have only typed by what is sounded like Dave said).

Twilight Imperium (2nd. Ed.) 100 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	N/A
2	Ben C	N/A

Session Report – 28 July 2010

After the big attendance from the week before, I was aware that this week we would be down on numbers, many people having indicated that they would be missing. So I made sure that I had some games in my bag that would scale down to 2 if necessary. As it turned out it was 3 with Colin and Steve H (who was unexpected).

We played Fury of Dracula, which plays well with 2 & 3. Steve and I both know and like the game, while Colin was new. The problem with the game is that it usually runs too long for one of our sessions with about half the games we've played at the club going unfinished, this was also the case with this one although it was tight and interesting throughout, with the possible exception of the unfortunate ending (despite the fact that I made a number of mistakes).

Steve and I have played a series of games alternating as Dracula, I couldn't recall who's turn it was but Steve thought he had played the count last so I took the role (when I checked I discovered Steve was right) and Steve divided the hunters with Colin.

I started off in Dublin and remained there with a Dark Call which was necessary because I had no Vampires to start with, before heading over to Galway and placing the Vampire. It was at this point that the Evasion event occurred, really too early in the game to be of any help. Having thought for a bit I headed off to Hamburg, so leaving the Vampire unprotected as I didn't have a chance to hide (this was mistake number 1 I think, I should have played Hide with the evasion).

From Hamburg I headed down to Berlin, at which point my location was discovered due to hypnosis of Mina, and I was faced with Van Helsing heading my way, so I double backed to Hamburg so I could put to sea, stopping time so that the hunters would have to face the Vampire at night if they found it (This was mistake number 2 as it meant the time for the Vampire to mature was delayed by one turn and Dr. Seward found the Vampire with 1 turn to spare).

In an attempt to throw the hunters of the trail, I returned to the British isles, but was found and there ensued a chase around England, Wales & Scotland, when I able to keep the hunters behind me until night again fell, due in large extent to the fact that it was very foggy throughout the UK at that time. This ended when I was able to catch Dr. Seward in Edinburgh after he had been he had been stripped of his equipment by the Scottish customs, unfortunately he escaped immediately (I don't think I won a single combat roll all evening).

After this I set off to sea again and sailed around Britain, throwing the hunters off my trail, because when they thought I was in the Mediterranean I was actually in the Irish Sea. I landed in Liverpool and planted a Vampire. It was at this point that I totally screwed up, intending to hide and then head up to Edinburgh via Manchester; I actually laid the hide card and then must have had brain fade as I next laid down Edinburgh as if I was already in Manchester. This was discovered at the end when van Helsing used resolve to jump to Manchester at which point we decided to call the game. The penalty for the illegal move may well have made the game unwinnable for me at that point, but who knows.

I will take this opportunity to acknowledge publically Steve's paint job on the game figures.

Fury of Dracula 180 mins.
Posn.	Player
1=	Dave D
1=	Colin
1=	Steve H

July 2010 Meetings 4, Games 12, Average Attendance 7.5

Session Report – 21 July 2010

This was our largest attendance for a long time with 12 people. The numbers were swelled by the arrival of a group from Erdington, including Andy Hopwood designer of Mijnlieff, which won the award for best abstract game at this year's UK Games Expo. We had already split into 2 groups before their arrival, so in the first instance they sat down for a game of For Sale, which I do not have a record of. After that we rearranged things.

On our table we started off with a game of Gheos, a nice light little game which has been a few times before, particularly in 2008. The game can vary sharply because of the random order of the tile draw and this was so in this case with 4 out of the 8 epoch tile coming out in about the first 6 player turns of the game, which although the rate levelled out later this meant a short game. I was caught out by the end game when I forgot to play a scoring tile on what turned out to be my last chance and then the game ended on Dave's turn immediately before mine. If it had got back to me the scores would have been rather different but this is always a possibility in games with random endings. Gheos is light enough for it not to be an issue.

Gheos 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	34
2	Ben C	33
3	Andy	29
4	Dave D	22

After that we rearranged 2 groups and Andy H and Pete came over to join Andy E and me while Ben and Dave joined Hugh and Ed on the other table. We played Saint Petersburg, which Andy H had brought with him. This is a game I like a lot, although in this case we had not the expansion on hand so the base game only was in play. A lot of people claim that the base game is broken in favour of anyone who has the chance to pick up a Mistress of Ceremonies in the first round. I wouldn't go as far to say broken as other things can happen, but there is a big advantage. This was demonstrated by Andy H who finished with a handy win. I have said we must have a rematch using the expansion cards, which halves the income from the Mistress. Still a very enjoyable game.

Saint Petersburg 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy H	116
2	Dave C	87
3	Andy	62
4	Pete C	54

After that Andy E departed while Andy H took the opportunity to demonstrate his game to me. This is definitely a game where the more experienced player is going to win most of the time. It is a quick game where each player has 8 pieces to place on a 16 square board, winning points at the end of the game for scoring lines of 3. The mechanism is such that the piece you play constrains the position of the piece that your opponent can play in the following turn. My problem I think was not having learnt to think more than 1 turn ahead so I would play a piece with the idea of forcing Andy not to play in certain positions without considering the nature of the pieces he could play. Andy would then play a piece such that I had no legal play and I ended up missing a turn. This happened on a couple of occasions and it's the sort of thing you learn over time. While it's a good enough game and takes next to no time I can't see me having much chance to improve considering the scarcity of 2 player gaming that I do.

Mijnlieff 10 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andy H	2
2	Dave D	0

Dave & Ben joined Hugh and Ed to play Small World, this played without any expansions. I don't know any details of the play. I have referred to Ed as Ed-2 in the results to distinguish him from the Ed who visited us in March.

Small World 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Hugh	105
2	Ed-2	93
3	Dave C	90
4	Ben C	85

On the other table we had Mike, Andy S, Dave F and Steve H. They first played Caylus Magna Carta which again clocked in at just under 2 hours. Mike pointed out that I'd said I give this one another chance and I pointed out I had. The big problem to me is the length, if it could be made to consistently come in at an hour or fractionally more, I'd probably play this.

Caylus Magna Carta 110 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	47
2	Mike	46
3	Dave F	44
4	Steve H	42

After that they played The Speicherstadt, which I don't know much about other than it is by Stefan Feld, who has a somewhat patchy record with me. I like Notre Dame but am not too keen on In the Year of the Dragon (possibly would be OK with 2 players, but I don't tend to play many of those as mentioned above). This was still going on when I left, but looking on, it seems to consist of a series of Dutch Auctions to buy things, which presumably help you score points to win the game.

The Speicherstadt 70 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	32
2	Dave D	25
3	Mike	23
4	Pete C	14

 

Session Report – 14 July 2010

With 8 this week, we split into 2 groups of 4.

First up on our table was Workshop of the World. As the previous game we played at the club, this was a close affair. We did not run into quite such problems with spending all the money as in the previous game, I was pre warned and I was able to warn the others who were new to the game about being careful with their money.

I thought that Dave was going to win some way out but was surprised by the narrow margin of victory, which thinking about it was explained by Dave having spent somewhat more money during the rail age. I was surprised to see Donald so close at the end as he was lagging at the end of the Canal age, having spent that time getting used to the game. In the rail age he managed to put together a sizable connected series of Railways which earned him the points to bring right up although not quite close enough.

Workshop of the World 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	111
2	Dave D	110
3	Donald	109
4	Ben C	97

After that was Forbidden Island, which is very much a simplified version of Pandemic by the same author. It's an OK game and plays slightly quicker than its predecessor, but Pandemic does seem to have more to it, particularly with the variations added by the expansion.

Forbidden Island 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1=	Dave C	L
1=	Dave D	L
1=	Donald	L
1=	Ben C	L

Over on the other table was Steam Barons. This is an expansion to Steam and requires the base game to play. The game does seem to be substantially changed by the addition of the expansion, so I have recorded it in the stats as a separate game, contrary to what I'd normally do, I'm still thinking about that though and might yet change my mind.

In this version of the game players do not control railways for themselves, but instead control companies that, in turn, control the railways. Companies are controlled by the ownership of shares in a similar way to an 18XX game, although glancing through the rules, the way in which shares are acquire is somewhat different, as is the way that shares become available, only being issued by companies when they need the money.

Steam Barons 150 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	102
2	Andy	88
3	Andrew S	83
4	Colin	60