30th Anniversary Rivals Weekend

Somehow three decades have past since the formation of Rivals games nights.  Last weekend we got together to mark this and play a load of games.  Sadly Adrian couldn't make it, he was much missed.

We played a range of games, figures and board, old favourites and new.  We started with a "Bearers' Steeplechase" - a simple race game James had been planning for a while with some of the figures he had been collecting:

The figures were (from left to right, starting with the back row) Captain Scott on his Husky Sled, Lady Tsukiyama in a Palanquin, Sir Henry Pottinger in a Sedan Chair, Wilfred Owen on a WW1 Stretcher, Chief El Dorado the Muisca Chief, and Mrs Mavis Pike on her bicycle.

After looking for suitable rules for some time, James came across a game called Stage Chaser in a charity shop, a card based game simulating cycle races, with counters and tiles.  The tiles were reproduced as strips the figures could be placed along side.  The game uses three colours of poker chips to represent the energy a player has for attacking uphill, downhill and on the flat.  

Unfortunately this energy is depleted not by effort but by other players landing on your space and nicking your tokens.  This was quite fun but makes it tough to catch up, particularly if your hand of cards doesn't help your current position.  A good little filler game but if we play again, we'll use David's suggestions of allowing players the option of missing a turn in order to discard and replenish their hand in full.

The second game was a Dad's Army scenario - full write in this blog post.

Alternating with games of old favourites Ra and Pelopennes (and a picnic-style lunch and pizzas for dinner), we also had a couple of games of Hare and Tortoise that James had bought specially having recently discovered it was the first Spiel des Jahres winner back in 1979.  It was actually first published in 1974 but the German edition came out in 1978.

This 2010 edition from Gibson Games comes in an uninspiring box with an almost Victorian style board, suggesting a game of ludo-like simplicity.  But it's much more complex and devious than that - a race game that doesn't use any dice and (unless you take a chance card) has little luck element at all.  Suggested for ages 7 and up, we could imagine some very unhappy families trying to play this together - no doubt the reason there are so many copies under a tenner on eBay.

Each player starts with 65 carrots and 3 cabbages.  You move by paying carrots in triangle numbers for the number of spaces i.e. 1, 3, 6, 10, 15 etc carrots for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc spaces, and have to visit limited and busy locations to drop off your cabbages.  The added challenge is passing the finishing line with 10 or less carrots (or 20 or less if in 2nd place, etc).  You can collect a lot more carrots by going backwards and taking a tortoise approach, resulting in some large moves e.g. 20 spaces costing 210 carrots!

We really enjoyed it and played it twice.  The first game especially had much hilarity as we struggled to get over the finishing line with the right number of carrots remaining.

We next played the bidding game Medici followed by a 6 Nimmt, a Board Game Arena favourite from the COVID lockdowns.

After David left, we had a game of St Petersburg with James' new copy recently acquired from a Board Game Geek seller for a reasonable price.  This rare but excellent game attracts some very high prices on most selling sites.

In the morning, we had a hearty full English breakfast before a very close game of Airlines Europe.

A great weekend, missing only Adrian, in both senses of the word.  Our last games weekend was just before the first COVID lockdown, so over three and a half years ago now.  We felt we should try and do this more often!

Peloponnes & Ra - 11 December 2019

A classic double bill for the (almost) surprise appearance of Kieron.  Peloponnes was the usual fun with groans as the disasters wiped out our progress.  Andy pipped James to the bronze medal by the virtue of having a single luxury good left at the end of the game.  We resolved to not let Kieron win any more now he has decided to return!  Final scores: Kieron population/prestige 27/31, David 24/32, Andy 18/17+, James 18/17, Stuart 12/27.

Then Russian Roulette with Ra.  A very unusual first epoch where the Ra tiles were really slow to come out.  Which of course meant the other two epochs were particularly frantic.  Final scores: David 39, Stuart 34, James 31, Kieron 29 and Andy 22.

Peloponnes & Skull & Azul - 23 January 2019

A mega-games night with five players and three games.  First off was old favourite Peloponnes.  Adrian played an interesting new strategy with no building purchases, and just three resource tiles (mostly food) and three sea tiles.  Along with the ever increasing population civilisation, his population continued to grow and although his lack of buildings impacted prestige points, the strategy got him into second place, behind James' - whose score was bolstered by the last round purchase of the "2 coins equals 1 prestige". 

There was a huge amount of money swimming around in the game, with many of us passing on purchases several times during the game.  There were a couple of unusual features with the disasters too.  Firstly, none occurred until all five were showing two of their three counters.  And secondly, no disasters occurred in the final round, as they had all already happened, with the final two counters both being blank.  Final scores (population/prestige): James 27/34, Adrian 27/24, David 21/31, Stuart 16/35 and Andy 18/12 (following a  devastating earthquake in the penultimate round).

Then a bluffing/bidding game of Skull, which David won.  Works much better with more players and is a fun end-of-evening filler.

And then finally, we managed to fit in a game of Azul after Adrian left.  This is a neat tile laying game (real wall tiles as in a mosque) with simple mechanisms but plenty to think about. 

David scored strongly from the start and we never really caught him up, despite a large negative bonus forced on him by James in the final turn.  Final scores: David 62, James 55, Stuart 51, Andy 26.

Peloponnes & The Mind - 26 September 2019

A full house this evening for another great game of Peloponnes where David, yet again, drew the population growth civilisation.  There was a lot of money floating around in this game but with a famine and an earthquake before the last feed, food stocks were hit and some populations took a dive.  Final scores were Adrian 27 population and 30 prestige, James 33/21, Stuart 18/20, David 15/29 and Andy 12/16.

We then tried out a new game called The Mind.  This was a nominee for the 2018 Spiel des Jahres and won the critic's prize.  Essentially very simple: from a deck of cards labelled 1 to 100, players receive a hand of 1 card (then 2, 3 etc in following rounds) and, without communicating, they have to empty their hands in numerical order.  Get it wrong, lose a life.  With four players, try to complete Level 8 before losing four lives.  There are also shuriken cards which can be used to enable each player to discard their lowest numbered card, but we didn't quite work out how to use that to best effect.

We got as far as Level 6 a couple of times and were steadily improving how we played, learning what how long to wait for particular gaps between cards.  The group thinking does synchronise as you play.  Similarly, when it goes wrong, it tends to go wrong again quickly.  But when it runs really smoothly, it does feel rather good.  A fun little game for the end of an evening.

David - your potential exploit about discarding 100 is discussed here.  I guess it's probably better to play out and hope not to lose life, rather than definitely throwing one away...

Peloponnes & Medici - 5 September 2018

Two incredibly close games this evening.  The first was Peloponnes where, unusually, none of the disasters or final feeds had a really devastating effect on anyone.  David won with 29 prestige and 30 population, then Andy with 33 and 28, and finally James with 35 and 27.

We next played Medici - the old Spiel des Jahres winner from Reiner Knizia with a great bidding mechanism and opportunities for brinkmanship.  We haven't played this for almost two years but it's a cracking game.  Final scores were James 142, Andy 140 and David 139.

Classic Double - 9 May 2018

Peloponnes and Ra double bill.  Andy made it this week before his holiday so we let him crush us.  Andy population 40/prestige 34, Dave 33/29, Stuart 24/24, James 24/20.  An unexpectedly early earthquake pretty much wiped out James, resulting in the smallest final civilisation ever:

After catching up with news, we had a late finish with a game of Ra.  Final scores: Stuart 47, Andy 41, David 40 and James, last again, on 26.

Peloponnes & Spice Road - 7 March 2018

Four of us this week so after a bit of a catch-up, we dug out Peloponnes.  Usual fun game with the usual devastating end-game of disasters and final feeds.  David and James ended up with the same large population but James' buildings edged it.  Final scores: James population/prestige 30/27, David 30/20, Andy 18/17, Stuart 12/28.

Then we introduced Stuart to Spice Road and he promptly (well, not promptly) thrashed us.  Final scores: Stuart 68, David 50, James 47, Andy 37.

Peloponnes & Ra - 29 December 2017

Last games night of 2017 and a double win for Stuart.  First game was Peloponnes where Stuart got a very balanced score of Population 36 (with a 4x card) and Prestige 37.  Other scores were David 33/28, Kieron 27/34, Andy 33/24 and James 24/27.

The second game was Ra where Stuart managed to get through the first epoch with only one winning bid and still sitting on his 16 tile.  Despite this and thanks to an impressive collection of five Civilization tiles in the second epoch, and getting five extra points from James at the end due to having the highest sum of bidding counters, he won the game!  Final scores: Stuart 38, James 37, David 34, Andy 31 and Kieron 28.

Peloponnes & Alea Iacta Est - 13 October 2017

Last games night before Andy heads off to Darkest Africa, so a play of a couple of trusted favourites, Peloponnes and Alea Iacta Est.  For I think the first time, we got to the verge of all five disasters before any single one occurred...

...so they came thick and fast in the second half of the game.  The final disaster of Plague was the decider as Andy and Adrian were decimated but James was protected.  Final scores: James population/prestige 30/32, Andy 24/25, Adrian 18/31.

We spotted a minor Rule 23 in Alea Iacta Est - fortuna tokens gained by players are supposed to be shown face-up.  Adrian made good use of these tokens, supported by a relevant SPQR card, and got the win, but the scores were close:  Adrian 46, James 44, Andy 40.

Peloponnes and 7 Wonders - 25 May 2017

James and Andy at David's and we settled on old favourite Peloponnes to start the evening. A number of extreme strategies ensued as James (faced with the increasing population civ) went for high wheat producing tiles. David went all-in on wheat resulting in a peak of around 40 luxury goods. Andy approached things with more balance which is arguably an extreme strategy for him.

James found it hard to keep his population fed and expand his empire at the same time. Andy was able to pick up a final round tile to boost the points for his low population bringing him into contention, but David's massive luxury goods stockpile enabled him to weather the disasters and just edge ahead.

Final score (Pop/Prestige): David 36/31, Andy 28/36, James 27/22


With some time to spare we played a round of 7 Wonders. James played extreme again, ending up as the only person collecting science cards. David tried to do a bit of everything else, but didn't get much traction. Andy went for military and prestige buildings and managed to secure victory.

Final score: Andy 55, James 52, David 51

Peloponnes - 22 February 2017

A couple of games of Peloponnes this week.  The first a pretty close run thing until the last plague and feeding which hit all players except James.  Final scores population/prestige James 27/28, Andy 21/25, David 18/32, Stuart 12/33.

The second game had the rare occurrence of an earthquake in the second round, destroying James and Andy's brand new builds.  Andy then played the most almighty project backstep, prompting James to do similarly, so a rather more erratic game.  Final scores population/prestige David 40/28, James 18/30, Andy 30/15, Stuart 15/21.

Peloponnes & Ra - 7 December 2016

Another cracking double feature of Peloponnes & Ra.  James got a huge early population growth followed by a similarly huge population slump in the final few rounds.  Adrian collected lots of prestige with extra points for his stack of money with the 2:1 card.  Andy got a better result but David won with an almost perfect balance.  Final scores: David 24/25 population/prestige, Andy 30/21, Adrian 18/40, James 12/26.

After Adrian headed off for an early night, we had a game of Ra.  Final scores: David 36, Andy 35 and James 33.  However, Andy had scored loads of points in all three epochs, ending up with "der längste Fluss" of 11 tiles of Nile, and there is a very very slim possibility that he picked up tokens representing 5 when scoring instead of 10, so should have scored something like 55 points.  Steward's enquiry generously awarded Andy the win.

Not the Anderida weekend (12th November) Part 2 - Peloponnes

After the game of Macao proved less than successful we reverted to an old favourite to get us back on track.

The usual mayhem ensued with each of us at some point declaring that we may as well give up. Andy and David ended up very balanced in scores compared to James and Stu's prestige heavy approach. In the end it was the pain of feeding your people after the last turn and the consequential population loss for James and Stu that gave David the win.

David 22/24
Andy 17/18
Stu 35/15
James 31/15

Peloponnes & Ra - 19 October 2016

One of the classic double acts of games.  First we played Pelopennes with the Victoria expansion, which allows players to purchase a 2nd tile at face value once in the game - or alternatively score an additional 3 prestige or population points at the end.  David has the population-producing civilization tile again and by the middle of the game was at the maximum 20 population.  Andy bought up all the stone producing resource tiles and relied on the luxury goods from his over-production to meet this food demands.  After a wobbly start, James built up a good set of buildings and bought coinage in the last round so that his pile of money was worth 1 prestige point for every two, rather than every three coins.  The different strategies resulted in a very close result, with Andy taking the win.  Final scores: Andy 30/29 population/prestige, James 27/34 and David 27/31.

Then a quick game of Ra with the usual teasing and Russian roulette moments.  Final scores: James 63, David 54, Andy 35.

Peloponnes - 27 July 2016

Stuart writes:

A game of two halves:

First half - peaceful everyone buying, building, growing and feeding

Second half - Boom (Decline) Boom (Tempest and Earthquake) Boom (Drought and Plague).

The third Boom hit nearly everyone's population very hard e.g. Deej going from 17 down to 6.  Andy's stone mountain, Jame's pile of luxury goods and Kieron's massed tiles didn't ease the pain. Plenty of lovely civilizations with no-one to live in them. In the end it was Stuart's immunity to the last Boom that made the difference. 

Scores

1st Stuart 27/27     2nd Deej 18/30    3rd   James 18/26       4th Kieron 12/31       5th Andy  9/29  

Peloponnes - 27 April 2016

A full house for another fun game of Peloponnes.  A lot of high scores but the final round of disasters and population feeding hit a few of the civilizations hard.  Adrian won with a high and balanced score of population/prestige 33/35, followed by David 30/28, James 27/27, Stuart 20/36 and Andy 18/30.

Peloponnes & Ra - 20 January 2016

A full house this evening for another cracking double bill of Peloponnes and Ra.  Most of the expansions for Peloponnes stayed in the box (as usual) since there are lots of opportunities for different approaches with the standard game plus the seas.

Adrian and Stuart got devastated by disasters hitting their population at the end of the game, James lost almost all of his buildings to an earthquake, Andy played a strong balanced game, but David surged ahead with about half a dozen tiles delivering huge amounts of resources each turn and achieving at one point the previously unheard of position of full population (20!).  Final scores (population/prestige): David 36/29, Andy 21/27, James 30/17, Adrian 12/33, Stuart 12/27.

With Adrian departing for an early start the following day, the remaining four had another hilarious game of Ra.  The highlight was Stuart starting the game with the strongest tile (13) but failing to actually use it until the third epoch.

After nine years of playing this game, it finally dawned on me that with fewer than five players, the Ra tiles are more likely to appear in later epochs than with 5 players.  With five players, an epoch ends after 10 Ra tiles are drawn - so 10 Ra tiles per epoch.  But with three players for example. the epoch ends after 8 Ra tiles - so in the final epoch there are 14 Ra tiles left in the bag.  Not a problem and people suggesting tweaks to this most respected of games seem to get pretty roasted on Board Game Geek, so I don't think we remove Ra tiles with fewer players - it's just something worth considering when you're trying to get a full run of tiles towards the end of the game.

Andy won this game well ahead with a good haul of buildings - final scores Andy 52, David 39, Stuart 34 and James 29.

And as an added bonus, here's a cute photo from a player who clearly travels with their copy of the game!  Several more on BGG in a similar style here.

Peloponnes - 12 November 2015

A welcome return to Peloponnes this week.  The usual review of all the expansions, followed by the usual rejection of pretty much all of them - admittedly, it is an awesome game with the standard rules.  We used just the Sea Tiles (correctly this time, with just one per player, not the whole stack!) and the final round "D".

The bidding dynamic changes a lot with just three players as there are only three cards to be bid against with a further two alongside the Conquest tile (which can be purchased outright for three coins more than face value).  We therefore were bidding high so that if bounced we could pick up a 2nd choice on the Conquest line.

This game's winning strategy belonged to James, who bought up lots of wood-producing tiles, and used the excess to build up a lot of luxury goods, which were cashed in for other items as needed during the game.  In the final round James bought the card (Oracle?) that allows the higher of the Population or Prestige scores to be counted, rather than the lower, as long as the card owner has more than 20 luxury goods.

Final scores: James population/prestige 12/29, David 21/30 and Andy 12/26.

Peloponnes & Ra - 20 May 2015

This was the penultimate games night before Kieron departs and the last occasion for board games, so a couple of favourites were brought out.

First Peloponnes without any of the expansions.  James benefited from a civilisation that grew in population every round but Andy suffered from an earthquake and Adrian lost a group of people in the final turn, giving final scores (population/prestige) of James 39/33, David 28/35, Kieron 33/27, Andy 24/22 and Adrian 15/31.

Then Ra which is always fun.  Fittingly, this was yet another win for Kieron who stormed home with 52 points, master builder Andy 2nd on 40 points, then David 32, Adrian 29 and James just 23.

Peloponnes - 12 February 2015

A full house and a short game, so lots of time to chat and catch up before and after.  We played Peloponnes with just the expansion to allow six players and some of the additional (possibly too powerful...?) starting civilizations.

Mixed outcomes for the players: James struggled to get going but a handy sea purchase in the last round helped him jump ahead of Kieron who simultaneously had a major population crash; Adrian had the closest pair of scores but with David just ahead of him (balancing his blessing of being immune to disasters with the curse of losing population every turn); then Andy with a large flexible income from his civilization developing a huge score (and probably on another night, a game-winning one); but he was eclipsed by Stuart with the biggest score yet in this game (one point more than he won with back in October 2013).

Final scores: Stuart population/prestige 48/39, Andy 42/32, David 24/31, Adrian 24/22, James 21/18 and Kieron 6/38.

This remains the best value for money game I've got - £9 in the Bring & Buy back at the 2011 UK Games Expo!