Gnadenlos! - 10 February 2010

And an hour left for a quick game of "Merciless" - the four player cowboy game with the ingenious and nail-biting IOU / Pay Day mechanism.  Lots of fun as always.  A close game with a final pay day leaving us all very short of money but unusually nobody was bankrupted at any point.  Final score was exactly the same order as the first game: James, David, Stuart and Kieron.  I'm posting a separate blog entry thanks to David pointing out that this means I can get credit in the tag tally for both my wins :-)

I'm sure I won't be the last to do it....

Race for the Galaxy - 10 February 2010

First outing for David's Race for the Galaxy which has just slipped out of the BGG Top Ten where its been for a couple of years.  This is a card game where players settle and conquer planets, build developments and produce/consume goods to earn victory points.  Echoes of Agricola in that each player is trying to make the most out of the game mechanism and interaction is quite limited.  The sole interaction is in the choice of which phases occur each turn - seven to choose from and everyone does each phase but only the chooser gets the bonus.  So you have to gamble on whether to select, for example, your second choice in the expectation that someone else will choose your first choice and you'll still get to complete that phase.

Some clever mechanisms but initially rather confusing, and so it took a while to click.  One to play again before we forget what all the symbols mean.  There are three expansion packs which might be worth investigating to see what they add to the game.  Final scores James 43, David 39, Stuart 38 and Kieron 32.

Imperial, 3 February 2010

The second outing for Imperial, this time with 5 players - which meant that for pretty much all of the game one player controlled two of the Great Powers. The players' strategies varied: Stu lost no opportunity to bankrupt whichever countries he could, casting Germany into a deep depression from which it didn't recover; James played Britain and France at various times but didn't branch out further East; Adrian built up Austria-Hungary into the pre-eminent power but didn't get much of a stake in anywhere else; Kieron and Deej were more balanced taking stakes in a couple of nations each which put them on top at the end.

The game saw a good mix of conflict and financial dealings with war in Germany and the Low Countries, Scandinavia and in various sea zones.

We think that we probably made a couple of mistakes in terms of providing extra cash to players who had no nations in the bidding stage - plus we weren't sure whether the bidding could bounce back and forth for players who then found themselves with no nation. This meant that it was a positive advantage for someone to have their nation taken off them since they accrued more money. Will have to look that up.

At any rate a good game. The final scores: Deej 142; Kieron 125; Adrian 111; James 75; Stu 70.

Endeavour and Bang, 27 January 2010

From thinking that we might have seven players this week, we were, on the day, down to four - so time for an outing of Endeavour (or rather Endeavor), a new game that Orhan got me for Xmas.

This is a very tightly optimised game - I think I read on Boardgamegeek it described by one poster as "the perfect Eurogame". The setting is 17th and 18th century expansion, exploration and colonisation. There are only seven rounds, each one allowing players quite limited numbers of actions. You build buildings, gain workers, activate them, explore, attack or draw cards - all aiming to raise your stats on your home board allowing you to do more of whatever stat it is next turn. Many of the mechanisms are familiar (eg worker activation of buildings) but this game has more interaction as the players vie for advantage (and victory points) on the main game board.

This was very much a learning game for all of us. The rules were simple, but optimising (even for the Great Optimiser Deej) was tricky and we all made some silly mistakes. As it was, and despite some asymmetric play, the final scores were pretty close: Adrian 52, Deej 51, James 49 and Kieron 42. A jolly good game which can probably be played in 90 mins, even with five players. Eurotastic.

We then had a go at 'Bang' - a rapid play card game. At least it would have been rapid a second time. Good fun Sheriff versus the Outlaws versus each other versus the Renegade. Adrian managed to be the last man standing.

A Brief History of the World - 20th Janary 2010

We'd played the old History of the World game a number of times in the early days of the Rivals. I'm not sure if we ever finished it, and it fell by the wayside as our game collection increased. However it was a favourite of mine and I was intrigued to see the new release of A Brief History of the World. The number of epochs has been reduced and combat speeded up a little. Although described as a 3-6 player game I was sure that we'd never finish a full 6 player game in an evening but could at least hope that we'd stand a chance with a 4 player game.

Good board design and the prospect of seeing empires sweeping across the world gave us a good impression as we started. The first round passed quickly with relatively minor empires giving us a gentle introduction. Epoch 2 saw Stew just behind the rest of us and picking empire first - and he gained the first super-power - Persia. Epoch 3 followed with James conquering Europe with the Romans. David then picked up the Mongols and turned a chunk of the map black. Kieron meanwhile built up and maintained control of much of China, South-East Asia and India for a number of Epochs and started to pull ahead at the end of epoch 4. For the last two epochs James and David closed in as Kieron was forced to take weaker empires, but he held out for a good victory.

In the end it was a late finish - after 11.30 - but with rule reading and set up we didn't start until 9.00 so it was just about ok for an evening's play. Probably not for more than 4. And now I've packed it away more carefully it hopefully won't take as long to set up next time.

Final scores Kieron 174, James 168, David 158 and Stew 122.

Vasco da Gama - 13 January 2010

First outing for Kieron's new game Vasco de Gama.  Historically, Vasco da Gama was charged with finding a maritime route to India.  Players play the part of rich shipowners who, under his patronage, aim to achieve prestige and riches.  To succeed in the enterprise, they must manage the money and actions at their disposal in order to hire captains, recruit crew, build Ships, launch them and send them to the Landings of Natal, Terra de Boa Gente, Mozambique, Malindi, Mombasa and Calicut.

Beautiful looking game with some really clever mechanisms, particularly the selection of turn order.  A very close game with both David and Stuart finishing with 37 Victory Points and Kieron and James on 46.  But after the final totting up, the ships navigate along the coast one last time, and the number of ships each player has resolves the ties.  So James took 1st place from Kieron and David 3rd place from Stuart.

On BoardGameGeek, there are some useful game summaries.  Reading these and some of the comments, suggests we may played something wrong.... when you first send a ship to a landing, the number of Victory Points indicated on the Ship Slot occupied by the ship is immediately scored, as well as taking the bonus.  We only took the bonus.  Can you check this Kieron?

Imperial, 6 January 2010

The first official games night of the year was cold and snowy. Defying a traffic directive from James not to drive :-) Orhan and Kieron made it (quite straightforwardly they said...) to Adrian's for a highly entertaining game of Imperial. A Christmas present from Deej, this game uses the rondel mechanism that we know from Antike but the feel of the game is very different. Players take the role of investors and speculators trying to manipulate the Great Powers and although the Board has a feel of Diplomacy, this is manisfestly not that sort of game at all. A key early learning point was that players should feel little loyalty to the countries they control; it matters little whether they are attacked and/or lose battles provided that they make the player money. In fact, having a few military units wiped out can be beneficial in that it means that country has to pay out less money on military salaries! By the end of the game all three of us ended up controlling countries different to those with which we started.

In terms of game play, we felt that there were two distinct stages to the game. The first was the build up of territorial power - each country expanding and jostling for position. Britain and France had a war. So did Russia and Germany. Austria and Russia tussled in the Balkans; Italy and France in North Africa; Britain and Germany in the Low Countries; Russia and Germany around Ukraine. Orhan managed to build up a large stockholding in Austria-Hungary and forged it into the premier power with Kieron's Italy in close second. the second phase was a run to the endgame, where there wasn't so much conflict and expansion but a few rounds of milking the countries for as much money was we could and pushing them up the victory chart as they taxed their own people (and the higher up the victory chart they were, the more money investors in them would make at game's end). We wondered whether some asymmetric play in this phase might have delivered a different outcome. As it was, Orhan's early lead was solidified as he held onto control of the two countries that finished highest - Austria and Russia. Adrian and Kieron had closely balanced portfolios in the lower ranking nations. But the final scores hinged on the last couple of rounds where Orhan timed his closure of the game to perfection: Orhan first on 257; Adrian next on 233; Kieron third on 221.

All in all a very good game and it can play with up to six. One to try again. Once people are brave enough to take to the streets once more...
:-)