Peloponnes and Priests Of Ra - 20th September 2012

We opened the evening with a 5-player game of Peloponnes while we waited for Andy. As usual it played well, with a slightly unusual draw meaning that all the disasters happened late in the game. On the one hand we had longer to prepare, but on the other the last couple of rounds were pretty bloody. Probably the only downside to the game is that I don't find I pay much attention to the tactics of the other players. I played a very lopsided game with lots of terrain tiles and only one building. My recollection is that James went for a more building heavy approach and Kieron produced luxury goods as though his life depended on it. In the end I was able to keep a population of 11 alive through to the end and won the game. Final scores: (Population/Prestige) David 33/35, James 27/28, Kieron 24/28, Adrian 18/29, Stu 12/29.

I've decided to buy my own copy of the game, including the new Goats expansion!

Andy arrived mid-game, but needed to leave early so we started a second 5-player game - Priests Of Ra. So far, I've come last in every game I played of this, and as the game began it looked like I'd be continuing this feat. The opening epoch passed very quickly as we pulled out enough Ra tiles to finish it before most of us had placed any decent bids. I tried and failed a final Ra gamble (again). Kieron tried and succeeded (again). James won through being the only one to achieve steady scoring in all three rounds.

I'm still not sure about this version. Our familiarity with the original means that this one doesn't flow so well. Lots of stopping to check what things score breaks our ability to react and play on instinct. Maybe if this was the only version it wouldn't be a problem, but the original Ra is a tough act to follow.

Final scores: James 53, Kieron 49, Stu 27, David 27, Adrian 26.

Thanks to Adrian for breaking my last place trend (by one point).

Mare Nostrum, 12 September

A return after a long absence for the Mythologically expanded version of Mare Nostrum for 6 Rivals at Adrian's (first played in 2007, the next plays were later in 2007 and then next in 2010).  We allocated roles based on initial seating plans, which meant that David got to play Atlantis from nearly in the garden, James Carthage, Andy Egypt, Adrian Babylon, Kieron Greece and Stu Rome.  Quite amazingly there was no fighting in this game whatsoever despite a. various military forces generated (with David's Kraken the most fun) and b. the fact that we ran out of caravans quite early on.  There are various very nice mechanisms in this game, the trading round perhaps best of all.  The game notes suggested that the player that controlled the key roles and who through this sets the order of play for the rounds would be most likely to win.  With two roles victory was likely it said.  Kieron managed to bag three roles and for a couple of turns held all four.  And sure enough, despite 4 players having met the victory conditions and with Andy and Stu only a turn behind, Kieron's role supremacy meant that he could steer himself to the win.  A fun and very well produced game.  Although the ending was perhaps abrupt it felt pretty well balanced and had enough interaction to keep us interested.

Having looked back at previous blog entries for this game the replay value looks interesting.  Our first foray suggested that the roles were key.  Next time we played we concluded that Egypt was unstoppable unless the other players ganged up on Cleopatra and the lack of trading "felt funny".  The third go saw Kieron win through tax income but not as Greece.  Intriguing.

Village - 5 September 2012

Just Kieron, James and David this week so we decided to try out Village as a 3-player game. The result was another entertaining game - it plays just as well with 3 as with 4.

After the last game, I'd thought that we'd missed out on earning points through converting food to gold via the Miller and then converting gold to points via the council, but found myself thwarted in my aim to try this as Kieron had the same idea and got in ahead of me. His 1st generation council leader ended up giving him a commanding lead. I prioritised creating new family members so that I could push the 2nd and 3rd generation members into useful positions in the church and council. James went exploring early and then fought with me for control of the church.

As we approached the end game the balance was very interesting. Kieron was ahead on visible points thanks to the council gold conversions. However he didn't want his 1st generation member to die so had only killed a couple of family members. James had burnt through his family at a tremendous rate, with David not far behind. Our scores were far behind Kieron, but we both had more in the chronicle and the church. James had also completed the travel section, so I felt completely out of the game. I was able to complete a triple market in the last turn just before Kieron killed off his 3rd family member to finish the game.

As we totaled the scores Kieron's lead evapourated. The effort he'd had to put into the gold into points scheme meant he had been forced to ignore too many other parts of the game. James had good scores everywhere and my last turn market gains made up for my incomplete exploration bonus.

Final score: James 73, David 72 (ouch), Kieron 59

Conclusions: Competing in the council and the exploration sections is difficult. However you can defer things (say spend a turn building loads of carts) ignoring the feeling that you must keep scoring points. Depending on 1st generation family members can cause problems - waiting and putting a generation 2 member into the council would have meant that Kieron could have allowed more family members to go into the chronicle.

A brilliant game - shame it only plays up to 4.

Strozzi - 29 August 2012

The first play of Adrian's birthday gift to James this year - Reiner Knizia's Strozzi.  This is the third game in Knizia's series of Florentine auction games.  We've enjoyed playing Medici - the first game - a number of times, and Strozzi builds on the theme with ships to bid on and culture to develop, as well as the merchant wares.

It's a simple game with a lot of complexity given the different strategies the players can pursue - do you go for the immediate scores from fast sailing ships, develop a monopoly or build up a collection of art, or balance across a number of approaches.

A fun game with good interaction when your pirate steals another person's ship, and it wasn't clear until the final reckoning who had won.  A pretty close set of scores as it turned out, with Adrian 1st on 180, then Kieron 165, James 160, David 140, Andy 135, and Orhan unsure but probably less than 135!

Not including the time to run through the rules, this took about 90 minutes to play (and that with the maximum six players), so in future a good candidate for a two-games-in-one-night session.

Section X and Ra - 15 August 2012

Just three of us this week so we kicked off with one of James' new(ish) four-player-maximum games from the UK Games Expo - Section X.  This is a strange little game.  Players place tiles to dig tunnels under the sea from a prison island to the mainland, and then move their prisoners along the tunnels to freedom.  Bizarrely, the tiles can then be rotated, moved or even swapped around which makes little sense, and the interaction between players is limited (in both scope and effectiveness).  An unsatisfying win for James.  But this game was being flogged off by Leisure Games for the the princely sum of one pound, so may even make a profit if I take this to a future Bring & Buy.

Much more fun (as ever) was Ra, which we couldn't recall playing with only three before (the main difference is getting four bidding chits and of course Ra tiles ending the phases even earlier).  Strong scores for James in all three rounds gave him the win with 57 points, with David on 35 and Andy on 24.

Shako, 8 August

A historic evening.  Since I started painting up 15mm Napoleonics in 1997 I've painted a fair few figures.  I started out with French and British, and then got stuck into Austrians.  It is only in 2012, 15 years on, that I find I have enough finished French and Austrian units to play the Shako 'pick up' game scenarios.  The lists at the back of the rules set out roughly a Corps level force as a basic army and then offer further optional selections, with the players choosing how many options to add in for a 12-15 turn game which is notionally playable in an evening.  Even the basic forces end up being quite big, so finally, many years (and children...) after starting to play Shako with Dunc, I had enough for this week's historic game.

James and David had decided on the respective force compositions earlier in the year as per the 1809 lists.  James went for a French Corps with 7 Divisions.  Since they were attacking they had 10% more line infantry than David's Austrians.  Having studied the mathematics of breakpoints (didn't we use to do this for DBM?) David concluded that 4 massive Divisions sounded about right - so the game was almost a canonical encounter between flexible, manoeuverist attacking French, and stolid, steady defending Austrians.  James wasn't able to make it alas, so Orhan took the role of Marshal Victor, French II Corps.  David was his white-coated nemesis Prince Alois Lichtenstein, commanding Austrian II Corps.  The area of operations was Wachau.

For terrain, I set up a reasonably crowded 6' x 4' table with the large town in the centre, a river on one flank and craggy hills dominating a defensive position of hedgerows and enclosed fields behind the town.  Deployment was alternating by Divisions, with David's line infantry and grenadiers in the centre and cavalry on the right flank.  Orhan went for an enveloping attack, with heavy cavalry on his left, light cavalry on his right, both backed up by lots of infantry and guns.  His centre held his (newly painted) Polish infantry division in reserve.

The Austrian deployment - cavlary on the right, massed infantry in the centre, Landwehr on the left

The French centre - Polish in reserve, a Light Infantry Division in skirmish order moving up through the woods.

Orhan's charge of the Heavy Brigade

The game opened with headlong cavalry attacks by Orhan on David's gun batteries.  It was a bit 'charge of the light and heavy brigades'.  The lights were successful in taking out David's guns on the left - but were wiped out in the process; a multi unit combat saw batteries sabred but the attacking hussars cut to ribbons by enterprising Austrian Grenzer light infantry.  On the right, Orhan's heavies took out one of the guns but were forced off by good defensive dice rolling and the arrival of David's own cuirassiers.  Orhan seized both of the crags and deployed artillery which shot up David's infantry on his left.  The French grenadiers who took the hill on the Austrian right didn't make any real impact from firing down on the Austrian lines; the French heavy battery which finally made it up to the heights didn't get a chance to fire because we had to call time.

We managed to play 7 turns.  Orhan's infantry on both flanks was just starting to engage the Austrians - massed volleyfire from both sides was causing casualties on the left.  On the right, combined arms tactics from both sides was inviting stalemate - infantry was deployed in squares, threatened by opposing cavalry, cannons were getting into position for some serious canister damage.

And alas then it was time to stop.  The game was in the balance.  I think that either side could have won (the scenario was that if the French didn't break the Austrians then the Austrians would win).  As it was, Orhan had lost his Light Cavalry Division and some Light Infantry, David had lost his guns on his left and his infantry was in a bit of a parlous state there - but his huge centre Divisions were pretty much unscathed.

Overall, we all enjoyed the game and remarked again how good Shako is as a rules set.  We should play it more often...

Village - 1 August 2012

We started James' bumper crop of new birthday games with Village this week.  Village won the 2012 Kennerspiel des Jahres (literally "Connoisseur-Enthusiast Game of the Year" i.e. the gamers' game, a new Spiel des Jahres category introduced in 2011).

Village is for 2 to 4 players, and is another beautifully produced Eurogame based on village life over several generations - we dubbed it "EuroGame of Life".  The board has a church, a set of craft buildings, a market, a range of towns to travel to outside the village, and a council chamber.

There are influence cubes of different colours which are picked up whenever you carry out an action at a location and then used to perform other actions.  The scramble for the right cubes and the right actions is how the players interact and nobble each other.  As a generation ages, its meeples eventually end up in the village chronicle or the graveyard.

The rules were long and it took a while to go through them, but once you've heard them, you've got it - and the board is covered with reminders (e.g. on the roofs of craft buildings) about what actions can be carried out at each place.

Very few points are recorded on the turn track as the game plays out - most are calculated in the final scoring e.g. places travelled to, status in church and council - so you don't know exactly who is winning at any one time.  Not necessarily anyway, but it was clear that David was running away with this one.  Final scores: David 73, James 58, Kieron 52 and Andy 45.  A really fun and clever game.