Archive
Games Sessions - August/September 2002
27th
September 2002
Games
Played: Wallenstein
Wallenstein
Players: Nige, John W, Mark K, Mark G, Garry
Wallenstein has been getting some
rave reviews as a meaty German-style wargame and we had the opportunity to
play it for the first time this week. The author, Dirk Henn, has a fairly
good track record but I think this is the first time one of his games has
been published directly by a major publisher rather than first appearing
on his own dB Spiele label. The subject is the 30 Years War and the
essence of the game is about building up forces in the regions you control
and attacking new areas to expand your influence. The game is played over
just six turns with a housekeeping and scoring phase taking place after
the third and sixth turn. Conflict is resolved in a unique way. Your
forces (cubes) and those of your opponent are cast into the top of a tower
containing a labyrinth like interior. Some of the cubes inevitably get
stuck in the tower and only those that emerge from the bottom count in
tallying the result. This makes for some unpredictable outcomes and part
of the fun comes from watching a seemingly superior force getting overcome
by its opponents. The various actions available to players can only be
performed in one region per turn and the order in which the actions are
carried out is not entirely certain, so a fair degree of planning is
needed to best utilise the actions in the right areas.
In our game, Nige got off to a
really good start, part of which we reckoned was down to him having a
better starting position than some of the rest of us. We used the
pre-determined set-up as it was our first game. He also concentrated on
buying buildings in the first year and this gave him some good bonuses at
the end of the first scoring round. However, that left him as a target. In
the second year, I amassed a huge strike force outside his stronghold,
which had the most valuable buildings inside. On the final turn, I
attacked with what I thought was a reasonably greater force than the
defence. However, the worst possible outcome resulted from the conflict: a
tie in the number of cubes emerging. This meant that the region was
totally devastated - all forces were wiped out. No one ended up
controlling the region andthe valuable buildings were destroyed. That
single battle killed the result for both Nige and me. Although I did
manage to oust him from another good scoring region, Mark K was
concentrating on picking off lots of weak regions. This gave him
superiority in the number of regions controlled, the buildings acquired
and the bonuses at the end of the second year. This enabled him to move
from 3rd place at the end of the first year to claim victory at the end of
the game.
This was a really enjoyable game,
although there is some downtime in the action-planning phase if you finish
your plans before the more deliberating players - Nige. However, that
aside, it is a game I look forward to playing again soon.
Result: Mark K 40, Garry 38, Nige
36, John W 29, Mark G 25
Ratings: Mark K 8, Garry 8, Nige
8, John W 7, Mark G 7
20th
September 2002
Games
Played: Quandary, Greyhounds
Quandary
Players: Nige, Matt, Mark K, Mark
G
I wasn't able to make it this week
and so missed a newcomer to the Club. Matt Kruczek saw the club page on
the internet and got in touch with me a few weeks ago. I obviously didn't
scare him off but I was disappointed not to have been there when he was
able to come along for the first time. I hope he enjoyed the experience.
Anyway, Mark recorded the results.
Result: Mark G 94, Mark K 92, Nige
87, Matt 80
Ratings: Matt 8, everyone else had
rated it previously
Greyhounds
Players: Nige, Matt, Mark K, Mark
G
Result: Matt 14500, Mark K 13700,
Nige 13200, Mark G 8100
Ratings: Matt 6, Mark K 7, Nige 8,
Mark G 6
13th
September 2002
Games
Played: Kings & Castles
Kings
& Castles
Players: Nige, Mark K, Mark G, Garry
This is the most recent game by
the Ragnar Brothers, whose other claims to fame include History of the
World and Sixteen Thirty Something. This game is based on the 400 years
following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The successive kings
attempted to extend their influence at home and abroad. Players take turns
trying to conquer as many regions as they can using their own and other
players' forces. At the end of their turn, they then decide whether they
control a sufficient proportion of the available land to tax the people -
which generate victory points. However, throughout the game players can
only tax the people on three occasions, so they need to pick the turns
which are most advantageous to them.
Unfortunately, the game took
considerably longer to play, on everyone's first time, than we
anticipated. It was clear that we were going to be unable to finish so
agreed to stop about half way through and call it a learning game. There
are some good ideas in the game. Using opponents' forces to clear the way
in regions so that you can then march in and clean up is quite novel.
However, it does suffer from a fair bit of downtime if you've chosen to
space your turns, which you decide upon at the beginning of the game, a
long way apart. Still, I'd like to give it another go because we all
thought it was pretty good.
Result: None
Ratings: Nige 7, Mark K 7, Mark G
7, Garry 7
6th
September 2002
Games
Played: Funkenschlag
Funkenschlag
Players: Nige, John W, Mark K, Mark G, Garry
At last got to play this latest
game from Friedemann Friese. His past record is a bit hit-and-miss, but
I've seen plenty of good reports about this one, so I had high hopes.
Players are trying to build an electricity supply network to a
pre-determined number of cities. We played the introductory game in which
the target is 8 cities. Each game turn is played over a number of phases.
Firstly, power plants are auctioned off, followed by the purchase of
resources used by your plants. Then you develop your network on the game
map and finally you supply the cities you have connected to generate
income. These phases work together pretty well and as the order of play
differs from phase to phase, being the lead player in one phase turns out
to mean you are also the last player in another phase. Also, money is very
tight in the game and you never have enough to do exactly what you want
to, so you need to plan ahead on what your spending strategy is going to
be until you can generate more income. The game seems to work very well
and I can only see the longer version adding more interesting decisions,
as cities become opened up to more than one player.
It may suffer a bit from the
rich-getting-richer syndrome, but I guess that makes the leader a target
and, providing other players keep in reasonable touch, it ought not to
become too processional. In our game, however, John definitely suffered
from poverty. He tarried outside the cities a bit long and found someone
else marching in before him. Sorry, John, yes I know it was me. That left
him with less income than others in the middle game and hampered his
ability to develop his network quickly. Mark K managed a coup in being
able to buy a wind plant very cheaply. It suddenly appeared in the active
market at a time when only he and Mark G were left in the auctions and
only Mark K had the money to pay the minimum price. He took good advantage
of that, not needing to buy resources as urgently as the rest of us and so
being able to concentrate on his network. Nige saw the danger Mark posed
and marched across the map pinching his nearest cities, but Mr Moneybags
was still able to pay to get to far-away places. At the end there was
nothing we could do to stop him connecting to his 7th and 8th cities and
claim the win, with three of us left together on 6 cities.
I liked Funkenschlag a lot and so
did the two Marks. Nige, however, felt it a bit repetitive and that
downtime was a problem. I hardly noticed any significant downtime (the
others might say that may have been because I was the cause of it) and the
only real time when you were not involved was when others were drawing
their networks on the board - which didn't take long anyway. The big
disappointment for me was the board, but you get that with some smaller
publishers. Now if Queen or Hans Im Gluck decided to republish it, that
would, I'm sure, be phenomenal.
Result: Mark K 8, Nige 6 + 15
cash, Garry 6+11, Mark G 6+10, John W 3
Ratings: Mark K 8, Nige 6, Garry
8, Mark G 8, John W 7
30th
August 2002
Games
Played: Carolus Magnus, Pompeji
Carolus
Magnus
Players: Mark K, Mark G, Garry
As I thought there would
only be three of us tonight and I hadn’t played this for a long while, I
brought along Carolus Magnus. I think this might be my favourite 3 player
game – it’s certainly well up there. Players fight for control of 15
different areas by placing cubes into the areas and their influence banks.
By holding the most influence over a particular colour, you control all
the cubes of that colour in an area. If you then control most cubes in an
area when the King visits that area, you are rewarded by being allowed to
build one of your castles in that area. If you have castles in adjacent
areas, the areas merge to form one larger area with two castles in. First
player to build all of their 8 castles wins.
There is a lot to watch, and
I like the way everything is out in the open, so you don’t have to
resort to memory. Keeping control of the colours important in the areas
you control is important and you need to watch both your own and your
opponents’ influence bank and cube reserve closely. However, it is often
not possible to protect everything so you need to weigh up what you are
willng to sacrifice. I concentrated on mainly two colours and was able to
keep pretty tight control over them, despite only rolling one crown on the
dice during the whole game. The two Marks were having a good battle over
the red cubes and this helped me as they were less able to struggle in my
colours. Eventually, I managed to engineer a situation where I was last to
play in one round and could guarantee first in the next round, allowing me
to place my seventh and eighth castles and claim the victory.
Result: Garry 8, Mark K 6,
Mark G 5
Ratings: Garry 8, Mark K 7, Mark G
7
Pompeji
Players: Mark K, Mark G, Garry
We followed this up with a
game none of us had played before: Pompeji is another of Adlung’s
numerous card games, and is about developing the town prior to the
eruption of the volcano, which destroys the town and signals the end of
the game. Cards are played to a 7x7 grid and you score for each card
played by matching the colour and building shown on the card with similar
colours and buildings in the same row, column or diagonal.
It ought to be a fairly
simple pattern recognition game but it’s not. Not because of any
intricasies of the rules, but rather because the colours and design of the
cards are so awful. It is extremely difficult to tell certain buildings
and colours apart, because of the background pattern on the card. The
pattern was obviously intended to fit in with the game theme but is a
nightmare in practical terms. Anyway, the game played o.k. and Mark K and
I were neck-and-neck throughout, such that the whole game eventually
boiled down to whoever drew the volcano card would win. Mark beat me in
the shoot-out.
Result: Mark K 230, Garry
220, Mark G 168
Ratings: Mark K 5, Garry 5, Mark G
6
23rd August 2002
Games
Played: Top Secret Spies, Quandary
Top
Secret Spies
Players: Mark K, Mark G, Nige,
Garry
Nige got hold of this while
he was on holiday and, as none of the rest of us had played this latest
incarnation of Heimlich & Co, we were keen to see whether it was much
different. Not much is the answer but I didn’t feel it improved on the
original. The game play is identical with the exception of players also
holding action cards that they are free to play on any turn. These gave
various effects but mainly involved moving pieces away from the squares
they were occupying to other places, or moving the safe. You start off the
game with 4 or 5 cards and can acquire additional cards by moving a
playing piece onto the graveyard. Once the deck of cards is exhausted,
cards already played are shuffled to form a new draw deck. This is all
good in theory, but in my view moved an elegant 20 minute bluffing game to
a more cumbersome 1 hour plus bluffing game, and at that length it
outstayed its welcome. The reason for the extra time is that every time
the safe was landed on, it was too easy to prevent a scoring by moving the
piece off again or moving the safe. I believe it would have been much
better if the action cards were not recycled, so limiting the
opportunities to play them. But I feel that the original was great for
what it was without the cards and these just act as padding.
Anyway, after many stalled scoring
attempts, we eventually got a piece across the finishing line, Mark K’s
piece, and with him correctly guessing all the player’s pieces, he
extended his lead to win easily.
Result: Mark K 73, Garry 56, Nige
55, Mark G 51
Ratings: Mark K 7 (or 8 with my
suggested change to action cards), Garry 6, Nige 8, Mark G 7
Quandary
Players: Mark K, Mark G, Nige,
Garry
Next up was Quandary, another game
in modified form. It’s ancestor was Flinke Pinke, which was a small card
game with coloured tiddlywinks for markers. The newer version is a big box
game with a board and high quality pieces. Although this production is way
over-the-top, it is impressive nonetheless. The only changes in gameplay
to the original are that there are six ownership counters per colour
rather than 5 in the original, and when you play a
number token in a particular colour, the original prevented you
from taking an ownership counter in that same colour on that turn. No such
restriction in Quandary.
Nige played a good game,
outscoring me on every round (which some might say isn’t too difficult).
There was tension at the end of every round – a good sign – and at the
end of the penultimate round, only 6 points separated all the players.
Mark G surprised us a bit in the final round by not attacking the leader,
Nige, when he had the chance and Nige took full advantage to close out the
round and a win for him. Great game, even though I did get stuffed in the
last round.
Result: Nige 81, Mark K 79, Mark G
70, Garry 66
Ratings: Nige 9, Mark K 8, Mark G
8, Garry 8
16th
August 2002
Games
Played: Nautilus
Nautilus
Players: Mark K, Mark
G, Garry
This week, I brought along a new
Kosmos game from Brigitte & Wolfgang Ditt, names that are new to me.
If this is their first game, then they have a lot to live up to with
future releases as this is a very good first attempt. The game is about
undersea exploration and players aim to balance research and exploration
to gather the most valuable treasure. As the game progresses, the undersea
station where the research takes place grows, and players compete to be
the best in five different types of research. At the same time, they send
submarines to uncover the treasures that are littered about the ocean
floor. Some are more valuable than others and scanning the area before
retrieving treasure will ensure you don't waste your time digging up
worthless specimens too often. However, everything costs money and your
finances are pretty tight so you need to make sure you spend money wisely.
At the end of the game, your treasures are multiplied by your research
capability to give victory points and, obviously, whoever has the most VPs
is the winner.
The game board is very attractive
once the research station is well developed, but it is sometimes difficult
to identify researchers who are free to move around the station. Twice, I
added research laboratories to the station, thinking I was setting myself
up to move researchers in and claim the lead in a research type, only to
find I hadn't seen an opponents free researcher who was able to move in
before me. As both of these were very near the end of the game, the result
might have been different if I had concentrated a bit more and spotted
those pesky researchers. However, it didn't stop Mark K taking advantage
of only him having submarines in the deepest waters, where some of
the most valuable treasure was, for 4 or 5 turns. This proved to be
critical and gave him a deserved win. Pesky researchers.....
Result: Mark K 20 discoveries x 7
research = 140; Garry 14d x 8r = 112; Mark G 10d x 9r = 90
Ratings: Mark K 8, Garry 7, Mark G
8
2nd
August 2002
Games
Played: Pueblo, Wiz War
Pueblo
Players: Mark K, Mark
G, Garry
I had a few reservations about
this game before playing it, as it looks very abstract and I'm not a great
fan of this type of game. However, as it was by Kramer and Kiesling and I
had read some good reports, I got myself a copy and we decided to give it
a try. I need not have worried because it is in fact very good. The aim is
to add pieces of your colour to a central shared structure, the Pueblo, in
such a way as to minimise the amount of your colour that is visible from
the perimeter and from above. Having played a piece, you then get to move
the Building Supervisor piece to a position where he can see opponents'
pieces, giving them penalty points, and not your own. Once all the pieces
have been added to the Pueblo, the supervisor does one more tour of the
building and then the person with the least points wins.
Quite a bit of thought went into
where people should best place their pieces but as the game becomes more
familiar, it should speed up a bit. I was determined to keep my pieces as
low on the structure as possible, because the higher you build the more
penalty points you are liable to get. Thankfully, I was able to cover
quite a bit of my colour to minimise my penalties and give me the win. The
two Marks seemed to be battling to get the highest score they could. Good
game for three. It will be interesting to see how it plays with four.
Result: Garry 32, Mark G 70, Mark
K 71
Ratings: Garry 7, Mark G 5, Mark K
7
Wiz War
Players: Mark K, Mark
G, Garry
We then opted for an older game
that I have never played. Wiz War is all about racing around a dungeon
trying to capture two of your opponents' treasures while trying to protect
your own. This is done by casting spells, that are represented on a set of
cards you hold. Mark K quickly captured one treasure, closely followed by
me. However, Mark K managed to grab a second treasure and neither Mark G
nor I had the right spells to prevent him slipping away and back to his
home base for victory.
It plays very quickly and is
pretty simple to pick up, but it didn't really grab me like I hoped it
might. It was ok and the others rated it more highly than me, but there
are plenty of other games of that type I would rather play, so I'm not
sure it will get played again anytime soon.
Result: Mark K - winner
Ratings: Mark K 7, Mark G 7, Garry
5
This page was last updated on 22 November 2004
