Archive
Games Sessions - February 2003
28th February 2003
Games
Played: Favoriten, Moderne Zeiten, David & Goliath
Favoriten
Players: Mark K, Nige, Mark G,
Garry
Four of us this week and we kicked
off with an oldie-but-goodie. Favoriten is a simple horse racing and
betting game. Each turn, everyone has a chance to place one bet on one of
the five horses, following which the player whose turn it is rolls a
standard die five times and moves one of the horses each time the
respective distance. Once three horses have crossed the finish line, bets
on these horses are paid out, with earlier bets on the horse receiving
more back than later bets. The key here is to try and place your bets
early as there is greater payback if successful, but others will then try
to slow your horse down at the expense of others. Leave your bet too late
and others will have beaten you to it and will receive a greater payout
than you if the horse comes in.
We ran four races with me and then
Nige raking in the most points in the first two races. The third race was
pretty even but Nige had opened up a bit of a lead, with me second , Mark
K third and Mark G a little bit adrift. The final race was a disaster for
me. My bets were poor and, when I had a chance to push horses across the
line ahead of those Nige had backed, my die-rolling skills deserted me and
I couldn’t get a single horse across the line. As a result, I was eased
into last place thanks to a great recovery by Mark G and Nige was the one
parading around in the winner’s enclosure.
Result: Nige 196, Mark G 167, Mark
K 161, Garry 155
Ratings: Nige 6, Mark G 7, Mark K
6, Garry 6
Moderne
Zeiten
Players: Mark K, Nige, Mark G,
Garry
We last played this with 3 players
and it seemed to end really quickly with Nige running away with the lead.
This time there were four of us and the three who had played before had a
better idea of what was going on. The game seemed to play like a dream for
me. I was careful not to be too exposed in the company with the biggest
share issue when the market crashes came and retained cards to restart
those companies after they’d been wiped out. I was able to keep
majorities in two or three companies for many turns nad consequently was
able to add more markers to the city grid. I had remembered Nige’s
domination of New York and London last time we played and managed to keep
hold of both these through the second half of the game. Nige was hampered
by his card-holding being almost entirely made up of Automobiles and he
kept drawing more and more. Mark G was pretty conservative with his bids
and easily ended up with most cash at the end of the game. It came as no
surprise to anyone, despite my claims that the score was going to be
close, that I had run away with the victory. Please forgive a brief period
of gloating – well until the next game at least.
I really like this game. I rated
it a 7 last time and it is easily a strong 7 but is pushing 8 territory
for me. Everyone else enjoyed it, Mark G being the only one not to have
rated it before – and he gave it a 7. Definitely one of the best of last
year’s Essen releases.
Result: Garry 22, Nige 9, Mark K
8, Mark G 7
Ratings: Mark G 7, others already
rated
David
& Goliath
Players: Mark K, Nige, Mark G,
Garry
We finished of with four hands of
David & Goliath. I really like these simple little card games and
D&G is one of the best. It is a straightforward-ish trick-taking game
with a couple of twists. You have to follow suit if you can but, if not,
you can play any card (there are no trumps). The highest card, regardless
of suit, then wins the trick but here is twist number one: the player of
the lowest card takes the highest card into their scoring pile and the
trick winner takes the remainder of the cards. The second twist is in the
scoring: Your scoring cards are separated by colour and in each colour you
either score the number of cards taken in that colour (if you have 3 or
more) or the value of the cards in that colour (if you have fewer
than 3). So you ideally want to win two high cards in each suit, whereas
everyone else wants you to win none or three.
Well, I got off to an awful start
(obviously still gloating from the Moderne Zeiten result), but Mark K had
a flier scoring 65 points to my 14. Nige just about caught Mark up on hand
2 but then wasn’t able to push past and Mark grabbed a good win. He
scored consistently well in all 4 hands.
Result: Mark K 185, Nige 179, Mark
G 145, Garry 143
Ratings: Mark K 7, Nige 7, Mark G
7, Garry 7
21st February 2003
Games
Played: Traumfabrik, Trans America, Hat Trick
Traumfabrik
Players: Mark G, Nige, John, Mark K,
Garry
Five of us this week and the first
for a while when we played only older games. The others suggested I might
have run out of new games to try out on them, but there are still a few
Essen releases I’ve not brought to the table yet. Anyway, we started off
with Traumfabrik, Reiner Knizia’s excellent auction game based around
the film industry. Nige started out as he meant to go on, bidding
aggressively to secure early tiles. This enabled him to get first pick at
every party throughout the game, as well as being the only person to
complete a film in the first year. John made an early attempt at worst
film, completing a four star masterpiece that had the audiences flocking
to anywhere but the box office. I managed to complete two classy films
that picked up oscars in years two and three, although Mark K’s eventual
‘green’ film, released after more than three years in production,
ended up being the best overall. However, Nige’s strategy of releasing
quick and dirty titles proved to be a winner, as he emerged with the most
VPs at the end.
Traumfabrik is always great fun to
play, with plenty to think about in terms of valuing bids. You can’t let
your opponents get stuff too cheaply, even if you’re not interested in
the items yourself, but it can be difficult to push the price up when you
risk winning an auction you don’t want, leaving yourself short of funds
for later auctions you do want to win.
Result: Nige 89, Garry 84, Mark K
58, Mark G 46, John 42
Ratings: Nige 7, Garry 7, Mark K
7, Mark G 6, John 8
Trans
America
Players: Mark G, Nige, John, Mark K,
Garry
Next up was my most played game of last year. Trans
America packs a lot into half an hour’s gameplay and it is easy to
introduce to a variety of groups, especially non-gamers. We’ve not
played it at the club for quite a while so it was overdue a re-run. The
first round was very tight with everybody within two spaces of completing
their networks. Mark G suffered in the second round picking up 8 unwelcome
points and meaning we didn’t need to shift the finishing line for the
next round. Round 3 was Nige’s turn to score big, with the comment “I
had a terrible position, I had Duluth, how does anyone get to Duluth”.
Well I picked Duluth in the 4th (final) round and demonstrated
to Nige that placing your starting station a couple of spaces away from
Duluth made it quite easy to reach it.
John
turned out to be the winner – his first victory for quite a while –
and I’m sure he was pretty pleased with the victory. That is until I
started the post-game chat by claiming there wasn’t that much strategy
involved in the game, which led to the others highlighting to John that he
had only won because it was a game of pure luck. Good fun though.
Result:
John 9, Mark K 7, Garry 6, Nige 2, Mark G 0
Ratings:
Already rated
Hat Trick
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
Garry
John had to leave at that point so
we finished up with a couple of hands of Hat trick. This is one of my
favourite little card games and can be quite nasty if people concentrate
on scuppering their opponents’ hands rather than benefitting their own.
This game turned out to be fairly friendly. In the first hand I had a long
red suit and declared that early on, only to find the next minute that
Mark G had decided to play for red as well. Nobody had much in the way of
negative cards, leading to Mark K and Nige getting good scores, while Mark
G and I shared the red ponts. In the second hand, everyone got balanced
hands of five cards in each suit and nobody seemed very keen on committing
themselves too early. Mark G ended up collecting cards in all three suits
(not too good an idea) whereas I engineered a good enough score to tie
with Nige at the end.
Result: Nige=Garry 19, Mark K 18,
Mark G 7
Ratings: Already rated
7th
February 2003
Games
Played: Krone & Schwert
Krone
& Schwert
Players: Mark G, Nige, John, Mark K,
Garry
I've been waiting to try this
latest from Klaus Jurgen Wrede for some while now. It is a different game
from Carcassonne but, having now played it, it has quite a lot going for
it. The game revolves around the struggle for power among rival European
princes. One can become King and this brings wealth through being able to
tax the people, but only as long as revolt doesn't result in you being
overthrown. However, becoming King is not the only way to success in the
game. You can gain points for the cities you develop, control of castles
and cathedrals can bring rewards during a revolt and, at the end of the
game, everything built is worth a VP as well as bonuses for those
controlling the largest territories and being the King.
The game is all about weighing up
when to press to become King, whether to support the King or the
challenger during other revolts, while building up one's buildings and
area of influence. Early in our game, I became King and held onto the
position for several rounds. But, at that time, not many points are
available because of the lack of buildings (mainly castles) on the board.
Nige took over eventually and quickly overtook my tally of VPs, due to him
having more castles in play by then. We also became known during our
Kingship by the characteristics by which we ruled. Hence, King Mark the
Bald was overturned by King John the Bas***d who, in turn, was succeeded
by King Nige the Just - not too sure about that last one. As we drew
towards the end, King Mark (the Bald) had a huge number of castles and was
liable to rake in the points, making it essential for others to overthrow
him. King Nige squeezed me out of having the largest territory but I
managed to grab being King and held onto it until the Game End card
appeared. My apparently weak first term of office had persuaded others
that I was lagging behind on the points scale, but I had gained good
points elsewhere and the final bonus for being last King pushed me ahead
to win.
I thought this was a nice game
with lots of interaction and a number of paths to victory. Mark K felt
that the card draw added too much luck and I agree his position wasn't
helped by him not drawing a single city card in the first half of the game
(which prevented him from being King). However, he was able to build a
large series of castles, which meant he was able to catch up quickly once
he did become King. The one thing that didn't quite work was the benefit
of supporting one side or the other during a revolt. This seemed too low
for it to make much difference if you voted the right or wrong way. Still
we all quite enjoyed it and the board looked very nice at the end.
Result: Garry 75, Mark G 70, Nige
69, Mark K 58, John 52
Ratings: Garry 7, Mark G 8, Nige
6, Mark K 7, John 7
This page was last updated on 22 November 2004
