Archive
Games Sessions - December 2002/January 2003
24th
January 2003
Games
Played: Vino
Vino
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K
Result: Mark K 37, Nige 36, Mark G
30
Ratings: Mark K 8, Nige 8, Mark G 7
17th
January 2003
Games
Played: Trias, Korsar
Trias
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
Garry
This was our first chance to try
this new game from new desiger Ralf Lehmkuhl. It is set in the time of the
dinosaurs when the continents were breaking up, lands disappearing beneath
the oceans and new ones rising up. In this way, islands form and the
object is to have more of your dinosaurs on the valuable islands than your
opponents. Each round, you sink a landscape tile and raise the same tile
elsewhere on a connected landmass. If this creates a distinct new island,
VPs are scored by the controlling dinosaur herds on that island. Then you
get to do things like migrate dinosaurs, breed or rescue dinosaurs that
have had the land moved from under them (swimmers). The game ends when a
meteor tile is drawn and each island is then scored for controlling
dinosaur herds.
Our game was quite interesting in
that Mark G played an isolationist strategy, establishing all his herds on
just two islands and aiming to stop others from being able to populate
them. Nige and I were competing for control of the major landmasses, while
Mark K just kept on getting shafted by the rest of us. His game was
epitomised by one turn where, with all but one of his dinosaur herds
already swimming or drowned, he was forced to sink the tile on which his
last remaining herd sat. We (not Mark) didn’t laugh for much more than
ten minutes before we had recovered ourselves enough to carry on playing.
Nige and I were so close score-wise at the end that it boiled down to
which of the two of us drew the meteor from the last two remaining tiles.
Nige was unsuccessful with the first, leaving me to have the final turn
and ensure my dinosaurs were in the right place to secure victory.
An interesting game, which took us
a few turns to work out how the shifting landscape could be properly
manipulated. Not a great
game, but plenty to think about and one that it will be good to try again
now we all know the rules and gameplay better.
Result: Garry 23, Nige 20, Mark G
18, Mark K 11
Ratings: Garry 7, Nige 6 (+1 for
Mark drowning himself), Mark G 7, Mark K 6
Korsar
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
Garry
We followed this up with the
re-release of Reiner Knizia’s Pirat. A fairly straightforward card game
where you either play a ship card in the hope of it sailing to port safely
to gain you gold, or you play pirate cards on other people’s ships to
try and wrest control of the treasure for yourself. Mark G and I seemed to
be playing exactly opposite games. He kept launching ships and I kept
attacking with pirates. Both of us had hands that were so unbalanced that
we were forced into this. It took several rounds before I saw a ship card.
A shame really.
Nige managed to steer some crucial
high-scoring ships home cheaply and this proved enough for him to grab the
win.
Result: Nige 40, Garry 37, Mark G
13, Mark K 10
Ratings: Nige 6, Garry 6, Mark G
6, Mark K 5
10th
January 2003
Games
Played: Clippers
Clippers
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
John
Result: Nige = winner
Ratings: Nige 7, Mark K 8, John 7,
Mark G 8
20th
December 2002
Games
Played: Sindbad
Trias
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K
Result: Mark K £1m+, Nige £750k,
Mark G £304k
Ratings: Mark K 7, Nige 5, Mark G
7
13th
December 2002
Games
Played: Liar's Dice, Mogul, M
Liar's
Dice
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
Garry
At special request of Nige, we
started off with one of my favourites. Unfortunately for him, he didn't
realise Bluff and Liar's Dice were the same game, otherwise he would have
kept his mouth shut. However, to serve him right we insisted on playing.
Nige confirmed his dislike for the game by losing all his dice first and
Mark K swiftly followed. Mark G put up pretty pitiful resistance as Yours
Truly secured a fairly easy victory, only losing one die throughout. A
great game as always of psyching your opponents out.
Result: Garry, Mark G, Mark K,
Nige
Ratings: previously rated
Mogul
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
Garry
I then explained this new auction
game from Michael Schacht. This one has had the best reports of the 3 he
released at Essen and I found it to be quite clever. The aim of the game
is to acquire shares in five companies and then sell them later for a
profit ( of VPs). There are two interesting aspects to the game. The first
is the auction mechanism: To stay in the auction, you just need to pay one
chip each time the bidding comes round to you. Alternatively, you can drop
out of the auction and take all the chips bid so far. The winner of the
auction can then choose to take the share into their hand or sell shares
of a different company as shown by the border colour of the card. (The
runner up in the auction gets the other action). This is the other
interesting aspect. You only get to sell shares in a company at certain
points when the right card gets auctioned AND you win the auction or come
second and the winner chooses not to sell. This makes for some interesting
dynamics in terms of the value of the cards to different people. The price
paid in VPs for each card sold is determined by the total number of that
share in circulation at the time of sale. So the more shares are out, the
more you will get for them but then the more competition there is likely
to be for the ability to sell.
Mark K felt he was at a
disadvantage by starting because he felt unable to drop out at an
opportune moment because the player before him dropped out and pinched the
chips. I'm not sure if this was a big disadvantage but it may have been
because we got one rule wrong. We played that the start of each auction
moved round the table in order each turn, whereas on rereading the rules,
I see that the person acquiring the card in an auction starts the next
one. Nige had a plan to make sure he picked up chips at many opportunities
and concentrated on buying blue shares. I managed to cash in a few shares
for some useful points but then had to concentrate on slowing Nige down as
he was setting himself up for a massive sale of four blue shares and had
plenty of chips to bid with. The two Marks were starved of chips so I had
to pay chips to try and stop Nige. I managed once to do this, but Nige
then was able to achieve his aim next time around a blue bordered share
came up. That proved critical and Nige won easily in the end, 8 points
clear of me.
Result: Nige 36, Garry 28, Mark K
20, Mark G 17
Ratings: Nige 7, Garry 7, Mark K
5, Mark G 6
M
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K,
Garry
We finished off with a game I'd
played before but none of the others had. M is a tile placement game where
you try to match certain characteristics of previously played tiles. You
can only place a tile if it matches all the tiles it is adjacent to in at
least one respect - either colour, value or symbol. If you validly place
next to two tiles, you get to steal a chip (worth 10 VPs) from your right
neighbour. And if you place the fifth or sixth tile in a particular row
AND it matches at least 2 characteristics of one adjacent tile in that
row, a scoring round is triggered. This involves players removing tiles
from the playing surface for VPs. However, you can only score positive
points in two different colours; any tiles in a third or successive colour
score negative points. Once all the tiles in the game have been played and
a final scoring round is triggered, the game ends and VPs totalled.
Nige started off strongly,
managing to trigger some early scoring rounds and collect good points in a
single colour. The tiles necessary to trigger scoring kept eluding me
until late into the game. Mark K also kept scoring fairly well and
benefitted from Mark G being unable to place tiles so that he could steal
chips. My scoring opportunities came late on and the pieces fell just
right in the final scoring round to enable me to just catch Mark for a
tied win. I found it quite an interesting game but I'm not sure on the
amount of control you can have on your plays. You can't easily set
yourself up for a later turn as things will have normally changed
substantially by your next turn. It just seems to make the most of
whatever situation you find when it comes round to your turn. However, it
was quite nice for the occasional game.
Result: Mark K = Garry 280, Nige
230, Mark G 100
Ratings: Mark K 7, Garry 7, Nige
6, Mark G 6
6th
December 2002
Games
Played: Shipwrecked, Und Tschuss, Quandary, Frank's Zoo
Shipwrecked
Players: Mark G, Nige, John,
Mark K
Another week when I wasn't able to
make it because of other commitments, so Mark K recorded the action.
Result: Mark G 150, John 100, Nige
40, Mark K 30
Ratings: Mark G 6, John 6, Nige 4,
Mark K 6
Und
Tschuss
Players: Mark G, Nige, John, Mark
K
Result: Mark K 36, Nige 28, John
25, Mark G 0
Ratings: Mark K 7, Nige 6, John 6,
Mark G 6
Quandary
Players: Mark G, Nige, John, Mark
K
Result: Mark K 100, Mark G 97,
John 92, Nige 88
Ratings: previously rated
Frank's
Zoo
Players: Mark G, Nige, John, Mark
K
Result: Not completed - Mark K 8,
Mark G 6, Nige 4, John 2
Ratings: Mark K 6, Mark G 6, Nige
6, John 6
This page was last updated on 22 November 2004
