Archive
Games Sessions - March/April 2003
25th April
2003
Games
Played: Settlers of the Stone Age, Emerald
Settlers
of the Stone Age
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K, Garry
This week, we got the chance to try the latest Settlers variant and I
was glad to say I was pleasently surprised. I thought that with the number
of different versions already available, a further one might seem a bit
stale. However, although it is typical Settlers at its core, the new
elements make for an interesting 90 minute game of exploration and
migration.
The game starts with players establishing three settlements in Africa to
make use of the resource hexes available there. The usual die roll at the
beginning of a turn determines which hexes produce resources, the active
player then trades as normal if he wants, and then he can spend resources.
Instead of road building, players send explorers out into Europe and Asia
and later on to the Americas and Australia. Players can only build new
settlements at the points where their explorers meet local tribes and, as
you are limited to just five settlements, you soon have to abandon some of
your early settlemets to establish the new ones. This is where the
migration comes in because as the game progresses, the hexes in Africa get
turned into desert and deserts don’t produce resources so you need to
move on to keep your production up. In addition to exploring and settling,
you also need to make advances in the civilisation of your tribe. This
progress brings advances to your abilities and allows you greater
potential to explore outlying reaches and cross the oceans to the Americas
and Australia. The outlying reaches reward the explorer with exploration
markers, some of which gain you VPs. As well as gaining VPs for each
settlement you establish after your initial three, there are bonus VPs for
being first to settle on all four continents, having the most exploration
markers and being first to advance to the fifth level in four areas of
progress. The first person to get to 10VPs wins.
As with most Settlers games, the die rolls can sometimes make or break
you. Five was the hot number in our game and Mark K suffered greatly as
that was the one number where he wasn’t represented. He got starved of
resources on so often that his game was over very quickly. At the start, I
struck out to an early lead, managing to grab the 2Vps for most
exploration markers, but in the middle of the game, I couldn’t get hold
of any Bone resources for love nor money. Meanwhile, Nige struck out for
the Americas and Mark G pioneered his way to Australia where he found an
abundance of exploration chips and managed to wrest the 2VPs away from me.
Nige eventually managed to get to the 10th VP, although it
looked odds on that he was going to win, quite a bit before the end.
As I said at the beginning, there was enough different about this
version of Settlers to make it a worthwhile game on its own merits. I’m
keen to play again and we all enjoyed this experience. Even Mark K thought
the game played well even though he suffered all the way through.
Result:
Nige 10, Mark G 6, Garry 5, Mark K 2
Ratings:
Nige 7, Mark G 8, Garry 7, Mark K 7
Emerald
Players: Mark G, Nige, Mark K, Garry
This is a game about knights and dragons and caves and treasure. Each
player controls a series of knights whom they despatch from the castle
through the countryide to the dragon’s cave. Once inside the cave they
can plunder it for gems and gold while trying to avoid the dragon and
hopefully reach the back chamber where the most valuable treasure is to be
found. From that description, it appears to be a game full of atmosphere
whereas it is actually very abstract. Pawns are moved along a common path
with movement being dependent upon the number of pawns on the same space
as the pawn being moved. Once inside the cave, each space has a
choice of one of four different coloured gems or an amount of gold
(between 1 and 5). However, inside the cave a dragon piece moves each time
a knight lands within one space of it. If the dragon then lands on a
knight, the knight is either eaten or the player bribes the dragon with
gold to keep the knight alive. Those knights that reach the end of the
cave path get recorded with a treasure card of 5 gold and once all the
treasure cards have gone, the game ends and players cash their gems in for
gold, with bonuses going to the person with the most gems in each colour.
Then the player with the highest gold wins.
The game looks like it works but our game wasn’t terribly exciting. We
allowed Mark G and Nige to get a couple of knights past the dragon and
each turn they could then pick up gold or gems easily and reach the back
of the cave unimpeded. This wouldn’t happen in subsequent games as we
would be watching for it. The dragon also didn’t seem very hungry except
for knights in my colour and, as I had no low gold cards, I had to
sacrifice two of my bold adventurers. Mark G ended up taking the final
treasure card and two of the gem bonuses for a pretty convincing win –
his first of 2003. Well done, Mark.
Result:
Mark G 44, Nige 28, Mark K=Garry 23
Ratings:
Mark G 6, Nige 5, Mark K 5, Garry 5
18th April
2003
Games
Played: Amun Re, Fluxx
Amun Re
Players: Nige,
Mark K, Garry
The arrival of a new big-box game
from Reiner Knizia almost guarantees what we shall be playing at the next
session of the club, but when Mark G phoned to say he wasn't going to be
able to get to this session, we wondered whether it would play well enough
with just three players. However, we decided to give it a go and I'm happy
to say it worked really well. Nige had played once before so he took us
through the rules and we were off. The game is about acquiring regions of
ancient Egypt and building pyramids there to gain victory points. However,
you also have to farm the land to gain income for building and buying more
land. The game is just six turns long with scoring taking place at the end
of rounds three and six.
Each turn is made of five phases.
Firstly the regions available to purchase on that turn are revealed;
players then bid for regions; they then spend money on power cards (which
give certain benefits later in the game), farms to generate income and
stones for the pyramids; the fourth phase involves making a sacrifice of
money to Amun Re, in return for which the player will receive gifts from
their god; and finally players harvest the land and receive income from
their farms. The bidding is a bit different from the norm, because if you
are overbid on a particular region, you have to bid on a different region
before you can bid again on the original region. And it's possible you
can't get back to bidding on the first region because the auction ends as
soon as everybody is bidding on a different region. Add to that the fact
that there are certain types of power card that alter the normal bidding
rules and you end up with auctions being very difficult to judge how to
bid.
Scoring points comes primarily
from the pyramids you own at the end of rounds three and six. Each pyramid
built gets you a VP and each set of pyramids ( a set being one pyramid in
each of your regions ) scores a bonus of 3 VPs. The player with the
most pyramids in one region on the East and West of the Nile gains 5 VPs
and a player whose regions contain a Temple also get VPs depending on the
generosity of the sacrifice to Amun Re. Some of the power cards also give
VPs if the player succeeds in fulfilling certain conditions and that's it.
After the first scoring, ownership of the regions dies and the same
regions come up for auction again during the second three turns. After the
second scoring, players may gain up to 6 extra VPs depending on how much
money they have left and then the person with the most VPs wins.
In our game, Nige benefited early
on from having played before and knowing the relative benefits of the
various regions. However, playing with just three players meant that those
regions with "camel harvests" were more valuable than in a four
or five player game because the sacrifice almost always was less than 13
and so the camel harvest almost always paid out. I recognised this and
opted to take Avaris in the first turn rather than increase the bidding on
areas that looked more valuable (due to free power cards / stones). By the
end of the third turn, Nige had built loads of pyramids in his regions and
had the most pyramids on the East and equal most on the West of the Nile.
( I could have denied him a tie in the West but had misinterpreted the
rule and thought that only the region with the most pyramids on the whole
of the board got the bonus, so I used an action to do something else
rather than buy an extra stone to break the tie). What I did do though was
gain 33 income in the harvest phase of the third turn to set myself up for
the second half of the game. Nige ran away with the lead after the first
scoring with 23 VPs to my 13 and Mark K's 3.
In the second half, I used my
new-found wealth to seize two of the three regions with the most pyramids
and was aiming in the final round to grasp the region with the most
pyramids. However, the bidding went against me, a power card messed up my
plans and I was forced into the worst region of the three available. The
one saving grace was that it meant all my regions were on the West of the
Nile and I had the right power card to claim three bonus VPs. They were
also all on the banks of the Nile and I subsequently drew that bonus power
card as well. Mark K recovered well and scored highly in the second
scoring round as well as taking the 6 VPs for most money. I had the second
most gaining me 4 VPs to Nige's 2. This brought our total VPs level, which
had looked highly unlikely at the end of the first scoring and almost
impossible when I had lost out in the final bidding round. However, the
tie-break rule of most pyramids led to me securing a very pleasing win,
while Nige was gutted at having his convincing lead overturned.
We all felt this to be another
great Reiner Knizia game. Whether it has the staying power of some of his
other successes remains to be seen but we found it to be very involving,
no down-time to speak of and the close finish was nail-biting.
Result: Garry 44 (+most
pyramids), Nige 44, Mark K 30
Ratings: Garry 8, Nige 8, Mark K
8
Fluxx
Players: Nige,
Mark K, Garry
We finished off with a game of
Fluxx, which I usually find to be a bit hit-and-miss. With a larger number
of players it can drag on a bit too long, but with just three of us, it
seemed to work pretty well. We were all jockeying for position early on
and all came to within one keeper of fulfilling the early goal of having
five keepers on the table. However, when Mark K failed to draw a keeper on
his turn, he chose to change the goal quickly rather than risk me drawing
a keeper on my next turn. Eventually Nige managed to draw and play The
Mind's Eye goal and, having both the Eye and the Brain on the table, claim
victory.
Result: Nige - winner
Ratings: Nige 6, Mark K 7, Garry
6
4th April
2003
Games
Played: Bean Trader, Coloretto
Bean
Trader
Players: Nige,
Mark K, John, Garry
Nige had just got the English
version of Bohn Hansa, published by Rio Grande and being a fan of Bohnanza
was keen to try it out. The idea of the game is to travel around various
European cities, buying the different beans and trading with other
players, in order to fulfill orders for certain combinations of beans at a
particular city. Fulfilled orders bring a monetary payoff and the aim is
to accumulate the most money by the end of the game. You start with a hand
of 8 travel cards and 2 order cards. 2 of the travel cards are of a
special variety: one requires a toll of 20 thalers (the game's currency)
to be paid as the card is played; the other brings more beans into the
game at certain cities( the harvest card). In typical Bohnanza style, your
hand order must not be changed and the travel cards once played, go back
into your hand to be played again later.
Each player's turn consists of
three phases: a travel phase where you play at least one card from your
hand to move, the further you move the more cards you spend. The quicker
you recycle your hand, the more often the toll card appears and you lose
money. However, you need to travel to get your orders delivered to the
right city on time. Your order cards are mixed in with your travel cards
and orders can be fulfilled at any time during your turn. But if they are
played from your hand during the travel phase, you must either deliver the
right beans to the right city on that turn or the order is cancelled and
the order card discarded. The second phase involves trading with other
players and purchasing any beans that are available at the city to which
you've travelled. Trading involves inviting another player to the city
where you currently are to trade beans. If you can agree a trade, the
other player is immediately transported to your city (by playing the next
card in their hand) so you can do the deal. This is very useful not only
for acquiring the right beans but also for the trading player to move a
long distance using just one card. The third phase normally involves just
drawing a new order card and placing this at the back of your hand. Once a
certain number of harvest cards have been played, the game finishes at the
end of the round in which that final harvest card is played. Then beans
you have left are sold to the bank for a fixed price and money counted.
We all found the game very good.
Players tend to go through phases of having the right beans and being able
to fulfill orders and those where you go short. Trading helps but I felt
that there wasn't as much incentive to trade as in Bohnanza. It could be
useful if the person offering the trade is close to where you want to
fulfill an order, but often, you're wanting to travel a different way.
Mark K twice used an option early in the game to discard one of his ordinary
travel cards for an additional order card. This cost him dear because the
order card he obtained wasn't especially useful and the lower number of
travel cards meant that he paid the toll more often and his orders needed
to be completed more quickly. In one turn he lost two very valuable order
cards because of this. John kept his beans pretty close to his chest
refusing steadfastly to trade certain of his beans late in the game. He
had cashed in orders worth a massive 81 thalers on one turn which set him
up quite well for the rest of the game. I managed to cash in pretty
regularly but only in lower value orders - I never saw a "3 bean
order" until very late in the game. Nige plugged away quite well
throughout and benefited from a windfall of high value red beans being
deposited at his location from the final harvest. These he bought cheaply
without a second thought and was able to cash them in for big money at the
end of the game. I made a big mistake in the last round agreeing to trade
with Nige on his last turn. He benefited a lot more than me and he ran out
a clear winner after cashing in his red beans. A good game that played in
around 90 minutes and left us wanting to play again in the near future.
Result: Nige 176, Garry 148, John
136, Mark K 89
Ratings: Nige 8, Garry 7, John 8,
Mark K 8
Coloretto
Players: Nige,
Mark K, John, Garry
I quite like Michael Schacht's
little card games. Coloretto is his latest addition and although very
simple, it presents a constant "do I cash in now or wait a bit
longer" element. We played a Shrewsbury Club variant, as I didn't
study the rules closely enough, and we played with one more column of
cards than number of players whereas the columns should equal the player
number. With four players, four column cards (or five in our game) are
placed in the middle of the table. The rest of the cards are placed in a
draw pile and these consist of 63 colour cards (9 each of 7 different
colours), 3 jokers which count as any colour, 10 "+2" cards,
which give 2 VPs at the end of the game, and a last round card which is
placed on top of the last 15 cards in the draw pile. On your turn you
either draw a card and add it to one of the columns or you draw all the
cards already played on a column. If you do the latter, you then drop out
of the current round. Each column can only contain a maximum of 3
cards but you can draw a column with fewer than 3. Once everyone has taken
a card column, a new round begins with the remaining cards and once the
last round card is revealed the current round is completed and the game
ends. Scoring is based on the number of cards in each colour you take. In
your three longest suits you score positive points (1 card gives 1 point,
2 cards 3 points, up to 6 or more cards giving 21 points). In any other
colours you score negative points using the same formula. Add 2 points for
each +2 card, and the person with the highest total wins.
The game is very quick although
it allows a fair degree of thought as to where to place a drawn card (do
you help yourself but risk someone else pinching the column you had your
eye on, or do you spoil a column that currently looks attractive to one of
the other players); and when to call it quits and take a column. Our
variant also gave scope for a last player standing having a choice of
two remaining columns whereas in the official rules, the last player
just gets what's left. Nige got lucky in gathering pink cards a plenty,
but came unstuck by having too many colours. I managed to grab a joker and
some +2 cards early and kept to only four different colours. This enabled
me to claim victory, much to Nige's disgust. He sees victories in these
lighter games as much less fulfilling than in meatier affairs, but I am
happy to add naother victory wherever it comes from. He'll just have to
concentrate a bit more on the 15-30 minute end a bit more.
Result: Garry 31, Nige 27, Mark K
18, John 14
Ratings: Garry 6, Nige 5, Mark K
5, John 6
28th March
2003
Games
Played: New England, Feuerschlucker
New
England
Players: Nige,
Mark K, Mark G, Garry
No John this week, so we got the
chance to try out the latest Alan Moon / Aaron Weissblum release by
Goldsieber. The game is set in the time of the Pilgrim Fathers and the
players are attempting to settle and develop the area where they first
landed more effectively than their opponents. Each game turn is played in
three phases: firstly, plots of new land and development rights for
existing land become available on the market; players then bid for the
order in which they can choose to buy/develop land; and finally they
actually purchase/develop the land and draw income. Only 9 items are
available for purchase in each round (although this can be increased by
the player who has the most ships on the board). Going first, therefore,
gives a player greater choice over what he can purchase but he has to pay
more for it – and money is pretty tight, particularly in the early
rounds of the game. Each player has three types of land: settlements,
fields for crops and pastures for grazing livestock. The board and the
plots of other players restrict how tou can expand your land and you can
only develop areas of a land type in certain configurations. The more land
spaces you develop in one go, the more victory points you gain. Developing
land is the main way of gaining victory points but you can also get points
by spending money on pilgrims, barns and ships – which give the player
other advantages. At the end of the game, there are also bonuses for
whoever has the most of each of these, so you have to balance developing
land with acquiring other items.
In our game, it was difficult to
see who was doing better than their opponents. We all seemed to be able to
progress our causes quite well initially. A couple of 10 point
developments came out and these are obviously very valuable. However,
these only occur in the one land type, which none of us knew in advance.
So although I set myself up for a potential 10 pointer in a different land
type, this never appeared leaving this area undeveloped and costing me
dear. The final turn came down to Mark K and I both having choices which
could have deprived Nige of 6 vital points but would have handed the win
instead to someone else. So we both played to give ourselves the most
points but this allowed Nige to claim his extra 6 points and the win. This
was a very nice, solid game, with some difficult choices. The board and
bits were nicely produced as usual from Goldsieber. We used the standard
set-up for this first game, but it will be interesting to see whether the
initial placement round adds an extra dimension.
Result: Nige 29, Mark K 27, Mark
G=Garry 26
Ratings: Nige 7, Mark K 8, Mark G 7, Garry 7
Feuerschlucker
Players: Nige,
Mark K, Garry
Mark G had to leave at that point
so the rest of us tried this new card game from Reiner Knizia. The circus
is in town and the players are aiming to play cards, representing the
individual attractions such as acrobats and fire-breathers, to tempt more
spectators to their part of the circus than other players’ parts. Each
player gets a hand of five cards and on your turn you play a card and take
a number of spectator tiles, dictated by the card. Most of the cards show
spectators being drawn from a common pool, but playing a candy floss card
allows you to take two spectators from one of your opponents, and a Lion
card forces your opponents to return spectators to the pool. Once all 60
spectators have been taken from the common pool, the round ends and
players record the number of spectators they have gained. Three rounds are
played and the person with the highest total of spectators wins.
This is not the most complex
Reiner Knizia game you are ever going to play. It is more of a
children’s game and the age guide of 7+ is probably stretching things a
bit (5+ is probably closer to the mark). Your success depends pretty much
on the cards you draw and on the other players making sure they peg back
an obvious leader. So it was no real surprise to find that our scores on
the first two rounds were 19,20,21 and 20,20,20. In the final round I
managed to grab a bit of a lead at the expense of Nige, although this was
not through any tremendous play on my part. We did play all three rounds
although we were inclined to call it a day after one, but it’s not going
to be making any regular appearances at the club. It is ok as a
children’s fun game though, which I’m sure is where it was aimed at.
Result: Garry 64, Mark K 61, Nige
55
Ratings: Garry 4, Mark K 3, Nige 3
21st March
2003
Games
Played: Fresh Fish, Edel Stein & Reich
Fresh
Fish
Players: Mark K, Nige, John, Mark G,
Garry
Five of us this week, so we
started off with the latest reprint of Friedmann Friese’s long sought
after game, Fresh Fish. When it came out, this was rated very highly by
those that played it, but it was a limited edition and I never got to see,
let alone, play it. So I was very keen to see how it played. The idea of
the game is to set up retail outlets in close proximity to the
distribution warehouse in each of four different industries: oil, nuclear
waste, fishing and, of course, games!?? The board depicts a number of
plots available for building on and the distribution warehouses are placed
on four of these plots. On a player’s turn, they can either reserve a
plot or build something. You would like to build your retail outlets close
to the warehouses but if a shop tile comes up to build, an auction takes
place for the right to build it. And even if you win the auction and place
it on a reserved plot near to a warehouse, that doesn’t necessarily mean
success. This is because the path from warehouse to outlet nedds to be
along roads which do not appear until forced later in the game by the
placement of other things. Besides the outlets, there are other buildings
and parks that could come up for building and these also have to be played
on previously reserved lots. Once all the plots have been built upon, each
player works out the distances between their outlets and respective
warehouses, subtracts their remaining cash, and the person with the lowest
total wins.
This sounds pretty simple but our
game turned out to be anything but. The problem is, being able to
visualise when roads need to be placed is extremely difficult. I managed
better than most but it was still pretty brain-burning and Nige couldn’t
manage it at all. He has difficulty with spatial awareness at the best of
times, but this game takes it to new levels. John and Mark G were also
very quiet and I think left it to Mark K and me to work out how and where
the roads appeared. As a result, Nige
did not enjoy it one bit and the others also had pretty negative
reactions. I quite enjoyed it, but wouldn’t rave about it, although I
did at least have some idea of how the board was developing. Mark K made
one mistake with one of his retail outlets, thinking he could force a road
where it wasn’t legal, and this cost him several points. I got forced
wide with one of my retail outlets but the remainder were well placed and
I managed the shortest route. We didn’t, in fairness, adjust for cash
retained but as we all played it that cash didn’t matter at game-end, I
don’t think this mattered too much. I would say it will be interesting
to see how it plays with the cash adjustment but I doubt it will get back
to the table anytime soon. Shame.
Result: Garry 11, John 13, Mark K
17, Mark G=Nige 18
Ratings: Garry 7, John 6, Mark K
5, Mark G 4, Nige 1
Edel
Stein & Reich
Players: Mark K, Nige, John, Mark G,
Garry
This is a revamp of Basari without
the board and substituting event cards for the movement option. It also
adds another exchange option in the five player game but the mechanics are
very close to the original. The game is played over three rounds with
scoring at the end of each. The person with the most gems in each of the
four colours gets rewarded with a cash payment. In addition, players may
get bonuses for certain event cards collected during the round, and the
player with the most and second-most certificates collected also get cash.
The player with the most cash at the end of the third round wins.
Each round contains between 6 and
8 turns depending on the number of players and on each turn, every player
receives a gem card and an event card is turned over. The gem cards show
an amount of cash and an assortment of gems and players choose which
action they wish to pursue from taking cash, taking gems, taking the event
card or exchanging gems. If you are alone in choosing that action you get
to carry it out; if 3 or more players choose the same action, nobody gets
to do it; but, if two players choose the same action, they barter with
their gems for the right
