29h May - Leonardo Da Vinci

So, my first session after a very relaxing holiday in Austria, if you would like to see some pics go here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Colin.Jen/StWolfgang2007

It was Garry's choice and he had chosen Pillars of the Earth, but at the last minute Jo could join us and as Pillars only plays 4 he changed his choice to Leonardo Da Vinci. We have played Leonardo a couple of times and in the first game I didn't invent a single thing and came last, the second time I did a bit better, so this time I hoped to improve again. Before we had even started one of Richard's meeples was mysteriously suspended at an impossible angle. After several ribald suggestions as to what was keeping him at that angle we had a brief recap through the rules as Jo had only played once I think.


The incredible floating meeple

We played the advanced version where each player gets three picks of either 5 money, 4 resources, an upgrade or an extra apprentice. I chose 4 resources, an extra man and an upgrade. I think everyone chose a different combination of extras. Leonardo is an excellent game but this is the first time we have played with 5 and I found it a lot tighter than with 4. Steve went into the lead on inventions as he quickly got inspiration and had 2 or 3 in front of him in no time. As the game progressed I managed to invent something the same round as Jo, luckily we both went for different ones. Richard completed an invention but it was the same one as Steve and Steve won the auction for the card, that was the only thing that Richard completed until fairly late in the game when he completed a 15 weeker.


The game board

Going into the last 2 rounds I managed to get a look at the top of the inventions deck to see if there was anything I could build. I had the resources to build one and put it on the top, unfortunately I miscalculated the number of weeks and didn't have enough time to build it anyway...DOH!
So a good game, Richard never spent any money at all, only in the council to buy a resource for 1 a couple of times and in the end had a convincing win. I ended being last....again, ah well I enjoyed it which is the main thing.

Final Scores (money + bonuses)
Richard 42 + 0, Jo 35 + 0, Garry 23 + 8, Steve 13 + 13, Colin 21 + 0

Garry's Report - AoS May 22nd

Age of Steam, London Map.

Tonight as Colin was away on holiday we decided to take the oppourtunity to play AoS as Colin hates it. We had the London map which Richard and I had both bought at Essen last year. As is normal there are a few tweaks to the rules for a different map, you can build up to 5 tiles per turn but you have to pay the Union rate for overtime and this gets more expensive the more tiles you build. Then when you ship a cube it's replaced immediatley form the goods supply board.

Money is quite tight as building costs are high, I decided to just build a few tiles per turn but make them count by grabbing the 'first build' job most times, I stayed around central London and managed to build a couple of nice loops. Richard went off towards Wembley and managed to build a lot of track by the end of the game. Steve had a nice long network running across central London and out to the South East but never quite managed to ship for long distances.

It was quite a close game and I was thankfull that I didn't go bankrupt. Although the final scores were quite spread out it was fairly neck and neck throughout the game.

Richard 1st
Garry 2nd
Steve 3rd

Catch-up Posts For May

As I have been away on holiday I havn't been able to post reports of the 2 sessions that I missed. Well, I am back after a very refreshing holiday in Austria and here, belately, are the reports diligently reported by Richard and Garry.

Richard's report for the 15th May

With Colin away enjoying the vacation joys of Austria, we were down three attendees, and I seem to have volunteered be fill you all in on what we played in his absence.
Anyway as it was my choice for the evening it gave me opportunity to try Age of Discovery, one of the games I had recently acquired from the excellent Clifton Roads Games in Exeter (www.cliftonroadgames.co.uk/), whilst visiting family down in Devon.
Age of Discovery is a recent release, that is based around the explorers and conquerors (ie Magellan & Drake) who sailed from Europe on voyages of discovery and trade in the 15th and 16th centuries.


Age of Discovery Layout

Essentially you have the option each turn of doing two of the following, but not two of the same action, Take 2 Money, Purchasing a ship, Purchasing a Trade Contact, Starting a Trade Contract or Adding to an Expedition. You primarily get victory point for contributing to Expeditions; however you won't be able finance the Expeditions without gaining money from fulfilling Trade Contracts.
Normal scoring (for Expeditions) happens twice a game, however you can gain extra end of game points according to the criteria of a random secret Special Contract you are assigned at the beginning of the game - Basically a multiplier of the number of Trade Contracts you have completed and a multiplier based on Special Contract criteria (eg Number Expeditions you have at least one ship in, Number Expedition where you have all the ships in etc).
After Steve had run us through the rules, the game started rather slow as all of us opted to take 2 Money so as to finance an Initial Trade contract - Gary beating Steve and myself to generating the first money by a couple of turns. I was quite lucky as the two of starting contracts dealt to me at the beginning of the game where both white, which meant I could concentrate on buying the white ships to which I could reuse on other white contracts. However as I had primarily concentrated on completing Trade Contracts and gaining money I lost out to Steve and Garry by the first scoring and they opened up a gap on me. It was around this point that we realised that me had misinterpreted one of the rules and had been restricting ourselves to adding only one ship at a time to expeditions - we played with the correct rule for the 2nd part of the game.


Age of Discovery End

As the end of the game arrived it was pretty obvious that Garry's special contract required him to have the majority of ships on an expedition and that mine was just to have a presence. Steve was stuck with having to have all ships on an expedition - something he didn't manage once.
In the end my Special contract proved to be winning issue as I had contributed to 10 expeditions and had completed 5 trade contracts and I managed to overhaul my points deficit on both Steve & Garry.

Final Scores
Richard 86 Garry 73 Steve 69

By the time we had completed Age of Discovery it was gone 9:30 and we suspected we wouldn't have time for another game, so we decided to finish with a game of San Jaun which we felt should be quicker.
It turned out, to my surprise, that Garry hadn't played San Jaun before, but it didn't take us long to run through the rules and start. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that San Jaun is one of my favourite games - it is quick, fun and easy to pick up. So quick to pick up that Garry had soon purchased a Library and looked like he might run away with the game. Luckily both Steve and I purchased Chapels and were burying cards under them like there was no tomorrow in an effort to mitigate our end of game scores.


San Juan

As the game progressed it was obvious hat Steve wasn't picking up any '6' building as he kept taking the councillor to try and find some (Little did he know I had already buried 2 such buildings under my Chapel!). Garry soon built a Palace and eventually followed this with a Guild and City Halls (The first time I have seen three '6' building built by a player in a game!). I also managed to get Library and a Palace down and in final buildconstructed a Triumphal Arch - which neatly complemented the two monuments I had already completed.
In final scoring it turned out to be very close between Garry and myself - with my Chapel points just managing to counteract the extra '6' building Garry had built.

Final Score
Richard 48 Garry 46 Steve 28

Garry's report to follow

9th May - Power Grid/Central Europe

Back to full complement this week, and playing number 3 on the BGG top game list, Power Grid. The central european board is the only one we haven't played so we quickly have a look at the additional rules. Basically there is more trash available and if you have a plant in Vienna it's cheaper for you. There are some countries that don't have nuclear power, Western/Eastern Poland and Austria. If you only have plants in non-nuclear countries you can't put up or bid for nuclear plants. We chose to eliminate western Poland and the Purple country bottom right (whatever that is!!).


Europe Board Close Up

Resources seemed tight all the way through the game and the centre of the board became quite congested. I thought that I had put my first city in the wrong place at first but it turned out not too bad. Steve started straight away in Vienna to get the reduction on the trash, Richard and Garry started right in the middle of the board. Although there is quite a bit of math in this game it never does my head in like AoS, I don't know why. Garry was in the lead for most of the game, but Richard came from behind with a late burst of plant building to take the win.


Final Board Position

Final Scores
Richard 17, Garry 16, Colin 14, Steve 13


I shall be away for a couple of weeks now, walking round some Austria Lakes, so session reports will resume when I come back.

Happy Gaming!!

2nd May - No Session This Week

So with Richard in Birmingham again we were only going to be three, but last thing Garry had to cancel because of pressure work....ah well, there's always next week. Now I suppose I can watch the Champions League Semi between Liverpool and Chelsea. But, being a Spurs fan all I want to see is Chelsea lose :) Close game though, down to the penalty shoot out. Mourinho thought Chelsea was the best team again, suprise.
So what I have been up to game wise, well, at the weekend I was playing about with the Westpark Gamers Windows implementation of Yspahan. It's not bad, clear layout and easy to figure out the moves. I haven't really given the AI a workout as I didn't have the time but I will. I have added Westpark Gamers to the links panel.
Hopefully next week we will be back to 4 and will be playing Power Grid on the only map we haven't played which is Central Europe.

Happy Gaming!!

24th April - John Silver/Ur

This session we were only 3, Richard having to work this week. We were going to play Power Grid, off of the BGG top games list, but decided as we were only 3 to have a free week. In the end Garry had John Silver a game he bought at Essen last year and hadn't got around to playing and we followed that up with Ur a game that I bought at Essen and we had played only once before.
John Silver is a card game for 2-4 players designed by Martin Schlegel, and published by Eggert-Spiele. The game consists of a deck of 44 cards, 3 type cards and 4 character cards. The character cards are placed in a row and the type marker cards (ship, treasure, pirate) are laid down the left edge. Play is simple, each player is dealt 6 cards, you play a card to the grid, score if appropriate, then draw a card. When the draw deck has run out, play until no legal plays are left. Each card has a type, ship, pirate or treasure, a number and either coins, black spots or apples. There are some jokers with all three types on them so they can be played anywhere.


John Silver Card Layout

When the row is complete, the next to highest number is put on the highest and the next to lowest is put on the lowest and the appropriate player gets those cards. Obviously you want coins and not black spots. Apple cards are a bit different, if you play an apple card you do not draw a card from the deck but pick up another card from the display, this gives you some interesting options. When no more plays are available you pass all the apple cards you have collected to the left. The player with the most black spots gets -8 and next highest gets -4.
A clever little game that takes one play just to figure out what you are actually trying to do, as the rules are not particularly well written.

Final Scores
Game 1
Steve 16(-8)=8, Garry 16(-4)=12, Colin 19

Game 2
Steve 19(-8)=11, Garry 20, Colin9(-4)=5

As you can see in the first game when I didn't know what I was really doing I did really well ;)

UR
Ur is a tile placement game by Paolo Mori, published by What's Your Game? We have played this game before so I won't go into the rules too much. Suffice to say, the tiles are laid in a 6 x 6 grid, and each tile has 2 out of 5 available actions printed on it. Each player starts the game with one in hand, then he can either to 1, both or none of the actions on the tile. This involves putting cubes on the tile grid, moving them around or having wars. Certain combinations of actions are definitely compatible and the initial tile grid layout can determine what your plans are. I like this game, it can be a bit of a brain burner, but plays in an hour or so and doesn't outstay it's welcome. Of course I forgot to take a picture of the layout so I have cheated a bit and used one from the last session we played.


Ur tile layout

I did take a picture after we had collected our tiles and formed our sets to score though.


Scoring Tile Sets in Ur

Final Scores
Colin 37, Steve 29, Garry 24

21st April - Richards Games Day

Steve picked me up around 10.15 and we arrived at Richard's house in Haywards Heath at 10.45, Jo had already arrived and while Richard got the coffee on we decided to play a game of San Juan while we waited for any others to turn up. As every gamer knows (I think) San Juan is the card game version of Puerto Rico, you still pick a job and build buildings and such, but you pay for them by discarding cards from your hand.


San Juan in progress

The game ends as soon as someone builds their 12th building, then you count up all the VPs on the cards and .....gasp....the one who has the most is the winner. I hadn't played for quite a while and then I only played it a couple of times. I really like it and realise I wished I had played it more, I remembered that the library was a really powerful card, enabling you to use the privelige on the job you selected twice. I managed to get a library down first, and in the end Jo was the only one who never built the library. He did have a chapel though, as did Steve, Jo also had a card that gave him 2 extra VPs for every production building he built which proved decisive.

Final Scores
Jo 39, Colin 29, Steve 29, Richard 26

We finished the game and Frederik and Michala arrived, Mike was also due to attend but we weren't sure what time he was turning up. Richard was keen to play either Through the Ages or Struggle of Empires. SoE would take 7 players and although it says 180 minutes on BGG. Richard was talking about 6 hours plus. Anyway before Mike arrived we decided to play Tutankhamum, a game by the prolific designer, Reiner Knizia. In this game there 69 artifact tiles laid out in a snaking path leading to a pyramid, each tile depicts one of 15 different artifacts and players move along the track selecting which tile to get, you cannot pick any tile you have already passed.


Tile layout for Tutankamun

The object is to collect sets of tiles, when the last tile in a set has been passed by all the players the set is scored. The player with most tiles in the set gets the points ie the number of tiles in the set, and the second gets half the number. Just to spice things up a bit there are 3 tiles which break ties in your favour, and 3 tiles which let you steal a tile from another player.
The game has colourful graphics with an Egyptian theme (obviously) and plays fairly quickly. Some interesting decisions are presented, but its not too taxing. In a 6 player game each player starts on the 14 score and then deducts their points score, so the first player to reach zero is the winner.

Final Scores
Winner - Michala

At this point we had a break for some food, Richard had provided some pizza's and the rest of us had all brought various stuff to eat. Some discussion then ensued about what to play next, Mike still hadn't arrived and Jo contacted him on his mobile and ascertained he was enroute, I think he got a bit lost. Anyway we decided to split into two groups with Richard, Jo, Michala and Frederik going to play Age of Steam. I'd rather go to the dentist than play AoS, so Steve, Mike and myself where going to give Martin Wallace's Tempus a run out.
I don't know much about their game of AoS, apart from the fact that it was on the standard map, Michala and Frederik hadn't played before, and by the sounds of it, it was a bit bizarre. Hopefully Richard will post a comment on this entry with some details to enlighten us all. I do however have the score.


Age of Steam in progress

Age of Steam - Final Score
Jo 85, Frederik 77, Michala 72, Richard 63

This must have been a really weird game as it is one of Richard's favourites and usually he does really well....ah well, we shall have to wait and see.

As for our game of Tempus, well, I must admit I am not a fan of Martin Wallace. AoS....ugh! Byzantium...no thanks, I realise I am probably in the minority here, an awful lot of people think AoS is the bees knees, but I really can't get my head round it, in fact it always gives me a headache. Railroad Tycoon on the other hand I will play anytime.....guess I'm just funny that way :) So back to Tempus, on first appearance it looks good, but on closer inspection the player boards are really hard to read, all the information is on a really bright, busy background (note for a reprint, tone that background down....a lot). Mike had arrived by now and while he stocked up with some food and tea Steve started to run through the rules.


Steve going through the rules

I must say of all the Wallace games I have played I like this one the most, it has been described as a Civilisation game that clocks in under 2 hours, as I haven't played Civilisation I can't say if it is anything like it. The board is modular, that is the number of hexes tiles varies according to the number of players and they are laid by the players at the start of the game so the board is different every game. The hexes display different kinds of terrain which have a bearing on which player advances on the technology board. You can decide to populate which kind of terrain you need for the next upgrade or go for positioning regardless of this. There is a mechanism whereby all the players catch up so you are only one advance behind the leader. I think Mike was the most technologically advanced in all but one of the phases. The battle system is fairly simple, the number of men I have on my space against the number of men you have on your adjacent space, this is augmented by playing idea cards. These cards have a dual purpose, each one has a background that is one of the terrain types, they also have special abilities on them. You can use them in a battle and each card with the correct terrain gives you a plus one modifier, or you can use them during different phases for their special abilities, more babies, move more men etc.


Technology track and idea cards

I forgot to take a note of the time it took to play, but I didn't notice which is a good sign I think. Mike and Steve had played once before and Mike in particular said he had an awful time, getting hammered by the other players and never really getting going. I think this game redressed the balance, he had good draws of idea cards and although at various time Steve and I attacked him, he never retaliated, in fact he ran out a clear winner. Steve said that I never attacked him enough, but this game was a learning curve for me, and next time I will know better. Yes, I would happily play this game again, so it was a positive experience.

Final Scores
Mike 27, Colin 19, Steve 16

As the AoS game was still in progress Steve grabbed Richard's copy of Taluva, the tile laying game from Marcel-André Casasola Merkle, this game came out at Essen last year. As you can see from the picture this is a very visually pleasing game with execellent components.


The very pleasing landscape of Taluva

In this game you each have a certain amount of huts, temples and towers and your turn consists of lay tile and place a building....simple. Well it sounds so but there are a moves available to you, and as the landscape grows so does your options. If you can't legally place a building in your turn you are out of the game....ouch! The winner is the first person to get rid of two types of his buildings, or when the last tile is laid, the player with the most huts, if tied then the most temples, then towers. The rules are fairly simple, lay a tile, it's volcano must cover another volcano, but the lava flow cannot be in the same direction, then place a building. Huts must go on the lowest level, temples must go in a settlement of at least 3 of your buildings and towers must on the 3rd level in a settlement of any number of your buildings. Read the geek for more info on this intriquing game, in fact Steve reckons it's in his top 3. I had played a couple of times before but Mike hadn't played at all. It plays quickly and although it could lead to analysis paralysis we didn't have a problem. Steve quickly trounced both of us for a easy win.

Final Scores
Steve - Winner

The AoS game had finally finished and Mike had to make a move and Jo decided to call it a day as well, so that left us down to 5 and we decided to play the new Kramer/Lubke game Colosseum. Frederik and Michala were the only ones who hadn't played before, Richard, Steve and myself had played twice. I must admit I really like this game, but only with 4 or 5, the first time we played with 3 and it didn't really work. The auction and trading phases were really flat with each player just pursuing his own path without too much interaction. This definitely improves a lot with 4/5 players and this game proved that once again.


Frederik and Michala ready to play Colosseum

The game board and components are up to Days of Wonder usual high standards, very colourful board and the noble dobbers are especially pleasing. Each player is a roman impresario vying to put on the best spectacle to impress the Emperor, Consuls and Senators. Each show needs different components be it gladiators, poets, lions, horses etc. The game is played over 5 rounds, each round consisting of 5 phases. Investing, acquiring assets, trading assets, producing the show and clean up.


Board layout

In the investing phase you can buy a season ticket, expand your arena, buy an emperor's loge or buy a new event programme. In the acquire asset phase each player puts up one of the five markets on display, each market consists of 3 asset tokens drawn at random, each player can only win one auction. In the trading phase players can trade assets or money. The main core of the game is producing the show and each event programme requires a different mix of assets, if you have all the required assets you attract the maximum number of spectators to your show, before the performance you roll 1 or 2 (if you have an Emperor's loge) dice, this allows you to move the nobles round the track. You can try to get them into your arena to get more spectators, or get them on a resting space which gets you an Emperor's medal, more on those later. You then add up the total number of spectators your show has attracted and move your marker along the outer scoring track. Note this score is not accumulative, you only move it again if you put on a show that attracts a greater number of spectators, it then moves to that higher number.
The Emperor medals have multiple functions, your trade them for 6 coins, 3 VPs or move one noble 1 to 3 spaces forwards or backwards, also you can trade in 2 during the investment phase to get an extra investment. Our game played smoothly with quite lively bidding and trading phases, again Richard got the win with an impressive score.

Final Score
Richard 94, Frederik 86, Michala 80, Colin 71, Steve 57

At the finish I looked at the time and it was gone 10pm, wow, the day had flown by but it had been very enjoyable. Thanks to Richard for hosting and it was nice to meet Frederik and Michala for the first time.

Happy Gaming!!