11th September - Princes of Florence/Geschenkt

Little bit of a hiccup on the choice of game this week, should have been my choice but we thought it was the BGG Hall of Fame choice so we ended up playing the Princes of Florence instead. The last time we played this was at least 4 years ago so it was about time we gave it another go. This 2000 game from Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich is about getting your artisans to produce magnificent works of art and show them to garner wealth and VPs. Actually you only need the dough to purchase the buildings and landscapes and such at game end it's of no value at all, I had over 2,000 at the end so didn't utilise it to it's potential.


The Billygamers getting ready for Princes of Florence

PoF does have certain similarities with Colosseum, an auction phase where each player can only buy one thing, and in the action phase you produce a work of art (read put on an event) which needs to have certain things, the more of the things you have the more it is worth.Steve did happen to mention that the best games player he knew payed 1,100 for the first jester, Richard took that onboard and payed high prices for his jesters, he ended up with 3. It must have payed off because he won by a mile.


Princes of Florence layout

Garry managed to get 3 architects so could buy buildings for free, I didn't even get a second, which was a mistake because I couldn't place buildings adjacent on my board. Anyway, we all enjoyed the game and as I said Richard cruised to victory.

Final Scores
Richard 62, Steve 53, Garry 49, Colin 30

That seemed to play quite quickly so we had a bit of time left, a quick hand of Geschenkt was just the ticket. Richard was having a good evening and won that as well.

Final Scores
Richard 18, Colin 42, Garry 60, Steve 61

Looks like we'll be giving next week a miss as Garry is flying off to New York for a break and Richard looks like he's working. So it'll be the week after....see you then.

Happy Gaming!!

4th September - Marquis/Kathai

This week is card game week......Steve chose the 2005 game from LudoArt, Marquis. This game designed by Martin Gotz and Frank Czarnetzki is absolutely gorgeous to look at. The cards are very large and colourful, the coins are metal and the diamonds and rubies are plastic but quite realistic.


The very colourful cards for Marquis

In the game each player has his own deck of cards, eleven character cards and a veto card. Countess, Assassin, Diamond Dealer, Marquis, Prosecutor and so on. Each card has various symbols on it plus a special ability. In your turn you may first buy jewels at the rate on the card you played last turn, you then play a card to the table and then activate the symbols on the card, it may or may not interact with other cards in play. First you take money from the bank, then from the other players if certain cards are in play, then you may or may not use the cards special ability. The special abilities can be fun, the assassin kills one character in play and steals 2 coins from the victim, the robber steals one coin from each other player, the diamond dealer gets preferential rates for buying jewels and so on. One good card is the card sharp which reverses the order of play.
It took us a bit of time to work out the interplay of cards and all the implications of playing a certain card when certain others are in play, having the special abilities in german on the cards slowed things down a bit, although we did have crib sheets. I quite liked the game and once we got going the play flowed quite well. The veto card can be crippling, ending a players turn in his tracks, but the player it's played on keeps the card in front of him and can use it like a coin to buy jewels at the end of the game.

Final Scores
Steve 16, Colin 15, Richard 14, Garry 12

We still had some time so Steve got another card on the table, Kathai. This is a small card game designed by Michael Andersch and published by Adlung-Spiele. Players and sell gold, silk, spices and tea. The prices are always fluctuating so selling at the right time to maximise points is the name of the game.


The trading laoout for Kathai

I thought this was an OK game, but didn't really set the pulses racing.

Final Scores
Steve 20, Colin 18, Richard 17, Garry 16

August 28th - Caylus Magna Carta

With Richard in Birmingham again it was only 3 of us, Garry's choice and he chose Caylus Magna Carta. This is our second playing and I think we played with 3 last time.


CMC card layout

CMC is a good implementation of Caylus, in fact I think we all prefer it, cleaner, leaner and quicker. Do you go for the castle chits or concentrate on building....er buildings, then blue buildings. In our last game we didn't get any blue buildings on the table. In this game Steve managed to build one worth 10pts which clinched the win for him from Garry and myself.

Final Scores
Steve 43, Garry 35, Colin 33

Sorry this post is a bit light, I will do better next time :)

21st August- Space Dealer/Ark

I know, I'm late with this post, but in my defence I did take delivery of a new computer last week and I've been playing with all the shiny new bits!!!! Anyway on to the games, Space Dealer, this is a game by Tobias Stapelfeldt and published by Eggert-Spiele. I think it was released at last year's Essen. I must admit I was looking forward to playing this game, if only to see how the simultaneous gameplay worked. It looks fantastic with all the coloured bits and cubes on the table.


Space Dealer layout

The egg timers can't be that accurate though and this could be a factor when the time runs out as you can finish an action if it is started before the cut off....seconds could count. Each player starts at their own planet with a generator and a mine, then you race to manufacture and deliver goods to the other players planets. You can do research to upgrade your planet and equipment bringing other cards into play. The only catch is that with every action you take you turn over one of your 2 timers and that action is not completed until the timer has run through (1 minute).


A players home planet

As I said all actions by all players are taken at the same time, to be honest I hadn't got a clue what I was doing for the first 10 minutes or so. We were playing with the time track on the supplied CD which gives an audio countdown. So quite a hectic game, I didn't look to see what other players were doing so I suppose that if you wanted to cheat it would be quite easy, anyway the game lasts 30 minutes and that whizzs by so quickly.


Another look at the layout

I must admit that after we had played I don't think I would rush to play again....all to hectic for me :)

Final Scores
Garry 25, Steve 24, Richard 24, Colin 22

I think the rules explanation for Space Dealer took about twice as long as the game but even so we had enough time left for a game of Ark.


Enjoying a game of Ark

This is a Doris and Frank card game about putting animals into the Ark before the flood. Of course only certain animals can co-habit with others and that's where it gets difficult. You can't have carnivores in with herbivores, or herbivores in with provisions (cos they eat them) and so on. Also each animal has a weight and you can't put animals down if they capsize the ark. As the game progresses it gets quite difficult to place your cards, but for each card you place you get a dobber on the appropriate type of card, and at the end of the game, after the fifth rain card, the player with the most dobbers on a type scores points as do the second and so on.


Close up of the card layout

I must admit I quite like this game, even though it makes my head hurt!

Final Scores
Garry 32, Richard 29, Colin 24, Steve 23

14th August - Vikings/Coloretto

Full complement this week, and my choice.....wooo hooo! Anyway I chose Vikings a game by Michael Keisling published by Hans Im Gluck/Rio Grande. Steve and Richard had played a few times but Garry and myself hadn't played at all. I think the overall impression is that we all like it. The board consists of a wheel surrounded by 12 places for tiles and viking dobbers, spaces to put the stacks of tiles and 4 spaces for special tiles. There are 76 tiles, 14 ships and 62 island parts, islands have a left, right and centre. Each player starts with a left piece which must be placed on their display when they purchase their first tile. So basically in your turn you purchase one of the tiles plus man available around the spinner and pay the appropriate price, and place them in your personal display. You do this 3 times, then there is a scoring, a small scoring after rounds 1, 3 and 5, this is just money, and a large scoring after rounds 2, 4 and 6. This gets you VPs and money, then there is a final scoring.


Overall board layout

I won't go into the rules in depth here, there are several excellent reviews on BGG. I seemed to go a bundle on goldsmiths for some reason and had loads of money but not many VPs. I think the score reflected who had played before, with Richard and Steve vying for first spot with Garry and myself in 3rd and 4th. I couldn't get enough fishermen on the board and so suffered a minus penalty for undersupplying my men.


Each players display

We didn't play with the advanced variant where you bid for the tiles/men on the spinner, but we did play with the special tiles which you get if you buy the most expensive pair from the spinner. As I say I got some tiles to enhance my goldsmiths, so lots of money, whereas Richard and Steve got enhanced settlement tiles which gave them big bonuses in the final scoring.


Vikings in full swing

Final Scores
Steve 50, Richard 41, Garry 37, Colin 42

Vikings doesn't take ages to play so we had a bit of time left to fit in a game of Coloretto. This is a card game by Michael Schacht in which you are basically collecting sets of different coloured cards. On the table there are 4 rows which can have a max. of 3 cards each. In your turn you can either draw and place a card in one of the rows or pick up a row.


Dos Rios near the start

Where you place a card can be critical you obviously want to deny good combinations of cards for your opponents while trying to get good cards for yourself. There are a couple of special cards, a +2 card, which is just 2 points, and a wild card which counts as any colour.
This is a great little filler and we had a good game.

Final Scores
Garry 103, Steve 90, Colin 85, Richard 83

August 7th - Dos Rios

Garry couldn't make it this week, Steve had to change his choice to a game more suitable to 3 players, and he chose Dos Rios. Dos Rios is designed by Franz-Benno Delonge and was published by Mayfair/Kosmos in 2004. I hadn't played before but Richard and Steve both had. Basically the board consists of a series of hexes of differing terrains through which two rivers run. The rivers can be dammed to change their course which will affect which hexes are scored. You start the game by placing 3 of your men on the board the other 3 start in the town which is at one end of the board.


Dos Rios near the start

In your turn you have six action points which you use to move your men onto or around the board. There is a deck of action tiles of which 4 are turned over, these have the terrain types on them or one of the rivers or bandits. The active player can after they have used their action points activate the left most tile or not. If it is activated then the terrain that is on the tile that passes through the river is scored, all players that have a man on the appropriate terrain get 100 dollars.


A nice funnel of dams

Each player has 4 houses and 1 estate, these cost 5 hundred to build a house and 1,000 to build an estate the first person to build all their buildings is the winner. You can win by building 3 houses and the estate if they are all on a riverbank. The bandits can be devastating, killing the first 3 men counting from the source of the river.


Steve's just built his estate

I liked this game, it gives you lots of options and with only 6 action points you always want to do more than you actually can.

Final Scores
Colin - 4 houses, 1 estate

July 31st - El Grande

Tonight was Steve's choice and he had chosen Buccaneer, a game by Stefan Dorra, and Marquis. This plan went out the window when Jo arrived unexpectedly with Richard, making us 5. On to plan B, we switched to the next game on the BGG top 10 list we hadn't played which was El Grande. We last played this in early January 2006, so we were a bit rusty on the rules plus we were going to play the expansion that added America, France and the Mediterranean.


El Grande starting positions

We took a bit of time to go through the rules so we didn't start playing until well past 8.00pm. Now I like EG, it's a game that gives you lots of decisions and quite a bit of interaction with the other players, the edition we were playing was the german so Steve had to give all a quick translation each round as we turned over the action cards. As most of you probably know each player has a set of cards numbered 1 to 13, each player, starting with the start player plays a card, the following player cannot play the same number. When everyone has played, the player who played the highest number chooses an action card from the action card stacks, the other players then do the same, starting with the next highest and so on. The number of men on the card you played lets you put that number from your province on to your court, ready for immediate use. The number of men printed on the action card lets you put that number of men on the board, you can perform the action before or after this has taken place.


Going through the rules

The game is played over 9 rounds, after the 3rd, 6th and 9th there is a scoring round. I won't go into the rules in depth here (see BGG for more details of that), but the Castle is a nice addition to the scoring round enabling you change ownership of a province before it is scored. The expansion adds not only France, America and the Mediterranean, but a ship that enables you to get to those distant shores. The benefits of getting there include obtaining gold and goods which can score you more points.


Garry and Richard trying to understand the rules!!

Once you get going the game plays pretty smoothly, the action cards let you do all manner of things, re-positioning not only your own men but other players as well, moving the King, getting a card you've already played back into your hand, scoring certain provinces and a lot more.


The king guards a province full of caballaros, while Valencia looks pretty crowded as well

We didn't finish until well after 11pm so the game probably took best part of 3 hours. In the end it was a pretty close finish between Jo and Richard, with Richard just edging it.

Final Scores
Richard 111, Jo 106, Colin 96, Steve 76, Garry 69