Tim introduced some of us to the 18xx family at Sunriver this past spring, and there have been a few other games that have popped up in the interim. The 18MEX game we played at Sunriver went on far too long for a number of reasons, so I've been loathe to try another one unless the length was shorter. Eric, who is looking at his gaming vanishing into the sunset with the impending birth of his second child about a week away, talked myself, Tim, and Wes into coming over on a Thursday night and giving 1825 Unit 1 a try.
First of all, I think that a serious 18xx habit is more expensive than golf, at least in terms of initial outlay. Of course, you have to buy all of the clubs at once in golf, or at least a set of woods or irons at a time. Most of the good 18xx games are small-print-run publications, and while very nice they are also very expensive. $50 per box, and they don't get discounted much. To play the three 1825 units together with expansions will set you back over $200. Not that I ever want to play 18xx with nine people, mind you. Even I have my limits!
25U1 is set in southern England, skipping the Cornwall peninsula and the midlands west of Bristol. England and Manchester are the big cities. Towns are a bit of a conundrum: you have to count them as a stop, but they don't add anything to your run, and you can't end a run in them. However, you can upgrade towns to cities by upgrading the tile, and this is a critical part of the game. However, I found myself a bit hosed in the late game when I realized that none of the upgrade tiles could be legally placed in one town I wanted to upgrade, and I lost out on about $100 over the course of the game as a result.
The stock market is linear, and you don't lose value for selling stock, only for not giving out dividends. In this particular game, the sole reason not to give out dividends is to build up money to buy trains and stations, and as such you may withhold once or twice per game per company.
Privates are randomly distributed early on, and none hold any benefit other than providing steady income. There is only one minor company in the game which doesn't appear until the end, and only seven majors that come out in a fixed order. As far as 18xx games go, it would be hard to find a version that is friendlier to the novice than this one. Our play finished in three hours with four players, making this an even better choice.
Tim started out by taking the big first company early, the LWNR (I am almost certainly messing up these company names, for which I apologize), and we all dutifully bought shares in it and the GWR, which Wes was running. I got the GER, followed by Eric with the LWSR, me with the SECR and the last major whose name completely escapes me, and Wes got the minor at the end of the game. The LWNR did quite well, as did the LWSR, and the GER did well for me as did the final major. What hurt me was having to sell one of my two shares of the LWNR to finance buying the GER shares, and starting the SECR when I should have let someone else take it (it never paid out particularly well, although my shares were worth quite a bit by the end of the game compared to the initial price).
What really worked, however, was getting into a stock early and watching it go up and up. The market is not exactly linear, with values increasing exponentially as you go up the table, but not always. For example, you might go up 15 points one turn, then 10 the next. If you pay out twice as much money as the stock is worth, you get to move the marker up two spaces, but in one case I managed to gain 25 points while another high-value stock went up 30 with an increase of one space. Understanding the stock board is critical in these games.
As such, Tim managed to win a squeaker with his high-value LWNR railroad, which came in at around $300/share at game end. He beat Eric by less than 40 point in a game where the winner had 5000. That's less than a percentage point. My own total, at 47xx, was 94% of the winning total, and even Wes's 43xx was a very respectable 86%. I could easily see a couple of points where I could have won the game with a little patience, and certainly that extra LWNR share that Tim got was huge for him.
Certainly my funnest 18xx experience so far (not that there have been many), and it's whetted my appetite a bit for this sort of game. While I do worry that there can be a scripting to these games that can make it feel like you're playing a course of study (similar to the way I feel about chess - he who studies the game's millions of books on the subject will have an advantage), there is certainly a fun, quick (relatively), and clever game here that I'll have to try again sometime. Not sure if I'll get this particular title, as there are dozens to choose from, but it has restored my faith in the overall system and I'm looking forward to giving it another try soon.
Thanks to Eric for hosting, and we're all thinking good thoughts for you and Jodi and the Invader To Be Named Later.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Warrior Knights First Impressions
Mel is out of town this week, so I've been getting in a lot of gaming. Besides the solo Sands game covered in the previous entry, I also went to RCG's South Tuesday session last week, went to Eric's for an 18xx game on Thursday, and will go to Matt's for the Central Tuesday session in a couple of days. As if that weren't enough, I also had a few people over on Saturday to try out the reissue of Warrior Knights. I never played the original game, so I can't compare it, but I can say that this is a very promising game. Michael, Chuck, Alex, and Patrick came over to help me find out if the new version was worth the paper it was printed on.
In Warrior Knights, you play a "Baron" who sits in his stronghold for the entire game. Fortunately, you have "Nobles" that you can live through vicariously, and they romp around the board taking cities and getting into all sorts of trouble, albeit sanctioned trouble. There are economies for voting (which allows players to enact laws, bestow offices, among other things), faith (which helps alleviate revolts and lets you decide who gets the benefit or pain of random events), military might (for fighting and taking cities), and influence, which you get for cities and occasional other things, and act as VP to determine who wins.
Along the way, you have a deck of action cards. Each turn, you take six action cards from your deck (all decks are the same), and divide them up into three piles based on when in the turn things will come up - early, middle, or late turn. There are also two generic events that go into each turn portion, so that you end up with 2n+2 total cards for each part of the turn, where n is the number of players. The game moves forward with each card turned over and the player in question taking the action. For example, I might decide that I will have to pay my troops in the very near future, so I might play a Levy Taxes card in the first pile, hoping it will come up before the taxes have to be paid. A bit like real life, actually.
Once an action has been taken, the card goes into one of three discard stacks for Wages (paying the troops), Taxes (making money), and Assembly (voting on laws). When the number of cards in one of those stacks gets up to twice the number of players, that specific special action happens immediately following the action taken by the card in question. A few cards give you a choice of where to discard, but most go to one specific pile. Making this more interesting is that when the next turn comes up, you are unlikely to have gotten back any of the cards you used unless one of the special actions was triggered, so thinking a bit ahead is a good idea.
Finally, there is also a Mercenary Draft, where you can play markers onto a drafting track. Once the track fills up (n+1 spaces), players can purchase mercs from the display, with the option to buy extras if you have other markers further down the track and all of the mercs you buy come from the same country (Tuscans, Poles, etc). It is smart to try to trigger paying wages for the mercs you have first, then triggering the draft, as otherwise you get to pay for the ones you just got twice if the opposite occurs. Unless, of course, you can afford it and others can't.
If you're getting the idea that there is a lot going on in this game, you'd be right. Fortunately, most of the subsystems seem to work pretty elegantly - you can tell that Bruno Faidutti had a hand in keeping the system streamlined, and that's a good thing.
A number of Influence tokens are put in the Game Timer area, 12n is the standard number. Once these have been collected (mostly through controlling cities at the end of the turn), the game ends. I've been told that 15 is a better number in terms of overall game arc, although it does result in a longer game. In our case, I'm sure that another 15 tokens would have resulted in one more game turn that would have seen quite a bit of player combat - I believe there were only about three player combats in our game in total, making it feel like it was mostly about taking neutral cities. As such, those who took cities quicker were the ones who won the game, which was a bit unsatisfying. We only had four Assemblies as well, and I think we could have used one more.
The game moved forward quickly, although it is important for the Chairman of the Assembly to a) keep play moving at a brisk pace, and b) not get his unplayed action cards mixed up with the played cards. We started with instructions around 10:20am, played until 3:30pm with a break for lunch at the nearby pub, so around 4.5 hours total. For a first game, that's pretty good, and I think that a four-player game with experienced players could easily come in under four hours. I've heard lots of comments that 5 hours with 12 influence points per player is optimistic, but I just don't see it unless people are spending too much time deciding what to do with actions and in which order. For those players, I recommend a timer.
Everyone felt like they made mistakes. I personally blew it by sending an army with one too few units to take an overseas area, only to fail my first attack, figure out that I could break the walls down a bit in the next turn, then had Michael zip in, kick me out, and I never did get the space back. By the time I figured out we would be out of influence quickly, I just couldn't get anyone where they needed to be to make attacks (you only get to use a noble once per turn, and only two of your action cards let it move *and* attack in the same turn, both of which were in a discard pile on the last turn). As such, the endgame was a bit anticlimactic, although I think this was more to the learning curve than a game flaw - at least any more than with any other multi-player strategy game. In the end, Alex won with 17 influence, to Michael's 16 (he was beat out by Patrick for the Holy War points that would have given him the game), with Chuck and Patrick at 15 and me way behind with only 12.
For a game with a lot of little subsystems, WK moves very smoothly. We put one player in charge of keeping track of how high the discard piles were getting, one in charge of mercs, one in charge of the assembly motions, and it all moved along rather nicely. I get the feeling that we played a little *too* nicely, and a little too segregated in terms of territory. It's tough to go after a leader if they're off in a corner of the board and difficult to get to - movement is somewhat limited in this game except if moving by road. Understanding exactly how many troops you need and where you need them is important, even early, and so I also recommend playing your first game with 10n influence so that you can see where your nobles need to be - you can't just add in more troops when you feel like it, especially if the unit in question is overseas. No troops for you!
Downtime wasn't really a problem. Even if your cards didn't come out for a while (with five players, that can be 20 cards worst case), most cards are resolved very quickly - you get a faith token, or you place a marker on the merc track. The game slows down when players fight, have to decide which of the five actions on the Versatile Strategy card you want to take, and in planning which events will go where, but even these rarely took more than two or three minutes to resolve at worst. The Assembly takes about 5 minutes, but it only happens a few times a game, and everyone is involved (unless you are voteless - you spend your votes when you cast them, making them more political capital than votes). While I'm not sure that six would be a good number for this game, five is certainly doable, and four is probably optimal in terms of having room to expand as well as allowing for a 15-Influence/player timer and staying under four hours.
All in all, this one is a winner, and certainly something that will come out at Sunriver this fall. Thanks, guys, for helping me give this one a shot!
In Warrior Knights, you play a "Baron" who sits in his stronghold for the entire game. Fortunately, you have "Nobles" that you can live through vicariously, and they romp around the board taking cities and getting into all sorts of trouble, albeit sanctioned trouble. There are economies for voting (which allows players to enact laws, bestow offices, among other things), faith (which helps alleviate revolts and lets you decide who gets the benefit or pain of random events), military might (for fighting and taking cities), and influence, which you get for cities and occasional other things, and act as VP to determine who wins.
Along the way, you have a deck of action cards. Each turn, you take six action cards from your deck (all decks are the same), and divide them up into three piles based on when in the turn things will come up - early, middle, or late turn. There are also two generic events that go into each turn portion, so that you end up with 2n+2 total cards for each part of the turn, where n is the number of players. The game moves forward with each card turned over and the player in question taking the action. For example, I might decide that I will have to pay my troops in the very near future, so I might play a Levy Taxes card in the first pile, hoping it will come up before the taxes have to be paid. A bit like real life, actually.
Once an action has been taken, the card goes into one of three discard stacks for Wages (paying the troops), Taxes (making money), and Assembly (voting on laws). When the number of cards in one of those stacks gets up to twice the number of players, that specific special action happens immediately following the action taken by the card in question. A few cards give you a choice of where to discard, but most go to one specific pile. Making this more interesting is that when the next turn comes up, you are unlikely to have gotten back any of the cards you used unless one of the special actions was triggered, so thinking a bit ahead is a good idea.
Finally, there is also a Mercenary Draft, where you can play markers onto a drafting track. Once the track fills up (n+1 spaces), players can purchase mercs from the display, with the option to buy extras if you have other markers further down the track and all of the mercs you buy come from the same country (Tuscans, Poles, etc). It is smart to try to trigger paying wages for the mercs you have first, then triggering the draft, as otherwise you get to pay for the ones you just got twice if the opposite occurs. Unless, of course, you can afford it and others can't.
If you're getting the idea that there is a lot going on in this game, you'd be right. Fortunately, most of the subsystems seem to work pretty elegantly - you can tell that Bruno Faidutti had a hand in keeping the system streamlined, and that's a good thing.
A number of Influence tokens are put in the Game Timer area, 12n is the standard number. Once these have been collected (mostly through controlling cities at the end of the turn), the game ends. I've been told that 15 is a better number in terms of overall game arc, although it does result in a longer game. In our case, I'm sure that another 15 tokens would have resulted in one more game turn that would have seen quite a bit of player combat - I believe there were only about three player combats in our game in total, making it feel like it was mostly about taking neutral cities. As such, those who took cities quicker were the ones who won the game, which was a bit unsatisfying. We only had four Assemblies as well, and I think we could have used one more.
The game moved forward quickly, although it is important for the Chairman of the Assembly to a) keep play moving at a brisk pace, and b) not get his unplayed action cards mixed up with the played cards. We started with instructions around 10:20am, played until 3:30pm with a break for lunch at the nearby pub, so around 4.5 hours total. For a first game, that's pretty good, and I think that a four-player game with experienced players could easily come in under four hours. I've heard lots of comments that 5 hours with 12 influence points per player is optimistic, but I just don't see it unless people are spending too much time deciding what to do with actions and in which order. For those players, I recommend a timer.
Everyone felt like they made mistakes. I personally blew it by sending an army with one too few units to take an overseas area, only to fail my first attack, figure out that I could break the walls down a bit in the next turn, then had Michael zip in, kick me out, and I never did get the space back. By the time I figured out we would be out of influence quickly, I just couldn't get anyone where they needed to be to make attacks (you only get to use a noble once per turn, and only two of your action cards let it move *and* attack in the same turn, both of which were in a discard pile on the last turn). As such, the endgame was a bit anticlimactic, although I think this was more to the learning curve than a game flaw - at least any more than with any other multi-player strategy game. In the end, Alex won with 17 influence, to Michael's 16 (he was beat out by Patrick for the Holy War points that would have given him the game), with Chuck and Patrick at 15 and me way behind with only 12.
For a game with a lot of little subsystems, WK moves very smoothly. We put one player in charge of keeping track of how high the discard piles were getting, one in charge of mercs, one in charge of the assembly motions, and it all moved along rather nicely. I get the feeling that we played a little *too* nicely, and a little too segregated in terms of territory. It's tough to go after a leader if they're off in a corner of the board and difficult to get to - movement is somewhat limited in this game except if moving by road. Understanding exactly how many troops you need and where you need them is important, even early, and so I also recommend playing your first game with 10n influence so that you can see where your nobles need to be - you can't just add in more troops when you feel like it, especially if the unit in question is overseas. No troops for you!
Downtime wasn't really a problem. Even if your cards didn't come out for a while (with five players, that can be 20 cards worst case), most cards are resolved very quickly - you get a faith token, or you place a marker on the merc track. The game slows down when players fight, have to decide which of the five actions on the Versatile Strategy card you want to take, and in planning which events will go where, but even these rarely took more than two or three minutes to resolve at worst. The Assembly takes about 5 minutes, but it only happens a few times a game, and everyone is involved (unless you are voteless - you spend your votes when you cast them, making them more political capital than votes). While I'm not sure that six would be a good number for this game, five is certainly doable, and four is probably optimal in terms of having room to expand as well as allowing for a 15-Influence/player timer and staying under four hours.
All in all, this one is a winner, and certainly something that will come out at Sunriver this fall. Thanks, guys, for helping me give this one a shot!
Shifting Sands Solo
Chuck and I got to try out the new MMP title Shifting Sands at WBC West twice, and learned enough from the game that I've begun to think that the Germans have to make a push into Egypt in 1941 once they get Rommel and a couple of panzer units, and I wanted to give this a try, so I started a solo game. Playing CDGs solo is a bit of a skill, as you have to be able to think in terms of what you would do were you unable to see what cards your opponent had. In Sands, this comes down mostly to whether or not to deploy the Italian fleet, especially later in the game when the penalties for failure are so strong, and holding the 88mm FLAK Guns card that lets the Axis make and prosecute their combat roll first when defending. The entire game took something like six hours, but it's hard to say as I'd play for an hour, then come back later and play a couple more turns, so exact play time is uncertain.
In this game, all of the usual stuff happened: Italians take Khartoum, bring in the Egyptians who provide a speed bump, the Allies bring in units only to have them taken out fairly soon after when the Germans take Greece and Crete. The start of 1941 was a surprise for the Allies when the Axis started not only the Iraqi Revolt, but then brought in the German mountain division in Baghdad which marched all the way to Basra. A full four divisions were diverted to the Near East to deal with the problem, which wasn't completely resolved until early 1942. In East Africa, the Italians held off the Allied attempts to attack into Khartoum, and it fell to the South Africans to clear out East Africa, which they did by the end of 1941 but just barely. In fact, the Axis was at 14VP, just one away from an auto victory, but that was as close as they got.
What happened? First, the German panzer divisions didn't come out as quickly as they might have, and when they did come out and Rommel was ready to roll into Alexandria, the Axis 8 card hand came up with six 2 cards and two 3 cards, one of which was a must-play event. As a result, the Axis couldn't even attack as all of their front line stacks were three-deep and in Limited Supply. Still, they managed to push the Allies to within a space of El Alamein, but once Barbarossa came out it became too much of an attrition battle and they couldn't push any further.
Meanwhile, the fight for Malta wasn't going well for the Allies. E-boats prevented play of a Malta Convoy, and the Germans had drawn every card they needed but Herkules in their first two hands of 1942. Unfortunately for them, the siege of Malta lasted exactly one card play, as the Brits brought in their Spitfires to allow more convoys and require Air Support as well. In the end, the Axis didn't draw Herkules until too late, even though it took a few more turns for the Brits to get their convoys and Malta Victorious (which they held for a turn). As it was, this particular card sequence pretty much doomed the Axis, as they were limited to 6 card hands for seven of the ten turns from 1941-43, and aside from Battleship Convoys, Gigants, and the single GE Battlefield Recovery RP, no replacements.
The Brits were having a tough time getting going in Egypt, taking only Bardia on the Libyan border and not pushing any further on that front. They did play Torch as soon as possible, which was a smart move - even though Patton never showed up, the Vulcan offensive gave the Yanks operational flexibility by putting all Tunisian/Algerian units in Full Supply, allowing frequent attacks at low OPS costs. In fact, this was where the campaign was decided on a couple of fronts.
First, the Allied High Command declared Victory or Death at exactly the right time, giving a VP to the Allies for pushing an Axis unit out of it's space, and then they split the Axis forces to concentrate on both Bizarte in the north and Gades in the south, giving them the two VP they needed for the auto-victory on the last turn. Tunis and Tripoli both held out until the end, despite a last-ditch Allied attempt to push the Axis off the continent entirely.
Games like this demonstrate pretty clearly that much can hinge on how and when cards from your deck sequence. Had the Brits not gotten the Spitfire card immediately, it would have allowed the Germans to make a push in Egypt at a time when the Allies were a bit fragile, but the threat of a war of attrition won out, neutralizing Rommel's combat shift advantage. It's tough to go after units when you know they'll just grow back at the end of the turn while yours will sit there and rot. While the Axis had some good card karma, they didn't ever get the AFR division in East Africa, which could have held off the Allies for a turn longer, giving the Axis a VP. The Malta sequencing certainly killed any chance the Axis had of winning, both in terms of RPs and VP - a three point swing there would definitely have resulted in an Axis win. Even Torch coming out a turn later would have been a death knell, as the Allies didn't take Bizarte until the final game turn, although Gabes went at the end of turn 11.
I still think this is a great game, certainly playable in less than 5 hours by experienced players. I will need another playing to try out the Germans Push East strategy, one where the cards are more in the Germans' favor than they were in this one. Even with the more-scripted-than-usual gameplay, this one is a lot of fun, although it's a shame that it doesn't have the wackiness of Hannibal where literally anything can happen, and sometimes does.
One other thing: I noticed in my second game as the Brits that the red die seemed to be rolling low numbers more often than not, usually ones and twos. After having the same thing happen in this last game, I replaced the die after the fourth turn. In approximately 50 rolls, the red die rolled 4 or higher about 10 times, a significant percentage. Makes me want to go spend some serious money on balanced dice, as the ones that came with Sands are clearly not balanced.
In this game, all of the usual stuff happened: Italians take Khartoum, bring in the Egyptians who provide a speed bump, the Allies bring in units only to have them taken out fairly soon after when the Germans take Greece and Crete. The start of 1941 was a surprise for the Allies when the Axis started not only the Iraqi Revolt, but then brought in the German mountain division in Baghdad which marched all the way to Basra. A full four divisions were diverted to the Near East to deal with the problem, which wasn't completely resolved until early 1942. In East Africa, the Italians held off the Allied attempts to attack into Khartoum, and it fell to the South Africans to clear out East Africa, which they did by the end of 1941 but just barely. In fact, the Axis was at 14VP, just one away from an auto victory, but that was as close as they got.
What happened? First, the German panzer divisions didn't come out as quickly as they might have, and when they did come out and Rommel was ready to roll into Alexandria, the Axis 8 card hand came up with six 2 cards and two 3 cards, one of which was a must-play event. As a result, the Axis couldn't even attack as all of their front line stacks were three-deep and in Limited Supply. Still, they managed to push the Allies to within a space of El Alamein, but once Barbarossa came out it became too much of an attrition battle and they couldn't push any further.
Meanwhile, the fight for Malta wasn't going well for the Allies. E-boats prevented play of a Malta Convoy, and the Germans had drawn every card they needed but Herkules in their first two hands of 1942. Unfortunately for them, the siege of Malta lasted exactly one card play, as the Brits brought in their Spitfires to allow more convoys and require Air Support as well. In the end, the Axis didn't draw Herkules until too late, even though it took a few more turns for the Brits to get their convoys and Malta Victorious (which they held for a turn). As it was, this particular card sequence pretty much doomed the Axis, as they were limited to 6 card hands for seven of the ten turns from 1941-43, and aside from Battleship Convoys, Gigants, and the single GE Battlefield Recovery RP, no replacements.
The Brits were having a tough time getting going in Egypt, taking only Bardia on the Libyan border and not pushing any further on that front. They did play Torch as soon as possible, which was a smart move - even though Patton never showed up, the Vulcan offensive gave the Yanks operational flexibility by putting all Tunisian/Algerian units in Full Supply, allowing frequent attacks at low OPS costs. In fact, this was where the campaign was decided on a couple of fronts.
First, the Allied High Command declared Victory or Death at exactly the right time, giving a VP to the Allies for pushing an Axis unit out of it's space, and then they split the Axis forces to concentrate on both Bizarte in the north and Gades in the south, giving them the two VP they needed for the auto-victory on the last turn. Tunis and Tripoli both held out until the end, despite a last-ditch Allied attempt to push the Axis off the continent entirely.
Games like this demonstrate pretty clearly that much can hinge on how and when cards from your deck sequence. Had the Brits not gotten the Spitfire card immediately, it would have allowed the Germans to make a push in Egypt at a time when the Allies were a bit fragile, but the threat of a war of attrition won out, neutralizing Rommel's combat shift advantage. It's tough to go after units when you know they'll just grow back at the end of the turn while yours will sit there and rot. While the Axis had some good card karma, they didn't ever get the AFR division in East Africa, which could have held off the Allies for a turn longer, giving the Axis a VP. The Malta sequencing certainly killed any chance the Axis had of winning, both in terms of RPs and VP - a three point swing there would definitely have resulted in an Axis win. Even Torch coming out a turn later would have been a death knell, as the Allies didn't take Bizarte until the final game turn, although Gabes went at the end of turn 11.
I still think this is a great game, certainly playable in less than 5 hours by experienced players. I will need another playing to try out the Germans Push East strategy, one where the cards are more in the Germans' favor than they were in this one. Even with the more-scripted-than-usual gameplay, this one is a lot of fun, although it's a shame that it doesn't have the wackiness of Hannibal where literally anything can happen, and sometimes does.
One other thing: I noticed in my second game as the Brits that the red die seemed to be rolling low numbers more often than not, usually ones and twos. After having the same thing happen in this last game, I replaced the die after the fourth turn. In approximately 50 rolls, the red die rolled 4 or higher about 10 times, a significant percentage. Makes me want to go spend some serious money on balanced dice, as the ones that came with Sands are clearly not balanced.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
CenTu Session, 8/1/06
Back from WBC West less than 48 hours, and already I'm hosting a weeknight session. I am officially insane.
Ben H, Ian (friend of Ben's), Tim, Mike, Carey, Ken, and myself sat around doing nothing but having fun for three hours. Here's how it went:
Ben, Carey, and myself spent the evening in the Temple of Conspicuous Consumerism playing some classics. I'd pulled largely classic games from the library for the evening, especially some of the first euros I ever bought, and some even got played. In our three-player session we tried out Schaeppen Jagd, Mamma Mia!, and Durch die Wueste, while the four player table in the dining room played Fifth Avenue and Euphrate & Tigris. You'll have to check out Mike's blog for a full report, all I know is that the E&T game ended up with a very close score, the spread being between 7 and 5 points IIRC.
Schnaeppen Jagd, or Bargain Hunter, is one of those classic titles that never got published in the US despite being perhaps one of the best games Uwe Rosenburg ever put out. The game is at it's heart a simple trick taking game, although trump is decided as players lay cards out for each trick. If you can't follow the led suit, you have to declare if the suit of the card you play is trump or not, and since there are two cards of each rank, you also have to decide if the card you play is higher or lower than the winning card, assuming they are a match. As such, there's a surprising amount of decision making going on.
The first hand starts out with each player choosing a rank they want to collect - each rank is a particular type of "junk" that you are trying to collect. For example, all of the 1 cards are teakettles, the 2's are electric shavers, etc. You want to collect that one type of junk as you win tricks, the rest of the cards go into your face-down "odds and ends" pile. After each round, you can go through your odds and ends, choose one rank that you've got a lot of in that pile, discard three of that rank from your odds and ends, and the rest of those cards go into your collecting pile, meaning that you'll be collecting a new type of junk for the next round.
For example, I've been collecting 5's this round. Any 5's in tricks I take go into the collecting pile, which is face up and will score positive points at the end of the game. Everything else goes in my face-down odds and ends pile, which will score negative points. At the end of the round, I look through my odds and ends, and discover I have four 1's, more than any other rank. I discard three of the four 1's, which go on the bottom of the draw pile, and the rest (one 1 card) goes on my collecting pile face up, and in the next round any 1's in tricks I take will go there. All other cards, including 5's (which I'm no longer collecting, but stay in that pile from previous rounds) go into odds and ends. If I had had only three 1 cards in this example, I could have discarded all three, but kept collecting fives as there was on extra 1 to go on the collecting pile. You can only do this with one rank in all rounds but the last one, where you can get rid of two ranks.
Like most Rosenburg games, it's a bit of a trick to explain, but a lot of fun. I thought I was doing quite well, to be honest, changing over every turn or two. My biggest problem was in one round I took no tricks at all, when you are better off getting a couple of cards that will allow you to make a discard of one rank. Since collected cards sit around, you are much better off changing to un-collected ranks or relatively uncollected ranks if possible, and it's always good to get cards out of the odds and ends pile. As it was, I came in last with a 2 point final total, while Ben got beat out by Carey for the win (I think he had 8 points, not bad).
SJ is a great game with three players, as you have six rounds to go through and the luck tends to even out a bit, although I'd say that it has more to do with what cards others have than what you have. With six suits and only eight cards per round, it's easy to get a void and call trump (or not), but not always. With four players, you only play four rounds and it feels more like a ride than a game. Like Ra and Big City, this is a game best suited for three.
Next up was Mamma Mia!, another Rosenburg classic. This is a game that is very tough to explain, although I felt like I did about as good a job as is humanly possible to do. I usually do quite well in this game, I think it's one of my best win/play ratio titles along with Ra and Hannibal, and this game was no exception. In fact, I did so well that I had collected a full seven of eight order cards going into the final round, and took that last order easily by just keeping the right ingredients in hand for the Making of the Pizza phase. One of my faves that's been sitting on the shelf for too long.
Last up for our table was Durch die Wueste, republished by FFG as Through the Desert. I've rarely played with three, as I think that four is about the perfect number for this game, but it was still good fun. Since the initial placement of your caravans is so critical to this game, we played twice, the first ended by Carey very early when he put down the last of the coconut-flavored camels on the board. In the second game, Ben had a great 16 point section on one side of the board, and I'm pretty sure he won, although I can't say for sure as I've completely forgotton what the final score was! That's a good sign, at least I hope it was.
Thanks to everyone for coming. I'll have a lot of gaming going on next week with Mel out of town, including SouTu, an 18xx session on Thursday, and a Saturday session where hopefully I'll pull out Warrior Knights and we'll see how good that title is.
Ben H, Ian (friend of Ben's), Tim, Mike, Carey, Ken, and myself sat around doing nothing but having fun for three hours. Here's how it went:
Ben, Carey, and myself spent the evening in the Temple of Conspicuous Consumerism playing some classics. I'd pulled largely classic games from the library for the evening, especially some of the first euros I ever bought, and some even got played. In our three-player session we tried out Schaeppen Jagd, Mamma Mia!, and Durch die Wueste, while the four player table in the dining room played Fifth Avenue and Euphrate & Tigris. You'll have to check out Mike's blog for a full report, all I know is that the E&T game ended up with a very close score, the spread being between 7 and 5 points IIRC.
Schnaeppen Jagd, or Bargain Hunter, is one of those classic titles that never got published in the US despite being perhaps one of the best games Uwe Rosenburg ever put out. The game is at it's heart a simple trick taking game, although trump is decided as players lay cards out for each trick. If you can't follow the led suit, you have to declare if the suit of the card you play is trump or not, and since there are two cards of each rank, you also have to decide if the card you play is higher or lower than the winning card, assuming they are a match. As such, there's a surprising amount of decision making going on.
The first hand starts out with each player choosing a rank they want to collect - each rank is a particular type of "junk" that you are trying to collect. For example, all of the 1 cards are teakettles, the 2's are electric shavers, etc. You want to collect that one type of junk as you win tricks, the rest of the cards go into your face-down "odds and ends" pile. After each round, you can go through your odds and ends, choose one rank that you've got a lot of in that pile, discard three of that rank from your odds and ends, and the rest of those cards go into your collecting pile, meaning that you'll be collecting a new type of junk for the next round.
For example, I've been collecting 5's this round. Any 5's in tricks I take go into the collecting pile, which is face up and will score positive points at the end of the game. Everything else goes in my face-down odds and ends pile, which will score negative points. At the end of the round, I look through my odds and ends, and discover I have four 1's, more than any other rank. I discard three of the four 1's, which go on the bottom of the draw pile, and the rest (one 1 card) goes on my collecting pile face up, and in the next round any 1's in tricks I take will go there. All other cards, including 5's (which I'm no longer collecting, but stay in that pile from previous rounds) go into odds and ends. If I had had only three 1 cards in this example, I could have discarded all three, but kept collecting fives as there was on extra 1 to go on the collecting pile. You can only do this with one rank in all rounds but the last one, where you can get rid of two ranks.
Like most Rosenburg games, it's a bit of a trick to explain, but a lot of fun. I thought I was doing quite well, to be honest, changing over every turn or two. My biggest problem was in one round I took no tricks at all, when you are better off getting a couple of cards that will allow you to make a discard of one rank. Since collected cards sit around, you are much better off changing to un-collected ranks or relatively uncollected ranks if possible, and it's always good to get cards out of the odds and ends pile. As it was, I came in last with a 2 point final total, while Ben got beat out by Carey for the win (I think he had 8 points, not bad).
SJ is a great game with three players, as you have six rounds to go through and the luck tends to even out a bit, although I'd say that it has more to do with what cards others have than what you have. With six suits and only eight cards per round, it's easy to get a void and call trump (or not), but not always. With four players, you only play four rounds and it feels more like a ride than a game. Like Ra and Big City, this is a game best suited for three.
Next up was Mamma Mia!, another Rosenburg classic. This is a game that is very tough to explain, although I felt like I did about as good a job as is humanly possible to do. I usually do quite well in this game, I think it's one of my best win/play ratio titles along with Ra and Hannibal, and this game was no exception. In fact, I did so well that I had collected a full seven of eight order cards going into the final round, and took that last order easily by just keeping the right ingredients in hand for the Making of the Pizza phase. One of my faves that's been sitting on the shelf for too long.
Last up for our table was Durch die Wueste, republished by FFG as Through the Desert. I've rarely played with three, as I think that four is about the perfect number for this game, but it was still good fun. Since the initial placement of your caravans is so critical to this game, we played twice, the first ended by Carey very early when he put down the last of the coconut-flavored camels on the board. In the second game, Ben had a great 16 point section on one side of the board, and I'm pretty sure he won, although I can't say for sure as I've completely forgotton what the final score was! That's a good sign, at least I hope it was.
Thanks to everyone for coming. I'll have a lot of gaming going on next week with Mel out of town, including SouTu, an 18xx session on Thursday, and a Saturday session where hopefully I'll pull out Warrior Knights and we'll see how good that title is.
Monday, July 31, 2006
WBC West Part 3
Saturday morning broke like a car crash for me. I'd had about six times too much wine playing ForeWord (note corrected spelling, Dave), and I was in no shape to spend five hours getting my white Japanese ass kicked by Chuck in Empire of the Sun, so we chose instead to give Shifting Sands another try, this time with me in the role of the Brits and Chuck playing the Italians and Germans.
The game started out pretty much like the last one, with the Brits taking Tobruk, the Italians taking Khartoum, and not a lot of movement in Libya. I was very aggressive in getting the Italians out of East Africa with the South Africans, despite Chuck bringing in the second Italian division, the AFR. Playing The Ethiopian Campaign early was a very good idea, as I'm learning that this game is all about efficient use of OPS.
I also was premptive in putting an Indian division in Iraq in anticipation of the Revolt, which I smashed in a single attack when Chuck stacked three BGs in Baghdad. I also sent up a British armored division to Jerusalem in anticipation of playing Exporter (which allows attacks into Vichy Syria), and was able to take out the French before the German mountain division could arrive.
To make things worse for Chuck, I drew the Barbarossa card early - which forced me to hold it and a Malta Convoy for a turn, which made his life difficult by taking away RPs. I've come to the conclusion that the fight over Malta is critical in this game, and while you won't necessarily win by taking it, you are very unlike to win if you don't, especially as the Brits. With so few but strong units, it is nearly impossible to kick the Germans out of Libya if they can keep replacing their units (there are so many Italians that it really doesn't matter much). As such, playing the right cards at the right time is critical, which is why I think the increasing hand sizes are so important. Even more important is the ability to get the Malta Convoys out, which stops at the beginning of 1942 with the Siege of Malta, as they limit the Axis to six cards and limit their ability to manage the deck.
By the end of 1941, I had driven the Axis out of the Near East and East Africa, and the next step was to take back Tobruk and start moving west, and I finally had the units to do it. For a long time, I sat with three divisions guarding the Egyptian frontier, and I suspect that the Axis needs to make a big push during that time. Giving the Allies distractions in the sideshows is important, but it is equally important to give them another distraction in Egypt. Neither of us did this in our games, and while I managed to win our first game without this push, I think it's critical against an experienced Allied player.
Here's why: there is nothing forcing the Allies to play the Torch invasion, and the only thing making the German panzers run out of El Agheila (which is a very tough nut to crack) is the risk of losing even more VP spaces in Tunisia. In fact, I didn't play Torch, putting Tobruk under siege and trying instead to take Tripoli for an auto win. I managed to finally kick the Axis out of El Agheila (I finally took Tobruk in the last turn with Supercharge), but only after taking lots of losses and only on my final card play of the game. Of course, I'd forgotten that I could stack four units in a space thanks to Monty, which may have moved things along a bit better for me, but it was still a tight game. For even more tension, Chuck had the Italian Fleet card in his final hand, and considered playing it for the VP he'd need to win. Of course, I'd drawn the Med Fleet, so I was kind of hoping he'd play it and save the risk of yet another botched roll (I don't think I rolled more than 25% of my combat rolls over 3 the whole game, although Chuck did roll a 6/1 combo in my favor at a critical point).
Things I learned:
VP are critical. Never lose one due to Event Card play if you can avoid it.
Fight for Malta. This is not China in EotS or North Africa in BtB. It is a critical fight, and the RP/hand limit rules make it so.
Force the issue in Egypt as the Germans. You'll be on the border anyway, and your supply doesn't get any worse. However, you better have RPs, as you'll lose the attrition war if you don't. When the Spitfires show up, if you aren't on the verge of taking Malta, that's when you start the long slow retreat. You *want* the Allies to play Torch in order to win, as Tunisia will eat up OPS, and they have no reason to do so if you're backed up in El Agheila at the start of 1943.
Understand the ramifications of card plays, particularly the Malta series. I missed a chance to play a Malta convoy right before the siege of Malta, and Chuck missed the chance to play RPs before Barbarossa. In 1941 and 1942, it pays to play a RP card if you can as the Axis before the Allies can take away the opportunity with their card play.
Don't be afraid to play high value cards for events. There are a ton of cards in this game, and I never have felt like I needed to finess a card like in the early game of PoG (play the Blockade for RPs in the first hand, or hope you see it again before Limited War?) In Sands, it is a non-issue. In fact, I was playing events to get them out of my hand in the late game, as I wanted to be sure to get certain cards after the 1943 shuffle.
I wasn't sure how I liked the game after the first play, but I'm sold on it now. While there are some fiddly rules and conditions that come and go in the game, as far as strategy goes things seem to be very straightforward and thus less confusing for people who haven't played CDGs before. Rules complexity is one thing, a complex operational/strategic situation is another and often more difficult for the novice.
Chuck and Jodi went out for dinner just as we were getting to 1943, so we actually finished the game early on Sunday. In the meantime, Dave and I did our traditional rib dinner, then came back to play Settlers Card Game with the Barbarian expansion. All I can say about this game is that I think I've learned not to play Dave in this game, as I never win. I had the worst deck to draw from in the beginning, and it never ever got any better for me, even with building cities early. Dave drew every decent action card in the game, and hardly a turn went by when he wasn't stealing resources or cards or screwing me over in some way, shape, or form. The "fun factor" is quartered when I'm playing an expansion I'm unfamiliar with and have no idea how the various combos work. This was my second least favorite game of the week.
The final game of the night was three hands of Circus Flohcati, in this case my first time out with the Rio Grande edition. And what a surprise to learn that two of the action cards have different rules than in my translated German edition. Dave hates this game, by the way, but I love it and Jodi will play it, so off we went. In the end, the score was something like 165-164-163-161. I lost.
Chuck and I finished up Sands the next morning, then we pulled out his Labors of Herakles design next. Labors is based off of Titan, using a slightly modified board. By the mid-game, I was hating life, mostly because I felt that I was constantly being put in situations where I had no decisions to make. We made a couple of small suggestions for changes to give more choices (using movement cards instead of rolling dice, for example), but I think that there's a pretty cool little game in there and I hope Chuck keeps at it.
By now we were starting to get things put away and getting ready to leave, so we played Scepter of Zavandore (or something, the fonts used in the game were problematic), which Dave compares to St. Petersburg, a game he claims to not like because it's so dry. I'm not even going to try to describe this game other than to say that there are mechanisms that force players to constantly be starved for the resources you need to get lots of VP, and each player has a slightly different starting position. There are some "civ" advances (spells in this game) that are completely useless as far as I can see, and others that are critical. As such, my overall feeling was that every turn you knew you had to spend a certain amount of money for stuff, and the better you sequenced what you bought the better you did. That, and that Rubies are far too powerful in this game - not going after them will guarantee you lose the game. Dave, of course, won handily while I snuck by Chuck by one point for second.
And that, as we say, was that.
It was nice to be playing lighter fare in the evenings, and I'd like to continue that practice in future WBC Wests. In fact, we even considered running a multi-evening RPG next year, although that's very much up in the air. Regardless, I felt much less fatigued over the course of the week than last year after so many full days of wargaming.
Another thing I learned was that in some cases it is definitely better to have a strong sense of how the game works before playing. Empire of the Sun was very difficult to play because we were constantly looking up rules, but that's Mark Herman for you. Gettysburg was very frustrating, largely because the rules assume you know how to play already and this partcular block game is very different from other Columbia titles. However, most of our games were things we'd played before (and I'd taken a stab at a Shifting Sands "delta" document ahead of time, so it was easy to teach). Knowing the games well helps eliminate fatigue, and next year I'll definitely attempt playing games ahead of time, even if solitaire, just to gave the system in my head better. Rules are such an issue for so many wargame companies these days (Columbia, Avalanche, Decision, Gamers, just about everyone but GMT and Multi-man) and fatigue such an issue that homework from at least one of the players is really important.
It was also nice to have the same set of players over the entire week. I think it would be cool to have four next year, as you can choose an opponent for the day and not worry about sequencing to mix up who you play against as we do at the Euro retreats. I almost prefer WBC West to the RCG retreats in that sense, although having eight or more guys playing a wide variety of games over a long weekend is really rewarding in other ways.
Big thanks to Chuck for driving, I know I was about as wiped out as I could be by the time we got to my house, and he still had to drop off Dave and get home, at least a hour in the surprisingly heavy late Sunday night traffic. Once again, I blink my eyes on Tuesday night and it's a week later and I'm back to the grind.
May the Crunk be with you!
The game started out pretty much like the last one, with the Brits taking Tobruk, the Italians taking Khartoum, and not a lot of movement in Libya. I was very aggressive in getting the Italians out of East Africa with the South Africans, despite Chuck bringing in the second Italian division, the AFR. Playing The Ethiopian Campaign early was a very good idea, as I'm learning that this game is all about efficient use of OPS.
I also was premptive in putting an Indian division in Iraq in anticipation of the Revolt, which I smashed in a single attack when Chuck stacked three BGs in Baghdad. I also sent up a British armored division to Jerusalem in anticipation of playing Exporter (which allows attacks into Vichy Syria), and was able to take out the French before the German mountain division could arrive.
To make things worse for Chuck, I drew the Barbarossa card early - which forced me to hold it and a Malta Convoy for a turn, which made his life difficult by taking away RPs. I've come to the conclusion that the fight over Malta is critical in this game, and while you won't necessarily win by taking it, you are very unlike to win if you don't, especially as the Brits. With so few but strong units, it is nearly impossible to kick the Germans out of Libya if they can keep replacing their units (there are so many Italians that it really doesn't matter much). As such, playing the right cards at the right time is critical, which is why I think the increasing hand sizes are so important. Even more important is the ability to get the Malta Convoys out, which stops at the beginning of 1942 with the Siege of Malta, as they limit the Axis to six cards and limit their ability to manage the deck.
By the end of 1941, I had driven the Axis out of the Near East and East Africa, and the next step was to take back Tobruk and start moving west, and I finally had the units to do it. For a long time, I sat with three divisions guarding the Egyptian frontier, and I suspect that the Axis needs to make a big push during that time. Giving the Allies distractions in the sideshows is important, but it is equally important to give them another distraction in Egypt. Neither of us did this in our games, and while I managed to win our first game without this push, I think it's critical against an experienced Allied player.
Here's why: there is nothing forcing the Allies to play the Torch invasion, and the only thing making the German panzers run out of El Agheila (which is a very tough nut to crack) is the risk of losing even more VP spaces in Tunisia. In fact, I didn't play Torch, putting Tobruk under siege and trying instead to take Tripoli for an auto win. I managed to finally kick the Axis out of El Agheila (I finally took Tobruk in the last turn with Supercharge), but only after taking lots of losses and only on my final card play of the game. Of course, I'd forgotten that I could stack four units in a space thanks to Monty, which may have moved things along a bit better for me, but it was still a tight game. For even more tension, Chuck had the Italian Fleet card in his final hand, and considered playing it for the VP he'd need to win. Of course, I'd drawn the Med Fleet, so I was kind of hoping he'd play it and save the risk of yet another botched roll (I don't think I rolled more than 25% of my combat rolls over 3 the whole game, although Chuck did roll a 6/1 combo in my favor at a critical point).
Things I learned:
VP are critical. Never lose one due to Event Card play if you can avoid it.
Fight for Malta. This is not China in EotS or North Africa in BtB. It is a critical fight, and the RP/hand limit rules make it so.
Force the issue in Egypt as the Germans. You'll be on the border anyway, and your supply doesn't get any worse. However, you better have RPs, as you'll lose the attrition war if you don't. When the Spitfires show up, if you aren't on the verge of taking Malta, that's when you start the long slow retreat. You *want* the Allies to play Torch in order to win, as Tunisia will eat up OPS, and they have no reason to do so if you're backed up in El Agheila at the start of 1943.
Understand the ramifications of card plays, particularly the Malta series. I missed a chance to play a Malta convoy right before the siege of Malta, and Chuck missed the chance to play RPs before Barbarossa. In 1941 and 1942, it pays to play a RP card if you can as the Axis before the Allies can take away the opportunity with their card play.
Don't be afraid to play high value cards for events. There are a ton of cards in this game, and I never have felt like I needed to finess a card like in the early game of PoG (play the Blockade for RPs in the first hand, or hope you see it again before Limited War?) In Sands, it is a non-issue. In fact, I was playing events to get them out of my hand in the late game, as I wanted to be sure to get certain cards after the 1943 shuffle.
I wasn't sure how I liked the game after the first play, but I'm sold on it now. While there are some fiddly rules and conditions that come and go in the game, as far as strategy goes things seem to be very straightforward and thus less confusing for people who haven't played CDGs before. Rules complexity is one thing, a complex operational/strategic situation is another and often more difficult for the novice.
Chuck and Jodi went out for dinner just as we were getting to 1943, so we actually finished the game early on Sunday. In the meantime, Dave and I did our traditional rib dinner, then came back to play Settlers Card Game with the Barbarian expansion. All I can say about this game is that I think I've learned not to play Dave in this game, as I never win. I had the worst deck to draw from in the beginning, and it never ever got any better for me, even with building cities early. Dave drew every decent action card in the game, and hardly a turn went by when he wasn't stealing resources or cards or screwing me over in some way, shape, or form. The "fun factor" is quartered when I'm playing an expansion I'm unfamiliar with and have no idea how the various combos work. This was my second least favorite game of the week.
The final game of the night was three hands of Circus Flohcati, in this case my first time out with the Rio Grande edition. And what a surprise to learn that two of the action cards have different rules than in my translated German edition. Dave hates this game, by the way, but I love it and Jodi will play it, so off we went. In the end, the score was something like 165-164-163-161. I lost.
Chuck and I finished up Sands the next morning, then we pulled out his Labors of Herakles design next. Labors is based off of Titan, using a slightly modified board. By the mid-game, I was hating life, mostly because I felt that I was constantly being put in situations where I had no decisions to make. We made a couple of small suggestions for changes to give more choices (using movement cards instead of rolling dice, for example), but I think that there's a pretty cool little game in there and I hope Chuck keeps at it.
By now we were starting to get things put away and getting ready to leave, so we played Scepter of Zavandore (or something, the fonts used in the game were problematic), which Dave compares to St. Petersburg, a game he claims to not like because it's so dry. I'm not even going to try to describe this game other than to say that there are mechanisms that force players to constantly be starved for the resources you need to get lots of VP, and each player has a slightly different starting position. There are some "civ" advances (spells in this game) that are completely useless as far as I can see, and others that are critical. As such, my overall feeling was that every turn you knew you had to spend a certain amount of money for stuff, and the better you sequenced what you bought the better you did. That, and that Rubies are far too powerful in this game - not going after them will guarantee you lose the game. Dave, of course, won handily while I snuck by Chuck by one point for second.
And that, as we say, was that.
It was nice to be playing lighter fare in the evenings, and I'd like to continue that practice in future WBC Wests. In fact, we even considered running a multi-evening RPG next year, although that's very much up in the air. Regardless, I felt much less fatigued over the course of the week than last year after so many full days of wargaming.
Another thing I learned was that in some cases it is definitely better to have a strong sense of how the game works before playing. Empire of the Sun was very difficult to play because we were constantly looking up rules, but that's Mark Herman for you. Gettysburg was very frustrating, largely because the rules assume you know how to play already and this partcular block game is very different from other Columbia titles. However, most of our games were things we'd played before (and I'd taken a stab at a Shifting Sands "delta" document ahead of time, so it was easy to teach). Knowing the games well helps eliminate fatigue, and next year I'll definitely attempt playing games ahead of time, even if solitaire, just to gave the system in my head better. Rules are such an issue for so many wargame companies these days (Columbia, Avalanche, Decision, Gamers, just about everyone but GMT and Multi-man) and fatigue such an issue that homework from at least one of the players is really important.
It was also nice to have the same set of players over the entire week. I think it would be cool to have four next year, as you can choose an opponent for the day and not worry about sequencing to mix up who you play against as we do at the Euro retreats. I almost prefer WBC West to the RCG retreats in that sense, although having eight or more guys playing a wide variety of games over a long weekend is really rewarding in other ways.
Big thanks to Chuck for driving, I know I was about as wiped out as I could be by the time we got to my house, and he still had to drop off Dave and get home, at least a hour in the surprisingly heavy late Sunday night traffic. Once again, I blink my eyes on Tuesday night and it's a week later and I'm back to the grind.
May the Crunk be with you!
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