Silent War, a great solitaire PTO sub operations game, finally came out with Cyberboard and Vassal engines so that you can play on the computer rather than having a game set up for months. While the Cyberboard version is nice and all, it's the ability to easily manipulate the draw cups in Vassal that make it truly playable and fun. If only the ports were on a separate window so you could move subs easily between Freemantle and the map, it would be just about perfect. Especially nice is how fast you can reseed the various ship cups - by hand it takes about 15 minutes, with Vassal it takes about 3. Even replacing ships and TDC markers after a patrol is very fast, only requiring a single button press. A very nice module, and highly recommended (although you will need the combat, torpedo improvement, and War Status tables to play - they are not represented in the game). Kudos to Compass Games for getting this out promptly, hopefully it will improve their sales rather than hurt them - don't steal games, kids!
I'm playing the 7th campaign game, which starts just after the transition to WP2 (right after the Battle of Midway), and runs until you manage to transition to WP3, which can take from six to twelve months. War Period status changes as a result of tonnage sunk in conjunction with number of ships sunk, so just going after the big ones isn't really enough. You begin with 70 some ships sunk and need to get around 200 more down as quickly as possible. A big factor is how lucky you get with improving torpedoes - do it early, and you've got a good shot. If it takes a couple of months, it could be a very long game.
I'll be posting reports as I finish each month's patrols, or four weeks (game turns). Each week tells a slightly different story, which is really the whole point of the game. Adding tension is the need to make certain tonnage goals every few months, although just doing that is not enough to even "win" the game (which in this case turns on how fast you can get to WP3). You can improve your level of victory by not losing subs (which can happen simply by moving from one area to another, running into more ASW than you can handle, or just really bad luck) or by sinking over a million tons by game end.
Here is the report for July, 1942, which went pretty darn well - I had my torpedoes improve fairly early, and am well on my way to making my late-August numbers. So you know, "maru" is Japanese for a merchant ship, and I use it even though some of the freighters are IJN flagged ships such as troop transports or oilers. I call out IJN combat vessels as I sink them (or they sink me!)
Week 1
No war event, Ultra in S Philippine Sea, Java Sea.
Ready/Repair goes well in Brisbane, but many subs, including Gatos, don’t make their sea rolls. Only nine subs will leave port this turn.
Trigger does well in her first attack (indeed, first of the game), sinking two marus for 4k tons and stays on station in the Aleutians. Finback repeats the performance.
Dolphin sinks a 1k ton maru in Empire, chooses not to attack again (only subs with tac values of 4 or more will make second attacks for now).
Flying Fish damages a maru in East China Sea, but high ASW activity forces the skipper to choose the better part of valor and RTB.
Aside from a 5k ton maru damaged in the Carolines (skipper unable to finish it off due to increased destroyer presence on re-attack), no other successes. Only two subs damaged, however, and one of those was an S1 boat.
Week 2
Navy wants a sub blockade of Truk, so all available subs have to move to Truk. Worse, no torp improvements despite five ships sunk last turn, improving the odds by 10%. Ultra in Aleutians and Bonins.
Sub crews make up for last weeks’ miserable performance, readying 75% of the subs in broom boxes and successful repairs on all but one sub (in Dutch Harbor). There will be a lot of subs on station next week, making up for the blockade this turn. As many boats deployed from Pearl alone as from all bases last turn! This does create some congestion, but not enough to create problems.
Pickerel diverts to Truk, sinks a 1k ton maru. Otherwise, Truk is a waste of effort.
Snapper, damaged last turn, returns to Freemantle and discovers extensive damage.
In the Aleutians, Finback bounces a torp off of the hull of a 15k ton maru on a re-attack. All three Gato-class subs stay on station for the second straight turn, although with no successes.
Swordfish, transiting into the Philippine Sea, manages to be spotted, damaged, and turned back. In the South China Sea, Gar runs into mechanical difficulties, enough to cause damage, and turns back to Freemantle as well.
In all, only one 1k ton ship sunk the entire week, but with so many boats out the hunting should be much better next week. However, to avoid being sacked the fleet will need to average 13k tons per week between now and the end of August! A daunting task, especially if more war events occur.
Week 3
Excellent news! No war events, and new torps have been installed on all boats (even those at sea!) Ultra gets wind of activity in the Carolines and the North Philippine Sea, which sadly have no patrolling ships, although several are close enough to move in and take advantage of the improvements in torpedoes. With a little luck, the chances of meeting the August goals have improved dramatically.
While the dockside efforts go well in Alaska and Australia, they don’t go so well in Pearl, and only about 40% of repairs are successful, although Dutch Harbor makes progress on all boats in drydock. Twelve boats will be heading out this turn, nine from Australia alone.
To start the week off with a bang, Greenling sinks a 5k ton maru in Empire Pacific with minimal interference from ASW. Tellingly, the torp that sinks the maru would have only damaged her had there been no improvements!
In the Aleutians, things go less well. The trio of Gato subs manage to hit targets repeatedly, but the torps are still mostly bad (obviously left over from the previous batch), and Trigger is damaged. Finback does sink a 3k tonner, and all three stay on station for a fourth week!
Of the four S1 boats in the Kuriles, all come home with damage, either from ASW activity or from the frigid temperatures. However, one 5k tonner was sunk, a fantastic accomplishment for an S1, even with less than awful torpedoes. The two boats out of Dutch Harbor sail to the Kuriles to replace them, as the Gatos are doing such a great job close in to base, although they are sure to head for warmer climes when their supplies finally run out.
A pair of Gatos on patrol in the Solomons head to the Carolines to take advantage of the Ultra intercepts. Silversides doinks a torp off of the side of a 15k ton maru, but heavy response by ASW makes a second shot much more difficult, and the boat heads home to Brisbane. Haddock runs into a small convoy with a very ambitious destroyer captain, and breaks off the attack after a single attempt.
A trio of S3 boats in the Gilberts, Bismarck Sea, and Solomons don’t manage to get any hits, but they do both stay on station. Another S1 stays on in the Bismarck Sea. At least they aren’t running out of torps.
While most areas have been less than spectacular in terms of results, Salmon manages to sink two marus totaling 8k tons in the Banda Sea, getting away clean! Skipjack sinks a 3k tonner in the same area and stays on station. In all, a turn that starts and ends well, with 21k tons sunk this turn, well above the 13k ton per turn requirement if I’m to stay in charge of the sub fleet. Many boats stayed on station, which will minimize the cost in so few boats coming out to sea this turn (other than Freemantle). In all, 33 boats are at sea, next week should be a good one. With only 42k tons to sink in five weeks, the number per week has dropped to less than 9k tons per week. I am hopeful that I can hit my numbers in two weeks instead of five.
Week 4
No war event, Ultra in the Bonins and Aleutians, the latter with the three “old men” Gatos that have been patrolling there since the start of the month, although Trigger decides it’s best to head home for repairs at Pearl (fortunately, the damage turns out to be minimal). It’s unlikely there will be any more torp improvement rolls for a while, although I always look forward to radar showing up in ’43.
Another poor performance week at the docks, although to be fair many of the ships are at sea. Only ten ships will set sail this turn, none from Dutch Harbor. Only a couple of ships in drydock saw progress, even at the excellent facilities at Pearl. Good thing there are a lot of boats, 31, already at sea and ready to sink ships!
In the north, a damaged Trigger heads for home, while Finback, presented with a smorgasbord of targets, manages to be held down and forced to head for home. Grunion, the last of the three Gatos to start in that area, fails to hit anything, but does stay on patrol for another week. The two S1 boats in the Kuriles head for the Ultra’d Aleutians, but fail to make any successful attacks, although one does stay on station with Grunion. No boats sail from Dutch Harbor this turn, so the North will be quiet.
Nautilus, spotted in the Bonins, decides to move to the North Pacific where there is a much smaller chance of encountering ships, but also a much smaller chance of being sunk. She does find a patrol, but fails to sink anything, but stays on station. Gudgeon, in the Marianas, comes across a single maru with heavy escorts, and manages to barely escape with damage.
Haddock gets the first kill of the week in the Carolines, and it’s a biggie – a 9k ton cruiser, making quota for the entire month with one kill. Had the cruiser sunk in the initial attack, it would have been tempting to shoot for a Super Skipper, but that will almost certainly have to wait until the torps improve again, unlikely in the next year. Pompano sinks a 5k tonner in the same area, but hoping for an extra target she is spotted, damaged, and sent home. En route, she is engaged and damaged a second time, barely holding together as she heads for Pearl Harbor.
Flying Fish sinks a 3k tonner in the Philippine Sea, but when aiming for a 15k ton ship comes across a diligent escort and is forced back to base heavily damaged. Sargo sinks a 2k tonner in Banda Sea, but is damaged and sent to Freemantle. In the N Philippine Sea, Drum sinks two marus for a total of 4k tons.
All in all, a pretty good turn with 23k tons sunk, a new record for the week. However, several ships were damaged, reflecting the skippers’ willingness to take on second attacks with the improved torpedoes. Many ships are returning to port in the next week, but many more (including a handful of reinforcements) are setting sail as well. With any luck, we will meet our August goals by mid month.
Monday, August 28, 2006
SouTu Session, 8/22/06
Tim, Dave, Jay, George, and myself joined Mike at his place for an evening of gaming.
On this night, our "summoner" game was Drive, one of the bazillion Simply Fun titles that Mike has. This is a simple set collecting game that has some nice screwage elements that raise it above similar titles. I don't know that it makes a great multi-player game, but I hear it's great with two. Think Lost Cities with easy scoring, and I think you've got it. After one round, I was tied for most points with someone else, perhaps George.
By this time, we had six people ready to game, so out came Elfenland, one of the better six-player games out there. We played with the RGG rules, which means you draw back up to eight cards and you have to get back to your home city (or as close to it) for a tiebreaker, which always seems to be required.
I did not have a single turn when someone wasn't harshing my buzz in a serious way, preventing me from collecting more than five markers a turn. Jay got off to an awesome start, and by the end of the third turn I think that he and Mike were both pretty close to a win with 17 markers each. Dave was off in a corner by himself, with six markers to get, and I found myself deciding to skip the one "in and out" space in the Western mountains in favor of running through the desert to hope that 19 markers was enough. In fact, turn four was the only turn no one messed with me, and I ended up one space away from my home. Sadly, that was enough to take fourth in a game where only one person got 20 markers (Dave, who had no one messing with him and the right cards/tokens at the right time). Jay got 19 and got home, while George and I both were one space away, but George had one card left while I'd had to use them all.
I really like the game (hate Elfenroads, hate Elfengold), but this one left me flat, perhaps because I was constantly getting screwed by tokens placed on the path I'd chosen that I couldn't use. The game is a balance of leveraging other's tokens and having your own little part of the board, but some parts of the board (like the desert) are so unforgiving that if you don't have the right cards you simply won't gain any traction (or markers). Maybe it was just a bad night for me.
George headed home after this game, so we pulled out Zing!, the Simply Fun version of Sieben Siegel, a group favorite. In an apparent compensation for my earlier trouncing in Elfenlands, I had a nearly perfect game, with only one trick taken I didn't want for a total of -3 points after five hands, and even that one was a last-trick fluke. Of course, having a good hand helps, but knowing what to play when will beat anything but a really messed up distribution in the deal. With five players, it is a lot easier to dump off cards you don't want, but it is also easier to be surprised by an early round void when you thought that 15 was a sure bet. Definitely one of the best trick-taking games out there, even if I'm not so fond of the color registration on two of the suits that are difficult to discriminate between.
Thanks for hosting, Mike, despite your earlier chiropractic crisis!
On this night, our "summoner" game was Drive, one of the bazillion Simply Fun titles that Mike has. This is a simple set collecting game that has some nice screwage elements that raise it above similar titles. I don't know that it makes a great multi-player game, but I hear it's great with two. Think Lost Cities with easy scoring, and I think you've got it. After one round, I was tied for most points with someone else, perhaps George.
By this time, we had six people ready to game, so out came Elfenland, one of the better six-player games out there. We played with the RGG rules, which means you draw back up to eight cards and you have to get back to your home city (or as close to it) for a tiebreaker, which always seems to be required.
I did not have a single turn when someone wasn't harshing my buzz in a serious way, preventing me from collecting more than five markers a turn. Jay got off to an awesome start, and by the end of the third turn I think that he and Mike were both pretty close to a win with 17 markers each. Dave was off in a corner by himself, with six markers to get, and I found myself deciding to skip the one "in and out" space in the Western mountains in favor of running through the desert to hope that 19 markers was enough. In fact, turn four was the only turn no one messed with me, and I ended up one space away from my home. Sadly, that was enough to take fourth in a game where only one person got 20 markers (Dave, who had no one messing with him and the right cards/tokens at the right time). Jay got 19 and got home, while George and I both were one space away, but George had one card left while I'd had to use them all.
I really like the game (hate Elfenroads, hate Elfengold), but this one left me flat, perhaps because I was constantly getting screwed by tokens placed on the path I'd chosen that I couldn't use. The game is a balance of leveraging other's tokens and having your own little part of the board, but some parts of the board (like the desert) are so unforgiving that if you don't have the right cards you simply won't gain any traction (or markers). Maybe it was just a bad night for me.
George headed home after this game, so we pulled out Zing!, the Simply Fun version of Sieben Siegel, a group favorite. In an apparent compensation for my earlier trouncing in Elfenlands, I had a nearly perfect game, with only one trick taken I didn't want for a total of -3 points after five hands, and even that one was a last-trick fluke. Of course, having a good hand helps, but knowing what to play when will beat anything but a really messed up distribution in the deal. With five players, it is a lot easier to dump off cards you don't want, but it is also easier to be surprised by an early round void when you thought that 15 was a sure bet. Definitely one of the best trick-taking games out there, even if I'm not so fond of the color registration on two of the suits that are difficult to discriminate between.
Thanks for hosting, Mike, despite your earlier chiropractic crisis!
CenTuesday session, 8/15/06
Wow, an entry that's two whole weeks late. It's been a busy time for my family, so while I've been doing some gaming I haven't been doing reporting too well.
Matt was our host, and Dave and Peter joined us for a couple of games. First up was King of the Beasts, a Knizia title from a small company I'd never heard of that sounded like they focused on educational titles (although King was not, by any stretch, educational in the traditional sense). Peter explained the game, which sounded a bit like rummy, and we did things that seemed interesting and then someone won. Clearly a game I want to play again, although it was more a case of it being a quickie "summoning" game than anything else.
Next up was the meat of the evening, our first playthrough of Tempus. This new Martin Wallace title is the center of the latest "buzz blowback" controversy on the 'Geek, with one faction claiming that it is simply an area control game instead of a "civ-building" game, and that it's not up to Wallace's standard. I felt it was a pretty accessible game, regardless of what you call it, and liked it apart from a few rules screwups that I take no responsibility for as *I* played with the right rules! ;-)
In a nutshell, you are trying to control part of an island. Every turn you get a set number of actions, which include moving, attacking, reinforcing, building cities, and drawing cards (that help with all of the above activities). In addition, and this is where the "civ-building" element comes in, different actions can be improved over a turn. For example, you can stack more units in a space on one of the early turns, or have more babies, or move further with a unit. There are little "mini-races" every turn where you want to control certain types of terrain to get to move up one additional space (and get one additional improved action).
The cards (which are called "Bright Ideas") are used in combat, in determining who gets to move ahead in the civ-building race, and also allow bonus or improved actions (Medicine lets you have extra babies). The cards are all dual purpose, usable for the special actions or the terrain background (combat and progress), so they tend to be useful regardless of what you draw.
The board is made up of hexagonal tiles, five hexes to a side, that can be configured and scaled according to the number of players. It is possible to make "lakes" that can be used for movement early in the game, but not for combat. We kept forgetting this, but caught it before we made any real errors. This was not the case with city placement, as Matt managed to place a city next to an existing city, a rule that I had explained but missed when he placed the city. As a result, a couple of cities got placed next to each other.
The other rule we missed, although I must have told Peter at least six times how you scored VP, was that at game end you get a point for each non-mountain *hex* you have units in, not a point for each unit (as you do when figuring progress). Dave didn't get this rule until the very last turn, however, and as such it was a bit hard to evaluate the game, but I'll give it a shot anyway.
The game is definitely playable within a couple of hours, a nice change from most of Wallace's titles, certainly playable on a weeknight. The modular board can be built to give a lot of different looks (lots of lakes for fast movement in the early game, or a monolithic continent or something inbetween). The rules are, despite the problems we had, pretty clean for a Wallace game, most of the info you need (but not all) is on the player sheets. Play moves pretty briskly, at least it did in our game.
What is a bit unnerving (and this is not necessarily a bad thing) is that the game has a pretty small granularity. By this I mean that you do one seemingly small thing at a time, then someone else does the same, and around the table you go. Even that one small thing can take a couple of rounds to set up. For example, you can only put babies on grassland spaces you have units on, and then only one per space. As such, you need to move the units to grassland spaces if they aren't there already, then have the babies. Combat is not movement, so you have to move into position before you attack an enemy stack or city. While movement does improve over the game (on the first turn, a movement action allows one unit to move one space; by the end of the game you may get to move three units five spaces each), this is not a game where you go sweeping across the board a la History of the World. On the plus side, downtime is not much of an issue.
Now that at least some of us have played, I'm looking forward to a second game to see if this is, indeed, the overhyped game that so many say it is, or just a gem tarnished by the usual overblown expectations.
Peter had to leave after this game, so Matt and Dave and I played what may have been my last game of Wyatt Earp. We played four hands total, and the last hand saw so much money on so many outlaws to start the round that it devolved into a game of "Who Can Draw The Right Cards?" I am a Gin Rummy player from way back (I was playing my parents for money when I was 10), so I think I know how to play a rummy variant, but this game drives me nuts. I was better at getting cards on the table before Dave put his entire hand on the table (a favorite tactic of his), but the game is leaving me cold lately. Perhaps it's the Wild West theme, perhaps my least favorite, but I think it's more the high luck combined with the relatively long playing time in the past couple of sessions (45 minutes). Maybe it's better with two, I dunno. I just know that I'm glad we're getting some other "summoner" games to play while waiting for others to show up.
Thanks to Matt for hosting!
Matt was our host, and Dave and Peter joined us for a couple of games. First up was King of the Beasts, a Knizia title from a small company I'd never heard of that sounded like they focused on educational titles (although King was not, by any stretch, educational in the traditional sense). Peter explained the game, which sounded a bit like rummy, and we did things that seemed interesting and then someone won. Clearly a game I want to play again, although it was more a case of it being a quickie "summoning" game than anything else.
Next up was the meat of the evening, our first playthrough of Tempus. This new Martin Wallace title is the center of the latest "buzz blowback" controversy on the 'Geek, with one faction claiming that it is simply an area control game instead of a "civ-building" game, and that it's not up to Wallace's standard. I felt it was a pretty accessible game, regardless of what you call it, and liked it apart from a few rules screwups that I take no responsibility for as *I* played with the right rules! ;-)
In a nutshell, you are trying to control part of an island. Every turn you get a set number of actions, which include moving, attacking, reinforcing, building cities, and drawing cards (that help with all of the above activities). In addition, and this is where the "civ-building" element comes in, different actions can be improved over a turn. For example, you can stack more units in a space on one of the early turns, or have more babies, or move further with a unit. There are little "mini-races" every turn where you want to control certain types of terrain to get to move up one additional space (and get one additional improved action).
The cards (which are called "Bright Ideas") are used in combat, in determining who gets to move ahead in the civ-building race, and also allow bonus or improved actions (Medicine lets you have extra babies). The cards are all dual purpose, usable for the special actions or the terrain background (combat and progress), so they tend to be useful regardless of what you draw.
The board is made up of hexagonal tiles, five hexes to a side, that can be configured and scaled according to the number of players. It is possible to make "lakes" that can be used for movement early in the game, but not for combat. We kept forgetting this, but caught it before we made any real errors. This was not the case with city placement, as Matt managed to place a city next to an existing city, a rule that I had explained but missed when he placed the city. As a result, a couple of cities got placed next to each other.
The other rule we missed, although I must have told Peter at least six times how you scored VP, was that at game end you get a point for each non-mountain *hex* you have units in, not a point for each unit (as you do when figuring progress). Dave didn't get this rule until the very last turn, however, and as such it was a bit hard to evaluate the game, but I'll give it a shot anyway.
The game is definitely playable within a couple of hours, a nice change from most of Wallace's titles, certainly playable on a weeknight. The modular board can be built to give a lot of different looks (lots of lakes for fast movement in the early game, or a monolithic continent or something inbetween). The rules are, despite the problems we had, pretty clean for a Wallace game, most of the info you need (but not all) is on the player sheets. Play moves pretty briskly, at least it did in our game.
What is a bit unnerving (and this is not necessarily a bad thing) is that the game has a pretty small granularity. By this I mean that you do one seemingly small thing at a time, then someone else does the same, and around the table you go. Even that one small thing can take a couple of rounds to set up. For example, you can only put babies on grassland spaces you have units on, and then only one per space. As such, you need to move the units to grassland spaces if they aren't there already, then have the babies. Combat is not movement, so you have to move into position before you attack an enemy stack or city. While movement does improve over the game (on the first turn, a movement action allows one unit to move one space; by the end of the game you may get to move three units five spaces each), this is not a game where you go sweeping across the board a la History of the World. On the plus side, downtime is not much of an issue.
Now that at least some of us have played, I'm looking forward to a second game to see if this is, indeed, the overhyped game that so many say it is, or just a gem tarnished by the usual overblown expectations.
Peter had to leave after this game, so Matt and Dave and I played what may have been my last game of Wyatt Earp. We played four hands total, and the last hand saw so much money on so many outlaws to start the round that it devolved into a game of "Who Can Draw The Right Cards?" I am a Gin Rummy player from way back (I was playing my parents for money when I was 10), so I think I know how to play a rummy variant, but this game drives me nuts. I was better at getting cards on the table before Dave put his entire hand on the table (a favorite tactic of his), but the game is leaving me cold lately. Perhaps it's the Wild West theme, perhaps my least favorite, but I think it's more the high luck combined with the relatively long playing time in the past couple of sessions (45 minutes). Maybe it's better with two, I dunno. I just know that I'm glad we're getting some other "summoner" games to play while waiting for others to show up.
Thanks to Matt for hosting!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Out Of The Box
Just got in an order for some new games, here are my initial impressions before any actual play -
Tempus - New Wallace title. Certainly the best laid out rules I've seen yet in a Wallace game, they are usually difficult to parse, but now that Cafe Games has the US distributorship and the box has their logo, I expect better rules to be the norm. The game looks to be a very light wargame mixed with euro elements, and a very light civ-building element that doubles as a game timer and secondary goal as being the most advanced gives you a bit of an advantage for the next turn. A reconfigurable map (without any color registration issues! Yay!) and multi-use cards add up to a very positive first impression, assuming that play time is no longer than 2 hours after familiarization. Hoping to get this in tonight.
Blue Moon City - A fairly simple game made interesting by cards that can be used as actions as well as "money". Like Around the World in 80 Days, a ridiculously oversized box for what's in it. Hope to play this evening at RCG, if Tempus doesn't come out. The Mobius-style art on the city tiles gives a lot of flavor, although I'm getting tired of the CCG-style art on the cards, along with the overly-obvious illustration credits. I expect the theme to be pretty thin on this one, as I'm not a huge fan of the Blue Moon card game.
Battles of the Third Age - WotR expansion/mini-games. Typically great components from FFG's Euro printings, although the reinforcement chits may require some trimming to get the dog ears off (and there are a lot of them). With what is effectively three games, it took a surprising amount of work to figure out which parts went with which game, a bit annoying when punching and bagging. From all reports, this is a very good expansion.
Quest of the Dragonlords - Worth buying if for no other reason than I finally have a game with worse rules than Return of the Heroes. This is a second edition printing, too. The rules have entire pages of "flavor" stories between sections, and a layout that gives you rules for movement/combat in no less than three different sections of the book. Punched component quality is abysmal, something I'd expect from a Decision Games release - thin cardboard counters that are supposed to conceal information, but that will require trimming to get the extra cardboard dog ears off. Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the order, although play may be worthwhile - the use of quests (which do have quite a bit of luck associated with them - you roll to see if the gods are amused, angry, or on the phone and that affects what happens in the quest), a "cylindrical" map, and a lot of RPG elements such as spells, items, etc, may save it. I will definitely attempt a solo game or two before inflicting this on the group. Did I mention that I was expecting a bit more from a second edition?
Arkham Horror Pharoah expansion - Like we'll ever play this, but I'm a nut for Egyptology. I expect that we'd play this with the "permanent exhibit" rules (where the cards are added into the existing game rather than replace them, as in the "visiting exhibit" rules). Not quite sure on the logic of "permanent" vs "visiting", but a fine point at best. ArkHor is a fine three-four player game, although a bit long. Perfect for those WBC West evenings when a little horror would round out the evening nicely.
Saboteur - Great filler card game that takes the best part of Shadows Over Camelot (the traitor) and makes an entire game out of it, and does it in about 20 minutes. May replace Wyatt Earp as our "summoning" game of choice, as it will take up to 8 players!
Battlestations expansions - Space Opera RPG with tactical ship combat elements, except that the players actually run stations on the ship. A definite option for WBC West evenings, and very little prep time required for the DM. Plus, you can do player vs player actions, making it more of a wargame (lite, but a wargame) if you want. A definite plus - all components from the expansions fit in the original box quite nicely, although it outweighs Descent at this point and there is no more room for anything other than dice.
Tempus - New Wallace title. Certainly the best laid out rules I've seen yet in a Wallace game, they are usually difficult to parse, but now that Cafe Games has the US distributorship and the box has their logo, I expect better rules to be the norm. The game looks to be a very light wargame mixed with euro elements, and a very light civ-building element that doubles as a game timer and secondary goal as being the most advanced gives you a bit of an advantage for the next turn. A reconfigurable map (without any color registration issues! Yay!) and multi-use cards add up to a very positive first impression, assuming that play time is no longer than 2 hours after familiarization. Hoping to get this in tonight.
Blue Moon City - A fairly simple game made interesting by cards that can be used as actions as well as "money". Like Around the World in 80 Days, a ridiculously oversized box for what's in it. Hope to play this evening at RCG, if Tempus doesn't come out. The Mobius-style art on the city tiles gives a lot of flavor, although I'm getting tired of the CCG-style art on the cards, along with the overly-obvious illustration credits. I expect the theme to be pretty thin on this one, as I'm not a huge fan of the Blue Moon card game.
Battles of the Third Age - WotR expansion/mini-games. Typically great components from FFG's Euro printings, although the reinforcement chits may require some trimming to get the dog ears off (and there are a lot of them). With what is effectively three games, it took a surprising amount of work to figure out which parts went with which game, a bit annoying when punching and bagging. From all reports, this is a very good expansion.
Quest of the Dragonlords - Worth buying if for no other reason than I finally have a game with worse rules than Return of the Heroes. This is a second edition printing, too. The rules have entire pages of "flavor" stories between sections, and a layout that gives you rules for movement/combat in no less than three different sections of the book. Punched component quality is abysmal, something I'd expect from a Decision Games release - thin cardboard counters that are supposed to conceal information, but that will require trimming to get the extra cardboard dog ears off. Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the order, although play may be worthwhile - the use of quests (which do have quite a bit of luck associated with them - you roll to see if the gods are amused, angry, or on the phone and that affects what happens in the quest), a "cylindrical" map, and a lot of RPG elements such as spells, items, etc, may save it. I will definitely attempt a solo game or two before inflicting this on the group. Did I mention that I was expecting a bit more from a second edition?
Arkham Horror Pharoah expansion - Like we'll ever play this, but I'm a nut for Egyptology. I expect that we'd play this with the "permanent exhibit" rules (where the cards are added into the existing game rather than replace them, as in the "visiting exhibit" rules). Not quite sure on the logic of "permanent" vs "visiting", but a fine point at best. ArkHor is a fine three-four player game, although a bit long. Perfect for those WBC West evenings when a little horror would round out the evening nicely.
Saboteur - Great filler card game that takes the best part of Shadows Over Camelot (the traitor) and makes an entire game out of it, and does it in about 20 minutes. May replace Wyatt Earp as our "summoning" game of choice, as it will take up to 8 players!
Battlestations expansions - Space Opera RPG with tactical ship combat elements, except that the players actually run stations on the ship. A definite option for WBC West evenings, and very little prep time required for the DM. Plus, you can do player vs player actions, making it more of a wargame (lite, but a wargame) if you want. A definite plus - all components from the expansions fit in the original box quite nicely, although it outweighs Descent at this point and there is no more room for anything other than dice.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
1825 Unit 1
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.
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.
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