November 2002 Archives

From now on, there's a Finnish translation of Canal Grande available at my web site. It includes the four player rules. I'm looking forward to trying Canal Grande this weekend.

So, today I had the first opportunity to try the new Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers. There are quite a few changes from the basic game, but it's still definitely the same game.

Cities have turned in to forests. They are quite similar, however, there's an interesting incentive to close other people's forests. If a forest tile has a gold nugget on it, the player who completes the forest, gets a bonus tile, ie. an extra turn. These bonus tiles feature few special tiles, which give some tactical advantages.

Roads are now rivers. Here big improvements has been made. I feel there are more closing tiles for the rivers, they score more points and there are huts: special meeples that score points for the whole river network. They can bring lots of points in the end.

Fields are different, too. Instead of counting cities, fields contain animals. Mammoths and deers give points, but tigers kill deers. So you can make your opponents fields weaker, if you want... That's pretty nice.

Cloisters have been removed completely. They were a bit of a lucky thing, I suppose. I think the new game is more interesting than the old one. There are more scoring opportunities and more interesting tactics to pursue. Still, it's fairly simple and easy to play.

I recommend trying it. However, while I prefer playing it over the old Carcassonne, I don't feel a great urge to buy it. It's too similar to the old Carcassonne I'm so bored with. I think I'd rather own and play Africa...

I played two games at the Brettspielwelt today. First I tried the new Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers. It was a two-player game, and I won. See the separate entry for a preview of the game.

The second game was, yet again, Puerto Rico. Another victory! This time it was close: 31-31-28 - I only won by a margin of two doubloons. My game was good - my opponents had large buildings (and the guy who tied me, had Guild Hall that must've been worth at least six points) while I had none and I still won. I had a great start: sugar, that paid tobacco, that paid coffee, that paid the Harbour.

I've been doing lots of stuff lately, just haven't had time to document it here. I've played T&E at BGG, bought games, written about games and so on...

I lost my first game of Tigris & Euphrates at the BoardGameGeek. I had no chance, as I had short supply of red tiles and did some really bad moves. I have new games running, including one for the members of Pelilista, hopefully I'll do better.

I'm going to pick my share of the latest Adam Spielt order today: I got Tichu and two packs of Canal Grande. I'm especially curious about Canal Grande - after all, my experiences of Adlung makes me think they're a bit like Cheapass: the games are cheap and have promise but don't quite deliver. Well, we'll see, I had the courage to buy two packs at once so I can try the 4-player version too.

More Tichu-related stuff: I wrote a Finnish translation of the rules. I also wrote an article about the board game hobby, a sort of primer for people who don't know anything about the board games. That too is in Finnish.

And that's just about all this time.

Played some more Puerto Rico at the Brettspielwelt. This time I used the English patch. I haven't installed it before because I don't need it for the language, I can read German well enough. However, that's not the only good thing: now I see how many empty plantation spaces there are, large buildings actually take two spots, I can see how many buildings are left, current player is shown more clearly... All in all, it's a great patch, especially if you can't read German.

What's best, I won the first game! I won today my first ever game of Puerto Rico at BSW, and now I go and win again! Combination of shipping and building proved victorious. The second game wasn't as good: I placed second. I've been recently using a money-heavy strategy, building factories and so on. This game suffered from a lack of direction... I finally became a shipper and had a Wharf, too. I lost by five points to a player who shipped almost as much as I did and built more buildings. Shows you can't do well if you don't get lots of money!

But, two wins today, I'm still more than pleased.

I've started to play Tigris & Euphrates at the Boardgamegeek. The interface is pretty ok - if you have decent Internet connection. It is quite heavy, so modem users might want to skip this one. However, if you're not afraid of slow loading, feel free to challenge me to games. My Geek id is msaari.

I've started a two-player game and will no doubt report here how it goes.

I rule! Finally I was able to win my first ever game of Puerto Rico in the Brettspielwelt! It took many tries, but I did it!

My opponents weren't total novices, either. One of the had played over 300 games, while other had played about 10 or so. It showed - the first guy was second, only one point behind me (scores were 50-49-37), while the second guy made several smaller or bigger mistakes during the game (buying Construction Hut late in the game, taking fourth quarry, choosing Builder on the last turn when he really should've taken Captain and so on).

I'm ecstatic! I played Factory tactic, got Hacienda as my first build and started building my empire from there. I got up four goods (I had Tobacco equipment for a long time, but just didn't have men to produce) so my Factory produced well. I also got Harbour, which was essential for my victory. I should've bought Warehouse earlier - now I got the Large Warehouse on the second to last turn. I had the Guild Hall, and all production buildings except Small Sugar Mill (I took a Hospice on the last turn, could've taken Sugar Mill too - same amount of points anyway).

Fun game, indeed! Exciting and the result was very pleasing.

I just played two games of Carcassonne with the Expansion at the Brettspielwelt. I won the first game and came second in the second. Nice.

But these games made me agree with some comments I've heard: the expansion tiles are good and bring welcome variety to the game, but throw away the cathedral tiles. Both of the games were won pretty much because of the cathedrals (in the first game, I was the only one to farm and those points would've secured the victory for me without the city; the second game was a combination of farmers - I was tied there, cloisters - which I had none and the big, 54-point city).

The cathedrals add to the significance of the cities too much. They cause huge swings in the scores, which adds more significance on the luck aspect of the game. Carcassonne is a light and lucky game by nature, I'm not denying that, I'm just saying before the cathedrals game, it was a bit less lucky and I preferred it that way. So, if I'm ever going to buy the Expansion (unlikely), first thing I'll do is to hide away the cathedral tiles.

And besides, these days I prefer Africa when a lighter game is desired.

Greg Aleknevicus was apparently satisfied enough with my article and will publish it in The Games Journal. Way cool... Watch out for the January issue!

Finally, after what must've been years of pondering, I finally managed to write an article and submit it for The Games Journal. It's basically an originally Finnish article from my website, but it also appeared here. I'm excited to see if my article appears in the journal.

To make this a bit more game-related, I must mention a humiliating loss I suffered Wednesday night when playing Puerto Rico in the Brettspielwelt (I don't even bother to link them, Puerto Rico must've linked dozen times in the blog already). I did win a hand of Lost Cities, which was nice.

I played Bluff (aka Call the Bluff aka Liar's Dice aka Perudo) for the first time last Sunday and thought it to be a game that I would want to own. However, instead of paying lots of money (at least over 20 euros) for the game that consists of some dice, cups and a board, I could create my own set cheaper.

Because I'm a semi-perfectionist, I bought new dice for the game. 30 identical, small white plastic dice cost me 9 euros. I could've probably scrounged my other games for the required amount of dice, but then again the result would have been a mess of different-looking dice and lots of games without dice. Then I printed the rules. I don't think I'll need a board, people should be able to remember what the current bid is. If there's a need, drawing up a simple board shouldn't be too complicated a task.

Now all I need is some cups. I believe some paper coffee cups will do the trick for me - I could buy some nice plastic cups too, if I found cheap and non-transparent ones somewhere. I haven't found them yet, and I'm happy with paper cups. They might actually be slightly less noisy than the original plastic cups. Also, they are very cost effective - for one euro I get all the cups I need and some replacements too (or perhaps potential for accommodating extra players).

First of all, there's been some discussion about Africa on the Spielfrieks list. The best thing the discussion brought up is this analysis by Peter Wiles (through Defective Yeti Yahoo! groups filter). Read and be amazed, how well Doktor Knizia has balanced the game.

Puerto Rico has been another hot topic lately, with the new dedicated Yahoo! group Spielfrieks Puerto Rico. I've been reading the strategy discussion with much interest. I need to play more!

Which is, I think, a definite sign of a master's work. There's no doubt Puerto Rico is A Very Good Game.

Seurapelikerho met last Sunday. Not many people came, but we had a good time nonetheless. I didn't play many games, but those few were good games I had wanted to play, so I'm satisfied.

I started with Villa Paletti, introducing it to the club. We had a good time playing it and the game actually drew some interested spectators who finally witnessed Teemu collapsing the tower. Manu, a friend of mine who studies architecture, won.

I'm working to score as many games of Puerto Rico this year as possible, and therefore played a game of it. My opponents were Ville, Olli and Manu. Manu was a newbie and Olli wasn't that experienced either. The game was quite exciting. I played Factory strategy and managed to get Factory and production of all the five crops. Olli played somewhat similar building-oriented strategy while Ville was the penniless shipper of corn. Manu didn't really play any strategy, and therefore lost the game. No surprises there, Puerto Rico isn't the most newbie-friendly game. Rest of us had a tough competition, however. Ville got 52 points, most of them from shipping. I got 16 from shipping and 38 from buildings while Olli had 14 from shipping and 40 from buildings. I had about 12 dubloons and some goods, while Olli had only three barrels, so I won.

Call of cups had been heard for the first time in Seurapelikerho earlier that night, when Bluff was introduced. I was busy playing Puerto Rico, so I requested it again. As our count had gone down to six, we all sat down to rattle the dice. In the first game, Olli lost all five dice on the first round, while I was able to struggle my way to the final two. Atro and I both had one die, and from that difficult situation, I was able to win. In the next game, however, Atro and I were the first ones to lose all our dice. That's how it goes. My rating for Bluff is solid 8.

Then it was almost the time for me to go home, so I requested something short. Take It Easy, another new game, was ideal. All seven of us (Kimmo had joined us meanwhile) could play and still the game was over in 16 minutes. It isn't the most interesting or interactive game, but any meaningful game that can be played in 16 minutes with seven players is good in my books. When the points were reckoned, I was third, which was nice. I'll rate Take It Easy as 8 with lots of people and less with smaller crowds.

So, another great afternoon spent playing games in good company. The crowd was quite small this time, but I had a good time.

I played some games just minutes ago at the Brettspielwelt. First, two games of Web of Power - lost first trying to get advisors in a three-player game and then won the second game (which was very tough and exciting match) using only cloisters.

Then, I played a game of Puerto Rico. Yet again, my opponents were tough and it was no surprise when it turned out I lost. I tried a Factory strategy, but so did pretty much everybody else and they did it better. Nice game, but failure nonetheless. I had enough money, but I should've shipped more, I think.

Remember how I was lamenting how I never placed any better than second when playing Puerto Rico in Brettspielwelt?

Now I know why. I just checked, and for example, this guy shlimazl, who won me, has played over 500 games of Puerto Rico at the BSW and has won over 50% of them. Nice...

I happened to run into Villa Paletti when I was shopping some birthday gifts for my girlfriend. I resisted the temptation until the next day, when I went and bought it. I was finally able to play it for real in the HelCon. We played some two-player games with Tommy on the day before, but to really shine the game needs four players. Three might work, but I didn't try as I had no shortage of players.

The rules are simple enough and familiar from other similar games. You take blocks from the lower levels and add them to the top. In this case, each player has an own colour and scores points for the pillars of that colour on the top level. Who has the most points, gets to keep the seal. Who has seal when the tower falls down, wins, unless it was them who crashed the tower, in which case the winner is the player who had the seal earlier.

It's a very funny game, as one might guess. In this game the term "turn angst" gets new dimensions. I played several games, most of which took only 10-15 minutes before the tower fell, but this one game was an exception that proved how good Villa Paletti can be. It took 45 minutes! In the end, I was literally afraid of my turns. Lots of looking around, then a swift removal of a pillar - good, the tower didn't fall, now can I place this back on the top level? That's scary stuff!

There's definitely some strategic dimension in this game. At least in our marathon game we (by accident) managed to jam three yellow pillars on the bottom level. Too bad for yellow... Well, he was able to get one of them back, so about half the game the tower stood on two (2) small yellow pillars. We did get the highest level on it, too.

In the end, of course, the strategic point becomes moot, as nobody really cares about who won. But making the big, better-scoring pillars support the structure makes it easier for your opponent to collapse the tower when they go hunting for them... And that's what I call fun.

So, the game's really entertaining and easy, so I can see why it received the Spiel des Jahres award. Great for families, good for parties (hint: little alcohol and thus shaky hands doesn't probably make the game any less fun) and at least ok for serious gamers as a "relaxing" filler.

As long as I've had Ricochet Robot, I've thought about how neat it would be to have a computer program that would solve those puzzles that seem a bit too hard for the humans to solve.

Well, now I have one.

I've been studying Data Structures and Algorithmics lately in the University and I've learned the ways to do such things, so I decided to code the program. I started yesterday, coded for few hours and ended up with something that quite didn't work: a recursive solution. As Ricochet Robot puzzles have no real end, you can keep on moving the robots as long as you wish, this kind of depth-first solution is no good. I thought I had a better solution to the problem, but obviously I had forgotten it.

Well, today it came back to me as I was walking to my Algorithmics exercises, I sketched it in pseudocode while waiting for the exercises to begin and now it works. Well, the program is a bit limited as it only supports one board configuration right now, but that's just fine detail. The main thing is that it counts each and every move, each level at a time until it finds a solution.

There's one problem - it's a bit slow. Even though it works approximately 10.000 solutions per second, it's still very slow, because there are literally thousands of moves. Just watch how the amount of moves piles up on each level: 15 -> 255 -> 3503 -> 40735 -> 403055 - and that's all I know, because the program's still counting... Oops, now it stopped, as it ran out of memory. All this, and it was only counting solutions five moves deep!

So, there's still work to do before computer beats humans in Ricochet Robot, but maybe if I just had more powerful computer (perhaps I should try this one on the University unix machines ... or maybe not).

New Games Journal is out, go check it out. A thin issue this time, but good articles. There's one from Greg Aleknevicus about specialiation and diversity in games and another about gamer's games, a short Essen report, letters and a review of Liar's Dice. Short, but good nonetheless.

1. Die Macher (1)
2. Web of Power (2)
3. Die Händler (-)
4. Princes of Florence (4)
5. Through the Desert (-)
6. Villa Paletti (-)
7. Tigris & Euphrates (7)
8. Puerto Rico (3)
9. Africa (5)
10. Go (8)

As some of my most faithful readers might remember, Reko had promised to teach me to play Lord of the Rings: Confrontation at the HelCon. Well, he kept his promise and after our game of Die Händler was over, I hooked up with him and we played two games.

The rules were quickly explained - I knew some of it already as I had done my research - and soon we started. In the first game, Reko played the good guys and I played the bad. Even though Reko had more experience with the game, I was eventually able to crush his feeble forces and gain control of the Middle-Earth. Effective use of Orcs helped, as did some good luck too.

After the game was over (it took about 15 minutes), we switched sides and I took the good guys. I had a cunning plan - I stacked Frodo and Sam together, obviously, but not in Shire. I was hoping to confuse Reko a bit. I don't know how well that worked, but Frodo never got even near Mordor. Actually, he didn't even cross the mountains. Oops. Another 15 minutes, and Reko had won.

Now I've read that both good and bad guys win all the time. With my personal experience, I'd say Sauron's forces are stronger and easier to play. Good characters are weaker (even though they have very useful special abilities - but so do the bad guys), and require more tactical eye. Perhaps after several plays the correct strategy for good will surface and the tables will be turned.

After two plays, I think Confrontation is a nice filler game. The Stratego mechanic that you only see where your opponents forces are and not who they are adds suspense, but in the other hand, the memory element isn't too bad - even I can remember who's where after I've seen them. There seems to be potential for different tactics and strategies and that is always a good thing for smaller games like this. I rate it 8 after two plays; I'm interested to play it more.