February 2003 Archives

I just played some games in the Brettspielwelt. I've been looking for a game of Ra there for a while now and today it happened, I played a 3-player game. Unfortunately the user interface is on the worse end of the BSW scale. Important information (like the amount of Ra tiles drawn) is hidden on small tiny flecks out of sight and so on. I didn't do well at all, but I'll blame part of that for the hopeless interface and another part on the quick appearance of Ra tiles in the last round. Still, it was fun. I just rather play Ra offline from now on.

Then I got into a game of Tichu and I must say I'm pleased on how it turned out: my team won 1030-50 or something of that caliber. I began our early lead by taking a Tichu call home, the rest of it was mostly thanks to good play from my partner. He had several bombs, which had a good effect. Well, I did squeeze in some good or lucky moves every once in a while and I managed to use my only bomb to secure a tichu call by my partner. It was an excellent game and a very good way to spend an hour, I'd say.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to play some Go, to finally get a rating on the Kiseido Go Server.

The previous entry covers the games of Friday. This one tells the tale from Saturday to Sunday. It's a long story, but hopefully of interest at least to someone.

Last Saturday was a full day of gaming. I woke up at about ten am and started the morning working on some Go problems. Then, after a good breakfast, the real games began. Die Macher was scheduled on the morning, but Vesa hadn't arrived yet, so we played Atlantic Star while waiting for him. It was a good experience, I came second while Ari won the game easily. My strategy was to spend little money, Ari and Tommy wasted more while I was more careful. Next time - and the next time will come if it depends on me - I'll try a different approach.

Then, the main event, the only game during the whole weekend that had been agreed upon and scheduled beforehand: Die Macher. Ari was new to the game, the rest of us had earlier experience. It's a beautiful game, a one I like very much. Our game was surprisingly short, only a bit under three hours. Still, it was a wonderful packet of tight turns. Vesa and his Green party had a good start and, unfortunately, a good finish. Thus he won the game with almost 100 points more than I had. Ari was second, 50 points behind Vesa and Tommy was behind me, on the last place. My PDS disagreed with everyone else almost through the whole game, but I managed to get some votes and two election victories, too.

Near the end of the game, we had a visitor. A radio journalist had contacted me earlier and was interested to do something related to board games. She was supposed to visit me here in Tampere, but when it turned out I was going to Helsinki to play games, she wanted to see some real board game action. She recorded the exciting final elections of our game (and the last one was very exciting, as it was the largest, 80 mandate province) and then interviewed me. She seemed to be really interested in the games and wanted to make a positive article, encouraging people to play games. Journalists should be unbiased and take a neutral approach to the stories they make, but this time I didn't complain. I haven't heard the results yet, I'm quite curious how it'll turn out...

Well, after that we had a bit of a break. Vesa's significant other, Vanessa, arrived as did Laura. While food was being prepared, Vesa, Vanessa and I played Biberbande again. Last time I had a tied win with Laura, this time I was definitely last. Goes to show that skill has nothing to do with Biberbande... We also replayed Pueblo to let Vanessa try it. Here I, surprise surprise, lost again with a wide margin.

Then we went back to Africa. This time I got some revenge. It was a close game, but I won: 54-52-49-49! Unfortunately, Tommy then went and beat me in Schotten Totten. Bah. It's still a good game, even though I prefer Battle Line (but without the tactical cards that simply ruin the otherwise very good game).

It was just about time for some multiplayer madness: Pit. It's an almost 100 years old game of commodity trading. The catch is that all the trading happens simultaneously. Players yell out numbers, indicating how many cards they wish to trade out. Players trade, trying to collect complete sets. First player to collect a set slaps a bell or a mat, depending on edition, and wins the round. I didn't win a single round! Whew. Crazy game. I don't believe I'm going to play again, unless situation demands a seriously loud game.

We then played another game on the full six-player line-up, and that was much better. It was Sunda to Sahul. While I think the game is at least ok, Vesa whined throughout the whole game. I kind of got the point that he wasn't really enjoying it. Ari and Tommy didn't seem to enjoy it a great deal, either, but at least expressed some interest in it. I agree somewhat - the basic game isn't very good. I'll have to try the advanced game next time.

Adel Verpflichtet was quite high on my list of games I really should play based on high rating and little play last year. Ok, so the game is basically rock-paper-scissors de luxe, but it's still good entertainment. Not anything I'd buy for myself, but definitely something I'd play every once in a while.

Laura expressed interest to play Puerto Rico and while I tend to avoid five-player games of it, we played one anyway. As she was so kind and let us invade her apartment for the weekend, I think it's more than fair we fulfill her wishes too. And it was an entertaining game! Not least because I won. I thought my game was lost when my Factory strategy failed - I didn't get a Factory! I got full five crop production, however, and a Warehouse and a Harbor. Ari, sitting on my right, kept choosing Craftsman. Not a bad choice for him, as he had Factory himself, but it meant I got to choose the Captain for few times in the end of the game, racking up shipping points. I eventually got over 30 of them. Tommy, another Factory player, came second, eight points behind me!

Taj Mahal deserved another go. I kept up my good performance and improved on it, coming first. The first position was, however, tied between three players. Talk about close games... It was a fun game, and reinforced my thoughts about Taj Mahal. It's definitely a game I'd like to own.

At 2 am, the last game of the evening, Die Händler was started. Vesa and Ari hadn't played before. I'm not sure if the time and level of alcohol intake before the game were the right circumstances for a game this complex... Still, it was an interesting game. We had to play with the most basic rules. Die Händler is a game I think benefits a lot of experienced players and I've yet to see the full extent of what the game is. Unfortunately, in the situation I'm in, I'm afraid I won't see it. It's hard to get people play it once, not to mention say four or five times, which would probably make it a better experience. Anyway, this one went to Tommy. He bought status faster than anyone else and thus I was unable to catch him. Vesa and Ari were the slowest to follow (newbies usually are), thus Vesa was last. Ari was able to catch me but was too far to catch Tommy even if he would've had the money.

Sunday came, and we only had time to play Samurai and Inkognito. Samurai is an excellent game, especially as I won this one by getting two majorities. Good work from me, I'd say. Inkognito, in the other hand, was a confusing experience. Ari finished the game, but it turned out he hadn't understood the mission system correctly, thus fulfilling the wrong mission. I was happily trying to figure who was who, even though Tommy had revealed his identity and his mission to me. Oops. That was a bit of an embarrassment for me after the game... How could I have know those cards for what they were, I was just curious about why Tommy revealed his mission to me. Silly me. Well, I guess I should play it again some day. I'm not that good in deduction games anyway...

And that was it, then we just headed for the railway station and back home. It was an excellent weekend, full of fun and games. Huge thanks to Tommy and Laura for having us at their home!

Last weekend I visited my good friend Tommy and we had a great weekend full of fun and games. I'm going to write session reports about the whole weekend, a day at a time because they're going to be a bit longer - lots of new games, you see. I'll start with Friday.

I came from Tampere with Ari, as a free ride in a car with good company beats expensive train hands down. The approximately two hour journey went fairly quick discussing, well, games. And stuff. At Tommy's place we met Laura, Tommy's significant other who I hadn't met before. She turned out to be a nice and friendly person. Tommy joined us soon. Ari went to pick up his parents from the airport (it was their Ari we had borrowed). While Ari was gone, I started the games with Tommy.

First game I played was Tamsk. I had tried by e-mail, but it wasn't a good game that way. I was curious to see how it really worked. Well, with the real time pressure added, it was a much better game. Still, not quite as good as Zèrtz. We played two games, Tommy won the first and I got the second.

I knew Tommy had played some Go and I was curious to check out his skills. We played a quick 9x9 game and I promptly crushed him.

Then Ari and Vesa had joined us and the proper games could began. Tommy introduced us to Biberbande. That was fun. In Biberbande, you are dealt four cards and you get to look at two of them. After that, all of them will be secret for you and the other players. Then you can replace them with other. After someone wants to end the round, scores are counted. Lowest score wins after six rounds. Very simple, just about brainless actually, but quite fun in some silly way. One of those cheap little card games you really should add to your next Adam Spielt order.

Then, some more serious stuff. Vesa is a huge fan of Modern Art and wanted to play it as he doesn't have an own copy. The problem is that I don't like it... Well, I played one game because I don't want to picky and it really isn't that bad a game. Obviously I lost with a clear margin. I just don't get the art market. Oh, and a game about art should really have better art in it. The pictures are just plain ugly.

If there's a game I'd shame to admit having not played, it'd be Acquire. Well, no more. Ari had brought his copy and we played it. I sucked at this one, as the final results prove: Tommy 47300, Ari 44900, Vesa 40600, Mikko 20700... I missed all the important mergers, basically. It's a classic and definitely a good one too, but I wasn't too excited in the end. It's the theme and the mechanics I don't find particularly interesting... ;-) Well, I'd play another game any time, but I'm probably not going to be the one to suggest it.

I've read a lot about Knizia's Taj Mahal, some of it good, some of it bad. Now I was able to try it out, as Tommy had recently bought it. Oh boy, I want it too! It's a mean game. Players play cards with various symbols depicting the six items players want to get. When you yield, you get everything you have the most symbols shown. So you could get one or two items with just a single card, if you're lucky. If you're not, you won't get anything after you've had a bloody long bidding war and your opponent plays that one more card. Very exciting game. Laura won, I came second with my careful tactic - I yielded immediately when I was able to secure a single good item or two items with one card. I avoided most big fights and got myself the very good yellow special card with it's +2 bonus which I scored at least on five turns. Wonderful game!

Pueblo isn't a bad game, either. This game from Kiesling & Kramer has players building a tower of strangely Tetris-like pieces. A piece goes around the blocks and gives minus points for those players whose pieces show. If it can see your colour on first level, you get one point. Second level means two points and so on. In the corners of the square playing area, each quarter is looked from bird's eye view. Players have pieces both in their own colour and in neutral brown, which can be used to block one's own pieces from the view. It's quick, easy to teach and visually challenging. Not many games have a real third dimension to them. We played two games right away (there being five of us and the game only supported four), fortunately it only takes about 30 minutes.

The evening was getting late and Vesa had to leave. He had some time, however, so we squeezed in a game of Africa. I guess I've raved enough about Africa here, so no more about that.

As the very last game that night we played a game of Reiner Knizia's Vampire, which is really a quite simple Rummy-type game. I did like the vampire theme, even though it is typically nonexistant. Some of the card colours are hard to tell from each other, but that's minor. It was a somewhat entertaining experience, even though there are many better card games that fill the same niche (be it a light fun card game for four or a Rummy game you're looking for).

And that's it for Friday (well, actually, some very early Saturday as well). Next episode coming sooner or later!

I picked up the Sunda to Sahul from the post office the first thing today. I just opened the box and I must say I'm impressed! Neat little box (about the size of A4, perhaps 5 cm high) and talk about nice bits! Game consists mostly of about 100 or so jigsaw pieces, and they look great! Much more interesting than the plain old square or hexagon tiles!

I'm definitely looking forward to trying this one out.

Board game club met last Sunday and I got to play many interesting games, including few new games I hadn't experienced before. My number one priority was testing Goldland which I have wanted to try for the last two times - I've always run out of time.

This time that would happen, I thought, and ushered the first four people to enter to play it with me. I got to play, and loved it! I'm a huge fan of Kramer's games and Goldland is no different. It's basically an optimization problem, but it has a good sense of exploration in it and is less computational than, say, Tikal. I almost won the game, too. I was definitely in the lead, I got to the temple first and put up some pressure for other players. On the last turn, however, I lost eight points worth of adventures to other players and that made me fall down to the third position. Still, it was very entertaining game which surprised me in it's speed - even slower players played their turns very quickly quite soon.

Another game I was interested to try (again) was Falling. I like the concept and with three players it was better. I need to try it with four or five players to see if it improves still. It was a confusing mess, really, but what a funny mess it was. Real time games is a concept I find terribly intriguing.

The second new game I played was Mississippi Queen with the Black Rose expansion. I had heard lots of good about it and it turned out to be a fairly entertaining game. I came last, but at least I had great time controlling the Black Rose (even though I couldn't do much harm with it). Definitely a game I'm willing to play again.

One more note: I introduced Vom Kap bis Kairo to few of my fellow gamers, but they didn't like it too much. I agree it appears, perhaps, a bit confusing when played for the first time, especially if one is unfamiliar with the concept of auction game, but after few landscapes people generally grasped the game. Still, it didn't impress them much. I like it a lot, I've grown to really enjoy it.

So, that's about it this time. Next time I'm going to probably arrange a session of Die Macher - after all, our next meeting day (16.3.) is also the Finnish parlament election day.

I had a nice afternoon of games yesterday with the board game club. A detailed session report is coming later. I played Goldland (finally) and Mississippi Queen for the first time and replayed some favourites...

I also seem to have forgotten to send in the top 10 list for February. Well, we'll just skip February then and return to the usual schedule in March.

I just played few quick games of Go on Kiseido Go Server. It was definitely fun, but also made quite clear I am no good in Go.

I played two games against players of approximately my level and lost both (I also lost a lightning game to a much better players - no surprises there). I just can't make up enough territory - though I've played so little on proper 19x19 boards so I can easily put that on lack of experience. 9x9 doesn't really teach one to capture territory... In better one of the games, I'm sure I could've done more, but I just didn't know how.

Frustrating, but it makes me want to learn more. I want to be better! Unfortunately, that probably takes much more concentration and effort than I can give. Well - one day, one day... And that's really the charm in Go, whatever I do there something new to learn. Can't really say that about any of our precious German games.

I played my first Brettspielwelt games this year. Those first games included two 2-player games of Carcassonne with the expansion. I won both games.

Then, for the first time ever, I managed to get in a game of Tichu. I didn't make any blatant mistakes and actually one or two neat plays. Unfortunately I had to leave early, so we couldn't finish the game. When I left, I think my team was winning... It's an excellent game, that's all I can say.

A guy called Don Bone was looking for playtesters for his new game Sunda to Sahul on the Spielfrieks list. I got interested without even checking the web site - come on, he was offering me a free board game!

Now I've actually studied the game a bit from the web site, browsed through the rules (which can be found at the web site - that's good, because rules tell more about the quality of the game than commercial hype) and ooh'd and aah'd over the pictures. This one looks great! It reminds me of Tantrix - both are tile placement games from Down Under (Tantrix is from New Zealand, Sunda to Sahul is from Australia) and suited for both single player puzzles and multiplayer games. However, Sunda to Sahul has more theme and I think it's a better game.

Also, my interest is piqued by the "no turns" rules for the game. The game contains many options and thus many different game experiences (which is always nice) and one of them is ditching turns and playing real time! Real time games are exciting and rare, so if the game is fun, it's welcome indeed.

I should get the game in few weeks time, I'm anxiously waiting for it to arrive...

I played two games of Vom Kap bis Kairo last weekend. For the first time, I tried the variant recommended by Greg Alecnevikus. That is, when player builds a track and there's no auction, the turn moves to left instead of staying on the same player. So, you can't save money in auctions and then on the last turn run through four-five landscapes.

The competition becomes more interesting. You can't fall out of pace - if you are three-four landscapes behind in the end, there's no way you can catch up. You must bid more aggressively during the game. It all results to a more interesting game instead of "bid low until the last auction"-strategy, which is simply boring.

I look forward playing more Vom Kap bis Kairo this year thanks to this new rule change which really improves the game in my opinion.

I visited my parents last weekend and as usual, games were played. I took my standard set of games: the Africa box, filled with Africa, Puerto Rico and 6 Nimmt, Battle Line which included Vom Kap bis Kairo and as a newcomer, Lost Cities.

Lost Cities turned out to be the big hit of the weekend. My mother was working at Tampere for Friday, so we took the same train to Jyväskylä and played the first games of Lost Cities in the train. I played a total of 21 games of it during the weekend, which was nice. It's close to 100 games played at this rate!

Puerto Rico is another favourite, and it was played three times, every day. I won two out of three, which was unusual. Ismo's tactic of getting loads of money didn't work out this time, and he actually lost a game in which he got three large bonus buildings! I don't remember which tactic beat him then, it might have been my corn shipper.

We also played Vom Kap bis Kairo, but I'm writing a separate entry about that.

A new issue of The Games Journal is out. In includes a rather interesting article about categorizing games based on player experience by Richard Vickery. There's also an article by yours truly about tournaments, a story about the Sid Sackson auction and a propaganda for diversification of the board game industry. On top of that, there's a Tigris & Euphrates puzzle and three reviews. Nice!