August 2003 Archives
We didn't go hiking, even if it may sound like it. No, instead we played the brilliant Reiner Knizia masterpiece I bought Tuesday (with Ta Yü, which I haven't played yet but which looks like a very neat game) to celebrate my WWTBAM victory.
Through the Desert reminds me of Go, the decisions where to play your camels are similar to stone placement problems in Go. It's a fine game and one I'd like to play more.
Johanna liked the game - she likes the camels, but not the pastels. I agree... The camels are nice, but the colours aren't my favourites. Anyway I like it when Johanna likes games, that's always nice. She actually beat me, but it was a close match: 113-110. She did great work blocking a large area from me, that did it. Maybe we'll play again some day and then I'll beat her, hopefully.
Gameblog is now one year old! The first posts were written at this very day. If you want to refresh memories, archives are there for that. I've also added a "one year ago"-plugin, which you might've noticed - now it actually displays something. I've written 264 entries during the year - about five entries each week. Which is nice. Hopefully you've all enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to another year of gameblogging. Thanks for all my readers and especially those who have written comments or e-mailed me. You make it all worth it.
We're on a gaming streak with Johanna, it seems. Yesterday we were thinking of what to do and decided to play a game. The obvious choice was, of course, Historiallinen Helsinki, a game that I've owned for over a year now and haven't played once. I know I haven't been missing much, but it was definitely fun to try it - even though I then rated the game as 3 on the Boardgamegeek scale.
What's it like, then? Very childish. Roll and move. On some squares you'll have to draw a random event card, on others you get building cards. The aim is to get one building from each of the four eras. Then you'll have to land on the beginning square with an exact roll. Very boring. The game design is really bad. There's, for example, money, which is pretty much totally pointless. Getting money isn't really an advantage, you can do fine without it.
It was still fun, mostly because I played it with Johanna. Won't probably play it again. I guess I could try to sell it to some sorry fool... But that would be a bit cruel, so maybe I'll just keep it with me.
Then we played another game I've played little: Top Hats (or Huippuhatut) by Leo Colovini. It's actually quite nice little game and it's a shame I've only played it once. The theme is totally ridiculous and makes it a children's game. That's bad. The game would be much better as a pure abstract. Also, it should be much smaller, so it would be easier to carry around. The basic mechanic is simple, but fun. I especially enjoy the three-player game. One of the players might be out of the game for a while and then come back as his or her hats are revealed later on. That's a nice and surprising mechanic, there.
Really a shame I haven't played it more! I should, I should...
Yesterday I played some games with the best of all opponents, Johanna. She wanted to play something, so I suggested Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I wasn't completely sure if that was her kind of game, but she seemed to like it. As was proper for her first game, she won, too. Frodo managed to slip into Mordor, after Sam had cleared the Black Rider out of the way with his noble sacrifice.
We then played a game we have played several times before: five-in-row on a Go board. We don't stop at the first five-in-row but instead fill the board with stones and then count the five-stone rows. It's much better that way!
Jim Campbell has written Large Warehouse of Puerto Rico Knowledge, an excellent Puerto Rico strategy article. Even though the article is truncated at the end, it's still a very good and useful read for anyone who wants to reach a higher level of Puerto Rico knowledge.
In January, I participated in the Giljotiini quiz show. Yesterday it was Who wants to be a millionaire?. I tried the SMS quiz twice before I was happy with my time and indeed got an invite to the taping of the show.
It was a long day. I was in the third show of the day, which was also the last one. That meant a long time of sitting in the studio watching the first two episodes. It's a quite boring show, really and the studio wasn't a pleasant place to be, with all the hot lights and uncomfortable seats.
Finally it was my turn. The Fastest Fingers part was the scary bit, as I expected. First time I was fast, but one of the contestants was faster with a rather spiffy time of 3.30 seconds. He didn't last long, though. Second time my luck was better - it was an easy speed question (putting four letters in correct order). I was the fastest - 2.99 seconds! The world record is 0.87, according to the facts and figures page on ABC's website.
As I was the last contestant of the last show of the day, I must go and continue next week. My situation is good: I've only used the Ask-the-Audience lifeline and I have 20 000 euros. In the Finnish version that is second limit. So I can't lose that, I can only get more.
New use for my spreadsheets! Consider this: if the outcome of a game is random, the win percentage should depend on the amount of players. In a completely random two-player game it should be 50% after enough games.
Well. My spreadsheet enters the picture here. I can count the average number of players in each game. Divide one with that number and you'll get the expected win percentage if the game were totally random or all players of equal skill. Then we can count the difference between the expected and the actual win percentage.
Let's see the most interesting results, now. There are few zeros, but with statistically irrelevant amount of games.
Mythos. 14 games with 2.21 players with a difference of -2.30%. This is because of limited sample and the circumstances. There's a definitive skill element in Mythos.
Battle Line. 44 games, difference of +6.82%. Lost Cities. 95 games, difference of +8.95%. Here we are closer to the point. I've played my share of newbies, against better opponents my win percentages would be closer to 50%. Or then I'm just a bit above average player. I'd like to disagree, though.
King Lui. 14 games, difference of +8.37%. Not much. I'm quite sure the difference won't grow much from that - King Lui definitely feels like it's pretty much random. Or to phrase it better: players reach the max skill level possible pretty fast. Coloretto. 23 games, difference of +10.10%. I'd say Coloretto is more skillful of the two, but still has a big dose of luck in it.
Puerto Rico. 39 games, difference of +18.69%. I'd say that's statistically significant and another piece of evidence that I'm good in that game. Or at least better than my opponents... Same goes with Carcassonne. 63 games, difference of +21.87%. El Grande. 13 games, difference of +30.63%. Ricochet Robot. 13 games, difference of +55.13%. Sunda to Sahul. 16 games, difference of +56.13%.
I guess I should give a well-rounded picture, so here's some big negatives: Villa Paletti. 11 games, difference of -26.19%. But in Villa Paletti one should really count no-loss percentage, not win percentage... Go. 43 games, difference of -20.93%. Mamma Mia!. 9 games, difference of -10.61%. TransAmerica. 6 games, difference of -27.27% (see, that's why I hate TA and claim it's a total luckfest with no skill needed whatsoever!)
But what about this: 6 Nimmt!. 22 games, difference of +15.00%. I would've expected 6 Nimmt! to be more random! Also Fluxx has 15 games and a difference of +10.00%.
Anyway, this is something rather interesting. It'll get even more interesting with more data. I wonder what's the limit of statistical insignificance and significance... Less than 10 games doesn't mean much, really, at least. But as always, stats like these should be taken with a grain of salt and only for purposes of entertainment!
I've written a review of Balloon Cup - in Finnish, of course.
I grabbed the opportunity to get the game for free (well, not for free, but as a payment; anyway I didn't have to spend any of my precious money to buy it), because I had heard so much good about it. It wasn't really on my top want list, because I have plenty of other two-player card games already. But I'm very glad I got it, because it's good!
Balloon Cup is about ballooning. However, the theme is lighter than the balloons it depicts. The theme is actually pretty much useless. However, there's little point in expecting a good theme from a two-player card game and the theme doesn't make the game any worse so it's alright.
The mechanism is familiar: the game area contains four tiles and players play cards next to the tiles, trying to win them and the victory cubes they contain. The winner grabs the cubes, the cards are discarded, the tile is turned over and new cubes are added. If the winner has enough cubes, he or she can take a trophy card. The player who gets three out of the five trophy cards wins.
The tiles depict either plains or mountains. In the plains a lower sum of cards wins, in the mountains it's the higher. This is a clever twist, which makes both the small and the big cards useful. Now middle cards are the worst cards, and even that's a bit fuzzy. Tiles are double-sided and turned after won, so the selection of mountains and plains varies.
The amount of cubes needed to claim the trophies varies, as does the amount of cubes and cards available. Notice that the card distributions vary - I automatically thought that there's 1-13 in every colour, but no, there are only five grey cards! This makes some colours better than others, which makes the game a bit more interesting.
So, players play the cards. The number and distribution of cubes on the tiles dictates the play of cards. The tiles are numbered from one to four, which is also the amount of cubes to place on them. The colours of the cards played must match the colours of the cubes exactly. If there's a red cube and a blue cube, there must be a red card and a blue card on both sides of the tile.
What's best you can play cards on the opponents side of the tiles! That makes the game really wicked. You can't keep an important place vacant for a long time while waiting for a better card - your opponent will fill it with rubbish sooner or later. It makes the choice of playing cards that much more difficult, too. What a nice small card! Should I play here where I benefit from it, or should I play it there where it hurts my opponent? Counting the totals can be a bit weary, but you'll have to do it if you want to do well.
Balloon Cup is a very good two-player game. It plays reasonably fast (20-30 minutes), it's exciting and has a good balance of luck and good judgement. I don't say skill, because I'm not sure if it's much about skill, but it's definitely about making the most out of your cards and deciding what goals are important to reach.
There's a review of Mamma Mia! - in Finnish.
I've grown to like the game a lot. It's a very unique game and another excellent example of Uwe Rosenberg's skills as a game designer. I can't name any games that are like it, and that's one of the reasons why it's so good.
So, it's about making pizza. That's obviously one reason why I like it. Pizza has been my favourite food for a long time and even though I've eaten many finer dishes in my life, there aren't many that can beat a properly made pizza. Pizza is also one of the most entertaining foods to make. The theme works well with non-gamers, too.
Mamma Mia! is a memory game. However, even a perfect card counter wouldn't win the game always, so if you can't count cards well, you're in no trouble. A very rough estimate is all you need and the game can be played in a very relaxed fashion if that is desired.
Players take turns playing ingredient cards (there are five different ingredients in the deck) in the pizza pile. All the cards played must be of the same ingredient, but you can play as many as you can. Players can also throw in some pizza orders. Every player has a set of eight pizza orders. They are not exactly alike, but similar. Each player has their own ingredient, which is present in every pizza. So the pineapple player has for example one pineapple + four olives, one pineapple + four salami slices and so on.
After the deck is empty, the pizza pile is turned upside down. The ingredients are sorted into piles until a pizza order comes up. If the required ingredients are available, they are removed from the piles and the player scores the pizza (each order can be made only once). If there aren't enough ingredients, players can supply the missing ingredients from their hands. If even that doesn't make it, the pizza order goes back the owners pizza order pile. There's three rounds and the player with the most pizza orders fulfilled wins the game.
Mamma Mia! is an entertaining game and good for the whole family. It's a bit hard to learn, because the game is so different from every other game (Bohnanza has the same problem). However, one practise round is usually enough to get everyone familiar with the game mechanics. After that kids can play well. Children have a better short-term memory, which is an advantage in the game. Mamma Mia! is a game that can charm anyone, gamer or not.
I recommend using the variant where the player who gets the Mamma Mia! card doesn't show it until the end of the round (thus being one card short for the remainder of the round).
I've written a review of Vom Kap bis Kairo in Finnish. English-speaking visitors can read what I wrote about the game in Boardgamegeek a year ago and compare.
I think Vom Kap bis Kairo is a nice little blind bidding game. Players try to build a railroad line from Cape Town to Cairo, crossing eight different African landscapes. Players bid for these landscapes, because different terrain takes different effort to cross.
Money management isn't a big problem in this game - it's rather easy to save money, because often the differences between the different landscapes are so small that it's not necessary to pay much for the right to choose first. Anyway, the games tend to be rather exciting until the very end.
There are five different landscape types. The cards also have 0-3 track pieces and 1-10 money on them. Track pieces are used to cross the landscapes and money is rewarded when the landscape is crossed. Players try to buy the best landscapes (easiest to cross, most track pieces) and then try to cross them. Cards are drawn from the deck and the track pieces counted. If you can't cross the landscape, next player draws a new card and thus has a better chance to make it. If it's close, money can be used at a heavy rate of 10 pounds/track (players start with 100 pounds and must cross eight landscapes) to make up the missing bit.
The game is rather short (about 30 minutes or less) and simple. Or actually, the rules are. Except the printed English rules, which is an automatic translation and a really bad one. Getting better rules from Geek is rather important. Anyway, the rules are simple but the evaluation of landscapes isn't clear for beginners. Some kind of rule of thumb is never to pay more than five pounds, unless you can figure out why.
There's some scope for tactics (hanging before rivers to collect bonus tracks, mostly), but some of it comes down to luck of draw. Especially the two-player game is luck-dependant. It's still fun. I could consider playing it for the money, actually... A dose of luck, a dose of skill. The balance tips a bit more towards skill with more players.
The game is much improved with a rule change from Greg Alecnevikus. In the original rules, the player who built a track continues to play, thus making it possible to cross several landscapes in row. This makes the game boring. The game is more interesting if the turn goes to the next player. Thus players must continuously hang on in the competition - you can't afford to drop from the pack, because you can't catch up several landscapes.
As it is an Adlung game, it's rather cheap. The quality of the cards is fine (don't know how much wear there would be if I hadn't put sleeves on the cards). The computer graphics on the cards are fine, but a bit dull perhaps. The cards could have the required number of tracks printed on them, but that's a small problem that doesn't bother after a game or two. There's only five different terrain types and they're rather logical and thus easy to remember (it's not tough to figure out that mountains are more difficult than savannahs).
I think Vom Kap bis Kairo is a brilliant addition to any game order from Germany, but not necessarily something I'd go hunting for itself.
Another small crowd this Wednesday, only Ilari and Olli once again. Well, we still had good time. Because Olli came a bit later than Ilari, I had time to play a 9x9 Go match with Ilari. I gave him 1-stone handicap (he played black, I didn't get komi) and proceeded to win the game by 11 points.
Then we played Sticheln - Ilari hadn't played it before, so we definitely had to teach him to play. I played the worst hand in ages - possibly ever - on the first round, scoring -4! From there on it went better, but Olli won the game by a margin of 11 points.
Olli was the winner of the next game, too. Ilari had to go, but we had enough time to play two rounds of Last Panther. Olli played a very good first round, scoring actually positive points. Ilari lost the game with -110 points. I got -50 on the first round and zero on the second, but that wasn't enough.
Last Panther is definitely a good game. It's very easy and therefore a good game to play when time is limited and teaching other games would take too much time. The hands are pretty fast and you can stop whenever you want.
Then Ilari had to go and me and Olli tried Pond, a new two-player trick-taking game by Michael Schoessow. It's an interesting game, which adds lots of stuff to a regular trick-taking. The main feature is the pond, which is an extra group of cards awarded to the winner of the one-card trick. Each player plays one open card to the pond and possibly a secret card, too. To make things more interesting, each player has a misery suit like in Sticheln and profit ranks, which give extra points. There's a trump suit, which has both regular trumps and anti-trumps.
It's a tricky game and not the easiest one to learn, but definitely one of the better two-player games I've played. On the first round I got -10 points and Olli zero, but then I figured out how to play. Olli got 126 on the next round and 25 more on the next two rounds, while I gathered 276 points. Which was fun.
After that we had time for few games of Zèrtz. Olli was a newbie, so it was no wonder I won three out of four games. But I hope he learned something from it and will be better next time. I definitely need more skillful opponents!
So, it was a bit short session, but fun nonetheless. Two more to go and then it's over!
Who says gamers don't have a sense of humour:
GeekList of X-rated games - terribly funny!
BoardgameGeek entry #69: Bollox
GeekList of devilishly good games - there's no fun like satanic fun
Hein Hundal contacted me about my game stats madness and described a very interesting rating system, which was easy enough to implement. It's basically a way to calculate what is the probability that one is better than an average opponent.
Here's how it's calculated for each game: First count the harmonic average of number of players in the game. Harmonic average of 2, 3 and 4, for example, is 1/((1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4)/3). Hein says the regular average is ok, but not as good. On a spreadsheet, counting the harmonic average is trivial. Then we need the rating formula f.
f = sqrt(games played) * (win percent - 1/h)
Now the probability you are better than an average opponent can be counted with this formula:
P = 1/2(1+ERF(formula * sqrt(2)))
Where ERF is the error function. There's no ERF in my Excel 97, it's included in some analysis add-on, but Open Office Calc had it. The results look interesting:
Sunda to Sahul: 99,999%
Ricochet Robot: 99,994%
Carcassonne: 99,873%
Puerto Rico: 98,625%
Lost Cities: 95,943%
Battle Line: 81,714%
Go: 0,169%
The low rating of Go is biggest surprise. My win percentage is only 27%, though, and I've played many games, so perhaps the rating system punishes me there. Anyway, it's rather interesting system. If anyone is interested, I have an Excel spreadsheet made by Hein which shows how it works and I can send it those interested.
As told before, I ordered a copy of Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper from Leisure Games. I was getting worried when I didn't get it or hear anything from them, as they've been very fast before. Turns out they don't have the game anymore and they had e-mailed me about it. I must've missed the e-mail... Actually it's just good thing I don't buy the game - I need the money elsewhere.
But what's most important: Leisure Games keeps up their reputation as a top-class online game store. I'm definitely buying from them again, if there's a need for something I can't get from Germany or local shops.
Sunday began with a game of Mamma Mia! with the kids. They've become fans quickly, I guess I'll just have to keep on taking the game with me from now on. I'd also throw a guess that it's going to appear on the next Adam Spielt order, too...
Land Unter, here are the kids. Kids, this is Land Unter. They like 6 Nimmt!, so why not Land Unter. And they did like it... However, it might have been a bit too difficult for them. At least the scores were 10 and 9 for Ismo and me, 4 and 3 for Severi and Oskari. Well, maybe that just shows the game needs some skill and they'll learn it with more playings.
Oskari had wanted to play The Colour Game (Coloretto, of course) all weekend and well, that kind of determination needs to be rewarded. We played three three-player games with Ismo and Oskari and each of us won one game. I had the best average (51-47-45) with three good games. Ismo and Oskari both were once just a little bit better. Anyway, it's still a great game that is fast and easy - a perfect filler, if you ask me.
Could we squeeze in one more play of Puerto Rico? Oh yes! This time we had three players: me, Ismo and Oskari. Oskari managed to win the game and I don't think we advised him much. He was about to make a big mistake on the last round, though. Still, good work for him. Can't remember my strategy, but I had loads of buildings and ten bonus points kind of points at Guild Hall. Oskari just had more buildings - he had lots and lots of money during the game.
I needed some action and I hadn't played Villa Paletti this year - the choice was obvious. My mother and the boys joined and we started building the tower. We got two levels up before Oskari made the tower fall. To get a richer tower-building experience, I then played few games of Timpuri with the boys. Timpuri is Jenga with color-coded bricks. You roll a die to determine the colour of the brick you'll have to take. Entertaining. I managed to collapse the tower on my first pick, but then played two games with better success. Anyway, it was a good game to play - it definitely underlined the superiority of Villa Paletti. There's no doubt which one is a better and more interesting game.
Final game of the weekend was a quick three-player Carcassonne with my mother and Ismo. Most interesting part of the game was the rules: we used their house rules where fields give only one point per city. They don't like the farmer race and thus changed the rules. A good change, but I wouldn't use it myself.
So, it was a good weekend with lots of games and quality family time!
Saturday began with a surprising game choice: Monopoly. I've been wanting to play it for a while now and finally I got the opportunity. I played with Oskari and Severi. Oskari was the first one to be dropped out, when he went bankrupt on my houses. I got a nice bunch of mortgaged properties, most important of which were the green properties. At this point I already had the red and the yellow. Severi had lots, especially Park Place and Boardwalk and the orange group. Unfortunately (for him) he has a bit wrong idea about the purpose of the game. He was in it for the money. At some point he had over $1000, but he didn't buy any houses. After some pressure from me he finally bought hotels for Boardwalk and Park Place. However, even three houses on each of the orange properties would've bankrupted me soon... but no, I continued to pay $28 or whatever it was.
Meanwhile I used all the money I could get (and that wasn't much, because Severi had lots of luck with the dice) to buy houses on the yellow and red properties. As soon as I had enough money, I un-mortgaged the green properties and built houses there. Finally the money started flowing my way. Severi hit $500+ properties few times and I was even able to survive hitting the Boardwalk once (while I visited the orange properties about every second turn!). Finally, after two hours, the game ended as my victory when Severi couldn't pay anymore. What's the moral of the story? How much money you have doesn't matter in Monopoly, it's how you use it to get money from other players that counts. It was fun, but had loads of very boring die-rolling. Two hours is too much. I'd still like to play a "proper" game with more mature opponents.
And then we played proper games. Puerto Rico! From my notes, looks like I played Guild Hall and managed to buy a second large building, too. I won the game with 39 points. There was definitely less shipping than the last time. My mother came second this time, as she was now able to get a large building. Last time she didn't and came last at least partly because of that.
After that it was time to introduce the kids to Mamma Mia!. They loved it! It wasn't too difficult for them and they loved the theme (there's something about food they like, it seems).
Then it was time for sauna and Survivor, after which the kids were sent to bed and we played a three-player game of Puerto Rico. This time it wasn't a tough fight. I dominated the game with Harbor shipping. 38 shipping points! Many small shipments of various goods with an early harbor (it was my third purchase) meant victory. Final point spread was 67-48-36 so there was no question about it.
I had brought Land Unter with me and now was a good time to try it - teach the adults first, then play with the kids seems like a good pattern. It was fun, but I lost the game. That seems to be rather typical. I guess I didn't have any hands I could play right.
After that my mother was so tired she couldn't play anymore, but I stayed up with Ismo to play two games of Balloon Cup. We both won one game. The second one was pretty close, but in the end it became obvious Ismo would win - if I got the red cubes, he'd use them to get the blue and if I got the blue cubes, he'd use his blue cubes to secure the red. In the end he got both. Both games were immensely enjoyable. I've still rated Balloon Cup as 9 - boredom may bring it down to eight, but we'll see about that.
My trip to Jyväskylä went well. My brother picked me up from the busy railroad station and gave me a lift to where my mother and Ismo live. Before he left, we played few games of Battle Line. Which was nice, especially as I won two out of three.
Balloon Cup was fairly popular game during the weekend, and I played it twice on Friday. First game I won easily as my mother was still learning the game, second was a bit tougher fight. After eight or so games I'm growing to enjoy Balloon Cup a lot. It's not always that exciting, but a solid game that's probably becoming a staple filler, when in need for something a bit heavier than Lost Cities.
But then it was time for the main treat: Puerto Rico. Ismo is a big fan of the game and probably the strongest opponent I've met outside BSW. So, it was obvious the games would be fun. Friday's game had four players. I played my typical Guild Hall strategy, while Ismo played his typical City Hall strategy. He got two large buildings and won me with a three-point margin.
But young ones need entertainment as well. Oskari, who is about 10 is actually a pretty competent Puerto Rico player but Severi, who's about 8 needs easier games. King Lui or The Food Game seems to be his current favourite. Or at least one of them. We played four rounds... There's definitely a skill element there, as shown in the average scores of the players: Mikko 48.25, Ismo 55.25, Oskari 31.5, Raija 52, Severi 39. Strange though - Oskari can definitely concentrate when playing Puerto Rico, but in King Lui he made few obviously silly moves.
Then it was time for the kids to go to sleep. As the last game of the evening, I introduced Mamma Mia!. Well, we played four rounds... On the fourth game, my mother managed to make eight pizzas, which made her the pizza queen that evening.
I'm going to Jyväskylä this weekend and as usual, it means games. I'll probably post the session reports Monday.
I've practised the art of game packing quite a lot. This time I'm bringing Puerto Rico, Balloon Cup, Land Unter, Coloretto, Mamma Mia! and King Lui. Because I'm taking the train, I'm going to walk a lot. I don't want to carry many bags, so efficient packing is required. Well, all of that actually fits in the Puerto Rico box, if I remove the box insert. And I've got sleeves on all the cards, as well! The box is so full nothing else would fit, but that's just effective logistics.
The card games (except Balloon Cup) take approximately half of the box. Balloon Cup - with all the components stuffed in the cube bag - takes a small bit and the rest of it is filled with Puerto Rico bags. Take a look:
This time we played Go. Well, thanks to computer clock trouble, I was an hour late. Olli and Ilari played Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation before I came. But then it was all Go!
Ilari had played a little before, Olli had played about once a long time ago. I played couple of games of the capture game with them to get them grasp the basics, but soon we moved on to proper 9x9 games. I felt like a real master, playing two games simultaneously... I played five games against Ilari and six games against Olli. Olli won four times and Ilari won thrice and tied once. This might look bad for me, but then again: they had handicaps (Olli had +4, +3, +3, +2, +2, +2, Ilari had +4, +3, +2, +1, +1) and I gave plenty of advice. Both the annoying kind ("By the way, that was a really bad move" after a move is played) and the better kind ("You really should play that here instead of there because..." before my next move).
Olli managed to win four games, but lost twice with heavy difference, which basically meant I slaughtered most of his stones. He definitely knows the basics, but creating live groups is still a bit of a problem. I think Ilari was a bit stronger player. However, when they played against each other, Olli won. But it was close - Ilari made one mistake, which cost him the game.
After that Olli left and I played two more games with Ilari. First we played a game on 13x13 board. With a handicap of four stones, Ilari managed to win me by 16 points. I didn't manage to form much territory, but I did capture 11 stones from him! He made several small but lethal mistakes. However, he learned a bit from them and played the same situations better in the next game.
We played the last game on a proper 19x19 board. I gave Ilari four stones again, but this time I won the game by 43 points. I think I played some parts of the game rather well, creating live groups from nothing three times - sometimes in very restricted space, as well. It was an entertaining game and I hope Ilari learned something from it.
Finnish users can go ahead and read the Finnish review.
I've played enough Sticheln that I feel I can write a review. However, my point-of-view is very biased: I've only ever played the three-player game. Well, one four-player game, but that's not enough. Still, I think Sticheln is such a superior three-player game that reviewing it is useful.
It's a trick-taking game, but a tricky one. Players try to collect as many tricks as possible, as each card is worth one point - except those who aren't. You see, each player must choose a misery colour. Each card in the misery colour is worth negative points. And it's not one negative points - it's as many points as the card's value is. So misery six means six negative points!
Another tricky aspect is the trumps. There's no fixed trumps. Each colour (there's five or six in the deck, depending on the amount of players) is trump colour, except the colour of the leading card. So if I lead a trick with red card, every colour except red is trumps. There's no obligation to follow suit, so it's rare to see someone win two tricks in a row.
All of this means the card-play isn't obvious. You'll want to keep your hand well stocked with big cards to score tricks and low cards to avoid scoring tricks. Zeros, which can't win tricks are very useful. Having misery cards in hand is good - at least you'll know where they are - but getting rid of them safely can be hard. And of course you'll want to keep the heavy-hitting misery cards to hit your opponents with. Each player's misery colour is public information and if someone makes a mistake, punishment usually follows immediately.
The three-player game can be quite nerve-wracking. Because there are so few cards (0-8 in five suits), counting them isn't that hard. I always count the cards in my misery suit so I know what's to be expected. This means I can always make a safe play - unless I run out of suitable cards. So you can never be 100% sure. However, most of the time I collect only one or two negative points - and those come from the card I use to indicate my misery colour.
Keeping the control is challenging and satisfying and probably the reason I like the game so much. With more players (according to my limited experience) keeping the control is much more difficult: there are more players and more cards. I guess the game gets less serious with more players. Which is fine, if that's what you want. Punishing your opponents with misery cards is fun and games with more players will give you more opportunities do that, I believe.
The deck is highly useful for various purposes. There are, as I said, six colours. Cards go from 0-18 in three colours and 0-20 in three colours. The extra cards are used to play Hattrick, a double-trick game with rules included in the box. You could also use the deck as a standard deck and to play Lost Cities, Battle Line and many other games... But make sure you get the 2001 new edition of the game. The 1993 edition doesn't have the extra cards and maxes out at six players. With the new edition up to eight can play. The cards are illustrated by Franz Vohwinkel and while they aren't spectacular, they are clear (except the closeness of brown and purple in low light) and easy to use.
Sticheln is currently my favourite three-player game. There's lots of other games to play with other player amounts, but amongst three-player games Sticheln stands out.
I wrote a review of Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation in Finnish few days ago. Finnish user can go read it (Finnish users are also adviced to take a loot at my main blog, which provides website update information faster.
Here's an English review of the game:
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation is the best Tolkien-licensed game I've played. Like the Lord of the Rings, it's designed by Reiner Knizia and illustrated by John Howe - a superb duo of two masters. Two things are thus sure: the game mechanic is well thought of and the illustration is top-notch.
The Confrontation is based on Stratego. Each player has a set of pieces, which are hidden from the opponent's view. Only when the pieces meet in battle are they revealed. Thus, there's plenty of bluff and surprise involved. Players represent Good and Dark sides, which both have different tactics and pieces. Dark pieces are generally physically stronger, but Good pieces have perhaps a bit stronger special abilities. Dark player is bound to win more fights, unless Good player has lots of luck.
Good player tries to move Frodo across the board to Mordor, while Dark players tries to move three pieces to the Shire or kill Frodo. Player also loses if they must move but they can't. Usually it's Frodo that causes the game to end. I'd say Dark player wins more, but I've heard many people claim the opposite; this I understand as balanced game. If you feel the game is unbalanced, worry not - Reiner Knizia has thoughtfully added two handicap cards for each side. Weaker player can use them to gain an advantage.
The Confrontation is a clever game. At times it feels like a puzzle. Especially the battles, since the duelling pieces and the cards played are all public information. Therefore you can easily see, what are your opponent's options. Sometimes you can deduce a perfect solution, sometimes you realize you can't win no matter what, sometimes it comes down to a lucky guess. There's a dose of luck, even though there are no external randomizers. It all stems from the uncertainty of your opponent's actions.
I find the theme of the game to be rather believable. Your mileage may vary, but I think the map and the pieces evoke the Lord of the Rings atmosphere quite well. Also the tactics: Dark side comes crushing on like a juggernaut, while Good side must be clever and evasive. Unfortunately the rich theme means also some rules that are a bit fiddly. For some reason, it's rather hard for newbies to understand that you can't move sideways in the mountains. After few games the rules are no longer a problem and I'd choose the fiddly rules and evocative theme over cleaner rules but poorer theme any day.
The game takes about 10-30 minutes, depending on how slow or fast thinker you are. My games take usually 10-15 minutes. Thus it takes only 30 minutes to play a double match, each player playing both sides once. The length of the game is very good compared to what it offers. Also, I think that repeated playings against the same opponent make the bluffing aspect of the game more interesting.
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation is highly recommended for anyone who likes a good two-player game and especially for the fans of Lord of the Rings.
I have an Excel spread-sheet where I record the games I play, noting the amount of players and the number of games I've won. I count month totals, happiness product and winning percentages. It's an essential part of my game hobby, keeping track of it all.
Lately I've been fiddling about with performance measures. Amount of games won is not good: it clearly prefers games I've played more. And which one is better achievement, 20 wins out of 40 games or 21 wins out of 80 games?
Win percentage is not good, either. This measure prefers games I've played less. One win out of one game is clearly worse than 20 wins out of the 40 games, I'd say. I don't like setting limits (only games played more than five times count or something artificial like that). No, I want a measure that takes care of it for me.
One solution was the point system used by Seurapelikerho ratings: 10 points for a won game, -1 for rest of the games. This way 20/40 result would be 180 points, while 21/80 would be 151 points. This is all good and well, but I think it still prefers amount of victories over good win percentage too much. Of course I could adjust the point ratios, but that's not good enough.
I toyed around with my table and dividing the points by won games seemed to result in an interesting results. Basically it's amount of points per won game. All wins results in a score of 10. There's no lower bound, as the lost games push the score below zero indefinitely. However, this has two flaws: 1/1 gets the maximum score and zero wins causes a division by zero.
However, both can be fixed with the same small change. The final formula looks like this: (11*won games-total games played)/(won games+c) - the key is the constant c. The value of c can be adjusted to get different results, I use 1.
Now the best game for me is Sunda to Sahul (14/16, 9.20), then Lost Cities (56/95, 9.14), then Ricochet Robot (11.5/13, 9.08), then Carcassonne (35/62, 8.97) - this feels quite correct.
A new issue of The Games Journal has been published. Quite good, too. Greg Alecnevikus has written an interesting article about his Space Hulk project and Dave Shapiro has written a good article about "milestone" board games. There's also a review of Balloon Cup and bless me, I've never figured out the card distributions vary between different colours. And all this time I've been wondering how that lock-up problem is possible... Stupid me.
