February 2004 Archives

Yesterday we met for another Monday afternoon gaming session. Naturally we played Go - I faced Juho on a 19x19 game and won, but only with a margin of two points.

The card game of the day was Flaschenteufel, which I like a lot. We played two games, when Nestori joined us mid-game. First game was only two rounds long, I lost. After Nestori joined, we played seven rounds. I won with whopping 236 points - other players scored 158, 94 and 36. Juho certainly took the bottle quite a few times... I, on the other hand, managed to avoid the bottle quite well. There were two rounds when I had both Yellow one and two, but got rid of them with my superior skills (and ton of luck or bad play from others).

It's a fun game. If you like trick-taking games, Flaschenteufel is certainly one of the best easy (that is non-Bridge) trick-takers I've played.

I wrote a review of Attika in Finnish.

I was in the Jyväskylä last weekend and as usual, played some games while there. The winner of the weekend was Attika, without a doubt. I expected it to sink in well and it certainly did. First time we played on Friday, my mother and Ismo wanted to play another game, and another game after that. Another four games followed on Saturday and Sunday we played twice and would've played more but we ran out of time.

After these nine games (of which I won four, which did wonders for my low Attika self-esteem) I've grown to love the game. I upped my rating at the Geek, it's now very solid nine. The game is just so elegant and fun to play. That's quite important part, the fun aspect, and I think I have a clue for the reasons as well. Attika is certainly not the only game with this, but I think it's the sub-goals. Building the sets for amphoras offers satisfaction so you can enjoy the game immensely even if you don't win. If the victory is the only satisfaction a game offers, people who don't win won't have as good time. In Attika you can always be satisfied for smaller reason, like having built your city group completely. Of course the victory is the ultimate goal, but these smaller sub-goals make the game experience so much better.

I also took notes about the victories in our games. Three of the games ended with shrine connections, six with 30 buildings. At least one shrine connection happened in the very end of the game. The best game, in my opinion, was the last. I won it, of course, but that's not all. I got a relatively quick shrine victory: I started in the middle and started spreading thinly into two directions. Rather fast road placement got me a link to one of the shrines and soon I was one hex from another. That was blocked (hurting Ismo's game) and I started moving towards the third corner. I reached towards it and got about two hexes away. I placed an new tile to make room for myself, but Ismo reached there blocking my access to the shrine. You can imagine my delight when during my next turn that board expansion turned out to be a clever decoy - I plonked down a fortress and two towers, which connected the fortress to the shrine and to my network of buildings. It was a pretty shrine connection victory, surprising and clever.

Of course, Puerto Rico couldn't be avoided, but only one game was played. What's interesting about Puerto Rico is that usually it's very much a contest between me and Ismo and my mother just plays with us so that we get to play. However, even though she rarely wins, she likes the game - but here again we can see the sub-goals working. I think that might be one reason why she likes Puerto Rico. This time she did well, too, she won Ismo with a one-point difference. I was, however, five points ahead. Another victory for the money-oriented strategy, this time aided by the use of a Harbor.

We also played a game of Gang of Four, which they enjoyed earlier. I broke my habit of placing second by losing the game in a brutal way. Too bad.

Don't ask, what your favourite online games journal can do for you, ask what you can do for your favourite online games journal. After seeing the lack of articles in this month's The Games Journal, I grabbed my keyboard and wrote an article. Yesterday I got an idea for a blog entry, but when it exceeded 1000 words, I thought it better to send it to Games Journal. The next issue might have two articles of mine in it. Watch out!

There is going to be a new way to play Settlers of Catan online, when Microsoft releases it's online Catan game. Mayfair Games released a press release yesterday announcing the deal.

Settlers of Catan is becoming seriously big.

Yesterday's café games were quite minimal, as only one person attended them in addition to me. So, off went the plan to play Dia de los Muertos; we focused purely on Go. That wasn't a bad thing, as Ari was an interesting opponent. We played three games on 13x13 board, with me giving handicaps of five, four and three stones. Ari won with the two bigger handicaps, while I won the last game. He might be 3.5 stones weaker than me on 13x13, then. I'm not sure, but I think he hasn't played much outside our games, in which case he was playing really well, making very good moves. We had some rather interesting life and death situations in our games.

Large part of the session was, however, dedicated on discussion about games as a cultural form. I'm currently reading Rules of Play - Game Design Fundamentals which is a very interesting theoretical work on games. It leans towards computer games, but discusses also board games. The book includes, for example, an essay by Reiner Knizia about the designing of the Lord of the Rings and some interesting small games. I think the book's highly recommended, but I warn you: it's a rather academical book, so prepare for Saussure, semiotics and loads of theory.

Our board game club session yesterday started a bit slowly, with only four players present for a long time. However, that was really not a problem, because four people is quite enough to play good games and more gamers trickled in during the afternoon.

My first game was a two-player match of Crokinole. It was far from good play, but I managed to win both rounds. During our game, one more player came, so we could move on to three-player games next. Our choice was Coloretto. We played two rounds, I won both of them. The last one was particularly close, as the scores were 36-35-33.

Then we could finally get to the serious games. Because I have spent several hours on Patrician 3, I was quite eager to play the best board game representation of the era, Kogge. As it was my second game, I had some clue regarding what to do. Others were definitely a bit lost. However, I did not win. I did a nice little maneuver, when I moved to Tönsberg and traded for a bunch of ore (eight, I think). Next turn Guild Master moved there, so I didn't leave the town. Instead I got myself a bonus chit and then raided the town for another pile of ore and some furs. Unfortunately my large fortune was later stolen.

It was an exciting and close game. Ari built two new offices, while the rest of us didn't care too much about offices... In the end (we had Guild Master end the game), we had pretty much the same amount of points from Raid markers, bonus chits and offices, but Ari had most goods so he won the game 91-80-80-78. I like the game a lot, it's very exciting and complex so it requires some serious thinking. It's a cool game and I seriously wish a major publisher would pick it up, streamline the rules a bit and publish it with more glamorous components.

After one heavy game we started another with the same crowd. I was really eager to play Funkenschlag and fortunately the others didn't mind. Last time the game took us two hours, this time it was closer to three. However, it didn't feel too long, so that was fine. It was a curious game. People were very reluctant to start the second stage of the game for some reason so that when it finally happened, the third stage began in the end of that turn. So, we didn't really have the stage two in the game.

It was certainly quite interesting. Ari was in the lead most of the early game. Robert got best location, however, with access to plenty of cities. In the stage one, he built an extensive network, full of almost-connected cities. I think he connected about five of them during one round after the stage two had began. I got left a bit behind, for some reason. I don't really know what I did wrong, but the results were clear: when Robert finally connected to 20 cities, Ari was able to do the same. Both provided power to all the cities and thus the victory went for Ari because he had more money. Erkka connected to 18 or so, while I had just 16. Shame, but the game was great fun nonetheless.

After that I had time for just one quick game. I got two players with me to play Scream Machine. My opinion is getting quite clear there. The game is fun, but limited to three or at most four players. With six players, the counting of opponents' cards gets too heavy (or then you have to play blind). With three players, it's reasonably good fun. Scream Machine could be fun played with a good computer interface, so that one could immediately see the values of other players' parks.

Today we played a game of Liberty, which is a block strategy game about the American revolution from Columbia Games. The block system was already familiar to me from Hammer of the Scots, so most of it was smooth sailing for me rules-wise. The navies (something HOTS doesn't have) caused some confusion.

The game was interesting. I played the evil empire also known as the Brits, while Ari and Tuomas (?) played the Americans and French. We didn't use the three-player variant, they just played together. Ari was the main player, while Tuomas, an experienced strategist, offered advice.

I lost. Brits aim to hold 30 supply points worth cities. They start with 14 and the best I managed to get was 20. I got into Baltimore, kept Boston and held New York for a while, but that's it. I had some good luck and fought some great battles, but lacked the energy to really deliver the punch on the sad little Americans. French got involved pretty early (1777) and that certainly didn't make it easier for me. We quit the game one turn early (after 2.5 hours), when it was already obvious I wasn't going to win it.

It's pretty tough job for the British, I feel, but I'm eager to try again. I really like the block system and Liberty is an interesting scenario. It's certainly different enough from Hammer of the Scots. I can't really say (yet) which one is better. Time will tell.

I got Columbia Games' Liberty Monday. It looks interesting, pretty much like Hammer of the Scots. There are some differences, most notably a map of very different and curious shape. I'm playing my first game Friday, so you'll hear more details after that.

I also bought an interesting computer game. Patrician 3 is pretty board game -like trading game. A computer version of Kogge, perhaps. After hour or so of play, it seems like an interesting and detailed game. It has lots of different things to manage, certainly. I thought I'd mention it, because I'm afraid it's not exactly on the A-list of game publicity. If you're into medieval trading, Patrician 3 is a good purchase.

This time we didn't play Go at all! What a surprise! Instead we played some cards. Because there was five of us present, we had little choice amongst the games I brought.

So we played Gargon, which is an interesting card game. It's main quirk is that the backs of the cards are coloured according to the suit of the card. It's a trick-taking game (well, almost) where players play their cards blind. You see the suits of the cards your opponents play, but not the values. Players must follow the card mix, but not suit.

When all players have played or passed, cards are turned over and "battles" ensue. Going colour by colour, each player chooses their highest card in that colour. The highest card wins the trick - except that the owner of that card only scores his or her own card! The other cards are discarded. I got that wrong the first time I played, that's where the trick-taking mechanism breaks. If players have more than one card in a colour, next highest cards are compared and so on. If a player is the only one to have cards of certain colour, he or she scores them without any questions.

The draw deck is split into two halves, which are fanned out on the board so that the players can see what colours are coming. The game ends when one of the halves is emptied. Players score for amulets (surprise surprise: low cards have lots of amulets and high cards have few amulets!), zeros double the scores in their colours. Most cards in each colour is worth 10 points. I sucked in this, the game was a miserable failure for me.

Then Atro left and we played Höhlengrölen. As some of you might have noticed, I have a thing for trick-taking games. I also like rummy games. Höhlengrölen is a rummy game, where players try to form bands and be the best producers.

The game is set in stone age and the cards depict various stone age musicians (who are, for some reason, very much like our modern-day musicians...) in four different genres (pop, folk, metal, rap). Bands are composed of three to five musicians of the same genre. Players can also create crossover bands, which must be boy groups or girl groups. These have special rules.

The game is very basic rummy. Draw two cards, discard a card. Melding bands breaks the monotony every now and then. For their main bands (not crossover) players must each time beat their previous band. Players have three bonus cards to help them: two doubles (dancing and singing teacher - you can't use them both on a same band because back then, as it is even today, bands can either sing or dance - not both!) and one +3 (stylist, can be combined with the doubles). These can be used once in a game each to boost a band. If someone else has already played a band in the same genre, the new band suffers a -2 cut.

When the deck is exhausted, players score their bands. The best crossover bands scores now five points. All the bands are discarded and new round begins. Deck is gone through as many times as there are players. It's a pretty quick game and you usually have time to create just two bands each round.

It was actually quite fun. Well, part of it is because I won, of course, but still. I like rummy and Höhlen Grölen is a pretty basic rummy game. The theme is silly but fun. Some of the musicians are either German stars or just general stereotypes, but some are hilariously recognisable (my favourite is metal dude Nick L. Beck). If you're into pop music, you'll probably find the theme funny.

It's a simple game, but I thought it was entertaining. And unlike Wo ist Jack the Ripper?, it's non-gamer accessible too. If you're looking for a funny little card game to play with your friends, Höhlen Grölen is worth checking out if it suits your sense of humour. It's also pretty cheap, at least in Germany, so if you're ordering from Adam Spielt or something, it's easy to add on an order.

To finish off the session, I played a game of Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation with Juho. I played the good guys, but unfortunately lost. Frodo was already pretty far, but then got killed by Flying Nazgûl. No room to retreat, Eye of Sauron, that's all it took. Too bad.

Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation

It's been a while since my last online Gang of Four match. This time it looked like a short game, but after two fast deals, the losers got a grip and the game became a tad longer. I held the second place most of the time. I lost several rounds, but fortunately with only few points. I managed to win just a single round, the last one. Second place seems to be my fate when playing Gang of Four...

I happened to find a new blog related to board games. Boardgameplayer.com by Ken Rumsey is a fairly new blog, started in December 2003. There's a RSS feed, too.

S3D Connector was recommended to me as a good online version of Settlers of Catan. If you're interested in that kind of action, go check it out.

The February Games Journal is out. There isn't much to read, but check out the letters section for an interesting letter about Terra.

There's also a new blog about games. Michael Chapel is the Austin BoardGamer. He also has a RSS feed.

February started with a game of Go against Juho. 19x19, I played white and gave one stone handicap. It was over fairly quick; Juho resigned after my trick plays broke his defense and a large group of my stones (over 20) that began with no life suddenly got very secure life. It would've been fairly easy to prevent, but I did all that I could to confuse the situation. It was dirty, but also my only chance to invade an otherwise well-protected territory.

Next up was a game of Flaschenteufel. Juho got his revenge, winning this time even though I scored tons of points during the last two rounds. It was fun, I took the bottle only once during the four rounds. This time we had four players, I'd say the game is equally brilliant with three or four.

Then it was time for a rare treat: Sticheln with more than three players! It was very interesting... We had time for only three rounds, but that was action enough. First round was pretty nice - nobody got hurt badly. In the second round, it was my time to suffer. I took in something like 30 points of misery cards. Oops. Well, that was nothing. The last round was a massacre. First of all - three of us took the same misery colour. I was one of them, but fortunately avoided taking misery cards. Ilari and Ari shared the green cards... It looked like Juho got out of it without getting hurt, but I think it was the second to last trick when he got 21 misery points. Oops. The result was pretty surprising: I won!

That was great fun and while I still appreciate Sticheln as a very close and exciting three-player game, I should definitely play more games with more players.