April 2004 Archives

Mark Johnson's boardgame blog Boardgames To-Go has moved in! Hopefully his archives will soon follow.

This is the rule regarding starting player from Hexen Werk by Yun Games:

"The player who resembles a witch best begins the game. In case no player looks like a witch, the player with the biggest nose will start. In case all have similar sized noses and no one looks like a witch, oldest player starts. In case all players are of the same age, all have similar sized noses and no one looks like a witch, all players really must be witches, since witches naturally think they are young and beautiful and have small noses. In that case it doesn't matter who starts. Come on, point one out. Since it's finally clear who will start the game, this player takes the start-witch-piece and puts it in front of himself. Now all players are witches. Finally!"

What a brilliant rule!

It's been a while since the last Go session. This resulted in just one player in addition to me. What's worse, Ari had to leave for a lecture after one game and I didn't quite feel like waiting for 90 minutes for him to come back... Maybe our next session will draw more people.

For the record, I beat him 60-0 on a 13x13 board.

This weekend I worked on a new blog. It's about console and computer games - since I've started playing video games more, I've also felt a need to write about them (natural instinct to me, I suppose). The new blog is called Pelimerkinnät (Game notes) and as you might guess from the title, it's in Finnish.

If you're Finnish and want to know more, go read the introductory article Mitä ovat Pelimerkinnät?

Laura and Ville invited some friends at their place to play party games. The party was certainly large. I took my Cranium with me, eager to try it for the first time. Some might remember when I got it in December. Others were enthusiastic as well, so we started the game with four three-player teams. Three more guests arrived during the first round, so they formed the fifth team.

There was just one problem: the game is in English. It certainly didn't stop us. Dictionary was needed few times, but the biggest problems came from the expressions. Certainly you can draw "Monkey see, monkey do", but nobody is never going to figure it out, because the expression is rather foreign to us. Another expression task was more successful, when Inkeri did a rather splendid performance of "Saved by the bell" and Jarno figured it out - just when the time was running out. It was quite hilarious, even though our team placed solidly last.

After that one guest left, so there were 14 of us... Talk about problems with player amounts, huh! Ilari suggested Scattergories. I consider myself a rather literary person and like word games. Scattergories was no exception - it was excellent fun. I got 11-12 categories on just about every round of the two games we played. The quality of my words was lower, though... I did okay in the first game and won the second thanks to an eight-point round. It was marvellously entertaining and I think I'll create a set for myself (after all, it's just category lists, some way to get random letters and a timer) in case I need some good entertainment for large crowds. I would get rid of some categories (at least "things you can collect" - that's slightly too vague, I think - you can probably justify anything in it) and perhaps add some more interesting (say, "board and card games" or "game designers").

It's funny, though, how some people claim the game is broken because it's too vague what's allowed and what's not - I think the part where people try to explain and justify their words can be great fun. Of course, if it seems there's an argument that seems to have no consensus, one should stop it soon, vote for it and then move on. There's no reason to dwell on single words.

My brightest moment in the game? Probably scoring with huorn when asked for a tree beginning with "h".

I left after the two games of Scattergories. I assume party gaming went on for quite a while after that, too. It was an excellent evening of good games with good people, thanks to Laura and Ville for hosting it!

I wrote a review of Hammer of the Scots in Finnish.

I think Hammer of the Scots is a first-class game. It's pretty straightforward to learn, easy to play, doesn't take too long and the theme is interesting. If you don't like cardboard chits (I generally don't), worry not, because the Columbia blocks are very pleasant to use and provide a level of fog-of-war (which is, however, very limited in Hammer of the Scots because of certain rules). The map is of low quality, as is the card art, but it's all usable if not pretty.

Both sides of the conflict offer different challenges, which seem to be fairly even. The English are said to be slightly stronger and the 2.0 version rules which should be out any day now according to Jerry Taylor. You can preview the rules at Consimworld Hammer of the Scots discussion forum. I'm quite sure I'll be posting a notice when I see they are available at the Columbia Games web site.

Wargame types might want to follow the Consimworld frontpage. There's a RSS feed, too.

Our board game club met yesterday. The attendance was low, just eight people. However, a group of Diplomacy players shared the space with us and brought some life.

Ticket to Ride was very much the game of the day. I had played a game with Johanna earlier, but now I got to play the game with more players. I played three games, once with three players and twice with four. It's a good game and I'm glad to own it. While it's not the Greatest Game Ever, it's still my current bet for Spiel des Jahres. It's such a great family game.

My luck varied. I won the first game, did well in the second but lost the third. I failed to make a 20-point connection (or to be more accurate, was forced to fail to make it). Ticket to Ride can be a frustrating game and if one is playing with family, I recommend you consider how nasty moves you want to make. The game can easily lead to hurt feelings when nasty blocking moves are played.

After Ticket to Ride, it was time for a better train game. With three players available, I jumped at the opportunity to try Age of Steam expansion. Ville hadn't played before and unfortunately his first Age of Steam experience had to be in Ireland.

The Ireland map is wonderful. It changes the game subtly. The actions, for example, have quite different values. Turn order is pretty useless with three and locomotive wasn't picked once (it only allows you to forgo another move for second engine link upgrade). Production, in the other hand, is much better than in the basic game. Deurbanization (which allows one to remove cubes from the board) makes for some nasty plays!

I think this game might be the best game of Age of Steam I've played. It took us only about 1,5 hours or so to play, too. It was also very exciting. Ville was left behind in the early game and while it looked like he could win because of his lower share amount, the fight for the first place was between me and Robert. The game was decided on the very last turn: Robert chose first move instead of deurbanization. Ville deurbanized a good four-link cube from Robert, while I was able to transport two four-link cubes. In the end, I won by a single point (68-67-48). Robert had laid more track, while I had one income more and one share less than he had. What an exciting game!

After such a taxing experience, we had to relax our brains a bit. Biberbande was just the game for that. It's silly, it's fun - what else do you need? I won our three-round game, but only because I had two zeros in the last round - and they were the two cards I didn't know! Total blast of luck!

After that Robert introduced Trias. It was a nice little abstract. The mechanics are easy to understand, but when the game began, I didn't have a clue how to play it. It wasn't a surprise Robert won the game, having played it before. It was fun, and I'd certainly like to play it again now that know how to play it.

To end the evening, we played two rounds of Crokinole. It's certainly a popular game, most people like it and it's played every time. That's good, because I wouldn't want to carry it around for no reason...

I played a game of Hammer of the Scots. We drew lots for scenario and sides; I got the Scots with the Braveheart (next time I'll try the Bruce, I suppose). Last two games I've played, I've played English. I've won both games as marginal victories. Back in January, I said "I believe that Scots have actually a pretty good chance in the game. Decisive victory might be hard to come by unless they get to kill Edward (and that needs to happen twice!), but marginal victory is certainly possible." Well, it turned out I knew little back then.

I did manage to get a decisive victory and I only killed Edward once! It was close, though: I convinced Galloway and Bruce of the Scottish supremacy in the last year. It had been my game for a longer time before that, but the question over decisive or marginal victory was quite interesting.

I must say I'm impressed of the Scottish war machine. It takes a long time to build up the armies, but if you're careful not to lose your units, you'll be able to build a large army. After I cleansed the northern Scotland of the English scum, I was able to use my nobles (especially Comyn) without a fear. One of the later years actually saw Buchan from the very end of NE corner fighting in Galloway in the SW corner.

William Wallace was, of course, the star of the show. He was never even close to getting killed. In the early game I paired him with some heavy infantry and off they went, picking fights with lonely nobles while the English attacks raged elsewhere. Why fight them, as they'll leave eventually and then the nobles will be easier to get back. It's not a respectable strategy (Wallace left the nobles he was fighting with several times, fleeing battles that seemed lost), but it wasn't a honorable war to start with. Besides, who cares about single battles when the result of the whole war is acceptable?

English had Edward out quite often and the knights were seen frequently harassing the nobles of Scotland, but Olli was missing something. Perhaps it was in the cards - he commented that the fate of the English seems to be tied stronger to the luck of the cards. I agree - English player will usually get decent units in England (especially if one makes an effort to keep the infantry out of the pool), but what you can do with them depends quite heavily on the cards.

One of the highlights of the game was the Norse invasion of England! Olli emptied England once and Norse attacked immediately. They stayed there for two turns and then were kicked out by the Welsh archers. It was still fun.

Hammer of the Scots is an excellent game which I like very much. I finally updated my Geek rating from eight to nine. Last time our game took about three hours, now it took just two hours and twenty minutes or so. It's a good length, now we both had played the game before. Hammer of the Scots certainly offers an interesting and captivating experience.

Love And Casino War pointed to a rather marvellous resource: Playing-Cards Index. The page contains lots of interesting trivia knowledge about playing cards. It's highly recommended for anyone interested in playing cards.

As you might have noticed, I did some changes around the blog. I adjusted the categories a bit and created a archive index.

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Iain's blog entry about BoardGameGeek RSS feeds inspired me to subscribe to some of them (new articles, new reviews and new geeklists). They are certainly much better than they used to be.

BoardGameGeek is having another fundraiser. Last time I skipped it, but now I had a credit card and a PayPal account, so I made a donation. Also, because they now have better user identification system, they are able to give nifty "BGG Supporter" logos for people who donate at least $10. Neat. Because dollar is weak compared to euro, $10 is only about €8.5 or so. And that's not much, considering how much I've got out of BoardGameGeek!

We started a game of Wallenstein at SpielByWeb. Iain said it's good, I've been interested in the game and somebody suggested starting a game at Pelilista, so why not!

So far the implementation looks well done. I haven't really figured out the game, but it's a practise round... If you're interested to see how I'm doing, our game is called Gustavus.

What a sad day today. I played three games of Go against Juho and lost all of them. I played black each time and in the last game even got one handicap stone. Ah, sadness.

Then Ilari came to rescue and we tried some piecepack games. First we tried Hanging Gardens. It was slightly confusing and I think I'll need to play more to figure it out. The rules regarding the visibility of the flower beds weren't completely obvious. Anyway, I want to try it again, to get a hang of strategy. We were quite focused on creating symmetry on the first rows, then Ilari jumped in the end of the game to a place with a lot more beds in sight, winning the game 10-12-17.

The guys weren't too interested to play another game of Hanging Gardens and we tried Chariots. We weren't quite satisfied with the game. The impulse system was complicated, the use of special tokens was unclear (I still don't know how and when they are used) and it felt like there was nothing to do to stop the leader. The starting order was Ilari, me and Juho and that was how it was, during the whole race. Ilari won, then me, then Juho. With four players and more special actions to use, the game might be more interesting. Then it becomes more complicated... I don't know, this might be worth trying again anyway.

Juho was especially relieved when we ditched piecepack and started playing Huutopussi (see Stones and Cards for description of the game). Juho likes the game, but this wasn't his game... Ilari was a bit baffled about the game and didn't take any auctions. He did okay, however. I started by going 110 points below, but then recovered when I gained 190 points during one round. When Juho lost 145 points during the same round (he didn't get a single trick) and I gained 140 in the last round, there was nothing to stop my success.

Ilari had to leave, but fortunately Ari replaced him. We played two more games. Juho won the first one after just five rounds, collecting the required 500 points. In the third game we played seven rounds, after which Ari had the required 500 points. Huutopussi is a brilliant game, it's certainly one of my favourites right now.

Last game of the session was a match of Power Lines. Now there's a good game! Unfortunately I lost our two-game match 29-15. It's a nice little abstract, which reminds me somewhat of Quarto. It's certainly no Zèrtz, but it's easy to figure out and gives a nice little brain workout.

It's been a while since I last played at Brettspielwelt. Today I decided to check it out. After wondering about the new interface (as reported by Gameblogger: Bye Bye Blue Ball), I got into a Puerto Rico game. It didn't go too well for me. I lost the game, with scores of 50-51-59-69. My critical point was when the Guild Hall was snagged before my eyes and I didn't realize I should've taken Customs House - it would've brought me at least 10 points more. Stupid me.

I wrote a review of Mexica (in Finnish). I also created a Finnish piecepack page, which gives some basic information about piecepack, lists the games I've tried and has some links.

Mexica is part of the mask-trilogy (other games in the trilogy are Tikal and Java) and a rather good part, too. Actually, I think it might the best of them. I haven't played Java a lot, though.

Anyway, Mexica blends action points and area control in a fine way. The resulting game is fairly easy, plays fast (each turn players have only six points, so there's less analysis) and is over fairly quickly (with players fast enough, the game takes just an hour or even less). It looks gorgeous (it's a Vohwinkel job, after all), even though everybody doesn't like the plastic pyramids. I do.

I've sold some games of mine. Finnish readers might want to consult the list of games I'm selling or trading. It feels good, to get rid of useless games I no longer play. I've sold my German Settlers of Catan (I'm selling the English copy as well, hoping to replace them with Finnish version when it's released) and Mare Nostrum. Svea Rike got me three queries and Manhattan and A House Divided might be going as well. Looks good; I'm not getting anything in trade, but at least I'll get a decent amount of money. It's also a good thing to get more space. Getting new games is not as fun as it could be if you don't have enough space...

Today I printed out some new piecepack games and tried two of them. They were the recommended solitaire games.

Tula is like a traditional card solitaire ported to piecepack. I found it so and so. I played four games and completed it once. Once I got only one tile after the first free tile. I had to use the mercy swapping rule twice, and it's highly recommended unless you like to shuffle the tiles a lot. It's a nice little solitaire game that's easy to play, so I can see myself playing it again.

One Man Thrag has an interesting concept: it's solitaire dungeon crawling game. That's cool, and it works well, too. The game is rather luck-heavy, so it might not be for everyone's tastes; I'm not completely sure how much I like it. Still, the theme works and it was fun to play, so I might actually try it again one day.

Inspired by Matthew Gray's list, I thought I'd check which games I've played every year while I've kept count.

These games I've played every year since 2001: 6 Nimmt, Lost Cities and Tigris & Euphrates. Carcassonne, Citadels, Battle Line, En Garde, Spacebeans, Manhattan, Princes of Florence, Ricochet Robot, Samurai and Bohnanza will join the list if I play them this year. All are old favourites or classics - some of them are just games I've kind of left behind, like Citadels. I expect to play at least few of the if-list games.

There are also few games I've played every year since 2002: Puerto Rico, Web of Power, Go and Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation.

Another month, another issue of The Games Journal. This time the more interesting articles are the fourth installment of Jonathan Degann's Game Theory 101 series and an article about drafting. Game reviews include an interesting take on Alex Randolph's Buffalo and Ticket to Ride.

I printed out some piecepack games yesterday so I could try my new set. For the obvious reasons I chose some games from the Solitary Confinement competition winners.

I took a look at Piece Packing Pirates, the contest winner, but when I noticed it has nine pages of rules, I decided to leave it for later use.

I had seen a picture of Fuji-san (at Rozmiarek Games Page) and I wanted to try it. It was delightful little abstract. I echo Susan's comment on the game being easy - I solved it two times out of three. Last game might've been unsolvable (well, that's my excuse). Still, it's a game I'll probably try again, as it's easy to set up and plays fast. While it's easy, it's still fun to solve.

Another game I tried was a runner-up in the competition: Cardinal's Guards. The designer had perhaps something do with my selection, as I have enjoyed Michael Schoessow's card game Pond. Cardinal's Guards was a rather interesting game. At first it seemed almost impossible, but in the end I managed to search every chamber and ended up with a score of 44/56. It was quite satisfying and if I'm in a need of solitary puzzling, Cardinal's Guards is a good choice.

I'll probably try some multiplayer games next Monday, meanwhile I'll see if I'll have time to check more solitaire games.