May 2004 Archives

Four Dragons, the new edition of Dia de los Muertos is available, at least in Finland. The theme change is an interesting thing - I do like the original theme a lot. Frank Branham, the game's designer, takes responsibility of the theme change (as mentioned in a relevant Geek thread). I think the new dragon theme is actually quite neat, and I'm considering getting the game even though I own Dia de los Muertos.

I did some background check on the Chinese myth, which explains the origins of the four China's largest rivers (Heilongjian, Huanghe, Changjiang and Zhujiang). The Four Dragons is a nice little folk tale and a charming background for a game.

Typical Monday session: we played Go. Juho kicked my butt twice, partially thanks to some rather grueling mistakes I made.

However, by then Ari had joined us and I was finally able to test out my Black Vienna deck. It worked well and the game was fun. Ari was the first one to make a guess, which he missed by one. When the chips ran out, Juho had one right and I had two - I made a 50/50 guess on the third suspect and got it wrong. What's even worse, Ari had an investigation card on him telling me which of the suspects was the correct one. Stupid me. Still, it's a great game if a wee bit difficult.

After that, we played two games of San Juan. I won both, thanks to Library. It's such a marvellous building. However, it's not the only thing that matters. In the first game, I had Prefecture from the start and the first building I built in the second game was Carpenter. Both were very useful. The second game was especially neat: the scores were 40-20-16. Both Juho and Ari were complete novices, without even Puerto Rico experience. That helps, at least in learning the rules.

There's going to be a small break now, with no game session scheduled for next week (dentist beat games). Next time we're playing Hammer of the Scots, unless I get more participants.

I added this wonderful new related entries plugin by Adam Kalsey. Tread lightly on the things of earth was very useful help, too. It's quite neat, and hopefully it'll be of use.

Boardgameplayer links to the screenshots of the Puerto Rico PC game. The game looks quite pretty, but I hope the pretty 3d art isn't the only way to play the game - it just doesn't look that effective user interface. It's pretty, that's for sure. Well, we'll see if we'll even see the game outside Germany.

I wrote a review of San Juan - in Finnish, as usual.

San Juan is a brilliant game, which I like a lot (as you might have guessed already). It takes Puerto Rico and creates a fast-moving and entertaining card game out of it. Enough mechanics are retained so that the game feels the same, but in the other hand, it has changed a lot. In a good way, too - it goes in a new direction, making the game more accessible and random (thus better for newbies and other less-dedicated gamers).

A review of Nodwick: The Card Game is available. It's in Finnish. I've written a preview of the game earlier, if you want to know more about the game but can't understand Finnish. I like the game, but I do acknowledge it's very dependant on the players. With some crowds, it just drags on pointlessly. No fun at all. With the right group, it's a blast. Real-time games just aren't for everyone, but if you like them, Nodwick is a good choice.

I was so intrigued by Black Vienna that I decided to make my own copy (there's no way I'm paying 60 euros for the game). Instead of using the cards available at the Geek, I made my own cards. I didn't like the pictures and the font used and besides, the colour cards wouldn't look good when printed in black and white anyway. My cards feature just letters, big old plain letters. Very minimalistic, but that's the way I like it. They are also just the right size (six by eight and a half centimeters) to fit in card protectors. I won't probably post my set to Geek, but if someone is interested, I can e-mail the PDF.

I also noticed we had played few things wrong last weekend. Getting those mistakes right should make the game slightly better, I guess. That remains to be seen - hopefully I'll get to test my deck soon. Then I'll just have to hope that my friends like deduction games, because it's certainly a genre that divides opinions. Black Vienna has a standard deviation of 1.91 at the Geek... That's fairly heavy.

Saturday was a fun-filled day of gaming as well. Tommy's brother Miikka joined us. He's not a gamer the way we are, but likes to play games. We kicked the day off with a four-player game of Attika, a well-known favourite. It was a tough match, which I was finally able to win by connecting two shrines. I can thank Miikka for my victory, because he had kind of forgotten that connection brings victory and thus didn't block me on his last turn.

Laura left, and Stefu hadn't arrived yet, so we tried something fairly light and fast. Hansa fit the bill perfectly. Of Schacht's games, I most like Web of Power and I did have good expectations for Hansa as well. I wasn't disappointed. It's not an instant hit and I'm not sure if I want to own it, but juggling your trades around the Baltic Sea was certainly entertaining. The game can be described as a lighter and more elegant version of Kogge. They are similar in many ways. Just give each player their own ship and replace the arrows with randomly chosen destinations and there you go!

Stefu joined us just when we were starting a game of Rheinländer. It's a little known Knizia game from Hasbro's European division. Somebody described it as Acquire meets Tigris & Euphrates. That's a pretty good description! Players play cards, placing knights on the banks of Rhine. Adjacent knights form duchies, which are controlled by the player with the majority of the knights in them. When two duchies merge, the owner of the smaller one gets paid some points. It's a fast game, where your options can be limited by what cards you have so there's certainly quite a dose of luck involved. However, if you accept that, I found the game actually quite fun. After our first game, we were a it surprised: "Ok, so that's it, then?" as the game was over kind of before it really started. We played another round, and it was more fun as we now knew what to expect. That's basically my tip for you - don't settle for a one round of Rheinländer. I think the game is fun, looks pretty nice and what's best, it's over in less than 30 minutes.

Age of Steam was the most important game on our "games-to-play" list. We lured Miikka, an innocent bystander, to join some track-building in Ireland. It was another fun-packed game, with lots of nasty situations. As it goes, the newbie did worst. Miikka commented that he really got the game on the last round. That's nice. Stefu was unsurprisingly a best, being an accountant. He had most income and the most extensive railroad network. My game wasn't very smooth, but I managed to share the second place with Tommy. The Irish map makes for a very nice and tight little game. It's very good, and I quite think I prefer it over the basic game. It's just so mean... It's also quicker to play, which is always nice.

Next it was time for the funny game of peel the potatoes, wash the dishes and prepare the dinner. Tommy did a great job at the kitchen, cooking some delicious reindeer. He's rather good with food, you know, even though he needed some guidance with the mashed potatoes... When the meal was ready and we waited for Tommy's wife Laura to come home, we played two quick rounds of Isis & Osiris.

After the dinner, we started with a five-player game of Viva il Re!. It got a slightly luke-warm response, but after we got the game going, everybody seemed to enjoy it well. It was over quick, though, and we moved on to something more interesting: Ticket to Ride. Newbie Stefu got another chance to shine at train games, beating us with a healthy margin. I came second - I got my tickets from Los Angeles to Miami and a very good double route set: Dallas to New York and New Orleans to Montreal. However, I failed my Portland to Phoenix ticket, because I was missing one lousy card. Still, I probably wouldn't have won Stefu even with it, so I was quite happy with my second place.

Then it was Tommy's turn to choose. He's a big fan of deduction games and wanted to try Black Vienna. It's an old deduction game (published back in 1987), which is quite rare and fetches fairly high prices: at the BoardGameGeek marketplace it's around 60 euros. That's quite a lot for a card game! Surprisingly, the game's ratings are lower than one would expect, with a high deviation. Tommy had a home-made copy - you can print the cards from the Geek.

There's a crime league called the Black Vienna, with three members. Criminal cards (A-Z and Ö) are distributed to players, all except three. Then players start asking questions in form of cards mentioning three letters. Players place chips on the cards telling how many of those letters they have in their hands. That's how it goes, until someone has figured out who the are the three criminals. It takes some brain work to do, I can tell you. Our game was slightly tragic, because nobody answered correctly. I was the first one to make a wrong accusation and had to wait for the other guys to finish, just answering their questions. That was boring, but of course it was my own fault to be so stupid. It's a fun game, and while I'm certainly not going to hunt down an expensive copy, I just might make one for me.

Then we played San Juan. In the first game, Tommy ruled the game, building lots of big and valuable buildings. Miikka did quite well, too, abusing Prospector with his Library and Gold Mine. Stefu got a bit stuck, being the only real producer of the game. To add an insult to the injury, me and Miikka had buried both Guild Halls in our Chapels. He wanted another round, so after sauna we played one without Miikka. This time Stefu got his game moving much better. However, I was even better. As my first buildings, I built Prefecture and Library, which pretty much secured my income. I was able to build several large buildings and win Stefu's larger array of cheaper buildings.

It was already quite late, so it was time for the last games. I paired with Laura to face Stefu and Tommy over the Crokinole board. Stefu and Tommy scored 80 points in the first round, so the rest was prett obvious. After four rounds, the score was 90-10. Oops.

The last game of the evening was a quick battle of Murfreesboro. It's an American Civil War battle, thus the game was Battle Cry. It was fun to play, especially since Memoir '44 is coming. Once again, I was surprised by how soon the battle was over. Maybe that's just my poor skills as a general showing, but Tommy did beat me quite well. On the other hand, I did score four flags (of six needed) myself... It's a fun game, anyway, if you don't think about it as a serious wargame.

I'm here at Tommy's having a wonderful little gaming weekend. Today's cast included Tommy, me, Stefu and our crippled American reinforcement Phil. We started it off in a light-hearted way: playing few rounds of the semi-legendary Loopin' Louie. It's a children's action game, where a guy flies his motor-driven airplane in a circle trying to steal the players' chickens. Players can hit him with their levers to make him bounce above their chickens, hopefully hitting someone else's. It's a huge hit, thanks to some surprising Gathering of Friends publicity. And why not - it's certainly entertaining, if a bit silly little game. I would get myself one, if a cheap copy came my way.

While Tommy was preparing meal (excellent fish and cream baked in oven), I introduced my most recent acquisition, San Juan to the other guys. I won the game pretty hands down thanks to my superior experience, but they seemed to like it a lot. That's, of course, no surprise, because it's a wonderful game. It was my first game with a real set, and I found the game a pleasure to play. What's best, the cards fit in the box with sleeves on and I didn't even have to remove the insert!

Then it was time for some heavier games. Phil had brought his Power Grid, which we eagerly played. All of us had previous experience of Funkenschlag, so it was a piece of cake for us. Stefu and Tommy dominated the game and eventually, it was Stefu who won the game. I didn't do well, but I enjoyed the experience nonetheless. I found Power Grid to be much superior to the old version. Anybody interested to buy my good old Funkenschlag? I have custom-made modular map with OHP pens... What's best, our game took only 80 minutes. Now that's neat!

Phil has fallen in love with Goa - he has rated it as 10 at Geek. So, we played it, too. Unfortunately I didn't find it quite as charming. The game has lots of good elements, certainly - as usual, I like the way it forces you to make tough decisions. After all, you only get about 24 actions during the whole game. That's not enough! However, I felt the game was too complicated and not elegant enough. If I got it, I'd have to explain the rules pretty much every time we would play it. That would be pain, because the game has so un-elegant rules. The mechanics are good and work together pretty well, but somehow the whole is too complicated.

Finally, we played Um Reifenbreite. It's a bicycle racing game and a Spiel des Jahres winner from 1992. It's respected, it seems, and I did enjoy it. It's certainly one of the best dice-rolling race games I've ever played, and much better than Formula Dé. There are many good and fairly simple rules, which make the game work like a charm. It feels like a good bicycle race, too. My only gripe is the length - our game took one hour, which might be slightly too much. Still, it was a very positive experience.

We will continue our games tomorrow (well, today), with who knows what. Stay tuned!

Yeah, more San Juan at BrettSpielWelt. This time I played three games: once with two, three and four players. I won the two-player game! It was a snappy game, clocking in below seven and half minutes. I did phenomenally bad in the other two games. At least I think I've finally learned that it's not good to be the only goods producer - you'll have to produce and trade yourself and that consumes lots of time.

It's a brilliant game and I should get a copy Friday. We have a games weekend coming this weekend and I'm curious to see how others will enjoy the game. I hope I'll also get to try Goa and Power Grid.

I played a game of San Juan at Brettspielwelt this morning. This time there were four players, so I got some feel of the game with more players. It works as smoothly as the two-player game, with extra thought required as in Puerto Rico. You must take your opponents' strategies into account when you choose your role.

Today was also our afternoon games meeting. I started with two games of Tom Tube with Ari. Surprisingly, both games ended as draws. It's a good game... I think I didn't do enough blocking this time, we both had it quite easy. More blocking moves would make the game more interesting.

I hadn't played Mamma Mia! in ages, so it was about time. We didn't remove extra ingredients from the deck, which can be seen from the results: I made all eight of my pizzas, while Ari and Juho both got seven. Removing the ingredients is thus proven to be very important.

Then it was time for a round of general nastiness. Sticheln, that is. It was a pretty close game (usually I have taken a huge lead and kept it) and eventually Juho won, despite massive blunders.

Finally, I played a game of Go with Juho. I took a two-stone handicap and squeezed a victory, basically because of a messy (but really quite simple) life and death -situation in which I emerged victorious by killing Juho's group. Woohoo, it was about time I won something!

I popped in BSW for few rounds of San Juan. I lost both games I played, so obviously I haven't quite figured out the strategies yet. That's nothing new - it took me quite the while to understand Puerto Rico. I hope San Juan is less complicated.

Fun it is, that's for sure. Both games (two-player games) took just 10 minutes, so even if your game sucks, it flies by fast and you can always play another game. I'm surprised, if San Juan doesn't make it to the top of my most played games this year - especially because of BrettSpielWelt.

There's been some talk on Spielfrieks about tournament scoring systems. Paul Sauberer suggested awarding chances at prize draw, instead of ranking points. Now that's a neat idea! It could be worth using sometimes. Paul's idea of five chances for winner with some bonuses for the length of games sounds good, too. That way winning every game, with any number of players, would be good, but longer and heavier games could give few more chances to everyone.

I'd like to award chances for other players than winners, too... Perhaps something like five chances for the winner, two chances for the second place and one for third. In two-player games, only winner scores. Each beginning hour of length awards extra chance to everyone, maybe?

Thus, a typical two-player game would give a player five or zero chances (expected value 2.5). A 90-minute four-player game would award six chances to winner, three for second place, two for third place and one for fourth place (expected value 3). Two-hour five-player game would give seven, four, three, two, two, with an expected value of 3.6 or so. One-hour five-player game has an expected value of 2.6... That sounds pretty good, I think. The longer games offer more chances to everyone, so they are worth playing. Removing the third-place extra bonus in four-player games might be a good idea to balance it a bit.

Then, in the end of the event, prizes are drawn. Those, who have played most and succeeded best (it's good when system like this favours those who play a lot) have best chances to win prizes, but everyone who has played even some games will have a chance (I'd award one chance for everyone just for coming, so everyone can win). Of course, if several prizes are awarded, it's probably a good idea to only allow each player to win only one prize.

I'm back at BrettSpielWelt, it seems. The new user interface changes have made it more pleasant to use, so I might start visiting the place more often. Today I popped in three times. First time all I played was two rounds of Lost Cities. It was bit quiet and also the server restarted right after our second game, so I didn't stay longer. The two games were special, as I have now played exactly 100 games of Lost Cities. It's still fun, but these days I'm probably more interested in playing the four-player version.

At my second and third visit I got what I wanted: San Juan. I even played one three-player game. Other games were two-player games. I even won one game! I like the game a lot. It's very much like Puerto Rico, but with new challenges. You can't choose a strategy, because you can't select your buildings. With all the luck involved (I got my only victory because of a last-turn Hero, which was worth something like nine points to me) it's lighter than Puerto Rico, but make no mistake: it's a complex game nonetheless. The way you have to use your building cards to pay your buildings is just nasty and makes managing your card economy quite a tricky business.

It's fun, partly because it's so much like Puerto Rico and partly because it's so different. If you like Puerto Rico, I recommend you try San Juan. Those who play often with five players, worry not - according to Mik Svellov's San Juan variants, adding a fifth player takes only one more Prospector (more cards can be added, if another set is available, but that's not mandatory).

I did get to play San Juan after all! Gameblogger was kind enough to teach me the rules - it's an easy game, if you already know Puerto Rico. In return, she did get probably one of her easier victories... I lost dramatically, but I didn't quite figure out what my buildings did (I didn't want to spend too much time reading the translations). I didn't have a clue what I did, but at least now I know how the game works. It's card-driven economy is very interesting.

Hopefully, I'll get a copy of the game next week so I can explore it further. Anyway, looks like San Juan is solidly on my to-get list (it's not to-buy-list, because I'm trying to be cheap).

Age of Steam will get another expansion set in the Autumn (it'll be published at Essen, like the previous one). The double-sided map includes Scandinavia and Korea. This information is from French Gone Cardboard site and confirmed by Martin Wallace, who also told me the Scandinavian map doesn't include Finland.

Also, the Western US and Germany expansion will be published by Warfrog. Previously there has been a 60-copy very limited edition, which was published in Essen last year by Winsome Games. Warfrog edition will be printed in the usual few thousands, I suppose. This one should be out in the Summer.

It's been a while since I last visited BrettSpielWelt. Today I did go there and ended up in a game of Puerto Rico. That's fine with me, though I'd like to try games like Yinsh, Tongiaki or San Juan. However, I don't know the rules and I'm too modest to ask someone to teach me there.

It was a three-player game, I thought I did well, but I placed second. Scores were fairly close, though, 46-42-39. It was fun, and I'd really like to play Puerto Rico in real life more often.

Our game of Wallenstein ended after about a month of play. I came third. Winner was, unsurprisingly, the only player who had played before. My placing was pretty good, considering I didn't really understand the game (for example, I had no clue of the scoring).

It was ok, but I don't think I'll play the PBEM version again. At least not until I've tried the game in real life, with someone experienced enoug explaining the rules properly.

This time we had a proper games meet. We started with two games of Huutopussi, both of which were won hands-down by Juho. I don't know how he does it, but he's rather superior in the game. Memorable moments of the games include yours truly missing 150 point call by one point, thus instead of 150 points gained I lost 150 points. Ari did a large call for 140, but unfortunately got his more valuable trumps split by some cooperation from me and Juho. That was cruel and fun.

I then played two games of Go against Juho and one game against Ari. I beat Ari easily, but lost twice to Juho. I suck...

Talk about silly and useless features... BoardGameGeek allows users to create badges, for the measly sum of 50 geekgold. I got one for myself right away... See We Don't Need No Stinking Badges for more information.

My badge? Green and white "GAME BLOGGER". Of course...

A new issue of The Games Journal is out. This time it's a slightly thinner one, with articles about not figuring out games and the duration of games and a review of Werewolf.

I'm sure most of you have already heard that Alex Randolph (see list of his games at the Geek) has passed away. Leo Colovini has set up a Book of Condolences.

As I promised earlier, I hereby announce the version 2.0 rules for Hammer of the Scots have finally been published. You can go get them from Columbia Games Hammer web site. I don't have Acrobat Reader installed on this computer, so I haven't taken a look at them, but if they incorporate the changes mentioned in the Consimworld forum, they should be quite good. I'll return to it as soon as I have read them.