June 2004 Archives

My game collection grew with two new war-themed games today when I got the long-expected Memoir '44 and actually even longer-expected Victory & Honor.

I guess there's little I can say about Memoir '44 at this point that hasn't been said before, so I'll just say it's a neat game, the components are very pretty indeed and all the stuff on the web site for registered users shows Days of Wonder is serious with the support for their games. I'm looking forward to actually playing the game - but I'm not looking forward to setting it up, this one looks worse than Puerto Rico...

Victory & Honor doesn't look neat. The box captures the 19th century atmosphere too well - sepia-coloured photography, back full of dense text. This one doesn't catch your eye in the store, that's for sure. The cards have black-and-white photographs from the Civil War era and the general cards feature authentic 19th century facial hair - yuck! Cards have indexes in only one corner, that's a negative... Rulebook looks heavy, I browsed through it and I didn't quite catch the game yet.

The way it looks isn't captivating, but the game itself seems rather interesting. However, I'm a bit afraid it won't get much play, unless I find it really captivating. It's a bit like Tichu - it's a heavy-duty trick-taking game that requires exactly four players. It might be tricky, but at this point the game seems to be rather interesting. I don't know when I'll have a chance to actually try it, hopefully soon.

Ticket to Ride is the Spiel des Jahres 2004. Congratulations to Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder! I haven't tried the other nominees (yet), but I can certainly agree with this decision by the jury, as Ticket to Ride is a brilliant game.

Another day, another game review: Fist of Dragonstones. In Finnish, as typical... Tom Vasel has written a very good review in English.

Anyway, I consider Fist of Dragonstones to be a pretty good game, even though I dislike it myself. The mechanics are very repetitive and boring, but the game works well socially. The blind bidding mechanic - nasty, since losers must pay too - is annoying for many and I'm certainly one of those people.

Days of Wonder, however, has done a wonderful job on the production. The game is absolutely brilliant. The art is neat and the components are first-grade. I'm especially fond of the small box, packed full of stuff.

Basically if you're looking for a fun game to play with your mates, like fantasy themes and dig games like Munchkin (ie. you value theme and fun factor over clever mechanics and intellectually challenging gameplay), Fist of Dragonstones might be just the game for you. Because of the boring mechanics and the blind bidding I'm getting rid of the game as fast as I can.

I came across a rather interesting blog entry about enjoying games. The author cites three aspects on which he finds games stimulating: intelligence, imagination and social.

It's easy to come up with games that provide intellectual stimulation, but not much else. I think most two-player abstract strategy games fall into this category. It's a weakness in them, I think, as it causes the games to require somewhat specific circumstances to get played. Thus, I play Go but not Zèrtz.

Purely imagination-stimulating games - well, I think the best example of that is live-action or tabletop roleplaying. I have done both, but in the end found them unsatisfying. Party games are, of course, socially stimulating. However, I find it rather difficult to see myself playing a game just for social reasons. I tend to get frustrated if I'm stuck with games that just don't provide enough intellectual stimulation.

Thus, I'd say the intellectual aspect is quite obviously the catch for me. Social stimulation and imagination are secondary aspects of gaming, but still rather important. A good game has strong intellectual component, but should have some social and imagination-stimulating aspects, just so it would actually get played. I think social aspect and theme are a case where it's very good if both are present, but one is often enough. For example, Puerto Rico is mentally very satisfying and offers enough theme and social interaction to make it fun to play. It could certainly have more captivating theme and more social interaction, but still, there's enough already.

When developing a game collection, one should probably think of all three aspects. Different occasions certainly ask for different games: there are times I would like to play something mentally taxing (playing games with my gamer mates), but there are also times when more hilarious and mentally easier games are required (parties, games with less game-enthusiastic people).

As Iain already noticed, it's once again time for Bruno Faidutti to announce his Game of the Year award. This year the winner is Ticket to Ride - not a huge surprise to anyone, I imagine.

I agree, and I certainly find myself in agreement with Bruno's earlier choices as well. I've enjoyed all of the games I've tried. This is interesting, because I've noticed a growing dislike towards games he has designed. They just don't click with me, really, anymore. It has to be the chaos in them, I don't like it anymore. Still, his Game of the Year award remains very interesting.

I wrote a review of Die Macher. In Finnish, as usual...

Die Macher has rather fitting Geek id: 1. It's in a way the best board game there is. The theme is interesting (much more than the typical fantasy dragons or renaissance Italy), the mechanics are brilliant and the game is super exciting. The length is bit of a problem though, and because of it I play the game only few times each year. It's still worth owning, as it's the very best heavy game I know.

There's reasonably little luck. The random areas with their different values are an essential part of the game's replayability and the opinion polls (compared to drive-by-shootings by some and Las Vegas by some) are very exciting. You usually know if you need them or not and sometimes winning a bad card just to keep it from someone else is necessary. Of course, sometimes you're just screwed. That happens, but it happens in real-life politics as well.

Speaking of which - there's little politics in Die Macher. There are parties and party programs, but hey - you can have the Green party supporting nuclear energy. The game isn't a simulation, it's a game based on the election system. It's about managing your limited resources to get best gains (most votes). There's very little politics or negotiations, so if you're looking for a political game, keep on looking. For aspiring resource managers, it really doesn't get much better.

We had a quiet afternoon of games yesterday. I started with San Juan. I played a quick three-player game (around 15 minutes, I think) with Robert and Olli. I had a very good game, once again with Prefecture-Library-City Hall set. This time I also used Chapel to gain extra four points. I won Robert with a healthy margin, scoring over 40 points.

There's one thing in San Juan that bugs me and stops me from giving the game a 10 rating. I find the production buildings are too weak. In two or three-player games easiest way to ruin your game is to build production buildings. If you're the only producer, you're doomed, because having to do trading and building yourself just is no good. The guys with purple buildings will use Prospector (especially if they have the Library) and Councillor to get cards and then just Build. There's absolutely no reason to produce or trade.

I'm not sure how it works if two players play production and one player has purple buildings, but that never seems to happen. But perhaps that's just how the game works with the group of people I play it with. I think it's useless to discuss how balanced the game is after you've played it hundred times, because I won't be playing with people with that much experience.

However, it's pretty obvious I'm playing purple buildings, unless I get cards that dictate otherwise - if that happens, I'll chalk that up as a draw-caused loss.

We had six players after our game was over, so we played a game of Finstere Flure. One more player wandered in while we were playing the second round, so we added him to the game, too. That worked well. We used the alternate scoring scheme (but forgot to use second-stage rule all the time), which I think is more interesting way to play the game.

In the same Geek thread about alternate Finstere Flure scoring, Phil had this idea of reversing the scoring: first token out is worth one point, second two points and so on. That might be interesting.

Then it was time for a rather interesting game: Media Mogul. It's the latest game from JLKM Games and a rather interesting one, too. Players are competing media moguls, trying to rule the world with their media outlets. Players build media networks around the globe, competing over audiences. The patrons collected are then sacrificed on the altar of advertising, to get money. Money is needed to start new media outlets and to provide content to attract patrons. I like the way the game considers media content as a lure to get patrons you can sell to advertising - that seems to be a rather realistic approach.

While the component quality is a step up from Kogge, the art and the graphic design is very bad - maybe the worst I've seen. One of the guys I played the game with won't play it again, just because of the usability problems. I think they're bad, but I like the game enough so I can get over it. If I had a colour printer, I might consider doing a new, better set of cards.

The game is fun, however. Some people won't like it, because it's rather unforgiving and you'll probably make some game-spoiling mistakes in your first game, but that's good - it just means the decisions you make really matter. Investing in the right place to get some return on your investment isn't obvious. Besides, the game isn't half as confusing as Kogge.

I'm looking forward to playing Media Mogul again. It's an interesting game, which feels refreshing. There's something new about it.

I wanted to try Fist of Dragonstones with more players. My earlier go at it was a rather boring experience. We had three players and the game ended on the second turn. This time we had five players and I won the game on round four or so. It wasn't any better this time, really - I actually dropped my rating from seven to four. To be honest, I really can't stand games like this. It's just too chaotic. Three points is a very low goal - with some luck, it's very easy to reach. If the goal was set higher, the game could take hours. Playing the game feels very pointless.

But I'm rather glad about it, anyway. The game will now head to my trade pile and I'm quite certain I'll be able to sell it, because I think the game is rather good, in an objective way. I know there are people who really like it and other games like it.

Duell looked fascinating, so I gave it a go with Ville. Well, actually, we played with En Garde rules, because I didn't feel like reading the rule book. It's a new version of En Garde anyway. The new components are quite neat, even though I prefer the modern fencing to the duelling cloak-wearing guys. Still, it's certainly fun to play with the new components.

The main changes from En Garde to Duell are losing the step-attack move (which, I think, is a bad mistake but fortunately that's easy to fix) and the introduction of special cards, which affect the match rules. Cards have effects like reducing the card hand, forcing open cards, banning backwards movement and so on. Sounds very, very boring. However, getting Duell is probably the easiest way to get En Garde these days, so it's nice to see a good game back in print.

Time for one last game: High Society. Well, two games, because it's such a quick little game. I hadn't played it before so it was about time. I haven't seen the original, but the Überplay looks fantastic. It's also a very good game, Reiner Knizia at his best.

I think High Society is actually one of the very best auction games I've ever played. It's very simple and fast, but with some very good twists. The misfortune auctions are a nerve-wrecking experience (players must keep on bidding - the first player to pass takes the bad card but can keep his or her money, others have to pay) and the a peculiar scoring rule (the player with the least money is out of the game, no matter who many points they scored). It's just beautiful.

One more game: I ran an eight-player game of Haggle, using cards from Citadels. It was an interesting experiment. The guys seemed to enjoy the game - at least there was lots of haggling going on. However, the game certainly needs more players and some of the rules were quite unbalanced. Final scores were something like 89, 59, 6, 3, 3, 1, 0, 0...

Being a some kind of word person myself, I found the geeklist Anagrams of Boardgame Titles rather interesting.

My favourite of the crop is probably one twisted from Hammer of the Scots: "Shame, frost cometh" - that's certainly what English player might think when his attack to crush the Scottish resistance would need just one more turn...

I finally got my copy of Media Mogul. The production standards are a step up from Kogge, but it still isn't pretty. Quality is better, however - the cardboard chits are properly printed, not laser printer work glued on cardboard.

I'll try the game next Sunday in the board game club. I'll let you know then what I think of it...

I wrote a review of Viva il Re! - in Finnish as usual. I've also reworked the front page of my Finnish game site, hope you enjoy the new look, if you're a reader.

I initially rated Viva il Re! as 9 at the Geek, but my rating has since come down to eight. That's where it'll stay, I think. If you don't know the game yet, I recommend you read one of the two very good reviews available, by Tom Vasel or Shannon Applecline.

Now you know the game, let me tell you what I think about it. I think it's rather pleasing little bluffing game. It's not a serious bluffing game, if you're looking for one. I don't know what to suggest, but not Viva il Re!, that's for sure. The game has its shortcomings. Components, while pretty, aren't as usable as they should or could be. The non-exclusivity of player goals can result in short rounds.

Still, I think the game is fun to play and easy to teach. That's quite important when you're the person who usually explains the rules. It's heavy task and one reason I wasn't too keen on Goa was the fact I'd have to explain the rules every time - the rules of that game are far from elegant. It just isn't fun. There's no such problem with Viva il Re!, that's certain.

So - it's good fun for the whole family and a decent filler for more dedicated gamers. If your group has staple fillers you enjoy to play, you can basically skip Viva il Re!, but if you're looking for something new and don't mind little bluffing, it could be a good choice.

I met Juho on the Scottish fields of battle yesterday. Hammer of the Scots is one of my more successful games this year: I've played it four times now and I've won every single game. This time it was a marginal victory, I think the nobles split 8-6. I got a good start, mostly because of Juho got bad card draws in the early game (three event cards two years in a row - that's bad!) and he made some tactical blunders, clearly caused by a lack of understanding of the rules.

His game got better later and I did some pretty bad die rolling, causing the game to balance a bit. Wallace was quite ineffective and it took me a lot of time to convert Comyn on my side. I did manage to grow a pretty good army quite early on, but then again, Juho used his archers surprisingly effectively.

I don't know - Chris Farrell (who I respect a lot, when it comes to wargames) has commented Hammer of the Scots in a negative way, mostly because the battlefield is so limited. Our game was further proof of that - most fighting after the very early game happened in or around Mentieth. I can see how it can get boring. I'm not yet concerned and I've certainly enjoyed every game so far, but it might be a problem one day, the game might not last forever.

Fortunately I can always play Liberty to get some variation.

Oh, and for the first time ever, I had Wallace winter at Selkirk Forest as he ended the year somewhere with not quite enough food. I've never done it, because usually it would spell trouble, but this time it was quite easy to sneak out of there and connect to my main force (in Mentieth, no surprises there).

What a perfect little boardgame club meeting! I was there under three hours, and still managed to play all the three games I wanted to play and then some!

Our session started with Black Vienna, once again. And guess what - nobody was able to figure out the correct combination of criminals. Olli M. was the first one to make a guess (when there were 11 tokens left), but he failed. I got one certain and then three suspects from which to choose two - that meant I would get at least two. Unfortunately my guess was wrong. Robert got only one right. Olli won the game, because he guessed so much earlier.

I think next time I'll play with an infinite supply of tokens, just to determine a single winner. The points are pretty meaningless and that way someone could actually figure out the criminals. The 40 tokens aren't enough, unless the investigation cards fall the right way. I think. Still, it's my favourite deduction game at the moment. It's taxing on the brain, but in the right way. The investigation cards allow the players to assess the situation without having to remember everything. If you suspect your markings, you can check them (well, not completely - you won't see those investigations with no hits, but those can be marked in a different way).

Then we played Knizia's Fish Eat Fish. I wanted to play, because I confused it with Fresh Fish. Let me tell you, they're not quite the same! Well, it was fun, anyway. It's quite simple game, really. There's a similar combat system as in LotR: The Confrontation (play a card, add up your piece strength), but somehow I didn't like it here as much. The game is pretty chaotic (lots of player-based randomness) and in the end it becomes a memory game (the used cards are kept hidden). I'll play it again, but I think it's Geek rating of 5.80 is pretty much on the mark. Fun filler, but little else. The components are also rather bad, especially the board which is so ugly. The fish pieces are good, though.

Then we played San Juan. Robert won with a record-breaking score of 42 or so. He got the cards for the perfect City Hall play. I was stuck on being the only producer and even though my Guild Hall did score 10 points, it wasn't quite enough.

After that, we played the game I most wanted to try: Dia de los Muertos! I teamed up with Robert, Ville and Olli M. formed another pair. Our first round was a practise round, after I noticed we had forgotten the exchange of the gifts (that one's always hard to remember). Our team won! There were some lucky breaks and surprisingly skillful plays. It's a very good game and I finally raised my Geek rating from eight to nine - the game certainly deserves it.

We needed a quick game to play in the end, so three rounds of Biberbande were played. I ruled the game on every round, which is all good and well.

Next session is in two weeks, things might be a bit quiet until that. I'm trying to come up with an interesting Citadels-based Haggle ruleset to try there.

Once again, The Games Journal is out with a new issue. This one is great! Goodness starts with an insightful editorial on the front page. Destination Gaming is a curious article - I don't get the point, but it's a good read nonetheless. Greg Aleknevicus starts a new series on Basic Strategy of games. The first piece is about trading strategies and for a clueless people like yours truly, it's a very good lesson.

On the letters page, the issue of Games Journal RSS feeds is raised again. I don't think the site needs the feeds, because it updates with the precision of a Swiss clock. RSS feeds are good for web sites that update occasionally... There's no need to check out the Games Journal web site for updates (except in the mornings of the first of each month, while you're waiting for the update to happen - that's what you get from being on an earlier time zone), because you know when the updates come.

In the other hand, I could consider syndicating the contents if there was a RSS feed available. The latest headlines of the Games Journal could have a place on my blog front page. That might be a good reason to have a RSS feed, but if Greg has to create them manually, then it would be an extra burden he might not want to have.