February 2007 Archives

My copy of Combat Commander: Europe arrived on Monday and after evening spent with a knife cutting off the counters, I got the game ready to play. I met Olli yesterday for a quick battle.

We played the first scenario, a simple meeting engagement between small Russian and German forces. Explaining the rules to Olli was fairly simple, I can see myself teaching this game to newbies without much trouble, once I get the rules straight for myself.

Our battle was pretty quiet, lots of pointless firing around, with little done. Only one unit was eliminated. It's just not enough to fire with a single squad, especially if your opponents are in cover or supported by a good leader. Takes a lucky shot to get anything done with that kind of firepower.

I enjoyed the card mechanism, like I expected. It works really well. Of course you're drawing the wrong cards all the time, but that's really what's expected with games like this. Choosing when to discard and when to act made some interesting decisions.

We played for two hours and didn't finish the scenario. Some time was lost in reading the rules. Most of the time I found answers I wanted, but not always. I got a mortar from an infiltration event, and I thought there must be some special rules about mortars. Turns out there isn't, really, it's all in the counter. Takes some practise, that's all.

So, I enjoyed it, and I'm definitely looking for more CC:E action!

Excellent session at the board game club today, I got to play everything I wanted!

Quackle!, maybe better known as Snorta! for you foreign folks, was a silly game. It's nice, but I much prefer Halli Galli when it comes to games like this. Quackle! seems to require a very specific atmosphere (read: very giggly); now our game fell a bit flat. Wasn't exactly a source of riotous laughter. Well, I've played it, I can review it and somebody bought it from me, so I'm happy.

I finally got to play a complete game of Great Wall of China. We fudged the ending a bit, the Finnish translation I have is a bit unclear on that, but it didn't matter. The game was fun, full of excitement, tough choices and difficult trade-offs. Quality Knizia, I think. The game works really well with five, and we were able to play the game fast enough this time. Excellent game in a small box.

Then, the main course: Imperial. The game that takes everything that's good in Antike and builds on that! The rondel works well, the stock market is fluid, countries change hands - brilliant game. We had three players and we played the rules as written, but with the advanced setup. I enjoyed it a lot.

It's an easy game to play, especially after Antike, and I did well, too. The movement of armies had just the right amount of focus - it wasn't that big a deal in the end, but you could do clever things with them. Controlling the right countries at the right time is what counts, of course.

It was a pleasure to play with swift players (Olli M. and Joona), we got through the whole deal in just 90 minutes. It was a blast. Very good game, this one I definitely want to play again.

Here's a review of the latest historical Catan game. The same review in Finnish.

Struggle for Rome is based on real-life history: it covers the time when the Roman empire was in decline and the eastern barbarian tribes came to loot and pillage Roman cities and then settled down and started their own kingdoms on the ruins of Rome.

Struggle for Rome inherits some basic mechanisms from Settlers of Catan - you can clearly see where some things came from. The numbered hex map, production rolls, robber (here a Roman legionnaire), knights (diplomats) and so on. Yet there's lots of new stuff too, so this is a lot more than just another Settlers scenario.

Wandering tribes

The turn structure is the first thing that's different: each turn begins with four production rolls. After that, each player will have a trading and building turn. Then it's time for the tribes to move: first horsemen tribes of each player do their thing, then warrior tribes. The tribes are independent but identical, the only difference is that horsemen act first.

The tribes begin the game from the northeast corner of the map and proceed through Europe looting cities. Once they've looted cities from three different areas (there are five in total, and if you loot a city from each area, you get a bonus), they can settle down and start a kingdom.

Tribes that become kingdoms can't move, but they can expand by conquering neighbouring Roman cities. The kingdoms produce more stuff - wandering tribes stand in one crossing and produce when the neighbouring hexes are rolled, while all cities of a settled tribe produce. Cities are also worth victory points.

So, it's not a question of if, but a question of when. Settle down later and collect the bonus for looting all areas, settle down sooner to conquer the best cities and collect the most resources - it's your call. That's the main decision in the game.

Fresh... for a while

Struggle for Rome is definitely a fresh game. It feels like Catan, but it also feels like a completely new game. Trading is subdued: most of the time, people want the same resources, so there won't be much trading. There's some interaction still: the game is very much a race, as players race to conquer the most attractive cities and race to collect the ten victory points.

I'm a bit worried about the replayability. There's enough variation in the strategies to last for a while (I've played just once, I admit, but I got the feeling that I might want to explore the game a bit more), but I wonder if the long-run replayability is good enough. Then again, world is full of good games, so it's not a huge problem if this one runs out of steam after ten or twenty games.

Struggle for Rome is interesting, but perhaps a bit clumsy. At least on your first game, prepare for questions and some puzzlement. It'll take some swift play to play the game in 90 minutes the box promises. With experience that should get better, but it's a rough start in most cases.

If you like the theme or Catan games in general, Struggle for Rome is well worth trying.

We played a game of Northern Californian Age of Steam today.

It's a harsh map. You can notice it on the first round, when you survey the map for possible starting locations and find - nothing. There's a distinct lack of good starting positions. San Jose is of course tempting - it's a huge three-hex city that produces lots of stuff every turn, as the three hexes contain all white numbers - but it starts empty.

One thing is obvious: Urbanization will be very valuable. It beat Locomotive on several early rounds, as it allows much better possibilities. It was definitely interesting, trying to find opportunities to develop one's network.

Our game was interesting. Olli started at San Fransisco, Tero started across the bridge and both me and Ilari started right in the middle (I actually duplicated Ilari's links on the first turn after he Urbanized, curious decision that actually worked). I created a six-link connection between Santa Cruz and the blue town on top across San Fransisco, but failed to use that much, I did just two six-link deliveries.

We blasted through shares like crazy. In the end, everybody but Ilari had 15 shares out. He had 10, and guess how many points was his victory margin? Yes, he beat me by 15 points... He got as good deliveries as I did (though I'm not completely sure we played San Jose deliveries right), so his better financial control was enough to secure the victory. Both Olli and Tero had some trouble creating deliveries later in the game; being in touch with San Jose might've helped.

It was a fun experience, and if I'm in the mood for really challenging game, I'll return to Northern California. I'm not sure I want to try Bay Area, the less forgiving big brother of this map...

I wanted to finish the session with something quick, but we had to quit our game of Great Wall of China after 30 minutes - the game maybe half done. It's a shame, I was doing well, but I had to go. Besides, 45-60 minutes is awfully long for the game that should play pretty fast. Well, I hope I can play it again, because it was fun while it lasted...

I've got this thing with war games. I'd like to have a tactical level war game in my collection. I like Memoir '44, it works well for what it tries to be, but I'd like something with more detail, more story to it.

However, Advanced Squad Leader and other games like it are way too heavy for me. ASL has won over many level-headed euro gamers on the Board Game Society forums, but reading their stories, I think it's way over my head. I also lack a regular and experienced opponent; even with the easier Starter Kits, I don't think teaching the game every time you play is feasible.

I've thought about Up Front, even considered bidding on it on Ebay. It's a tad expensive, perhaps, and the way people talk about the complicated rules makes me shiver. The lack of board also makes the mechanics intriguing, but tricky.

However, I think I have found a winner: Combat Commander: Europe sounds like the game I want. It combines low tactical level combat with clever card mechanism. I love card management with cards that have multiple uses (if I were to design a game, that would probably be the key mechanic). The cards also limit the possible actions, makings turns go faster.

Combat Commander looks like it would be easy enough to teach often and for the newbies to enjoy on their first go. It's expensive and the local store doesn't have it yet, but when they do, I'm going to get one. This is sad news for BattleLore, though - that has to wait, I can't afford two 70 euro games right now.