October 2007 Archives
RummyNetwork is a Hungarian online game room. It's free and has several games available: few variations of Rummy, Zsír, Ulti, Schnapsen, Bridge... but most important, they have Hungarian Tarokk. In three variations, even: the regular Paskievics, the glorious Illustrated and the confusing High Tarokk.
The user interface isn't the best possible and the card images aren't pretty, but it's passable. If you start a new game room, you get three bots to play against you, so you can practise, too, without embarrassing yourself. The bots aren't very good: I'm currently giving them a sound beating on my first ever game. At least you can get yourself familiar with the user interface, and playing against even a opponent this weak is good for learning the basics.
We had a slow Thursday session, just four players - the university Autumn break is probably slowing things down a bit. Last week was quiet as well, I hear. Maybe next week'll be better?
Tower of Babel... Well, it's a good game. My play sucked, I thought I was doing well but I wasn't, but I do think it's a good game. It's just, well, subtle seems to be the favourite one-word review for this one. While I will play the game when someone suggests it, I'm not that keen to suggest it myself. Thus, even though I sort of like it, it's heading for the sell pile.
Fairy Tale is good, four-player Fairy Tale with partnerships is better and four-player partnership Fairy Tale with the Richard Garfield variant is even better than that. This simple variant (partners exchange cards on table whenever one of them plays a black card) improves the game quite a bit, offering partners possibilities to help each other. Me and Olli used this well: both of us were able to give each other very useful cards.
Razzia! is a smaller version of Ra: the most important thing missing is the disaster tiles that destroy other tiles. Otherwise it's just less tiles. The new gangster theme is fun and makes perhaps a bit more sense than the rather abstract Egyptian theme.
I realized I'm not a huge fan of the system, but it's a decent game, in the end. I probably slightly prefer Razzia!, though I would play either. Our game was total slaughter: after the second scoring, Olli was in the lead with scores of 19-7-2-0 or something equally disastrous. Guess who won?
I made a return to Schnapsen - I had tried it once before, about five years ago. It's an extremely tight two-handed trick-taker. It's an ace-ten game, played with a 20-card pack with all the non-scoring cards removed. It seems to be a game of memory: you must remember your own points and it certainly helps to remember the cards played and your opponent's points.
I can't see how two-player trick-taking could be much better... Of course, Schnapsen isn't the most friendliest game ever, even though it's pretty easy to learn, as long as you're familiar with the ace-ten point structure (and a serious gamer should be). My play sucked: I lost 3-7, giving Olli four points from failing to score 66 after closing the pack. That's amateurish...
We also played four hands of WYSIWYG - we weren't close to finishing the game, but I ran out of time. The game's supposed to be played to 100 points, but after half an hour and four hands, I had eight points and Olli had 33. Scoring seems pretty hard in the game: with good cards, getting a decent score is tricky as your initial hand value is deducted from your points. Maybe with more doubling? Also, the penalties for failing are pretty high, so I suppose the player with the lower-valued hand should just drive up the bidding and then try to make the declarer fail.
Anyway, it's a fun game and while it lacks the punch of Schnapsen, it's certainly more relaxed and pleasant to play.
I finished reading the second volume of A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack (haven't received the first volume yet, it's coming from US while the second one was sent from UK). It's a marvellous book, highly recommended for serious tarot fans - less serious tarot fans will do with the Tarot section on Card Games. One thing is sure: you need to love reading rules to games, because that's what it is, rules to dozens of Tarot variations.
But if you're interested in the topic, it's a fascinating book. The development of Austrian Tarot games to their pinnacle in the Hungarian style is really interesting. The Hungarians seem somewhat odd people and they certainly have created some odd games, yet their flavour of Tarot seems to be the most interesting one. John McLeod, the maintainer of Card Games, favours Illustrated Hungarian Tarok, which definitely is one of the finer card games around.
However, the pinnacle of Hungarian tarot, the Royal Tarot, is Something Else. First of all: the game is no more about card points or something silly like that, it's all in the announcements and bonuses. Then, the team structure is also rather curious: the team members sit next to each other. One is a starter and the other is a catcher. It's very delicate, convoluted and interesting.
I'm definitely looking forward to getting the first volume... Last time I ordered a book from States, I got an extra delay as the book wanted to go sight-seeing Austria - there was a customs stamp from Vienna on the envelope.
Yesterday's session started with a quick round of Larry Levy's WYSIWYG. It's an advanced version of German Whist, a trick-taking game for two players. Players bid for the right to become a declarer and choose trumps. In the first phase players collect new cards to fill their hands with (two cards are shown, winner of the trick gets the first choice), in the second phase the final 13-card hands are played out with double points. The game also compensates for weaker initial hand in a rather clever way.
WYSIWYG is a good choice for two-player trick-taking needs, and I know I want to play this one again.
More players arrived, there were three of us... Tarok, of course. First with three, then with four. My play sucked, as usual, but then again, I got crap hands. Well, not really, I'm just not that good in planning my play. We did see something pretty cool, though: Riku and Hannu were playing against me, Riku led trump 21 aka Mond, Hannu got greedy and tried to win it with his Skis, the biggest trump (losing Mond is an instant 20 point penalty) and I got a chance to slam down my Pagat, trump number 1, to win the trick.
What a satisfying move! Usually Pagat is the lowest trump, but when all five-point trumps (1, 21 and Skis) are played in the same trick, Pagat collects it. So, Riku did get his -20, while I got 15 points, ten of which Riku and Hannu could've easily protected. Well, I still missed my target by two points or so...
After Tarot it was Ubongo time, followed by a round of Ubongo Mini. The guys were pretty fierce at both, but thanks to a good catch-up, I was able to win the Mini. Interesting enough we had a tie in the big one: both winners had exactly equal distribution of gems. That's somewhat unlikely, I think.
Tapani had brought Pingwin and wanted to play it, so why not. Well, to be honest, I wouldn't mind if this was my last game ever... I'm not a huge fan, no. I just don't like the whole basic mechanism of the game, pretty much.
Finally, another new card game to wrap up the day: David Parlett's Ninety-Nine. This one's a plain-trick game, mostly for three, with a clever bidding mechanism. Each player gets 12 cards from 36-card pack and discards three to form a bid. The suits are coded: clubs means 3, hearts are 2, spades are 1 and diamonds are 0. So, to make the average three-trick bid, you could discard club-diamond-diamond, three spades or heart-spade-diamond.
The discarding adds some uncertainty, too, as you don't know which cards are available and which are not. That also adds some potential for nasty plays, like discarding top trumps... The game is fairly simple and easy to play without cheat sheets, so this one goes definitely to my toolkit of useful card games.
A review in Finnish of End of the Triumvirate.
End of the Triumvirate is a natural three-player game: one player is Caesar, one is Pompeius and one is Crassus. Unlike in real history, the triumvirate couldn't stop their fighting at the Luca conference, but started a full-blown civil war. Each player is trying to dominate the other two.
The battle is fought on three ways. One is military conquest: the board is divided into 15 regions and each player starts controlling five of them. Conquer four more and you win a military victory. Second way to win is political: game lasts for four years, each one ending in the election of the consul. Become consul twice and you win. Third victory is the competence victory: players advance in political and military competence tracks, get those to maximum and you win.
No extra space
It's a tight fight. There's no useless space on the board, but the players start in full contact. The mechanics are simple: provinces produce either money or legions every other turn (unless a civil servant is present to whip them). Players move around with their characters collecting resources from their provinces, moving legions with them. Step into an enemy province and a fight begins.
War is also simple. Both sides lose as many legions, defending character kills few more and random spice is provided by weapons drawn from a bag. They are cubes that might affect the battle in one way or the other - it's a random element, but the contents of the bag are public and thus you know the odds beforehand.
Actions, actions
Each turn ends in actions. Actions cost gold: more actions you take, more gold it costs, and if you're not leading in competence, you pay even more. Political actions move voters in the consul election, either to you or from other players. Military actions add weapons to the battle bag. You can also increase your competence.
It's a three-way tug of war, pretty much. Anything you can get is taken from another player. Players must form temporary alliances to beat down players close to winning. Games like this can get messy and drawn out, but End of the Triumvirate prevents that. First of all: after four years, someone is voted as consul twice and will win. Probably sooner. Also, when people get more competent, it's rather hard to drop their competence down (it can be done, but it's not easy or fast).
Overview
I think the game is rather neat. I'd love to like it, but in the end, I'll have to say it's cool, but not my cup of tea. If you like euro war games with perfect information and lots of interaction and are looking for a game for exactly three players, End of the Triumvirate is an excellent choice.
Mikugames is a new board game designer based in Sweden. He's been working since 2003 on a game called The Finnish Trilogy:
The Finnish Trilogy 1939-1945® consists of three separate, playable wargames in an operational level, that will be about the Finnish struggle during various parts of the Second World War.
All three games have the same rule system, apart from a few special rules in each of them and many of the games mechanics are measured in Battalion Equivalents (BE's), such as stacking, replacements and losses.
These are rather big games, suitable for hard core wargamers. If you are one and interested in the Finnish part of the World War 2, check this one out.
First game today was Jass. Since there are at least 70 variations of Jass, it's probably best to be more precise: we played Molotow Jass. Molotow is the four-player variant of Mittlere Jass. Plus-Minus Jass is another variant of Mittlere Jass and Cosmic Eidex is a variant of Plus-Minus Jass. Still with me?
So, it's a point-trick game of the Jass variety and the goal is to avoid the middle: either you need to score most points or the least points. Oh, and if you go over 100 (of the 157 possible points), you lose big time. It's a nice game, and offers possibilities with almost any hand. We played a quick one, just four rounds. Despite the tricky rules of Jass, I like the game, but probably prefer it with three.
Of the other Jass variants, I don't know... some sound good, in some the Weis and other rules bug me a bit. I'm definitely going to try Coiffeur-Schieber Jass as soon as I have time for a 30-round game...
Slovenian Tarok was played, two very short games. Too bad I rarely get the opportunity for a good, full game. Still, few rounds of Tarot is better than no Tarot... It's just that in Tarot you do have bad hands and good hands and you need to play several rounds to let your skill shine as you pass with inferior hands.
Two mandatory rounds of Fairy Tale were played and few more people converted. What an excellent game! I was finally able to actually win the game.
I've written a review in Finnish of Tiukka tilanne rajalla. Here's the same in English - this'll be my 99th review on Geek, one more to go before the magical Golden Reviewer badge!
Hart an der Grenze is a game of bluffing, lying, haggling and negotiating. Players are crossing a border and taking turns acting as a sheriff. The other players stuff their bags full of goodies - legal and illegal - and then declare their contents. The sheriff can choose one player for an inspection.
If sheriff finds undeclared goods in the bag, the player who's caught must pay fines: more for illegal exports, less for legal yet undeclared goods. The undeclared goods are tossed out. Everybody then gets to sell the goods they exported and whoever has most money in the end, wins.
Bribe me!
Well, it's not quite that simple. The player chosen for inspection doesn't need to open their bag, if they can bribe the sheriff. That's pretty simple: after all, if the sheriff catches something nasty, the fines go to the goverment. If sheriff extracts a bribe, that goes directly to the sheriff's pocket. So, bribing is the best way to go for both parties. It's just the exact amount that's the problem...
If players calculate cold-heartedly, this might get quite boring, but fortunately most players rather pay the fines than pay lots of money to the sheriff - even if paying to the sheriff would be a better move. A good sheriff will be able to extract bigger bribes, while a slick haggler will fly cross the border with just few bucks left to line the sheriff's pocket.
Few more twists
There's an interesting alternative scoring. After a full round of everybody being a sheriff, players sell their cards - but they can keep up to three cards. Those wait for the end of the game, which happens after few rounds. In the end, the goods set aside are sold for double price - but only a limited amount can be sold, so it's a bit of a gamble.
There are few more twists, but that's basically it. The game works pretty well, but with more players, it can break down a bit. If all players decide that the risk of getting caught is small enough - and the bribes do work well - they can choose to all put five cards - the maximum - in their bags. That sucks the enjoyment out of the game and will lead to cards running out before the game is over.
Then again, if that happens, the group is probably playing a wrong game and will enjoy something else better. Hart an der Grenze is a light game and best played with a light attitude. If the players can't help but calculate and think about efficiency, the game doesn't work too well.
Overview
The game looks gorgeous: it's a small card game in big box, but the bags players get are beautiful tin suitcases. The components work well and look great. In a game like this, presentation is important, so I give this one a full marks on that.
Hart an der Grenze is a good game in a genre I don't love or need that much, thus my lower rating. If you're looking for a light, fun game that works with a group of five or six and features haggling and bluffing, you can't go wrong with Hart an der Grenze.
Finnish PitchCar fans: Lautapelit.fi, the publisher of the Finnish edition of the game, is organizing the first Finnish PitchCar Championships. The races are driven in their store in Helsinki Saturday October 20th. Winner will go home with a trophy and either a game or a gift certificate, second place will get the other.
There's a mandatory registration by October 18th. For more information, check Lautapelit.fi web site.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the The Finnish Players' Picks 2007 GeekList. See the full list at Lautapelaaja.net. This year we had more voters, more hardcore gamers voting and lots of interesting games on the list. A good year, and another proof the hobby is indeed growing!
The winner? Puerto Rico.
