December 2007 Archives

Another year of games is soon over. Gaming year 2006 was good, but I think this one was even better! At least in quality, not necessarily in quantity...

Good new games (2006-2007 games)

Agricola - This year brought two very good games, worthy of top-10 or even top-5 spot on my personal ratings. Agricola is one of them. It's just that good. After my first games, I thought I'd buy the game when the English edition comes out, but then I figured out I want instant gratification, I'm not waiting for who knows how long (at that point the English edition wasn't announced yet). I just had to get the game so I could play it, and I haven't regretted that decision.

So far I've played the game with two, four and five players; I like them all. With five, the game gets a tad long, so I'd probably prefer the game with up to four players. Two is easier and softer; an excellent choice to play with my wife.

I've tried the advanced game once, so far, and I'm actually rather happy with the family game. It's a real game, with nothing missing - the cards just add extra on the top. There's plenty of hype around Agricola, but it's just about worth it. I think W. Eric Martin had a good point about Agricola when he said it's a really neat mixture of an experience game (strong, if somewhat nonsensical theme) and an engine game (clean, sleek game mechanics). I think most people who like euro games will at least like Agricola; it's certainly worth a try.

Caylus Magna Carta - Original Caylus was a good game. I liked it, but eventually realized I don't want to play it that much, for some reason. Part of that was the length of the game: Caylus tends to drag a bit with four or five players. Enter Magna Carta: a shorter version with random elements included. Exactly what I wanted! It turns out Magna Carta isn't the hottest thing either, as I've only played it five times so far.

Magna Carta isn't quite as short as one might think, that's one thing for sure. It's no fifteen-minute filler. I don't know; in any case, I believe replacing Caylus with Magna Carta was the correct decision.

Combat Commander: Europe - I was rather thrilled about this one earlier in the year. It was certainly one of my bigger crushes on board games so far. I was devouring information about the game before I got it. Then I got it and pffft, it fell flat. Well, not quite: I did play the game solo and took some time to get in some real games as well. It's good, but not great. The problem with CC:E is a lower density of meaningful decisions, compared to some of the better euro games. That, and the fact that playing a three-hour two-player game is just darn tricky. I'd like to play this more, as I think getting some practise would make the game a tad faster and more enjoyable, but that would require too much time right now and a regular opponent, as well.

So, I'd say this one still has some expectations to fulfill, I'm certainly not going to buy any expansions, but I'm not selling this either. I know I have that heavy war gaming thing at some level, and this is what I'm going to use to satisfy that need. I'm fairly confident that I'd end up regretting selling this one at some point.

1960: The Making of the President - This one came so late I only played it once. I want more. It's a good game, just a tad too long perhaps. Well, long enough to make playing it somewhat tricky (see Combat Commander). Still, it's another good card-driven game and I like the theme and the whole graphic design thing they have going on here: 1960 looks sweet and works well.

Phoenicia - The other Tom Lehmann game. This game sounded pretty great, I mean, Zavandor had some serious issues and Phoenicia just seemed to fix them. That was my feeling based on the previews on Boardgame News and it turned out I was right. Well, Phoenicia has some issues as well, but nothing major. The biggest problems the game has are related to the graphic design, not game design, I think. I like the game and I'm happy I got to play ten games (few at JKLM Interactive, rest face-to-face).

Race for the Galaxy - This is both the other Lehmann game and the other my-god-this-is-great game. This one was no surprise at all, after the previews and Brian Bankler's comments. I was rather confident that I'd like this and indeed I did. This is just so close to perfection: plenty of variety, clever mechanics, fast gameplay, science fiction theme... It's just everything I want, in one very tidy package. The only problem is the other players: this isn't the most newbie-friendly game and people do take their time playing this, resulting in 45-minute games. Were it up to me, this would be a 15-minute game (I've had some of that, and
we're talking about serious game-induced nirvana there). Just like San Juan, only so much better...

Through the Ages - I only had one opportunity to play the game this year and that was a fairly quick two-player game, but it left me wanting more. A lot more. I think I'll have to buy this, unless they really screw up the new edition.

Ubongo Extrem - Makes Ubongo even more interesting. I thought Ubongo had a good scoring method, but then I played Extrem and saw the light. The new scoring method strikes a remarkably good balance between skill and luck and keeps it simple at the same time. And while we're talking about Ubongo, Mini is a pretty nifty five-minute filler.

Yspahan - After missing Yspahan last year, I finally tried the computer game and ended up playing, what, fifty games. Since after all those games I still enjoyed it, I thought I'd better grab the board game. I think I played the board game twice, but hey, it isn't going anywhere (unlike the PC game - this year I went all Mac and can't play the computer version anymore).

Good older games I haven't played before

Fairy Tale - I had played this once before but I really caught this this Fall. It became something of a staple in our Thursday games, as most folks who've attended few times know it for some reason. Especially earlier we played this just about every Thursday. And why not? It's an excellent game that plays in 15 minutes. It's reliable, almost like clockwork. Brilliant game, though explaining the rules is remarkably less fun than playing the game...

Kuhhandel - I found this classic auction game now, perhaps just a bit late to the party. Iain Cheyne has been a supporter, so I wanted to give this one a shot and it was well worth it. Not everybody was as enthusiastic about this one, but I thought the game was quite neat. Played with a speed-up variant of auctioning two animals at the same time it's almost a filler, yet quite meaty.

Tarot - We've played quite a few different card games because of my book project, but none hit like Tarot. For some reason it's the Slovenian Tarok that has made the strongest impression. Then again, why not? It's a good game with an interesting bidding mechanism, some good challenges in play and lots of fun. Like Hannu, one of the biggest Tarot fans in our group, said: Slovenian is one of those games where you just have so much fun, no matter if you win or lose - and often losing badly is most fun.

Other good Tarot games include the Hungarian Tarokk and the Bolognese Ottocento - I haven't tried French Tarot, the just about only living and growing Tarot game yet, and frankly, I don't know if I will since the Slovenian game is somewhat similar yet more interesting.

Xiangqi - I took up Chinese and Japanese Chess late this year. After playing some of both, I think I prefer Xiangqi, the Chinese game. It's more dynamic and exciting. I do like the drops in Shogi, but other than that, Xiangqi is more interesting and - perhaps - less Chess-like. Shogi's a tad dry. I'm playing both at BrainKing. And let me join the chorus: learning the Japanese or Chinese symbols on the pieces isn't really that hard.

Games I've kept on enjoying

Age of Steam - A ton of expansions, again, but just four plays this year. Because of all the new games, Age of Steam just doesn't get on the table. I'm also a bit wary, expect it to take more than two hours and that always makes games hard to play. I should be able to play Age of Steam on Thursday nights. I need to make more effort to get AoS on table!

Blue Moon City - Got five plays this year, which was nice. Most of them were pleasantly tight and exciting like Blue Moon City usually is.

Most of my playing was new games - so many good new games this year, it seems. There were plenty of really good older games I didn't touch once. The number of games I played was reduced a lot from before, and here it shows. Older games suffered under the new games, especially as there were plenty of games I wanted to play a lot (Tarot, Race for the Galaxy, Agricola particularly).

The not-so-good, the disappointing, the plain bad

This section surprised me: I've been able to completely avoid really bad games. Hooray!

Chinese Poker - After playing, what, dozen hands of this, I finally realized there's really very little game in this little time-waster. I'm really surprised many Poker pros like this game so much.

Space Dealer - By far the biggest disappointment of the year. The concept was so darn cool, so like it was made for me. Science fiction theme, time pressure, real-time play... Bah. Like I wrote in March, I had time to send my wife text messages while we were playing. It was that intense. The game felt stale, the rules were muddy, the whole thing was such a disappointment. Fortunately I got the game I wanted in Race for the Galaxy, but I had really high hopes for Space Dealer, the concept sounded just that great.

Totals

86 different games. A lot less than last year (it was 123 last year), but then again, last year I felt I had actually played too many different games. I've tried to cut down getting uninteresting review copies, that helps a bit.

Total number of games played fell from 379 to 193 - that's a major drop and perhaps Nooa starts to show up there a bit. There's also some bad luck: I missed almost all board game club sessions this Fall. Fortunately I was able to have the Thursday sessions, but that's often only three or four games each week.

Fives and dimes

These are the games I played ten times or more (even shorter than last year and less intense, but I didn't have time for BSW games this year):

• Fairy Tale (19)
• Phoenicia (10)

These games I played 5-9 times:

• Agricola (8)
• Race for the Galaxy (8)
• Slovenian Tarok (8)
• Combat Commander: Europe (6)
• Blue Moon City (5)
• Caylus Magna Carta (5)

The lists are shorter, much shorter than last year...

Month Metric

Tarot, Fairy Tale and Age of Steam got played during several months.

Huber Happiness Product

Biggest sources of Huber happiness in 2007 were Tarot, Agricola and Combat Commander: Europe. This is remarkably unsurprising metric.

I must've been pretty nice, since Santa brought me Cuba (befriending game store owners helps). Haven't tried yet, but the game looks drop dead gorgeous. Mechanisms seem sound as well. Should be fun, might be one of those "nice, but like too many other games" games.

My dear wife agreed to play a game with me, and I really wanted to see what she thought of Agricola. That was a good move, because she did like the game, like I expected. She loves solitaire-ish non-confrontational games, and that's what Agricola is. Since there's always so many things to do, losing a coveted action isn't a big deal (particularly in the two-player there are always plenty of open options). There's not much competition if you don't want to, you can instead play against the game.

So yeah, this one worked out well. We actually played two games in a row! In the first one, Johanna was a bit confused about things and sort of waddled through the game with some help from me. She did pretty well, actually, losing points only to lack of fields and having lots of open space. In the next game she fixed that by having five fields and quite serious pastures! She scored full points for fields, pastures, grain and vegetables, beating me hands down. I mean, 35 points is a pretty mean score for a family game!

The two-player game is pretty mellow: the actions are not very restricted. Resources are a bit more, as there's only one three-wood action space, for example. But you can pretty much always sow and bake bread, which seemed to be a major bottleneck in the five-player game. Taking the first move isn't that critical, really. I don't mind that; it's a different experience from the five-player game. I certainly like the fact that we were able to finish our games in about 30 minutes each.

Johanna was quite open to playing the game again, which is extra nice. This was one of the better Christmas gifts this year!

We had to do a last-minute location switch because university is already closed for Christmas. Well, four players gathered at the bar we chose to play in. Not bad, really, as four is all you need... Jaakko was first to arrive and as I had set up a Xiangqi board to go through some example games while waiting, I immediately got him to play.

I won, which is hardly surprising when just about each turn we had a little conversation like "is this knight? no that's a bishop" - figuring out the pieces isn't easy, even when Xiangqi is clearly easier than Shogi (less pieces, bigger differences between the pieces). Despite that, Jaakko did ok, but I made a nice cannon checkmate after about 10-15 minutes.

I rather like Xiangqi, I think, it has several interesting features. The cannons are definitely one thing. It's a pretty dynamic game, even though the pieces are very powerless when compared to western Chess. I've been playing on BrainKing, challenges are welcome.

We also played Slovenian Tarok, which is always fun. Some pretty good deals, there, including two hands with the called king in the talon. That's always fun. Particularly the second time, when we then kontra'd Jaakko, our unlucky newbie. To balance that, both Hannu and Sami played unsuccessfull misere rounds and I screwed up otherwise, as is usual. What an excellent game, I love it even if (and especially when) things go bad.

Sami wanted to play Tichu and Hannu was eagerly in, so we played. I'm not much of an Tichu player and there I was, paired with the newbie against two clearly superior players. Well, that happens, but we certainly got a beating. Hannu did have some pretty good hands.

It's a good game, but I think I prefer Gang of Four - maybe I'm such a loner I like to play on my own? My friends seemed to prefer Tichu, which I think is the majority opinion here.

We ended the evening with few rounds of Plus-Minus Jass, which is the original game behind Cosmic Eidex. It's pretty good trick-taking entertainment for three players.

I met Olli for a quick round of two-player games. Since the ever-friendly postman brought me my Shogi board, that was what we played. Olli has this thing with abstracts: he doesn't really like to play them, because he basically dislikes their deepness, I suppose. In a sense, I mean, that he sees there's potential for really skillful play, but achievíng that would take too much effort (he's played lots and lots of Go, see).

I understand his feelings though I don't share them, but then again, I also knew he wouldn't say no to a new game... so we played Shogi. My set is - apparently - a cheap Chinese-made set, all wood. It's fairly small, but quite pleasant. One thing I like about the board is that it's hollow: a thin board on a frame. It's a simple detail, but really enhances the sound the pieces make when played. The pieces have Japanese letters. I was originally going to complain about that and the way Shogi players seem smug, but yeah, it's really not that big a deal. I mean, it didn't take long to figure out the pieces. Olli got them pretty fast, too.

They are a huge hurdle to go over with someone less serious about it - just show them the pieces and they'll certain to say "no way", but then again, are those really the people with whom you want to play a serious, heavy abstract game? If someone wants to learn Shogi, the Japanese calligraphy isn't a problem, period.

After a slow start in the game, things got somewhat heated. I lost some pieces, but for good uses: I was soon advancing on my right side, breaking my way to Olli's home base. I had read parts of Fairbairn's Introduction to Shogi and had some clue about castles, while Olli's defenses were fairly simple. In the end, I was able to mate his king for victory.

Shogi is interesting. It's still Chess, though, just slightly more interesting Chess. What makes Chess boring in my opinion is how the game slows down when pieces are captured. I don't like that. Shogi fixes that problem with drops: when captured pieces can switch sides and return to game - preferably in a strategically very important spot - things get a lot more interesting. Still, there's the same "if I move here, he moves there, this captures that, that captures that, everything breaks down" mechanism in play, which makes playing the game very heavy on the brain - and playing without thinking enough is just silly. So yeah, in Chess - Japanese or Western - I think I get Olli's love/hate relationship with abstracts the best.

Anyway, I definitely want to play more Shogi.

Then some two-player Race for the Galaxy. We played with the proper variant, playing two action cards each round. Olli won both games, I think he was using some sort of military on both games (well, he did get Sparta twice). Military is pretty good in two-player game, as you can settle twice...

The first game was particularly brutal, as he got plenty of military planets. I had all the essential pieces of a novelty strategy going, but not enough time. In the second game, I was just fooling around =)

Last night we were watching Nightwish (they were excellent!) while Nooa was with his grandparents. It was his first night away from us, but apparently everything went well... Can't wait to see him, in half an hour or so! I miss him already quite a bit.

Anyhow, since we didn't have time for a movie we were supposed to watch, we played a game of our old favourite Verflixxt!. I had bought both of the expansions in our recent order, so we used bits of both. They have few separate parts that can be combined in different ways.

The basic idea of Verflixxt is simple: a track is made of tiles with various scores from -10 to +8. Players move three pawns on the track by rolling a die. Whenever you leave a tile with nobody else remaining on it, you take it. In the end, sum of your tiles is your score. There are also neutral pieces that can be moved whenever someone's standing on the same tile with them.

From Verflixxt nochmal we used Flixxy and the Verflixxt tiles. Flixxy is a bird that moves on the board: there's a second die which tells whether you must, may or may not move Flixxy. When you move it, it's like your own pawn, so you take all the tiles it leaves and so on. When Flixxy moves to the end of track, it returns back to the start and the mover scores points. Simple, yet entertaining.

Verflixxt tiles are mixed in the track. When you leave a Verflixxt tile, it remains on the board. Instead of taking it, you must give the last tile you took to the player on your left. That's, of course, either good or bad, depending on the tile.

There are also worm tiles: you get one when you take a negative tile. They can be used to gain special abilities, like double turns or moving someone else's pawn.

From Verflixxt hoch², we took hats and risk tiles. There's a happy hat and a cursed cap - they are soft rings that can be put on the pawns to make them look absolutely cute. Happy hat is worth 10 points - the happy hat pawn must exit the track last of your pawns. Cursed cap is worth -10 points, but the pawn with the cap can move backwards. Whenever two pawns meet, hats can be given, taken or swapped.

Risk tiles are either positive or negative tiles, depending on how many you have in the end: collect odd number of them and they're bad, but if you have an even number, they're good. Collecting or avoiding them gives a nice extra touch to the game.

We also used special points awarded for reaching the finish tile on an exact roll. That's harmless and nice. We didn't use movement cards which replace the die - you get two at the time and can use them to move. I'm not sure how they work with Flixxy, and I rather like the die, actually. I'll have to try them some time, but they're not my favourite part of this expansion (the hats are the best bit, obviously!).

It was fun, all of those expansion bits worked really well and definitely improved the game. There were more possibilities and more fun. I think both expansions are really brilliant and perfect examples of what expansions can do. I don't think I'll ever play standard Verflixxt! again if I have a choice. This set - Flixxy, Verflixxt tiles, risk tiles, hats, exact finish points - is a pretty good standard set, not too complicated but lots of fun and excitement.

While waiting for our fellow gamers, we played a three-player game of Race for the Galaxy. This time everybody knew the rules and played fast and we were able to finish the game in just 15 minutes or so. It was a close one: the scores were 32-32-30, and I was able to win thanks to tiebreaker. I played military strategy this time and it worked well, I drew lots and lots of small windfall military planets. I also got few alien worlds and the six-point alien development to score the necessary points. Nice one.

Filling an Agricola table wasn't hard. Five-player Agricola is deliciously tight, yet takes a bit too much time. A bit like Caylus, I'd say. This was another family game; perhaps next time I'll introduce the cards, newbies or not. Most of the regulars have already played the game anyway.

It was a success, though, as people liked it. No wonder! Olli H. played an excellent game, building a huge stone house full of people. This time I put more effort to animals, yet had to spend a bit too much time worrying about food. Tough, tough, but that's the way I like it...

Agriculture is fun, so we traded horses. Kuhhandel, that is. For some strange reason the folks I played this with last week weren't interested... I got a tablefull of players anyway, so off we went. This time I tried a faster variant, auctioning two animals instead of one. That worked well and squeezed, what, 10-15 minutes off. Once again the horses proved victorious, though I only lost by 30 points with my three sets.

After seeing the prices Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries goes for in eBay, I decided this was an opportunity I probably shouldn't miss (an opportunity to help my fellow geeks, that is). So, I've got one for sale myself: Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries (or Menolippu Pohjoismaat, to be exact). Starting price is $49.99, shipping to most of the world is $20 for Economy and $40 for Priority.

I was visiting my parents in Jyväskylä this weekend and as usual, games were played. We started already in the afternoon with Villa Paletti. I like the game, and this reminded me why. It's just so much fun. The last game we played was particularly delicious. The lowest level was supported by three small pillars: one at the other end, two very close to each other at the other. The board was supported by one of the two pillars, then fell down to lie on both of them, then after few more moves swung back to only one of them - at which point I took the other one out.

So, for the rest of the game the whole tower was supported by just two pillars. I didn't expect to get another turn, but we played several rounds after that before the tower finally fell over. That was simply excellent and very exciting.

Next up was DaVinci Code. The game has a bit of a problem with guessing: at least two of the four games we played ended with a 50-50 guess someone had to take. In the first one I got it wrong and the next player won, in the second one my brother guessed wrong and I won on the next turn. There's no way around it, really: if you don't take the guess, you don't have even the 50% chance.

That's mildly annoying, yet I still like the game. If you play few quick rounds in succession, having some lucky endings doesn't really matter that much. I guess I wouldn't organise a serious Da Vinci Code tournament or anything, but it's quick fun with some lovely moments of sparkling ideas - "hey, I got it!"

We also played a game of Chinese Poker. I decided it's a silly game. It's the one where you deal 13 cards to each player and then form three Poker hands (five, five and three cards) out of them. Hands are compared and the best wins. It's not really a Poker game as there's no actual betting involved, just fixed payouts for the best hands. It's hardly a game, as there are remarkably few intelligent decisions to make, or at least that's how I felt. It's sort of fun, but gets old in about two hands.

In the evening we played the main treat: Agricola. We had five players, all novices except me, so we played the family game. That was certainly enough! We did manage to play the game in just 100 minutes, which was nice.

It was a success. My mother loved the game, and she did quite well, too. I won with 25 points, she got 24. Ismo made a bit of a record, scoring 14 begging cards... but that's his style, when he doesn't know a game well enough to make reasonable decision, he plays interesting moves. He certainly got plenty of points: he finished with -5, which is pretty good considering the -42 points from the begging cards.

But it's good, good, good! My game was quite the struggle, but at some point it just got so much better. I got plenty of fields, with lots of grain and vegetables... Once again I had trouble building pastures and getting animals (except for instant eating), that's something I'll have to work on the next time I play. The resources were pleasantly tight with five players, baking being one of the harder things to do unless you took the starting position.

I'm rather fond of the game.

After a quick round of Geschenkt, it was time for a double dose of agriculture.

Agricola! After figuring out the puzzle of how to fit the game on the table, I went through the rules. Let me say Agricola isn't a game I like to explain... Just too many things to do, yet most of them unavailable at the beginning of the game. The newbies must absorb quite a large amount of knowledge right away. No way I'm introducing the cards to a group that includes even one newbie! Well, I'll just have to bring Agricola every week until everybody knows how to play...

Eventually we got going, and finished 90 minutes later. Not bad for three newbies and me. It was fun, again. Now I had some ideas of what to do, yet... well, things just didn't work out that well. Let's just say I got a begging card in the first feeding phase. Embarrassing... In the end I was able to get my family to four members (and five on the last round), feeding everybody each harvest so not that bad, really.

Olli won, but he did play a good game: nice family, good house, negative points only for boars and empty space. I shouldn't have begged and getting that stone house (I ended up with a four-room clay hut) would've helped me, too, but Olli would've won anyhow. I had to eat too much of my grain and I didn't get enough veggies. I can come up with plenty of these would've', should've, could've things you know, but I suppose that's the nature of the game.

Next week: more Agricola!

I recently bought a used copy of Kuhhandel: I missed the latest Finnish edition when it was in stores and when I wanted it, it was already gone. I got a cheap copy off the Finnish Board Game Society forums: it's the oldest one, the original German version (but with 2nd edition rules, apparently).

The rules of the game were crappy and vague, but I think we got it together pretty well. I'd still prefer that the rules would describe, say, the central auction mechanism in explicit detail. Now you have to make some choices, as some things aren't explicitly mentioned. Solid rules rock.

Anyway, we played and it was fun. It's a game of auctioning animals, then trying to horse trade them to get complete sets. In the end, your score is the value of your sets times the number of them. Jouni won, with his sets of horses and golden donkeys. One more set for me or Mari and we would've won - we had three sets in the end and about the same amount of points. Olli was dead last.

I enjoyed the game a lot. The challenge of managing your money: there's a fixed supply - a rather small one, too - floating around in the game and if you bid too much, you're just begging for trouble, like, say, sudden horse trade for your favourite set. This is certainly one of my favourite auction games.

The game was perhaps a tad long - 50 minutes, with some rushing as closing time was getting near - but there are some good variants to make it shorter (either distribute some cards to begin with or auction two cards at the time), I'll probably try one of those next time. Then again, while the game looks like a filler, it isn't: it's a pretty serious and at times rather nasty game. Not for kids, despite the childish looks (I'm actually a bit tempted to make my own set - I'd prefer slightly larger cards).

About 800 euros worth of board games makes a big pile. It fills two big boxes. It's great to have delivery services that bring stuff to your door, with no extra costs. As it's rather wet and icy outside, I'm not sure I'd be alive (or, if not else, have all my bones intact) had I had to go and get the boxes from the post office.

Now I'll just have to everybody pick up their games before Nooa leaves his mark on them... He was sound asleep when the delivery man came (and he was sleeping really well, as all the noise from dragging the boxes didn't wake him up) and I was able to unpack the boxes without trouble. Now there's just a tiny, tiny problem: one of the boxes is full of packaging material and I'll have to shove all the games to the other box, otherwise they'll be out there for Nooa to enjoy...

StarCraft looks pretty nifty. It's certainly a big box. Agricola is one heavy game. Has anyone ever heard of Summertime? Well, Atro obviously has, but that was the first time I've ever heard of it...