May 2008 Archives

I got a chance to play two more games of Glory to Rome today. It's a great game, especially as I won both games... Well, that's definitely not hard against newbies, and Mari, the only other player with experience, didn't repeat her excellent performance from the last time.

The buildings are fun. In the first game, with three players, I had Ludus Magna which makes Merchant clients wild. Guess who had three merchants? So basically whatever happens, I get at least three actions. It would've been hard to lose that game. The final scores were rather happy 45-26-24 for me.

In the second game we had four players and I was able to get another victory. It was a closer game this time. We were building a lot, so the game was about to end with sites running out. I focused on stuffing my vault with marble, which was the key to victory (and the fact that nobody else stored concrete). I had my trusty Academy (draw cards whenever you do Craftsman), which I've had in every game so far, and a Temple (hand size +4). Pretty nifty, if not outstanding.

The end of that game was pretty good, though: I chose Craftsman with two Craftsman clients. With first action I finished Circus Maximus (clients do two actions, when you lead or follow that role), upping my actions from three to five. With those five, I was able to grab two of the three remaining sites (and finish both for two more points!). However, that wasn't enough... except that I just finished Latrine (discard cards before drawing new), so when I drew cards with Academy, I was able to drop all my cards to draw nine and exhaust the deck before the others could act. Whee! Final results 36-23-20-8 in my favour thanks to a well-stuffed vault.

I like Glory to Rome. It's tough to learn and people don't generally get it, but I love it. It's full of action and offers some rather serious choices to make. Definitely a nine, and a possible 10.

Me and Hannu finished off the evening with some Schnapsen. Well, something like Schnapsen, at least. We used my brand-new Schnapsen pack (I got my order from Piatnik, and it's a glorious collection of cards). However, actually it isn't a Schnapsen pack, but a 66 pack, because it has 24 cards: Schnapsen only uses 20. We didn't figure that out until afterwards, but that's life. We still used five card hands like in Schnapsen.

Whatever. It was brilliant anyway. It was very close, as we both collected points at the same pace. First one, then two, then two... Hannu got to five, I had six, but in the final round, Hannu was able to beat me well for two points and victory. It was close, and great, great fun. Schnapsen (or something like it) is an excellent game. Now if someone just explained the Bummerln scoring for me and told me what the idiom Einer kriegt immer das Bummerl means... (I think your opponent gets a Bummerln when one of the players wins a seven-point match by getting rid of all seven points. I think. An explanation would be welcome.)

This time I'm taking a look at some Italian regional packs. I happen to have two copies of the Piacentine pack by different makers, which offers some comparison possibilities.

Italy has 16 different regional packs, which are divided to four different styles: northern Latin suits, southern Latin suits, French suits and German suits. Both Piacentine and Napoletane represent the southern style. The suits are clubs, swords, coins and cups. This style is influenced by the Spanish style, as the Southern Italy where this style originates was under Spanish rule at the time.

These two are the two most popular patterns in Italy. Piacentine in particular - the pattern is popular in the Central Italy and also used in the North with the local styles. Piacentine dates back to late 18th century, while Napoletane is younger, dating from 19th century.

Both are rather similar and feature the signs of Spanish style. The clubs or batons are knotted wooden cudgels, while the swords are short and straight. Northern styles have long and straight ceremonial batons and long curved swords. Also, the symbols in the card are separate from each other: the swords and the batons don't cross each other.

These are typical Italian packs: all three have 40 cards with numbers 1-7 in each suit and three court cards: a jack, a horseman and a king.

The games to play with these packs are Scopa and Briscola.

Dal Negro Piacentine 109 and Modiano Piacentine 81/25. These packs (Dal Negro on the left, Modiano on the right) follow the same pattern and generally look the same. Both are clearly based on the same pictures, but the art is not exactly the game. The Modiano pack has stronger lines and perhaps more vivid colours, while the Dal Negro pack has slightly finer details in the pictures.

It's entirely a matter of opinion which of these packs is better. Modiano's stronger lines happen to please me more, but I'm sure someone might prefer Dal Negro. Below you can see the ace of cups from both decks, perhaps that will demonstrate the differences between the packs.

As usual, these packs lack indices, both numbers and suit symbols. It's not a problem here, in general, as the cards are very clear. Since the numbers only run to seven, counting the symbols and recognising the different number cards is easy. The double-headed courts are easy to tell apart, despite the lack of ladies.

The most mysterious card in these packs is the ace of coins, which sports a large eagle. The eagle has a circle in it and before, the circle was the place where the tax stamp was. In Dal Negro's pack, the circle is white, so there's no sign of coins in the card. In Modiano's pack, the circle has a large coin. Still, it might confuse someone.

In general these are pretty packs, the art is colourful. I also like the very large suit symbols in the lower number cards. The court cards are perhaps somewhat clumsy and the double-headed style doesn't suit them very well, but this looks like a fun pack to use. Both packs have two extra cards: pointless logo cards in Dal Negro, rules to Briscola and Scopa (in Italian) in Modiano. Both come in regular tuckbox, but Modiano's is larger and better (their boxes are always very good).

Here are the pictures. Top row is Dal Negro, bottom row is Modiano.

Modiano Napoletane 97/25. This southern pattern is similar to Piacentine, but has few key differences. The cards are slightly smaller (as wide as Piacentine cards, but almost a centimeter shorter). There are no frames around the cards. The suit symbols are perhaps slightly more minimalistic and generally smaller, especially in the cards with many of them.

The court cards are single-headed and look rather classy, if you ask me. To my eyes Napoletane is more pleasant than Piacentine. The strong, bold style reminds me of some Tarocco packs. There are some interesting details. The ace of coins has an eagle, but the eagle is two-headed, which is unique. The three of clubs has a yellow face with big mustache. Five of swords has a small hunting (or is it sowing? some rural activity anyway) scene drawn in it and the horseman of swords is a Moor.

All in all, Napoletane is a charming pack and if you want just one Southern Italian pack, this would be my recommendation. The pictures are lovely and the cards are good for playing as well, thanks to the very clean design of the cards. No indices here, either, but the cards are easy to read. The pack is of usual Modiano quality.

Yesterday's games started with a three-player Modern Art with Petri and Hannu. This was our first game with the new Finnish edition. It's gorgeous, and I'm glad to report it works well. Pretty much the only problem is the small size of the screens: they tip over and can't cover a huge pile of money. However, in this game it isn't such a big deal anyway, just keep your money in a mixed heap and nobody can figure out how much you have.

It was a good game, mostly because I won with a wide margin. Hannu was a complete newbie, though, but played a decent game. Petri likes to save money, which worked well, but perhaps he just didn't have the right paintings to sell. Hard to say. I was missing doubles myself, but got two good ones in the final deal, so that helped. Final scores were satisfying 598-482-436.

While waiting for the other table to finish their game, I played two quick rounds of Strohmann-Tarock with Hannu, winning both. In the second, I declined from leading, thinking my hand was poor. Well, I won hands down, thanks to large number of kings and having the top trumps. It certainly taught me a lesson about hand-values in Strohmann: courts are good in this game, as it's much easier to secure points with kings and queens (when you see a number card of the same suit on top of a strawman pile, it's easy to lead a king...). Fun game, Strohmann is a nice diversion when you only have two players.

Glory to Rome was high on top of my list of games to try, mostly thanks to Brian Bankler's writings. I bought a copy - just 20 euros, ordered from US, not bad! - and off we went. I'm glad to report I wasn't disappointed: this game rocks!

Of course we played it all wrong: all rules included with 5 players, all newbies. So we took 90 minutes... But I wanted to experience the full thing right away, instant gratification and so on. But I can see why they recommend a smaller approach, because it is one of the harder games to grok (it kind of reminded me of Through the Ages, both games need a sort of paradigm shift to get it).

It's such a wonderful game, the way the cards flow from one place to the other is beautiful (if confusing). I also find it refreshing that the authors haven't gone for the extra-balanced style, but instead the building actions are at times completely over-the-top. In our game Mari dominated the scores, because she had Coliseum and she fed all Make's and Petri's clients to the lions and ended up with a full vault.

That was brutal, especially if you expected the typical "don't touch" approach to player interaction these games usually have. Like I said, it's refreshing, and it makes Glory to Rome worth having, as it's so different from other games in the genre. Let's see how easy it is to get others try this one again, I know I want to.

One of my favourite bloggers, Chris Farrell, is back! His new blog is called Illuminating Games. His insights on Glory to Rome are interesting, especially considering I just bought the game (I'm hoping to play it next Thursday, we'll see).

Modiano was kind enough to send me some sample packs, so more playing-card reviews are coming up!

This time I'm taking a look at some Doppelkopf packs. These packs have 48 cards, but they are actually made of two 24-card packs. Thus, the packs have A, K, Q, J, 10, 9 in each suit twice. Doppelkopf is a very good game, developed from Schafkopf. In Doppelkopf, or Doko as it's also known, there are four players and usually the two players who have the club queens play together against the other two. It's a complicated game, but for serious card players, Doko offers interesting challenges and is highly recommended.

You can also use the Doko pack to play Pinochle and of course, split it to make two packs for playing Schnapsen...

ASS Doppelkopf Deutsches Bild. This Doppelkopf pack from ASS (here's a tip: if you search for their home page, search for Altenburger...) has German suits and pictures. That is, the four suits are hearts, acorns, leaves and bells. The court cards are king, ober and under. The obers and unders have the correct suit symbols: ober is marked with a suit symbol in the top corner and under in the bottom corner. However, all cards have indices as well (courts are K, O, U). The cards are also double-headed.

Highlights of the pack include the very beautiful aces. Shown below is the ace of hearts, but the others are just as decorative. The court cards are rather fancy as well. The theme is old-fashioned country-side style, as suits the symbols. Under of acorns is falconer, for example, while under of leaves brandishes a milk jug and a hoe. The bells are all very high-and-mighty figures, even the under wields a sword and a book. Very beautiful.

The pack also has six cards with the official rules of tournament Doppelkopf - in German, unfortunately. The cards come in a clear two-part plastic shell, which is fairly functional but needs a rubber band to stay shut. All in all, this is a handsome and useful pack, and a good choice if you wish to play Doppelkopf with the German pictures - which of course limits the potential users quite a bit outside Germany.

Piatnik Doppelkopf Franz. Bild, No. 182419. This Piatnik pack has French pictures, which means it has the standard suits: hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. The indices are German, though: K, D, B, and actually, the pictures are German as well. You see, in the Anglo-American standard courts, king of clubs represents Charlemagne (see Ron Decker's explanation) who holds the globe. In this pack and other German packs, it's the king of hearts who holds the globe. Also, here king of spades can be recognized as David, as he has his harp. In the Anglo-American standard pattern, the harp is not always visible.

The art here is very elegant and pleasant. The cards are of high quality and packed in a simple cardboard tuck box. Given the French suits, this is easier to approach than the pack with German suits, so if you're looking for a pack of Doppelkopf cards, here's a good pick. Of course, if you don't play Doppelkopf, this pack won't have much use either and the value of the pack is in the art. If your collection doesn't yet have a pack with the German-style courts with David as king of spades, that might be a reason enough to get this pack.

W. Eric Martin's Forty Thoughts on Gamers and Gaming is something worth reading.

I have good news for those of you who have enjoyed my playing-card reviews: I just placed an order to Piatnik, I'm getting 17 of their packs. Tarock, mostly, but also several different European regional packs. You see, I asked around for cards to review and Piatnik's Finnish agent replied. I didn't get anything for free, but even after VAT and shipping, those prices were dirt cheap. So, reviews are coming as soon as I get the cards.

I asked other major European card makers, but haven't heard of others yet. Someone from Modiano did ask for my telephone number, but haven't called me yet...

We played Enuk with Johanna. It's a new children's game from the Queen Kids line, designed by Stefan Dorra and Manfred Reindl. It's so new that it isn't in the Geek yet (I've added it, but it's waiting for approval). Enuk is a fun little game, I would describe it as push-your-luck memory. Players turn over tiles with animals on them. You can continue until you want to stop, an igloo tile comes up or the animals are scared. The herring are scared of salmons, salmons are scared of seals, seals are scared of polar bears and polar bears are scared of eskimos.

When something is scared, all those tiles are turned face down and you get to keep the rest. If you quit voluntarily or because you got an igloo tile, you get to keep every tile you turned over. The goal of the game is to have most tiles in the end.

When players draw igloo tiles they place the tile and a meeple on the board. In the final phase - the eskimo tiles are a timer, once all are out the final phase begins - players with meeples on the board get a chance to get more tiles. You name an animal and turn over a tile, and if you're correct, you get the tile and another go. You get one turn per meeple in the igloo.

It's very simple, over in 20 minutes maximum and very entertaining! The combination of memory and push-your-luck should work both for kids and adults, it isn't tedious for grown-ups or too difficult for children. I rather enjoyed it and will keep this one waiting for Nooa to grow up.

We played two rounds, each winning one. In the first one Johanna was a tad too reckless and lost, but when she played more carefully, she won me hands down. The memory element really spices up the push-your-luck game.

I arrived in a bad time this week: two games had just started. I sat watching and discussing playing cards with Hannu (he had bought a rather entertaining German pack of cards, it's a reproduction of 19th century Saxony pack or something like that, very funny). It turned out their Arkadia was moving slowly, so Hannu suggested playing Strohmann-Tarock on the side. Suits me!

There's a very good page on Strohmandeln, with rules and strategy. It's a two-player Tarock variant, where players have 15-card hands and three four-card draw piles. The top cards are visible and part of player's hand. Very clever, and it works well. Part of your hand is a mystery, but you see part of opponent's hand and can use that information. Suit cards are much more important than in most Tarot games.

We played three rounds. Hannu won the first as declarer, I got the second and in the third one, Hannu declared and made Uhu (won second-to-last trick with trump 2), but I got the game, so I won 7-4. It was fun, and Hannu enjoyed it as well. I'm fairly sure we'll get the cards out in a second next time we're playing something with just the two of us...

Edit: There's a more thorough Strohmandeln session report on Geek.

Next up was Thief of Baghdad. Players move their thieves between palaces to collect treasure chests. To get in, you must have your own bribed guard in front of the palace and an opponent's guard (to take the blame for the thieves, of course!). There's some pretty nice maneuvering, but also plenty of luck with the cards - getting stuck with bad cards can hurt you a lot.

Occasionally the game was fun, when you were able to pull off some neat move. Most of the time it wasn't very interesting, rather boring really. The game looks pretty cool, but it is one of those rather spiritless euro games, with nifty mechanics but very little attraction otherwise. I would play again, but the situation would have to be fairly desperate... We played twice, with the new Dutch guy Pieter winning both games. The first one was a massacre, but the second was good and exciting, with everybody having three chests when you need four to win. That was nice.

We finished off the evening with two games of Die Dolmengötter. We played with three and four players, and after these games I'd say four is better. The game is based on player interaction and providing incentives to other players and I feel it loses something when there are just three players. That doesn't mean five would be even better - I haven't tried it, but the game is short that with five it would probably be way too short. In any case, I love the game, it's a gem.

My mother and Ismo were visiting to see Nooa. Well, Nooa didn't want to sleep before they arrived and we had to put him to bed while they were here, so we entertained ourselves with games while Nooa was napping. I got to clear one game from my "I need to play this list", that is Russian Preference. I even had Russian cards to play it with.

Preference is a three-player card game where one player is a declarer and the other two play against him. The defenders also have a trick quota to make. In most variations of the game the declarer's quota is six tricks (out of ten) and the declarer only chooses the trumps, but in Russian Preference the number of tricks to make is a part of the bidding. If declarer bids more than six tricks, the quote for the defenders is smaller.

That's simple enough. Everybody who has ever played a trick-taking game with bidding will understand Russian Preference right away, and even if bidding is a strange concept, it still is fairly easy. The scoring is slightly complicated, though: in three-player game every player has four different scores. Pulja (bullet) points are scored for making declared games, heap points are scored when player fails to make a contract (or a defender's quota) and whist points are scored when defending. Whist points are counted separately against both opponents.

So, if you make a contract, you score 2-10 pulja points depending on the contract. Number of tricks made doesn't matter once you make the limit, so one needs to choose a high enough contract to ensure the maximum number of points. If you fail, you gain the same number of heap points for each missing trick. That's very painful, if you miss more than one trick in a valuable contract.

If the defenders make their trick quota, they get whist points against the declarer, once again the same amount as the declarer would get pulja points for each trick made. If declarer is missing tricks, the defenders get more points for those. If defenders fail, they too score heap points - but only the defender who made less tricks.

The defenders don't have to play - they can pass. If both pass, the declarer wins automatically. If one passes, the other can either play alone against the declarer or request the other player to play too. In that case the forced player has no risk, he or she won't get any heap points if they fail - but no whist points either, if there's a success.

The game is over when everybody has ten pulja points. That's the maximum one can have. If the points flow over, the extra points are given to the player with the second most pulja points. In exchange, the giver gets ten whist points against that player for each pulja point given. This is a nice mechanism, as it makes sure the game actually ends, even when someone can't play. The game can be as short as three deals (if each deal is bid to ten and made), but if the players can't make contracts, the game can take longer. In practise our game took something between 60 and 90 minutes.

In the end the points are counted. Pulja points don't count, because everybody has ten anyway. Heap points are converted to whist points. They're each worth ten whist points (as are pulja points). If someone has lots of heap points, everybody else will get plenty of whist points against him, that's the basic idea.

Then you just compare the whist points. In our game Ismo had 209 whist points against me, while I had 68 whist points against him. The difference is 141, so Ismo scored 141 whist points while I lost the same amount. This is done for each pair of players and finally the scores are summed. It's a complicated process, but once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard, and it works pretty well.

In our game Ismo dominated, he made many contracts, one at nine tricks, even. Of the 30 pulja points in the game, I think he made about 25. This meant, of course, plenty of whist points. Unfortunately I experiented with collecting heap points: I made a whopping 34 them, giving both my mother and Ismo 93 whist points against me in the end. My mother didn't make any contracts, but she didn't fail many, either.

So, in the end, Ismo scored 193 points, my mother got 87 and I paid it all by scoring -280. I think I need some practise...

But I liked the game. It's simple, challenging and fun. It's no Skat, but then again, it's much easier to learn and enjoy. There's enough challenge in the bidding and the play to keep things interesting.

(The pictures for this entry are from Piatnik's Great Russia Standard Playing Cards pack, catalog number 1133. Pretty standard pack, just with Russian indices.)

This time I'm taking a look at some Tarot packs that are perhaps better suited for enjoyment as art, not as playing-cards.

Modiano Tarocco Siciliano. The first thing one notices is the small size. The cards are as wide as typical Bridge cards, but even shorter. Thus, they are a lot smaller than Tarot cards usually are. The pack has just 64 cards. The suits (Italian symbols, but the card design bears signs of the Portuguese pattern - according to Dummett and McLeod this pack is the sole remaining representative of the Portuguese pattern in Europe) have cards 5-10 and the four court cards with coins having also 4 and ace. The jacks are female. Pip cards have indexes, while court cards are fairly easy to tell apart.

There are numbered trumps from 1-20 and two unnumbered trumps, Miseria and Fool. Miseria depicts a beggar with the text Miseria on top. The trumps have fairly typical pictures, but in unusual order and with some curiosities. For some reason I found the Hanged Man card rather disturbing: usually he is hanged from the foot, but in this pack he's hanged from his neck with his back turned to the watcher. The Sun shines over a fight, too - the art is beautiful, but rather strange at times. There's apparently some remains from Minchiate influences as well.

For most people this pack will be a curiosity only. There are several games known from Sicily, where it seems they play a different kind of Tarot in the different villages. Dummett and McLeod document several games in their book (A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack), but none of those descriptions are available on Pagat. I'm going to make some effort to try at least one of the games, the pack is curious enough to guarantee that, but for most people that's not an option.

So, while the pack is perfectly functional for playing - the cards are clear enough, the material good and so on - for most people the value of this pack is in the art. I would recommend the pack for that use as well, as the cards are beautiful and the trumps are curious and fairly unusual. Also, if you want a pack of Tarocco Sicialiano cards, this is your only option, nobody else makes these cards anymore.

Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille. Tarot of Marseilles is one of the major styles in Tarot cards, and the source where most occult Tarot traditions draw from. The pack designed by Jean Noblet in 1650 is a fine example of the style. There is one remaining copy of the pack in Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Fortunately it is nearly complete, missing only few pip cards from the swords. This reproduction by Jean-Claude Fornoy is based on the original cards, faithful to the original line drawings and with new, bright colours.

Fornoy has done well. The cards are beautiful, real works of art. The trumps are particularly pretty. They are Fornoy's favourite, as well. From his boutique, you can buy either a full 78-card pack or just 22 trumps, hand-coloured. I have the full pack, but I believe the hand-coloured trumps are quite a wonderful piece of work, as even the full pack is very beautiful.

I wouldn't recommend these cards for playing the game. The pip cards are somewhat confusing, as is usual with the older designs. There are small indices in the cards and the court cards have names on them, so it's not impossible to use this pack for games - after all, that was the original purpose why it was made in the first place. A bigger problem is the sharp corners of the cards and even though the material seems sturdy, I have a feeling the cards might get scuffed fairly easily and frankly, this is a pack I'd rather keep in fine shape and enjoy as a piece of art, not as an object in use.

Included with the pack is a small leaflet with few pages of information on Tarot and Jean Noblet and 60 pages of fairly pointless psychobabble. Those into card-reading might find that interesting; I got nothing out of it. I would've preferred to have more historical information, as that is always interesting.

(My scanner isn't doing justice to these cards; the colours are much better on the actual cards.)