Thursday session: Dominion, Container

After a quick hand of Le Truc with Hannu, Petri arrived and Container hit the table. Petri is interested in modern-day business games and Container hits that niche pretty well. After all, the setting is definitely contemporary and the game is all about buying and selling.

This time I managed to avoid embarrassing blunders and actually everybody made pretty good money. When we started, the guys were slightly confused, but figured out the works before the game was over. I think my one-game experience gave me enough of a head start to win the game, but Petri got close (115 vs 92). Hannu had the wrong colours of containers floating around and lacked cash in critical times (and didn't realize to take a loan), and ended up with 56 points.

Three isn't probably the sweet spot of Container - I think more is better, as there's more action going around, but the game works this way, too. It was a pretty fast, too, clocking in at 60 minutes. Petri loved the game and Hannu seemed to enjoy it, too. My rating is also on its way from 7 to 8.

Thursday's board game club was a Dominion party, pretty much. I played three games of Dominion during the afternoon, first two times in a row and then a third game just before leaving with some other folks.

It's a popular game, let me tell you. Ok, everybody didn't love it, but the game got some "I've got to have this" response, which is after all fairly rare. In the first game we used the basic setup and I beat everybody else hands down, in the second one we tried a randomized setup and things were much closer. Hannu won that one. I tried using a Chapel and didn't do it quite efficiently enough, but it was an interesting experiment. In the last game we used the Village Centrum (or whatever it's called in English - the difficulty with translations...) setup which was nice, too.

I'm enjoying the game more and more. I've still got it rated as eight, but nine is probably closer to truth. The game has plenty of potential, but the question is will it become stale? The designer has played it a lot, which would suggest there's enough staying power. Well, I'll just have to see and I'm definitely going to enjoy the game for now!

By the way, I just sleeved the game today. Based on some of the complaints, it would seem like a really difficult task, but I got the Ultra Pro basic soft sleeves, 1,50 euros per pack, and put the cards in those. The cost was minimal, the size of the cards matches the sleeves well enough, the sleeved cards fit in the insert and the box lid can be shut. Works like a charm, that is.

I also played a game of Russian Preference, a three-player favourite of me and Hannu. We got Gargoyle, another friend of the game, to join us. It was another reminder of why I don't play games for money. I lost badly: 130, 99, -229. I was deep in the hole after the fairly quick game was over.

Despite my terrible performance, I still really like the game. It's one of the better traditional card games and my favourite when there are exactly three players around.