March 2009 Archives
Yesterday's session started with an interesting game of Wabash Cannonball. We only had three players, so it was a different game to start with.
I managed to lose the game on the first round. I got shares of PRR and C&O (red and yellow), probably the two weakest choices, while Sami got NYC and B&O. Hannu was left without shares. I obviously made an empty capitalization, but Sami chose to expand. Hannu bought a share with his superior finances, then I did another empty capitalization to stop him from getting two shares.
Here was my mistake: I persuaded Hannu to buy a share from Sami's company. In the hindsight, I should've had him buy one of mine. The rest of the game was pure misery, less said about it the better. Still, Wabash Cannonball is a great game, can't help it.
Hannu won, 142-120-84. Sami was second and probably handed Hannu the victory by driving B&O to Chicago, giving Hannu free option to Wabash Cannonball. I could've bought it, but Hannu had a turn before me, so Hannu would've diluted the company immediately, so I couldn't afford to bid too much. Hannu got it and made a nice profit. Of course, Sami had only played once before and that's advanced strategy.
We had time for something short, so we played two games of Die Dolmengötter. My rating of 10 is so correct for this game, it's definitely one of the very best. Of course I won both matches, the second one was particularly sweet as I beat Hannu with the tie-breaker. Sweet. This is an amazingly good game.
An opportunity presented itself... We decided to put Nooa in temporary day care so Johanna could get a break and I could get some board game time. There's a nice private day care center next to the university where we play, you can drop your kids there for an hour or few. That worked out well, Nooa had fun, and I was able to play games for two hours.
I presented a list of options and Hannu and Petri chose Steel Driver, since they hadn't played it before. I was curious to try the game with three.
Turns out three isn't the optimal player count for this game. The auction loses some tension, as it's obvious that each player will buy two shares each turn. I can't see many possibilities to upset that balance, unless someone spends a lot to buy a single share or a company becomes too weak to buy. I really liked trying to figure out how to gain an advantage in shares, that was a fun part of the five-player game.
In the end, it was very balanced. I had 520 cash, Petri had 620 and Hannu had 640. Our stock portfolios were even more even: me and Petri had 1160, Hannu had 1130. So, I lost with 1680, Hannu was second with 1770 and Petri won with 1780 - and during the game I once told Petri not to fuss about a single build, as whether he gained $20 or $30 doesn't really matter in the end...
I've been living in a gaming void... Excluding the play-by-web games, the Bezique match is the only game I've played since Anni was born. It's still a bit hectic to go out and play, but it doesn't stop me from thinking about games.
I've found Günter Cornett's Greentown and I'm seriously thinking about buying it. The game is generally described as the track-building aspect of 18xx games and nothing else - sounds pretty sweet. The BGG reception is not very good, but also may be a slightly confused. I don't know, but the game does sound fascinating.
I'm also thinking about buying Tzaar to complete my Gipf collection (I still don't have and will not have Pünct, but that doesn't count). I think the Gipf brand is good, because I'm not very keen on abstract games in general, but Gipf games manage to capture my attention and get me interested.
Funny thing - as something like Kamisado just didn't attract me at all, even though I think it has similar depth as the Gipf games have. Part of it is the style, as I really like the black-and-white aesthetics of Gipf and find the colourful mess of Kamisado disgusting, but still... part of it must be the successfull Gipf brand.
Then there's the question of Canal Mania - I have the first edition, I like to play it and now I'm wondering if I should buy the second edition or not. Is the second edition essentially better than the first? I think I like the concept of junction contracts and the possibilities they allow, but is that worth the money switching editions costs? If I can sell the first edition for a good price, then buying the second would be easy, but... I don't know. Any suggestions?
I'm a tad late with this, I know, but I just finished reading Hobby Games: The 100 Best,
The authors are a variety of games industry notables: designers, publishers, authors and so on. There's Steve Jackson (both of them, actually), Martin Wallace, Tom Wham, Warren Spector, Richard Garfield, R.A. Salvatore, Larry Harris, Gary Gygax and so on. The contributors are mostly from US or UK, with few exceptions, but even more dominantly they're male: I counted just a single woman among the hundred contributors.
The list of games is interesting. It's all hobby games, which means board games, collectible card games, role-playing games, war games and miniature games. No video games, classic board games or mass-market board games, that is. There aren't that many euro games, but plenty of board games in general.
The contributors had a fairly free choice of what to cover, as long as it was something they really loved. That's an interesting way to compile a list of 100 best games, and a successful, too. I think the list is very good and particularly for the euro games has all the necessary games and perhaps one or two interesting surprises.
Of course, discussing games that didn't made the cut or shouldn't have made the cut is an interesting pastime in itself - I think the list is missing either 1829 or (more likely) 1830.
I would've probably chosen Age of Steam myself, that's another game that could've been on the list. The game does have a pretty intense following, seven years after the initial release.
All in all, this is a wonderful book and a good read for any gamer. All sorts of single-genre gamers, particularly video gamers, would do well to read this book and learn about the world of games there is. Many of the essays pass the most important test for something like this: they really make you want to play the game they describe. That's what really makes a good game essay in my books.
