Spirit Games Wednesday Night - 2009

[carldjcross]

Or lets hunt the animals 

There's a thought retheme it as a big game hunter sim - points for the rarest animals still work but what would that make the zoo transfer card, sneaking into the back of his 4x4 for the rotting carcass? 

The reason I couldn't find it on the Geek is that it doesn't yet have a page. I feel so cutting edge. 

[EvilGinger]

Probably not geeky enough yet for a review but there are a lot of fun games upon which the geek pours scorn.

I say that mostly because I sense the fear in you at the possibility of being cutting edge!!!

 Ginger

[Zarniwoop]

Well the world should have shuddered to a halt after last night ........

I won a game I own.... Yes you heard me right we played a game of Around the World in 80 Days in which you have to play combinations of Travel cards in order to move around the world with the aim, of course, to get back to London in a little times as possible. Each travel card has a value of between 2 and 8 days and you add the cards you play together and this is how many days it costs for that trip. There are ways to reduce this cost, you have event cards that can help you on your journey, but there are a couple of bad events that effect all the players. Each turn there is a hand of face up cards dealt each of which also have an action the player may use when they pick a card. Once the first person is home, each remaining players gets a day added to their journey time each turn until they too make it back to London. This game is really fun to play and would serve well as an introductory game as it is simple to explain and play. Whilst Sally did make it back to London first, I just managed to do it a bit quicker shocking everyone.

We then played a game of Wildlife Rescue where each player has to collect rare species for their zoo, each of which has different point values. Each player is dealt a bonus card which has 3 species on it, if the player manages to collect all three they put them under the bonus card saving those animals from being transferred to another player and scoring them the bonus points. You also have a zoo transfer card which can be used once only to take an animal from another players zoo into yours when you are unable to collect that animal from the stockpile. Each turn you roll a set of dice with various animals depicted on them, and you have three rolls in order to get 3 matching symbols allows you take an animal. The winner is the one with the most points. This was a new and shiny game we were trying and it was quite enjoyable, obviously helped by the fact I managed to win this as well.

Finally we played a game of Cartagena a game of pirates escaping the Cartagena Fortress. Each player has 6 pirates they are trying to maneuver into a boat to escape, they achieve this by playing cards to match symbols on the track leading to the boat. You place your pirate on the first empty space matching the card played, in order to get more cards you have to move a pirate back to the first space with either 1 or 2 pirates on collecting 1 or 2 cards respectively. It becomes very tactical as to where to place you pirates and when to move them back. the first to place all 6 pirates on the boat wins. Amazingly I managed to win this one as well. Luckily this unprecedented winning streak appears not to have ripped any holes in reality so we should be safe for next week when normality of losing should return 

[EvilGinger]

I assume our glorious leader has resumed his losing spate as I have heard no more trumpets of doom & the vogons haven't turned up to demolish the world.

Only played one game as I am a light weight and after a strange game of dominion I had rather lost the will to play I think Dominion is a great game but we played with an unfamiliar combination of cards which  made working out what to do a bit difficult. Dident do all that well finishing third in a four player game which was apart form Irish Pete very low scoring (curses curses)

Next game would have been Powerboats which I am not that fond of and which requires me to add up something I have trouble with at the best of times. A good evening if very abbreviated.

[carldjcross]

Emboldened (or should that be embiggened?) by his successes last week Paul felt brave enough to have a crack at another one of his games, Carpe Astra.

I'd seen Phil and Paul playing this before and it always looked pretty complicated to me with the two of them hunched over the board centrating madly so to be honest I was a little apprehensive before playing this.

I needn't have worried though, once we got going it became obvious that this is a nice elegant game but still a bit of a brain burner.

The basic premise of the game is to place your pawns in on contiguous hexes that match cards either in your hand or cards in the central event pile. By doing that you either add  VP tokens to your pile or take them away from your opponents depending on where you start from.

About half way through the VPs  run out and the game becomes a scramble to get as many matching tokens and to prevent everyone else doing the same. All of which leads to lots of “take-that” as tokens are stolen and then stolen back again.

Both Paul and Carol got off to a (suspiciously!) flying start with them turning in two cards for the first couple of turns leaving Rich and myself to flounder. Although apparently we did catch up because the game ended with two 10s and two 8s to Carol and Paul and myself and Rich. Carol snatched victory with the tiebreak.

We spent a good two hours on it but it honestly didn't feel like it.

After what was an enjoyable but intense session we had a couple of games of Bucket King. If you've not played it before (and you should, soon) it's a nice light bidding card game where the aim is to have the last standing pyramid of buckets. The twist here is that depending on what colour you have been outbid for you might not only lose a bucket of that colour but also any of the buckets that were balancing on it.

Paul never seemed to be in danger of losing the first game and eventually won. Bucket King is nothing but a good leveller and he was out fairly early in the next game resulting in a titanic struggle between Rich and myself. I won but it was down to the last turn of the card.

[carldjcross]

Another risk to the space/time continuum this week following on from Paul's winning streak of a couple of weeks ago as I win a game of something! Trust me, it doesn't happen often.

My unfortunate victim was Mission: Red Planet a really thematic steampunk game about space exploration in the age of colonisation.

Red Planet plays over a couple of layers as players attempt to blast their astronauts to the surface to gain precious resources. But beware, other players might be plotting to blow up your rocket or convert your astronaut to their cause with the dastardly femme fatale.

Once on the planet the struggle continues as astronauts explore and fight for the prime regions of Mars.

The mission and event cards are a nice twist to a familiar resource collection with variable player roles game. Both cards are kept secret with the event cards being played face down on a region only being revealed to an explorer or in the final scoring round which lends an amount of uncertainty and tension to the game.

It was difficult to tell who was going to win throughout most of the game due to those dastardly cards which upset at least two of us by making our most valuable regions entirely worthless. In the end it seemed to be a tie between Phil and myself which Phil generously conceded because of an ambiguous  rule but I'm not proud I'll take my small victories where I can get 'em!

But he soon got his own back by beating us all hands down at San Juan. Carol put up a valiant struggle against tiredness (it was getting on a bit by then) and managed to stuff her Chapel to the rafters bringing her in with a very respectable score. But it was Phil who was putting out pink cards at the end of the game to rack up a big score.

[carldjcross]

First out of Paul's magic bag tonight was Blue Moon City. This was the first I've heard of this game but it came highly recommended by a couple of people so I was looking forward to trying it out.

First impressions where favourable as we started to set out the vaguely Settler-esque board and then the Dragons came out and it really got interesting. These chunky plastic dragons are used as a kind of high score multiplier and add an interesting extra layer to the game.

The rest of the game is about buying slots on the tiles. You win the tile either by buying the most expensive slot or by buying the most slots. Won tiles are turned over and yield a bonus. Even better if they are next to another already won tile in which case you receive the bonus on that tile too. You are ultimately looking to buy your way up the victory totem by using the tokens harvested from the tiles.

Perhaps I'm making it sound dull but it turned out to be a tense strategic game which rewards forward planning – my big mistake was to be so far out I was forced to sacrifice a turn to get back to where I needed to be.

Carol steamrollered into first place at the very end with her unstoppable pile of tokens, closely followed by Paul.

We followed Blue Moon City with another game of Roll Through the Ages which the nobody else had tried before.

Luke was the uncontested winner having built the Great Pyramid and a couple of other monuments before Carol finished it with her fifth development.

It's never been a game to blow me away but I like it a little more each time I play it. For those times when you want something a little bit more than a filler.

Another fun night at Spirit Games.

[carldjcross]

Ahh, the smell of brand new games.

Tonight Peter, Zarni , Richard and myself had a go at Richard's brand new copy of Smallworld from Days of Wonder.

Smallworld is apparently a  fantasy near sequel to the designers earlier game Vinci although I had neither heard of or played that game before.

At heart it's an area control game where each player leads an army of fantasy hordes into battle with  everyone else on the board. The combat is extremely simple; if you attack with more units than there are counters on that space (including enemy units, terrain and fortifications) you win the territory and the opposing armies are destroyed and routed.

The twist is that you bid for what army you want to command which also comes equipped with a random special power which could be anything from attack bonuses to being able to fly around the board. When that army has run it's course you can miss a turn putting your civilisation into decline and bid for a new army the following turn. I'll never forgot my tussles with Zarni's bivouacing zombies!

 We played a four player on one big boards but it includes separate boards for 2  to 5 players. The 2 player board for instance is very small with few territories to fight over ensuring a confrontational game no matter how many people play.

During the game both Peter and Richard were able to leave remnants of their last civilisations on the board scoring points for them as well as their current army. Although both Zarni and I tried to chip away at the expanding Elvish empire Peter had picked up enough points to win comfortably despite the valiant efforts of my Dragon Master Trolls to win the Southern mountains. Richard came second followed by Zarni and then me.

Hopefully this will get lots of play on a Wednesday night because I would really like to play this again and play it soon.

Richard, Peter and myself had a game of Race for the Galaxy to finish the evening off as Zarni bowed out to go buy some games.

Now, I've had issues with Race ever since I'd been introduced to it. I never really got it.

Perhaps  it was the couple of games of San Juan I've got under my belt since then but I had a bit of a Race epiphany. It just seemed to click and I finally knew what I was doing with at least some of the cards.

I still lost mind but at least I knew what I was doing and more importantly because I could plan ahead and I understood what everyone else was doing I was having fun doing it.

[carldjcross]

When I got to the shop at just before 8 On the Underground was already set up and just waiting for a forth player. Now that's the way to get your game of choice played.

Not the slightly more complicated Ticket to Ride that I assumed it to be not least since it takes a good deal more forward planning.

For the uninitiated it's a game of rail laying for the benefit of the underground's last remaining passenger (50 years of crap public transport policy having finally driven everyone else away presumably). Being a lazy devil he'll travel as far as possible by one set of tracks even if that means travelling around most of London.

Paul won by carefully laying his track so that by the last few crucial rounds it was his trains the passenger used to travel across London and so edged ahead on points in what was a very close game.

Next up was Lost Cities: The Board Game.

It's the second time I've played this and after promising everyone it would be a reasonably short game it managed to come in at just under two hours. Sorry everyone. But at least by the third and final round we'd sped up a fair bit.

Still, a nice light game to finish the evening won by Frog by a massive gamble with his double point scoring researcher. Well done that amphibian.

[carldjcross]

In a nice change of pace tonight our little group of Jason, Peter and myself played some light family friendly games.

First up was Lost Cities: the Board Game for the second time in as many weeks because Peter wanted to try it.

We managed to rattle through a full game in just over an hour from a cold start as both Peter and Jason picked up the pace along with some winning strategies really quickly. Both realised that a combination of  landing on rope bridges for a free move and grabbing artifacts as quickly as possible was a winner. Some long expeditions for the double scoring Researchers also added to everyone's score.

Jason won with a score in the 400s in what was a high scoring game anyway.

After that came Roll Through the Ages which I know Peter really likes.

Jason went out early for monuments and grabbed a couple of small ones early on while Peter and myself built up our cities. Mid game we were all chasing monuments but Peter managed to beat us to the biggies with his early and fortuitous acquisition of  masonry. My plan was to grab as many as possible to make my architecture development (+1 point for every monument) work for me but we ran out of time as someone finished the last monument before my dastardly plan had time to complete.

Peter remains the undefeated champion though. Jason seemed to enjoy it though as he wanted to play another there and then. We didn't though as Peter had bought Ticket to Ride: the Dice Expansion that he wanted to try out.

Obviously the dice replace the cards in the original game and it plays just differently enough to the base game to be interesting. Colours no longer matter as the dice allow you to build on either a single or double rail space depending on your dice roll.

Although I was skeptical the game plays out quite differently from the card driven game since you can't carry over resources from turn to turn as you can with the cards you're constantly judging whether you should build as many tracks as your dice allow or build the tracks that you really should build to fulfill your tickets and so waste a couple.

Jason won this one I think.

And so I left them preparing to go head to head with Roll Through the Ages one last time.

[Zarniwoop]

Wed 15th Apr 2009
Tonight we started off with a game of Tiki Mountain
this is always a good fun game we had a couple of new people join us. After a lot of struggling to climb the mountain, a few failed attempts to switch places with the leader by me, Crazyfrog managed to swap places and finally hurl himself successfully into the volcano as a sacrifice earning him the winners podium.

We then started a game of Citadels which is another great little game.
Starting with the player who is currently "King" each player in turn selects a role from a set of cards (Assassin, Thief, Magician, King, Bishop, Merchant, Architect, Warlord) these roles determine turn order and each has special roles within the game.

The aim is to get the most points gained by building various buildings which have different values. The game ends when someone builds 8 buildings, then the person with the most points wins. Bonus points are to be had for having buildings in multiple districts (there are 5 different coloured districts). Certain buildings have special abilities which aid you in a variety of ways. You build by paying the value of the building which can be 1-8 gold. On your turn you can take cards or gold tax certain districts (1 gold per building) depending on the role you selected. Each role has a specific function they can do which allows you to do extra things on your turn. In the final round I had a last demolish of Crazyfrog's building leaving him with a few less points.

[Zarniwoop]

Wed 22nd Apr 2009

We had a smaller turn out tonight so we split into a 3 and 4 player games. We started with Condottiere which turned out to be a nice little game where you all vie to control cities. You have a hand of cards with either a numeric value or one of the special cards that aid or hinder. Each player plays a numbered card and this continues till all but one passes. The player with the highest value of cards in front of them wins control of that city which then gets them more cards when they are dealt out again. If you control a number of adjacent cities (which varies according to number of players) you win. After a brief start with just 3 of us Sally joined in and made a good show but ultimately, after a tactical blunder by me and a slight mistake by Oskar during the various rounds Philsy managed a winning string of cities.

Finally we swapped Philsy for Peter and setup for a game of Carpe Astra which he and Sally had not yet played. I always enjoy a game of this and after a a lot of slandering and counter slandering the final winner was Peter but as is normal with this game it was a close thing.

[carldjcross]

Meanwhile at the other table we cracked out out Roll Through the Ages just for Phil who had been pining for a game all week (apparently).

The optimum strategy still seems to be to race to seven cities then race to wonders before finishing off with architecture or empire for big points and sure enough that was the path we all followed with varying degrees of success.

Peter won the game sitting on empire thanks to Phil finishing the game off while I had two half built wonders on the go with architecture. Bitter, moi? 

The next table reckoned they were about 15 minutes away from finishing their game which prompted Peter to say that he didn't think any game could be played in that time and was just about to get up to have a browse of the shop/go to the loo. Luckily I had my brand new copy of Tsuro to prove him wrong . Peter and Phil even had a side bet (for a pint if the Gambling Commission is monitoring this channel*) to see if we could really finish it in quarter of an hour despite Phil's reputation for leisurely turns.

...and we so nearly did going just a minute or two over and using up every tile with all three of us in the game until the last turn. Is that unusual for a 3 player game I wonder?

Finally at about 9:30 we swapped Peter for Philsey and foolishly ventured into a game of Galactic Emperor. Foolish because despite what it says on the box it wasn't over in 2 hours or anything like it. By my hazy recollection it was quarter to one before I left Spirit Games that night! A new personal record.

Galactic Emperor itself is a kind of Twilight Imperium lite with players attempting to secure power by military or political means or both.

It took about an hour  and a half before we clashed near the centre of the board but when we did, thanks to my utterly reasonable annexation of a couple of sectors of space entirely neglected by Phil**, it went quickly and violently. Phil and I broke our space fleets in one epic battle leaving the way clear for Philsey to do whatever he wished safe in the knowledge that we were now too weak to contest him for the crown.

And that was us for another night.


*”Paranoid? Is that what they're saying about me now?” Rorschach. 

**  !

[carldjcross]

Just one game for me tonight and I might as well get this out of my system now. I don't enjoy Power Grid. I find it dry, analytical and difficult to get worked up about.

We played on the Benelux map which wasn't so much of a maths nightmare for me as the Korean peninsula simply because we seemed to pretty much carve up our own area of the map (mind you we did hereticaly play with all 5 areas in a 5 player game) which meant that it was only at the very end of the game that we were jumping through occupied cities to get to our destinations.

The powerstations were kind to us too with lots of powerful ones turning up early all of which meant that we were rarely scrabbling around for money and there was very little competition for resources with most of us going after different fuels.

Phil vied valiantly with the juggernaut that is Richard&Peter and worried them enough for Richard to not so subtly hint that I should buy up the resources he needed. I didn't. Jan who had seemed to get off to a slow start finished strongly in fourth place.

At least two people at the table were acting like shopping wives during the last few turns: weighing up the pros and cons of every possible option before returning to the one they started with which slowed things down a fair bit. Phil and I suggested a side game of Race while they thought about it which may well be an option next time.

[carldjcross]

Tonight was my first go with Kingsburg which I liked a lot. Now, I'd read the Zarni's review and he was right it did sound at the very least fussy but it plays very well indeed and it wasn't long before everyone was sure what they were doing.

There is just enough randomness to keep things interesting while rewarding better strategies and plenty of scope to try out different combinations and routes to victory. Lots of replay value in this one.

I've also discovered that it is present on BSW (http://www.brettspielwelt.de/) in their usual cack handed way and also in a very nice offline Java version with some competent AI players – well they regularly beat me on expert! (http://mitglied.lycos.de/thunderfall/)

Carol won this by several miles by making a beeline for the big scoring top line buildings. Everybody else drew with only the number of goods left to separate us.

We also had a quick game of Tsuro which was again very close but eventually won by Sally sending Carol careering off the edge of the board.