2012.02.05
Posted in Board Games at 8:48 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I picked up the anniversary edition of Puerto Rico this weekend, since I didn’t already own the game and since it was the easiest way to get the game and both of its expansions. The publisher has stated this edition will not be re-printed, so I thought it best to act quickly.
In addition to including the expansions, the components are of higher quality – all of the cardboard is thicker stock, the doubloons are actually metal coins, and the wooden bits are a little nicer and easier to handle. The artwork has also been redesigned and illustrations added to the building tiles, which are all very nice touches.
I’m pretty impressed with the component quality, although the price was somewhat steep. I know I’ll enjoy playing this edition though, as I always found the cardboard bits and the wooden colonist markers a little fiddly to handle in the original edition. Plus, it’s Puerto Rico, which is still an absolute classic after 10 years.
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2012.01.13
Posted in Board Games at 10:17 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This week I had a chance to play the Legendary Asia map for Ticket to Ride for the first time. I wound up squarely in last place, partly due to bad luck on card draws, and partly due to a few mistakes. Had I had better luck I would have finished third.
One of the more interesting aspects of this map are the mountain routes which require you to sacrifice additional rail cars from your supply for some additional points. Assuming you don’t get too ambitious with your route planning, I would now consider this to be very advantageous in almost every way. It’s not obvious at first until you consider some of the details.
First, each car you sacrifice in this manner is worth 2 points. The “break-even” point is a route of length 5 (where each car is worth 2 points). Shorter routes all give you less bang for your buck, and this map only has a very small number of routes that are 5 or longer. The other, more important effect is that it brings on the end of the game faster, and gives you a better chance to catch your opponents short.
To give a specific example, there are some routes of length 2 which require a 2 car sacrifice. You only need to play 2 cards to claim the route, and you will get 6 points as well as be 4 cars closer to triggering the end of the game.
Now that I understand this aspect of the map better, I’ll definitely not make some of the same mistakes next time. As for the luck, well, let’s just say I had better draw locomotives a little more often if I want to claim a few ferry routes…
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2011.12.29
Posted in Board Games, Family, Friends at 9:12 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I’ve been doing some gaming over the past few weeks. It’s been a mix of old and new.
Flash Point: Fire Rescure is the “new hotness” as Jason puts it (pun intended), and he got me a copy for my birthday. To date, I think this one is only available to people who backed it on Kickstarter, which is a shame because it’s a fantastic cooperative game. The mechanics fit the theme really well, and the game moves along with relatively little downtime. The difficulty is adjustable but so far it feels about right at the regular difficulty level. You’re not going to win every game (it’s been close every game so far, either winning or losing), but it doesn’t grind you into the dust like Ghost Stories always seems to. I’ve only tried the two maps that come with the base game, and haven’t yet attempted the expansion maps which appear more difficult.
As for older games, I played all three of the following with various members of my family over the break:
- 6 Nimmt (Category 5 in English)
- Carcassonne: The City
- The Settlers of Catan
I have played all of them before, but I was the only one at the table who had played them. 6 Nimmt went over predictably well, and we got pretty goofy by the end of the game (a couple of glasses of red wine may have contributed). Everyone had fun, and we all agreed the light tactics were just the right level for what we wanted that evening.
Mom and I played a couple of games of Carcassonne, and though it took her a little bit to see the strategies, she enjoyed playing the game and came pretty close to beating me both games. This is still my favorite incarnation of Carcassonne to play, and the chance to play it with mom reminded me of why.
Finally, Settlers of Catan hit the table. My sister wound up winning quite handily, and although it’s still far from my favorite game, I enjoyed this play of it more than previous plays. The dice still hated me as they always do, but I started to at least get a bit of momentum in the mid-game. It proved to be too little, too late as mom was challenging me for the longest army while my sister had somehow managed to get 4 of the VP cards in the development card deck. I ended up in second place, but there was a lot of back and forth to get there (I was in last for the majority of the game). I’d be willing to give this one another try, although I will stick to my vow to never play it with the 5/6 player expansion ever again.
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2011.12.10
Posted in Board Games at 1:21 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Last night, Thebes hit the table for the first time in about a year. It’s a very unique game, and if you haven’t tried it yet, you should.
What was interesting about last night was watching Rafael, who had never played before, play the game. He got into it in a way that made me think, “yes, this is IT!”
He took crazy risks (let’s dig for 4 weeks, drawing 3 discs) and they paid off. He drew the discs out of the bag and slapped them down on the table, counting them as he went. He watched with interest as Jason draw from the bag and found nothing but rubble. He managed to get second place in his very first game.
For me, it was a lesson in why we play board games in the first place. Everyone had a good time, and I got to witness a first-time player totally get into the game and play it the way it’s meant to be played – on the edge of a razor, tensely drawing discs from a dig site in hopes of striking it rich. Although I wouldn’t classify Thebes as a push your luck game in terms of the core mechanic, when you go on a dig and you have to decide how long to spend a the site, there is a definite push your luck element to it, and it never fails to draw people into the game completely.
Although I eventually won the game, watching Rafael play was my reward. This is what board games are all about.
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2011.11.20
Posted in Board Games at 10:53 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
On Thursday it was game night as usual. We decided to pull out Acquire, followed by Rheinlander.
Even though I have seldom won Acquire in the past, everything went my way this game, and I won very handily, with a nearly $20,000 differential with Craig who took second place. The group generally seemed to be preferring to hold stock rather than liquidate, which worked in my favor (I think Tower got acquired 4 times, with a nice payout to me each time). I also managed to maneuver things such that Continental was re-founded well out of harms way in the corner of the board, giving me time to focus on my long-term buy and hold hotel (Festival). I got a lot of dirty looks when I founded Continental where I did, but it’s probably the one move I made that most directly led to me emerging victorious.
I didn’t win at Rheinlander, but did manage a second-place finish, by far the best I’ve ever done in that game. I feel like I’m finally beginning to understand the strategy in that game, something I never really felt I had a grip on at all previously. My score was about double my previous personal best score (41 points this game, I think my previous best was 22 or 23 points). We don’t play this one that often, but it’s nice to finally feel like I can play it competitively.
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2011.09.19
Posted in Board Games at 8:11 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This past weekend I tried out 7 Wonders for the first time. Although I would classify it as multi-player solitaire in a lot of ways, it’s an excellent game. It’s one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played recently to use a card-drafting mechanic, and it plays fast and furious even with a large compliment of players.
In the game, each player has a unique monument that grants them a slight special power. There’s nothing truly devastating, and they all seem pretty balanced, but they add a nice variety to the game and help to ensure that no two games play alike.
The interesting options and many paths to victory also make it a game that has some good replayability, and the simple, straightforward rules and quick play time make it a lot more accessible to casual gamers than a lot of games.
While it doesn’t have the depth of other multi-player solitaire games like Agricola, it’s one I can see hitting the table a lot more often, and it’s also a game I could see busting out with my family.
I don’t own a copy, but will likely track one down in the near future.
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2011.06.18
Posted in Board Games at 12:44 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
My friend Jason recently bought Tichu, which quite frankly puzzled me. In numerous past discussions he mentioned that he didn’t enjoy ladder-climbing games, and here he now owns a copy of Tichu. We played a 4-player game on Monday, although we played a short game (only to 500 points).
Craig and I won handily vs. our opponents, and I could tell during the game that Jason wasn’t enjoying it at all. I found that I sort of enjoyed playing a ladder climbing game with partners, although if we want to play a card game there is quite a list I’d reach for before Tichu personally. Apparently Jason felt this even more strongly; I suspect he’ll never again play Tichu.
This isn’t to say that Tichu isn’t a good game. Of all the ladder climbing games I’ve played, it and Gang of Four are easily my favorites and better than the majority of the rest; that said, not everyone wants to play a ladder-climbing game.
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2011.06.16
Posted in Board Games at 8:12 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
If you were to ask me, “If you could have any one out-of-print game re-printed, what game would it be?” My answer would have been very easy 6 months ago: Union Pacific. I thoroughly enjoy Union Pacific – it’s a great economic game that also has an agonizing push-your-luck mechanic that ratchets up the tension and keeps it there for the entire game. But obtaining a copy is not easy as it has been out of print, and most people who own the game aren’t willing to part with it.
Fortunately, Airlines Europe was recently released. Airlines Europe is designed by Alan Moon, who also designed Union Pacific. It’s a re-implementation of the same basic mechanics, although there are some minor differences that change it up just a bit. I eagerly snapped up a copy within a week of it arriving at my Friendly Local Gaming Store, and it hit the table in my games group this past Monday.
I truly enjoyed the game, and also appreciated the way in which the rules changes from Union Pacific made the game move much, much faster. There was a lot less downtime in Airlines Europe, and scoring was faster to resolve. Unfortunately, for whatever reason the tension didn’t ratchet up quite as high as it does for me in Union Pacific, but that’s a minor quibble. The game was truly fun and everyone at the table agreed it would have to come out again sometime.
Like Union Pacific, the most scarce resource in the game is turns. Since you can only do 1 action per turn, you have to make the most of it. The addition of money as another resource to the game means there’s a second resource to manage, in addition to turns, but it turns out there’s one simple rule that will likely keep it under control: always have enough money on hand for your next turn. If a stock appears in the market that you absolutely must have, there’s nothing worse than not being able to get it because you couldn’t afford to buy a route license. In the 5-player game we played, this was a large factor in whether or not you got a critical share in a stock or not.
Airlines Europe fills a nice gap in my personal collection, although I’m still itching to play Union Pacific again sometime.
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2011.05.17
Posted in Board Games at 10:17 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
My gaming group played Caylus last night in honour of Caylubration II, and for the first time ever, I won the game.
It was a very different game than our group’s previous goes at Caylus. Three of us (myself included) listened to Ryan Sturm‘s How to Play podcast episode, “How to win Caylus” prior to the game, and it definitely changed things.
The podcast made me realize the true importance of money and liquidity in Caylus, and although I made a couple of mistakes, I came out (barely) on top.
What I found interesting in relation to my previous post is that the game literally came down to the final turn. If it had ended a turn earlier, I would have lost. And if it had ended a turn later, I probably would have lost to a different player. Timing turned out to be my saviour in the end, although I didn’t really manipulate the ending. I merely got lucky.
I also made a couple of very good plays in hindsight, and came out reasonably well despite the very tight fight for resource cubes throughout the game. Given how resource-scarce the game was, the small advantage of using fewer resources to build via the royal favours definitely made a difference.
I’m really glad I listened to the podcast and played Caylus again. To be honest I wasn’t overly enthused with Caylus from previous plays, but now I have a much better appreciation for the game.
Thanks, Ryan.
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2011.05.14
Posted in Board Games at 12:37 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
There are a number of board games where the end of the game is triggered by some event that happens during the game play. For example, Puerto Rico ends at the end of the round when one or more of the following conditions is met:
- You run out of colonists to fill the ship during the mayor phase
- A player completely fills his city during the builder phase
- The victory point chips are exhausted during the captain phase
Another example is Hansa Teutonica where the game can end when one of several conditions is met. I would even consider Power Grid to be in this category, because the way in which I play these games is similar in many cases.
In all of these examples, an important component of my strategy is to be the player who forces the end of the game to happen, and to force the end game when my strategy has reached its optimum point relative to the strategies of other players.
In Puerto Rico, pursuing a building strategy makes this easy – when your city fills you’re almost certainly right at the peak of your victory points, and conveniently the game is also over.
In Power Grid, there’s always a point in the mid-game where I make the following decisions: On which of the following turns do I need to buy my final 2 power plants? And in what turn do I want the game to end? I then focus solely on getting enough power plants on the turns I’ve decided, buying enough resources on the penultimate turn to require that I purchase nothing except cities on the final turn, and having enough cash in the final turn to purchase enough cities to trigger the game end.
The downside to this approach is that if the game ends a turn earlier or later than I want it to, I’ll likely lose since I’m not at the peak of my own personal strategy. The upside is that, for games where I am the player who triggers the end, I’ve won probably 80% or more of them.
The same general idea applies to Hansa Teutonica, although I find that player strategies are more fluid which makes predicting the optimal point to end the game more difficult.
Games in which there is a pre-defined end-point like Risk 2210 A.D. or Power Grid: Factory Manager remove the need to trigger the end game, but also really force you to focus your strategy on the outcome of the final turn.
Perhaps one of the most tense mechanics in a game for me is the semi-random end point, like Union Pacific. The final scoring card can be almost anywhere in the deck, although it’s guaranteed to not be in the first 30 or so cards. There are ways to try and stall the next scoring card, but other players can push the other direction. Likewise, if you’re ahead, it makes sense to burn towards the final scoring card as fast as you can, although you don’t know how far down the deck it is. And this applies throughout the game as well, as what you’re really doing is pushing your luck until the next scoring card appears, whether it’s the final one or not.
And tonight, the plan is to play Arkham Horror, a game in which the endgame is more likely to control you than you are to control it. But being a cooperative game, it’s a topic for another article.
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