Archive for Nick
-
Nick
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
Last year was the year in which my board gaming hobby really took off, to the extent that I thought that I would write a recap about it and let you folks know just how things have gone. If you've read my previous entries, from a long time ago, you'll know that my lovely other half was impressed enough when I whipped out my Carcassonne to make me buy The Settlers of Catan nearly immediately thereafter. By the end of the year I had added Tigris & Euphrates, Hive, Monty Python Fluxx, Bananagrams, Catan: Seafarers, Carcassonne: Inns & Cathedrals and Carcassonne: Traders & Builders.
So to 2011, which was characterised by two buying bonanzas. The first was back in February, after discovering a board game shop on the other side of town. Having intended to buy one, maybe two games, I left with the following - Agricola, Basilica, Bolide, Lost Cities, San Juan, Race for the Galaxy, Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries and a deluxe version of Scrabble for my other half to keep her happy as well. We do our gaming almost exclusively as a couple, so were leaning towards games that played well with two.
Alongside this first explosion in my collection, I began using BGG as a proper resource, although it took a while before I realised that I could catalogue all my plays. I was, however, using the ratings to filter out games that were unsuitable for us and to narrow down my list for what to buy next. I had also given myself a games budget, but, by this point, I was way ahead.
I did manage to decide that I would not buy any more games until we had played all of these at least three times, although it would take us several months to achieve this. Firstly, I was still working full time, but also I was having substantial building works done on my house, and my partner was moving out of hers and into mine at the same time. For a while we simply had nowhere to lay down a gaming board. At which point, naturally, I bought Battle Line and then was fortunate enough to find a pristine copy of Die Siedler von Catan: Das Buch zum Spielen on Ebay.
We went on a little break early in the summer, taking Hive, Battle Line and Lost Cities along with us and finding a copy of Backpacker in a nearby pub. My partner loved it, mainly because she kept winning - I was not quite so impressed, but nevertheless bought her a copy as a memento of our trip, much to my regret as I seem virtually incapable of grinding out a win.
Up to now we enjoyed almost everything we had bought. Of course, San Juan and Lost Cities tend to come out quite often, but I have a soft spot for Basilica and really enjoy the depth of Agricola, although we found out recently that we have yet to play it correctly! Of all the games we had bought thus far, Bolide was the one with which we were most disappointed. I am a huge motor racing nut, but it did not sit well with just the two of us and took too long to play, and I am minded to trade it sometime this year, along with Formula-1, which I bought off Ebay for a dose of nostalgia (I played it with my brother when we were young), Pitstop and Wheelspin No 1 World Formula Grand Prix. I shall keep Formula Dé as I have found a simple variant which I hope will appeal enough to my other half and play reasonably quickly.
For our proper summer break we made the absurd decision to take our entire collection with us, but this led to some great gaming sessions, including one of Carcassonne with Carcassonne: Traders & Builders which ended in a 187-187 draw. I also spent a good hour one evening trying to decipher the icons for Race for the Galaxy which led to something I now do regularly for us - a precis of the rules prior to the first play.
Mid-holiday, though, we discovered a game shop a mere 30 minutes away. This was like a red rag to a bull, so, despite promising myself I would buy only one game, I walked out with 7 Wonders, Small World, Dominion and Fresco, the last because we were able to hook my netbook up to the internet in a nearby cafe and see the ratings on BGG. We have now played all of these in, and Dominion, the last to hit the table, has been the biggest hit, although I am a big fan of 7 Wonders as well. I like Fresco, although my partner is less keen (it has been a while since we played it, however), but Small World, although fun, hasn't grabbed us as the other ones have. Maybe it's not quite as much fun with just the two players. It was, erm, interesting trying to get all the games into the car for the journey home.
Later on in the year I bought Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper for my other half, as she loves her murder mysteries, although it didn't quite hit the spot for her. Thanks to BGG and Ebay, though, I managed to find a copy of Orient Express for her birthday, which she loves. Around this point I also managed to find a game shop in the centre of town, but, while I have been there to touch the boxes several times, I have yet to buy anything for myself.
In the run up to Christmas, though, I bought myself copies of Blue Moon City and Mr. Jack, although these are currently on the back burner, as Santa brought (for her) Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age and (for me) Stone Age, Troyes, Hive: The Mosquito and Hive: The Ladybug. I really do feel that I should play these in first, rather than flitting around. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age has been a real hit.
For 2012, I plan to throttle back on my game buying, mainly because the two games I lust after most - Goa and Caylus - are both due for a reprint from what is on the Geek. I am also humming and hahing about investing in Dominion: Intrigue, or, at the least, asking for it for my birthday in April.
In typically nerdish fashion I have spent most of the Christmas break devising a system to make sure that none of my games gets neglected, so I am adopting a kind of rotational approach to ensure that I never have to say "I'd forgotten I owned that one".
Although I did not begin recording plays on the Geek until mid-year, I reckon that we got in about 250 plays in 2011, and, since I stepped back from full-time work in September, our average has gone up. I would love to play at least 366 times in 2012, and am dead on track for that at the moment. I am hugely lucky to have a partner who will say, out of the blue "Shall we play something?" and who will play as intensely and as competitively as I do, no quarter given or asked. I think that she is ahead on wins, and I do tend to make mistakes, but I take heart from that Knizia quote about the goal and the winning.
I view BGG as an essential and living resource, and feel, at last, that I have enough games in my collection to be able to offer advice to those asking for recommendations in various forums. Our most played games of 2011 were, as you might expect, those which play quickly and easily - Backpacker and Lost Cities, closely followed by San Juan and Hive. If you were to ask me what my favourite game was, I think I would have to plump for Agricola or Tigris & Euphrates, the former winning out - just! - because of the variety of setups, but I love the adaptability of The Settlers of Catan, especially with the expansions I own (don't fret, I can live with the dice), and still retain the softest of spots for Carcassonne, the game that started it all for me. Twice.
-
Nick
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
So here I am again with the second instalment of my holiday gaming blog. When I signed off last time we had just cracked open the wrapping on Race For The Galaxy and were waiting to attack San Juan before maybe considering some new games for the collection. As you'll read, if you stay with me, things have moved on apace since then...
We stayed with Race for a couple more plays, both really enjoying the cut and thrust of the game, and the way that tactics can really evolve and change throughout, with a marked increase in tempo and tension towards the end. After 5 plays, in the end we ended up roughly even on wins, me just edging it out. Our last two were as follows:
Me 43 – She 35
She 44 – Me 42 (ooh!)
So, having got Race under our belts we moved on to San Juan for its first play. Upon reading the instructions the mechanic looked similar to that of Race For The Galaxy, but it was much easier to get into and understand straight away. As somebody pointed out in response to my first blog, it would have made more sense to begin with San Juan, but there we go. After a few plays of this I feel that it is a little less involved than Race, and is more subject to the cards one draws, whereas Race allows you to achieve victory through several different routes. This is very much my first impression, however, and Katie took to this game straight away, enjoying the theme and the playing very much. After six plays honours are even, and the gaps tended to be larger than in Race For The Galaxy:
She 36 – Me 20
Me 34 – She 26
She 45 – Me 36 (getting the hang of it!)
Me 44 – She 27
She 40 – Me 29
Me 45 – She 33
We also played a single game of Basilica, one which I enjoy and have reviewed, Katie fighting her way back from a mistake in the first round to win 54 points to my 46. Then, however, we discovered that there was a game shop only 45 minutes away...
...and returned with four new games, hurrah! I am now the very proud and similarly poor owner of the following – 7 Wonders, Small World, Dominion and Fresco. The first three of these were all games which were on my radar, and, after consulting BGG in a nearby cafe we saw that Fresco lies only a whisker outside the top 100. It seemed worth a punt, and it was the first one we opened last night, and, I have to say, it was a punt well made. We have only played it three times, but my first impression is that this is a game well worthy of sitting inside the top 100. We found the balance of gameplay to be superb, every decision having some knock on effect on something else you were trying to achieve, and the theme and components are simply wonderful. I found playing Fresco to be a revelatory experience, akin to realising what a truly involving board game should be. When, post-holiday, I get round to ranking these new games, I am already convinced that Fresco will be only the second game in my collection to earn a 9, the other being Agricola, bringer of another revelatory experience.
We played the 2-player variant all three times, but at least we beat the 'ghost' player every time! Katie scored 83 to my 67 (and Leonardo's 59), first time around, and then I struck back 88 to Katie's 77 (Leonardo on 54). For our third foray we introduced the Portrait expansion and felt that it really added to the game. Here I won again, 98 to Katie's 86 (Leonardo on 69). If you like involved and thought-provoking gaming, then I really do recommend that you spare a thought for Fresco. Had it not been for BGG I would never have bought it, and now I can't wait to play it still more.
For now we are back at home and there is work to be done, but we hope to launch ourselves upon 7 Wonders, Small World and Dominion soon. Any pointers as to which to play first?
Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:14 pm
-
Nick
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
Well, I wrote not too long ago about a few days my partner and I spent in the New Forest, playing games and exploring. Now we are on a proper summer break for nearly three weeks, and the bulk of my car was taken up with a large storage box filled with board games, for we both love playing them, and when better to play them than when enjoying some time off?
We began with exploring an old favourite, but one that we hadn't played at all this year. I'd been hankering to play this for a while, but somehow, in the blitz of new games such as Basilica and Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries we had just not got round to playing it. Luckily for me, my other half and I tend to think along the same lines very often, so old faithful – Carcassonne- was, by mutual agreement, the first to hit the table at our holiday retreat. This was the game I used to introduce my partner (KT) to proper board gaming, producing it with some trepidation a year ago on the very same table we used this year. Well, things have moved on apace since then as our collection has expanded, so we played a couple of sessions with the Inns & Cathedrals expansion, which we'd used once before. We were a little rusty with this, so decided to ease ourselves back in with a couple of sessions, before playing one game with our other expansion, Traders& Builders. These three matches ended up with two victories for KT (agonisingly I lost the second game by 66 points after KT drew the only tile left in the bag that could complete her 66 point city!) and one tantalising draw (!) - then we threw caution to the winds and combined both expansions (and, of course, the river tiles that come with the base set), which also resulted in a storming win for KT as she entirely monopolised the Trader tokens. Scores were as follows:
Inns & Cathedrals
She 162 – Me 135
She 195 – Me 129
Traders & Builders
She 187 – Me 187
Both Expansions
She 242 – Me 199
We then decided to try something new. We'd come back to Carcassonne after spending an utterly frustrating half hour trying to play Race For The Galaxy, both of us completely confused as to what was going on, and close to despair. I really did think that I'd wasted my money on this but, armed by the knowledge from BGG that there really was a great game hiding underneath all that utterly confusing iconography, I sat down for a long, long time with the instructions until rules began to coalesce in my head. “Are you there yet”, she's ask. “Another half an hour”, I'd reply. Eventually I said, “Ok, I think I kind of have a vague idea of what might be going on”, and we dived in.
Our first game was a little tentative, but, by the second game, it had us gripped. What an awesome play, each drawn card subtly shifting the tactics you can adopt in order to eke out a victory. This really is a winner, and I can see why it is so highly rated on BGG. What a shame that the barriers to an immediate understanding are so high. I know friends who would love this game, but wouldn't have the patience to get to grips with it. Even I nearly gave it up, and I consider myself somebody who understands Agricola fairly well!
Anyway, gripes aside, we played three swift rounds of this, all three tightly fought and the last especially very tense as we tried to use our tableau cards as wisely as possible. Scores were as follows:
Me 32 – She 28
Me 37 – She 25
She 41 – Me 35 (very tense game!)
We now need to move on to the last unplayed game in our collection, the highly rated San Juan. I'm going to do the same as I did with Race For The Galaxy (indeed, what I now intend to do with all of our new games), which is to write out a simple crib sheet which will allow us to get into it straight away. Once this is learned we will have played all the games I bought in my mindless spending a few months ago and – oh, joy! - I will be able to buy some new games! I promised myself I'd play all of my new ones at least three times before I bought anything new, so I'm still due a go of Basilica and a couple of Bolide, but then it's time to go shopping again. I have some specific games in mind, but for now we have enough to get on with here. I'll post another update anon...
Happy gaming!
-
Nick
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
Lost Cities is a game recommended to me in a shop. We (I) were (was) on a board game buying spree and the hugely helpful staff member pointed us in the direction of this game. I know that much more detailed reviews reside elsewhere, but these thoughts are more my impressions of the game after 10+ plays. Once we get to 50 I’ll have a rethink.
Aforementioned staff member said that this was a good game for 2 players, which is how we (Katie and I) tend to play in general, and, what with Knizia’s game on the cover, the sale was assured. We played it once or twice, enjoying it, but the real Cities-fest came last week during a jaunt away (for which, see my last post).
For those who don’t know, Lost Cities is a two-player card game with a board in the middle which is really surplus to requirements. In fact, much of what you part with for your money in this game is surplus to requirements, because with a five-suited deck you could recreate this game fairly easily. If truth be told, though, I am of the opinion that it is worth paying, what, a whole £10 or so in order to get the proper product. Yes, you could make this at home, but Herr Knizia has spent time developing this and deserves to be paid for his effort if you are going to play it. The artwork on each suit of cards develops into an attractive tableau as well.
So the game boils down to this – you have five possible expeditions which are, from what I see on the cards, jungle, desert, snow, water and volcano, but you could easily play this game without that knowledge. In fact, you could easily play this game completely devoid of its theme, but you pays your money and you takes your choice. Again, I like to play with the theme, though here it is pretty much secondary to the gameplay.
In each game you decide which expeditions you will undertake, but (because expeditions advance) each card you place must be of a higher numerical value than the previous one. In placing the first card of an expedition you also incur an ‘expense’ of 20 points, so, for example, you would need to place 5,6,9 in that order merely to break even.
There are also multiplier cards which double, triple and even quadruple your score so that, the more confident you are of an expedition, the more you may invest, but losses are multiplied as well as gains. Lastly, an expedition of 8 cards or more (including the multipliers) gains a bonus, which can be a real game swinger.
KT and I have found this to be a light and fast-paced game, highly enjoyable and capable of producing some real tussles over a 3-game match. We find it not as tactically deep as Battle Line (also by Knizia), but not a million miles away in its card-laying ethic. It is a lighter version of that game, also, significantly, with far less interaction between the players. Yes, you react to what your opponent has played, but you do not play against it quite as much. This makes it a less involved but consequently faster game, where decisions can be made without the sometimes convulted thought processes demanded by Battle Line.
The supposed faults of this game are well known – the flimsiness of the theme, the fact you could make your own cards at home, the lack of opponent interaction – but this is still a game close to the top of those I would wish to play. Something like Agricola is undoubtedly the deeper game, but for something light, brief and tactical I would be very happy to play this again and again. It also plays a significant role, I think, in being the kind of game that would entice a card player to cross the divide and join us board gamers, and that is a significant plus. Once we graduate to Tigris, Agricola and the like, it is all to easy to forget what brought us here. Although Carcassonne and Catan are the usual suspects, this is also another game deep enough to get its hooks into the curious without letting them go.
KT and I played this several times last week, and I aim to post further thoughts once we reach 50 plays or so. For now though, the news is merely that this game is good enough to merit another 40ish plays, and will probably get there sooner rather than later. The faults in this game are largely down to taste, but the basic mechanic is enticing and balanced enough to keep us returning to this. I currently rate Lost Cities as an 8, and would be happy to play it whenever suggested. So what's the 'proper' board game like?
Wed Jul 13, 2011 12:32 am
-
Nick
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
Last week my partner and I managed to get away for a couple of days for the first time in a long time. We disappeared to the south of England, to the New Forest, and stayed in a B&B, my backpack stocked with some portable games, just in case. I took along Hive, Battle Lines and Lost Cities, leaving behind larger fodder such as Agricola.
On our first evening we found a table in a local hostelry and found, in the pile of games there, something called Backpacker. We decided to give this a go and quite enjoyed it, even though the rules seemed quite complicated at first. Our first couple of plays ended in a win apiece, and it was only on the second evening when Katie really hit her stride, beating me 2680 to 2340 over two rounds (“years”) in the first game, but going on to destroy me 4620 to 2000 over three rounds in the second. We found this game fun, if light, and, rather unsurprisingly given her success, Katie would like us to add this to our collection.
We spent a good couple of sessions in various places playing our other three games, only Battle Line sometimes being difficult to set up on a small pub table. With this game we were twice approached by people who asked us what we were playing. First it was a Dutch couple, who knew of Carcassonne and Catan, and were intrigued by the game; the second query came from an American girl whose boyfriend had only just encouraged her to play chess with him…without telling her that he had played at county level while still at school!
Having played the Schotten-Totten version described here for a while, we ‘upgraded’ to the full version, only later finding out that we had misinterpreted the instructions for the Tactics cards. This meant effectively that they were not used, but we still had some very tight games, playing over three rounds. Katie won two matches to my one, the first going 10-4, 10-4 (one win each) and the third going 13-10 to Katie as I fought back from a 5-0 drubbing the in first round.
We also brought out Hive, whose travel bag makes it an ideal portable companion, for the first time in ages. I have wanted to play this again for a while, and this trip seemed like the ideal opportunity to play it. We enjoyed this very much, and I managed to pull off a surprise victory at one point by moving my ant to a position where I could shift my grasshopper to the other side of Katie’s queen bee, setting up the win. The ant move confused her a little, which opened the gate for the victory. Here we played a best of 5 (3-2 to Katie) and a best of 3 (2-0 to me).
And lastly, Lost Cities. We found this to be a quickfire play, once we had settled into the rhythm, and, after a little misunderstanding about the scoring, this became a tight and popular diversion. In comparison with Battle Line, which can involve some quite intricate decisions, I like the relative lightness of this game, although it is still quite tactical. This ended up being our most played, as we got through four matches of three rounds each. I came out tops here, winning 235-137, 152-135 and then 152-82, while Katie’s victory came with a 223-161 scoreline. These matches swung back and forth, and there was always the possibility of a last gasp victory if somebody made an eight-card expedition.
We didn’t just play games, of course, but these added significantly to our break. There is a post somewhere on BGG under the title “How board gaming saved my marriage”, or something similar. Well, thankfully my relationship doesn’t need saving, but both Katie and I find the time we spend facing off over the table to be deeply satisfying, both in the intellectual tussle and in the quality of the time we spend together.
To sum up, then, we found Backpacker to be a light and frothy diversion, and the other three games all to be a step up in terms of complexity and tactical nous. Today we play Battle Line properly for the first time, and our next holiday, for a much longer time in August, will see yet more gaming.
(N.B. This is a repost from earlier today)
Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:38 pm
|
|
