|
|
Gathering 2007
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
I think this is the first of many GL reports on this year's event. I'll try to update the list as the event goes on.
|
|
|
Posted Sun Apr 1, 2007 2:16 pm
Edited Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:24 am
|
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Walking away from the last game, I saw SwedeLad setting this game up with his wife and Seana. I'd heard about this somewhere ... The Dice Tower? ... and wanted to try it so I invited myself  Lisa and I were both new to the game so Bryan tried to teach us. He did a good job, but it's a confusing game at first! But I (we) eventually caught on!
It's sort of like San Juan, but much more complicated. Players will be taking a variety of roles that allow you gather material (wood, rubble, concrete, marble, brick, stone), start/work on buildings, attract clients (who allow you to take these roles more than once a turn), attack their neighbors (demand material), and sell resources for money (VP). When the start player chooses a role (playing a card from their hand), others in turn can either follow (play same color card) or "think" -- draw up to hand limit (5), Jack (wild card for roles), or 1 card if already at hand limit. Then, starting with start player, resolve the roles. Pass the Leader (start player) card.
Every card (6 colors) has multiple functions:
- Role: corresponds to color, and is written on the left.
- Material: corresponds to color, and shown at bottom
- Influence: modifies how well you can do things; shown on top
- Building: description at center (usually gives additional power)
There's a unique mechanism where there are a pool of cards in the center of the table. After a role has been chosen and used, those cards are added to the pool. Roles allow you to move cards around: from pool to stockpile (under player mat), from stockpile to vault (right of player mat), from hand to stockpile or building sites (next to player mat), from pool to client area (left of player mat). When you start a building, you take the card and add it to a foundation card (taken from supply); this indicates how much material you need to complete the building. When it's done, the site card is flipped and moved to top of player mat -- shows influence (and VP).
There's more -- off site locations, bonuses for types of cards in vault -- but that's the gist.
The player mat takes some getting used to, but is actually quite a clever system. Having a pool of cards is also nice -- even if you don't draw what you need, you'll have access to cards that other players draw and use.
I may have to get this game, although with Race for the Galaxy (which also shares some mechanisms with SJ, but is also more complicated and interesting) coming soon I'm not positive ....
I ended up winning the game by 1 point. Bryan had a totally awesome engine going, where he could suck up a lot of cards whenever they became available. I won by a fluke -- the building I (finally!) built allowed me to steal cards from other players and add them to my vault ... hurray for colosseums!
7/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
This year, it's VIKINGS (where's the Viking smilie??)!!
This is supposedly about Vikings, but really it's a pretty abstract tile laying game with an interesting market mechanism (the spinny wheel thing!). It's another one of those medium-light weight games that plays in around an hour (or less?). It was fun, but not necessarily something I need to have. It seems a bit too chaotic, where your options can be limited significantly by luck of the draw and turn order. Still, it's quick enough and fun enough to be worth a play now and again.
Basic Game
Tiles are divided into 6 face down piles, one/round. Most show island parts (left, right, or middle); others show red, blue, yellow or green boats (with either gold or VP marked). Players all get money and left island tile to start game, along with their starting frame.
Start each round by distributing these around the wheel randomly, with island parts starting at 0 on the wheel (going upwards) and boats (pirates) starting at 11 on the wheel (going down): the numbers are the market prices. Then draw 12 viking tokens randomly from the bag, arranging from 0-->11 in order shown on board (0-->11 blue, yellow, green, red, black, gray). In turn order, buy a tile/viking combo. If there is a clump of like-colored vikings, you must buy the cheapest one last (does that apply only to 0 price viking?). If all vikings of cheapest color are sold, rotate wheel so the next color starts at 0 cost. As each tile/viking is acquired, place the island piece into your frame, similar to Entdecker: from anywhere on left edge (except top row) or orthogonally adjacent to a previously placed tile; of course, the island/water combinations must make sense. The viking must either be placed on THAT tile, if legal (each color needs to be in a specific row), or at the top of the frame. Continue till all tiles/vikings purchased.
At the end of rounds 1, 3, and 5, score the yellow vikings: get 3 gold for each. At the end of rounds 2, 4, and 6, players may discard 1 gray viking to move either all vikings of a color, or 1 of several colors, from the top of the frame to anywhere in their framed area. May repeat as often as you have gray vikings. Then, score all active vikings (if a boat is at the top of the column, it "attacks" down the column all the way to and including the row for the color of the boat). Vikings give different rewards: black --> reward shown on boat above them (gold or VP), in same column; red --> 2 VP each; green --> 1 VP + 1 VP for each viking BELOW them in the SAME column; yellow --> 3 gold. At game end, get additional bonuses for: longest island; most complete islands; money; most excess food (each blue viking feeds itself and 4 others). Lose 2VP per hungry viking.
Most VP wins!
7/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
As ScottT said, it's "Take it HARD!".
After Wikinger, we rounded up Mary (who'd started Caylus Magna Carta; our ride was leaving so we had to GO!) and made it to dinner. JS drove us out to Texas Roadhouse -- I LOVE their ribs! We spent a long while their talking, and JS convinced us to go to Graeter's Ice Cream store. I Googled the place on my handy Treo  . AH treated us to some ice cream (cookies and cream, and cookie dough, with whip cream and fudge ... mmm mmm good - THANKS!). It was a very nice, relaxing evening! We must have been out for a few hours, I think! By the time we made it back it was late and I'd hoped to get to sleep soon. But there was a new game about and so I joined the group!
There are apparently several rules included. AlanH kindly taught the 5 of us (Greg, Scott, Kevin, Rhonda, me) this game. It's like Take it Easy, but with a bigger board, more tiles, and a little side area where you have to score 60+ points (NOT added to your score) in order to avoid a -60 penalty! I'd played the original only once, some time last year, and not very well. I did OK this time: tied with Greg for third, behind Scott 416 and Alan 456 ... if only my tiles had come up!
Fun way to spend 45 minutes!
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Last game of the night.
This is Yahtzee in Settlers form. Each player has a map of a small island, with roads, settlements, and cities shown. Roads are always worth 1 VP but others increase in value. You roll d6 (5 resources & gold) as in Yahtzee. Then, mark what you build on your sheet, scoring those VP. Must build things in the order shown. Knights allow you to convert any dice to a specific resource; can be used once per game. Each game is 15 rounds. Whoever has most points at end wins.
Like Yahtzee, it's essentially solitaire play -- your only interaction is cheering/booing others' dice rolls. It's an OK diversion, I suppose, but I much prefer the other variants: To Court the King, Pickomino.
5/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
4 April ... Day #6
Woke up in time for the Tournament! We played the 1910 rules/cards (different destination tickets, 15VP bonus for most completed tickets). I won the first round, getting about half my points from big tickets -- got lucky and was able to build a main line in the center, from west to east. Didn't do so well in the next game (final round; winners from 5 tables) -- again, the winner got about 70 points from tickets. It always comes down to the tickets -- you'd think I'd learn that! But I don't play the game often enough, I guess! Is it best to draw tickets early on, before laying much of a network?
Oh well, another tourney loss for me; not the first, of course!
7/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
I was planning on going out for some lunch and wanted to squeeze a quick game in before leaving. GaryL, who I've played several games with at SpielByWeb (but never in person; just met him here!) was also free, and suggested this. It's the basic game, but tinified -- so cute! The one problem with this version is that the scoring track is difficult to use: the pins are small and easy to drop, and the numbers are hard to read (blend into the background too much).
I'm not an especially good player, probably not much of a challenge for him, but still it's a fun game! And we played it in about 10 minutes, too!
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Well, everyone had been ignoring the food vendor in the back of the room, until today. All of a sudden, it seemed to be the thing to do -- maybe because it had suddenly gotten COLD here and no one wanted to spend too much time out there? After my hot pulled pork sandwich, which was apparently the way to go, I found Ava and Ulrich just finishing a game of some prototype. We wanted to play one of the newly available Viking games - Fire and Axe: A Viking Saga, but I couldn't find it anywhere. While Ulrich was off on an errand, Ava and I played a quick game of Gnip Gnop! It's just a toy, really; a dexterity game where you're racing to pop 3 ping pong balls from your side of the toy, through 3 little holes, to the other side. It's a lot of speedy tapping on levers trying to get your aim just right -- a fun way to kill about 3 minutes or so!
I won, humiliating Ava  !
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Since we couldn't find one viking game, we decided to play another. I taught Ava, Ulrich, and Tony. Ava had a MIGHTY army, but starved her people (still playing Moai, Ava?). I had a tiny little army, but excess food. The others were a bit more balanced. In the end, I managed to win by just a few points (54-52-48-17). Again, it's not a deep game, and certainly not evocative of Vikings, but it's not a bad way to spend 50 minutes from time to time.
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Lotte had arrived, but had an errand to run soon. We were looking for a quick game, and I suggested this! Yes, a quick Caylus game! It turned out to not be quite quick enough for Lotte (had to have Ulrich sub for her), but still this played MUCH more quickly than my first game, even with new players (Lorna, Lotte; Ava and I, and Ulrich eventually, had played). Lorna crushed us with her impressive castle building, managing to build up a nice lead with several of the 4- and 3- point pieces.
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
This finally has an entry! I played it last year here, my very last game before rushing off to the airport. I had enjoyed it quite a bit, and was looking forward to it. Fortunately, a group was just getting together to learn it. After we found someone to teach, we gave it a try. Unfortunately, we ended up making some mistakes in our rules understanding. Still, it's a fun game in the San Juan family. This is more complicated than SJ, giving you more options and more interactions between the cards, but it still plays very quickly. The artwork (which Tom had some copies of here) look great!
If you enjoy San Juan but want a little more, this is definitely worth trying.
7/10
|
36.
Board Game: Tichu
[Average Rating:7.72 Overall Rank:39]
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Dinner time! Kevin drove Ken and me to a different Chipotle Grill for dinner -- thanks! I had the veggie bowl again ... mmm mmm good!
Kevin and I were partners for the Tichu tournament, which started shortly after we got back from dinner. Prior to today, I'd played the game ... 6 times! And many of those were incomplete games! Kevin had played more, but not for several months. We were paired against Frank and Terry, who had clearly played a LOT more Tichu than we had! I think we played OK, although I, at least, clearly made some poor choices. But I'd rather blame the luck of the cards! We lost 1065-235  . What I really need is for a Tichu pro to stand behind me and tell me what to play when, and why ... any takers?
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Our Tichu game took 135 minutes to play. We did have a few pauses (Frank was running the tourney), but we also didn't have many big-scoring rounds ... they slowly climbed their way to victory. By the end, I was pretty tired. Taking a last walk through the room, I said hello to Larry and KC. KC hadn't seen Cheeky Monkey before, and it's about the weight of game I needed at the time. This time, our 3er game took 12.4 minutes, much faster than last time. I don't know if it was faster because there were only 3 of us, or because we were generally more conservative than the group was last time, but this was a great length for this weight of game.
Should be a good game for F2F!
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
So then, KC pulls out a prototype of his own! Well, you can't say no to a quick proto, right? He said he has an open view on prototypes, and doesn't mind pictures and descriptions. Still, the game is less than a week old, so the details will have to come from elsewhere. But it's an interesting abstract tile laying game -- not my favorite genre, but it plays pretty quickly and should be fun for nongamers, too.
G'night!
|
39.
Board Game: Hearts
[Average Rating:6.46 Overall Rank:758]
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
April 5 ... Day #7
Time to try again for a tournament win! It's a multiround format, with random (I think) seating in round 1, 50-point games, and Jack as -10 pts. Our group was me, EricB, AdamS, and TomH. I guess you really ought to try counting cards to be good at this! I don't, so that might explain my performance. Eric did a great job winning the Jack, but Adam managed to get through pretty much unscathed - he took very few points and ended up winning 12-15-44-57. Congrats!
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
LarryW and I had both been wanting to play AoS for a while now, and I decided to finally get a game together. Evan, Lorna, and Seanna happened to be in close proximity and got roped into playing, too ! None of us had played this (Northern CA) so we decided to try it. The key differences:
- there's a $10 bridge up north
- another ferry route is available for $6 once both towns are urbanized
- San Jose, in the SE, is a 3-hex red city. It resupplies on white 1-6! Non-red cubes can move freely between the 3 hexes. Red cubes can be delivered from one hex to another in the city. (Red New City is removed from game)
- The city in the SW starts with 2 cubes and doesn't refill. But there's a line of ships (cubes) offshore that act as though they're in the city; but they must be delivered in the order they appear (set up at start of game).
- To Sacramento hex (NE corner) color is determined by next cube in line (offshore) to city, above
Larry shocked us all by taking 3 (or 4?) shares on turn 1, bidding high, then claiming the bridge up north. Over the next few turns he had to keep taking several shares, just to be able to keep up with his expenses. Evan took the NE, Seanna the SW, and Lorna and I were in the middle. A lucky first turn bid got me loco even in 3rd place, allowing me to steal a cube Lorna was counting on using for a 2-link delivery  . Lorna ended up behind the 8 ball for a while, needing to take shares to pay finances and build. Larry, surprisingly, didn't go bankrupt -- he had to go away for a meeting and we played his turns for a while (choosing production, making deliveries): he actually continued to make some income! The others were generally pretty close to one another -- no one else built in the SE so Seanna made some money, and Evan and Lorna were able to make increasingly longer deliveries. However, I was able to secure cubes for 5- and 6-link (SE corner city) deliveries in the last few turns and had a significant lead at the end.
It was a tough map! Most cities only start with 1 cube, and our setup had only a few connections at the start of the game that would actually pay anything! Clearly, you've got to get into San Jose! I wouldn't recommend playing this with more than 5; 4 might be good if you want a less tense experience, and 5 if you want to bring on the pain!
The game was just under 2 hours, ending right in time for Evan to go try the puzzle hunt!
8/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
So, back to looking for new games to try. This is one of the Nürnberg releases I'd heard about. Lotte taught me, Mary, and Charles (who I'd met before, at least once, but didn't remember -- sorry, I'm a horrible person!).
It's an interesting idea. The board shows a town divided into districts, with each district having 2 streets with spaces for market stands. Stands are worth 1, 2 or 3. There's a police token that functions like El Grande's king in reverse -- you can only place your tokens (markets) in the distirct with the Police marker. You may move the Police at any time on your turn, paying VP to the player who controls the street you're crossing. Players have 3 chits - 2, 3, 4. On your turn, you choose which of these to use, and flip it over: it indicates how many actions you get (after all 3 used, they become available to choose again). Actions include playing markets (fill in from one end of the street towards the other) and drawing People tokens. People are grey or pink, and are placed at intersections. Whenever both ends of a street have a Person AND all stands on the street are filled, the street scores: Stand pts are multiplied by 1, 2, or 3 depending on which people are on the ends (gray-gray, gray-pink, or pink-pink). The game ends at the end of the round when a player uses their last market; that player gets to place a black Person, which will score streets with a 4 or 5 multiplier, even if all markets on the street are not filled. One last rule: you can use the 2 and the 4 once each as 2x and 4x multipliers for the NUMBER of your markets in the district; these are left on the board (only 1 playable for each region) and replaced by a 3 action marker. The player with the most VP wins.
It's a neat idea, but seemed to end before it really got going. Probably poor play on my part (I lost by a large margin) but no one really enjoyed the game very much. There seemed to be the problem that when one person could end the game, SOMEONE needed to waste their turn to block them. Perhaps worth another try, but not necessarily.
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Or was THIS the Nürnberg new release?
The board shows 10 cauldrons, each of which produce 2 different ingredients (cubes). Players have a random mix of 12 ingredients behind their shield. There's also a pool of 12 ingredients in a bag, and a bunch in supply. At start of game, get a random card showing one of the ingredients (different for each player; hidden). On your turn you either:
- take 1 cube from supply
- take 2 random cubes from the bag (till they're gone)
- create a new potion. When creating a new potion, you use one of the free cauldrons (if any): put your ingredients (no more than 2 of any color) in the spaces and choose one of the chits (1-10) to place on that cauldron. Mark that potion with one of your 5 markers. You get the 2 ingredients shown on the board and VP equal to the # on the chit you chose.
- copy an old potion. You may copy any potion on the board EXCEPT your own. You give one of the ingredients to the potion owner, and remove the rest from the game. You also get the ingredients that the potion makes, and the VP from the chit (1-10) shown on the board.
The game ends when 2 ingredients are used up from supply. Then everyone reveals their hidden ingredients: get 1 VP for every 2 cubes. Then return all these cubes to supply. The 2 (or 3?) rarest ingredients are worth VP to the players who have those cards (from the beginning of the game). Most VP wins.
---
It's an interesting game mechanism, where you have to think about combinations of cubes to use to make potions to get new cubes so you can make new potions. However, a bad pull at the beginning can mess up your game (e.g., I drew more than half gray: most others didn't have gray so they didn't make potions that use gray while I had to; I got more and more gray the entire game!). Also, the end VP reward felt a bit random -- you have some control, but the VP reward seemed to be too high. I would try the game again, but only because it does play pretty quickly.
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
A quick filler, more fun than I thought it was going to be. Or perhaps that was just the company (RichardB, LotteS, TedA, Mary)?
The deck of cards has VERY cute illustrations of a variety of animals on one of 5 colored backgrounds. On your turn, you draw a card then decide to keep it (add to your collection; 5 card max) or send it around. Other players may keep, or pass. If it makes it back to you, you draw again and repeat the process. Only caveat: if you don't have enough room in your display to accept the card(s) if everyone passed, you must add to your display: for example, if you have 3 cards in your display, you couldn't draw a 3rd card and send a set of 3 around -- would have to accept the 2 cards you draw first. There are 3 special cards that you may activate if you have a pair (in any color) in your display: thief (steal 1 card from another player's display), prankster (donate 1 of your cards to another player whose display is not full), and spy (look at top 5 cards and replace in any order). When everyone has their 5 cards, there's a beauty contest: whoever has the greatest beauty (sum of stars on cards less 'ugly' marks on cards) gets to draw 2 extra cards; 2nd place draws 1. These players may replace cards in their display with these cards, or hold them for future rounds. Then reward VP tokens: get 1 chit of the animal color for each animal in a pair, trip, quad, of quint. Also, if you have 5 diff animals, get 1 chit of each color. Play 3 rounds. For final scoring, get bonus +5VP chit for every set of 5 like-colored tokens. Most VP wins.
After first hearing the rules the game didn't sound all that great. But it turned out to be kind of fun. The cards are, of course, very well done; the scoring chips, too. The special powers are not overpowered and end up being fun to use. The beauty contest is cute, too. The game played in about 15 minutes, I think: a cute filler.
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
We were looking for a quick game and had all played this recently (I'd just learned it ... yesterday? the days are blending together). Lotte, Ted and I played a 3er in 35 minutes! It did feel a bit rushed, but it was a good game!
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
After ND, Ted suggested a prototype of his. It's an abstract and I won - clearly, it needs some work!
6/10
|
46.
Board Game: Tichu
[Average Rating:7.72 Overall Rank:39]
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
Mary got several people to play the Settlers dice game. I decided to wander around a bit, get food, chat, yada yada. Then Ted taught PatrickK Tichu (yes, there ARE still people who don't know the game!) and the 4 of us played 2 games over the next few hours. Good times were had by all - thanks for the game and company, ya'll!
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
One last game for us (me, Mary) before Ted had to run off for the poker tournament. Ted took an early lead, marching up past halfway on the 7. I made incredible progress one turn, but couldn't really finish the 7 before Ted. Mary didn't look so good, but managed to advance several numbers. She managed to win with 4 and 8, didn't realize she'd won, and won again with the 12!
A classic push-your-luck game!
6/10
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
One last game before heading up to the room -- Chris, of Watsalpoag (sp?) Games, crushed me! He apparently played it a lot as a kid, so I don't feel so badly not ... 
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
April 6 ... Day #8
LarryW is another Tichu virgin! He was interested in playing, so LarryC, Ava and I played this while Mary was going over the rules with him. New to Ava, but I'd seen this at BGG.CON. Larry took advantage of us newbies! He crushed us! At least, he crushed me (87-84 Ava-40 me ... I no can play!).
6/10
|
50.
Board Game: Tichu
[Average Rating:7.72 Overall Rank:39]
|
|
|
Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
|
We spent the next 2 hours playing Tichu - me and Mary vs. LarryC and LarryW. LarryW had played whist before, which is apparently similar. He made a few gaffes, like letting me and M go out 1-2 the first hand. Of course, it would have helped if he'd heard that rule before! So we called it a practice hand and started again. It was a relatively close game throughout, with only a few hundred points separating us. We decided to end the game at a specific time -- someone needed to go do something. But just after the last deal we realized the appointed time had already passed! We finished the hand anyway, and M and I ended up going out 1-2 with a tichu call for 300 points! So, depending on when the game actually ended, we either lost (on time) or won (end of play) ... so EVERYONE won!
Welcome to Tichu, LarryW!
|
|
|
Posted Wed Apr 4, 2007 6:16 am
Illinois
JW
Apex
North Carolina
Hillsborough
North Carolina
Yeah, hopefully I'll go back and do that - probably when I copy the bulk of these entries into my Comments for the game.