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Hypermind BoardGame Night - July 2007
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Ah... The summer is in full swing, and what could be better in the sweltering, humid North Carolina heat than to sit in the nice cool air conditioning and play some games? This is the July edition of the Hypermind BoardGamers Glog!
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Posted On: 2007-07-06 22:57:34
Edited On: 2007-07-06 13:36:29
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This is the shiny new meta-list I've created so that we'll have a central place to link that won't change every month. Plus, it will keep me from having to update each new Glog with all the previous months.
Take a look to catch up on where we've been and hopefully see where we're going. |
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Posted On: 2007-07-06 13:45:22
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The Game of the Month for July is Citadels!
We haven't played a lot of Citadels in the Hypermind BoardGamers, but I think that it's because several of us had some experience with it previously, and we have a bad tendency to play mostly newer games (to us anyway) at our weekly meetings. I think it's going to be a great choice for us, mainly because it is so different from the previous Games of the Month! we've had. It will test a whole different set of gaming skills, and I can't wait to see who will best master them!
Other games considered: Mykerinos, Mission: Red Planet, Settlers of Catan. |
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Posted On: 2007-07-06 13:43:02
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July 3, 2007
This week's Boardgame Night started early, when I arrived at about around 4pm and taught "Fuzzy" Chris how to play Hive. He picked up on the rules pretty quickly, and by our fifth or sixth game he was beginning to give me a run for my money. He definitely liked the game, and I think he continued to play with "Magic" Chris when I left to have supper with my wonderful wife Gwen.
After our fine meal, Gwen and I returned to find that several people had already arrived and were ready to play. I was pleased to finally meet Carol, Britt's fiance, because I had begun to doubt whether she actually existed or not. She was, in fact, not merely a figment of Britt's imagination.
Anyway, it seemed only fitting that we get the evening started by playing our shiny new Game of the Month!, Citadels. There were 10 of us ready to play, so we divided into two groups and played in stereo.
Alton pulled out his copy of the game and was joined by Sabrina, John, Mark, and Chris Ashby (yes... yet another "Dude named Chris"). When it comes to Citadels, Alton is the arcane master of evil Jedi mind tricks, so I doubt that the result of that game was ever in question.
Score: Alton 28, Mark 20, Sabrina 16, Chris Ashby 15, John 14
Ratings: Alton 9.5, Mark 8, Sabrina 9.5, Chris Ashby 7, John 4.5
Meanwhile, at my table were my lovely wife Gwen, the not-quite-as-lovely Britt (pictured above), his lovely fiance Carol, and the ever so handsome "Magic" Chris (plus my own dashing self, of course). I pushed the action and managed to complete my 8 districts first, thinking that taking the initiative might steal the victory away from Gwen and Britt, who had built the more expensive districts. As it turned out, Gwen managed to build her 8th district that same turn, which was also the one color she needed to have one of each, so she took the victory by six points. Britt was also a lot better off than I realized, having built both the University and the Dragon Gate, so we were tied after the final tally.
Score: Gwen 35, Me 29, Britt 29, "Magic" Chris 22, Carol 17
Ratings: Gwen 9, Me 8.5, Britt 8, Chris 8, Carol 8
I really like Citadels, but it seems like every time I play I'm teaching it to new people, so I've never had the chance to try out any of the Dark City expansion personalities or districts. Hopefully we'll get to that over the remaining weeks that it reigns as our Game of the Month!
After both groups finished up, we had another couple of people that had arrived. "Magic" Chris, John, Mark, and Gwen jumped into a game of Arkadia, while Britt, Sabrina, Zack, Chris Ashby, Carol, and Alton started up a 6-player game of Settlers of Catan.
Arkadia - Scores: John 98, Chris 94, Mark 62, Gwen 53
Ratings: John 8.5, Chris 9, Mark 7, Gwen 7
Settlers of Catan - Scores: Alton 10, Britt 9, Sabrina 8, Chris Ashby 7, Carol 6, Zack 4
Ratings: Alton 9.5, Britt 9, Sabrina 9, Carol 10 |
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Posted On: 2007-07-06 22:07:24
Edited on: 2007-07-06 22:17:10
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July 3, 2007 (continued)
While the two large games were going on, James and I took the chance to try out a couple of shorter games. I had been wanting to give Tsuro a try for a long time, so we pulled it out, read the rules, and played a couple of games. I managed to win both of them, finding that (for us anyway) winning was mostly a function of keeping yourself alive until your opponent accidently killed himself. It was an okay game, and we both rated it as a 6.
Despite it being the Game of the Month! in June, James had never played Taluva. So I taught him how to play that as well, and we gave it a try. It was a learning game for him, of course, so I managed to win by placing all of my Towers and Huts.
By this time, the game of Arkadia was over, but Settlers was still going strong. We therefore pulled out our favorite stand-by filler, Liar's Dice, and played a round with 6 people. Mark ended up winning with 2 dice left.
Mark then went over and took over for Zack (who had to leave before the marathon Settlers game ended), so we then pulled out a new filler that's been getting a lot of play lately, Ca$h 'n Gun$. James and Gwen were new to the game, but it didn't show, with each one winning one of the two games we played. While it sure is a lot of fun, I don't actually think there is any measurable skill involved at all in the game. Instead, success is usually tied to going unnoticed and people thinking that you're not a threat, which is perfect for new players.
Score (Game 1): Gwen 145k, "Magic" Chris 110k, James 110k, John 45k, Me (-5)k and I was DEAD
Score (Game 2): James 95k, Gwen 85k, Me 75k, John 65k, "Magic" Chris 45k
Ratings: Gwen 6, James 7, "Magic" Chris 6, John 7, Me 6
Once Alton was finally crowned the "Lord of all Catan", we settled down to play one more ending game. I pushed for something long and heavy like Power Grid or Antike (since the next day was a holiday after all), but everybody else wanted to have another run at a huge-mongous game of Liar's Dice.
There were 8 of us in all (that's 40 dice for the arithmatically challenged out there), with the players being Sabrina, "Magic" Chris, Carol, Britt, John, Mark, Nick, and myself. Sabrina and Carol had never played, so we all explained the basic rules to them and then got started. After about 30 minutes of dice-chuckin' fury, it all came down to Chris and Britt...
Britt's smug intimidation must have been too much for Chris, however, for he managed to pull out the win with 2 dice left in his cup. The Ratings for everyone playing Liar's Dice for the evening were: Mark 8, Britt 8.5, Gwen 8, James 6, "Magic" Chris 7, John 7, Sabrina 9, Carol 8.5, Nick 10, and me 8.
That's pretty much it for this week, but I'll end with a picture that's worth a thousand words when it comes to ending up...
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Posted On: 2007-07-06 22:30:54
Edited on: 2007-07-06 22:57:15
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July 7, 2007
Another special Saturday edition of the Hypermind Boardgamers!
Instead of planning one big session of Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, we decided to play a couple of the other "longer" games that we have come to enjoy. Only Alton, Britt, and I were able to come from our "regular" group, but we also grabbed a dude named Julius as we pulled out Warrior Knights and set it up.
Now, Alton and Britt had played the game a couple of times, but I had either been involved in other games or been unavailable during those sessions. So I was in the rare situation of not knowing much of anything about the game before we got started. Britt and Alton were a little rusty on the rules (which I'll come back to later), but I seemed to be able to grab ahold of the basic play of the game pretty quickly.
I was green, and was able to place my stronghold in the bottom-left corner. Britt was red and was situated mainly just "above" me, across the river. Alton was purple and in the opposite corner (upper right), while Julius was black and located just to the right of the center of the board.
As the game started, I made a pretty cool move in holding off on the mercenary draft until a little later. Everybody else spent their first actions getting spots in the first draft while I was attacking the high-crown cities near the center of the board. Then after they all shared the first draft pretty evenly, I was able to grab the three top spots in the second draft (getting a 200 and two 150's). So in the early going I gernered a pretty commanding lead in both influence and in assembly votes (holding onto the Chairmanship for most of the game).
Then comes the point where I got robbed. Britt had mentioned the whole "unattended cities can revolt" thing, but made it sound rather rare. So when we turned over three "Revolt" fate cards for my three largest cities after round 3 or 4, my heart sank. Of course, it wouldn't have been quite as bad if he or Alton had also remembered that you could prevent a revolt by either paying twice its income or a faith counter. So, watching in helpless terror, I saw five of my cities revolt and disappear over the next two rounds.
In the end, I "lost" to Alton by by one influence point. So if even one of those cities had been prevented from revolting, I would have at least tied or probably won the game. Grrrrrrr! That'll teach me to play a game I haven't read the rules for...
Score: Alton 16, Me 15, Britt 13, Julius 6
Ratings: Alton 8, Me 8 (upgraded from a 6 after reading the rules), Britt 8, Julius 9
Incorrect rules aside, I really liked all that was going on in this game. The political and ecclesiastical aspects of the game were very well integrated into the overall game play, and I thought the method of "triggering" the special phases based on which "color" action cards had been chosen was really ingenious. I've read the rules for the Warrior Knights: Crown and Glory expansion, which seems to add some really cool elements to the game, and I can't wait to play (and own) both the base game and the expansion!
Next, we pulled out a game that has quickly come to be one of my all-time favorites, Struggle of Empires. I tried out the Spanish, while Britt took the role of Russia and Alton took my usual place as the British. I got on the bad side of the first alliance, and despite planning to have a "lie low" strategy, I found myself being attacked on all sides during the first war.
"The Original Axis of Evil"
So I was scrapping from the beginning. I therefore decided that my only hope of regaining influence was to field the best army I could, taking the Mercenaries, Militia, Banking, Army Training and Logistics tiles as soon as I could. Britt was playing a really tight game, however, and because I was riding the line nearing 20 unrest, he was able to outbid me in the alliance phase of the last war, putting us together and therefore in a position that I (who shared the most areas with him... and the strongest army of course) couldn't hurt his position. In fact, he won in pretty astounding fashion.
Score: Britt 78, Alton 58, Me 54
Ratings: Britt 9.5, Alton 9, Me 9
Overall, it was another great day of gaming! Can't wait now until Tuesday!
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Posted On: 2007-07-10 14:20:42
Edited on: 2007-07-10 14:23:18
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July 10, 2007
I've had a lot going on personally this past week, so I'm a little late in getting the old Glog updated. But anyway, here we go!
This week's BoardGame Night started off in fine fashion as we once again split into two groups. The first bunch pulled out the Game of the Month!, Citadels.
The game was very close... so close that we weren't sure whether there really was a winner. Both Mark and Sabrina tied with 30 points, and the rulebook didn't give any specifications on how to break ties. Never ones to be terribly limited by the rules, we used the obvious tiebreaker of remaining gold, and therefore declared Sabrina the official winner!
Score: Sabrina 30 (and 1 gold!), Mark 30, Pam 26, "Fuzzy" Chris 23, "Magic" Chris 19, Rick 12
Ratings: Sabrina 9, Mark 9, Pam 6, "Fuzzy" Chris 8, "Magic" Chris 8, Rick 7
Meanwhile, the rest of us pulled out Lifeboats for the first time ever. I had picked it up a month or two back, but this was the first time it'd managed to hit the table. Overall, it was a fun and rather chaotic game, but I'm not sure that you can really have any true strategy when playing. Still, if you're looking for an interesting negotiation game, it was very enjoyable.
Score: John 29, Juvae 19, Alton 18, Jen 16, Me 16, Denise 15
Ratings: John 7.5, Juvae 7, Alton 8, Jen 7, Me 7, Denise 7.5
During those games, Carol (who still actually exists) and Britt came in and played a couple of games of Wings of War - Famous Aces. Several of the guys have really been raving about this game, and I hope to give it a try soon. Britt and Carol split their two games, by the way...
Ratings: Carol 7, Britt 8 |
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Posted On: 2007-07-15 16:38:04
Edited on: 2007-07-16 08:04:53
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July 10, 2007 (continued)
For the next round of games, we flipped it up and most of the "Lifeboat Crowd" tried out the Game of the Month! using the Dark City alternate characters. Most of us had never had the opportunity to try any of the personalities, so we just decided to go all-out and used every one of them from the Witch to the Diplomat.
The game was definitely a different beast than we were used to. I built the Museum early, and after seeding it with three other district cards (which give an additional point each at the end of the game), someone tried to steal it with the Diplomat. We really weren't sure if the facedown district cards should go with it, but we figured that they probably would, so we played hot potato with it for the rest of the game. In general, we found that there were several such rules questions that came up because of the new characters and districts, and that not having the Thief and the Warlord made it much harder to really hold people back in the game.
We also found that certain people took a lot longer to make decisions than they did with the base characters (cough... Alton!... cough...) In general, we didn't like using the Dark City characters that much. Next week, we may use one or two (like the Witch for sure), but mainly use the original characters.
Score: Britt 34, John 33, Chip 23, Alton 22, Me 20, Carol 16
Ratings: Britt 8, John 5, Chip 7, Alton 9, Me 8, Carol 7.5
Seeing that it is apparently our abstract strategy game of choice, some other players joined in a game of Taluva. "Magic" Chris has taken command of this game of late, and once again pulled out a victory by placing all of his Temples and Huts!
Ratings: "Magic" Chris 9, Sabrina 6.5, "Fuzzy" Chris 9, Rick 7
With my time running short, I pulled out Mykerinos and recruited a few guys over to give it a play. Chip owns the game but had never played and John was totally new to it, so I gave a quick overview of the rules to everyone. Being that Chris and I both suck at area majority games, however, I guess it was fitting that the two people who had played before would get crushed by the new folks. I had a terrible first season and never recovered, while Chip saved four cubes and got at least as much out of it as I did. I think that Chris and I hurt ourselves by competing too much for Lady Violet areas from the start. Anyway, Chip rode his early lead to victory!
Score: Chip 48, John 41, "Magic" Chris 36, Me 22
Ratings: Chip 8.5, John 7.5, "Magic" Chris 8, Me 8
As I was leaving, the rest of the crowd joined with some of the other people hanging around the store to play a couple of huge games of Liar's Dice.
Alton took the first game with one die left while Mark took the second with an amazing four dice remaining!
Ratings: Alton 9.5, Mark 9, Carol 9, Leslie 7.5, Sabrina 9, Britt 9, Denise 9, Todd 9, Robert 9
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2 Comments []
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Posted On: 2007-07-15 17:05:29
Edited on: 2007-07-16 08:03:22
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Posted On: 2007-07-10 22:51:23
Truer words may have never been spoken.