Game Day Report for May 13, 2006

by Susan Rozmiarek
My big goal today was to play Ticket to Ride: Märklin which we’ve had sitting on our shelves for a couple of weeks unplayed. I wasn’t able to get it to the table until later in the evening, but in the meantime I played a fabulous mixture of old and new games. I didn’t play a bad game all day and had fun even while I was losing horribly. Quite a contrast to my Age of Steam misery at our last game day, I must say.

Settlers of Catan 3D

Marty brought this beauty, complete in its wooden treasure chest. I’d seen the pictures but they don’t do it justice. The heavy molded pieces have fabulous detailing and the art on the cards is very nice. The only problem is that overall it is extremely busy without enough contrast between player pieces and some of the terrain. I found it very difficult to assess the board at a quick glance. Of course, I had to be the one to choose a starting location first and was completely thrown by the different look. I was fairly happy with my choices though and I got fairly used to the look by the end of the game. We played with the “food stamps” variant which helped, but Marty and I were hampered severely by the robber sitting on our “9” mountain hex while that number got rolled time after time. Mike ended up annihilating us 10-5-5-4. That’s me with the “4.” :-( It was pretty cool playing with this beautiful edition and I’m glad that I got the chance to bask in its splendor. I’d practically have to win the lottery to afford it myself, since it ain’t cheap. Maybe we could just eat rice and beans for a month or two?

Brian, Marty, Mike and Susan (picture taking) playing 3D Settlers of Catan.

3D Settlers close up. Gorgeous!

Ca$h & Gun$

This game got a lot of good buzz at Essen but the price seemed way too high for a filler even if it does come with foam guns that you actually get to point at people. Brain brought his copy up from San Antonio where it apparently has gotten a lot of play. It was great fun, even if I did get eliminated by Carl after amassing a nice pile of cash. I knew I should have taken the cowardly way out that round. Still, I think the game is priced too high and unless it shows up on a prize table somewhere. I don’t think we’ll be getting it.

Cities and Guilds

I’d heard good things about this obscure tile-laying game from JKLM, a British game company. You’ve always been able to order it directly from the publisher, I think, but it is a small print run game and with shipping from England, the price is really steep. However, Boards & Bits got in it for a reasonable price so we jumped on it. This is majorities game with several different ways to score that make it a little hard to evaluate until you’ve played a game and seen how the it all works out in the end. Brian wrote up a pretty good assessment on his blog. I mostly agree except perhaps my first impression was less harsh and hopefully not just because we are the ones who shelled out the bucks for a copy. I think with a few more plays and perhaps less players, more depth will be revealed although it is still going to be rather tactical with the limited number of tiles to choose from each turn. It is also quite dry. Still, I like this sort of game so I’m looking forward to giving it another go. I was a little disappointed in the quality of the components and the art.

Antike

I was expecting more of a wargame where the idea is to grab and hold as much territory as you can. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this game was hardly about that at all. Sure that is one way to go about it and you do have to get aggressive at some point, but there are many ways to get victory points and not all of them encourage violence. And, once you earn a victory point you get to keep it, even if the condition you fulfilled to get it gets destroyed by another player. I never did hold many regions in this game. I focused on getting temples up and running to earn gold to buy knowledge. Then I build up a massive fleet of ships which spread out and eventually sacked a few temples of Carl for the win. I was really impressed with the game. The rondel is a great innovation that keeps the game moving at a fast clip. Instead of players taking a massive turn while everyone else twiddles their thumb for ages like in many “civ” games, here you only do a small bit on your turn so the analysis paralysis is greatly decreased.

Carl, Paul, John and Susan battle in Antike.

Princes of Florence

There’s no way I’ll ever turn down a chance to play My Favorite Game of All Time. I went for my usual “builder” strategy which has always served me well in the past. Alas, I made a few fatal errors this time around. It’s amazing how differently this game can play with different players. My usual group always puts up a vicious fight bidding over both builders and prestige cards so I hoarded way too much cash that could have been victory points as I got all but the first builder practically uncontested. And nobody seemed to care about prestige cards towards the end of the game but me. So I was left holding a ridiculous 1500 florins at the end of the game. I also panicked when everyone started buying up profession cards and I used a precious action to buy one that I really didn’t need when I should have purchased a bonus card to add to a profession card I already had. This game has a learning curve so it was pretty impressive when newbie Carl played two 17-valued works in one of the last turns to leap from behind into second place. I actually had 18 or 19 prestige points at the end which tied me for third, but it was Brian “the works machine” and his team of jesters who captured the victory.

Ticket to Ride: Märklin

At last I got to play this long anticipated latest tweak on one of my favorite games. I’d been trying to get it to the table all evening to no avail and was worried that I was going to have to twist some arms! Fortunately, I didn’t have to resort to such violent methods and I finished out a fine day of gaming laying routes and moving passengers. The game did not disappoint and may very well end up being my favorite of the series. I’ve always loved the tension in the original game of deciding how long you can wait to claim a crucial connection before somebody else does. Well, Märklin ratchets up the anxiety a notch by adding another reason to sweat, this time over when to move a passenger to grab valuable tokens before somebody beats you to them. The destination tickets are now divided into two stacks, long and short routes and you can choose draw from either one. This choice is a definite improvement over the original game as it puts you less at the mercy of the luck-of-the draw.

One of my destination cards at the start of the game was a long north-south connection so I started in the far north and immediately plunked down a passenger at the very top. It took me nearly the entire game to complete it as I mainly focused on getting the juiciest passenger tokens. I racked up quite a few points, in fact. Unfortunately, I drew extra tickets late in the game and kept a long one that appeared to be pretty easy to complete. It would have been too, except Ed plopped down a really long link that used up enough of his trains to trigger the final round. He had an impressive collection of completed tickets that gave him the bonus and the victory. With those long connections to claim, you really have to watch for a potential game ending move. Next time I won’t be caught off guard.

Susan, Paul, Carl and Ed (not pictured) try out the new Ticket to Ride: Märklin.

I also played a few fillers that I’ve written about numerous times before: Geschenkt and Hey! That’s My Fish! Other games played: Tichu, Castle Merchants, Caylus, Industrial Waste, Bunte Runde and Antiquity.

After not hitting the table for many sessions, Caylus makes a return with Adam, Jon, Mike, Kevin and Marty.

Adam, Jon, Marty and Mike get in a game of Antiquity.

Castle Merchants.

John, Carl and Adam try to keep it clean during Industrial Waste.

For more pictures from this gaming session and others, see our Gaming Picture Gallery.

Happy Mother's Day

by Susan Rozmiarek

I wasn’t expecting anything gaming related for Mother’s Day from Ed and our boys. We almost never give each other games for gifts because we usually want the same ones and that makes the motive quite suspicious. But look at today’s haul! It’s ALL gaming stuff that I and I alone wanted but yet not a single game. Do I have a creative husband or what!?

See that laminator? I’ve wanted one of those puppies for a long, long time. Being a female, you see, I have this innate desire to participate in some sort of craft activity. I was not blessed with the craftbooking gene like many of my sisters so for me, this used to mean trundling down to my local Kinko’s armed with a pile of players’ aids, screens, maps and such from games to laminate and cut out. I admit, I tend to go a little crazy with the laminating. If I was a superhero, I’d be The Laminator. Unfortunately, some customer must have accidentally laminated their hand or small child because Kinko’s decided it was best to keep their heat laminator behind the counter and charge dearly for one of their worker bees to do the work. So, I quit going and had to suffer from my repressed urges for a long time.

The cool Meeple pillow, license plate frame, t-shirt and decals are all from Meeple People. I think that they actually threw those decals in for free. Once I get those and the license plate frame on my minivan I will have a true geekmobile. Except, I doubt hardly anyone on the streets will know exactly what they mean.

Barbecue and Baptists

by Susan Rozmiarek
This post is not really about food or religion. As I reported in a previously, Ed and I have had an opportunity to help with some fledgling game groups composed mainly of folks new to Eurogames. As it happens, the first get-togethers for two different groups happened recently on consecutive Fridays. It’s been kind of interesting, because I am used to attending gaming get-togethers in private homes with Ed and I often doing the planning and hosting. These were both somebody else’s babies and were held in totally different venues - a restaurant and a church. I was curious to see how they would work and it was a refreshing break to just attend a game night without the work and responsibilities of hosting.

Gaming at Duke’s Smokehouse in Georgetown

This family gaming group was organized via a Yahoo group by a single mom with young kids who is looking for a way to socialize with other adults. Her hope is to find a set-up where the younger kids have something to keep them busy while the adults play games. John from our regular gaming group stumbled across it and I heard about it from him. He also has young kids and would like a gaming group that he can bring his family to and his wife Gina can play. Since many of the folks who signed up did not know each other, most felt more comfortable meeting in a public place. The organizer chose a local restaurant, Duke’s Smokehouse, for the first get-together. The turnout was a bit light –five families with kids of various ages, but it was enough for two tables of games.

At first blush, this place looked like a great place to hold a games night. It is huge and it has a room off to the side that looked like an excellent place to play. Unfortunately though, the kids would probably not stay entertained in such confinement so we moved to the outside porch that overlooked a huge grassy area complete with balls for the kids to kick around. The brisk breeze was a big concern, but the staff was very accommodating and rolled down some big clear shades that did a great job keeping the wind off of us. The weather was great; the food was great; the music was…..loud. This was not so good for teaching and playing games and trying to get to know people. The kids had a fabulous time running around on the lawn but alas, they required close supervision. There was a getaway path in the corner that led down to a trail along the river as well as a cliff to fall over. I think that Cara, the organizer, and Gina spent most of the time chasing kids rather than playing games. :-(

The rest of us were able to shout over the band and enjoy some games though:

Bunte Runde

This is a little set-collecting game from Reiner Knizia that reminded me a bit of Tutankhamen. You move around in a circle, up to three spaces per turn, and collect wooden pieces of various shapes and colors. These score when all the pieces of a particular shape or color are picked up. It’s a pleasant enough filler, but I feel no need to own it.

Ticket to Ride

For me, this is the board game equivalent of Lost Cities. It’s simple, addictive and I want to play it over and over again. Alas, like Lost Cities, my regular opponents have long since tired of it and no amount of “pretty pleases” and “with cherries on top” will coax them to play. Fortunately, Ticket to Ride is the Best Gateway Game of All Time. So naturally, I spring it on newbies every chance that I get. It ALWAYS goes over well and this time was no exception.

Fluxx

Don’t try to tell me that I can’t possibly enjoy this game because I usually do. Get over it. Katrina and Clive (hope I’m remembering names correctly) brought it. They had combined several sets of Fluxx to make one big deck. Katrina had removed the cards from Stoner Fluxx but she’d missed a few. Sure enough, it had be Kevin, my 13 yr. old son, who drew the “Toke” card. Sigh. I was pretty worried that this would be one of those drawn out games that happens occasionally with Fluxx. With the big deck, the cards wouldn’t be recycled much and I was afraid that this would cause the game to go overly long, an occasional problem with Fluxx. Just as the game started to outstay its welcome though, a card was played that required you to play all the cards in your hand. This forced me to play a Goal Card that gave Kevin the victory. This game is mainly silly, chaotic fun, but there actually is a tiny bit of strategy.

While all this gaming fun was going on at our table, the other table was enjoying Einfach Genial, For Sale, Hey! That’s My Fish!, and TransAmerica.

I think those of us who got to play the games had a good time despite the loud music. I think the place would work if it was on a night without the live music or we played indoors. The main problem was that although the younger kids were entertained, they required too much supervision for all the adults to play. I can certainly emphasize as I can remember those days with my own kids. This was why we started hosting game nights at our own house as it was a safe environment with plenty of toys to entertain our kids and those of our friends. It is so much easier now that they are older.

The group is going to try doing this again later this month but I’m not sure of the details. Hopefully we’ll come up with a few creative ideas for the kids. I felt badly for those parents that didn’t get to play games much.

We were afraid we’d scare off people of we took pictures to post on the internet. John took a few that you can check out here.

Gaming at First Baptist Church of Georgetown

The following Friday found the Rozmiarek family at church. Not just any old church but a Southern. Baptist. Church. Yes, you read that correctly. We were really there. And just what does it take to get our heathen family in a church? Did somebody die or get married? Nope, it was much easier than that. John Gravitt organized a game night at his church and asked if we could help out with teaching games. Yes, that’s all it took. Games! :-)

John was expecting up to 20 people, but not nearly that many actually showed up. It peaked out at three tables of games going at one time though, which is a fine start. In contrast to the previous week at Duke’s, this situation was ideal for a game night. The church is enormous. We were in a classroom in a large building with good lighting and plenty of tables and chairs. We brought our own food but I think there were also vending machines available. Best of all, there was childcare off in another part of the building for the younger children, allowing the adults a relaxing evening of games.

I taught and played both Ticket to Ride and California, both of which I’ve written about before. Both are great introductory games although I think that the theme of California may be a little too “girly” for some guys. The Diamant and Saboteur tables were really loud; you could tell that people really enjoyed those two. Other games played were Crokinole, Einfach Genial, Hey!, That’s My Fish! And Rumis.

Once again, John took a few nice pictures during the evening.

Ed and really had a great time and we’d love to go again. The members of the church were really welcoming, friendly and a lot of fun.

Now we need to host our second neighborhood game night. We had a small but nice crowd the first time but we haven’t been able to fit a second one in our schedule. Although I didn’t blog about it, we had a good evening playing Diamant, Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne.

Posted by susanroz at 3:39 PM | Comments (2)

Report for April 15, 2006

by Susan Rozmiarek
Well, Ed and I had been talking about it for a while and we finally did it. We’ve decided to cap attendance for our game days at 20 people. We’ve always had an “open door” policy and have had several new folks find us recently. This has been a very good thing but if everyone were to show up, we would easily top 20 people and be quite crowded. In fact, it almost happened a month ago but we had some last minute cancellations and no-shows. I’m also hoping that it encourages people to RSVP earlier because it helps me plan, especially when it comes to food and drinks. Fortunately, we are usually covered because people bring stuff. But, the nearest decent sized grocery store is 20 minutes away so we can’t just run out and get more if a way bigger crowd than expected shows up. I’m hoping though, that we never have to tell anybody we are full. That would be a major bummer. I guess that I should be grateful; this is a nice problem to have.

Power Grid

I thoroughly enjoyed Funkenschlag the few times I played it long ago, including the fiddly “crayon rail” part. So, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about a new version coming out that didn’t include it, even if said new version had nicer bits. The first time I tried Power Grid it just didn’t feel the same. I didn’t grok it or enjoy it much. As I recall, I think I pretty much had my butt handed to me. This second time around however, it clicked. I think that it’s been so long since I’ve played Funkenschlag that my memory of it has dimmed and I’m not trying to compare the two games. We played the Italy map which seemed rather challenging. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my initial placement was pretty good. I chose a lousy, expensive power plant as my first choice which held me back at the start by draining my cash to use it. But I eventually managed to overcome my mistake. I actually won the game much to my surprise given how poorly I did the first time I played it. I don’t think Power Grid will ever be a favorite of mine, but I enjoyed it enough this time to try it again. Yeah, nothing like winning to improve one’s opinion! Kevin really liked it so I imagine we’ll play a family game of it sometime.

Susan, Mark, Kevin John, Mike and Ed start of the day with a game of Power Grid: Italy.

Age of Steam

I’ve given this game a fair shake. I’ve played it three times now and I_just_don’t_enjoy_it. The unforgiving income system is not any fun for me as the number crunching feels like too much work. Your plan often hinges on getting a particular action that turn which might mean that you need to win the auction. It’s painful for me to decide how much money is needed and how many shares to take. Then I end up not winning the auction, not getting the action I needed, not getting to do as planned and left holding a share(s) to pay for that I didn’t need that turn. Ugh. I liked my one playing of Railroad Tycoon and I’ve always liked Volldampf, but Age of Steam leaves me with one big headache. Mark said that Adam, who squashes everyone like a bug in this game, is thinking about writing up a strategy article. I beg of you Adam, please do! That may be the only hope of me ever playing it again.

We played on the Germany map but had to restart after a few turns because Mike was essentially out of the game and Mark was pretty badly off as well. Pity, because Ed and I were actually in good positions, with Ed’s a little better than mine. The second start was not so good for me. I fell way behind but was able to catch up some eventually although I was still in last place. Hey, at least I didn’t go bankrupt! That’s always been my goal when I play this game. Mark stomped us by having an uncontested region of the board with lots of distribution rolls in his favor. Normally, in most games, I still find some satisfaction in trying to improve my position and enjoy myself despite the fact that I am losing. This game however, just feels downright frustrating.

Okay, I guess I just lost my gaming credentials with that tirade. Hey, at least adore every other Martin Wallace game I’ve ever played. That is, of course, only if we forget all about Secrets of the Tomb which is not hard to do.

With only partially fried brains, Mark, Susan, Mike and Ed continue with Age of Steam: Germany.

Die Siedler von Nürnberg

Looking back at old records, this Settlers variation hadn’t been played in our group since the year 2001. (!) This stand alone game has quite a few twists that make it feel a bit different than its venerable parent. Rather than describe them all, I’ll just say that they made the game very interesting and a little more complex than the original. It was kind of frustrating though, because everyone felt hobbled by the scarcity of brick in the game. Also, there are some very valuable Council cards that are similar to the Biggest Army card in Settlers. I had a big building turn where I was able to get 6 victory points for what felt like a premature victory. Four of these were from winning the most valuable Council card. That seemed to be a bit too powerful, although I do think if people had been paying attention they could have stopped me. We also had concerns whether the starting positions were balanced and feelings were mixed about the “deck of dice.” Personally, I like the uncertainty of rolling a die for resources as that’s part of the charm of Settlers. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. Deal with it, I say and just have fun trying to maximize what you’ve got. I’d like to play this another time or two to see if the concerns were valid or not. Not likely I’m afraid with the constant stream of new games. I guess I’ll have to wait another five years before it cycles to the top again.

Die Siedler von Nürnberg board.

Wings of War

This was my first time playing this and it was a hoot. This is kind of a free form game of WWI dogfighting that uses programmed movement similar to RoboRally. It’s all done very cleverly with cards and the rules are pretty simple. The only problem for me was that it required a few spatial skills that I have in very short supply. Mark and I took on Ed and Kevin. I goofed early on and sent my plane off on a solo mission (see lack of spatial skills above) and Mark accused me of going off to pick flowers, an insult which was hurled back and forth between us for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, Kevin crippled me and then Ed eventually finished me off. Mark’s plane must have had super duper strength armor because he took hit after hit without taking damage. Okay, he had lucky draws from the damage deck. Whatever. He single handedly took down Kevin and Ed in an impressive victory for our team. This game was great fun and I’d love to try out some more scenarios and different planes.

Head to head battles in Wings of War.

Nexus Ops & Poison being played at the other tables.

Despite my extended visit to Age of Steam Hell, the day of games was a blast as usual. I’m hoping we can host these twice a month during the summer.

For more pictures from this gaming session and others, see our Gaming Picture Gallery.