• News:
  • Tom Werneck leaves the Spiel des Jahres jury, which he co-founded
  • travel agencies organize game-themed trips to India and China
    
• Long reviews: Hansa Teutonica, World without End, Peloponnes,  Sherwood Forest, Masters of Venice, Waterloo
• Short reviews:  Cir*Kis, VerTIPPT – nochmal!, Greedy Kingdoms, 13, Mosaix
• Children’s games: Wo war’s?
• Reports:
  • 28 pages presenting the new games at Spiel 2009 in Essen
  • Tom Felber plays around the world: this time he attempts to learn the Argentinian national card game (Truco) and plays in Buenos Aires’ only boardgame club
  • Moritz Eggert describes his misfortunes in being consultant to a TV show about boardgames
• Books: after the first two editions in 1989 and 1999, the third edition of Glonnegger’s classic games book appears
• Edition spielbox: promotion pack of Ultimate Werwolf, with cards to play basic 5-player game and one variant
• Profiles:
  • games designer and publisher Phil Orbanes (author of Cir*Kis, co-founder of Winning Moves)
  • award-winning games designer Jens-Peter Schliemann and his ‘game inventor studio’ in Cologne
• History:
  • group games: from Mafia to Werevolves of Miller’s Hollow et al.
  • the roots of: Shaun das Schaf – Köttel-Alarm and other games based on animal excrements
  • for collectors: games based on fantasy, myths and fables, exhibited during Spiel 2009

The magazine comes with a small expansion for Carcassonne, by one of the magazine’s regular reviewers. Moreover, thinking of the future generation of gamers, the children’s section looks at games for 2-year olds. The issue’s contents is as follows, with underlined games receiving great reviews:

• News: Count Ludo, the German award for game graphics, was awarded to the graphic designers of Nicht zu fassen (children’s game) and Bonnie and Clyde
• Long reviews: Donna Leon: Gefährliches Spiel, Tobago, Opera, Montego Bay, Die 3 Gebote, Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! – Russia 1941-1942, Sylla, One more barrel
• Short reviews: Cuba: El presidente, St. Petersburg expansion, Keltis: Neue Wege, neue Ziele, Zooloretto: XXL, Tribun: Die Brutier Erweiterung, Galaxy Trucker: The Big Expansion, Kingsburg: Die Erweiterung des Königreichs, Zooloretto: exotic, Sia Sola, Uruk, Ra: The Dice Game
• Children’s games: Bauernhof memory, Stoff-Memo Baustelle, Tier-MixMax, Erster Obstgarten, König Kasimir und seine Tiere
• Reports:
  • Tom Felber plays around the world: this time, very funny musings from crossing the USA with a car boot loaded with games
  • interview with the Vohwinkels, a graphic designer couple living in Seattle
  • portrait: the graphic artist, book author and game designer Dominique Erhard, author of Sylla, Serenissima, Condottiere, etc.
• Edition spielbox: The Tunnel expansion for Carcassonne, by Christwart Conrad
• History:
  • oldie: Dragonmaster
  • the publisher Edition Perlhuhn and its founder Reinhold Wittig (part 2)
  • the roots of: Dixit
  • for collectors: some of the 600 games published within 10 years by ink-maker Pelikan
  • abstract games: games where pieces must be kept in contact, incl.Wabanti, LOA, Hive, The Game of Kingdoms, Uisge, Watubi, Arktia, Karo, Blox, Bango, Six, etc.
• Variants: Automobile, Steel Driver, One more Barrel

Yesterday I had to miss the games club night due to work-related travel to Lancaster. It was nice to see familiar names on the way there, like Stockport, Manchester, Wigan, Bolton, and Preston, and remembering laying tracks between those cities when playing Brass (click on the image to enlarge). My hosts were intrigued when I told them about the game and asked me to bring it next time I go there. The trip was too short to do any sight-seeing, so I definitely must go up Lancashire some other time.

Coincidentally, a Brass tournament game took place yesterday, won by Steve. He played only 3 tournament games so far, winning also Princes of Florence and coming second in Age of Steam. Impressive! No wonder he’s currently second in the ranking, behind David, who has 9 points (and 2 games) more. My Brass tournament game is due in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed…

Moving on to the issue’s contents, it is as follows, with underlined games receiving great reviews:

• News:
  • the top 10 games voted for the German Game Award: Dominion wins, with Diamonds Club getting the Essen Feather for best rulebook and Burg der 1000 Spiegel getting the children game award
  • “Count Ludo”, the German award for game graphics, will be awarded for the first time at the Leipzig modell-hobby-spiel Fair
• Long reviews: Via Romana, Small World, Dice Town, Islas Canarias, Duell der Baumeister, Spartacus, Professor Pünschge, Automobile, Powerboats, Duck Dealer
• Short reviews: Strozzi, Viamala, Monuments
• Children’s games: Einfach klasse in Deutsch, Tintenklecks, Rechtschreiben, 6 nimmt! Junior, Schaun das Schaf – Köttel-Alarm!
• Reports:
  • Tom Felber plays around the world: the game café and publishing landscape in South Korea, with lots of plastic hammers and a visit to Tom Vasel
  • a concert where music pieces were inspired by games
  • interview with GameHeads, the authors and publishers of Bushido
• Edition spielbox 88: Space Drifters, a game for 2-6 players by Christof Tisch
• History:
  • oldie: Automania
  • the publisher Edition Perlhuhn and its founder Reinhold Wittig (part 1)
  • the roots of: …aber bitte mit Sahne
  • for collectors: the games of the metallurgic company Meto
  • abstract games: games where pieces are pushed, incl. Abalone, Akiba, Over Board, Oshi, Siam

The game is about building rail tracks between cities and transporting goods between them. At the start of each round, players can get income by selling shares of their company for $5 each. Each player chooses how many shares they wish to sell. Next, players bid for the turn order and thereby spend part of their money. Then, in turn order, each player chooses one privilege, like being the first to build track or transport goods, independently of turn order. Following that, players take turns to build track between cities and pay according to the terrain and other factors. Finally, players take turns to do 2 actions, which can be to increase the reach of our locomotive or to transport one good (a coloured cube) to a like-coloured city. Each segment of track between two cities used to transport the good brings in 1 VP (or 1 share, at their choice) for the owner of that segment. The reach of the locomotive imposes the limit of segments used, i.e. the maximum of VPs/shares earned by transporting the good. The round ends with each player paying $1 for each reach level of their locomotive, and $1 per share they don’t own (i.e. if it is held by investors). If they played well and own shares, they get $1 per share.

All players start with no money, no shares, and their locomotive only traverses one segment. A typical first round will hence go like this: sell two shares to investors for $10, spend $4 or less in the bidding round to get in a reasonable turn position, get the privilege to build or ship first, spend $4 to build a 2-track segment, ship two goods between the two cities to get back the two shares you sold. This means you’re back to zero shares owned, you only pay $1 for the loco, and keep $1 after the first round.

If you don’t have enough cash to pay for the loco and to the investors, you have to sell extra shares for just $2 each, meaning you will owe even more money in the next round. You will basically have to always pass when bidding for turn order to keep the money for buying track and making further connections. This in turn means you always have last choice of privileges, go last in building track and hence don’t get the cheapest routes, etc. etc. Recovering from debt will take many rounds, as in real life

Now guess what? Everyone picked up the gist of the game, as I explained above, except me. Although Keith had warned that money was tight, I was stupid enough to just raise $10 in shares and pay $6 for going first! Did I pick up the best privilege? No, I picked the one that allowed me to build in first place! Did I then built the track segment in such a way that blocked others from connecting the same cities? No, I allowed Graham to build track parallel to mine!  With such stupid mistakes, I finished the round lacking cash and having to sell extra shares. Most of the rest of the game was just making ends meet in order to never have to sell extra shares again. I succeeded and in the last rounds I managed to make some VPs, but by then it was too late for any recovery. Another mistake was to upgrade the loco too late and too little: by the end of the game, I could only earn at most 3 VPs/shares per turn, while the others were raking in 4+ VPs/shares per turn during most of the game.

Damen won the game by smartly taking the urbanization privilege often, which allows one to put a new city and 3 cubes on the map. There are several city ‘placeholders’ within short distance in the east of the map, and Damen quickly connected them, thereby getting several end-of-game VPs (1 per segment) in a cheap way. Not to mention he got to pick the cubes that could be best transported between the cities. Keith came second by expanding alone in the northwest corner, setting up a circular line  between cities of different colours, so that he could always send any good the longest way. Sam struggled a bit during the first half of the game, but picked up nicely in the second half. Graham did well in the first half, but in the second one it became apparent that him and I occupying the same south/south-western corner was damaging both, as we were transporting between the same cities and hence depleting the goods supply doubly fast. Final score: Damen had 36VP, Keith 35, Graham 25, Sam 21 and I had a pathetic 10VP. It goes largely without saying that Damen provided lost of generous unsolicited advice during the game, although not always quite in our best interest.

Final impressions: a great game, but definitely with a snowball effect, both ways. If you do a mistake, you get into even more trouble and you’re just fighting for survival most of the game. If you do well early, you’re on a roll. For example, Keith was impressed Damen got so early into owning more than zero shares. I must play this again and show I’ve learned something (the hard way), like studying well the map and placement of cubes before the first bid, taking $15 in the first round, and upgrading the loco in sync with the length of the built path in order to maximize the VPs/shares per turn. The game should become more balanced if all players are experienced.

If you wish to know more details about the game’s strategy, I recommend Graham’s detailed and largely accurate report. He only forgot that he (not me) was the first copy-cat, by putting his track next to mine between the same cities in the first round. Playing 2nd and with $11 to spend, he had plenty of other choices.

At the other tables, loads of games were played. Nigel needed the whole evening to beat David, Steve and Big Nick at a game of Brass. It took much less time for Paul B. to win the Tigris & Euphrates tournament game against Chris and André. They next played Coloretto and Sequence, and Paul won both! Chris left, Paul and André played Lost Cities… and Paul won! Paul was definitely on a roll. I can’t remember any of us winning 4 games in a single night. Well done, Paul! At another table, Paul H., John, Dan, Manuela and Michael played Citadels and Heckmeck am Bratwurmeck, while Ester, Julian, Matt and Ben played Reef Encounter followed by Stone Age.

The important thing is I enjoyed the course. It covers a wide range of topics, from the economic impact of the game industry and the social perception of videogames culture, to how modern games are produced and getting a small taste of it by designing and implementing our own little maze or platform game with GameMaker. Topics like serious games and games with a purpose were also included. The assessment’s questions were as wide-ranging as the course, but I can’t give any further details without getting into serious trouble. I can safely recommend this short course, but then, being an OU employee, I’m obviously biased.

I increased my tribe to 6 members early on, and then never increased it until the game’s end, while Nick and Dan started to grow their populations later and finished with over 8 people each, allowing them to get more resources each turn. In particular, they acquired many more cards than I, climbing up the food production chart and obtaining extra VP bonuses at the end, with Nick obviously choosing his cards more wisely than Dan. I should kick myself, because Paul had told me before hand that Nick would amass cards, and I didn’t do anything to prevent it. Only in the last round did I take a population multiplier, which gave me 6 VP and prevented them of getting 8+ VP. Without that action, I would have trailed even further behind. After about 90min (including a rule refresher for my benefit) the best player won and the most inexperienced and stupid one lost: fair’s fair. My consolation is that Nigel told me later that he and Matt had also been heavily beaten by Nick when they played together.

André and Michael, who had been rather lonely playing with my copy of Hey, that’s my fish!, joined us for a game of Endeavor, the new rage at the club. Dan was the only one who had played it before and went rather quickly through the rules; it took us two turns to get a grasp of them, with several minor points being asked throughout the game. Basically, it’s yet another economic development game, but with some topological and area majority elements. It’s not a bad game, but it’s too abstract – the way you pick up capabilities from the sea and from cards doesn’t make any thematic sense, for example. The game is too self conscious, i.e. it makes its design too obvious, with a potpourri of various mechanics brought together for no particular reason. Great design, not just in games, should be elegant and self-effacing. To sum up: it’s a game that lacks character, IMHO. For me, Puerto Rico still rules.

Nick obviously has a knack for these games, because he won again, with 66 VP, followed by André (56), myself (55), Michael (52) and Dan (43). We played the game rather quickly for first-timers: about 90min including rule explanations. At the other tables, John, Matt, Graham and Julian played Endeavour followed by Yspahan (twice?), while Nigel brought his copy of Struggle of Empires and played with Damen, Sam, Big Nick, Ian and someone else I can’t recall. They didn’t finish the game, and will continue next week. As for me, after Goa, San Juan, Stone Age and Endeavor, I definitely need a break from this type of games: they’re all challenging and tense, but too much of the same is not a healthy diet…

Fortunately, many other people had no pre-arranged game and hence there was no lack of choice of which games to play and with whom. In the end, I decided to join Ester, Julian and Pete for a game of Bison, which I had never heard of before. It turned out to be another K&K (Kramer & Kiesling) area control game, with a dash of Knizia and Carcassonne. It was Pete’s game but he couldn’t remember the rules, so we had to endure a painfully slow and confusing rule explanation process, in which Pete half read the rules aloud and half re-explained them. After half an hour we got it (except Julian, who got the basic cost mechanism only half-way through the game). The rules are actually quite clever and put together familiar mechanisms.

The game is played in 4 rounds, with each player having 4 actions per round, from a choice of 6 possible ones. One of the actions has to be laying a tile drawn randomly at the start of each round. Each tile has three areas (prairie and mountain, separated by a river), with zero or more animals (salmon, bison and turkey) on each area. As the tiles are laid, the areas get connected, and whoever controls a contiguous area, gets at the end of the round as many animals (i.e. food) as shown in that area. The player with the second-highest control gets only half the food, and all other players present in the same area get as many food as shown on the tiles they stand on. Control of an area is basically obtained by having the biggest tepee (or canoe in case of a river) and/or most meeples (cubes, actually). The other possible actions are putting meeples on the board, moving them around, and building tepees and canoes. Each player only has 7 meeples (like Carcassonne), and meeples only get on the board if they’re put on the just laid tile (like Carcassonne). To get meeples back into your hand to settle them elsewhere, you have to replace them by tepees or canoes. All actions cost food (e.g. the biggest tepee costs 4 of each animal kind!), and you can only build at most one tepee and one canoe per round, and there are only 4 rounds.

You get the idea: it’s a very tight game, where every action counts and food is never enough to do want you would like to. The cherry on the cake is the Knizia touch in the final scoring mechanism. The score is the least number of animals of the same kind you get at the end of the last round. For example, if the area control you achieved by the end of the last round awards you 10 bison, 7 salmon and 3 turkey, your score is 3.  It’s therefore a game where you have to diversify, instead of wasting resources to get the control of one or two very big areas. Being second in an area is often just as well. However, without controlling at least one area, you don’t get enough food for all the expensive actions.  Of course, we only realised all these finer tactic details at the end of the game, by which time it was too late: Pete (the only one who had played it before) won with a score of 6, followed by Julian (5), me (4) and Ester (3). The final scores show well how tight the game is.

To sum up, a rather abstract and slow game. It took us nearly 2 hours, not including rule explanation, for the 64 actions (= 4 rounds x 4 actions x 4 players), due to the downtime to compute mentally the gain of each action. However, the game has a very nice build up of tension. I’ll gladly play it again.

With still one hour until closing time, we decided to play San Juan. I was the only one who never played it before. Pete quickly got me through the rules — this time he knew them by heart . I played miserably, wasting money on the wrong buildings at the wrong time. I built an expensive triumphal arch, which gives extra VPs for each monument built, but I had no mounuments. I built a chapel rather early, which allows to add one card per round for an extra VP each, but seldom had enough cards in my hand to spare one for the chapel. I built a tower, which allows to keep 12 instead of 7 cards in your hand at the end of each round, but never came close to the 7, let alone the 12 card limit. With such pathetic decisions, it’s no surprise I came last, with ridiculous 17 VP. The others chose their buildings wisely, getting e.g. extra cards when producing and selling goods, enabling them to keep a smooth ‘production engine’, with always enough cards in their hand. Ester had a palace (which gives a 25% VP bonus) and a tower and monument, achieving 20 VP. Julian built a chapel later than me but added 5 cards to it and also had a further VP bonus, for a final score of 23. Finally, Pete, like me, had no VP bonuses at all, but was the first to achieve the 12 buildings needed to finish the game. He built 4 (!) silver smelters, which kept his income going throughout the game. Just the buildings got him a whopping 34 VP!

I now realise why I lost: San Juan is the Dominion version of Puerto Rico! The first (and only) time I played Dominion, I also came last with a pitiful score. I guess my brain blocks in these fast-paced games (at least there is the pressure for me not to think my usual 5 minutes…). I definitely must practice them more often to get a bit more agile.

As for what else happened, it was again full house, with the tables filling the whole room. André, the two Nicks, Keith and Chris played Imperial; Matt, John, Dan, Graham and David played Endeavor followed by El Grande; Manuela, Richard, Michael, and Paul H. played Mission: Red Planet followed by Fische Fluppen Frikadellen; Nigel and Damen played Twilight Struggle, while Sam and Ian played Combat Commander. Definitely a variety of good games!