Five of us were at Fiona’s this Sunday evening: me and Fee, Tony, Bekki and Colin. It seems like Colin might be joining us more regularly.
Tony had; Acquire, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico
I had: Elfenland, Traumfabrik, Puerto Rico, Citadels, David & Goliath, No Thanks!, Zirkus Flohati
We start by playing Beowulf (my idea). This was only our second game (Colin’s first – and he did a good job of picking it up quickly). This game I decide to Risk much less than everyone else, particularly early on, and not to compete in Auctions where I feel I am outmatched.
These strategies pay off. At the first bidding episode, where neither the rewards nor penalties are too extreme I drop without playing a card whilst everyone else bids at least four cards (though some may have been from risks). That might be okay for the person who wins, but seems bad for those who expend four cards and don’t really get much.
I also decide I can’t compete on the first serious major episode, cause I don’t have enough of the right cards. So I drop out, accepting that I’ll take the wound, without playing any cards.
I win the Gold auction for 5pts, and then get a nice bonus at the next major auction. Bekki and I are the last two players left in, but she outlasts me with some lucky risking. When she gets two matching symbols on a risk, meaning I would have to do the same, I decide it’s not worth trying. So Bekki gets first pick… and doesn’t take the 5pts! So I get 5pts for coming second.
I also win the gold auction to remove the Wound I received early on, and the All Iron Shield (and still had enough Gold for first place at Recover Treasures!) With the All Iron Shield I put up a good fight at the Dragon Battle, but again it turns into a showdown between Bekki and I (everyone else had to start risking early). I can’t afford to scratch because I have no wounds and two scratches, so she takes first.
But I am able to retain enough cards to win Death of Beowulf. I finish with 27 points, just ahead of Colin on 25 and Tony on 22. Fee and Bekki were in the teens.
After Beowulf we have enough time for another long game, so we play Acquire which Fee and Tony like, but I am lukewarm about. Anyway, I get an incredibly good start – I’m able to found chains on my first three turns.
Once all the chains have been founded there are four chains on the left hand side of the board, one in the centre, one top right and one centre right. I am strongly invested in the two on the right (I founded them both). These both start to grow, and then Festival takes over the other, giving Fiona and I a big payout. I retain my Imperial shares (so I’ll have the majority when it gets refounded) and reinvest my bonus in the central chain Continental, which gets fairly large, before it is also taken is taken over by Festival.
Given the initial chain layout, it surprising how few mergers there are on the left hand side of the board. The top left chain Luxor is eventually taken over by Festival (I founded Luxor as well, another payout for me), as Festival reaches right across the top of the board, but of the other three, two are still in play at the end of the game – American got fairly large, whilst the one chain ended the game only 3 hotels long!
The Imperial shares I retained throughout the game give me at least a couple more bonuses, and at final scoring I have 12 shares in the 41+ Festival for a score of £47,000. Colin has £37,000, Fee £35,000 and Bekki and Tony somewhere in the 20s.
After that everyone is kinda zoinked, so we don’t end with our usual wind-down filler. Bekki says she doesn’t ever want to play Acquire again – it’s really not her kind of thing, and with the downtime the game can just drag. I don’t really like it that much either.
So two long-ish five player games, two wins. That’s what I call a good evening. Pub quiz next Sunday.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Sunday 21/01/07: Beowulf, Ticket to Ride, San Juan
I gave Fiona Beowulf for Christmas, and we finally got to play it this weekend. The rules explanation went fairly quickly (once everybody was paying attention), and we were into the game fairly quickly. The game went smoothly for a first game, no major hiccups, though Tony did occasionally slow things down by trying to work everything out.
The quickest way to work out the strategy in any game is just to play, and then play some more. I recently spent 4 1/2 hours playing Caylus with three slow players, only to discover that the strategy I had adopted didn't work, and to come last, just behind somebody who played badly, and a long way off the leaders. To be honest that experience has really put me off wanting to play Caylus again (though I remain hopeful for Caylus Magna Carta).
Our game of Beowulf wasn't that excessively long, about 90 minutes, probably 15-20 too many. I concentrated much more on gold than everybody else, winning several gold auctions, and having most gold at the final event. But I made a mistake in not winning the All Iron Shield, underestimating the competition at the Dragon Battle, and ended up taking the double wound tile. As I was on two wounds already, that took me way out of contention, the final scores being something like Tony 28, Bekki and Fee both low 20s, and I think I scored exactly zero.
Beowulf is one of those games were the scores don't always tell the entire story, usually due to some criticality in the scoring system. In the case of Beowulf one possibility is what occured to me: the two wounds I had coming into the Dragon Battle won't cost me any points, but if I take the double wound tile then I get -20! So I either get a respectable score in the 20s, or a nothing score that puts me last.
I'm pretty certain I had the worse luck in the risking (at one point one of the girls flipped over two matching double symbol cards to give +4 to their bid!), but to be honest that didn't bother me too much. Firstly I feel the luck is acceptable for a light-ish 60 minute game. And secondly I feel that one of the reasons Beowulf gets bad rap for the luck is because it's out in the open. I find that games like Amun-Re and Goa can have huge swings in drawing the right power cards, at the right time, but because the draws are hidden nobody knows when somebody gets lucky.
After Beowulf we play Ticket to Ride. I got Tony the 1910 expansion for Christmas, and it's really invigorated the game. The improved tickets and the 15 point most routes bonus really help remove the complete dominance of the long E-W routes.
Having said that my three opening tickets are LA - New Orleans, Las Vegas - New York and Portland - Houston (I might have mixed these up, but you get the idea). Three East cost to West Coast tickets! So I keep all three and set to work connecting LA-Vegas-Portland, and Houston-New Orleans-New York, and then trying to get across the country.
I had planned to take the southcoast between LA and Houston (thanks to TTR I think of it as a coast despite the existence of Mexico) but these routes get taken, so I have to go through the centre of the country from Vegas. This game actually demonstrated how easy it is to make you routes in four player TTR even when it gets congested. At one point Fee, Tony and I were both trying to navigate through the cities just north of Houston and Dallas, and in the late game Fee, Bekki and I were all going down the East Coast. In both cases thanks to the many alternative and double routes everybody got were they needed to go, despite the congestion.
Still, if I'd not made my cross-country connection I'd have failed all of my tickets for -50 points and my second score of almost zero for the evening!
The quickest way to work out the strategy in any game is just to play, and then play some more. I recently spent 4 1/2 hours playing Caylus with three slow players, only to discover that the strategy I had adopted didn't work, and to come last, just behind somebody who played badly, and a long way off the leaders. To be honest that experience has really put me off wanting to play Caylus again (though I remain hopeful for Caylus Magna Carta).
Our game of Beowulf wasn't that excessively long, about 90 minutes, probably 15-20 too many. I concentrated much more on gold than everybody else, winning several gold auctions, and having most gold at the final event. But I made a mistake in not winning the All Iron Shield, underestimating the competition at the Dragon Battle, and ended up taking the double wound tile. As I was on two wounds already, that took me way out of contention, the final scores being something like Tony 28, Bekki and Fee both low 20s, and I think I scored exactly zero.
Beowulf is one of those games were the scores don't always tell the entire story, usually due to some criticality in the scoring system. In the case of Beowulf one possibility is what occured to me: the two wounds I had coming into the Dragon Battle won't cost me any points, but if I take the double wound tile then I get -20! So I either get a respectable score in the 20s, or a nothing score that puts me last.
I'm pretty certain I had the worse luck in the risking (at one point one of the girls flipped over two matching double symbol cards to give +4 to their bid!), but to be honest that didn't bother me too much. Firstly I feel the luck is acceptable for a light-ish 60 minute game. And secondly I feel that one of the reasons Beowulf gets bad rap for the luck is because it's out in the open. I find that games like Amun-Re and Goa can have huge swings in drawing the right power cards, at the right time, but because the draws are hidden nobody knows when somebody gets lucky.
After Beowulf we play Ticket to Ride. I got Tony the 1910 expansion for Christmas, and it's really invigorated the game. The improved tickets and the 15 point most routes bonus really help remove the complete dominance of the long E-W routes.
Having said that my three opening tickets are LA - New Orleans, Las Vegas - New York and Portland - Houston (I might have mixed these up, but you get the idea). Three East cost to West Coast tickets! So I keep all three and set to work connecting LA-Vegas-Portland, and Houston-New Orleans-New York, and then trying to get across the country.
I had planned to take the southcoast between LA and Houston (thanks to TTR I think of it as a coast despite the existence of Mexico) but these routes get taken, so I have to go through the centre of the country from Vegas. This game actually demonstrated how easy it is to make you routes in four player TTR even when it gets congested. At one point Fee, Tony and I were both trying to navigate through the cities just north of Houston and Dallas, and in the late game Fee, Bekki and I were all going down the East Coast. In both cases thanks to the many alternative and double routes everybody got were they needed to go, despite the congestion.
Still, if I'd not made my cross-country connection I'd have failed all of my tickets for -50 points and my second score of almost zero for the evening!
Instead I complete my three tickets for fifty bonus points and second place. Tony has completed four tickets, which included a couple of long ones to win by some way. Bekki and Fee also had four tickets to also earn the 15 points, but their tickets were of much lower value.
We finshed with a four player game of San Juan. I used to find this very average four player, but it's growing on me. You have to value points over income much more than in three or two player. In particular I'd always be very loathe to ditch a monument, even very early. I build a first turn Prefecture, then Gold Mine and Silver, and that basically all the income you need. After that I build a couple of monuments and a City Hall and still have Triumphal Arch in hand. So the game is basically mine: Tony has raced out with Poor House, but doesn't have many points or a Crane, and Fee and Bekki have merely average positions. I get a late Palace off my Gold Mine to make the scores look really lopsided, but I didn't need it. The 9 point palace just stopped me building a 6 point Victory Column.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)