Session Report, in which I also write about what happened on Tuesday in Beit Shemesh

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: R-Eco, Carson City.

We get two new attendees (actually, one of them had come before to some Games Day or something, I think).

Independence Day Gaming

Tuesday was Yom Haazmaut (Independence Day). I brought games along for my family to play and to bring to the Beit Shemesh game club in the evening.

The biggest hit was my new frisbee. The only kinds of frisbees you can (easily) get in Israel are the crap toy frisbees. I had to get a decent one shipped from Amazon to someone in the US who could bring it back to me. We tossed it around for a while before lunch.

After lunch, Mom and us boys played Bridge, a twelve game round robin without keeping score. My brothers' wives appear to resent (or pretend to resent) this time that we play together, but it's actually pretty special to me that the four of us will sit together engaged for a few hours, after all that has happened to us in the last 40 years or more. Not every family has that opportunity.

Still, I got tired of it after 12 hands, so I, David, and one of his kids played Age of Empires III. David had been wanting to try the game again since I spent shabbat with him. Ben started off trying to play with us, but he got screwed out of a few of his choices after the first round or two, and became quite frustrated. We tried to calm him down, but he had to go anyway.

We only got to play 4 rounds before David's family also needed to go. We managed to fend them off a little more, but after round 6 it was clear that we still had too much time left. At that point, each of us had advantages in our positions in one way or another, and it was anybody's game.

Beit Shemesh Board Game Club

In the evening I carried my bag of games to Avri's house for the BSBGC. They had a rocking evening, with up to 15 people showing up over the course of the evening. I apologize in advance, but I either forgot or never learned most of the people's names.

We started off with Carcassonne the City. We played three-players, Avri, me, and someone. I don't get to play this in our group, and this was first plays for both of them, though they had each played regular Carcassonne before.

We each placed one meeple in a central field area, but I eventually snuck in a second and stole the whole field. When the walls appeared in phase two, they sometimes move slowly, but we took every opportunity to score points on each play, so the walls came together quite rapidly. The game ended when the walls actually met (they jumped right past "5 spaces apart". Unfortunately missing from the rules are certain situations, such as just what it means to build "outside" the city walls, whether it's possible to the walls to meet at a kitty corner and continue (forming an "eye"), and where you can place a tower if the walls meet.

But anyway, I won by a comfortable margin with 135 points or so. Avri had around 110, and the other guy had around 85.

I taught five guys how to play Age of Empires III, while others were finishing up some other games. They asked me questions now and again, but somehow assumed without asking me that only captains and soldiers could be placed into the Discovery box. I don't know how they came to that conclusion, since I didn't even explain the specialists until after I had explained the rest of the game. After realizing their error, they restarted the whole game.

I played a quick game of Sorry Sliders to see if it was in any way comparable to the fun of Crokinole, as I has heard, but it wasn't really; it's just too darn quick and the materials are just too cheap and flimsy.

I played Steam with Eliezer, who owned the game and had played once or twice, and two other guys. Three of us were fairly close to the end of the game. As usual, it came down to some kingmaking; the decider played mostly fairly, and I took the game by a few points.

I assume that a full report will be available on the BSBGC eventually.