At a friend's house, their daughter is particularly into Dominion. She has the base game, Seaside, and Cornucopia. I'd never played the latter, so she, I, and Nadine played a game with all Cornucopia cards: Fairgrounds, Farming Village, Fortune Teller, Hamlet, Horn of Plenty, Hunting Party, Jester, Menagerie, Remake, and Tournament.
When all the cards come from this expansion, you really have no choice but to play the "correct" strategy, which is to gain one of as many types of cards as possible. Maybe if you only add one or two cards from this set this won't be the case; then again, maybe these cards won't then be very desirable.
In the afternoon I taught Nadine how to play Magic. Actually, she had half learned how to play a previous time, but she hadn't played. She was surprised at the depth of the game, although not entirely since she knew how much David and I liked the game. She intends to borrow some cards and start playing with Gili.
Shabbat in Jerusalem
I brought a new player (Marne) over to play at Nadine's house in the afternoon. She was highly nervous, having not played any modern games and afraid that they would be too much for her. When I saw the game that Nadine had picked out (Walnut Grove) for her first game, I was also nervous. Thankfully she had a great time; I don't know if she had a "join the weekly game group 'good time'" but still.
This was my first play of Walnut Grove since BGG.con over a year ago, and the first play for both Mace and Marne. Nadine has played a few times, but some of those times were with the wrong rules. This is not entirely her fault, since several of the rules are written vaguely, and there is no way to know what the author means. I will have to look on BGG for clarifications, if I can find any.
As I said, it went well. Actually, I fared a little better than I did the last time I played, though I still came in last place (Mace won). I was calculating before the game started as to how to turn cubes into more cubes and how many cubes to each victory point. It didn't help me win, but I felt like I had more control over what was happening. I played a starvation strategy, collecting people and improvement tiles together with 6 begging tiles. Not counting the begging cards, I had the highest score, but I dropped to just behind third place after these were counted. I will have to try something new next time.
When I suggested Tichu for the next game, it was Nadine's turn to be nervous, but Marne picked up the rules by the end of the first hand. She appears to be a natural gamer. With just a little strategy suggestion here and there, she knew how to play and why most of the time. This was Mace's second time playing. Nadine called and (barely) made the only Tichu. We all had a great time.
3 comments:
Since I expect a rematch: Mace 25, Nadine 24, Marne 19, Jon 16. I took the bonus tile Mace wanted and had been planning for, not to block him in particular but because it was close to my position. Mace and Jon managed without money, taking neighborly helps instead; Marne had the most coins at the end but no bonus tiles. Mace had the best production tile set-up, at the end he got a tile that let him close in 2 areas. Our relative inexperience playing Walnut Grove helped balance Marne's inexperience with strategy games.
Walnut Grove rules are pretty bad, but the clarifications on the critical parts should be available on BGG. Played the way the authors intended it is a decent game.
Thanks, Mikko.
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