Wielding the Decks 7: Card-cassonne

OK, I haven't tested this, and it's not very much like Carcassonne in terms of scoring, but it sure looks like fun. Anyone want to test run it for me? It probably needs a tweak.

Card-cassonne

2-4 players

COMPONENTS

2 decks cards, 7 tokens for each player

PREP

Mix the cards, place one face up on the table, and remove 11-13 other cards without looking at them (there must be an equal number in the draw deck for all players). Each player draws three cards and looks at them. Each player takes 7 tokens.

You can vary the length of the game by removing more or less cards. You can make easier or tougher game by giving players more or less tokens.

PLAY

Players take turns, in clockwise order. On your turn, a) play a card onto the board, b) place a token onto the played card, c) score completed or partially completed areas, and d) draw a card.

Playing a card: All cards played must touch orthogonally at least one other card on the table. You may place any card so that it touches only a single other card of any suit. You may place any card so that it touches only other cards of the same suit. To place a card that touches more than one card of different suits, the placed card must be numerically equal to or higher than the lowest number on any of these cards, and equal to or lower than the highest number of any of these cards.

Areas: An area is defined as a set of 1 or more cards, all of the same suit, all touching orthogonally. An area is complete if all spaces orthogonal to all cards in the area are filled by cards of the other suits. An area is partially complete if the number of empty spaces orthogonal to the cards in the area is equal to or less than the number of cards in the area.

Placing a token: You may only place a token on the card you just played. You may not place your token into an area that already contains a token. Additional tokens may become part of an area that already contains a token if two separate areas are merged through one or more placed cards.

Scoring areas: You may score any area that is partially complete. You must score any area that is complete. You score 3 points for placing the card that creates a completed area (for each completed area).

When scored, an area scores points for the players who own tokens on an area. All tokens in the area score these points (so double if you have two tokens). The score is 1 point per card in the area if the area contains 2 or fewer cards, otherwise 2 points per card in the area. All tokens that score are returned to the players (this is not optional); this is the only way to get back placed tokens. A token can be placed on a card, score, and be returned on the same turn. One area can score multiple times in a game.

At the end of the game, players score 3 points each for any tokens they have on the board that are on face cards (J, Q, K, and A).

Next Up: Carcassonne on the XBox

After Settlers of Catan, the next board game that will be released on the XBox is Carcassone. If this early report is typical, video gamers are starting to turn on to Euro-games.

Yehuda

Session Report Up in which I'm sick and we don't play much

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up here. Games played: Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation, Caylus.

The first time I ever saw Shelob return to her lair.

Game News

In my March list of game patents, I mentioned one owned by Scott Slomiany of Meeplespeak, who took the trouble to write how the patent came into being. Thanks, Scott.

Team XBox shows first pictures and walkthrough for Carcassonne on the XBox.

John Powers in York, UK got some press on his board game collection.

Yehuda

Chess as a Euro-game

Hive

Friday evening we went to Nadine's house. Nadine had made a homemade version of the game Hive, because she doesn't like the bugs on the game's pieces.

So instead of beetles and crickets, etc, she had dogs, cats, horses, sheep, and a barn (the queen bee).

We played two games, switching sides, and I won both times. Nadine isn't actually a big fan of abstract games, so I'm not sure why she made it.

Chess

I haven't played chess in a number of years. Our non-playing guest after lunch said that he was willing to play a game.

Now, when you come back to chess after playing hundreds of Euro-games, you approach the game quite differently. Instead of seeing the game of chess as "chess", which has its own rules, patterns, and history, you approach the game like you approach any other tactical, area-control game.

Actually, not area-control. I approached the game as a resource game. Each turn I had one action resource, and I had sixteen meeples to play with, each with its own movement actions. The game ends when someone is about to lose their king meeple.

So my approach to the game was from an action point point-of-view. I figured that whenever I had more meeples, and more available actions from which to choose, then I was probably winning. And that meant that I could exchange pieces so long as I kept the upper-hand. Furthermore, when my opponent had less actions available, they were more likely to make bad ones.

That's how I played, and given that my opponent wasn't very strong, it worked quite well. After gaining a few pawns advantage, I swapped at every opportunity. When I couldn't swap, I worked to limit the number of possible moves that my opponent could make, regardless of whether the position was more or less helpful to me.

In the end, I could see his moves to a reasonable depth because he had few available options, so I was easily able to set up more piece swaps.

Once we got to the end game, I was ahead about five pawns and a rook, and then it was simply a matter of forcing his king into a corner while ensuring he couldn't snatch any of my pieces by mistake. A simple checkmate ensued.

(Speaking of chess as a Euro-game, Trabsact continues to put out interesting abstract game variations, by the way, including this one on Alternating Weapon Chess.)

Puerto Rico

At the end of the day, Nadine stuck around after Rachel's shiur on Job and we played a game of Puerto Rico. This time I was first, Rachel second, and Nadine third. Nadine and I discussed alternative starting plantations for three player, such as indigo-sugar-indigo, corn-sugar-indigo, and so on, without coming to any definitive conclusions. The truth is, taking out the Small Market is already a big step toward a solution, but third player still wins often.

Not this time, as between Rachel and I both taking Harbor, the VP supply drained very quickly. Nadine had the only big building, but she wasn't even able to man it.

Nadine was pumping out huge amounts of corn and tobacco, but we kept denying her boat space. I had a coffee monopoly, but the trading house emptied only once during the entire game. So I locked a boat, instead. Rachel still managed to trump me, once again with good Hospice play, taking a few corns and quarries when necessary, and then ending the game tied for me in shipping points (31 each), and 1 point ahead in building points. She won 44 to 43, while Nadine had 32 or so.


Monopoly Madness is an event to benefit the British Columbia Paraplegic Association and Boys & Girls Club Services of Greater Victoria. Saturday, February 24, 2007 at the Victoria Conference Centre, Canada.

Hasbro finally announced that it would be releasing various board games to play online on RealNetworks, including Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Game of Life, and Yahtzee.

Board Game News points us to the world record for Carcassonne playing - 42 hours and 48 minutes - with pictures.

And Slashdot informs us that eBay is delisting all virtual goods from Second Life, due to ownership clarification issues. Which may have an economic impact. On Second Life. Or eBay. Not sure which.

Yehuda

First Mentions on Usenet, 1993 - 2002

First review of Magic: the Gathering

Shawn D. Marier
Mon, Jul 26 1993

First there were card games, then there were collectable trading cards, now we have a collectable trading card game. When I first heard about this game a few months ago I was a bit concerned. I personally do not like trading cards and feel that for the most part they are a waste of money. So my feelings from the start toward this game were a bit negative ...

The game is quick to learn, and the starter deck comes with a small 36 page rule book. I learned the basic rules in about 2 minutes, and only needed to pick up the rule book for a few strange situations ...

The real nice thing about the trading card aspect of the game is that every time you play a new opponent you should get to see cards that you have never seen before. This will keep the game fresh and exciting, if not expensive as you try and find the perfect cards to defeat your opponents.

Over all I give this game a very high rating, the art is wonderful, the game is very enjoyable. Hopefully 'Wizards of the Coast' will come out with a collectors set in the near future so that us collectors of SF/Fantasy art will be able to see all 300 pieces of art.

First review of Settlers of Catan

Dirk Bock
Fri, May 26 1995

... The flaw in its design is, IMHO, that you do not have any control which tiles produce what, when, and for which player(s). This doesn't seem too bad at a glance, but due to the fact, that you may be excluded from the "valuable" parts of the board by not being able to build roads in the beginning, a player may become cut off from the race for victory quite early ... In our games such a situation, a single player losing after about half an hour and just waiting for the rest of the game (up to two hours), occurs in about half of the games.

I would describe the situation something like: you need skill to win "die Siedler", but you've got to have luck in the first stages not to lose it.

But apart from that flaw, which could, again IMHO, tolerated in a game lasting less than one one hour, Die Siedler von Catan *is* fun and satisfying to play.

First Review of El Grande

Jonathan Degann
Fri, Apr 12 1996

... There is considerable fun as you kick your opponents out of regions,
or launch a surprise attack from the "tower" (the 10th region) into
a region of your choice.

I enjoy it every time I play it.

First Mention of Gipf

Daniel Blum
Mon, Aug 18 1997

Mayfair had their usual range, including LOTS of Siedler items - Seafarer,
the card game, everything but the Seafarer 5/6 player expansion (and no,
I don't have any more of those, sorry). They had pretty good prices on
the Siedler stuff, too. They had two new abstract strategy games -
Balanx and Gipf. Balanx had a cute tilting board but struck me as a
gimmicky Chinese checkers variant. Gipf's box had mostly overblown piffle,
so I passed on it as well. Unfortunately there was no way to play either
of these unless one found a partner and rented a copy in the open gaming
area (Mayfair had a table in their booth, but it was occupied all weekend
by a huge 3D Siedler board).

First Comment on Princes of Florence

Greg J. Schloesser
Tues, Apr 25 2000

DIE FURSTEN VON FLORENZ: Without a doubt, the hit of the show.
Fabulous. Played twice and taught a half dozen other groups how to
play. Buy it!
Jay ... are you listening? Is it to late to release this one in
English?
Initial rating: 9

First Comment on Carcassonne

Carl-Gustaf Samuelsson
Fri, Nov 3 2000

We found a table and a German girl joined us for a test of "Carcassonne". An easy, but quite clever tile laying game. You build up a map with the tiles with roads, towns, meadows and monasteries. You try to control them by playing one of your 7 followers on them and when an entity is completed, you score it and take back it (if it hasn't become a farmer, which is scored at the end). We were sure it would be a great filler for the late game evening, so I found a copy for 23 DM.

First Play of Puerto Rico

Stan Hilinski
Tues, Jan 29 2002

I mentioned this on Spielfrieks, but a guy in a group was sick for about a
week, and since he had nothing better to do, he constructed a homemade
prototype of Puerto Rico based entirely on photographs and Mik's
description ...

Normally I'd say nothing here about the experiment. except for
one thing. Our lame wannabe copy of Puerto Rico was received with complete,
total enthusiasm. At our next Friday gathering, the original five showed up
just to do it again. I have not seen anything close to this since Princes
of Florence hit our table last year. It is all they want to play ...

Yehuda

From Anthony and Cleojackson

CLEOJACKSON

Come, thou mortal wretch,
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst someone sweep
Out these maternally lusting reptiles from out
Of this motherly affixed boat?


More games and theater: Prisonopoly, this week and next in Indiana.

Two game variations:

Sycarion Diversions offers up a block game called Tactical March.

Naturelich offers up a Vanguard variation for Carcassonne. Vanguard was simply Richard Garfield's most blatant copying of the Cosmic Encounter motif into his game, Magic: the Gathering. Richard has said that the Cosmic was one of the main inspirations for the game to begin with.

It is my humble opinion that special powers can be added to just about any game, making it better. Thus it is proved that as any game gets better, it becomes more and more like Cosmic Encounter.

And I don't mean the lame Avalon Hill version.

Yehuda

Green Eggs and Tom

I am Tom
I am Tom
Tom Vasel

That Tom Vasel
That Tom Vasel!
What a hassle
that Tom Vasel!

Do you like
playing Carcassonne?

I do not like it,
Tom Vasel.
I do not like
Carcassonne, it's facile.

Would you play it
here or there?

I would not play it
here or there.
I would not play it
anywhere.
I do not like
Carcassonne, the game.
I do not like it
If it's all the same.

Would you play it
in a house?
Would you play it
with a mouse?

I would not play it
in a house.
I would not play it
with a mouse.
I would not play it
here or there.
I would not play it
anywhere.
I do not like playing Carcassonne.
Just the game's name makes me yawn.

Would you play it
in a box?
Would you play it
with a fox?

Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
I would not play it here or there.
I would not play it anywhere.
I would not play that Carcassonne.
I do not like it. Please be gone.

Would you? Could you?
In a car?
Play it! Play it!
Here you are.

I would not,
could not,
in a car.

You may like it.
You will see.
You may like it
in a tree!

I would not, could not in a tree.
Not in a car! You let me be!

I would not play it in a box.
I would not play it with a fox.
I would not play it in a house.
I would not play it with a mouse.
I would not play it here or there.
I would not play it anywhere.
I would not play it, Vasel, Tom.
What is this, some kind of pogrom?

A train! A train!
A train! A train!
Could you, would you,
on a train?

Not on a train! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! Tom! Let me be!

I would not, could not, in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.
I will not play it with a mouse.
I will not play it in a house.
I will not play it here or there.
I will not play it anywhere.
I do not like that Carcassonne.
I think it is the devil's spawn.

Say!
In the dark?
Here in the dark!
Would you, could you, in the dark?

I would not, could not,
in the dark.

Would you, could you,
in the rain?

I would not, could not, in the rain.
Not in the dark. Not on a train.
Not in a car. Not in a tree.
I do not like it, Tom, you see.
Not in a house. Not in a box.
Not with a mouse. Not with a fox.
I will not play it here or there.
I will not play it anywhere!

You do not like
Carcassonne?

I do not
like it,
Mr Tom.

Would you, could you
In a castle?
Could you, would you
With a tassel?

No, I wouldn't
You old Tom Vasel.

Could you, would you
with a goat?

I would not,
could not,
with a goat!

Would you, could you,
on a boat?

I could not, would not, on a boat.
I will not, will not, with a goat.
Not with a tassel. Not in a castle.
I will not play it in the rain.
I will not play it on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I do not like it in a box.
I do not like it with a fox.
I will not play it in a house.
I do not like it with a mouse.
I do not like it here or there.
I do not like it ANYWHERE

I do not like
that Carcassonne!

I do not like it,
Mr. Tom.

You do not like it.
So you say.
Try it! Try it!
And you may.
Try it and you may, I say.

Tom!
If you will let me be,
I will try it.
You will see.

Say!
I like this game, I do!
I like it, you Tom Vasel, you!
And I would play it in a boat.
And I would play it with a goat...

And I will play it in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
It is so good, so good, you see!

So I will play it in a box.
And I will play it with a fox.
And I will play it in a house.
And I will play it with a mouse.
And I will play it here and there.
Say! I will play it ANYWHERE!

I do so like
this little game!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Er ... what was his name?

Yehuda, with a little help from Theodore Geisel

BGG.con: Sunday, Nov 06

1. Con Ends

Woke up in a hotel. Mmmmmm.

After waking up, I couldn't find my overcoat, the one that I had brought from Israel, not the jacket that I had lost. Took me about an hour to find it. It was near the table on which I left my game prototype.

KC from Sunriver Games and I finally sat down to explore the rules that he had tried out for my game design. I found out why I had not received an enthusiastic initial response from them, and that is because they hadn't known that the player mats go behind the player screens along with the money. Well, that changes a lot. Now they can retest with the right rules. Hopefully I sparked enough interest in them to do so. We also discussed numerous other possibilities as far as directions to proceed.

Sigh! No contract in my hand, yet! The travails of being an unpublished designer! Actually, come to think of it, since people bought my prototypes, I can call myself a self-published designer, I suppose.

Sunday ...

I woke up to Through the Desert (I taught). The two experienced players, myself and Michael, lost out to the newbie, Roger, since we were fighting over the length of our white camel train while Roger was scoring points. 93/86(me)/75

Over breakfast I finally got to play Alhambra with the Sunriver group. In my first game, I managed to kill my wall development, leaving myself only the ability to expand westwards, which made collecting and placing tiles difficult.

Jeff 8 first/39 second/83 final
Jim 11/18/42
KC 6/24/62
Chris 3/30/84
me 9/17/48
Rita 5/30/85 winner

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers - I taught, also. I can't remember the names, sorry. I only know that I beat them almost a full circuit. They did pretty well, anyway, one of them stealing an entire water system (17) from me very neatly. I had my own little contained and sweet field for 20 points. We played with two of my unofficial rules (don't worry, I told them about the real rules): Aurochs worth 4, Sacred Stone equivalent to two meeples.

Then I convinced them to try my game, along with some others. I won, and more happy people.

I played a Crokinole game with Chris Tripper, a nice local Dallas guy, and just eked out a victory, still not sure how.

And then my game again, finally demonstrating the correct rules to KC. Then we tried a variation with different tile distribution and scoring that he had come up with.

And that was about it.

Games acquired: Primordial Soup (door prize), game from Dancing Eggplant Games (door prize), Modern Art (traded for), China Moon (traded for), Domaine, Yinsh, Alhambra, Havoc (bought).

Really wish I could have gotten: Age of Steam (not at $60), Power Grid, Caylus, San Marco, lots of others...

Props to everyone, high and low. Dallas people: Chris, Anye, Eran, Jared, Jeff, Aldie, Derk, all assistants, etc. Thanks again.

2. The return. A new beginning.

I am going to be spending a week in northern New Jersey and New York City. I am looking to game for the next week. Be in touch if you are available, especially Wed or Thurs nights.

For those of you who "enjoyed" my trip into Dallas, sit back and relax.

The trip to the airport was uneventful, except that some people went by airport shuttle which was supposed to take you around the city first and then cost $16, while we went direct and paid $13 including tip. See, life isn't fair this way. If you could only guarantee that paying more equaled better service/quality, we would at least have a guide to live by. Why is it so difficult?

Dropped off at Continental, and there is this little check in booth at car level for luggage, but it wasn't staffed, so I dragged the cases upstairs. Luckily I have a Continental flier pass number so check in was quick. Kosher food, check.

Getting through security was not.

First was the line for about half the length of the airport to go through security. Now, I live in Israel, and Israel has some crack security. For the few troublemakers who are not Arab terrorists, and there are some, they can usually nail them with direct questioning and the like. The Arab population is subject to intense security. The result, of course, is that Arabs don't try anything at the airport, because the odds are unlikely that they will succeed, which of course means that the Arabs who suffer are the ones that aren't trying anything. So it goes.

So after I finally get to the security, I see the most ridiculous things. People taking off shoes! Like, a metal detector isn't going to catch a shoe bomb? Taking off belts and struggling to hold up their pants. Oh give me a bloody break.

And wouldn't you know it? Little old scary me is pulled out for intense security. When they start the process, my eyes are laughing at them and I tell them that Israel security is pretty tight and not like this at all. They are curious as to how it works and they chat with me as we're doing this.

They X-ray my wallet. They prod my socks. He gives me a pass over with the metal detectors and then hugs my body completely, practically lifting my off my feet. After about 30 seconds of hugging, I want to know if he actually knows what a bomb looks like, because it seems highly unlikely that he does, or he would have known that I don't have one a while ago.

Sheesh.

Nothing kosher in the airport, except for some cookies. Now, I get to my gate and see that the 3:15 flight is delayed and it's already 4:15. My plane is supposed to leave at 5:15. I ask what is the status of my flight and she tells me that I should board this one, because the next one will also be delayed, and this one should be leaving by 5:00 . I wonder if all passengers on the 5:15 are being told this, or if I'm just lucky. New flight number: 1138 - an auspicious number for a gamer (Google it).

Naturally, I worry about the luggage and the Kosher food. Luggage will get there. OK. Food? Nope, according to the attendant, there is no Kosher food available on Continental domestic flights, period. Yes, they server dinner, but no, no special meals. But didn't they just tell me that I had Kosher food fifteen minutes ago? Must have been looking at my Newark to Tel Aviv ticket.

Great. No meal. Luckily I have the backup food. But ... why?

So we board at 4:30. I ask the guy next to me if I can use his phone to inform my friend in New Jersey that the flight number has changed.

"No, you can't."

OK.

Guy in front of him hands me his phone and says, "Knock yourself out."

At 5:35 we take off. Something about storms over Pennsylvania. I'm seated at the back of the plane in a seat that doesn't recline, and something about it is absolutely killing my back. I strategically place pillows and blankets to try to numb the pain. No music, no video.

Meanwhile we are delayed some more and circle over Washington DC, making circles in the air through highly turbulent weather. After an hour delay, we can approach Newark. Far out the side of the plane you can see white puffy clouds, while closer to the plane on either side are these black glowing clouds. Which we're descending into. We arrive, safely, in Newark at 10:10 .

Belt on the luggage conveyor is broken. Out of the airport at 11:20.

At least my friend was still waiting for me to pick me up.

Yehuda