Catching Up On Games Played

Last day of Pesach

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.

Raanana Session Report, in which I play Settlers with two Rochelles

Participants: Laurie, Daniel, Jon, Ellis, Rochelle, Rochelle 2

Game night at Laurie and Daniel's as usual. Rochelle 2 is a friend of mine who was willing to try something new; she has no previous experience with games as an adult.

Dominion+

Jon 27, Laurie 11, Ellis 10, Daniel 6

Scores approximate. I brought over my box of four Dominion games and selected a random assortment from all of them.

Kingdoms: Market, Great Hall, Masquerade, Swindler, Ironworks, Sea Hag, Tactician, Bishop, Bank, Expand. No Platinum or Colony.

This is the first play for any Dominion expansions by the others. Actually, they're all still in single digit plays for Dominion altogether. Turns are still kind of slow going. There was a lot of trashing, of course. Swindler has the side effect of causing piles of cards to disappear rather quickly, which is why the game ended up with three piles gone, rather than the usual Provinces. I managed to nab three Provinces before the game ended, all by using Tactician.

An interesting combo was Ironworks to take Great Hall, which gave two out of the three bonuses with no drawbacks. Swindler also handed out a lot of curses, mostly to Daniel.

Settlers of Catan

Jon 10, Rochelle 7, Rochelle 2 5

Rochelle had played this once before but had forgotten many of the rules. So it was essentially a first play for both of them. They both picked it up without much difficulty. The resource distribution was pretty even, and so were the dice rolls. No one had to toss out cards from a roll of 7.

Rochelle took Longest Road fairly early. She also acquired a port mid-game, but it wasn't one she could use. Rochelle 2 built a few settlements and was often one road away from taking Longest Road from Rochelle, though she never threatened to do so. Luck was against her, and she often rolled up a resource right after she had traded for it.

I built an early settlement and then city on the ore, and then city on the brick. I had a port for brick and used it nicely. I ended the game with my ninth board point and a revealed development victory point.

Race for the Galaxy

Ellis, Daniel, Laurie

I didn't see how the game (or games) went. They actually play with an expension or two thrown in, though I don't know which.

Shabbat Gaming

I had a family from Raanana over for the first time for lunch, and the guy stayed after to play Scrabble with me. He was a tough opponent; he had obviously played in tournaments before. He played the only bingo during the game, but I beat him by a 50 point margin by playing a lot of double/double and double/triple moves.

Meanwhile, in two online Scrabble games that just ended, I played 7 bingos between them. That's a streak I don't expect to repeat. Playing bingos (or words at all) in online Scrabble isn't the same. Since you are not permitted to submit an illegal word, you just keep playing around and clicking submit until the game accepts your play. It takes a lot of the edge out of the game, and it's definitely different than face to face play.

Shabbat I went to my brother's and the kids wanted to play games (or hear stories) the whole time, even the five year old (I think he's five). I played Set with two of the younger ones, and I was shocked with how good them were, even the five year old. I didn't take sets myself; I only called Set and let them take the sets after they found them. So I would have killed them, technically. But I think they're going to get much better really fast.

The other game I played was Dominion, three times. I lost the first game taking Conspirators and Pawns against my brother who was simply taking silvers and golds. Actually, I also did some bad planning and had some bad luck. I took a Mine early when I should have taken a Market (before I settled on the Conspirator strategy), and I got to use it all of once during the game.

I requested the same set again, and this time I played more diverse and took more Markets and Spies. I won this game.

In the third game, there were no bonus actions on any cards, but there was Throne Room and Black Market. I picked well with Black Market while Ben had the same luck problem I faced during my first game. I had a runaway win, even though Ben had accidentally stacked 18 provinces instead of 12 (I took 11 of them, while Ben took 6).

Shabbat Gaming

Went to my friends for shabbat. I played with him and with his 10 year old son.

When his son asked me to play a game, I chose a game on their shelf which I didn't know, Five Crowns. Listening to a 10 year old boy explain the rules - in English, when he generally speaks Hebrew - was a surreal experience. Words, rules, images floated around without ever quite settling into coherence structures or sentences. I grasped the idea that the game was some kind of rummy game with a series of hands, but I missed a very important rule about jokers until we were on round three.

The deck contains five suits with cards from 3 to k in each suit, two of each card, and a number of jokers. You play 11 rounds, dealing each player 3 cards, then 4, and so on up to 13. You draw and discard on your turn, with the option of taking the top card of the discard pile. First to meld his entire hand - three or more of a kinds, three or more straight flushes - puts it down. The other players have one more round; on their turn, they then meld what they can and score points on the value of what is left. Face cards are 10 points each, jokers a lot (but none of us were ever caught with any). Low score at the end wins.

And, oh yeah: whichever hand you're on, all the cards of that value are also jokers. So on round 3 (5 cards dealt to each player), all 5's are jokers.

Whoa nelly, that's a whole lot of jokers running around. Turns out that in several of our hands, a player went out on the first turn; in the other hands, it didn't usually take more than 3 or 4 turns. Too many jokers. And your hand sure looks confusing with its array of colors and displaced numbers scattered around. It actually became hard to see exactly what you had; usually you were left with a single card that you couldn't meld.

However, this was not the case in the first few rounds; until you had five cards, your meld had to be a single kind or run, which made for longer and higher scoring rounds.

It was fun, like most rummy games (not word rummy games, which are universally dull). I'm not sure it really needs a dedicated deck to play it. We all scored very closely, and I won 86 to 89 to 92.

David and I then played two games of Dominion+. He doesn't get to play too much Dominion, and he thinks he's not too good at it, which is odd since it seems to be just his sort of game. In any case, I won both games, the first by four points and the second by quite a bit more (with colonies).

Shabbat Gaming

Had my friends over for all of shabbat ... and his parents, and their daughter and her new husband. I slept on the couch. I also had Nadine over for both meals and we played games in the afternoon.

Nadine and I taught Dominion to the newlyweds. He had played a few games before, such as Settlers and Puerto Rico; he had played them at a friend's house in Beit Shemesh, a friend who had learned the games at my house when I had lived there. She played some bridge, taught to her by her father.

We used the base set: Village, Workshop, Bureaucrat, Feast, Gardens, Council Room, Festival, Market, Mine, Adventurer.

I've never been comfortable with a Gardens strategy. We all ignored it in the first game, instead concentrating on Village, Festival, Mine, Market, and so on. I tied for first with 28 points.

The second game, I decided to try Gardens; no one else did, so it worked spectacularly. I bought mostly kingdoms that gave additional cards, such as Workshop and Bureaucrat, and additional buys, such as Festival - I skipped Market and Council Room. I also got a few Villages, so that I could play the other cards more than once a turn.

The others continued as they did in the previous game, with a few more Bureaucrats and Council Rooms added in for good measure. The game ended when I had exactly 49 cards and 10 Gardens. Argh! Didn't matter. I had 55 points, and my nearest competitor had 38.

I saw my friends and the newlyweds playing Apples to Apples later in the day.

In the evening, my friend and his father and I played Cribbage, which was a very close game until I pulled off 16 point on the penultimate turn, leaving me five points from winning and first to play and score. I started by playing a 7. It was followed by an 8 and then a 9, whereupon I played my 6, for 4 points, and another point for the go, which was all I needed.

We then played a number of hands of three-player bridge.

Nice to have gamers of a different sort over once in a while.

Weekend Gaming

Puerto Rico

Rachel, my brother Ben, and I played Puerto Rico on Friday evening. We used the basic building set with the following changes:

• Assembly Line instead of Small Market
• You mys move one of your colonists onto Hospice when you buy it
• Factory was 8 instead of 7 and replaced University
• Library was in the 7 slot

Library is an official expansion building which usually costs 8, but I don't think warrants the cost in a four or five player game. 8 is probably right in a three player game, but no one ever buys it, anyway. So I thought I would try it out at 7, with some trepidation.

What do you know, the first third column buildings that either Ben or Rachel bought were Library. Mine was Harbor. No one bought Factory. I'll say that the decision as to which of the four three column buildings to buy was a lot tougher. Library did quite well, and I'm not sure if it should be bumped back to 8 or left at 7. On the other hand, I won without it, so there you go.

I was first player, followed by Rachel and Ben. On the first round, I took Settler/corn, Rachel took sugar, and Ben took coffee (instead of indigo). That set the stage for the rest of the game:

Since Ben took the first trade good, I was bound to go for tobacco while Rachel was bound to go for coffee. I took tobacco, but Rachel never got a trade good, which is a tough position to play, even with a Large Market. She bought one, but it didn't do her much good.

Rachel had a sugar monopoly for much of the game, but I forced her to ship it at a crucial time. Until about mid-game, we thought she might be winning, but after that I passed her in money, and my Harbor caught up to her early victory point lead.

Ben traded coffee a few times, but he waited for far too long to lock a coffee boat. Which means that the Harbor that he took didn't do him much good.

Ben and I both ended with two large buildings, but Ben had little else on his board. Final scores: me 60, Ben 53, Rachel 51.

Dominion

I taught my cousin's two teenage girls (15, 17) to play this, and Ben played as well. I had previously gotten them hooked on Bohnanza, and I think they had tried Settlers. Their father (my cousin) was holding discussions with my brother David about starting them on a D&D campaign.

Kingdoms: Chapel, Cellar, Moat, Workshop, Village, Militia, Moneylender, Council Room, Festival, Market.

Festival is nice, but it must be combined with card drawing. My most annoying hands was when I had the card drawing (but not the Festivals) and then I drew the Festivals but couldn't play them. Festivals are not exactly the same as money, after all.

Ben and I both Chapel's away from Estates early. He also took Militia, which he played often but never affected me in the least (either I had Moat, or I didn't care about tossing down cards). Surprisingly, I only took one Village; maybe I should have taken more.

The girls asked, round after round, nearly the same questions again and again: What can I do? What does this mean? What should I do? When I asked them back the same questions, they knew what they could do and what it meant; they just didn't want to decide what to do. Things finally began to flow smoother near the end.

Ben won 27 to my 26, and the girls each had in the high teens.

Princes of Florence

We stayed at a neighbor's apt, and, while looking around the room, I noticed that they had a copy of Ticket to Ride: Europe on the shelf. I thought that this would be a good second intro game for the girls, but David somehow convinced them, and Ben, to learn Princes of Florence.

Given the girls' lack of enthusiasm for making decisions in Dominion, I didn't think this would go over that well. But David sat beside them and helped them make nearly every decision as the game went on. In the end, the girls said that they liked both of the games equally well.

I won with three Jesters (one on the last round). I just squeaked to victory. One of the girls ended round 7 with the same score as me, and then we both played our prestige cards mine was half value at 4, while hers was half value at 3.

Final scores: me 60, cousin 59, Ben 54, cousin 51. The lower scoring cousin was unable to play her last profession.

Moot

I dropped this on the table for my aunt, sis-in-laws, mom, cousins, and other non-gamers to play with, and they all love it.

Dominion Fever, Antike Down to the Wire

Dominion

I leant my three Dominion games to my brother Ben while I was in the US, and it took him an extra few weeks to get them back to me after I returned. He and his three kids, aged 6 to 10 or so, played around 40 games, probably more. They loved it. Now he has to find a way to get these bulky games to Israel.

I went to him and his wife for Yom Haazmaut, and so did my other brother David and his wife and kids. Turns out that one of David's kids had played Dominion: Intrigue at one of his friend's, and had told David about the game, but David hadn't played it yet.

After pulling random kingdoms, and then looking at David, I decided instead to play with the suggested ten basic kingdoms from the base set. Wise choice.

David took what is, I am fairly sure, the longest first turn in Dominion ever, by anyone. It must have been fifteen minutes. The rest of the first game was fairly similar: go, go, go, .... tap, tap, tap as David thought out loud about what the best card was. No amount of telling him that they were all good choices helped.

For all that thinking, he managed to achieve a singular lack of cohesion or synergy in his deck, and ended far away in last place. Ben and I tied at 35, while David's eldest (also first play) had 24, and David had 18.

However, David felt like he had a better handle on the game, and so we played a second game using the same cards. He did much better (and played a mite faster) this game. David was still in last, but this time David's eldest won the game by one point. However, the scores were all close - within 7 points of each other.

Antike

There was some talk of playing Taj Mahal, but I talked them into playing Antike, a game I dearly love and which doesn't hit my game group's table often enough. First play for everyone except for me, and this time two of David's kids joined in for a five player game.

In the first game, I gave some advice, but not an overabundance, I suppose; Nadine would probably have scolded me. I pretty much had double the second player's points, right through to when they all gave up when I was one point from winning (as usual, I suggested that we play until one point less than the suggested winning criteria, which is a Good Idea). I played the Phonecians in the corner, which I think is somewhat of an advantagous starting position.

I didn't think there was enough time for a second game, but David once again felt like he was getting the hang of it and inisisted that we play one more time.

The second game was near the quickest game of Antike I've even played, and everyone proved that they were up to speed. Now I trailed a point or two behind the leaders. By end-game, it was down to the wire. Ben was the first to be one point away from winning, and the quick game suddenly bogged down while he tried in vain to figure out how to win within a round or two. Finally he played, and then David and David's eldest also made it to one point away from winning.

Several times, either Ben, or David, or I were one resource away from gaining and extra victory point (which wouldn't have made me win, but would have made me feel better). A few temples fell. In the end, David's eldest once again pulled off the victory. He had played Greece and a strong naval strategy, and he won by destroying a temple (mine, I think). Ben was the player after him, and he had two ways he would have won on his turn. David was one additional turn away from winning (take gold, followed by a complete set of Know-Hows).

David enjoyed both games, as did everyone else, although David's eldest complained about the slow-down in the last game of Antike as Ben struggled to find his win condition.

Two Perfect Games for Two Perfect Groups

Thursday evening I roped one of Tal's friends into trying out Dominion. Tal had played once before, and her friend had played Magic once upon a time. They were looking bored, and it looked like the perfect pitch opportunity.

It was. We played with only the basic set, and I won easily. Then I heard from Tal this evening, while talking to her while she was on the phone at the friends house, how much he loved the game. I think there may be an immanent purchase.

Friday evening I had several guests over for dinner. After we ate some of them, the ones that were left were Nadine, Bill, and Shirley from the game group, Ksenia, a visiting Polish student, and Natalie, a visiting German student. I'd roped Ksenia into a few games so far, and Natalie claimed that she always won at The Settlers of Catan. I needed a meaty - but not too long - game for six players. Over Nadine's initial objections, I picked Antike.

First play for Natalie, Shirley, and Ksenia. We played from around 11:15 until 1:30 (I knocked the required number of cities down one from what was suggested, as usual, to a mere six) and it was a fantastic game; even Nadine ended up enjoying the experience. It was our first six-player game, and the first time that the "5 cities" cards ran out, which dramatically changed the strategies.

We played on the Arabian board. I had fleets sailing around Greece. Bill and Shirley bumped around each other around Saudi Arabia, and Nadine played cautiously in the middle out of Israel. Ksenia had the southeast corner in Africa, and Natalie the southwest corner in Asia.

We only needed six points. Nadine race ahead furthest to five points, but then got stuck. I wiped out her fleets and Ksenia took out all but three of her cities. Even after doing that, she still had a good chance of winning the last point, as was gaining a coin every round and had two gold producing cities remaining, which gave her the chance to get the bonus point at the bottom of the Know-How tracks.

Bill built a few temples on the sea, so I wiped out all of his fleets, in the hopes of getting to conquer them. I got one, and gained my fifth point. I was one round away from winning myself before Natalie won; well, actually Ksenia wiped out my second temple, so I couldn't get my third temple right away anymore, which put me back to two rounds from winning (build ships, attack Bill's other temple).

Natalie managed to avoid nearly all confrontations, and she never attacked anyone.

All in all, a fun, fine, and close game. The genius is that it is not the conquest, but the points you need to win. So when you lose things, like cities and ships, you adjust your strategy to another path to victory; you don't lose points.

I highly recommend the game as a better alternative to Risk.

I Can't Give You Water Because We Sell Water

Or, Adventures in Cincinnati

Half-Priced Books

I drove along small roads, because I couldn't figure out how to get onto and off of the major highways. Cincinnati's highways look like an overturned bowl of spaghetti. Look at your hand with your fingers spread out. That's what the end of I75 looks like, only, each finger has another hand coming off of it, some fingers merge back together, and there's no telling which ones go left or right around the bend.

Driving the small roads was, aside from a lengthier drive, a tour of the underbelly of Cincinnati. It's not pretty, at least the part I drove on (mostly Rt 27). But I discovered a Half-Priced Books. I loved the Half-Priced Books in Dallas. This one was ok, but only a third of the size of the one in Dallas.

I used to buy a lot of audio media: now I cycled through the records (my player doesn't work anymore), the cassettes (too fragile), and the CD's (I'll get these on occasion), and discovered that I'm really not in the market for audio media anymore. It's not that I don't listen to audio. It's that I can find any song for free, legally (a video, a promotional website). And, more importantly, I have access to so much music today, that I don't need any one particular song. I like genres of music now, not particular songs or artists. OK, I still like some artists more than others, but there are so many great artists that I'm not going to miss any one if I don't have their music.

That left games and books. I found one or two things I would consider reading, but nothing I would consider buying.

Newport on the Levee

Newport on the Levee promised shopping, an aquarium, movies, and I wasn't sure what else. Not really a fantastic choice. I think the zoo or Krohn Conservatory would have been better bets (and there's supposedly some downtown fountain area that I don't know much about).

Parking was $2, which was fine. I hit the aquarium, which was $20, which was about 50% too expensive.

It's a nice aquarium. Nice setups, interesting fish and slimy things, with the occasional out of place display (what's an owl doing here?). Staff are friendly. But it's smaller than I was hoping for. No jumping dolphins or whales, no sea shows. Little in the way of hands on exhibits. In short, it was worth $10, not $20.

Some pics:



This display included "four-eyes", little fish that hover at the surface of the water like submarines, their bubble eyes only above the surface, with split vision below the surface as well. You can't really see them in this picture.



I've got Australia and I'm going to wait you out.



Hiss.



Bark bark. (These animals go a bit crazy in here.)



Meow.



Birds at an aquarium. Whatever.



This guy was mammoth, and was slithering his way through the electric cables in the ceiling, crunching the light fixtures in his way.



The jellyfish display was the nicest part.



Freaky.



A shark ray, pretty rare. She just got a mate, and they are trying to play matchmaker.



Lawyers.



One of the few hands-on displays, you could pet these sharks.



Help, I've fallen and I can't get up. (Which reminds me: What did Jesus say when he wasn't allowed into the Disco club? "Help! I've risen and I can't get down!")

The gift shop through which they force you to walk was ok, but there was only one game on display: Oceanopoly. Hey Z-Man! Try sending them a few copies of Reef Encounter. Actually, I think I'll write to Zev about it.

It's Not Me

After the aquarium I went to the attached mall, which is mostly a waiting room for a multiplex cinema. Not much here, but they had free wifi.

Here is what life is like in America, for those of you who don't know:

Me: "I'd like some water, please."

Pleasant counter person: "I'm sorry. We sell bottled water, so I'm not allowed to give you water."

Me: "The sink is right there. There's a plastic cup right there."

PCP: "I'm sorry. It's not me. Those are the rules."

Me: "You realize that this is not good for PR, or for business?"

PCP: "It's not me."

Me: "Thanks, bye."

PCP: "There's a water fountain right over there."

Me: "So you can't sell me water, but you can point me to the water fountain?"

I sat down and connected to the wifi, but my battery was running low. There was a plug on the wall, behind a stand at which you stamp your parking ticket if you've been to see a movie, so that you can get some of your parking money back. The stand was not really close to the wall or the plug.

I plugged in.

Pleasant Mall Worker: "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't be back here."

Me: "I'm just plugging my computer in."

PMW: "It's not me. They just don't want anyone behind the stand."

Other than the mall work staff, there was no one else in the mall.

Me: "... Ok, I'll just sit here, a few feet away and not actually behind the stand."

PMW: "That's ok then."

I sat on the floor near a doorway into some shop, Christmas lights dripping over my head. Unless they stick a turkey into the manger, I think Thanksgiving decorations are no longer functional. Out came a shop worker.

Pleasant Shop Worker: "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't sit here. You're blocking the shop door."

Me: "I am?"

PSW: "Yes, it's not me. They don't want anyone blocking the door, so that people won't trip."

I scooted a few inches back toward the stand.

Me: "How's that?"

PSW: "That's fine. It's not me, you know. That's the rules."

Game Night at Yottaquest

Yottaquest is a game store in Northern Cincinnati, run by an amiable and well-loved guy named Matthew. Goodman Games chose it as America's favorite game store in 2009. They have plenty of space for gaming, and a newsletter.



And they have good taste in games (note the game on the left).

There were some 20 to 25 people gaming ...



All night gamers playing Descent ...



Euro gamers playing Power Grid ... (including me. I trounced them, playing somewhat unusually. I started with plant 4, and then, seeing the competition for cheap places to build, I rushed to build more cities than I could power. No one contested me for early high capacity plants. That let me rush through to stage 2, and pretty much end the game while others were scrambling for capacity.

The player on the left gave me the most competition, but he hung back in cities, not expecting me to push through to stage 2 so quickly.)



Playing Dungeon Lords ...



Playing Endeavor, which I really wanted to play, rather than Power Grid.



And, in the back room, playing miniatures ...



And role playing.

After Power Grid, I played a filler card game for 2 to 6 players called Alice and Wonderland Parade. The game has zero to do with Alice and Wonderland. It is a simple avoidance card game like Geschenkt.

There are 6 suits, each with cards numbered 0 to 10. On your turn, you add a card to the end of the parade and draw a new one from the deck. You then may have to take cards from the back of the parade and place them in front of you (negative points). You take cards as follows: Let's say you place a card of value N with a color of C. E.g. a 7 Red. You ignore your own card and the most recently placed N (7) cards in the parade. For all other cards in the parade, you take all cards of value N (7) or less, as well as all cards of the same color C (Red) as your card.

The game continues until the deck is exhausted, and then all players play one more turn without drawing any new cards, which leaves them each with four cards in their hand. Each player chooses two of these cards (simultaneous select and reveal) to add to their board in front of them. Then points are counted.

Count the face value of all cards. However, in any color in which you have, or are tied for, the most cards, you score only one per card. Lowest score wins.

On first play, the mechanic, like Geschenkt's, appears to be brilliantly balanced. There are no good or bad cards, but how you play them is quite interesting. It plays quickly and for up to 6 players (though I suspect it is best with 3 to 5). I loved it.

The cards were really thin and pathetic, unfortunately. I'll probably just play it with my set of Sticheln cards. Sorry, designer/publisher. And what's with the meaningless theme?

After this, I joined a Dominion game. Several games had already been played throughout the evening. We played with a mixture of cards, but many were from Seaside, with which I have no experience.



I got thoroughly trounced. The set contained very little in the way of bonus coin value; only Pirate Attacks gave dependable coinage boost, but I didn't recognize that until too late and they were all gone. Some other cards let you draw Silvers and so on, but the Pirate Attacks just robbed them away from you, especially in a five player game where you might be hit by three attacks by the time it's your turn again.

There were also no bonus actions, except for the Pearl Diver, which didn't do enough.

I ended with 6 points, while everyone else had at least double digits. The winner had 24 or 26.

I showed some people how to play It's Alive, but, again, I didn't see how it went, and, again, they didn't choose to play it a second time. Hmmm...

Another nice group of people and some fun gaming.

Gaming in Dayton

Dayton's game group generally only meets on shabbat, which would preclude me from attending. Perhaps in response to my request for an alternative day for gaming while I was in the area, or simply by coincidence, one of the gamers - Bruce - held a day of gaming in his house this past Sunday.



Bruce. Note the three shelves stacked with games behind him.

Although Bruce's house appears on Google Maps if you know where to look, searching for the street, or the cross-street, or any other street nearby only yields locations in other parts of Dayton. I managed to find his street on GM only by visually tracing the directions he gave out on the Dayton gamers mailing list (directions which were not otherwise helpful to me, as they assumed an origin from the north) until I located his street. Then I clicked the street and asked for "directions to here". At which point GM grudgingly admitted that the street existed, and spit out the directions.



Upstairs, from sometime before I arrived at 2, until sometime after I left at 7, four or five people played one of the Axis And Allies games.

Football games were shown continually and in succession on large screen TVs upstairs, and smaller screens downstairs.



Downstairs a group was playing Chaos in the Old World when I arrived.



When I left, some of these same people, and some additional ones, were playing Battlestar Galactica.

I saw a copy of Dominion Intrigue, and although I already have a copy waiting for me in Toronto, I wanted to get in a play. It also played quickly and for two to four people, which would make it convenient while I waited for others. We played four players: myself, Jim, Bruce, and David. I think. I may have the names or people wrong.

Our kingdom set contained none of the new hybrid kingdoms, which made things a little less confusing. There were a number of cards that looked quite good but that I didn't get to play: such as the card that gave you two of +2 coins, actions, or cards, depending on the top two cards in the deck of the player on your left.

I played Upgrades and a lot of trashing. After a dozen turns, I still had around 12 to 15 cards, just none of them were Estates or Coppers. I also trashed curses as they came in. I also played another card that we misplayed: I read it as giving you +4 coins if you trash an Estate, but you actually have to discard the Estate, not trash it. Oops. Luckily I'm not the only one who played it incorrectly.

I began drawing Provinces well ahead of everyone else. I won, but a little closer than i would have liked. I had 36, David 29, Bruce 22 or so, and Jim, who had played the original much less and seemed to have some trouble grasping the game gestalt, finished with 3 (13 less 10 curses).



After that we briefly considered a few games that could accommodate 6 players (or splitting up into two groups, or not letting Bruce play) and settled on History of the World.

I'd played once, and wasn't too impressed, it being a dice-based combat game, and a fairly long one at that. However, I was willing to play nearly any game, so long as it wasn't Fluxx.

My opinion of the game went up a notch; ok, it's more enjoyable than Risk. And the game experience was certainly fun, since the group of players was good company. However, the game is still inordinately luck based. You don't lose too much when you lose as defender, like you do in Risk, but failing to win combat as the aggressor is just as painful as it is in Risk. Furthermore, so much depends on the kingdoms you draw in each of the seven rounds, and there is far too little control about that.

Whatever, we had a good 3.5 hours rolling the dice and moving our counters on and off the board. I rolled fairly well most of the time. Bruce rolled fairly poorly most of the time, and he still equaled my score. Jim and David both shined. We only made it to the end of the fifth turn. It was running late, and one of the players had to go. Our points ranged from 115 to 95, with me tied with Bruce for fourth and fifth place at 100 points even.

The players were nice, and the day was enjoyable. It was good to meet them. Unfortunately, I didn't get to show off It's Alive. And I didn't get a chance to see anything else in Dayton.

Preparation Day

Leaving for the airport tomorrow evening, 8:00 pm. My ticket id isn't being recognized by online early check-in on El Al's web site, which has me worried.

My Apartment

I'm letting a Pardes student stay in my apartment in exchange for taking care of the dog and general housekeeping. My kids will also be coming in and out.

Call Phone

My boss handed me a Verizon Kyocera K127 pre-paid cellphone with no cash on it. He said I might be able to add cash to it. I tried doing that online, but Verizon wasn't recognizing the phone number.

Called Verizon, and they said that my phone, which appears to be barely used and can't have been bought more than a few months ago, was now an older model, was locked into their network, would not work with their network, and that I should throw it into the garbage! Holy crap.

I'm bringing it anyway, just in case I can find a way to unlock it or upgrade it an a Verizon location.

Meanwhile, I checked the rates for my Orange cellphone, and, if I use their special long-distance call rate plan, I can avoid the 19 NIS/minute calling rate and call for a measly 9 NIS/minute, which is around $2.40/minute. Holy crap. No thanks.

Shabbat Gaming

Friday night I was able to help our hosts who had been playing Blokus incorrectly and found the game to be boring (they were playing two-player on a full board, one color each; the game always ended in a tie).

Saturday lunch I brought games to Mace and kids. Ksenia and two of the kids played Tigris and Euphrates, however they seem to have played it terribly wrong. I think they fought all conflicts, internal and external, in red, and Ksenia picked six tiles at the end of each of her turns, rather than back up to six as she was supposed to.

Meanwhile, Mace, Shachar, and I played two games of Dominion. We had a nice set: Moat, Workshop, Village, Throne Room, Festival, Witch, Lab, Smithy, Remodel, Militia.

I still struggled to get to 5 for a while. Shachar seemed to be doing better than I was. Eventually I started sailing, with the occasional Throne Room/Witch thrown in for good measure. Poor Mace ended the game with 10 curses. Shachar gave me a few, but I remodeled all but two of them. I won.

Mace wanted to play again with the same set, as he was just starting to get a feel for the game. Wicth was only used once this game. Once again I felt that I was starting slowly, as the other two both got to 5 and 6 several ties before I did. And still I managed a win. Didn't hurt having 15 treasure and a Throne Room/Remodel one round, which allowed me to toss two golds for two provinces and also buy another province in a single round. I was pulling my entire deck. Shachar was, too, but he just wasn't remodeling right. Or something.

Dominion With My Brother

Ben's first attempt at Dominion was a failure. He lost every Silver that he bought to other players' Thieves, while he never managed to steal anything back with his own Thieves. Unlike some games (Agricola), however, he was willing to admit that that was bad luck and that the game seemed basically sound.

We tried it again yesterday, with better results. No Thieves.

The only additional actions were Spies, and I was the only one to take one. The other attack card was Militia, and we both had a lot of them (no Moats). You would think that this would make getting to the magic number 8 fairly difficult. But it wasn't, really. We were both able to buy Silvers and then Golds. We used Chapel to dump a few other cards and, even after getting hit with a Militia, 8 was not too hard.

Gardens were also available; I took two. Ben lost the game because he took a Gold on his penultimate turn instead of a Gardens. He lost 46 to 43, which is respectable enough, he says.

We also played a number of hands of Bridge, including three-player with my Mom. And Friday night, I got my non-game playing friends to enjoy a half-hour of Moot trivia questions.

Gaming at Gilad's: Cloud 9, Diamant, and Factory Fun

I actually made it to Gilad's game night in Modiin, which I usually don't do because a) it's half an hour away from me, b) I play already on Wed nights, and c) he starts at 9:00 pm. I happened to be at work today, and so was passing by anyway, and Rachel isn't around so I could arrive home late.

Gilad hosts game nights once a month. The group is primarily Hebrew speakers, but most spoke English around me, which was nice.

Participants: Jon, Gilad, Tali, Tal, Ronit, Koby, Oren, Oshrat, Adi, Odded, Amir

Gilad and his wife Tali are hosts. Tal (Darom), Koby, and Oren have all made it to my house on occasion. Ronit is Tal's Koby's wife. The others are all nice people who don't make it out to Jerusalem.

Games I didn't play

Race for the Galaxy: Koby 26, Tal 28 (1st game), Oren 24, Ronit 36

First play for Tal, I don't know about the others.

Puerto Rico: Koby, Ronit, Odded, Oren

They were still going with this when I left.

Thurn and Taxis: Adi, Oshrat, Tali, Amir 22+

First play for at least some of them. The other three players all had scores in the single digits.

Cloud 9

Jon 26, Gilad 54, Tali 42, Oshrat 61, Adi 44

Cloud 9 is a light push your luck game with a number of twists. It comes with a deck of cards - each card is simply one of four colors. And four dice - four of the faces with one of those colors, and two blank faces. And a board, pieces, and scoring markers.

Each player gets a few cards to start with. Each player is "in the balloon" at the start of a round. One player starts the round by rolling two dice. Each player, other than the active player, then guesses whether or not the active player has cards in his or her hand to match the dice rolled. A blank die doesn't count as a card, so the person may only have to match one or no cards.

If a player thinks there is a match, he "stays in the balloon". Otherwise, he or she abandons ship and takes points. After all players, other than the active player, have stayed or abandoned the balloon, the active player then reveals the cards from his or her hand if he has them.

If he or she does, the balloon sails up the ladder, and the next player still in the balloon becomes the active player. Eventually the number of dice that must be rolled grows to three, then four, and at each step, the points for abandoning ship become higher, to a maximum of 25 for a completed trip.

However, if the active player cannot match the die roll, all players still on the balloon get nothing. The balloon returns to the starting position and all players return to the balloon.

After each round, each player gains an additional card. There are some additional rules for when you are alone in the balloon, and some wild cards, but that's the gist. Player with the most points at the end of a round after one player goes over 50 wins.

It's quite cute for a light push-your-luck game. While cute, the "balloon" was annoying, since you had to take at least a certain amount of care when putting the people into the balloon or they would just fall out.

In our game, I had the bad luck of abandoning the balloon early while everyone else stayed on, and they all got 20 more points than I did. In that situation, there is no way to catch up, no matter how cleverly I played. Luckily the game ended two or three rounds later.

I liked it enough to play again, however. I wouldn't buy it.

Diamant

Oshrat 25, Jon 22, Tali 21, Gilad, Adi, Amir

Another light and quick push your luck game, this one is also called Incan Gold from a different publisher.

In this game, the object is to have the most points at the end of the game. There are five rounds.

The game comes with 15 disaster cards in five types (three of each type), and 15 gem cards with values ranging from 3 to 17 (or so).

In each round, a card is flipped up. If it is a gem card, the number of gems is evenly distributed to each player who puts them in front of (not in) his or her cart. Remainder gems are placed on the card. If it is a disaster card, no gens are distributed.

Players than simultaneously reveal if they are staying in or abandoning ship. If all players stay in, continue. If one abandons ship, he takes all the gems in front of his cart and puts it into his cart, as well as all undistributed remainder gems that were left on all cards. That can be a decent take. If two or more abandon ship, they split the remainder gems, again leaving any further remainders on the cards.

The round is over immediately after the second disaster of a certain type is revealed. At that point, any gems in front of players who didn't yet abandon ship get returned to the supply, as well as all remaindered gems on cards. All cards are returned to the deck for the next round, except the last played disaster card.

Again, another light push-your-luck game with simultaneous decision making. I liked this one slightly better than Cloud 9, but man, is it overproduced. I expect that the game would play just as well with pennies and dice.

The blind bidding is random (excuse me: "bluffing"), and it wouldn't go over well with my group. I would play again, however. it's a quick filler for at least three people.

Factory Fun

Factory Fun: Gilad+, Jon (eliminated), Tal-

This looked like a really cool game and it got great reviews on BGG. The components looked like leftovers from Robo Rally. And it has a lot of spacial features and puzzle aspects, which I love.

Each player has an empty board, four "sources" of energy - one each in four different colors, three temporary energy caps, and an unlimited supply of connector pipes and permanent energy caps.

The major component is the machines. Each machine is a 1 x 2 square with some number of inputs, in different colors, positions, and strengths, and one output.

There are ten rounds. On each round, a machine is flipped up and players grab - in no particular order and as fast as they want to - one machine to place on their board. After grabbing a machine, you MUST place it on your board or lose 5 points. The last player to grab a machine ends up with whatever is left, but doesn't have to grab any machine, and so doesn't risk losing any points.

Placing the machine onto your board is free, as is placing one of your energy sources or removing a pipe or source from your board. However, placing a pipe or energy cap costs 1 and moving a machine costs 2. You can only move a maximum of two machines each round.

All of the inputs have to match outputs, with sufficient strength. Sources are infinite strength, but cascading machines gives you many more points, and you only have one source of each color, although some machines allow you to take a bonus source in a specific color.

The game played placidly enough until around round 7. At that point, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, my machine was illegal in about three or four ways, and I quit the game to take a half an hour to completely rearrange my board just to see if or how I could fit my components onto it. There is no time limit for arranging the pieces on the board, so there is no way in hell my game group will be allowed near this game.

It was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to fit everything back onto the board, which I eventually did. But that's no way to play a game. I have no idea how many pipes I rearranged or machines I had moved. It was just incredible chaos.

I'm sure people much smarter than me will find this to be a fantastic game. I just liked playing with the pieces.

Dominion

Gilad 56 (8 gardens), Jon 43 (9 duchys), Tal 52

We wrapped up with a game of Dominion, which I also handily lost. I opted not to concentrate on Gardens, which was my downfall. Gilad took two and a few coppers whenever he had 8, while I bought a Province, and when I couldn't get a Province, I bought a Duchy. Didn't work, as you can see.

The game ended with Markets, Gardens, and Duchys.

Scrabble and Dominion

Played one and a half games of Scrabble with Rachel. The first game I won with a late game bingo. It was pretty much tied up until then. The second game we were tied around mid-game when the lights went out.

Nadine came for lunch, as did Shachar and his mom. We taught him Dominion.

Our card set included several attack cards - Witch, Militia, Spy - and no defense cards - no Moat, no Renovate, no Chapel, no trashing of any kind. So our hands grew bulky and the game progressed slower than usual. I still thought it was a great game, Shachar really enjoyed his first play, but Nadine wants to ensure that we don't have that type of set, again.

I took an early Witch and used it to great effect. Nadine took one as well, but only got to use it twice. She went too early for the Duchys. Shachar used Spy well, which essentially replaces itself when played, but it wasn't super good. The only other extra action card was Festival Laboratory, and my hand didn't speed up until I took a bunch of them. I won due to most Provinces, a few Duchys, and a lack of curses.

Session Report from the Beit Shemesh Board Game Group

I had to stop at Avri's in Beit Shemesh pick up a copy of Diplomacy to use tomorrow for my big game day at work. Avri runs the Beit Shemesh board game group on Tuesday nights - what a coincidence - so I stayed for game night. I had brought along Dominion and Race for the Galaxy, figuring that I could teach them a few new games as long as I would be there.

In fact, I got there a bit early. Avri had already played Race for the Galaxy once or twice, so I taught him how to play Dominion. We played, once again, with the coddle set of basic kingdoms, which has barely any player interaction.

I have a pretty pathetic record at the game, and I don't seem to be getting any better. Avri trashed me by tossing out all of his Estates for better cards and then playing Markets to take both a Province and a Duchy on each turn. Yeah, I started taking Provinces before him, but he was still out drawing me.

I seem to have such trouble getting to that 5 coin mark.

Avri 33, Jon 28

Avri's daughter (around 5 or 6) then wanted to play For Sale, which we did. I played my houses in completely random order on the checks (without telling Avri), and I nearly won anyway.

Avri 72, Jon 68, daughter less

A few others came and we were five, so Avri kindly suggested Santiago, a game I love but never get to play in my own group because they don't like it as much. It's still a fine and elegant game, but I was still not playing optimally. Avri offered a lot of money for bribes at the beginning, which served him well. I didn't, which served me less well, but I thought the money I was saving was still doing me good.

But then I ended up spending all of my money near the end of the game, anyway.

Avri 75, Jon 64, Mory 60, Eliezer 55, Marc 54

Richie came during Santiago, and I offered to play him simultaneously, so that he wouldn't be bored. We played It's Alive, advanced scoring. This was my first play with the second edition components and rules, and in fact I wasn't even clear on all of the rule changes for second edition.

Still, I finally did well at something.

Jon 48, Richie 37

With all the new players, I taught Dominion yet again, with the coddling set yet again. I still lost, to first-time players. I suck.

Mory 28, Jon 20, Richie 18

We played Dominion again, and finally I played - for the first time - with new kingdoms. We generated a random set, and ended up with: Moat, Moneylender, Thief, Bureaucrat, Woodcutter, Militia, Smithy, Gardens, Laboratory, Mine.

Thank god for the Moat, as three of these cards are attacks. It was a painfully slow set, with very few ways to boost money, and only one cards that gave 1 additional action. Ouch.

The more interactive cards let in elements of luck that don't exist with the less interactive cards. Mory used Thief only once but it destroyed my first silver right after I bought it, which was very hard for me. Richie and I used Thief, but not only gained nothing from it, but ended up clearing out victory cards from people's decks for them.

All of us had 30+ card decks, which made Gardens a no-brainer over Duchy. I still lost.

Mory 28, Richie 24, Jon 21

While we played Dominion, the others played Race for the Galaxy. First game for all but Avri.

Avri 43, Eliezer 40, Marc less

We hadn't quite finished our second game of Dominion, so they then started up a game of Notre Dame. And when I left, my two opponents started a game of Lost Cities. I didn't stick around to see the end of either game, nor if they played any further games.

Interactivity in Dominion

Nadine came over for dinner and we ended early enough to convince Rachel to try another game besides Puerto Rico (or Scrabble). We would have tried Agricola, but we wanted something quicker so that we could also play Puerto Rico afterward.

So I taught both Rachel and Nadine how to play Dominion (Amazon's price right now: $159 ???).

We used the basic set; I've yet to play with any other. One of the problems with the basic set is the lack of interactivity. Aside from the very remote possibility of cards running out in a stack (unlikely, unless everyone is following the exact same strategy), there's only the Militia kingdom.

As a result, Rachel found the game rather boring. Nadine liked it, although she is also looking forward to sets with higher interactivity. I beat her 40 to 39; pretty close.

It shouldn't be hard to increase the interactivity. Instead of 10 cards in 10 kingdoms and the game ends when 3 piles run out, why not 3 cards in 20 kingdoms and the game ends when 12 piles run out? This way, you get the interactivity of running out of piles quicker, more strategic options, and less of the game running out really quickly (if it still does, make it 14 or 15 piles).

Of course, you can't buy tons of all the same card. And there's less variance in the game, but once the first few expansions come along, that won't be a problem.

Anyway, after Dominion we played Puerto Rico. I started the game really well, so well that I though victory would be a piece of cake. I traded tobacco early, pulled two corn plantations with a Hacienda and got a Wharf (we don't play with Harbor). All well and good, but Nadine's coffee, Factory, and Discretionary Hold managed to trump me. If I had gotten a Factory before my Wharf and I would have done much better.

Nadine won with 54, to my 48 and Rachel's 39.