Havoc: The Hundred Years War, the card game, that is.
I played two-player with Tal. I took a few moments to look at how the point system of the game works.
Two-player Havoc is zero-sum, like so many other two-player games. The object of the game isn't to win the most points, but only to win more points than the other player. Every point you win is a point not won by your opponent.
In a two-player game, we play that the winner of a round gets the card, and the second player, if involved in the battle, gets the third-place token for that battle.
I counted all of the available points for the game and found that there were 79 points, total. Thus, a victory is 40 points or more. If you play in every battle that has second place points, you're guaranteed at least 13 points.
However, if any battles remain unfought due to the peacekeeper, or if second-place does not score one or more of the battles, the sum total number of points decreases. For each two points lost, the victory requires one less point.
Assuming both players play each battle, each battle is not significant for the number of points won, but for the point differential won between the two players. Thus, the order of significance for the battles is: 7 (9 points), 5 (8 points), 3/8/9 (6 points), 1/6 (5 points), 2/4 (4 points).
Tal wins multi-player Havoc fairly well by passing early battles and winning the last few battles. This doesn't work in two-player, as you can see. You're going to be gaining 8 points in the last two battles even if you lose, so a score of 32 going into the last two battles is already a victory.
That's what happened to me.
(Passing a battle for an extra card, or calling Havoc for an extra card, may be a situationally good play if the draw deck is small and you need a specific card coming up. The entire deck is not that big. You know pretty much what's in your opponent's hand. In our games, practically the entire deck may end up in our hands by mid-game.)
Gin Rummy
After Havoc, we played Gin. I won three rounds in a row, putting the score at 98 points to 0. I suggested that Tal resign, but she didn't. Good move.
She won the next three rounds in a row, putting the score at 98 to 81. Unfortunately for the drama, I won the next round.
Game News
The motley assortment of board game podcasters are handing out their own new board game awards. I've actually known about this for some time, as I'm privy to their discussion group, but Tom finally made the announcement on BGG.
Electronic Arts, following press releases a few weeks ago that they are boring their customers by putting out the same game over and over with different graphics, is exploring games that change in real-time through contextual downloading. E.g. you get to play a real game that is actually going on somewhere, or your flight simulator shows actual weather conditions.
This technology has many other (much better) applications that I can think of.
The Clarion Ledger discusses video game addiction. Not so much news, but they do get both sides of the story, at least. Sort of.
courant.com covers Apples to Apples.
Starcraft: the Board Game is getting buzz. Looks to me a lot like all the other games in FF's product line.
Margaret Robertson on BBC News write an article that could have been written by Raph Koster.
Yehuda
Showing posts with label havoc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label havoc. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Monday, September 25, 2006
Run for the Hills: The Intellectuals are Coming
Through our shul, we ended up with a lovely man who was looking for a meal. His name is Avner Falk, and he is psychohistorian, political psychologist, and general psychologist. Among other titles, he has written books such as "A Psychoanalytic Biography of Theodor Herzl".
Now it is by startling coincidence that this man ended up at our house for a meal on Rosh Hashana; my wife is doing her PhD on an analysis of mythic narrative in midrash, particularly Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer, an eighth century text. They had several areas of interest that overlapped, in that they both studied historical figures through a psychological lens.
Now it is a further startling coincidence that at the same meal we had invited some friends of friends of ours, Daniel and Hava Boyarin. Daniel founded a large area of Jewish studies at Berkeley, and has written, among other works, "Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash". Rachel invited him as he was in the country and was, as a favor, reviewing parts of Rachel's thesis. Hava also has a PhD in something.
By further startling coincidence, Avner had read some of Daniel's stuff, and Daniel had read some of Avner's stuff, and neither had met before.
It is not at all coincidental that our friends were also invited, Mel and Dina Kline. Mel has done literary analysis of many biblical texts, and so on. And his wife is also smart.
So there I was, little old me and my obsession with board games and blogging seated aside five intellectual biblical scholars.
And they talked about: movies, old jokes, cooking, and kids.
Games Played
I only managed to get in two games this holiday: Havoc and The Menorah Game. I taught them both to new players, my kid's cousins. Both are simple games, easy to teach new players, and work well with three players. And are fun.
And I won them both. Experience rules.
Some links
Israel has had a few fatal train crashes lately, so it was thankfully amusing to read about this one. Last line of the article: "The condition of the camel was unclear."
Three days of play in public happened last weekend in New York City, the Come Out and Play Festival. It looks like it was a lot of fun. Here's a report.
Yehuda
Now it is by startling coincidence that this man ended up at our house for a meal on Rosh Hashana; my wife is doing her PhD on an analysis of mythic narrative in midrash, particularly Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer, an eighth century text. They had several areas of interest that overlapped, in that they both studied historical figures through a psychological lens.
Now it is a further startling coincidence that at the same meal we had invited some friends of friends of ours, Daniel and Hava Boyarin. Daniel founded a large area of Jewish studies at Berkeley, and has written, among other works, "Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash". Rachel invited him as he was in the country and was, as a favor, reviewing parts of Rachel's thesis. Hava also has a PhD in something.
By further startling coincidence, Avner had read some of Daniel's stuff, and Daniel had read some of Avner's stuff, and neither had met before.
It is not at all coincidental that our friends were also invited, Mel and Dina Kline. Mel has done literary analysis of many biblical texts, and so on. And his wife is also smart.
So there I was, little old me and my obsession with board games and blogging seated aside five intellectual biblical scholars.
And they talked about: movies, old jokes, cooking, and kids.
Games Played
I only managed to get in two games this holiday: Havoc and The Menorah Game. I taught them both to new players, my kid's cousins. Both are simple games, easy to teach new players, and work well with three players. And are fun.
And I won them both. Experience rules.
Some links
Israel has had a few fatal train crashes lately, so it was thankfully amusing to read about this one. Last line of the article: "The condition of the camel was unclear."
Three days of play in public happened last weekend in New York City, the Come Out and Play Festival. It looks like it was a lot of fun. Here's a report.
Yehuda
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Gaming: Havoc with Tal
Tal and I played 2-player Havoc, which she won by a hair because I played my very last card foolishly.
I usually do some early attacking and then Tal wins by cleaning up at the end. This time I decided to do some saving up as well. The first battle wasn't fought at all, and many others were barely fought only after full recruitment. That meant that we held more than half the deck in our hands for some of the game.
At one point I had six 8's and six 5's. Tal was working the whole game for a straight flush and she needed one of those 5's. Well, I started playing and losing battles 2, 3, and 4. Then I caught up by taking 6, 7, and 8. On battle 8 I threw down the last 5 as my 6th card, even though I didn't need to, and Tal responded with a dog just to snatch it up and complete here straight flush. She won the last battle. Final score: 36 to 35.
Havoc for two players is funny, because the values of the battles are different than what you would expect. Battles 5 and 7 are the most lucrative, whereas battles 8 and 9 are only middling.
Posting Frequency
I might be posting a mite less frequently (or I might not) as I'm once again working on some longer posts, including two more web 2.0 posts and two longish game posts on relatively basic topics. I'll still get something out every day, most likely, but maybe not several times a day.
Yehuda
I usually do some early attacking and then Tal wins by cleaning up at the end. This time I decided to do some saving up as well. The first battle wasn't fought at all, and many others were barely fought only after full recruitment. That meant that we held more than half the deck in our hands for some of the game.
At one point I had six 8's and six 5's. Tal was working the whole game for a straight flush and she needed one of those 5's. Well, I started playing and losing battles 2, 3, and 4. Then I caught up by taking 6, 7, and 8. On battle 8 I threw down the last 5 as my 6th card, even though I didn't need to, and Tal responded with a dog just to snatch it up and complete here straight flush. She won the last battle. Final score: 36 to 35.
Havoc for two players is funny, because the values of the battles are different than what you would expect. Battles 5 and 7 are the most lucrative, whereas battles 8 and 9 are only middling.
Posting Frequency
I might be posting a mite less frequently (or I might not) as I'm once again working on some longer posts, including two more web 2.0 posts and two longish game posts on relatively basic topics. I'll still get something out every day, most likely, but maybe not several times a day.
Yehuda
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Weekend Gaming
I taught my parents how to play Havoc. My parents taught me how to play bridge, so I feel that I owe it to them. My father stopped playing bridge, since it always devolved into him yelling at my mother over some dumb play. As often as not, he would also be wrong.
In any case, Havoc, being a card game and with a semi-familiar poker theme, is less threatening to teach than some of my board games. Even so, we started playing without all of the rules fully explained, such as the last battle and the dogs of war. I never got to explaining the use of two dogs, because I didn't want to overwhelm them.
Both parents naturally overspent on the first few battles. My mom in particular called Havoc nearly every chance that she could. Meanwhile, I managed to save up not one, but two straight flushes. Holding onto these card gave me less play during the intermediate rounds, but I still managed to gain some nice points with some full houses here and there.
I ended up winning by a large margin. My parents though it was cute, and my Mom even mentioned the next day that she probably should have saved more for the last battles.
My Mom usually spends her time when she is not doing sculpture or reading one of her sci-fi books (she has 370 Star Trek novels alone) playing out card games with herself. Typically this means bridge hands. It's kind of a meditation, I suppose.
The next day we had lunch with our former neighbors, and I was reminded of why I don't like being in a house with too many children. And these were nice and good children and babies, but so asynchronous and so loud. I saw their pathetic games collection: four versions of Monopoly in different languages and states of repair, two sets of checkers and backgammon, and some puzzles, and felt depressed.
Later towards evening I played Set with some kids at other former neighbors and I lost. I rarely lose, so, while happy to meet a good player, I was even more depressed.
In the evening we went to hear some folk music, which cheered me a little. The singer was Tommy Sands. There is something so special about a folk music house concert. It feels a little like you are building the world. There's a lot to be said about the 40,000 person rock arena; that can be a special event, too (I've only been to one, and that was Pink Floyd). But folk music is family.
Linkety Link:
Raph Koster will be releasing his second book, A Grammar of Gameplay. I have only just ordered his first book, A Theory of Fun, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I'll report back here, of course.
The Long Beach City College is showcasing a line of eveningwear based on Candyland, and you can also buy a Candyland beach towel from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
And someone in Scotland thinks that playing more board games with your family will reduce your proclivity to engage in teenage sex:
Yehuda
Technorati tags: board games, board game
In any case, Havoc, being a card game and with a semi-familiar poker theme, is less threatening to teach than some of my board games. Even so, we started playing without all of the rules fully explained, such as the last battle and the dogs of war. I never got to explaining the use of two dogs, because I didn't want to overwhelm them.
Both parents naturally overspent on the first few battles. My mom in particular called Havoc nearly every chance that she could. Meanwhile, I managed to save up not one, but two straight flushes. Holding onto these card gave me less play during the intermediate rounds, but I still managed to gain some nice points with some full houses here and there.
I ended up winning by a large margin. My parents though it was cute, and my Mom even mentioned the next day that she probably should have saved more for the last battles.
My Mom usually spends her time when she is not doing sculpture or reading one of her sci-fi books (she has 370 Star Trek novels alone) playing out card games with herself. Typically this means bridge hands. It's kind of a meditation, I suppose.
The next day we had lunch with our former neighbors, and I was reminded of why I don't like being in a house with too many children. And these were nice and good children and babies, but so asynchronous and so loud. I saw their pathetic games collection: four versions of Monopoly in different languages and states of repair, two sets of checkers and backgammon, and some puzzles, and felt depressed.
Later towards evening I played Set with some kids at other former neighbors and I lost. I rarely lose, so, while happy to meet a good player, I was even more depressed.
In the evening we went to hear some folk music, which cheered me a little. The singer was Tommy Sands. There is something so special about a folk music house concert. It feels a little like you are building the world. There's a lot to be said about the 40,000 person rock arena; that can be a special event, too (I've only been to one, and that was Pink Floyd). But folk music is family.
Linkety Link:
Raph Koster will be releasing his second book, A Grammar of Gameplay. I have only just ordered his first book, A Theory of Fun, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I'll report back here, of course.
The Long Beach City College is showcasing a line of eveningwear based on Candyland, and you can also buy a Candyland beach towel from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
And someone in Scotland thinks that playing more board games with your family will reduce your proclivity to engage in teenage sex:
PARENTS in the Lothians are being urged to spend quality time with their children as part of a new drive aimed at stopping youngsters having underage sex...
The radio campaign, which urges parents to spend time with their children by playing sport or board games, has been launched by the controversial pilot scheme Healthy Respect.
Yehuda
Technorati tags: board games, board game
Friday, April 14, 2006
First Day Gaming
Well, I've made it to the other side of the Seder. I even have some digital pictures of our Seder table, taken before Passover started, which I might upload.
We had 17 for the Seder, which I think is a lot. Funny enough, some of our friends have that many for every meal on shabbat, and more for Passover Seder. Therefore, our conversation goes like this:
Friend: Oh, we had a small Seder, only 23 people.
Me: Well, we had a really large Seder, with 17 people.
It's all relative, as they say.
The next day, recovering from too much matzah, we played a few games. I played and lost Yinsh to my son Saarya (his choice of game). I played and won a game of Oh Hell with my daughter Tal (my choice of game). In the latter game, I started off +20 to her -10, but the gap gradually narrowed until the last hand, when we differed by only three points. The game was decided by the last card.
Some of our guests for the Seder included Nadine from the game group and a family from America who are friends of hers and also game players. Rachel and I went for a walk in the afternoon and meandered over to Nadine's house to play. I brought Havoc with me, because I didn't know how many people we would be; Havoc plays 2 to 6, and is fairly easy to teach, and good game for the complexity (similar to my game, in that regard).
We started off playing Puerto Rico with Rachel, Nadine, myself, and one of their kids. Rachel was corn 1 and I was corn 2, and we started off mirroring each other. By turn 4, however, it was obvious that the other player (Devorah) wasn't really into it; too complex for her tastes, I gather.
By then, the parents had come home, so I brought out Havoc. We played five players (Rachel, Nadine, me, Devorah, and Beth the mother) while Rachel also had a conversation with the father about his trip to Poland. Despite this distraction, I managed to teach the game, and we played and enjoyed it. Beth, Rachel, and I started off well; Beth and I ran out of steam, while Rachel was just getting started.
Meanwhile, I was collecting 14s and the other players starting winning a few points. Nadine totally stole Agincourt with a pair of 10s, as no one was interested in competing with her for it (no second place score). I eventually pulled a full house for battle 8, and 5 14s for battle 9, netting me second place in each. Rachel scored in neither of these battles, so I pulled ahead to first place.
Due to the distraction of the side conversation, some of the players missed some of my rules explanations, such as only being allowed to play 6 cards in a battle. Naturally, this "failure on my part to fully explain the rules and ascertain that all players understood" was noted and complained about by some players. To this I say: Pttthhhhhft! First game is a learning experience.
Yehuda
Technorati tags: board games, board game, Passover
We had 17 for the Seder, which I think is a lot. Funny enough, some of our friends have that many for every meal on shabbat, and more for Passover Seder. Therefore, our conversation goes like this:
Friend: Oh, we had a small Seder, only 23 people.
Me: Well, we had a really large Seder, with 17 people.
It's all relative, as they say.
The next day, recovering from too much matzah, we played a few games. I played and lost Yinsh to my son Saarya (his choice of game). I played and won a game of Oh Hell with my daughter Tal (my choice of game). In the latter game, I started off +20 to her -10, but the gap gradually narrowed until the last hand, when we differed by only three points. The game was decided by the last card.
Some of our guests for the Seder included Nadine from the game group and a family from America who are friends of hers and also game players. Rachel and I went for a walk in the afternoon and meandered over to Nadine's house to play. I brought Havoc with me, because I didn't know how many people we would be; Havoc plays 2 to 6, and is fairly easy to teach, and good game for the complexity (similar to my game, in that regard).
We started off playing Puerto Rico with Rachel, Nadine, myself, and one of their kids. Rachel was corn 1 and I was corn 2, and we started off mirroring each other. By turn 4, however, it was obvious that the other player (Devorah) wasn't really into it; too complex for her tastes, I gather.
By then, the parents had come home, so I brought out Havoc. We played five players (Rachel, Nadine, me, Devorah, and Beth the mother) while Rachel also had a conversation with the father about his trip to Poland. Despite this distraction, I managed to teach the game, and we played and enjoyed it. Beth, Rachel, and I started off well; Beth and I ran out of steam, while Rachel was just getting started.
Meanwhile, I was collecting 14s and the other players starting winning a few points. Nadine totally stole Agincourt with a pair of 10s, as no one was interested in competing with her for it (no second place score). I eventually pulled a full house for battle 8, and 5 14s for battle 9, netting me second place in each. Rachel scored in neither of these battles, so I pulled ahead to first place.
Due to the distraction of the side conversation, some of the players missed some of my rules explanations, such as only being allowed to play 6 cards in a battle. Naturally, this "failure on my part to fully explain the rules and ascertain that all players understood" was noted and complained about by some players. To this I say: Pttthhhhhft! First game is a learning experience.
Yehuda
Technorati tags: board games, board game, Passover
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Weekend Gaming
April Fool
I couldn't fool anyone with yesterday's news about Derk, owing in part to my obviously poor Photoshop skills. My skills are not generally so bad; I just didn't take the time to do it better.
Surely it was otherwise believable that "let's go to a pork BBQ" Derk would convert to Judaism, right?
Other April Fools around the game web include Boardgamegeek, whose opening page allegedly showed Aldie's control screen, including buttons for "Randomize ratings" and "Annoy users", and so on, as well as Boardgamenews with a fake ad and news story. Update: And an amusing Boardgame Babylon episode.
I posted mine a wee bit early because April 1 was shabbat, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to post it on the right date. But I postdated the posting date correctly. Post posted post.
Anyhoo ...
Dvira
Dvira (the 7 year old) was dropped off to play with me by her mom. I was hoping to also play with either Saarya, who was home for shabbat (but he went to sleep), or the visiting American, Charlie (but he never showed up). So it ended up just being the two of us.
We played The Menorah Game three times, and I won three times. I'm actually a little surprised at that, because I didn't expect that skill could win so frequently in this game, but it still does.
We then played Havoc twice. In the first game, she trounced me in the first four battles. I warned her that she was seriously depleting her hand, but, being her first game, she didn't see it through all the way. I then took the remaining battles, pretty much, and won 36 to 29.
In the second game, we started out similarly, but this time she didn't need to spend as much effort. I won a battle or two in return, but she kept pulling in matches and I kept pulling in junk. She lost one more battle, but won the last one, keeping her lead by about 8 points.
After that I taught her how to play Oh Heck and Gin Rummy, games that I hope she can also play with her friends and family.
Rachel
We changed the clocks on Thursday, which means that we had an extra hour on shabbat. Which means that Rachel and I will be playing our usual shabbat afternoon PR games. Rachel won the last two times, so it was only fair that I won these two games.
I'll just mention two buildings:
Trade School 4/2: If you pay an extra doubloon when you buy a building it comes with a colonist from the supply.
This is a very nice building at its cost and a good replacement for Hospice. That extra doubloon offers temptation to spend money and also increases your options during the builder phase. It requires some finesse to use, and makes the University's feature finally available at a reasonable cost.
Giant Production Building 10/5: Take one extra barrel of each type of good you produce during Craftsman.
A big building without a VP bonus, this can nevertheless produce a good amount of extra bonus points if bought early enough. You'll find that a lot of what you produce goes to waste, but who cares? Notice that it is also worth one extra VP straight up. This makes a nice departure from the usual ten pointers.
We alternated ownership of these buildings during the two games, but I won each by about 4 points. In the first game I had Factory even though I was producing only two goods, Corn and Indigo. It still gave me a doubloon during each Craftsman, and it prevented Rachel from taking it. In the second game, I managed to block boats with goods that Rachel wasn't producing.
Saturday night we went to a Jazz concert at our local shul by some local talent; very nice. And I took Saarya back to school in preparation for his three day tiyul. It started this morning, right when it started raining a very late winter rainstorm. Rain is a blessing here, but I do hope that his trip isn't all washed out.
Rejection
I received another rejection letter for the Menorah Game. I wasn't expecting any more, actually. This one came from Out of the Box:
Jay (Rio Grande) wrote to me in November to tell me that he wasn't doing any new games for 6-8 months, so I don't expect to hear more from him for a while.
If you like my game and want Jay to publish it, you can feel free to write to him. Actually, I haven't heard from a bunch of people who bought the game. Anyone ever play it?
News
And in the news: Dominoes to be the next poker on ESPN? Just read and be amazed how the criteria for choosing dominoes is, quote, "the competition, the trash-talking, the color, and it's old school". In other words, Ethnic people who fight with each other. I have to add that to my list of why people play games.
Technorati tags: board game, board games
I couldn't fool anyone with yesterday's news about Derk, owing in part to my obviously poor Photoshop skills. My skills are not generally so bad; I just didn't take the time to do it better.
Surely it was otherwise believable that "let's go to a pork BBQ" Derk would convert to Judaism, right?
Other April Fools around the game web include Boardgamegeek, whose opening page allegedly showed Aldie's control screen, including buttons for "Randomize ratings" and "Annoy users", and so on, as well as Boardgamenews with a fake ad and news story. Update: And an amusing Boardgame Babylon episode.
I posted mine a wee bit early because April 1 was shabbat, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to post it on the right date. But I postdated the posting date correctly. Post posted post.
Anyhoo ...
Dvira
Dvira (the 7 year old) was dropped off to play with me by her mom. I was hoping to also play with either Saarya, who was home for shabbat (but he went to sleep), or the visiting American, Charlie (but he never showed up). So it ended up just being the two of us.
We played The Menorah Game three times, and I won three times. I'm actually a little surprised at that, because I didn't expect that skill could win so frequently in this game, but it still does.
We then played Havoc twice. In the first game, she trounced me in the first four battles. I warned her that she was seriously depleting her hand, but, being her first game, she didn't see it through all the way. I then took the remaining battles, pretty much, and won 36 to 29.
In the second game, we started out similarly, but this time she didn't need to spend as much effort. I won a battle or two in return, but she kept pulling in matches and I kept pulling in junk. She lost one more battle, but won the last one, keeping her lead by about 8 points.
After that I taught her how to play Oh Heck and Gin Rummy, games that I hope she can also play with her friends and family.
Rachel
We changed the clocks on Thursday, which means that we had an extra hour on shabbat. Which means that Rachel and I will be playing our usual shabbat afternoon PR games. Rachel won the last two times, so it was only fair that I won these two games.
I'll just mention two buildings:
Trade School 4/2: If you pay an extra doubloon when you buy a building it comes with a colonist from the supply.
This is a very nice building at its cost and a good replacement for Hospice. That extra doubloon offers temptation to spend money and also increases your options during the builder phase. It requires some finesse to use, and makes the University's feature finally available at a reasonable cost.
Giant Production Building 10/5: Take one extra barrel of each type of good you produce during Craftsman.
A big building without a VP bonus, this can nevertheless produce a good amount of extra bonus points if bought early enough. You'll find that a lot of what you produce goes to waste, but who cares? Notice that it is also worth one extra VP straight up. This makes a nice departure from the usual ten pointers.
We alternated ownership of these buildings during the two games, but I won each by about 4 points. In the first game I had Factory even though I was producing only two goods, Corn and Indigo. It still gave me a doubloon during each Craftsman, and it prevented Rachel from taking it. In the second game, I managed to block boats with goods that Rachel wasn't producing.
Saturday night we went to a Jazz concert at our local shul by some local talent; very nice. And I took Saarya back to school in preparation for his three day tiyul. It started this morning, right when it started raining a very late winter rainstorm. Rain is a blessing here, but I do hope that his trip isn't all washed out.
Rejection
I received another rejection letter for the Menorah Game. I wasn't expecting any more, actually. This one came from Out of the Box:
Thank you for submitting your game for our consideration. I do apologize for the delay in responding, but we been growing quickly and time is very short.
Since we are now distributing Rio Grande games, we have added over 130 card and board game titles. I feel that your submission falls in the Rio Grande genre of gaming. As such, it is not necessarily a good fit as an Out of the Box publication, as we are well represented in this area.
Jay (Rio Grande) wrote to me in November to tell me that he wasn't doing any new games for 6-8 months, so I don't expect to hear more from him for a while.
If you like my game and want Jay to publish it, you can feel free to write to him. Actually, I haven't heard from a bunch of people who bought the game. Anyone ever play it?
News
And in the news: Dominoes to be the next poker on ESPN? Just read and be amazed how the criteria for choosing dominoes is, quote, "the competition, the trash-talking, the color, and it's old school". In other words, Ethnic people who fight with each other. I have to add that to my list of why people play games.
Technorati tags: board game, board games
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Havoc with Tal
Tal does cause havoc, but we're talking about the two-player game of Havoc by Sunriver Games.
I haven't played this in a while. It's not a top tier game, but it's also better than many second tier games. Maybe it's the perceived amount of luck, strange mechanics compared to the theme, I don't know. It's still a pretty good game.
The game is a little long for a straight filler, but that can be rectified by removing one or two battles from the game. It's not that long, however. Tal and I played the full set in about 50 minutes.
I pulled ahead early by taking the first three battles, while Tal spent her time trying to pull certain cards to make perfect straight flushes and sets of numbers. Apparently this was the right choice, as she took all but two of the remaining battles, and one of those two was removed from the game, unfought.
After round seven I was 3 points behind. The last two battles are six points each (swing), so I had to win both and she only had to win one. She won the last battle with her perfect straight card flush up to the 8 in green, beating my five 1's.
Yehuda
I haven't played this in a while. It's not a top tier game, but it's also better than many second tier games. Maybe it's the perceived amount of luck, strange mechanics compared to the theme, I don't know. It's still a pretty good game.
The game is a little long for a straight filler, but that can be rectified by removing one or two battles from the game. It's not that long, however. Tal and I played the full set in about 50 minutes.
I pulled ahead early by taking the first three battles, while Tal spent her time trying to pull certain cards to make perfect straight flushes and sets of numbers. Apparently this was the right choice, as she took all but two of the remaining battles, and one of those two was removed from the game, unfought.
After round seven I was 3 points behind. The last two battles are six points each (swing), so I had to win both and she only had to win one. She won the last battle with her perfect straight card flush up to the 8 in green, beating my five 1's.
Yehuda
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Havoc (in many senses)
Two player Havoc with my daughter. It plays well, though certainly not as tensely as with more than two. My box came only with three "poker hand chart" cards, one on the back of a "setup" card and two on the back of "turn summary" cards. Shouldn't there be six of these? Three are not enough when six people are playing.
Speaking of havoc, the idiots of telecommunication in Israel are trying to bully the ISPs to block all VOiP traffic because of loss of income to the telecommunication companies, i.e. Bezeq and their ilk. How many industries now exist that provide absolutely nothing to the world and continue to exist solely due to legal and governmental action to prop them up? Phone service. Music distribution. Printing. Newspapers. The list continues. Soon we will be a world of people who do nothing but sue each other all day.
And, as usual, if the idiots that be actually embraced the technology and changed to merge it into their business, they would be able to profit from it. Instead they harm themselves, as well as every consumer. Because the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it.
Yehuda
Speaking of havoc, the idiots of telecommunication in Israel are trying to bully the ISPs to block all VOiP traffic because of loss of income to the telecommunication companies, i.e. Bezeq and their ilk. How many industries now exist that provide absolutely nothing to the world and continue to exist solely due to legal and governmental action to prop them up? Phone service. Music distribution. Printing. Newspapers. The list continues. Soon we will be a world of people who do nothing but sue each other all day.
And, as usual, if the idiots that be actually embraced the technology and changed to merge it into their business, they would be able to profit from it. Instead they harm themselves, as well as every consumer. Because the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it.
Yehuda
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Weekend Gaming
Two new games have taken off: Yinsh and Havoc.
Yinsh seems like a more accessible game than Dvonn to some people. I think this is an illusion. It's just that the game starts off with less chaos and then proceeds towards more, which is easier to deal with than the reverse. Anyway, both Tal and Saarya played me at least once, with Saarya winning his game.
Tal initially wasn't too sure about Havoc, but decided to play again and now likes it a lot. Something about it prevents me from seeing it as a "great" game - something about poker hands just irks my sensibility of the elegant.However, I can't argue that people, including me, enjoy playing it. I played with Saarya, Tal, and a guest on Friday night. The guest was a complete newbie whom I managed to convince to try a game. He enjoyed it very much, and asked me where he could buy it (I told him). Hopefully he will join us on Wed nights.
In our game, Saarya took a very long time for each round, and I had to cut out two of the battles just so we could finish within a respectable length of time. In the end, I won 28 to 24/24/18.
Sat night I played my first game of PR with Rachel in what must have been many weeks. Still the best new game in the world (by new I mean post-1970). We played with my usual buildings plus a few others that don't get much play: a 3/1 building that lets you place up to three colonists onto empty plantation spaces, and under which you can place new plantations (also useful to control the end game); Irrigation, 4/2, which gives you an extra barrel while producing; a modified Exchange House which attempted to correct the slight bug in the building; etc...
I started off the game looking like I was probably coasting to a narrow victory. Rachel, however, pulled a lovely play about 2/3 of the way through the game, crafting at a point when the boats and trading house were all almost full, and she had Discretionary Hold (allowing her to store barrels and ship some onto full boats). She ended up moving ahead in both shipping and money, and I ended up losing by a few points.
Maybe she should join the international competition instead of me.
Yehuda
Yinsh seems like a more accessible game than Dvonn to some people. I think this is an illusion. It's just that the game starts off with less chaos and then proceeds towards more, which is easier to deal with than the reverse. Anyway, both Tal and Saarya played me at least once, with Saarya winning his game.
Tal initially wasn't too sure about Havoc, but decided to play again and now likes it a lot. Something about it prevents me from seeing it as a "great" game - something about poker hands just irks my sensibility of the elegant.However, I can't argue that people, including me, enjoy playing it. I played with Saarya, Tal, and a guest on Friday night. The guest was a complete newbie whom I managed to convince to try a game. He enjoyed it very much, and asked me where he could buy it (I told him). Hopefully he will join us on Wed nights.
In our game, Saarya took a very long time for each round, and I had to cut out two of the battles just so we could finish within a respectable length of time. In the end, I won 28 to 24/24/18.
Sat night I played my first game of PR with Rachel in what must have been many weeks. Still the best new game in the world (by new I mean post-1970). We played with my usual buildings plus a few others that don't get much play: a 3/1 building that lets you place up to three colonists onto empty plantation spaces, and under which you can place new plantations (also useful to control the end game); Irrigation, 4/2, which gives you an extra barrel while producing; a modified Exchange House which attempted to correct the slight bug in the building; etc...
I started off the game looking like I was probably coasting to a narrow victory. Rachel, however, pulled a lovely play about 2/3 of the way through the game, crafting at a point when the boats and trading house were all almost full, and she had Discretionary Hold (allowing her to store barrels and ship some onto full boats). She ended up moving ahead in both shipping and money, and I ended up losing by a few points.
Maybe she should join the international competition instead of me.
Yehuda
Saturday, November 05, 2005
BGG.con: Friday, Nov 04
Part 1 ...
Not much to say about today, since it is almost shabbat and I am already back in my friend's house.
I actually made the bus today, getting to the con about 10:30 am. I greeted Chris Brooks again at the Sunriver booth and I saw him introducing someone to Havoc so I joined for a three player game. Still a good game. Not much to say, except I made my first game purchase of the con by buying Havoc. Scores: Yehuda 29, Chris 22, Ava 17.
A little schmoozing around and I managed to play Power Grid, another game high on the hit list. It was good, and I came in last place, which is excellent. Games that I lose in are the best ones to buy, since they will keep me happy for a long time. We played with all six provinces, even though the rules said to play with only five, since it looked tight enough as is.
I played with Chris Trimmer, Bill, Mark, Will, and Marshall. We played on the new French map (didn't make a difference to me, of course). Chris scored the big coup on this map building in Paris, which has three cities with no tariffs between them, and surrounded by lots of other close cities.
Chris ended in first on the money tie breaker, with Marshall second place. I was last, also on a tie breaker. Mark played almost the entire game without buying a single unit of fuel, since all of his plants were wind or fusion. I played the game with the only garbage plant for most of the game, and an early nuke for several rounds.
After Power Grid, I played 1.5 games of Backgammon, but time was just winding down for me and I couldn't really start anything else. I sold my Traumfabrik CD to Derk; the rest of the game is still for sale or trade, along with my other games (Battle Cry, Arab Israeli Wars, David and Goliath, Top Dogs, and a bunch of Magic cards).
I really feel like I'm missing out on a whole lot by not being there for most of today and tomorrow. Sigh. Still willing to entertain visitors in my friend's house tomorrow afternoon - 5806 Willow Lane. Otherwise, I'll be back tomorrow night at about 8:00 pm.
2. Shabbat
Friday night and I have con withdrawal. Well, you do what you got to do.
After dinner, my friend's daughter insisted that we play my game three times in a row, and would have been a fourth except David and I were tired of it by then. So we played 3-way Chinese Checkers, which I managed to lose, somehow, even though I thought I was pretty good at it.
Yehuda
Not much to say about today, since it is almost shabbat and I am already back in my friend's house.
I actually made the bus today, getting to the con about 10:30 am. I greeted Chris Brooks again at the Sunriver booth and I saw him introducing someone to Havoc so I joined for a three player game. Still a good game. Not much to say, except I made my first game purchase of the con by buying Havoc. Scores: Yehuda 29, Chris 22, Ava 17.
A little schmoozing around and I managed to play Power Grid, another game high on the hit list. It was good, and I came in last place, which is excellent. Games that I lose in are the best ones to buy, since they will keep me happy for a long time. We played with all six provinces, even though the rules said to play with only five, since it looked tight enough as is.
I played with Chris Trimmer, Bill, Mark, Will, and Marshall. We played on the new French map (didn't make a difference to me, of course). Chris scored the big coup on this map building in Paris, which has three cities with no tariffs between them, and surrounded by lots of other close cities.
Chris ended in first on the money tie breaker, with Marshall second place. I was last, also on a tie breaker. Mark played almost the entire game without buying a single unit of fuel, since all of his plants were wind or fusion. I played the game with the only garbage plant for most of the game, and an early nuke for several rounds.
After Power Grid, I played 1.5 games of Backgammon, but time was just winding down for me and I couldn't really start anything else. I sold my Traumfabrik CD to Derk; the rest of the game is still for sale or trade, along with my other games (Battle Cry, Arab Israeli Wars, David and Goliath, Top Dogs, and a bunch of Magic cards).
I really feel like I'm missing out on a whole lot by not being there for most of today and tomorrow. Sigh. Still willing to entertain visitors in my friend's house tomorrow afternoon - 5806 Willow Lane. Otherwise, I'll be back tomorrow night at about 8:00 pm.
2. Shabbat
Friday night and I have con withdrawal. Well, you do what you got to do.
After dinner, my friend's daughter insisted that we play my game three times in a row, and would have been a fourth except David and I were tired of it by then. So we played 3-way Chinese Checkers, which I managed to lose, somehow, even though I thought I was pretty good at it.
Yehuda
Thursday, November 03, 2005
BGG.con: Wednesday, Nov 02
Today was a relatively quiet day until the evening.
I mostly slept in and did some computer stuff. Then I went downtown and walked around a bit. I ended up at the Westin already by 12:30 with lots of reading material. I just hung out reading until 6:30 when the first person who knew me (Jared) showed up.
From then on, we had some pre-con gaming in the food court in the center of the hotel area. There were more people than just the ones mentioned in the following report (about five others, not including Aldie and Derk and others who passed by occasionally).
I ended up playing a whole lot of light games, even though some of the others played somewhat more involved games. One table played Caylus, for instance, a game I would very much like to try.
I started off by taking out my glass beads to play my game, but we were waiting for others to buy some food before the food stores closed, so I drew 12 spaces on the back of one of the envelopes and played Mancala with Carl from Dallas. The game was quickly over in my favor.
After that, since nobody else had brought any games out yet, I played my game prototype with Carl, Jared, and Chris, all from Dallas. The game was very distracted, with lots of cross conversations and some getting up. I was nervous that this was distracting from quality time in the game, or that my game wasn't holding their attention. By midgame, however, people began to focus more. Some positive reactions, ranging from wanting to play it again tomorrow, to simply nice comments. We'll see.
When we were done, I jumped over to a Havoc game about to start. Havoc was designed and published by Sunriver Games, partly managed by Chris Brooks and a uy named KC. They are also evaluating my game, so I wanted to see what their first game was like. I think my game is a good match for them.
Havoc is a card game that plays very much like "Taj Mahal light". With six suits and cards going up to 18, the game is played over a series of nine auctions. In each auction, players play cards, with the best poker hand winning. Cards are place one at a time, like Taj Mahal, and if you don't play any cards, you gain a bonus card into your hand, like Taj Mahal. Winner, and sometimes second or third places, get points from the battle. Naturally, after battling for an area, your hand is depleted and someone else is likely to win the next one. Between battles, players sometimes have the opportunity to replenish their hand.
I expected it to be a good game because I figured Chris would make a good game, and because it got some good reviews. When I found out about the mechanics, I expected it to be a dull game. Poker hands? When I played it, however, it turned out to be a very good game, indeed. The playing is very much like Taj Mahal, and the area scoring very much like El Grande, although each area scores only one time, and in sequential order.
In our game, a guy named Dave [Aha: turns out to be the guy from Death Metal Cafe] won with 26 points, followed by Alan with 24, me with 23 and a guy from California named Greg for 23, and Carl had 21.
Worth picking up a copy if it is not too expensive.
I then played another game of my game prototype, this time with Dave and Greg. The tiles that came out were almost all high or low, and somehow they weren't overly impressed, although they liked it. Dave at least said that he would try again tomorrow.
We played a Knizia game called Money! It is a simple auction game about as heavy as For Sale. Auction for piles of money by bidding piles of money, trying to get sets of piles of money. Your bid becomes a pile of money, too. Not very complicated. Jon 730, Eric 520, Greg 380, Dave 290.
Next up was Fairy Tale, a relatively new game based on the mechanic of booster drafting. Each player picks one card and passes the rest, until all players have cards. Then you play 3 out of 5 cards. The cards give you points, usually in some sort of sets or combinations. Some of them flip over your or other player's cards.
Unfortunately, booster draft works because you have some control over cards coming back to you. That doesn't happen here. The game play itself is simply choosing three out of five cards to put down to the table after drafting, but even here the cards are put down simultaneously, which eliminates much of the possible strategy.
I don't know. Not the choices I would have made designing the game. I played it both 5 player (I won) and 2 player (I lost by one point). Not a bad game, but not deep. I do like drafting cards, however.
Another game: From Cape to Cairo. I'm still shuddering from having played this. First game in a long while that I've wanted to quit halfway through the first game. The rules were only available in translation, and a lot of questions seemed to be unanswered. One can only hope that we got the rules wrong. There was almost nothing resembling a meaningful decision, and huge amounts of luck. I take no pride in having won. Brrrr.
Last was Palazzo, another Knizia. This game, actually the whole series of games we played this evening, make me sympathize with Joe Steadman regarding Eurogames - most really are just a bunch of recycled mechanics and are basically abstract. This game was a fiddly game, whose mechanics didn't seem to have any thematic rhyme or reason. Yowch. Still, it was a reasonable auction game.
In this one, you need to make houses that are built out of five floors, and parts 1-5 of each house get flipped up in tiles. On your turn, you can either turn over and split some money cards, or flip tiles and buy some, or flip tiles and auction some of them. Sounds a lot like my game, actually. The money cards come in three flavors, and you can only use ones with the same background, like Taj Mahal (what is it with Taj Mahal imitators?).
This one was at least a decent game which I would be willing to try again. It doesn't make the top of my want list, however.
Tonight's winner: Havoc. Yesterday's winner: San Marco.
See you tomorrow.
Yehuda
I mostly slept in and did some computer stuff. Then I went downtown and walked around a bit. I ended up at the Westin already by 12:30 with lots of reading material. I just hung out reading until 6:30 when the first person who knew me (Jared) showed up.
From then on, we had some pre-con gaming in the food court in the center of the hotel area. There were more people than just the ones mentioned in the following report (about five others, not including Aldie and Derk and others who passed by occasionally).
I ended up playing a whole lot of light games, even though some of the others played somewhat more involved games. One table played Caylus, for instance, a game I would very much like to try.
I started off by taking out my glass beads to play my game, but we were waiting for others to buy some food before the food stores closed, so I drew 12 spaces on the back of one of the envelopes and played Mancala with Carl from Dallas. The game was quickly over in my favor.
After that, since nobody else had brought any games out yet, I played my game prototype with Carl, Jared, and Chris, all from Dallas. The game was very distracted, with lots of cross conversations and some getting up. I was nervous that this was distracting from quality time in the game, or that my game wasn't holding their attention. By midgame, however, people began to focus more. Some positive reactions, ranging from wanting to play it again tomorrow, to simply nice comments. We'll see.
When we were done, I jumped over to a Havoc game about to start. Havoc was designed and published by Sunriver Games, partly managed by Chris Brooks and a uy named KC. They are also evaluating my game, so I wanted to see what their first game was like. I think my game is a good match for them.
Havoc is a card game that plays very much like "Taj Mahal light". With six suits and cards going up to 18, the game is played over a series of nine auctions. In each auction, players play cards, with the best poker hand winning. Cards are place one at a time, like Taj Mahal, and if you don't play any cards, you gain a bonus card into your hand, like Taj Mahal. Winner, and sometimes second or third places, get points from the battle. Naturally, after battling for an area, your hand is depleted and someone else is likely to win the next one. Between battles, players sometimes have the opportunity to replenish their hand.
I expected it to be a good game because I figured Chris would make a good game, and because it got some good reviews. When I found out about the mechanics, I expected it to be a dull game. Poker hands? When I played it, however, it turned out to be a very good game, indeed. The playing is very much like Taj Mahal, and the area scoring very much like El Grande, although each area scores only one time, and in sequential order.
In our game, a guy named Dave [Aha: turns out to be the guy from Death Metal Cafe] won with 26 points, followed by Alan with 24, me with 23 and a guy from California named Greg for 23, and Carl had 21.
Worth picking up a copy if it is not too expensive.
I then played another game of my game prototype, this time with Dave and Greg. The tiles that came out were almost all high or low, and somehow they weren't overly impressed, although they liked it. Dave at least said that he would try again tomorrow.
We played a Knizia game called Money! It is a simple auction game about as heavy as For Sale. Auction for piles of money by bidding piles of money, trying to get sets of piles of money. Your bid becomes a pile of money, too. Not very complicated. Jon 730, Eric 520, Greg 380, Dave 290.
Next up was Fairy Tale, a relatively new game based on the mechanic of booster drafting. Each player picks one card and passes the rest, until all players have cards. Then you play 3 out of 5 cards. The cards give you points, usually in some sort of sets or combinations. Some of them flip over your or other player's cards.
Unfortunately, booster draft works because you have some control over cards coming back to you. That doesn't happen here. The game play itself is simply choosing three out of five cards to put down to the table after drafting, but even here the cards are put down simultaneously, which eliminates much of the possible strategy.
I don't know. Not the choices I would have made designing the game. I played it both 5 player (I won) and 2 player (I lost by one point). Not a bad game, but not deep. I do like drafting cards, however.
Another game: From Cape to Cairo. I'm still shuddering from having played this. First game in a long while that I've wanted to quit halfway through the first game. The rules were only available in translation, and a lot of questions seemed to be unanswered. One can only hope that we got the rules wrong. There was almost nothing resembling a meaningful decision, and huge amounts of luck. I take no pride in having won. Brrrr.
Last was Palazzo, another Knizia. This game, actually the whole series of games we played this evening, make me sympathize with Joe Steadman regarding Eurogames - most really are just a bunch of recycled mechanics and are basically abstract. This game was a fiddly game, whose mechanics didn't seem to have any thematic rhyme or reason. Yowch. Still, it was a reasonable auction game.
In this one, you need to make houses that are built out of five floors, and parts 1-5 of each house get flipped up in tiles. On your turn, you can either turn over and split some money cards, or flip tiles and buy some, or flip tiles and auction some of them. Sounds a lot like my game, actually. The money cards come in three flavors, and you can only use ones with the same background, like Taj Mahal (what is it with Taj Mahal imitators?).
This one was at least a decent game which I would be willing to try again. It doesn't make the top of my want list, however.
Tonight's winner: Havoc. Yesterday's winner: San Marco.
See you tomorrow.
Yehuda
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