Last shabbat after dinner I played Anagrams using Snatch-It tiles with Raanana's reigning Anagrams queen Shuli and her friend Janine, also no slouch. I used to think I was good at the game. This time I was surprised that I nearly held my own. I came in third, only a word or two down from Janine, who was a word or two down from Shuli.
After lunch I played Settlers of Catan with Anne, Sarah, and Noa. First play for Anne, astoundingly first or second play for Sarah (who has been playing games for some time now, and first time playing with the correct rules for Noa (who is a Dominion fan but doesn't know much else about gaming).
Experience and a little luck still holds some sway. I carefully promoted trading as a worthwhile endeavor, warned against trading with the leading player, especially when he or she is at 7 points or higher, and encouraged them to gang up on me.
Anne played aggressively, immediately going to block routes or steal board locations that other players needed. She claimed that she just played the best moves for herself and not deliberately to be aggressive. I've heard that before from a lioness ripping the meat out of a zebra. Sarah ended up boxed in with only two spots to which to expand, which can be difficult (though not impossible).
I had only three spots, but I only needed two. A series of 5s rolled early, each of which gave me 2 bricks and 2 wood, allowed me to plunk down an early 9-length Longest Road. I would not typically pick up Longest Road early in the game, but I felt that the large gap I had over the other players made it unlikely that I would get into a road building war with anyone else (and thus let a third player win, which is what usually happens to road builders).
This worked. I was able to keep my longest road to the end of the game and plunk down my fourth city for the win. The other players all had hidden victory point cards and 7, 8, or 9 points. I think they didn't realize that there were only 5 points (and Largest Army) to go around in the development card deck; they might have (should have) built a few more cities first before going for the cards.
This shabbat after dinner I played a few card games with Anne and a few kids at their house after dinner. I taught them how to play Oh Hell. We played to the end and I came in second. Then I taught them how to play Hearts. We played five rounds, no moons shot. We were all in our thirties or so when we had to quit.
Showing posts with label settlers of catan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label settlers of catan. Show all posts
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, August 21, 2009
A Student Asked Teuber
A student asked Teuber: How shall I play Settlers of Catan?
Teuber answered: Be like the robber. The robber receives from all players. The robber opposes the leader. The robber neither wins nor loses any game, but plays every game.
Another student asked Teuber: How shall I play Settlers of Catan?
Teuber answered: Be not like the robber. The robber always starts in the same position. The robber does not utilize his resources. The robber does not try to win.
A third student asked: How can one be like the robber and not be like the robber?
Teuber answered: How can one be like a student, and not be like a student?
Teuber answered: Be like the robber. The robber receives from all players. The robber opposes the leader. The robber neither wins nor loses any game, but plays every game.
Another student asked Teuber: How shall I play Settlers of Catan?
Teuber answered: Be not like the robber. The robber always starts in the same position. The robber does not utilize his resources. The robber does not try to win.
A third student asked: How can one be like the robber and not be like the robber?
Teuber answered: How can one be like a student, and not be like a student?
Saturday, October 25, 2008
4th Edition Settler of Catan is a Big Step Backwards
The bar-mitzvah of some friends' youngest son gave me an opportunity: I bought him The Settlers of Catan as a bar-mitzvah present.
He wasn't able to learn it himself. We were invited to dinner last night, and I was finally able to teach him. Avraham from the gaming group was also over for dinner, and it was his first play, too. I also roped in the daughter and the mother.
This was my first time playing with the 4th edition set, and I'm pretty disappointed. My biggest complaint with 3rd edition was the tenuous relationship between the illustrations on the different hex types and the resource cards they produced.
The problem is not solved in the fourth edition; if anything, it is worse. Come on. How hard is it to print pictures of the resources on the hexes? Or outline each hex and card in bold matching colors?
Worse, the hexes in 3rd edition were at least highly distinguishable. The hexes in fourth edition are much less so: slightly better artwork, but less distinguishable differences between the hex types. A step backwards.
The cards, rule summaries, and so on are neither better nor worse, and the wooden pieces remain the same.
The game comes with a sea board with built in unchanging harbor locations, which is much worse. The board does a fantastically poor job of keeping things in place. Land hexes still shifted around or slid under the water frame.
If you want to randomize the harbor locations, you use additional chips which you must lay carefully over the preset ones. These harbors are tiny compared to 3rd edition's, much harder to read and understand, and harder to figure out to which vertices they correspond, unlike the friendly, bold white dotted lines in 3rd edition's.
And it's more expensive, too, owing to Mayfair's "screw everyone but local game stores" selling policies.
My advice: stick to 3rd edition.
Avraham liked the game. The mom was getting into it, but the hour was late and she opted to go to bed mid-game, having the daughter take over for her. The daughter liked it a lot. The son, who's bright enough in most situations, is a littler slower when it comes to games, but he also enjoyed it. It was close the whole game, but the daughter won in the end.
He wasn't able to learn it himself. We were invited to dinner last night, and I was finally able to teach him. Avraham from the gaming group was also over for dinner, and it was his first play, too. I also roped in the daughter and the mother.
This was my first time playing with the 4th edition set, and I'm pretty disappointed. My biggest complaint with 3rd edition was the tenuous relationship between the illustrations on the different hex types and the resource cards they produced.
The problem is not solved in the fourth edition; if anything, it is worse. Come on. How hard is it to print pictures of the resources on the hexes? Or outline each hex and card in bold matching colors?
Worse, the hexes in 3rd edition were at least highly distinguishable. The hexes in fourth edition are much less so: slightly better artwork, but less distinguishable differences between the hex types. A step backwards.
The cards, rule summaries, and so on are neither better nor worse, and the wooden pieces remain the same.
The game comes with a sea board with built in unchanging harbor locations, which is much worse. The board does a fantastically poor job of keeping things in place. Land hexes still shifted around or slid under the water frame.
If you want to randomize the harbor locations, you use additional chips which you must lay carefully over the preset ones. These harbors are tiny compared to 3rd edition's, much harder to read and understand, and harder to figure out to which vertices they correspond, unlike the friendly, bold white dotted lines in 3rd edition's.
And it's more expensive, too, owing to Mayfair's "screw everyone but local game stores" selling policies.
My advice: stick to 3rd edition.
Avraham liked the game. The mom was getting into it, but the hour was late and she opted to go to bed mid-game, having the daughter take over for her. The daughter liked it a lot. The son, who's bright enough in most situations, is a littler slower when it comes to games, but he also enjoyed it. It was close the whole game, but the daughter won in the end.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Weekend Gaming
Puerto Rico
Nadine, Rachel, and I played in the late afternoon. Unusual buildings:
Poorhouse 2/1: Take a doubloon if you end a building phase with 0 or 1 doubloons. Result: I bought it as my second building and managed to use it three times. Not a very powerful building.
Mercantile District 5/2: +1 VP when you trade. Result: No one bought it.
Specialization Wharf 6/2: After crafting, you may discard the barrel on SW and place one of your barrels on SW. Only one barrel may be on SW at a time. When shipping, you can use SW as a wharf for the barrel type on SW. Discard the barrel on SW after SW is used. Result: No one bought it. But it's fine.
Private Boat 9/3: You may ship any three barrels on your own ship.. Result: No one bought it, but it's fine.
Reserves 10/4: +2 VP for each type of good on your board. Result: I've used this before, but it's hard to use. You have to time it perfectly. And have a Storehouse.
In our game, Rachel bought a Hospice and Assembly Line, while I bought an early Indigo Plant with my Poorhouse. As a result, the colonists went quickly, and the game ended with the colonists running out (first time in years, I would guess). Scores were therefore low. Rachel won 39 to mine and Nadine's 33.
Yinsh
We ate lunch at some friends, and they had two young men as guests. One of whom, Joe, brought out some of his Magic cards when he found out I played games. He had played Settlers of Catan once before, but couldn't find anyone else to play with. Meanwhile, the other one, Adam, had heard about Settlers and wanted to learn how to play.
They came over to my house while we were playing Puerto Rico, and I gave them Yinsh to play with until we finished our game. Joe picked it up immediately and loved it, while Adam is a less serious analyzer and so played more for fun. Joe won handily.
Settlers of Catan
After we were done with our games, I brought this out and taught Adam and we played. We had a great game, I was trailing a bit by mid-game, with a bit of bad luck with the numbers. Adam and Joe were also both cautious traders, but not in a bad way.
I managed to buy a slew of development cards near the end of the game, and earned two hidden victory points and Largest Army. I was pretty close to victory, but Joe got Longest Road and revealed his own hidden victory point to take the game.
More converts. Joe goes back to the states next week, but Adam will be around until January, so hope to see him come to game nights in the meantime.
Nadine, Rachel, and I played in the late afternoon. Unusual buildings:
Poorhouse 2/1: Take a doubloon if you end a building phase with 0 or 1 doubloons. Result: I bought it as my second building and managed to use it three times. Not a very powerful building.
Mercantile District 5/2: +1 VP when you trade. Result: No one bought it.
Specialization Wharf 6/2: After crafting, you may discard the barrel on SW and place one of your barrels on SW. Only one barrel may be on SW at a time. When shipping, you can use SW as a wharf for the barrel type on SW. Discard the barrel on SW after SW is used. Result: No one bought it. But it's fine.
Private Boat 9/3: You may ship any three barrels on your own ship.. Result: No one bought it, but it's fine.
Reserves 10/4: +2 VP for each type of good on your board. Result: I've used this before, but it's hard to use. You have to time it perfectly. And have a Storehouse.
In our game, Rachel bought a Hospice and Assembly Line, while I bought an early Indigo Plant with my Poorhouse. As a result, the colonists went quickly, and the game ended with the colonists running out (first time in years, I would guess). Scores were therefore low. Rachel won 39 to mine and Nadine's 33.
Yinsh
We ate lunch at some friends, and they had two young men as guests. One of whom, Joe, brought out some of his Magic cards when he found out I played games. He had played Settlers of Catan once before, but couldn't find anyone else to play with. Meanwhile, the other one, Adam, had heard about Settlers and wanted to learn how to play.
They came over to my house while we were playing Puerto Rico, and I gave them Yinsh to play with until we finished our game. Joe picked it up immediately and loved it, while Adam is a less serious analyzer and so played more for fun. Joe won handily.
Settlers of Catan
After we were done with our games, I brought this out and taught Adam and we played. We had a great game, I was trailing a bit by mid-game, with a bit of bad luck with the numbers. Adam and Joe were also both cautious traders, but not in a bad way.
I managed to buy a slew of development cards near the end of the game, and earned two hidden victory points and Largest Army. I was pretty close to victory, but Joe got Longest Road and revealed his own hidden victory point to take the game.
More converts. Joe goes back to the states next week, but Adam will be around until January, so hope to see him come to game nights in the meantime.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Shabbat Gaming
Nadine and another friend were over for lunch. Eliezer is not a gamer, exactly, but he's been turned on to the likes of Settlers, Havoc, and Blokus. The latter is his current addiction.
So I brought out Blokus Trigon after lunch. The beginning and middle of Trigon don't matter much, so long as a) you put out your larger pieces and b) you keep tendrils out to most areas of the board. The end game - when you have run out of your largest pieces, then becomes a matter of planning and blocking.
Fun game. I won 5 to 9 to 9. It's not Nadine's cup of tea.
Next I decided to try him on Mississippi Queen. The first time I played this, I liked it and wanted to try again. Everyone else liked it, too, but not enough to want to play it again immediately. After that, they always found some other game to play instead.
I managed to get it back onto the table again a few weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it, even more than the first play. I was eager to try again, and I decided to slake my thirst with these guys.
It ended up being more like the first play; fun, but not exceptional enough to make them want to play again any time soon. It might be because we all ended up within one round of finishing without too much difficulty, and that's even after stopping to pick up two passengers each.
Actually, the two of them tied, and I crashed in the same round, only able to slow down to 2, instead of the 1 I needed.
Last up was Settlers of Catan, to make up for MQ. Our board layout was very clumped, region-wise, which made starting with all the resources somewhat difficult. I managed to do it by placing one of my settlements onto a 3:1 port and the other on an 11 wood. I needed to trade for wood at the beginning.
Two reasons I ran away with the game: Early on, Eliezer opted to pass with 8 cards in his hand rather than buy two development cards, as he was saving for a city. I rolled a 7 and he lost the bundle. Then I placed the robber on his 8, and he lost about 4 or 5 ores in a row.
I began progressing a few rounds earlier than either of them, and stayed that way for most of the game. Nadine actually passed me in points at one point, but it was five settlements, Longest Road, and no ore production. I stole the Longest Road, and that was basically that. Final scores were 10 to 6 to 4.
So I brought out Blokus Trigon after lunch. The beginning and middle of Trigon don't matter much, so long as a) you put out your larger pieces and b) you keep tendrils out to most areas of the board. The end game - when you have run out of your largest pieces, then becomes a matter of planning and blocking.
Fun game. I won 5 to 9 to 9. It's not Nadine's cup of tea.
Next I decided to try him on Mississippi Queen. The first time I played this, I liked it and wanted to try again. Everyone else liked it, too, but not enough to want to play it again immediately. After that, they always found some other game to play instead.
I managed to get it back onto the table again a few weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it, even more than the first play. I was eager to try again, and I decided to slake my thirst with these guys.
It ended up being more like the first play; fun, but not exceptional enough to make them want to play again any time soon. It might be because we all ended up within one round of finishing without too much difficulty, and that's even after stopping to pick up two passengers each.
Actually, the two of them tied, and I crashed in the same round, only able to slow down to 2, instead of the 1 I needed.
Last up was Settlers of Catan, to make up for MQ. Our board layout was very clumped, region-wise, which made starting with all the resources somewhat difficult. I managed to do it by placing one of my settlements onto a 3:1 port and the other on an 11 wood. I needed to trade for wood at the beginning.
Two reasons I ran away with the game: Early on, Eliezer opted to pass with 8 cards in his hand rather than buy two development cards, as he was saving for a city. I rolled a 7 and he lost the bundle. Then I placed the robber on his 8, and he lost about 4 or 5 ores in a row.
I began progressing a few rounds earlier than either of them, and stayed that way for most of the game. Nadine actually passed me in points at one point, but it was five settlements, Longest Road, and no ore production. I stole the Longest Road, and that was basically that. Final scores were 10 to 6 to 4.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Session Report, in which I say goodbye for three weeks
The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up here. Games played: Thor, Toutankamon, El Grande, Backgammon, Taj Mahal, Medici, Tichu.
Game night will be at Nadine's for the next three weeks.
The Tyee covers modern board games.
Settlers of Catan appears to be the XBOX's most popular video game. It's still getting rave reviews. And it now has an expansion that add as opponents historical personalities, such as Joan of Arc, Hannibal, and Tokugawa.
Yehuda
Game night will be at Nadine's for the next three weeks.
The Tyee covers modern board games.
Settlers of Catan appears to be the XBOX's most popular video game. It's still getting rave reviews. And it now has an expansion that add as opponents historical personalities, such as Joan of Arc, Hannibal, and Tokugawa.
Yehuda
Thursday, February 22, 2007
JoyStiq: Interview With Brian Reynolds About Settlers of Catan on XBox
Scott Jon Siegel writes the bi-weekly column Off The Grid on Joystiq, a top video gaming blog. His column is the only one dealing with board games on a regular basis, so I really enjoy it.
This week he interviews Brian Reynolds, CEO and creative director of Big Huge Games, whose team is bringing Settlers of Catan to the XBox.
I wrote something about this several months ago when the announcement was first made, and have mostly ignored it since, although it's been all over the video game news press wires.
However, while I don't plan on getting an XBox any time soon, the fact that Microsoft is paying attention to Settlers of Catan is pretty huge. In fact, they approached Brian to bring Euro games to the XBox, not the other way around.
All of you still stuck in the Monopoly age, pay attention.
The interview includes a lot of great info and some nice pics.
Meanwhile, Critical Gamers bemoans the fact that the release appears to be delayed.
Yehuda
Sunday, January 14, 2007
First Mentions on Usenet, 1993 - 2002
First review of Magic: the Gathering
Shawn D. Marier
Mon, Jul 26 1993
First there were card games, then there were collectable trading cards, now we have a collectable trading card game. When I first heard about this game a few months ago I was a bit concerned. I personally do not like trading cards and feel that for the most part they are a waste of money. So my feelings from the start toward this game were a bit negative ...
The game is quick to learn, and the starter deck comes with a small 36 page rule book. I learned the basic rules in about 2 minutes, and only needed to pick up the rule book for a few strange situations ...
The real nice thing about the trading card aspect of the game is that every time you play a new opponent you should get to see cards that you have never seen before. This will keep the game fresh and exciting, if not expensive as you try and find the perfect cards to defeat your opponents.
Over all I give this game a very high rating, the art is wonderful, the game is very enjoyable. Hopefully 'Wizards of the Coast' will come out with a collectors set in the near future so that us collectors of SF/Fantasy art will be able to see all 300 pieces of art.
First review of Settlers of Catan
Dirk Bock
Fri, May 26 1995
... The flaw in its design is, IMHO, that you do not have any control which tiles produce what, when, and for which player(s). This doesn't seem too bad at a glance, but due to the fact, that you may be excluded from the "valuable" parts of the board by not being able to build roads in the beginning, a player may become cut off from the race for victory quite early ... In our games such a situation, a single player losing after about half an hour and just waiting for the rest of the game (up to two hours), occurs in about half of the games.
I would describe the situation something like: you need skill to win "die Siedler", but you've got to have luck in the first stages not to lose it.
But apart from that flaw, which could, again IMHO, tolerated in a game lasting less than one one hour, Die Siedler von Catan *is* fun and satisfying to play.
First Review of El Grande
Jonathan Degann
Fri, Apr 12 1996
... There is considerable fun as you kick your opponents out of regions,
or launch a surprise attack from the "tower" (the 10th region) into
a region of your choice.
I enjoy it every time I play it.
First Mention of Gipf
Daniel Blum
Mon, Aug 18 1997
Mayfair had their usual range, including LOTS of Siedler items - Seafarer,
the card game, everything but the Seafarer 5/6 player expansion (and no,
I don't have any more of those, sorry). They had pretty good prices on
the Siedler stuff, too. They had two new abstract strategy games -
Balanx and Gipf. Balanx had a cute tilting board but struck me as a
gimmicky Chinese checkers variant. Gipf's box had mostly overblown piffle,
so I passed on it as well. Unfortunately there was no way to play either
of these unless one found a partner and rented a copy in the open gaming
area (Mayfair had a table in their booth, but it was occupied all weekend
by a huge 3D Siedler board).
First Comment on Princes of Florence
Greg J. Schloesser
Tues, Apr 25 2000
DIE FURSTEN VON FLORENZ: Without a doubt, the hit of the show.
Fabulous. Played twice and taught a half dozen other groups how to
play. Buy it!
Jay ... are you listening? Is it to late to release this one in
English?
Initial rating: 9
First Comment on Carcassonne
Carl-Gustaf Samuelsson
Fri, Nov 3 2000
We found a table and a German girl joined us for a test of "Carcassonne". An easy, but quite clever tile laying game. You build up a map with the tiles with roads, towns, meadows and monasteries. You try to control them by playing one of your 7 followers on them and when an entity is completed, you score it and take back it (if it hasn't become a farmer, which is scored at the end). We were sure it would be a great filler for the late game evening, so I found a copy for 23 DM.
First Play of Puerto Rico
Stan Hilinski
Tues, Jan 29 2002
I mentioned this on Spielfrieks, but a guy in a group was sick for about a
week, and since he had nothing better to do, he constructed a homemade
prototype of Puerto Rico based entirely on photographs and Mik's
description ...
Normally I'd say nothing here about the experiment. except for
one thing. Our lame wannabe copy of Puerto Rico was received with complete,
total enthusiasm. At our next Friday gathering, the original five showed up
just to do it again. I have not seen anything close to this since Princes
of Florence hit our table last year. It is all they want to play ...
Yehuda
Shawn D. Marier
Mon, Jul 26 1993
First there were card games, then there were collectable trading cards, now we have a collectable trading card game. When I first heard about this game a few months ago I was a bit concerned. I personally do not like trading cards and feel that for the most part they are a waste of money. So my feelings from the start toward this game were a bit negative ...
The game is quick to learn, and the starter deck comes with a small 36 page rule book. I learned the basic rules in about 2 minutes, and only needed to pick up the rule book for a few strange situations ...
The real nice thing about the trading card aspect of the game is that every time you play a new opponent you should get to see cards that you have never seen before. This will keep the game fresh and exciting, if not expensive as you try and find the perfect cards to defeat your opponents.
Over all I give this game a very high rating, the art is wonderful, the game is very enjoyable. Hopefully 'Wizards of the Coast' will come out with a collectors set in the near future so that us collectors of SF/Fantasy art will be able to see all 300 pieces of art.
First review of Settlers of Catan
Dirk Bock
Fri, May 26 1995
... The flaw in its design is, IMHO, that you do not have any control which tiles produce what, when, and for which player(s). This doesn't seem too bad at a glance, but due to the fact, that you may be excluded from the "valuable" parts of the board by not being able to build roads in the beginning, a player may become cut off from the race for victory quite early ... In our games such a situation, a single player losing after about half an hour and just waiting for the rest of the game (up to two hours), occurs in about half of the games.
I would describe the situation something like: you need skill to win "die Siedler", but you've got to have luck in the first stages not to lose it.
But apart from that flaw, which could, again IMHO, tolerated in a game lasting less than one one hour, Die Siedler von Catan *is* fun and satisfying to play.
First Review of El Grande
Jonathan Degann
Fri, Apr 12 1996
... There is considerable fun as you kick your opponents out of regions,
or launch a surprise attack from the "tower" (the 10th region) into
a region of your choice.
I enjoy it every time I play it.
First Mention of Gipf
Daniel Blum
Mon, Aug 18 1997
Mayfair had their usual range, including LOTS of Siedler items - Seafarer,
the card game, everything but the Seafarer 5/6 player expansion (and no,
I don't have any more of those, sorry). They had pretty good prices on
the Siedler stuff, too. They had two new abstract strategy games -
Balanx and Gipf. Balanx had a cute tilting board but struck me as a
gimmicky Chinese checkers variant. Gipf's box had mostly overblown piffle,
so I passed on it as well. Unfortunately there was no way to play either
of these unless one found a partner and rented a copy in the open gaming
area (Mayfair had a table in their booth, but it was occupied all weekend
by a huge 3D Siedler board).
First Comment on Princes of Florence
Greg J. Schloesser
Tues, Apr 25 2000
DIE FURSTEN VON FLORENZ: Without a doubt, the hit of the show.
Fabulous. Played twice and taught a half dozen other groups how to
play. Buy it!
Jay ... are you listening? Is it to late to release this one in
English?
Initial rating: 9
First Comment on Carcassonne
Carl-Gustaf Samuelsson
Fri, Nov 3 2000
We found a table and a German girl joined us for a test of "Carcassonne". An easy, but quite clever tile laying game. You build up a map with the tiles with roads, towns, meadows and monasteries. You try to control them by playing one of your 7 followers on them and when an entity is completed, you score it and take back it (if it hasn't become a farmer, which is scored at the end). We were sure it would be a great filler for the late game evening, so I found a copy for 23 DM.
First Play of Puerto Rico
Stan Hilinski
Tues, Jan 29 2002
I mentioned this on Spielfrieks, but a guy in a group was sick for about a
week, and since he had nothing better to do, he constructed a homemade
prototype of Puerto Rico based entirely on photographs and Mik's
description ...
Normally I'd say nothing here about the experiment. except for
one thing. Our lame wannabe copy of Puerto Rico was received with complete,
total enthusiasm. At our next Friday gathering, the original five showed up
just to do it again. I have not seen anything close to this since Princes
of Florence hit our table last year. It is all they want to play ...
Yehuda
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
BGG's Blogger Microbadge
The good thing about the microbadge is that you can enter a URL for the badge so that when someone click the badge under your name/avatar, they go directly to your blog. The bad thing about it is that you can't then click the microbadge to see all other people who have the same microbadge.
It wasn't that hard to figure out how to do it, however. There are four pages of bloggers to be discovered; some are not in English, some don't blog about games, some blog very infrequently about games, and some blog very infrequently, period. As for the remainder, well just expect another lovely update to my list of board game bloggers sometime soon.
I'll also be posting a round of board and card game patents from December, and I am debating on whether I should comment about board and card game patents over the last year in general. I think not. Suffice to say, scant few of them should have passed the "not obvious" test.
I will get to try out Netrunner tonight, God willing.
I must mention Joystiq's praise of Settlers of Catan. And someone mentioned the Heroscape gaming journal hscodex, but I forgot who (Sorry!) [Update: Ah, 'twas Sean. Thanks, Sean; I shouldn't have been so lazy.]
Yehuda
It wasn't that hard to figure out how to do it, however. There are four pages of bloggers to be discovered; some are not in English, some don't blog about games, some blog very infrequently about games, and some blog very infrequently, period. As for the remainder, well just expect another lovely update to my list of board game bloggers sometime soon.
I'll also be posting a round of board and card game patents from December, and I am debating on whether I should comment about board and card game patents over the last year in general. I think not. Suffice to say, scant few of them should have passed the "not obvious" test.
I will get to try out Netrunner tonight, God willing.
I must mention Joystiq's praise of Settlers of Catan. And someone mentioned the Heroscape gaming journal hscodex, but I forgot who (Sorry!) [Update: Ah, 'twas Sean. Thanks, Sean; I shouldn't have been so lazy.]
Yehuda
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Euro Games Coming to Steimatsky's
Steimatsky's is Israel's largest chain of book stores. Prices are high, but no higher than other book store in Israel. They generally carry a nice selection of English books, too.In the past, they used to carry Magic cards, but now only carry Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon. They also have Ravensberger puzzles, some CDs and DVDs, and assorted knick-knacks.
Silver Stars, Israel's only Euro game importer, has just made a deal with Steimatsky's to sell a few games in various branches of the book chain. The games that will be carried include Drakon, Citadels (Metsudot), Mishak Ha'atsilim (Lucca Citta) & Munchkin. Which branches will carry the games is currently unknown.
Good luck, Silver Stars.
Links:
The Dust Forms Words believes that board games will soon be history, in favor of video games. Where have I heard that before?
The Chicago Tribune apparently had an article on Settlers of Catan. I didn't want to register to see it, but you can see a copy on the Geek thread that announced it.
Yehuda
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Weekend Gaming
For lunch we had over Tyson and Rebbecca, new to the gaming group, as well as Rachel and Dvira. Dvira is a seven year old who came over a few months ago to play on shabbat afternoons; her mother moved with her to K'far Adumim, but they were in town this shabbat. Dvira is still young, but plays beyond her age, both in skill and manners, so she is a pleasure to play with.
Dvira and I played two hands of Gin Rummy before lunch.
Rebbecca, Tyson, Dvira, and I played Settlers of Catan after lunch while Rachel slept. As usual, when two people fight over the longest road (Dvira and Rebbecca), a third person wins. I won without too much trouble, gaining two points on the last round with a hand of twenty-four cards (my record is twenty-nine). We all enjoyed the game.
There wasn't enough time for another game before shabbat ended, what with Rachel teaching and all, but Tyson and Rebbecca came back after shabbat for a Puerto Rico game. They have played the game once before on Games Day and they loved it.
It was funny to see the boards take shape, Rachel and mine with our ideas of how to construct a board versus Tyson and Rebecca's. By the fifth or sixth round, both Rachel and I had exactly the same boards: sugar, two corns, tobacco, Small Market, Small Sugar, Tobacco, and Small Warehouse, while both of our opponents had exactly the same boards: indigo, corn, coffee, quarry, Small Indigo, Hospice.
Rachel was outrunning me in VPs and building points at midgame, and I feared she was simply going to beat me. When we diverged, she taking Factory and me taking Harbor, she still could have beaten me but she neglected to disrupt my shipping sufficiently. By the end of the game, I had a very small city but 38 shipping points, enough to beat Rachel and her two big buildings 58 to 54. Rebbecca and Tyson had 49 and 40 points.
Links:
Poetry and board games: Here be many limericks about board games, as well as many others about other games.
On the Spot Games has offered to send me some review copies of their games. Thanks, and while I wait for them, you can check them out.
Yehuda
Dvira and I played two hands of Gin Rummy before lunch.
Rebbecca, Tyson, Dvira, and I played Settlers of Catan after lunch while Rachel slept. As usual, when two people fight over the longest road (Dvira and Rebbecca), a third person wins. I won without too much trouble, gaining two points on the last round with a hand of twenty-four cards (my record is twenty-nine). We all enjoyed the game.
There wasn't enough time for another game before shabbat ended, what with Rachel teaching and all, but Tyson and Rebbecca came back after shabbat for a Puerto Rico game. They have played the game once before on Games Day and they loved it.
It was funny to see the boards take shape, Rachel and mine with our ideas of how to construct a board versus Tyson and Rebecca's. By the fifth or sixth round, both Rachel and I had exactly the same boards: sugar, two corns, tobacco, Small Market, Small Sugar, Tobacco, and Small Warehouse, while both of our opponents had exactly the same boards: indigo, corn, coffee, quarry, Small Indigo, Hospice.
Rachel was outrunning me in VPs and building points at midgame, and I feared she was simply going to beat me. When we diverged, she taking Factory and me taking Harbor, she still could have beaten me but she neglected to disrupt my shipping sufficiently. By the end of the game, I had a very small city but 38 shipping points, enough to beat Rachel and her two big buildings 58 to 54. Rebbecca and Tyson had 49 and 40 points.
Links:
Poetry and board games: Here be many limericks about board games, as well as many others about other games.
On the Spot Games has offered to send me some review copies of their games. Thanks, and while I wait for them, you can check them out.
Yehuda
Friday, October 27, 2006
A Cruelly Lost Game of Puerto Rico
When he walked into my house, I knew he was a gamer.
His hands traveled over the counter until they rested on my blue deck of plastic playing cards. Absentmindedly, he picked them up and shuffled them while he talked with us.
He was one of two friends of my daughter, Ariella, had brought home for the weekend. Their pre-army program is an exhausting mix of difficult studies, hours long hikes at night-time, and no sleep. Their plans were to go out to the local hangout street (Emek Refaim) after Ariella finished her shower.
They sat around, waiting. I asked them if they wanted to play a board game. The card shuffler's eyes lit up.
"A board game? What type?"
With Rachel around, the only choice of board game was Puerto Rico; it's not my usual first choice with new players, but I was hoping I could stir their interest. Besides, they looked like they were too tired to go out walking around.
They said, "Sure."
So I got out the boards.
I got out the colonists (count to 79).
I got out the victory points (count to 100).
I got out the roles.
I got out the buildings (find buildings and match with pairs).
I got out the doubloons and the goods and the plantations.
I took out 2 corns and indigos and shuffled the remaining plantations.
I looked up, ready to teach them the game. Ariella was glaring at me. The boys had fallen asleep on the couch.
Another game of Puerto Rico, cruelly lost.
Links:
Oklahoma's GOP candidate ran a political ad featuring his opponent, Democrat Jari Askins, as a playing piece on a Monopoly board. The Democratic party responds on their blog.
The world's highest score in a Scrabble game (830) was allegedly scored last week. (Thanks, Nadine)
The Catan world championships just ended. It was played in Essen. (via Mikko)
I'm a quarter way through the armed forces code. My son says that I should do the presidential election code as a break (it's only 65 verses for all of USC3, and it would be timely).
Yehuda
His hands traveled over the counter until they rested on my blue deck of plastic playing cards. Absentmindedly, he picked them up and shuffled them while he talked with us.
He was one of two friends of my daughter, Ariella, had brought home for the weekend. Their pre-army program is an exhausting mix of difficult studies, hours long hikes at night-time, and no sleep. Their plans were to go out to the local hangout street (Emek Refaim) after Ariella finished her shower.
They sat around, waiting. I asked them if they wanted to play a board game. The card shuffler's eyes lit up.
"A board game? What type?"
With Rachel around, the only choice of board game was Puerto Rico; it's not my usual first choice with new players, but I was hoping I could stir their interest. Besides, they looked like they were too tired to go out walking around.
They said, "Sure."
So I got out the boards.
I got out the colonists (count to 79).
I got out the victory points (count to 100).
I got out the roles.
I got out the buildings (find buildings and match with pairs).
I got out the doubloons and the goods and the plantations.
I took out 2 corns and indigos and shuffled the remaining plantations.
I looked up, ready to teach them the game. Ariella was glaring at me. The boys had fallen asleep on the couch.
Another game of Puerto Rico, cruelly lost.
Links:
Oklahoma's GOP candidate ran a political ad featuring his opponent, Democrat Jari Askins, as a playing piece on a Monopoly board. The Democratic party responds on their blog.
The world's highest score in a Scrabble game (830) was allegedly scored last week. (Thanks, Nadine)
The Catan world championships just ended. It was played in Essen. (via Mikko)
I'm a quarter way through the armed forces code. My son says that I should do the presidential election code as a break (it's only 65 verses for all of USC3, and it would be timely).
Yehuda
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Settlers of Catan scenario design contest
Also right up my alley: variants. Via Critical Gamers, Mayfair is sponsoring a scenario design contest, with lots of nifty prizes.
I always have a few variants to submit, although they're really other games played on a Settlers board, as opposed to Settlers variants.
Yehuda
I always have a few variants to submit, although they're really other games played on a Settlers board, as opposed to Settlers variants.
Yehuda
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Hike, Town, and Gaming
Hike
Mistakes were made
Friday, the first day of Hol Hamoed, is the second day of Passover, and the first day that is half mundane/half holiday. That means that, while food restrictions of Passover are still in effect, other proscriptions are not. And, since it was a Friday, and we were going to Beit Shemesh for shabbat and did not need to prepare meals for shabbat, it was good day for hiking.
For the competent, that is.
My first trouble was the fact that it was a really hot day. Nowhere near summer heat, but hot. At least it wasn't raining, like it would be the next day.
My next problem was that Rachel wasn't available to come, so it would be just me, Saarya, and Tal. In order to boost the companionship, I invited some friends who had two young kids to join us. Their kids are only 2 and 3 years old, something which should have bothered me when considering whether to invite them on a hike. However, the kids were not too much problem, as the parents were willing to carry them most of the time, and they didn't whine overly much (a bit, but not too much)
The biggest problem was my ability to follow directions. A tour-guide friend of mine gave me directions to the hike, which included "drive to the end of the dirt road, and then get out, cross under the train tracks, and begin hiking the black trail".
Unfortunately, my ability to understand "the end of the dirt road" did not include the logic that the dirt road ends at the big sign that said "only 4x4s beyond this point". Me and my little sedan, followed by my friends and their little sedan, looked around at this point, didn't see the bridge under the train tracks, and decided to keep on going down the dirt road, slowly.
For an hour.
Until I realized that there is a reason why only 4x4s should go beyond this point. I then had to make a painful and nervous turnaround without falling off the road into the polluted stream, and drive for another hour slowly back to the sign.
That effectively killed a lot of our hiking time, not to mention probably all of my tires. They're not deflated yet, but I expect them to have lost half their lives, at least.
With a little bit of looking around, we now found the bridge and the black trail. Now, my instructions were to walk up the black trail, rest at the top, and then go down the blue trail until you hit the green trail, and then down the green trail until you end up back at the start of the black trail. This is because the black trail is more populated by other hikers, while the blue/green trails are nicer, slightly longer, and less populated.
Naturally, we started up the green trail, intending to come back down the black trail. Actually, that was not so bad; it really was a lovely trail, shaded, great flowers at this time of year, and great views. However, owing to having started so late, we were still on the blue trail after an hour and we had no idea of how long it would continue before we got to the top and could return on the black trail. And we were running out of water.
It was already getting close to shabbat, and both Saarya and I knew that we could descend the way we came and get to Beit Shemesh in time for shabbat, whereas we had no idea, other than instructions and hope, that if we continued that we would make it back in time. After all, we may have been going completely the wrong direction, for all I knew.
The other family decided to continue, while we returned the way we came. A little frustrated for having backtracked twice in one day. We heard later that they got back to their car about half an hour after we did, which would still have worked, but would have been cutting it close. In any case, the prudent course was the best choice.
These types of minor disasters happen to me all too often. The only time they are worse is when Rachel comes. Rachel's Battle Cry of Hiking is "Let's get lost!". She's only happy when we no longer know where we are and are scrambling around the side of a garbage dump next to an eight meter drop into a barren pit, or crossing a live firing range (both true events).
Back to nature
Israel has extensive marked trails and nature preserves, when they are not being burned down by our enemies or careless hikers. Leave any city and you will see numerous brown signs and little paths pointing you to the start of trails, overlooks, historic sites or ruins (by the bucketful), and so on.
You can actually get all the way from the tippy top of Israel to the bottom of Eilat on a series of connected hiking trails. The nicest ones also have water during the winter and spring (watch out for flash floods in rains).
The biggest problem for me is that most of them feel dry. You don't get that sort of wet, fungus, lichen, ferns, green misty sense that you do hiking around new England. Instead, unless it has literally just rained, the trees and air always feel dry and rough. There are usually thistles and some cacti on the train.
What we do have, in March and still in April, are beautiful wildflowers, especially blood-red poppies, as well as various white and purple things. Books are available on the subject, if you are interested. Sorry, I didn't bring my camera on the hike.
Town
Nofei Aviv
Nofie Aviv is a community within Beit Shemesh. It is basically an Anglo enclave, although some native Israelis or others also live there. Picture a banana shape of about 200 houses around the base of a hill. The residents are almost all very well off. Houses sell for $400,000.
Off of the convex side of the houses, you get fields going up another hill to the Beit Jamal monastery (makes lovely ceramics). On the convex side, and a little higher up the hill, are the "tromim", which are stucco apartment buildings with very poor people, including many immigrants from Ethiopia. The Ethiopians are Jews who were rescued from the warfare and poverty in their country, but haven't quite been integrated into society, yet, either due to cultural, political, or economic reasons.
Continue past the tromim, and you get the rest of Beit Shemesh, in its various forms, about 40,000 people. Nofei Aviv is one of the wealthiest spots, strangely situated right next to one of the poorest spots.
The attitude of Nofei Aviv is the conflicting attitude of the wealthy but religious. They complain about their neighbors trashing their park and playground, breaking in and stealing their bicycles and cars, and generally looking threatening. On the other hand, they donate tons and tons of clothes, food, household items, and so on, run education programs, both religious and economic, and hire them when possible at modest wages.
The shul and its colors
One place where this stands out most is in shul. The shul is a generally modest but large building right up against the tromim apartments. The entrance to the shul is even facing these apartments. The shul may have cost $800,000, but this is mostly due to its size and air conditioning units; it is pretty understated and not flashy. The exception to this is a humongous ostentatious chandelier which someone donated recently and hung in the main sanctuary; it might be kind of pretty in the oval office, but looks totally ridiculous in the shul. Most people in Nofei Aviv feel the same way and are angry about it, but it was, after all, donated.
But what's interesting is that some of the Ethiopians from the tromim come to shul. It started with one or two families, and is now about eight or ten families. And every single one of these black-skinned people sits in the back corner of the shul in a little group.
There is no discriminatory policy in this shul, as far as I know. Each of these people gets called up to make blessing on the torah like any other person would in the shul. They get honored with holding the torah, or opening the ark. No one, to my knowledge, has ever so much as given them a dirty glance that would make them uncomfortable if they chose to sit more scattered around the shul. People say hello to them and shake their hands after shul like they do to everyone else they see after shul, although they don't speak English or much Hebrew.
I asked someone about this, and he said that the truth is that many sub-cultures sit together in shul. The French speakers all sit together, too. It's just that this isn't noticeable because you can't tell a French speaker just by looking at him or her, as you can an Ethiopian. When an American or British black visits, as they do on occasion, they sit anywhere in shul without any problems or particular notice (well, everyone notices a black in a room full of whites, but no more particular notice than that). I guess it is just the fact that they are all in the back corner that makes it seem weird.
But enough about all that.
Gaming
In Dallas I stayed with my friends the Elkins who are on sabbatical for a year. In Beit Shemesh, we stayed in their house which is still occupied by their 19 year old son and 18 year old daughter. We would have stayed with my parents, but they are in Haifa for Passover and had rented out their house.
In the Elkins house I get to play Billiards, another one of my little passions. I am passingly competent in many things, and Billiards demonstrates this very well. Although out of practice, since I never play unless I visit the Elkins, I am still capable of breaking, sinking balls, positioning shots, and so on. Not with any real professional competency, nor with great consistency, but pretty good. I managed to win five games before losing one.
We are not likely to get a Billiards table in our house any time soon, not only because they are grossly expensive, but because the act of playing Billiards somehow seems even more indolent to my wife than playing board games.
Friday night we ate at the Ehrmans. They are a good match for us, in many ways. The father is a torah learner like my wife, and a passionate Jew, singing songs and so on during the meal. He also used to run an online computer game company called "2am" and has many years of game experience.
They have some good games in their house, like Settlers, Carcassonne, San Marco, Junta, and so on, and they play a lot of Bridge (not too well, I gathered).
Last time I was there I taught the kids (seven of them, plus friends) how to play Spit. This time I was nicer to my hosts and avoided a game with screaming, and taught them how to play Oh Hell. I seem to be on an Oh Hell kick, even though the game is fairly random, and I don't really like the rule about the dealer having to not bid a sum that would add up to the number of cards.
We started with 5 players, but lost one after two rounds, and finished with 4 players. I won by a large margin. All the while, one of the players was complaining about how the game was "all luck". I was trying to explain how there is "luck" and "all luck", but without much success. The fact that I won 40+ to single digits all around should have been enough to convince her, but apparently it wasn't.
The next day at lunch we went to another family, one that I have mentioned before. They have visited us for shabbat a few times. The parents don't play anything; well, David, the father, is willing to play the game: going around in a circle, each person says a number and the person who said the highest number wins.
Luckily, the son Shlomi plays, and he was keen to play Go with me again, as was I with him. Last time we played, I thought that I would be better than him, but it turned out that he was even or slightly better than me. This time we played eight games, taking turns going first, and each time the person who went first won. That is about as even as you can get. We played on a 9x9 board. I invited Shlomi to Games Day which was on the following day.
Back at the Elkins house in late afternoon I taught and played some more Oh Hell and Billiards.
I also played some Settlers of Catan, and completely failed to teach an 18 year old girl how to play. She was the type that would just look at you and smile, and cringe and complain that she can't understand a word that you are talking about. She begged to be released from the game before it began, and I realized that it would have been pointless to try to encourage her to play any further.
Instead, I played three player, stealing the Longest Road from Saarya, who stole it back to win the game. I can't remember the last time I beat Saarya at any game, and he's only 14 years old. My son.
Yehuda
Technorati tags: board game, board games, hiking, Jews, Israel, race relations
Mistakes were made
Friday, the first day of Hol Hamoed, is the second day of Passover, and the first day that is half mundane/half holiday. That means that, while food restrictions of Passover are still in effect, other proscriptions are not. And, since it was a Friday, and we were going to Beit Shemesh for shabbat and did not need to prepare meals for shabbat, it was good day for hiking.
For the competent, that is.
My first trouble was the fact that it was a really hot day. Nowhere near summer heat, but hot. At least it wasn't raining, like it would be the next day.
My next problem was that Rachel wasn't available to come, so it would be just me, Saarya, and Tal. In order to boost the companionship, I invited some friends who had two young kids to join us. Their kids are only 2 and 3 years old, something which should have bothered me when considering whether to invite them on a hike. However, the kids were not too much problem, as the parents were willing to carry them most of the time, and they didn't whine overly much (a bit, but not too much)
The biggest problem was my ability to follow directions. A tour-guide friend of mine gave me directions to the hike, which included "drive to the end of the dirt road, and then get out, cross under the train tracks, and begin hiking the black trail".
Unfortunately, my ability to understand "the end of the dirt road" did not include the logic that the dirt road ends at the big sign that said "only 4x4s beyond this point". Me and my little sedan, followed by my friends and their little sedan, looked around at this point, didn't see the bridge under the train tracks, and decided to keep on going down the dirt road, slowly.
For an hour.
Until I realized that there is a reason why only 4x4s should go beyond this point. I then had to make a painful and nervous turnaround without falling off the road into the polluted stream, and drive for another hour slowly back to the sign.
That effectively killed a lot of our hiking time, not to mention probably all of my tires. They're not deflated yet, but I expect them to have lost half their lives, at least.
With a little bit of looking around, we now found the bridge and the black trail. Now, my instructions were to walk up the black trail, rest at the top, and then go down the blue trail until you hit the green trail, and then down the green trail until you end up back at the start of the black trail. This is because the black trail is more populated by other hikers, while the blue/green trails are nicer, slightly longer, and less populated.
Naturally, we started up the green trail, intending to come back down the black trail. Actually, that was not so bad; it really was a lovely trail, shaded, great flowers at this time of year, and great views. However, owing to having started so late, we were still on the blue trail after an hour and we had no idea of how long it would continue before we got to the top and could return on the black trail. And we were running out of water.
It was already getting close to shabbat, and both Saarya and I knew that we could descend the way we came and get to Beit Shemesh in time for shabbat, whereas we had no idea, other than instructions and hope, that if we continued that we would make it back in time. After all, we may have been going completely the wrong direction, for all I knew.
The other family decided to continue, while we returned the way we came. A little frustrated for having backtracked twice in one day. We heard later that they got back to their car about half an hour after we did, which would still have worked, but would have been cutting it close. In any case, the prudent course was the best choice.
These types of minor disasters happen to me all too often. The only time they are worse is when Rachel comes. Rachel's Battle Cry of Hiking is "Let's get lost!". She's only happy when we no longer know where we are and are scrambling around the side of a garbage dump next to an eight meter drop into a barren pit, or crossing a live firing range (both true events).
Back to nature
Israel has extensive marked trails and nature preserves, when they are not being burned down by our enemies or careless hikers. Leave any city and you will see numerous brown signs and little paths pointing you to the start of trails, overlooks, historic sites or ruins (by the bucketful), and so on.
You can actually get all the way from the tippy top of Israel to the bottom of Eilat on a series of connected hiking trails. The nicest ones also have water during the winter and spring (watch out for flash floods in rains).
The biggest problem for me is that most of them feel dry. You don't get that sort of wet, fungus, lichen, ferns, green misty sense that you do hiking around new England. Instead, unless it has literally just rained, the trees and air always feel dry and rough. There are usually thistles and some cacti on the train.
What we do have, in March and still in April, are beautiful wildflowers, especially blood-red poppies, as well as various white and purple things. Books are available on the subject, if you are interested. Sorry, I didn't bring my camera on the hike.
Town
Nofei Aviv
Nofie Aviv is a community within Beit Shemesh. It is basically an Anglo enclave, although some native Israelis or others also live there. Picture a banana shape of about 200 houses around the base of a hill. The residents are almost all very well off. Houses sell for $400,000.
Off of the convex side of the houses, you get fields going up another hill to the Beit Jamal monastery (makes lovely ceramics). On the convex side, and a little higher up the hill, are the "tromim", which are stucco apartment buildings with very poor people, including many immigrants from Ethiopia. The Ethiopians are Jews who were rescued from the warfare and poverty in their country, but haven't quite been integrated into society, yet, either due to cultural, political, or economic reasons.
Continue past the tromim, and you get the rest of Beit Shemesh, in its various forms, about 40,000 people. Nofei Aviv is one of the wealthiest spots, strangely situated right next to one of the poorest spots.
The attitude of Nofei Aviv is the conflicting attitude of the wealthy but religious. They complain about their neighbors trashing their park and playground, breaking in and stealing their bicycles and cars, and generally looking threatening. On the other hand, they donate tons and tons of clothes, food, household items, and so on, run education programs, both religious and economic, and hire them when possible at modest wages.
The shul and its colors
One place where this stands out most is in shul. The shul is a generally modest but large building right up against the tromim apartments. The entrance to the shul is even facing these apartments. The shul may have cost $800,000, but this is mostly due to its size and air conditioning units; it is pretty understated and not flashy. The exception to this is a humongous ostentatious chandelier which someone donated recently and hung in the main sanctuary; it might be kind of pretty in the oval office, but looks totally ridiculous in the shul. Most people in Nofei Aviv feel the same way and are angry about it, but it was, after all, donated.
But what's interesting is that some of the Ethiopians from the tromim come to shul. It started with one or two families, and is now about eight or ten families. And every single one of these black-skinned people sits in the back corner of the shul in a little group.
There is no discriminatory policy in this shul, as far as I know. Each of these people gets called up to make blessing on the torah like any other person would in the shul. They get honored with holding the torah, or opening the ark. No one, to my knowledge, has ever so much as given them a dirty glance that would make them uncomfortable if they chose to sit more scattered around the shul. People say hello to them and shake their hands after shul like they do to everyone else they see after shul, although they don't speak English or much Hebrew.
I asked someone about this, and he said that the truth is that many sub-cultures sit together in shul. The French speakers all sit together, too. It's just that this isn't noticeable because you can't tell a French speaker just by looking at him or her, as you can an Ethiopian. When an American or British black visits, as they do on occasion, they sit anywhere in shul without any problems or particular notice (well, everyone notices a black in a room full of whites, but no more particular notice than that). I guess it is just the fact that they are all in the back corner that makes it seem weird.
But enough about all that.
Gaming
In Dallas I stayed with my friends the Elkins who are on sabbatical for a year. In Beit Shemesh, we stayed in their house which is still occupied by their 19 year old son and 18 year old daughter. We would have stayed with my parents, but they are in Haifa for Passover and had rented out their house.
In the Elkins house I get to play Billiards, another one of my little passions. I am passingly competent in many things, and Billiards demonstrates this very well. Although out of practice, since I never play unless I visit the Elkins, I am still capable of breaking, sinking balls, positioning shots, and so on. Not with any real professional competency, nor with great consistency, but pretty good. I managed to win five games before losing one.
We are not likely to get a Billiards table in our house any time soon, not only because they are grossly expensive, but because the act of playing Billiards somehow seems even more indolent to my wife than playing board games.
Friday night we ate at the Ehrmans. They are a good match for us, in many ways. The father is a torah learner like my wife, and a passionate Jew, singing songs and so on during the meal. He also used to run an online computer game company called "2am" and has many years of game experience.
They have some good games in their house, like Settlers, Carcassonne, San Marco, Junta, and so on, and they play a lot of Bridge (not too well, I gathered).
Last time I was there I taught the kids (seven of them, plus friends) how to play Spit. This time I was nicer to my hosts and avoided a game with screaming, and taught them how to play Oh Hell. I seem to be on an Oh Hell kick, even though the game is fairly random, and I don't really like the rule about the dealer having to not bid a sum that would add up to the number of cards.
We started with 5 players, but lost one after two rounds, and finished with 4 players. I won by a large margin. All the while, one of the players was complaining about how the game was "all luck". I was trying to explain how there is "luck" and "all luck", but without much success. The fact that I won 40+ to single digits all around should have been enough to convince her, but apparently it wasn't.
The next day at lunch we went to another family, one that I have mentioned before. They have visited us for shabbat a few times. The parents don't play anything; well, David, the father, is willing to play the game: going around in a circle, each person says a number and the person who said the highest number wins.
Luckily, the son Shlomi plays, and he was keen to play Go with me again, as was I with him. Last time we played, I thought that I would be better than him, but it turned out that he was even or slightly better than me. This time we played eight games, taking turns going first, and each time the person who went first won. That is about as even as you can get. We played on a 9x9 board. I invited Shlomi to Games Day which was on the following day.
Back at the Elkins house in late afternoon I taught and played some more Oh Hell and Billiards.
I also played some Settlers of Catan, and completely failed to teach an 18 year old girl how to play. She was the type that would just look at you and smile, and cringe and complain that she can't understand a word that you are talking about. She begged to be released from the game before it began, and I realized that it would have been pointless to try to encourage her to play any further.
Instead, I played three player, stealing the Longest Road from Saarya, who stole it back to win the game. I can't remember the last time I beat Saarya at any game, and he's only 14 years old. My son.
Yehuda
Technorati tags: board game, board games, hiking, Jews, Israel, race relations
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Player Quiz
1. Your friend tells you that you'll be playing Settlers of Catan at the next game group session.
a: You thank your friend for the warning, gather a crack squad of elite troops, and blow up the gaming group location a week in advance.
b: You say, "OK."
c: You say, "Again, we played that last week!"
d: You say, "W00T! I luv Settlars!"
e: You say, "Whatever."
f: You say, "Settlers of what? Is that like Monopoly? You guys are so obsessed with these weird complicated games. Can't we just play Sorry?"
2. You decide to go because:
a: You remember that Settlers has dice, variable terrain, units, and so on, so it could, in a weird way, if you squint a little, be considered a light war game.
b: It's the game group.
c: You might play some other games before or after.
d: Settlars rox!
e: You don't have anything to do on Thursdays since they canceled Friends last year.
f: Your friend tells you it's easy to understand and play.
3. Who's bringing the game?
a. You are, along with three extra copies, just in case, as well as a spare one you have on call at the game store. Each piece is stored in its own Plexiglas storage container for easy setup.
b. You are, of course.
c. One of you is, and you know who.
d. Someone is.
e. Whatever.
f. Is that tonight?
4. Who sets up the game?
a. You do; actually, you did several weeks ago, and you soldered Plexiglas over the game, repainted all of the pieces, and added 3D realistic terrain to the board to simulate cover and concealment.
b. You do, since everyone else forgets that, according to the original German rules, you have to lay out the hexes 5 center, 4 on the right, 4 on the left, 3 on the right, and then 3 on the left.
c. You can, or someone else will.
d. Watching it get set up is cool! Look! Three wood hexes! I'm calling that space!
e. Hey, they sure have a lot of games here. Look a TV. I wonder what's on TV.
f. What are we playing again? Does it always take so long to set up? Can't we just play already?
5. What variant are you playing?
a: The variant where you set up Settlers on one table and play ASL on the other. Failing that, every variant that includes direct confrontation, including Cities and Knights of Catan, Nuclear War of Catan, Armed Ambush of Catan, and the Franco-Prussian midday skirmish of August 22, 1875 just-after-they-had-their-afternoon-tea of Catan.
b: All of them.
c: Cities and Knights, and maybe Seafarers
d: Vanilla Settlers
e: Hey, they're showing a rerun of Friends on channel 63 in Spanish. Ha ha! That Chandler!
f: What's a variant? Is that complicated?
6. Who teaches the newbies, and how?
a. You bring out your 300 page glossy custom made manual as well as printouts of every web page with errata that ever mentioned the word Settlers of Catan. Your opening line is: "Men. This is war."
b. You do, since you always teach everyone. You've got it down to five minutes and twenty seconds. Your opening lines are: "Youneedtenvictorypointstowinthegame. Eachsettlementisonepoint. Eachcityistwopoints."
c. Someone else, and you occasionally interrupt if they forget to say something they were about to say.
d. Someone else, and you continuously interrupt with things like, "Wood is really important!", "Don't trade with Josh! He always wins!", and "These dice never roll tens so don't bother with the ten hexes!"
e. Look, there's the monkey! Ha ha! He touched Rachel's breast! Ha ha! I sure wish I was that monkey!
f. Man, can't we just play already? I'm not going to remember anything you just said! Why can't we play Sorry? This is a dumb game.
7. When is a good time to start thinking about your moves?
a. Three months in advance, after you have read the rule book and all errata and programmed your computer to step through all scenarios.
b. After looking at the board setup, while planning a strategy for the game.
c. A round or so in advance, while others are thinking about their moves.
d. After you roll the dice for your turn. The game changes so much each round.
e. A few minutes after the other players call you away from the TV set
f. I don't want to have to think about my moves.
8. What is a good strategy?
a. Using your relationship to the other players as psychological advantage, threatening severe reprisals if they come anywhere near you, and running the bank out of resources.
b. It depends on what resources are more available and how many other players are playing.
c. Cities, because they double the production of your best locations, and you only need four locations to win, anyway.
d. Roads and settlements, because roads only take two resources, and Longest Road is c00l!
e. Waiting for the other players to tell you what to do.
f. Strategy?
9. What are some good tactics?
a. Positioning the board so that you are sitting in the shadows, quoting obscure rules during the game to undermine the other player's confidence, and arranging for a regional disaster to happen that will distract your opponents during the game.
b. Many good trades, since the more you trade, the better you net against multiple opponents.
c. Quick ore and wheat production.
d. Building lots of roads, hoarding resources, and rolling lucky.
e. Saying "what?" a lot of times, until the other players just tell you what to do.
f. Tactics?
10. How do you roll the dice?
a: In a dice tower.
b: In a box, so that no one can argue about the dice landing unevenly.
c: On the side of the table.
d: Across the board, knocking over all the pieces.
e: Someone else rolled them for you.
f: You kiss them and say "Come on, lucky 7's!"
11. What happens after you rolled the dice?
a: Take the results of the first die, look up on the master table, go to table 3a, take the results of the second die, look across row 4 on table 3a, see footnote 24b, ...
b: You hand everybody their resources.
c: You take your resources.
d: You ask what resources you get. After you get them, you say, "Is that all? Don't I get a wood?"
e: Hmmm? What?
f: You ask what the cards mean again, you look at the resource cost chart again, you show everyone what you have, and you ask whether you can build a settlement and where.
12. What is a good trade offer?
a: You give me all of your resources and I won't crush you like a bug.
b: I'll give you two wheats and one sheep for a wood and an ore, and I'll give you that wood and a brick for two ore.
c: Any one card for two cards.
d: Wood? Wood? Wood for sheep? Ha ha! Wood for sheep! No, my sheep for your wood. Ha ha! Two sheep? ("No one has wood") Three sheep? Anyone have wood? Oh c'mon. I need to build my fifteenth road! I'm this close! Brick? Anyone have brick? Sheep for brick? Two sheep for brick? Three sheep? Three sheep and two wheat for a brick and a wood? Anyone have wood?
e: I'm done.
f: What do I need to build a settlement again? I'll give you this green thing for a road. Lamb. I mean sheep.
13. Who won?
a: You're still looking at the tables. Victory will be yours, eventually, if not this game, then the next.
b: You did. Again.
c: You came close, but you lost because no tens were rolled and all of your production was on the ten.
d: You had three settlements and Longest Road. Pretty awesome!
e: Hmmm? Is the game over? Who won?
f: Can we play Sorry now? Come on, I played your game, it's only fair. Sorry is a great game, and you don't have to think so much!
You are a:
a. War gamer
b. Obsessed Euro-gamer
c. Average Euro-gamer
d. New Euro-gamer
e. Annoying gamer groupie
f. Non-gamer
Yehuda
a: You thank your friend for the warning, gather a crack squad of elite troops, and blow up the gaming group location a week in advance.
b: You say, "OK."
c: You say, "Again, we played that last week!"
d: You say, "W00T! I luv Settlars!"
e: You say, "Whatever."
f: You say, "Settlers of what? Is that like Monopoly? You guys are so obsessed with these weird complicated games. Can't we just play Sorry?"
2. You decide to go because:
a: You remember that Settlers has dice, variable terrain, units, and so on, so it could, in a weird way, if you squint a little, be considered a light war game.
b: It's the game group.
c: You might play some other games before or after.
d: Settlars rox!
e: You don't have anything to do on Thursdays since they canceled Friends last year.
f: Your friend tells you it's easy to understand and play.
3. Who's bringing the game?
a. You are, along with three extra copies, just in case, as well as a spare one you have on call at the game store. Each piece is stored in its own Plexiglas storage container for easy setup.
b. You are, of course.
c. One of you is, and you know who.
d. Someone is.
e. Whatever.
f. Is that tonight?
4. Who sets up the game?
a. You do; actually, you did several weeks ago, and you soldered Plexiglas over the game, repainted all of the pieces, and added 3D realistic terrain to the board to simulate cover and concealment.
b. You do, since everyone else forgets that, according to the original German rules, you have to lay out the hexes 5 center, 4 on the right, 4 on the left, 3 on the right, and then 3 on the left.
c. You can, or someone else will.
d. Watching it get set up is cool! Look! Three wood hexes! I'm calling that space!
e. Hey, they sure have a lot of games here. Look a TV. I wonder what's on TV.
f. What are we playing again? Does it always take so long to set up? Can't we just play already?
5. What variant are you playing?
a: The variant where you set up Settlers on one table and play ASL on the other. Failing that, every variant that includes direct confrontation, including Cities and Knights of Catan, Nuclear War of Catan, Armed Ambush of Catan, and the Franco-Prussian midday skirmish of August 22, 1875 just-after-they-had-their-afternoon-tea of Catan.
b: All of them.
c: Cities and Knights, and maybe Seafarers
d: Vanilla Settlers
e: Hey, they're showing a rerun of Friends on channel 63 in Spanish. Ha ha! That Chandler!
f: What's a variant? Is that complicated?
6. Who teaches the newbies, and how?
a. You bring out your 300 page glossy custom made manual as well as printouts of every web page with errata that ever mentioned the word Settlers of Catan. Your opening line is: "Men. This is war."
b. You do, since you always teach everyone. You've got it down to five minutes and twenty seconds. Your opening lines are: "Youneedtenvictorypointstowinthegame. Eachsettlementisonepoint. Eachcityistwopoints."
c. Someone else, and you occasionally interrupt if they forget to say something they were about to say.
d. Someone else, and you continuously interrupt with things like, "Wood is really important!", "Don't trade with Josh! He always wins!", and "These dice never roll tens so don't bother with the ten hexes!"
e. Look, there's the monkey! Ha ha! He touched Rachel's breast! Ha ha! I sure wish I was that monkey!
f. Man, can't we just play already? I'm not going to remember anything you just said! Why can't we play Sorry? This is a dumb game.
7. When is a good time to start thinking about your moves?
a. Three months in advance, after you have read the rule book and all errata and programmed your computer to step through all scenarios.
b. After looking at the board setup, while planning a strategy for the game.
c. A round or so in advance, while others are thinking about their moves.
d. After you roll the dice for your turn. The game changes so much each round.
e. A few minutes after the other players call you away from the TV set
f. I don't want to have to think about my moves.
8. What is a good strategy?
a. Using your relationship to the other players as psychological advantage, threatening severe reprisals if they come anywhere near you, and running the bank out of resources.
b. It depends on what resources are more available and how many other players are playing.
c. Cities, because they double the production of your best locations, and you only need four locations to win, anyway.
d. Roads and settlements, because roads only take two resources, and Longest Road is c00l!
e. Waiting for the other players to tell you what to do.
f. Strategy?
9. What are some good tactics?
a. Positioning the board so that you are sitting in the shadows, quoting obscure rules during the game to undermine the other player's confidence, and arranging for a regional disaster to happen that will distract your opponents during the game.
b. Many good trades, since the more you trade, the better you net against multiple opponents.
c. Quick ore and wheat production.
d. Building lots of roads, hoarding resources, and rolling lucky.
e. Saying "what?" a lot of times, until the other players just tell you what to do.
f. Tactics?
10. How do you roll the dice?
a: In a dice tower.
b: In a box, so that no one can argue about the dice landing unevenly.
c: On the side of the table.
d: Across the board, knocking over all the pieces.
e: Someone else rolled them for you.
f: You kiss them and say "Come on, lucky 7's!"
11. What happens after you rolled the dice?
a: Take the results of the first die, look up on the master table, go to table 3a, take the results of the second die, look across row 4 on table 3a, see footnote 24b, ...
b: You hand everybody their resources.
c: You take your resources.
d: You ask what resources you get. After you get them, you say, "Is that all? Don't I get a wood?"
e: Hmmm? What?
f: You ask what the cards mean again, you look at the resource cost chart again, you show everyone what you have, and you ask whether you can build a settlement and where.
12. What is a good trade offer?
a: You give me all of your resources and I won't crush you like a bug.
b: I'll give you two wheats and one sheep for a wood and an ore, and I'll give you that wood and a brick for two ore.
c: Any one card for two cards.
d: Wood? Wood? Wood for sheep? Ha ha! Wood for sheep! No, my sheep for your wood. Ha ha! Two sheep? ("No one has wood") Three sheep? Anyone have wood? Oh c'mon. I need to build my fifteenth road! I'm this close! Brick? Anyone have brick? Sheep for brick? Two sheep for brick? Three sheep? Three sheep and two wheat for a brick and a wood? Anyone have wood?
e: I'm done.
f: What do I need to build a settlement again? I'll give you this green thing for a road. Lamb. I mean sheep.
13. Who won?
a: You're still looking at the tables. Victory will be yours, eventually, if not this game, then the next.
b: You did. Again.
c: You came close, but you lost because no tens were rolled and all of your production was on the ten.
d: You had three settlements and Longest Road. Pretty awesome!
e: Hmmm? Is the game over? Who won?
f: Can we play Sorry now? Come on, I played your game, it's only fair. Sorry is a great game, and you don't have to think so much!
You are a:
a. War gamer
b. Obsessed Euro-gamer
c. Average Euro-gamer
d. New Euro-gamer
e. Annoying gamer groupie
f. Non-gamer
Yehuda
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Session Report
Session report up here.
Games played: Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation, Yinsh, Amun Re, El Grande, Apples 2 Apples, Puerto Rico, Modern Art.
Earlier in the day I also played a two player Power Grid game with Saarya, home from school on a rare occasion. It's still good, but a bit mechanical with only two players. Possibly that just may be because we're not thinking more than a turn or two in advance.
Now that we both have some experience, the game ended pretty closely. In the last round, there was finally a 7 capacity plant available. If I got it, I would be able to both build and power 21 cities, but I could only bid up to 45. Saarya took it at 46, and he was only able to build and power 20 cities. I decided to end the game, anyway, by building my 21st city. We could both power 20, and we ended the game with him winning by $1. Probably, if I had waited one more round, we would have both ended the game at 21 cities but I would have had slightly more cash.
I went to my brother's for the Purim meal, and my whole family was there. Of course, I brought a few games in case we had some time afterwards. I ended up playing Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation with one of my nephews. The house was too chaotic to allow any further game playing.
And in other news: there really IS a branded version of Settlers of Catan, currently for sale on eBay (at a very high price). An exerpt from the description:
On BGG: Communication in Catan, The
Also a Whisky themed version for the Glen Grant Distillery Company: Wasser des Lebens, Das
I managed to secure Kelly Clarkson tix for my daughter. Visiting superstars are usually very expensive for the average Israeli salary; these were cheaper tickets, only $15. Of course, they were snatched up very quickly. Then the date of the concert changed from Monday night to Saturday night, and some people who had Monday night tickets couldn't go on Saturday night. I managed to buy them from one such person. And she wasn't even scalping them.
This is a great once-in-a-lifetime birthday present for my daughter, who really likes KC's music. Kelly isn't exactly my musical style of choice, but I think she is pretty talented for her style, and considering the very few performers who make it to Israel, this is a great opportunity to see one. And her songs are relatively wholesome, too.
I'm actually impressed that she is including Israel on her first international tour, which also deserves support. Of course, one of her band members (guitarist?) is an Israeli, which may have something to do with it.
Now I just have to figure out how to get her to the concert in Tel Aviv on Sat night by 7:30, when shabbat ends in Jerusalem at 6:30.
Yehuda
Games played: Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation, Yinsh, Amun Re, El Grande, Apples 2 Apples, Puerto Rico, Modern Art.
Earlier in the day I also played a two player Power Grid game with Saarya, home from school on a rare occasion. It's still good, but a bit mechanical with only two players. Possibly that just may be because we're not thinking more than a turn or two in advance.
Now that we both have some experience, the game ended pretty closely. In the last round, there was finally a 7 capacity plant available. If I got it, I would be able to both build and power 21 cities, but I could only bid up to 45. Saarya took it at 46, and he was only able to build and power 20 cities. I decided to end the game, anyway, by building my 21st city. We could both power 20, and we ended the game with him winning by $1. Probably, if I had waited one more round, we would have both ended the game at 21 cities but I would have had slightly more cash.
I went to my brother's for the Purim meal, and my whole family was there. Of course, I brought a few games in case we had some time afterwards. I ended up playing Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation with one of my nephews. The house was too chaotic to allow any further game playing.
And in other news: there really IS a branded version of Settlers of Catan, currently for sale on eBay (at a very high price). An exerpt from the description:
A promotional version of the original Settlers game. Produced by Kosmos for the French telecom company Alcatel. It's the same game but with a telecom theme. The traditional resources are replaced by telephones, cable tv, internet, mobile phone and multimedia. The longest road becomes the longest fibre line and the robber becomes Government regulation! The land types become: rural, residential, metropolitan, industrial and high tech.
On BGG: Communication in Catan, The
Also a Whisky themed version for the Glen Grant Distillery Company: Wasser des Lebens, Das
I managed to secure Kelly Clarkson tix for my daughter. Visiting superstars are usually very expensive for the average Israeli salary; these were cheaper tickets, only $15. Of course, they were snatched up very quickly. Then the date of the concert changed from Monday night to Saturday night, and some people who had Monday night tickets couldn't go on Saturday night. I managed to buy them from one such person. And she wasn't even scalping them.
This is a great once-in-a-lifetime birthday present for my daughter, who really likes KC's music. Kelly isn't exactly my musical style of choice, but I think she is pretty talented for her style, and considering the very few performers who make it to Israel, this is a great opportunity to see one. And her songs are relatively wholesome, too.
I'm actually impressed that she is including Israel on her first international tour, which also deserves support. Of course, one of her band members (guitarist?) is an Israeli, which may have something to do with it.
Now I just have to figure out how to get her to the concert in Tel Aviv on Sat night by 7:30, when shabbat ends in Jerusalem at 6:30.
Yehuda
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The Ballad of a Game of Dvonn
As I was a-walkin through BGG.con
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
As I was a-walkin through BGG.con
I spied a fair couple who were playing Dvonn
Sing Catan away, and only ten points to go
The lady played a good game, as anyone could see
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
The lady played a good game, as anyone could see
For the gentleman had lost five games and the lady but three
Sing Catan away, and only nine points to go
Oh you take the black ones and I'll take the white
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Oh you take the black ones and I'll take the white
For I haven't won many games with the black ones tonight
Sing Catan away, and only eight points to go
Yes you take the white ones and I'll take the black
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Yes you take the white ones and I'll take the black
But the black ones won't help you when it's talent you lack
Sing Catan away, and only seven points to go
Well they'd only been playing 'bout a minute or so
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Well they'd only been playing 'bout a minute or so
When the lady's brow furrowed and her cheeks lost their glow
Sing Catan away, and only six points to go
Well they'd only been playing three minutes, not more
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Well they'd only been playing three minutes, not more
When the lady's face reddened and her head seemed quite sore
Sing Catan away, and only five points to go
Well they'd only been playing five minutes and done
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Well they'd only been playing five minutes and done
For the game had reached its ending and the gentleman had won
Sing Catan away, and only four points to go
You must have been lucky, said the lady, quite flat
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
You must have been lucky, said the lady, quite flat
For you haven't the skill to have beaten me like that
Sing Catan away, and only three points to go
Said the man, oh, I may not have talent or skill
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Said the man, oh, I may not have talent or skill
But I play with good manners and I play with good will
Sing Catan away, and only two points to go
And the gentleman stood up and he wandered away
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
And the gentleman stood up and he wandered away
And the couple played no more together that day
Sing Catan away, and only one point to go
And I thought, though he'd lost to her, five games to four
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
And I thought, though he'd lost to her, five games to four
His parting remark had about evened the score
Sing Catan away, and the game's over, you know
Yehuda, 2006
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
As I was a-walkin through BGG.con
I spied a fair couple who were playing Dvonn
Sing Catan away, and only ten points to go
The lady played a good game, as anyone could see
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
The lady played a good game, as anyone could see
For the gentleman had lost five games and the lady but three
Sing Catan away, and only nine points to go
Oh you take the black ones and I'll take the white
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Oh you take the black ones and I'll take the white
For I haven't won many games with the black ones tonight
Sing Catan away, and only eight points to go
Yes you take the white ones and I'll take the black
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Yes you take the white ones and I'll take the black
But the black ones won't help you when it's talent you lack
Sing Catan away, and only seven points to go
Well they'd only been playing 'bout a minute or so
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Well they'd only been playing 'bout a minute or so
When the lady's brow furrowed and her cheeks lost their glow
Sing Catan away, and only six points to go
Well they'd only been playing three minutes, not more
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Well they'd only been playing three minutes, not more
When the lady's face reddened and her head seemed quite sore
Sing Catan away, and only five points to go
Well they'd only been playing five minutes and done
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Well they'd only been playing five minutes and done
For the game had reached its ending and the gentleman had won
Sing Catan away, and only four points to go
You must have been lucky, said the lady, quite flat
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
You must have been lucky, said the lady, quite flat
For you haven't the skill to have beaten me like that
Sing Catan away, and only three points to go
Said the man, oh, I may not have talent or skill
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
Said the man, oh, I may not have talent or skill
But I play with good manners and I play with good will
Sing Catan away, and only two points to go
And the gentleman stood up and he wandered away
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
And the gentleman stood up and he wandered away
And the couple played no more together that day
Sing Catan away, and only one point to go
And I thought, though he'd lost to her, five games to four
Sing Catan, sing Catan, sing Catan-i-o
And I thought, though he'd lost to her, five games to four
His parting remark had about evened the score
Sing Catan away, and the game's over, you know
Yehuda, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Weekend Gaming
Dinner: We ate out at a friend's house. She had other guests including one named Rebbecca. Our mutual friend had been trying to put us together (as it turns out, we had met before) because Rebbecca also plays games with her family all the time. She had brought a little game to show me when she had heard that I was coming. It turned out to be the Norwegian version of Pass the Pigs.
Rebbecca and my friend both come from Norway near the Oslo region.
Lunch: Invited out again. When we got there, their child was putting away Wonders of the World Monopoly (a Hebrew translation of the English version). This was the same family whose mother had asked me to teach her the rules to Rat-a-Tat Cat, but them hopelessly forgot them again. Non-gamers; what can you do?
Afternoon: When I got home I found one of the single mom's over with her daughter in tow. I wrote about her previously. This time I remember her name: Dvira. Dvira talks about me to her mom and has wanted to come back and play again since her last visit. We were both happy to reacquaint. She is about 7 years old.
We played The Menorah Game with her mom before her mom went off with Rachel to Rachel's torah class. Then we played three games one on one, and two more after Tal came in and joined us. Dvira didn't win any, but she definitely got better after each game. After that I introduced her to Settlers of Catan. It was a great game, tightly contested. We were all sitting at about 6 or 7 points. I got Largest Army which brought me to 8 points, but then Dvira built a settlement and after a round or two stole Longest Road from Tal to clinch the victory. She was quite excited.
We may see her at the game night, although she can only stay until 8 o'clock.
The Set system: On the way over to lunch I was thinking about how to transform the Set game into a system of games using a pack of playing cards. I thought about a little math game that plays without the picture cards. The black cards are face value, the red cards are face value plus ten. Cards are slowly flipped over. The first player to call an equation that uses cards on the table gets them. Equations can be formed using at least one of +, -, *, /, and an =.
Some variants: You can add the jacks and play that when there is an even number of jacks on the table the black cards are plus ten and the red cards are regular. You can also play that players keep their pile face open, and the top card of each player's pile can also be used (and is taken by the player forming the equation).
Yehuda
Rebbecca and my friend both come from Norway near the Oslo region.
Lunch: Invited out again. When we got there, their child was putting away Wonders of the World Monopoly (a Hebrew translation of the English version). This was the same family whose mother had asked me to teach her the rules to Rat-a-Tat Cat, but them hopelessly forgot them again. Non-gamers; what can you do?
Afternoon: When I got home I found one of the single mom's over with her daughter in tow. I wrote about her previously. This time I remember her name: Dvira. Dvira talks about me to her mom and has wanted to come back and play again since her last visit. We were both happy to reacquaint. She is about 7 years old.
We played The Menorah Game with her mom before her mom went off with Rachel to Rachel's torah class. Then we played three games one on one, and two more after Tal came in and joined us. Dvira didn't win any, but she definitely got better after each game. After that I introduced her to Settlers of Catan. It was a great game, tightly contested. We were all sitting at about 6 or 7 points. I got Largest Army which brought me to 8 points, but then Dvira built a settlement and after a round or two stole Longest Road from Tal to clinch the victory. She was quite excited.
We may see her at the game night, although she can only stay until 8 o'clock.
The Set system: On the way over to lunch I was thinking about how to transform the Set game into a system of games using a pack of playing cards. I thought about a little math game that plays without the picture cards. The black cards are face value, the red cards are face value plus ten. Cards are slowly flipped over. The first player to call an equation that uses cards on the table gets them. Equations can be formed using at least one of +, -, *, /, and an =.
Some variants: You can add the jacks and play that when there is an even number of jacks on the table the black cards are plus ten and the red cards are regular. You can also play that players keep their pile face open, and the top card of each player's pile can also be used (and is taken by the player forming the equation).
Yehuda
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Anti-climactic Game Endings
This is what happens when you track too many blogs. Someone started a discussion about board games that peter out with anti-climactic endings, but I can't remember who. I search back a week in bloglines to no avail.
Anyhoo, I just wanted to add a confirmation of this phenomenon. Lately, even some excellent games seem to end with a dawning slow realization that the game is over slightly before it should be.
Examples:
Power Grid. It comes down to some positioning that happens a few rounds before the last. Even if you don't realize this until the last round, once the person with the most plant capacity has built an equivalent amount of cities, everyone else just tosses their cards in without finishing the round. Bleah.
Maharaja. Similar situation. Someone pulls ahead in palaces and then the last three rounds are useless attempts to catch up, since the leader probably has enough money already to drop the last palaces, and it is really difficult to stop this. Again, cards are figuratively tossed in at the beginning of the last round, rather than finishing out the round.
Taj Mahal. Another major offender in runaway leader, if the lead is far enough.
In extreme cases of Settlers of Catan this can also happen, but generally speaking with enough lucky dice and a trade embargo it always remains possible to catch up. In Puerto Rico, you may know that you've lost, but the two leading players almost never know who has won.
So what is wrong here? What is the pattern?
In Power Grid, it's that there is no hidden scoring. In Maharaja, not only is there no hidden scoring, the victory condition is just too easy to fulfill once you are leading. In Taj, it's that there are not enough points to earn each round, even with the hand points (a poor attempt to add hidden points to the game, in my opinion).
There's no pattern. It's just a slight negative feature of otherwise great games. You would think that they could have gone back to the drawing board and added something to fix this, but either it didn't matter enough to them to fix, or they didn't consider it a problem.
Whatever it is, now that it has been pointed out, it bothers me. Don't you hate when that happens?
Yehuda
Anyhoo, I just wanted to add a confirmation of this phenomenon. Lately, even some excellent games seem to end with a dawning slow realization that the game is over slightly before it should be.
Examples:
Power Grid. It comes down to some positioning that happens a few rounds before the last. Even if you don't realize this until the last round, once the person with the most plant capacity has built an equivalent amount of cities, everyone else just tosses their cards in without finishing the round. Bleah.
Maharaja. Similar situation. Someone pulls ahead in palaces and then the last three rounds are useless attempts to catch up, since the leader probably has enough money already to drop the last palaces, and it is really difficult to stop this. Again, cards are figuratively tossed in at the beginning of the last round, rather than finishing out the round.
Taj Mahal. Another major offender in runaway leader, if the lead is far enough.
In extreme cases of Settlers of Catan this can also happen, but generally speaking with enough lucky dice and a trade embargo it always remains possible to catch up. In Puerto Rico, you may know that you've lost, but the two leading players almost never know who has won.
So what is wrong here? What is the pattern?
In Power Grid, it's that there is no hidden scoring. In Maharaja, not only is there no hidden scoring, the victory condition is just too easy to fulfill once you are leading. In Taj, it's that there are not enough points to earn each round, even with the hand points (a poor attempt to add hidden points to the game, in my opinion).
There's no pattern. It's just a slight negative feature of otherwise great games. You would think that they could have gone back to the drawing board and added something to fix this, but either it didn't matter enough to them to fix, or they didn't consider it a problem.
Whatever it is, now that it has been pointed out, it bothers me. Don't you hate when that happens?
Yehuda
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