Hmm I don’t know. I have been meaning to try more games from Gerdts, if for no other reason than I adore Concordia. But the central premise - that you don’t own the pieces, would probably rub me the wrong way. I appreciate clear designation between ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ in games (and maybe in life? I’m an only child, what can I say… 
)
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Just finished playing two games of Unmatched with a friend over TTS. Which means I have finally played against someone other than Medusa!
First round was my Alice vs. his Dracula. This was his first time playing, but I don’t really know any of the decks all that well, despite my love of the game, so I did not feel like I had an unfair advantage from card knowledge. We played on the Sherwood map, which has the heroes start very close together. He started off attacking my Jabberwock with Dracula, which I had to take as I had no defense cards for it in hand. Jabberwock hit back twice on my turn, but only did superficial damage. It died on the next turn.
Tried some hit and run tactics with Alice, taking out a couple of the Sisters, but ran out of luck when attacking Dracula with a card that would move me away afterward got Feinted. Two attacks from the Count ended the game.
Next up, he stuck with Dracula and I tried out Sherlock Holmes using the Soho map. This match was much more in my favor. Sherlock eliminated a Sister right away after being moved by Ravening Seduction. Watson was able to take another out a couple of turns later.
A massive Beastform attack took Watson out soon after, while Sherlock was able to remove the final Sister with a Counterpunch. The Count became fearful without his minions and ran away a bunch. After boosting to catch up to him on he rooftops, we had a stretch of back and forth attacks before he ran away again.
Here is where I say the match was in my favor. Almost all of Holmes’ Versatile cards have a value of 3, which ties or beats a majority of Dracula’s attacks, especially when there are no Sisters on the board to boost a couple of them. He did not get his Baptism of Blood cards (which heal for 2 and bring back a Sister) until the last 5 cards in his deck. This brought him back up to 11 health while Sherlock was still resting at 14.
He managed to land a Beastform attack when he had just two cards in hand and one in the deck, which brought me down to 8, and then 7 at the beginning of his next turn, which made him draw his last card. We called the game there, as he did not have enough cards to win and would die from fatigue before I would.
Interesting matchup, which I would be curious to try again to see if he was just unlucky, or if Dracula really is that bad of a matchup against Holmes.
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Well, just finished a couple of hours ago a long, long game of 1830 at four players.
That was a tad much. Enjoyed it fully, but a game this long I’d rather take any other genre, if I am honest. Considering that the teach took the best part of an hour, and it could not be avoided, as the owner of the game had only played it once and it was a while back (3-4 years?).
We started at about 11.15 am, and after getting two calls from my partner, we all decided at around 7.30 pm to call it a day, and not wait till the bank ran out of money but count up after the last full round finished, as we were all on our maximum stock cards anyway, and multiply our income by 4 turns. So we were done by around 8.15 pm.
It was incredible how tight the game ended up being, where I finished third, but the first was reachable at short distance of $700, and the last player just a few hundred below me. I think all of our final scores were in a $1500 bracket, so goodness only knows how it would have turned up if we finished those turns left.
I think I still would rather play a Brass game, or even something like City of Big Shoulders where you can see where the end is at. But if anybody made the Steam app, I’d happily give it a go, as it would simplify s much all the upkeep of maths and currency back and forwards. I am pretty good at maths, but after 8 hours, I was sort of giving up and resourcing to the phone calculator. Plus the ability to be able to save, of course, and take the game in two or three stages would be great.
So to me it was good as an experience, but investing that kind of time and energy, I think I would rather play a sandbox game or something with a theme more attractive, like a Twilight Imperium or an Eclipse.
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I’m told you really need one experienced player to push the game clock, and with new players and 1830 in particular, that means buying lots of trains. Or something. Definitely not a game you want to allow to drag.
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I lot of modern 1830-alikes have mechanisms to keep the trains moving so the game doesn’t stagnate.
18xx veterans will tell you that the only person who doesn’t want trains to move is the person getting the most money per OR; and even then, eventually that person is going to need something to do with their dividends
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I won our 4th game of Space Base. We are still playing with the extra rolls to simulate other players. My partner got the 10 spot dual arrow before I could grab it and proceeded to immediately use it to great effect and lots of money. So I went for the low numbers and invested in victory point cards that would also score when I moved them to the other side. After a couple of rounds he had tons of money but I would consistently score first 1, then two and finally 3 VP… he noticed when I was at 20 (half the game). It was too late to catch up even though he managed to make me loose 4 VP twice! His panicky colony buying wasn’t enough.
A lot of 4s were rolled… low numbers rule the space!
PS: this is a game that definitely needs a playmat for sliding around the cards. Playing without is… meh.
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This is right. If you arent earning the most in an OR, you are losing.
1830 style games are about creative destruction. So buying trains is often a good idea as you eanr more and you push the train rush so your rivals’ old trains would go rust.
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Played a game of Suburbia with my wife last night. She was well-positioned to get a mint for more income and more cash, and then another mint for more income and more cash. I was doing okay with factories and airports, but then I wanted to get greens for my private goal and didn’t have many good places to put them.
The clincher came when a casino came out, which I had to spend 10 bucks to lake so that she wouldn’t get it, but another casino came out just a few rounds after on her turn, so that was the nail in my coffin. The scores weren’t too far apart because her reputation never got that high and we got two goals apiece, but it was obvious enough that we didn’t bother fully counting at the end.
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Star Wars Rebellion
My youngest loves this. It’s good, but it’s a lot of setup and a long game. If it wasn’t Star Wars I would have no interest in it at all. The Rebels (me) claimed a surprise win. I sabotaged their builds and got loads of alliance. Basically, my build ended up being bigger than theirs. I think we’re never aggressive enough as the Imperials and probably look for the perfect battle at the rebel base.
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Oh, plenty of trains were being bought, I seriously don’t know how the game would have gone faster. All the other three player were more experienced than me, and I am not a slow player at all.
The blocking with stations and the always trying to find the most profitable route (and the good thing is that can be collective) plus the back and forwards with paper money are the main time consumers, and still there is always going to be the “I want to replace this tile” that can take some time, specially checking all the possible legal moves. So with that massive amount of upkeep, that’s why I think these games on a e-setting would benefit a lot, specially by the computer doing all the calculations for you, to start with.
But, as I said, all in all considered, I think slightly lighter games are going to be more attractive to me, or games with other theme and mechanics. It was great to feel what is like to play an 18XX game, but for how often I can sit at a table for a whole 9 hours, I’d rather play something else, and leave it for very special occasions.
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Well, I hear of 4 hour games, so I know it can go faster.
But I have no experience with it, and I expect your experience is not uncommon. I’m just curious, because there is a second-hand 1830 available locally.
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It annoys me when 18xx advocates recommend 1830 as an introductory vector into 18xx. It would be like someone introducing new players to negotiations games with Civilisation (not really a coincidence that the author is the same in these two games, as they represent an era of game design that doesn’t necessarily reflective current trends).
18Chesapeake is “1830, except designed in the 21st century” and it still has problems due to its adherence to the model that 1830 cast.
1830/18Chessie are bad ambassadors to the subgenre, but maintain popularity due, exclusively, to the champions of 18xx being nearly perfectly coincident with the group of people who have been playing 1830 for 35 years.
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Where would you start with 18XX then?
1889 is similar from what I can gather. If there was a satisfying 2-3 hour one I’d be interested to hear it. That said the high monetary cost usually puts me off.
On the 18XX fora on BGG, there are more than a few characters who state their opinion as fact.
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I am a total newbie to the 18XX genre, and if there are other games that are more “agile”, I can see myself giving them a go…
As to buying them… unlikely. But the experience wasn’t off-putting other than by its length, to be fair.
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I think our local experts tried to explain where to start here.
I am still waiting for my 18DO… looking forward to that one for sure. No never played any 18XX up to now. I’ll figure it out. 18DO is still going to be worth having to me.
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1861/67 looks to be a good starting point. It may not have great legs though. 1846 is coming back around with a new printing soon.
1862 is 18xx-extra but has been amazing solo (and seemingly multiplayer, but I don’t have direct experience).
I think @EnterTheWyvern may be our local expert at this point, as they’ve been able to play much more than I have.
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More Cthulhu: Death May Die on Saturday, playing a new episode and a new Elder One (Hastur). Bit of a tricky play, we had to move moon symbols to a certain place, while moving through the phases of the moon, causing the tokens to flip, and then they can’t be moved. Got thru it, I died early ish. Hastur gives you tokens that mount up and force you to roll and take damage.
The Fuzzies , first play. A simple stacking game, with little balls of fluff that sort of stick together (unless you need them to, in which case they fall apart). Quick fun game (was a KS).
Sunday:
Another game of Cthulhu: Death May Die . Played with Hastur again, so knew how it would end up, with those damn yellow signs that he hands out as he moves along the track. These eventually cause you wounds. In comparison, Cthulhu sends you insane instead of wounding – but both kill you. It’s a cool system where you have half of the deck with cards from the Elder One, and the other half from the episode. So the core box gives you two Elder Ones, and six episodes. And of course different investigators change the gameplay up as well. Game went fairly well, but (again!) I died before getting to punch Hastur. To paraphrase Edison, I haven’t failed, I’ve just found ways of not succeeding. I had the marksmen skill, which allows you to shoot things from a room away. But I found myself stuck in a room with several enemies, and couldn’t move out without them all following me. And yet again, the last player pulled out the win! Very exciting! One day I hope to contribute to the win.
Fuzzies again
Nidavelllir – Once again, I lost by a single point. And its a game where the scores are 250+. If I had just upgraded one more coin!
Bandido , such a simple game, we must continue to play until we win.
Oriflamme
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Played a couple of new (to us) games yesterday. Everdell with the Pearlbrook expansion and Shasn.
Everdell continues to be a massive table hog (the expansion adds an extension to the board). The extra resources and objectives were okay, but I think I prefer Spirecrest.
Shasn is a territory control game with a political theme. It’s quite light and a bit “learn about politics through play”. We played with the “fall of Rome” deck, and it was quite enjoyable, but we thought the map was a bit large with 3 players and it would likely benefit from the max player count of 5.
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1861/67 I really like. It’s got distribution in the US so is comparatively cheap there. Europe has a few. UK though, it depends what you can get it for on the secondary market it seems. It’s the cheapest option. It doesn’t strike me as the longest game as ‘The Russian’ forces the pace along potentially. It seems to have legs too as it’s stayed popular.
The auctions are fairly interesting without being almost entirely traps so shouldn’t hose 1 person first play. The mergers are fun and the dual track lay and loans mean plenty happens throughout the game. The production is luxurious. It comes at the expense of a huge box but after the chore of putting stickers on it should facilitate easy play with the trays and graphic design.
1889 is great, I will definitely back the GT kickstarter.
Of those the are currently available, I really like 18Mex. Arguably close to 1889 in being similar to 1830 but shorter if you’re up for a bit more of the ‘financial’ stream so if you want to try it sooner then that’s be my shout on that side although 18Chesapeake is a good game and the export will speed things along.
I find myself currently enjoying more the ops/route building side of things. Partly I feel the stick trashing has a negative petty air until you know what you’re doing and I don’t yet know what I’m doing there. So I’m rather excited to play 1861 irl especially as one friend said it was their favourite so there’s that recommendation.
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Yesterday, my wife and I played another game of Lords of Vegas using the Up expansion. This game probably had the best distribution of cards that we have ever played. No casino felt horribly shorted, none of them had a bunch of their cards come out really early, really the only downside was two of the Strip cards came out before either of us had a casino on it.
The lots came out in interesting ways as well. I had nearly all of the A and B blocks, my wife had most of C, D was the really contested one which I eventually did get the majority, and E was an even split. My wife won the game, and it essentially happened in the middle after she managed a 6 tile casino in C, which (due to 2 player rules which does not use the F block, but still pays out when they are drawn) gave her 12 points (though probably only two or three movements on the score track) and something like 50 million in one turn. On her next turn she was able to Raise that casino, making it the equivalent of a 12 tile casino, and though I think it only paid out once more before the end of the game, it was enough. Score was 60 - 44.
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