The Sunday duel of Beyond the Sun finally went the other way. My friend won with exactly the same order and combination of achievements that I had yesterday. Today, my game just would not come together. She blocked me from colonizing once and that cost me my precarious resource balance. 65 to 56 points.
After that I introduced her to Hardback intending to start an async game. Instead we quickly breezed through a full game and started a second one to play over the next couple of days.
Played Herbaceous Pocket again. Lost 53 to 55 (Iām telling you, my partner is a secret boardgames wizard). It was the 5pt herb ābiscuitā for a full glass jar that swung it. Super cute, very portable game.
I love Herbaceous, but I always thought that herb biscuit kind of sucks. If you manage to pick up a 1, 2, and 3, youāre already in a pretty good spotāyou donāt need another 5 points on top of that!
I spent the day in the garden, which included some Rallyman GT (this monthās solo challenge).
(Realised during playing that it invokes comics nostalgia better than actual comics ever can ā that feeling of āthis thing happened in that other comic, which you donāt have, but you can work out what it must have been likeā.)
The herb biscuit is just so you can get a high score.
Why is this a crossing of two not circular courses?
Yes. Inquiring minds need to know!
My partner and I played a second round of Maracaibo tonight, with similar scores (and associated similar red face for me) as our first game. My partner won with 173 to my 142, a few points lower than our first game for each of us, but another 30ish-point gap. This isnāt the woeful mismatch it appears to be, or at least I donāt think so; I think with a few more rounds weāll see that gap close a little. Iāve been more playful with the gameās tempo and Iām pretty sure thatās been entirely to my detriment so far.
In any case, weāre both super intrigued by the gameplay, and it plays very well with our regularly interrupted lifestyle, so Iām pretty stoked to have a heavier game I can expect to explore deeply.
Itās not, really; itās a series of four short sprints. The central start tile (where the red car is in the picture) is the common starting point; each stage goes along one of the āarmsā from there, and once itās started you move the central tile to the end to act as the finish line. Then you put the tile back in the middle, turn it to match up with the next road and run the next stage.
(I like to change things around rather than just having circuit races all the time. Havenāt done a pure A-to-B yet but itās a possibility for the future.)
Both my partner and I had the hell of a Monday (including her car needing to go to the panel beaters) so no game night yesterday. But she was well spent by 8 pm, so I had a solo game of Firefly.
Instead of playing the preset solo scenarios, I adapted solo rules to the card I got, so I had to build up a crew from scratch and 2 solid reps plus the 6000 credits and back to Ezra in 20 turns. Managed it in 18.
Somehow I felt like keeping playing, but I was sensible and packed it all away (and finished my 1000 year old vampire character). Btw, the second time I set up the game, it took me hardly any time to do. And there is a lot to set up. Nice.
Loot is a small box card game by Knizia. Itās a game of sending merchant ships by you and hope they dont get attacked by pirates from other people (or maybe time it well that theyāll be too distracted elsewhere 
) and send your pirates to attack other peopleās merchant ships
Pretty thematic for a Knizia! And yet itās another sodding auction game 
you auction a merchant ship via pirate ship strength and try to win by outbidding everyone. But the more competitive the auction gets on a ship, youāre setting an openning for other players to sail their merchant ships under your noses.
This guy. I swear.
13 Minutes: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 - neat little micro game. Very clever downsizing of a downsized version (13 Days) of Twilight Struggle. Needs more plays
I found a UK Amazon page for the coins @Boydesian uses. Theyāre lovely! Perfect for Pax Renaissance and any other non-denominations needed game.
They donāt photograph very wellā¦ too shiny!
They came in bags of 35 or 100ā¦ so of course I bought 100. I was tempted to get a split gold and silver bag, but the all gold bag has bigger coins.
FYI: they are also perfect for dribbling through oneās fingers whilst laughing maniacally. 
I wasnāt going to post about it till it happenedā¦ but this evening was my first face-to-face (well, mask-to-mask in the gazebo) boardgaming since last September.
Oink Modern Art first, not helped by my not quite remembering the rules and the translation Iād downloaded missing some important things, but we soon got the hang of it again.
(Putting some markers by each artist on the price board to show how many paintings have been sold so far seems to help awareness quite a bit.)
Then Tiny Townsā¦ and it was fun, I had a good time even though I came last, but I canāt really see why one would get fanatical about this as several people have.
IIRC there are two very different ways to play Tiny Towns? Quinns liked one, but not the other, and Iāve heard the opposite opinion too.
Thereās a version of the game where the starting player of the current round calls the resource for the whole table. You can also play a version where that ability is completely neutered. Iām going to guess Quinnās preferred the nasty variant. The decision space opens up a little.
[EDIT] Snuck in a game of Yokohama in two parts. Had a ripping first half this afternoon, with a hot start and nice prospects, but that ended hard. This evening when we picked the game back up, I sat through turn after turn as my partner took moves which perfectly stymied my goals. Itās important to mention this was entirely unwitting on her part, but just the same, I had 74 points when we paused this afternoon, and I had the same score by the last turn.
To put this into perspective, by the midpoint I had all three achievements to my partnerās none, had two technologies, a huge presence with my buildings, two foreign agents ready to use any time (free actions), 5 completed orders and a small stockpile of every resource in the game. With that, I did almost literally nothing of worth for the remainder of the game.
I mentioned to my partner that I had never experienced anything like it outside those times my hardcore chess friends convinced me to have a ācasual gameā. Every step of the way, she had the perfect foil. Itās kind of nice to know the game has this kind of edge to it for when our skill develops, but as a novice with no good recourse thereās no good way to spin how that back half felt. Iām not getting that 90 minutes back.
Rough one.
We played the main version: on each playerās turn they call a resource, and everyone has to place it. Quinns preferred the one where you draw cards to choose resources. The current rulebook says this version is in groups of three: card, card, individual choice. Quinns appears to have played it as card Ć10, individual choiceā¦
Had another go solo at Firefly last night. This time I did the solo proper, with a 4x cards crew (max $1000 value) and I went for the 15000 in 20 turns.
Funny enough, I had all 5 solid reps by turn 13 (which is one of the other goals you can go for), but it took me 3 more turns to sell some contraband and one final misbehave bagged me 4 grand (minus salaries) that did the job for me.
I was a bit hesitant to begin with, with Mal, Wash, a $300 grifter/companion and Kaylee to begin with, it was not easy to make money without disgruntling them, wages were a stomping $800 a pop. But when I got a bit of a crew and equipment going and better luck in the deals, I could start going for the big buck jobs.
My partner and I played Lost Ruins of Arnak this morning, our first since Valentineās Day, as it turns out, which surprised me. We finally decided to try out the Snake Temple side of the board, and wow does it really get juicy.
This was our sixth logged game together (Iām convinced itās our 9th total, lost a sheet with solo scores on the other side) and the first time weāve ended in a blowout. My partner mopped the floor with me in our last three outings (Maracaibo twice and then Yokohama), so Iām happy to say it was my turn, at last. Final tally was 77-50, with our biggest previous spread being only 3!
My partner just couldnāt get the extra card and coin she needed to explode on her final turn. Unfortunately for her, I did. On my final turn I was able to find just the right combo to crack my nut wide open and cascade into a huge run of turns after she passed to end her game. If I was just one resource short, Iād have ended with a score under 50 instead. So, a big loss, but a few small decisions away from another tight game.
On a first impression, we both agree the snake side will be the go-to for most of our games henceforth. That said, itās quite a bit crunchier, so the bird temple will surely still make an occasional appearance when we want something just a little more laid back.
RE: Xia
I meant to post about this the other day when it came up, but I got distracted. Surprisingly, I caught myself thinking about it again this morning. I agree with your statement completely. How do you feel about it?
The NPC rules are imperfect and I think could have been better refined without adding much overhead. I think they struck a good balance though, in terms of defining behaviours that are trivial enough to perform, while allowing for flexibility (and a little roleplay) when edge cases arise.
As someone who has only played the game solo (multi-handed), this has worked out just fine so far. I have concerns about them in a proper multiplayer game, however. One thing Iāve already considered is removing the role assignments and handling their turns collaboratively; Alternatively, running them as suggested and deferring to the group when edge cases arise. I think the nature of the game/gameplay would be conducive to this approach provided youāve got a receptive table, and would help enrich their presence without really introducing any new, hard-and-fast rules to apply.
I dunno, I think maybe my internal GM is wearing his rose spectacles. At the same time, Core Space demonstrated this can be done in a help-or-hinder gameplay environment where NPCs can play a crucial role, without needing volumes of rules and tables for every given circumstance.
