Had another go at Ark Nova last night, this time with 4 players. You would think having played once before, I would have done better this time. I didn’t. The co-owner of the game ran away with it, and being the last player to play let me very screwed in order of pick ups (last to be able to get 5 cards in hand, last to get more than one worker) so I just enjoyed myself down my own thing, again. Ended up on -44, but could not have cared less, I covered my whole map, which gave me 4 green points in the end, and had a fair few nice animals in, and some good sponsorships.
So happy ish overall, but I think this is a game that I would enjoy more solo. Every time I have had the feeling that I could have enjoyed it more that way, instead of elbowing each other for scraps and seeing how somebody manages to run away with it (and stops you from actually do the good stuff when you have the means to it by ending the game before you can even compete).
I still think it is overhyped, big time. I played because there was hardly anything else interesting on offer, even though we had a good turn up last night (over a dozen, so three tables going, which is great for Hastings, which started running about 2-3 months ago)
We’ve been playing tons of Tichu on holiday. You play as 2 pairs and getting the lead seems to be really important. You play poker hands which you can only beat by playing a better version of the same hand.
I’m rubbish at it, definitely the weak link. I think I’m missing a lot of it.
There is a single player version that goes up to 12, but once you get past the comedy value I don’t think that’s a very good game.
Also played some Oriflamme, Red 7, Lost Legacy and Startups.
Oriflamme is really good, Red 7 is still confusing. Lost Legacy is a real holiday game for us. Startups was surprisingly meh.
Our friend brought Tyrants of the Underdark, which went down well with most but was not my cup of tea at all. Having played a lot of Space Base on BGA I’ve discovered I don’t like games with a moving market where there is little chance to manipulate it.
lol I swear so many games are best learnt by someone unlucky to learn the game by the rulebook, and then become the board game druid who pass on this knowledge verbally from generation to generation.
Cthulhu: Death May Die, which we unfortunately failed at
Merchants of the Dark Road first play, took forever (not my game). A bit confusing, but it all started to make more sense as we went. Would probably play again, hopefully wouldn’t take as long.
There was a small convention in the town I live in (Kitchener) called “Ragnarok” (the tagline, from back in the misty BeforeTimes of 2018, is “Game Like the World Is Ending”, which was funny at the time and is very, very dark now). I know all three founders/organizers, and so I kinda committed to poking my nose in for at least a little bit to show them support. They all expected it to flop (they couldn’t keep putting off the deposit they put down with the hotel for their 2020 event, so they had to run it this weekend or lose the money entirely).
It was well attended, though (they were projecting about 20-30 people over the weekend, and got 250+). While there, I played:
Whirling Witchcraft in which I made a classic blunder: I let somebody else try to teach the game. I forget sometimes how hard it is to teach games, and my dear friend did an awful job (to the point of completely messing up the scoring/win condition). Whatever, the game itself was neat. Solid, not world-shaking, with an interesting draft “take that” sorta mechanic going on.
Mission Catastrophe, in which I made another classic blunder: I believed somebody when they said a game was appropriate to play with kids. I jumped on the grenade of learning this one, and aside from one PIP card I couldn’t figure out (What does a “Reboot” card do!? It’s not in the stupid manual anywhere! So frustrating!), I managed to keep the game moving along at a fast enough clip that the kids (5 and 7) almost kinda were into it. Their dad really wanted to play, though, so we muscled through. And two other people who I know from work (regulars, and nice people) wanted to play a game with me… anyway. It was fine. Fast, light, with some very “Kickstarter”-esque feels (I don’t know if it was a KS, but I would be kinda surprised if it wasn’t). Got a couple rules wrong but they didn’t really change much. It was okay. Not my bag, but okay.
Then I was exhausted by being masked around people in my time away from work so I bounced. Which is a damn shame… I could’ve used some time to relax and play games but I’m just not mentally there yet. But still, I’m super happy the event went well.
In 2020, with Covid-19 starting to sweep through populations overseas but still not a whole lot of information known about it, there happened to be a screening of Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (organised long in advance, as part of a retrospective of his films). Pretty much the first thing which appears on screen is the sentence “5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997” and the nervous tension throughout the theatre was palpable.
Played Lords of Vegas with my wife and her brother today. He got out to an early lead, but we caught up to him around the 2-point breakpoint. Then my wife got ahead with a couple of 2-tile casinos and a 4-tile casino. While there was some leapfrogging between the two of them, I kept up the rear the whole time.
Eventually, due to the Up expansion, she got a 10-tile casino that scored a couple of times, jumping her well into the lead. The final scores were all in a line due to the breakpoints, so it wasn’t a total blowout. Scores were my wife at 54, her brother at 49, and me at 44.
Yesterday we played a couple of games (and then went home because I was still very tired from socialising the previous day):
The Palace of Mad King Ludwig: along the same lines of The Castles of… except you all build the same palace so you have to make lots of decisions about whether to help other players by completing their rooms to also benefit you, or whether to wall off their doors/cut them off with the moat. I prefer this version because of the interaction with other players. It also doesn’t have the market from Castles which I think is a big improvement.
Beyond the Sun: tech trees in space! I was getting very sleepy by this point so I didn’t really have a strategy. We never managed to unlock the level 4 techs, which was a shame but also meant the scores at the end were closer than they would have been otherwise.
Last night, we went to my in-laws’ place to play some cards and we also got to try out full-player, count Bärenpark for the first time. Quite the different experience than with 2 players, let me tell ya! It was great, though!
Since it’d been so long, especially for my mother-in-law, we played without the bonus objectives. Scores were 93 for my wife, 80 for me, 73 for my mother-in-law and 69 for my father-in-law.
Really really enjoyed it. It’s a lot meaner with four players.
At the festival, we „played“ several rounds of Top Ten (bought it because of SdJ nomination). This is pretty cool to bring along if you won‘t have a table to play on. It basically goes like this: Everyone gets a secret number from 1-10. And one person gets a Top Ten card from the huge stack that gives you a Top Ten. Then everyone has to give an answer that matches their number to allow the „Captain“ (we say „Mops“) a clue how to order the answers. It quickly becomes very silly with recurring jokes and that was all that is needed for a festival. Obviously you can also make up your own questions. There are some that have activities on them we skipped all of those. (Oh and there is a bit more like an actual game but just like So Kleever and Just One we ignored those parts, that would have also needed a table which we didn‘t have.)
Example Question: You are going to a festival to see metal bands. Name a band on a scale from „I‘ll put wax in my ears“ to „I‘ll be in the first row“ to see them.
Remember: all the numbers are secret and the captain has to order the answers.
The captain who has a 3 says „Helene Fischer“
I have a 10 and say „Within Temptation“
My partner has a 7 and says „Testament“
And the last person has a 4 and says „Knorkator“
Now everyone knows my favorite band of course. The captain knows their own number and that my partner likes old-school metal. So now they only have to guess how much the last person enjoys Knorkator.
A real question: „You were going too fast with your car and get stopped by police. What do you tell them on a scale from „They let me get away without a ticket“ to „They arrest me on the spot“?
The highs and lows lend themselves to all kinds of humor, the 5-7s are a bit difficult. Overall it was quite hilarious, especially when it turns out that it is possible to nearly always give variants of the same answer and have people still guess correctly no matter your number.
However, as funny as it is, once you played a while, the game needs to vanish for a bit to come back with another group. It is not one I would want to play all the time. Over the course of 3 days we played 3 times. But after that I knew I would not take it out again with that group until at least a couple of months have passed.
The humor does remind me a tiny little bit of CaH—as in it depends very much on the group how that turns out and I would refrain from playing this with anyone but good friends.
Yes, it does. My friend mentioned it reminded her of that one. But when we played Wavelength it fell completely flat for that particular group, so I sold it on. I have no idea why this one worked better. Possibly because there was no other game, there was beer and we quickly hit on those two recurring answers that brought much laughter… also here you get more variety in the answers (I don‘t remember Wavelength that well) intead of just guessing what 1 person meant everyone gets to participate in the answer shenanigans.
Wavelength has the slight problem that I think this one solves with calibration because you’re here constantly refining the scale with each guess whereas with wavelength there’s a a scale and you’re trying to mind read with a single datapoint.
The main action for most people a round of wavelength is arguing about whether the top of the scale is X or Y when I’m reality no one can know for sure so it’s a pointless thing to get excited about.
I think where top ten might end up losing as it needs more “sporting spirit” to play because it’s probably easier to game and “solve” eventually.
Played games Sunday with @lalunaverde and 2 more. While waiting for the last player we played some 6 Nimmt! which was as excellent as always. I managed to play one round spectacularly badly. I was quite impressed at how much I managed to pickle myself for all the last 3 cards.
Next up I took a unilateral decision that it was a day for Indonesia. It was a good use of my executive powers, I think we all really enjoyed it, I even got a follow on text to say how good it was. If only my exec decisions in game were as good… I had a real strong start, but dropped out of contention missing an era change so ordering my R&D wrong for going in to era C. I think as well I’ll need to relearn the game at 4 as I’ve mainly played 3 player and the pacing is quite different. I sold ready meals mainly, did some shipping but was mainly king of the mergers as I jumped that track most.
Lastly to play something as relentlessly aggressive, positional and spirally in the player driven decision department we put Chicago Express out to try the Nickel Plate expansion. I was very tired so I got a second as 2 players over spent on shares at the end to ruin their positions by dumping all their cash in non-scoring shares. I don’t think I deserved second place on my positive plays, but I did avoid overspending so I guess next least stupid. @lalunaverde took the win with his experience clearly showing. One day I will learn enough from this master to get closer…
Perhaps the best play of Chicago Express that I can remember? My paranoia got hold of me so I avoided trying to get majorities (and waste a turn!), so I’m happy to achieve parities and shift companies when necessary. Another player and I went for the Red company 1 to 1 shares, but broke the balance when he took the 3rd (and last) Red share. Sabotage was the only option I can think of to prevent the Red company from reaching Chicago. In hindsight, it went alright.
There was an opportunity to block Yellow using the Blue company but didn’t see it until it was too late. I hedged my bets too much thinking that I can join the Yellow company. Unfortunately, everyone was thinking the same.
Got elbowed out of some auctions with high high bids that are too high for me. It went alright too, as I end up being first
Indonesia was a disaster for me though. I was initially planning to be a shipping magnate but end up being elbowed on merger auctions. My companies got sold repeatedly and end up with lacklustre companies on highly competitive fields. But Indonesia is one of my Top 10’s now. A lot of depth here that can be explored and one of the players say that “[Indonesia] is a train game”. I very much agree with that. But I prefer the term SICS.
This was the play I was thinking of most of yours. They made a poor move going all in, stopped them getting to Chicago. Classic hubris. I was also tired and got a little annoyed about not nulling the auctions but actually it let them make a big mistake.