I’ve been playing a lot of ticket to ride on BGA. Still great.
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Well, SHUX is over now, but we got to play a number of games.
We started Saturday off with a 9 player game of Blood on the Clocktower, where I was promptly murdered by the Imp on the second night. I was the Undertaker, so that sucked for Team Good. Over the course of the next couple of days, there were executions and murders until eventually there were just three living players, my wife among them.
Between info that had been shared, everyone agreed that my wife was good, so it was between the other two as to who was the Imp. We had a vote on one and got 4 yea’s, which was enough to execute, but then that player nominated the other person, and her defense seemed so sketchy that my wife voted again and there were 5 yeas’s.
Sadly, that player was truthful about being the Cook, and the person who had been on the chopping block was able to take a bow with a Team Evil win. Good game, so very different in person compared to forum based play.
After attending an event and getting some lunch and then autographs by the SU&SD crew, the two of us tried out Century: Spice Road, which was interesting. I found the sliding market and point cards a bit annoying as it seemed like a bunch of upkeep, but it got a bit better once we had more cards in hand. I pulled out the win on this one, 91 - 78.
After this, we saw someone sitting alone with a copy of Ethnos, so we asked if he needed players, and since we already knew the game, we were quite welcome. He had two other players as well, one who had never played it, while he and his friend had played before but it had been a while and they needed a refresher, which I was happy to provide. Let’s call them D, A, and B, with B being the complete newcomer.
They all picked it up pretty quickly, as it really is an easy game to play. We had Minotaurs, Halflings, Skeletons, Giants, Elves, and Wizards. I did pretty lousy with the area control portion of things, but decent on bands. There were lots of ties for control as the ages went by, so lots of split points. When all was said and done, D won with 70 points. Then there was a three-way tie for second between me, A and B at 62 points, with my wife just behind at 61. Really close game.
Then we tried Sobek 2-player again, this time remembering all the rules. Still didn’t help me, as my wife again won, 86 - 73.
Last for Saturday was Sagrada with just the two of us. Took a minute to grasp the bonus cards, as there is no example of each, but after a minute, we got it. It’s a tricky game with quite a bit of luck, as you are limited by what color dice some out of the bag, and what value they happen to roll. It is probably a little less luck based with more players, as you would pull more dice out of the bag over the course of the game, having more chances for each color to come out.
I did manage to complete my window. My wife was forced to leave one space open, as due to the color and number combinations, there was just no way for her to get the last one she needed in, despite having access to a tool that would let her move two dice. And that aspect is where the trickiness comes in, as your earlier actions can really end up screwing you over in the late game. Despite that, my wife still won, 47 - 43.
Sunday we had some delays getting to come due to breakfast shenanigans, and then getting over halfway to the convention center before I realized we forgot our badges in the hotel room and I went back to get them.
Once we got settled, we played Paris: the City of Lights (I am too lazy to look up the correct French for the title). It was a fun little game! First you and your opponent take turns either placing tiles which show four squares of colors which indicate who can build there later, or taking buildings, which are all different sizes, for placement in the next phase.
Once all tiles have been placed, it goes to phase two. Now players alternate either placing buildings on the board or using a token to activate a special, which are randomized each game. These specials can be things like a square which you can put on an opponents square, letting you build there, a statue which gives points at the end, the more open spaces are around it, a small two square building, or avoiding negative points for unbuilt buildings, among others.
The game ends once all specials are used and no more buildings can be placed.
On the tiles (and from some specials) are lampposts, which you cannot build on (minus using a special), but give you a scoring multiplier for your buildings at the end of the game. You take the size of the building and multiply it by the number of lampposts it connects to orthogonally. Which means, if your building is adjacent to no lampposts, it does not score at all!
After that, you also get to add the size of you largest block of connected buildings. So if you have a size 6, size 4 and size 3 building all touching in a line, you would get 13 points for it. Lampposts do not matter for this. Add in any points for specials and subtract 3 for each unbuilt building you took in phase one and you have your final score.
My wife won the first game, 46 - 32, after cruelly using a special to let her build on top of a lamppost which would have let one of my buildings score. Sure, she likely still would have won, but at least the scores would have been closer. I got vengeance in the second game, winning 75 - 67.
We then tried out Kodama: the Tree Spirits, which I remember seeing for sale at Barnes & Noble a lot in the past. It looked very cute, but I never picked it up, so took this opportunity to try it out.
You start with a trunk and then pick cards to build your tree, overlapping the branch cards to cover part of the trunk, or previously placed cards. You then score for any feature on the card that matches a feature on the previous card, all the way back to the trunk. The six creatures are mushrooms, caterpillars, flowers, clouds, fireflies, and stars. So if you place a card with two stars and one flower, and the previous card has one star and no flowers, you would get 3 points. If the card before that (or the trunk) has stars, you would add those as well until you score the trunk, if applicable, or there are no more of that feature.
After four rounds of building and scoring, each player plays a Kodama card, which scores your tree based on some criteria. There are also Decree cards which give some special rule for those four rounds (called a Season). There are three Seasons, so three total Decree cards, one replacing the other when the Season changes. After the third Season the game is over. I won this one, 115 - 108. I did fail to convey that you could actually branch two cards off of one if the artwork allowed it, which may have given my wife some alternate ways to build her tree, but for the most part, I think it results in a lower score. I know I didn’t benefit from the one time I did it, anyway, though I had a Kodama card that could have scored me points for it.
Finally, we played Lord’s of Waterdeep. We started setting it up, with a balloon indicating we were looking for more players. A minute later I saw two people walking by with their own copy in hand so I invited them to join us. They had never played before, so I got to teach again, with my wife assisting. We shall call this couple J and R.
They picked the game up really quickly, and commented that it was a lot easier than they had expected. R jumped out into an early lead, but the rest of us caught up before too long. Halfway through, my wife finished the lieutenant quest, which gave her an extra agent for the rest of the game, which is a great advantage.
When the game ended, J was ahead with 102 points, while the rest of us were in a line with me at 94, my wife at 93 and R at 92. However, after scoring the Lord cards, I won with 130 points. My wife was second at 117, then J at 114 and R at 112. I had managed to complete nine quests for my Lord, which is really good.
We hit the closing ceremonies after that, as they had closed the game library, and then SHUX was over. And now we to go back to real life and leave gaming paradise behind. 
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Sounds like a great time - thanks for the report!
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Sorry it was a novella. 
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I for one enjoyed your novella greatly, so thank you! One day I will attend!
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Finally got to play Viticulture.
I was struck, from beginning to end, with the similarity to Nusfjord. Heavy-end-of-entry worker placement. Basic spots with some specialization options (buildings / elders), bit of light income engine building (vines / boats), and most importantly, super-powered versions of basic actions through one-shot cards (visitors / buildings).
At each and every step, Nusfjord was clearly the more elegant, thought-through, and polished design. The subtle but effective player interaction of shares and the fish-table, compared to passive bonuses and take-that on Viticulture’s visitor cards. The open market of Nusfjord’s buildings, creating another point of interaction as well as allowing you to plan (and foil plans) throughout the game, compared to the chaotic draw of Viticulture’s visitors, ranging from useless to overpowered. And oh, the balance of Nusfjord. Everything is so tightly balanced in Nusfjord.
I left, again, impressed by Nusfjord. I really respect that design. That said…
Viticulture was more fun. It just is. I still find Nusfjord a bit sterile for all of it’s wonder of polished design. Viticulture isn’t as jagged as most of Stonemeier, but it’s still a cobbled together pile of modules (read the development diary for the backstory there). But those modules do work, and they’re fun, and I was more emotionally attached to my vineyard than I ever was to my fishing fleet. And as unpredictable and unbalanced as the card draws are, there’s something special about just drawing cards and the agony and ecstasy that results.
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Our friends who wanted to check out my new Giant Box of Everdell had announced an afternoon visit (we get the day off on October 3rd) and I decided I could squeeze in a quick game of Spirit Island—or not so quick for that matter—as I decided on two hand Shifting Ages with Keeper against France Level 1.
My game was interrupted after a couple of rounds by something that evaporated my concentration and I had to chill on the couch for a bit. When I got back to the game I had forgot about the escalation of France and so my „win“ is on very shaky ground. On the other hand if not for the maximum unlucky event that prevent me cleaning that inland mountain on the left island board, I would have won 2 turns earlier with or without escalations. I also had to hurry the last 3 rounds quite a bit because I knew I had 20 minutes when our friends texted they were en route. This was probably the quickest 3 rounds of two handed Spirit Island I have ever played.
I must say that I have never played so many major power cards. But both spirits have a lot of power gains even through cards and that was actually my first turn. Play just that card on each spirit and grow my handsize quickly.
Then our friends arrived, we had some Zwetschgenkuchen (a seasonal slice) and then I taught Everdell to everyone. Which isn‘t very difficult at all.
In the first season everyone was stumped how they were supposed to do anything with just 2 workers. But to their—not mine—surprise there was quite a lot one could do with just 2 workers 
Everyone quickly got into the game. Spring went quite well for everyone as well.
But then it happened. My partner had played the Clocktower and then added the Historian of which I was envious because it allows all those card draws. Then someone took a card he wanted from the meadow. And he wanted revenge. But by the time he wanted to move to summer, his hand was full and he had no more workers to get rid off cards and he couldn‘t draw his two bonus cards from the meadow and so his revenge floundered. That caused him to declare the game was horrible and he hated it. One of the others also got in a bit of a dead-end and grumbled that he didn‘t know how to proceed he had no cards to play.
I rolled my eyes and played another Mine with a Mole The fourth player just happily kept playing cards and comparing the game with Terraforming Mars and Ark Nova (her favorites).
Long story short, my partner was in a terrible mood throughout the rest of the game, even though everyone could see he was winning. He had 2 basic and 2 special events and the King by the end of the game… while I had to hide a fool in a dungeon just to be able to build a castle (without a King).
And of course the two grumbly men took home first and second place in the game. I came in third. I enjoyed myself. Our friends now want to buy their own copy. I quote Mrs 4th Place: „We just don‘t meet enough, I need a copy of this, so we don‘t play Ark Nova so much. And why didn‘t you buy Ark Nova when it was on sale the other day?“
PS: we all agreed that the tree is not a good place to keep the special events. I do like it though for the deck—we almost got through the whole deck btw.
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I love this part of it, and also how in round 1 you can’t imagine how you’ll ever fill your 15 card city, but by the last round everything is huge and accelerating and you don’t. have. enough. space.
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Just played another of our series of precon-basic-deck games of Ashes with @Lordof1 - on ashteki.com, which I found out about this morning. Like jinteki, it’s a browser-based interface for the specific game. It doesn’t always make it particularly clear why a particular thing is happening (e.g. you did a summon but you’d already hit your limit of summonable things of that type) but it seemed to work all right, and it’s less work for the computer than Tabletop Simulator.
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Wait, is your partner my husband? I wouldn’t like that very much. 
My husband is the worst about getting annoyed at a game and being in a bad mood for at least half of it over all the things he can’t do and ending up with like 35+ more points than anyone else.
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Train games! As in, games played on the train home.
We started with Railroad Ink: Deep Blue edition, naturally. I won, 41 - 31.
Then I had three games of Regicide solo, all losses, though I at least reached the Kings on the latter two games.
We later played three games of Hanamikoji. The first game, I had the favor of four geisha, but my wife had 11 charm points, so she won. The next game, I won after the first round, getting 11 points. We played a tie breaker round which I won as well with 11 points again, though it took two rounds this time.
Finally, we played Batman Love Letter. There is a lot more luck involved at two player, but it is still fun. My wife was up 6 - 1, but remarkably I was able to come back and win.
And that was the extent of our gaming on the train. Vacation is now truly over.
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I hope you do. The con has such a fantastic vibe, and everyone is so helpful and nice, and it is just great seeing so many people playing so many games!
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A secret double life involving a daily transatlantic commute… does he seem very, very tired?
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Just a tiny update on Tindaya. I read a few of the threads on the BGG forum and found a few more hints and ideas how to play this. There was also an acknowledgement that the fires are more difficult with fewer players and that I had overlooked that there is an additional “wild” offering (Idol cards) one can use and that number of offerings does scale with players. So some of my misgivings are cleared up.
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A veritable rollercoaster of emotions…
Ack! I’ve played Viticulture a few times, and (despite the theme) simply haven’t enjoyed it. Which would be completely fine, if Nusfjord wasn’t one of the boxes in my “shelf of opportunity”…
Disaster averted! Hurrah!
Nooooo.
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Eager to hear what you think, when you finally get to it! A part of me suspects that Nusfjord is a game that grows on you while Viticulture is a game that grows stale if you play it too often. Just a hunch.
In other news:
Several rounds of Fantasy Realms. Two player rules work really well. Just a quiet, pleasant time. I hit it out of the park with a 7-card Gem of Order bonus.
First round of Root. Didn’t care for it at all. Woodland Alliance ran away with it. The Eyrie was so obsessed with not going into turmoil that they made a decree that had them just shuffling birds around clearings they already controlled. I was the Cats and started out very strong until I ran out of building sites and the Alliance, seeing me as the only opposition, began ripping up my clearings. I couldn’t do anything about them - clear the dissent, give them more supporters. Fight off their army, get slammed by their guerilla tactics. They just got stronger the more I tried to rein them in.
All in all, each faction felt really shallow, like there weren’t many things I could actually do. So many rules with four factions (we had three) but each player then only gets a fraction of them to work with. I kept comparing it to El Grande in my head, where I feel like I’ve got Batman’s utility belt full of tools to advance myself, secure my standing, or undermine an opponent. Here I was just… ok, recruit, move, attack. Again.
That said, this is a first impression and not yet an opinion. I’d really like to try the Alliance out so I can get a better sense of how I should have been stopping them. I definitely don’t feel as if I’ve really experienced the game yet.
Also Jaipur. Yes, it’s light, but I am continually amazed at the perfection of its design. Everything is just exactly in the right place, and it endlessly feeds back on itself with weights and counterweights on every action and tactic.
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I think I’ve heard every faction in Root declared to be unstoppable at least once
It’s definitely a game with a lot of overhead to begin with, which can be off-putting, especially if you’re left to stop another faction running away with it single handed.
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I think Quinns said of the original box that he found each faction had a specific other faction whose job was to stop it getting the runaway win, and if that other faction’s player wasn’t on the ball…
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The Cats are actually best placed to deal with the Alliance, but it’s by policing rather than aggression. iirc, 3+ units in a clearing increases the cost to add unrest by an extra card, and that can cripple Alliance expansion. Likewise, sitting a big police force on an Alliance base prevents their tiny force from moving anywhere, without giving them any cards. It’s easy for the cats to get a lot of recruitment, but inefficient to be moving around and attacking any more than absolutely required. (Contrast with the birds, who can move and battle a ton, but are crippled by having to hand over cards to the alliance)
That said, the cats are just plain hard to win with. You’ll usually run out of steam, need to marshal free moves from crafting very carefully, and probably go for a dominance win. The alliance starts off very slow, but snowballs to their win condition.
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