Maybe it works better with more heroes, but as it is the solo game feels rather punishing
I haven’t played this one solo in years but I think that, regardless of player count, every character is going to be having a bad day in Strahd’s dungeons. It’s pretty brutal. It’s true that, with additional players, some of the time it’s not you who is getting punished, so one can try to find some enjoyment in those moments when it’s happening to someone else… a bit of Strahdenfreude, so to speak.
Power Grid x2 - again, sat with the Power Grid table. First was the Benelux map again, and then the Italy map. Gained a better understanding with the game, but I still find it cheesy when compared to other economic games that goes on for 2 hours.
Babylonia - played with the OG Guild. I am now considering this to be a Knizia Top 3: this, Stephenson’s Rocket, and Tigris & Euphrates.
Santiago - played 5 players with the OG Guild. As expected, it was a spiteful game where half of the fields are dry and barren because no one wants to water other people’s fields. One of my fave games ever. I’m glad to have the new edition of this.
Parade
Mandala - I get to play this again and I am appreciating it more. Clever plays can be done here. Very nice.
War of the Ring 2 - I’m Sauron again and lost. Standard rush through Rohan, but my Isengard army got wiped out on the Battle of Edoras. The Ents killed Saruman again. My depleted army was locked in Helm’s Deep, and so the army of Rohan marched to Orthanc.
My armies in the South nearly captured Minas Tirith, but the Free Peoples’ managed to assault Moria first and win.
I am still incompetent on playing as Sauron.
Imperium - okay. I’m done with this game. This game is annoying at 2 or 3 or 4. This is a solo game. And I will only play it as a solo game (I don’t own it). Turczi is such an overrated designer.
Can recommend this as an evening. Started with Ra. I was abysmal and just couldn’t get anything going. Very clever game and I love the way the sun discs go to the next round.
Finished with Modern Art. Played more sensibly than our own usual nonsense. Our friend who was new to it said he couldn’t do the patter but by the end was auctioning like a diva. Love this game
A couple of games to report in deadline weeks. Yet more Spirit Island and another victory against Russia lvl 6. This time Fathomless Mud of the Swamp and Vital Strength of the Earth combined to get the pesky invaders shot of the island. We both got majors earlier than usual and they really paid off. We were really close to losing at one point so we had one turn that took ages with some thorough planning how to survive with 4 blight remaining and a lot of ravages due. After that we had one more turn sailing close to the wind before we took control. Killing the last city generated the fear for the last fear card, so about as close to a double victory as possible.
Next we played scenario 4 of our campaign of Expedition to Newdale and it was a nail biter. Really close end game with some divergent strategies being used. The most underwhelming new building added this chapter but other than that I’m still really enjoying it. My favourite light-medium euro of the last year. Won’t be an evergreen like Calimala but that’s ok.
Last night played Darkest Dungeon and what a turkey that is. An expensive light game of nearly no choices that takes an age to set up and is overwhelmed by a ton of fiddly components that add noting towards a positive experience. Played with 2 friends who love the computer game disproving SVWAG’s assertion that it would be ok for fans of the source material. The friend who backed it will sell after the one dungeon. It was so bad we even decided against seeing what the hamlet phase was like after starting to read the rules for that phase and being sapped even more of the will to carry on. Avoid this game, especially if it’s not been set up yet when you get to the table.
A couple of rounds of Hard City solo, and I can finally say I beat the 4th scenario (Bloody Sunrise). I lost another attempt first, and was well on my way to losing again, but I landed a VHS Tape item that allowed me to “reverse time” and exploit a cutscene twice for huge points. I was at 6/7VP after only two evacuations (of three survivors each) and then Miranda finished the job by waxing a handful of mutants for the final point.
What a tough mission. You have really got to maximize those turns before the big rush to the boat comes up too many times.
Just completed the first day. Thoroughly enjoyed the last year’s calendar, hope this one matches that.
Well, carp. Still waiting for our copy to arrive. I must admit, reading the rulebook has been a bit of a slog - and there are misprints on the game baord. Please, dear god, let me enjoy this game!
Ready Set Bet - Even though I had a better time with Camel Cup, this is still very fun. We only play it with the app. I don’t think we will ever return to manual.
Dokojong - ah this is a fine Oink. A bluffing game of trying to find other players’ dogs that they hide between 5 rooms.
Order Overload: Cafe - do you enjoy memorisation games? This is perfect for you!
World Cup - the World Cup is on, so a club member brought World Cup. It’s a party game level simulation game. Cards and dice rolls, but it was all fun and immersive. All my teams got knocked out except for Canada. I reached Round of 16 where we played against Japan, and we missed the penalty (0 - 0), and then Japan scored a goal on the 2nd half (0 - 1). Thus, shattering my dream of winning the Cup.
The first puzzle was pretty fun I thought. Bodes well.
My wife and I played Everdell this evening, using New leaf, Extra Extra, and trying out the Legendary cards for the first time. She felt like she was doing poorly most of the game, possibly because she kept needing to prepare for season before I did, but also because she kept missing and forgetting perks she had, like being able to draw two cards after playing a card. Probably due to a mix of COVID brain and stress.
I missed some things myself, but just a few resources worth at most, which I was not short on for most of the game. I was able to get two basic events and two special events, as well as a bunch of point tokens compared to my wife’s one basic events, putting me up by about 40 points before even getting to our cards and purple card bonuses.
Funny enough, even with that lead the scores were still relatively close. I won 94 - 83. We both had full cities (moreso due to the Legendary cards and we both had a Main Road which adds a city space), but I had a couple of 0 point cards, while she had three or four extra cards which did not take up space in the city.
Finally sorted out the New leaf cards from the deck, so it won’t be the default play next time, though I think Extra Extra will stay in as a permanent addition.
Last night at Thirsty Meeples in Oxford:
Played Railways of the World with the OG Guild again, but with the Europe map. Holy ****! This map is tight with 5 players that not all achievements were taken! (I have manage to take the Paris-Istanbul route tho. You can’t just ignore the Orient Express, baybee. 
Eriantys - aka Carolus Magnus. This is fantastic. The 4 player team gaem is very dynamic! You can now do a two-prong attack where one player will influence the Red faction to switch sides to our team, and then the other player will use their red cubes to attack new positions. Magnificent! Glad to kept my Carolus Magnus, and since it now fills in a small box (with my beautifully austere box art 
), I don’t have a reason to get Eriantys.
I got absolutely spanked in Heat this morning, taking 6th (last) place against a full spread of bots on the Italy course. I fought hard through the race and even held onto 1st for most of the final lap, but my car fell apart just before the finish line. I took a catastrophic amount of heat into my hand on what should have been my last turn, forcing me to lower my gear for the final sprint, and I ended my turn just in front of the finish line. This was enough to drop me to 5th by the end of the round, but to add insult to injury, I was stuck downshifting again just to sputter over the line slowly enough to watch the black car (which was WAY behind all race) bump me into 6th.
Hilarious meltdown and one I’d have killed to share with a full table of friends ready to laugh at my plight.
[EDIT] Jeez, I’m at 9 logged games of this one already.
Started the evening with Food Chain Magnate with 3 players. I went for the burger rush, which is a different ball-game from the trainer-focused game I had last game. I think I did well in that I spammed the block with houses so my mail campaign would have max efficiency and rake in all the cash before the trainer-focused player steamrolls us.
The trainer player then placed a radio station and turned the entire town into alcoholics (was that a SUSD quote?). But it was too late. My errand boys can easily grab the beers that I need to score on the big houses.
Bank broke the 2nd time after 2 hours.
Piece of Cake - whipped out a dollop of cake puns during the rules explanation, which I feel was one of my best nights ever. It’s a “I slice; you choose” where you cut the cake. The resulting number of portions must be equal to the number of players but each pie is always 11 slices. People say it’s just a piece of cake, but I disagree.
Each portion you take, you must decide if you want to keep the portion or you eat all of it. If you keep it, it helps you on your area majority. You score if you have the most of that type of cake. If you eat it, you score the dollops of whipped cream on the portion you ate. You can only do one or the other. You cannot have your cake and eat it.
6 Nimmt with 8 players!! Oh maahhh gaaawwd! I have annoyed enough people with my annoying plays. Mission success
We had friends over for a glass of wine and after comparing notes on the most hilarious bugs we‘ve encountered at our various jobs (imagine 4 techies)… I asked if anyone wanted to play the current SdJ winner…
And so I quickly taught Cascadia to our guests and we played a nice round of Scenario 1 (AAAAA) which to his own surprise my partner won with 97 points over 92, 91 and 91 
Everyone but me was sure they were winning. Good times for all.
Afterwards we had an interesting discussion about Beth Sobel‘s style and the difference between German boardgame illustration and other styles. And I got to show a few of my games (the cover of Maglev Metro was deemed great) and explain about beige game art (the examples were Thurn und Taxis and Hansa Teutonica). Disc Cover (and it‘s Dixit style cards) he said was probably more art than illustration or even game.
Sadly, it was too late but we could probably have spent hours debating the merits of various illustrations and how well they work for the game in question.
While on the topic of illustrations we also talked about theme and he asked how games were designed, if it was theme first or game first. I said „mal so, mal so“ (sometimes this, sometimes that) and I brought up Knizia as an example for Math first (…) and then he said „We play Lost Cities. It‘s a good game but it has no theme“ He very obviously didn‘t know who designed Lost Cities. 
I won a game of Tetrarchia today. My main concern with the game so far is the extent of the difference between the presence or absence of barbarian armies. When there are no armies on the board, there’s also nothing too interesting happening – I’m going through the motions of cleaning up revolts and securing borders, and it’s generally not an exciting process. With one or more armies present everything changes, and the threat they present can be so vast that you need to really focus on that; and naturally that’s interesting; but it can be such a swing! I kinda wish the threat with no armies was higher, and the threat with armies present was slightly lower to compensate.
Tell everyone they’re wrong about the lack of lost cities theme. It’s very abstracted but there’s a good layer of story in it.
In the game you’re basically an archaeologist who might have some vague idea of bits of old treasure. The problem is you’re poor so once you go on an adventure you’re in debt. You can get more investment (handshakes) but that just puts you more in debt and in a worse situation if you don’t find at least the minimum amount of treasure. Sometimes you have all the info you need but no one shows up for you to maximise it (the investors/handshakes don’t show up because mostly you’re saying you found all the treasure of atlantis).
Sometimes you have to reveal information but you sorely hope it isn’t the missing piece of the puzzle for your rival archaeologists.
I think the idea of getting into debt is a real feeling here which is tense inducing.
I am not saying Knizia games have no theme but they most definitely have math and never underestimate the ability of certain techies to strip away everything but the numbers and so Knizia games are prone to lose their theme for some of my friends because the math is strong.
