9 Likes
At least you are unlikely to Boost a 1ā¦
5 Likes
Ingenious 3D today, 2 player. Having been rather lukewarm on Ingenious, I was keen to try it as Kniz Booster Nick Murray at Bitewing loves it.
My hot take is heās right, still all tactical, but the added element of being able to block larger scoring groups to cut off other players scoring. Kills my main criticism of Ingenious that scoring groups only ever got larger. At one point we only had one yellow and two orange available for scoring.
7 Likes
Oxford Meeples quarterly games day today. (Iām not close enough to go to their weekly meetings but these are always good.)
We started with a well kept, but clearly cheaply produced, edition of Acquire (thin cards, paper money supplied on a glue-edged pad). It seemed to make more sense this time than when I played some years ago.
Next Biblios; I think Iāve only played Biblios Dice before, which retains the two-part play but is otherwise quite a different game. Functionally abstract, which was fine, and if I overcommitted to one colour at least I won that. In the other colours Iād had a chance at, other people had much more.
ArigatÅ, much more fun than on BoardGameArena (as most games are) though having to look up the iconography rather than hover a mouse pointer over it can be hard work. This time the cards very much did not fall in my favour.
As we were starting to feel a bit brained out, I suggested Lemminge, which rapidly became Very Silly (and, of course, vicious, as it should be).
And finally Cartagena, a game of escaping pirates. Play a card to move forward to the next free symbol of that type; move a pirate back to another to draw another card or two. Very little to do with any sort of physical process, but rather enjoyable, though I suspect with fewer players one should shrink the map to keep things interesting.
10 Likes
We were at a games day in Letchworth Garden City today (link for anyone that wants to know what a garden city is). Games we played included:
Heat: see my terrible hand above. The finish was quite spectacular as the person in last place managed to overtake three cars on his final turn to finish in second place.
Century: Spice Road: A very close game of turning cubes into other cubes.
Westward Rails: A cube rails game that I was too tired to really appreciate. Most of the money/points seemed to come from completing routes in Ticket to Ride style, but there were also shares and dividends. Triggering the payout of dividends removed the availability of certain routes that changed through the game, so you had to make sure your railroad wasnāt too profitable before completing the routes.
SCOUT: Only two points between 1st and 3rd place! 
Flip 7: At this point a silly push-your-luck game was about all we were good for. I think I prefer the new version (Flip 7: with a vengeance) because itās meaner, more chaotic, and therefore funnier
8 Likes
Ooh, Iāve been to that group. Itās a bit far for a casual drive butā¦
4 Likes
Today we did something we havenāt done in years: We played a Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective case! Since weāre working through the boxes backwards (we started with the fourth one), weāve started the chronologically second box, Carleton House & Queenās Park.
It was fun! Sherlock Holmes is still bullshit of course, but if you let go of the idea of beating him, itās a really cool brain-teaser!
10 Likes
Azul (4p) ā in which my sister got lumped with a pile of 10 cyan tiles she couldnāt make any use of at the end of one round, costing her the maximum broken tiles penalty of -14 points, and she still won the game by 6 points with a score of 76.
Mysterium (4p) ā we realised we were rather short on time for a game of Mysterium, so for speed purposes we set it to āeasyā mode with only a single decoy card in each category, and consequently we absolutely flew through the game in about 30 minutes flat! While Iād have preferred a longer game if Iād thought weād had enough time, it was still a nice dose of classic Mysterium fun, and it was neat to learn that we could play a game as quickly as that.
As we had an unexpected amount of time left overā¦
Hot Streak (4p) ā Cards look amazing for Hurley. Race 1: I double down on a pair of risky bets on Hurley, who decides to run off the back of the track half way through the race, placing third thanks only to trampling Dangle on the way. Race 2: I try another risky bet on Hurley, but also a safe bet on the previous winner Gobbler. Hurley gets two thirds of the way to the finish line, then turns and sprints back to the start, just in time to get swallowed by the track moving up, and finishing last. Gobbler comes through, at least. Race 3: I am done with that stupid hotdog! I place both of my bets elsewhere, and add in a -2 card for Hurley out of spite. Hurley wins the race.
13 Likes
More games today:
Brian Boru: Included a bit of a monastery arms race and a debate about whether 11th century Ireland counted as Catholic or not.
Molly House: I almost managed to escape hangingā¦ but not quite. The Molly house that Iād informed on was one cube short of a raid.
Schadenfreude
9 Likes
Played Viticulture with the new Bordeaux expansion.
Setup and rules teach took two hours (reading every word of the rulebooks) although Iām fairly sure I could do it in 20 mins now.
In the early rounds I concentrated on trading, getting residuals and bottles of wine directly. It got to year three or so in my wine career (in the photo below) and I realised I hadnāt planted any grapes yet.
Definitely the best version of Viticulture. You start with more resources and cards, grapes and orders have two cards face up, there are four seasons, a trade action and a more interesting wake-up chart.
10 Likes
Another busy weekend passed but I got my gaming challenge completed in three segments with three quick solo games of Witchcraft!. I started with a crack at the base game, which was going reasonably well until getting stuck in an endgame trap where, after drawing a weak hand, I was forced to avoid and therefore exile juror Elizabethās third act mission, with the trial being forced in the same round. I managed to win the support of one juror but sadly not two. A tough loss but I switched course to play the first two tales of the Tales of Wildegrens campaign over the next two evenings which proved much more successful. Ignoring the trial elements makes things much more straightforward and clearer focus on completing missions and defeating/mitigating creatures from the challenge deck. The base game is a tough beast to defeat but the campaign mode provides a gentler test and in time I will try to complete that mode too.
9 Likes
Got back from the con and these are what I played from the whole weekend:
Puerto Banana - the dumbest game Iāve played this weekend. Played it 7 times.
Impulse 2e - oh man! What a game! Shines so much playing it with people who knows how to play. Played it enough that I can teach it confidedntly
Bridges of Shangri-La - this is THE game of the con. What a masterpiece!! Two people have said that this is their best new-to-me. Played it 3 times
Indonesia - damn, I donāt even need to bring my copy. With 3e out and about, people are bringing it along. Only played it twice, but man, that number would be higher if I had more chances.
Mottainai - back with 1 v 1 head-to-head with a Mottainai friend. The usual 2am brain-being-dead arrangement. Often go back to my room around 2:30 because of Mottainai
Through the Ages + Leaders and Wonders expansion - 3 players as the owner completely insists to only play 3 max. I somewhat disagree but I totally respect the take! 4 player TTA with the speedybois would have been doable.
I had no strategy lmao
Schadenfreude - They kept feeding me points. Then, I annoyed everyone by scoring exactly 40 pts. Great game.
Pax Porfiriana - 3 players guns blazing in Mexican El Norte. I tried to be President Diazās stooge, but they screwed my plan and so I tried to rally the Army on my side with a classic military coup dāetat, but player 3 manage to instigate a revolution first and won.
Tigris and Euphrates - I swear only in this con would people be excited on playing Tigris and Euphrates.
El Grande - full house. Tons of fun
HOOOOOOT STREEEAAAAAK - last year, I was the cool guy who brought Hot Streak. Now thereās loads of copies around that I shouldnāt have brought mine. Tons of fun! Rikki joined us tonight for this game and perhaps my only play with him. Iāll try to grab a copy of his game on SPIEL. No idea what it is yet though.
Imperial 2030 - India lagged behind and so I put my investments on Russia and EU (making sure they donāt attack each other). But India eventually races ahead and I donāt have enough Indian bonds on my portfolio.
Peanuts Talent Show - trick taker with deckbuilding. Good fun. Better than Fishing but thatās a low bar
Innovation 4e - I have played THREE Chudyk games this weekend
Faraway
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Overall comments:
Great weekend. I found a good place where thereās a crowd that is exciting on playing old school games like Tigris and Shangri-La. I even saw two copies of Imperial 2030 going around. Honestly, hard to find a crowd like this. Modern Euros were played too and are the most common games to see like SETI. I few epics like Through the Ages (saw two copies) were seen. Eclipse 2e and High Frontier 4 All too. And indeed, Londoners seem to love their Splotters: Indo is the belle of the ball due to 3e reprint. Food Chain Magnate, Roads and Boats, Horseless Carriage, Bus (multiple copies) were seen too. Alas, I missed out on playing Bus the whole weekend!! Ameritrash section: Iāve seen Nemesis and Tales of the Arthurian Knights. Gibberers was fun even as a spectator. They literally just talking to each other in Gibberish.
As for the location, Eastbourne during the Summer con is fun! The beach market is open the whole weekend. I had Thai food and burritos. There also a Mediterranean shop where I bought baklava and cannoli. The Eastbourne Silver Band was playing and so I stopped by for a bit to listen.
I lack sleep and so I slept immediately after I got home. Will see if I can return for the Winter con, but it might not happen as I want to go to SPIEL this year.
13 Likes
played a learning solo of Caesar Seize Rome in 20 minutes. it took longer.
WTF? How do i parse the decision tree for the bot?
@Phil ?
(edit this looks helpful https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/238616/auto-crassus-engine-for-solo-play)
7 Likes
New game night again!
Ginkgopolis - Actually had played this a couple weeks ago with just my wife and found it very fun and interesting. Today was four-player and oh boy, I need to work on my teach for this! Anyway I played terribly (I miscounted things so my last move did nothing except give other people points). But what an interesting game. Every single turn: the color, the location, the cost, the rewardsā¦ it all matters and it all works together (mostly) elegantly. Would love to get this to the table again soon.
Remember Our Trip - Hey, remember when we all went to Singapore? Now weāre back home and reminiscing about it. Wasnāt there a park on that street? I seem to recall a bunch of restaurants near a hotelā¦ Itās not a memory game - itās a funny little tile-laying game where youāre placing two or three little tokens at once in a pre-determined shape on your board, trying to create like-colored groups that you can flip for points.
But thereās also a communal map, and if, when you flip a set of tokens, the spaces you just flipped are open on the map, you can place a tile to match (yes, there WAS a hotel here), and now thatās a confirmed memory that other people can match on their map for points as well. Itās really fun! I was trying to complete a big attraction in the middle of the board, but the shape I was allowed to place in never let me get the last piece, and in the meantime my friend made a big block of restaurants in the same space, meaning I wouldnāt be able to place a tile down for big bonus points.
10 Likes
Yeahā¦ itās a wall of text at first 
The lists of tie-breakers are (like the placement rules) in priority order ā so you use the first tie-breaker that applies at all, and if that filtered list is still more than one option, you continue to check the remaining tie-breakers to narrow the list down further.
All I can say is that once youāve internalised the botās priorities, it actually plays very smoothly, and the 20 minute label will become appropriate.
6 Likes
We had our second meet up with a new acquaintance we made at a small gaming con back at the end of January. We introduced him to Ra and Lords of Vegas. Amazingly, I won both games. I thought for certain I was going to lose Ra as I did terribly in the first epoch, but came back to win by 2 points, and only because I had the highest total value of sun disks at the end and the new guy had the lowest, so I gained 5 while he lost 5. Scores were 34 - 32 - 27.
Vegas scores were 66 - 49 - 32, though this time my wife was in 2nd place.
Good fun!
11 Likes
Never heard of it - it looks pretty cool
1 Like
Played:
Sea Salt and Paper
Saboteur
and
Scout
and realised that Iād remembered both SS+P and Scout completely incorrectly. Their real rules make them kinda great.
7 Likes