Gaming For The Week 7th - 13th March 2010

Ivan was back from reservist and raring to game this week. He wasn't disappointed as he, Jo and I managed two games of A Game of Thrones LCG midweek. He has invested substantially in sprucing up his set and this time round he revealed a new deck - that of House Greyjoy. He began with that while Jo and I took Martell and Lannistar respectively.

I had an amazing opening hand, filled with gold producing locations AND characters. Before long, I was running up an income of around 8 each round and was unstoppable as I increased my characters in play. Valar nor Bear Island was in play thankfully and I rushed to 15 power tokens rather comfortably. In a melee game, I made it a point to target Greyjoy rather than Martell for fear of the latter's backlash effects. Ivan struggled with the lack of income locations in his deck - definitely an area he intends to tweak for our next session.

The second game was a much closer affair. I opted for Martell this time round, with Jo trying Greyjoy and Ivan going his new fav - Stark. While he opted not to carry Valar as a plot choice, his Bear Island was nonetheless devastating, having a free kill during dominance of any character without an attachment. It not only depletes your opponents' stock of powerful characters (particularly those with he 'no attachments' trait) but puts him in good stead to win dominance each round. However I played it right this time recognizing Bear Island gives one kill and not one from each opponent which would make it absolutely ridiculous in melee.

Jo also struggled with income, noting he had powerful cards yet was unable to play them. I had no idea how I inched ahead them to win especially when I started unimpressively. But what wa probably integral was Arianne Martell who allows an extra claim for each winning battle she participates in. Considering she had a power icon coupled with a few turns where I had non-kneeling effects, I racked up the power tokens in a jiffy. I suppose it was fortunately I was able to keep her safe from the Bear Island effects by giving her an attachment at the point I marshalled her.

I was keen to play Hansa after but Ivan suggested Chicago Express, not having tried it before. I was surprised to have pulled this game in 2 consecutive seasions. I still have high regard for the game as my pas posts on it indicate but I have to admit the game does feel a little samey with the same player count (which has been 3 for my group). In most cases, Red is the one reaching Chicago first. However, this time round, we split the Red shares evenly so it was Jo and I pushing Blue towards Chicago and reaping the attractive payout afterwards. Jo had an early lead when I foolishly overbid for the 2nd Red share only for him to swoop in for the 3rd share at a cut price the next turn. I managed to claw back the lead with a few well timed auctions and eventually took the win with $90+. Jo and Ivan were both close with $70+ each.

By then we had only time for a filler. We ended up trying the 3-player variant of Battle Line. It was functional but no where as impressive as it's 2-player counterpart.


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8th Dec 2009 Session Report: Hansa Teutonica

Battle Line

The day of gaming began innocuously enough with Van suggesting a rematch at Battle Line despite her winning the last game couple days back. As usual, it was a tight affair with Van emerging victorious 2 games to 1. While abstract (typical Knizia), the tension the game creates is splendid. Some view the tactic cards as overly random but I see it as an opportunity cost mechanic which I enjoy.

Opting to hold tactic cards in hand means the trade-off of greater flexibility by holding more numerical cards. I usually avoid taking tactic cards till my opponent takes his/her first one so as to reserve an option of responding if he/she does play one against me.

Besides the decisions of how early to take a tactic card and how many to take is the decision of when to play a tactic card. My experience is that I will usually initiate the play of tactic cards when I'm falling behind and do so in the hope that my opponent holds inferior tactic card(s) which prevents a timely response. When ahead, there is absolutely no reason to open the can of worms that tactic cards bring and often I'll 'take a blow' without responding so that no further tactic cards can be played against me.

All in all, my opinion is that meaningful decisions are introduced with tactic cards and I always opt to play with them except when teaching new players the game.

Hansa Teutonica

Marcus contacted me last minute that he was available to game. He brought along Hansa Teutonica which I had read so much about from the Essen reports on BGG. It has been touted as comparable to Endeavor but perhaps more gamey. I had my reservations about Endeavor despite owning it and wondered if Hansa Teutonica would be a worthy substitute as a game with somewhat similar mechanics.

We grappled a bit with the rules at the start as it was the first time Marcus was explaining the rules. In retrospect, there is probably a little more to explain for HT since its mechanics are less streamlined than Endeavor and it possesses more numerous ways of scoring points. However, I do appreciate that points scored for your development tracks are less fiddly than those scored in Endeavor. In HT, you simply score 4 points for each track you maximize. With a few plays in the bag, I suspect HT shouldn't be much tougher explaining than Endeavor.

It was a close game with the three of us groping in the dark trying to formulate some kind of strategy. Marcus and I realized early that developing our actions track would be key to our competitiveness and thus there was fierce competition for the relevant route. Van caught on a bit later and was unable to maximize her actions track by the end of the game. My points grew as I controlled a city on that route and I ended the game when I crossed the 20 point threshold by scoring the 7 points given to the first player to connect the 2 red labelled cities from east to west. Marcus almost caught up as we tabulated the scores as he was the only one to advance his network multiplier to 2, which doubled the points he scored for each office he possessed in his longest network of connected cities. The scores ended 42-40-18.

The game played quick - one hour excluding rules and set-up for a first game! It pleased me to see that HT plays likely in the same time as Endeavor despite posts on BGG that suggest that it plays longer. I was a bit perturbed that most parts of the board were left untouched as we focused our actions on the south-east portion where the city to upgrade the actions track laid. I also questioned the game was too predictable as it was apparent that the action track seemed overpowered as suggested by some on BGG. But upon some reflection, I realized the various options to score points in the game was oddly balanced and it was possible to do well even without upgrading to the 5th action. The ability to take an action and move multiple cubes while less apparent can be just as powerful and potentially negate the disadvantage of having less actions. In fact, it's probably wise to opt for another path to victory if other players compete too fiercely to upgrade their actions.

Herein lies the factor in which I rate HS over Endeavor. Endeavor is a great gateway game and probably easier for casual gamers to pick up compared to HT. However, my grouse with Endeavor is that every game doesn't seem to develop differently enough. Diversification is the key to victory and one is unlikely to do well if he or she overly neglects any of the developmental tracks. The charm about HT is that there are viable options where players can specialize, whether in their choice of developmental tracks to upgrade or their means of scoring points. This trait of having multiple paths to victory is one possessed by most of my highly rated games including the Princes of Florence.

One play seemed sufficient for me to make up my mind and at the point of typing this entry, I have already sold away Endeavor and made an order for Hansa Teutonica as its replacement.

Le Havre

We ended the night with Le Havre. Marcus and Van seemed to get their hands on all the key buildings before I could and I struggled to keep up. Van sold off her Sawmill which reaped her enough francs to purchase a wooden ship before the Wharf was available. Coupled with my mistakes in the end game, the final scores were 223-196-167 in the favour of Marcus and Van. I realized that the end game is highly critical and there is a need to plan your final actions taken. The tricky bit is that most players will be aiming for the same buildings in the end game (shipping, clearing loans, building the luxury liner, etc.) and you may very well be shut out of those buildings. This happened to me and I wasn't able to finish shipping the goods I stocked up for most of the game. This is especially so since one cannot repeat his last action as his final, unblockable action at the end of the game. A splendid game no doubt and one I'm looking forward to honing my play in.

2nd Dec 2009 Session Report: A Close One...

Van suggested that we play Battle Line out of the blue and it turned out to be a really close affair. I started well, taking the first couple of flags and threatening a breakthrough on the right flank, needing only 1 more flag to win the game. However, Van held out and with the help of her superior Tactic cards, she fended off everything I could throw at her, including the Fog and Mud cards, to take the win 5-4.

25th Aug 2009 Session Report: 1st Automobile Ride!

Had an opportunity to game with Valerie and Marcus today. Valerie had some gaming experience back in the UK and we went through some of my shorter games while waiting for Marcus to arrive.

Alhambra (Me 141, Val 100, Dirk the Dummy 92)

First go at the official 2-player variant for Alhambra. Verdict? It plays quite well. There isn't much setting up for the dummy player except to add tiles to his hand at 3 points in the game but serves its purpose to provide some competition for the scoring phase. It is however unlikely for 'Dirk' to pose any threat since he doesn't score points for an external wall. He will tend to lag behind both players unless the players opt to purchase buildings on his behalf (which is an option in the 2-player variant) although I didn't see many opportunities which would make that worthwhile. Val ran into some trouble after acquiring some difficult to place tiles early on, which slowed her progress in expanding her estate. I on the other hand leant from the experience of my first play to acquire more money cards and only purchasing tiles at the exact price as far as possible. I could also concentrate on building an extended external wall this time round which accounted for a significant proportion of my score.

Battle Line (Val 3 Me 0)

Taught Valerie Battle Line figuring its short playtime was especially appropriate in light of Marcus's impending arrival. We started with 2 games without the tactic cards and Val despite it being her first play went on to trounce me soundly. She won one game by making a breakthrough (3 consecutive flags) and the other by nabbing 5 flags to my 2. I then introduced the Tactic cards which she grasped the nuances immediately and promptly won the 3rd game as well.

Automobile (Me $4790, Marcus $4050, Val $3980)

Marcus brought Automobile over, which was a game I was eager to try after all the hype on BGG. Thanks to Marcus, we got to try the game on one of the few sets of the first print run. Apparently, the game will only be widely available early next year. This was also my first Martin Wallace game and while I can see the genius of it, I figured it was a game I didn't feel much compulsion to own. The feel was very much of a business game. Of the games I have played, Indonesia comes the closest although Automobile is far shorter (which is a big plus in my book) and does not involve mergers.

We took awhile to plough through the rules together, but the game mechanics became much clearer after the first round. The challenge of the game lies in estimating the demand each round, and matching your production and sales so as to achieve the largest profit possible. Val and Marcus underproduced for a couple of rounds while I leveraged on my low-cost car factories to make a killing to gain a significant lead.

There are 3 ways to sell cars: 1. 2 cars via Howard (special ability of 1 of the characters), 2. Through distributors (up to a max of 8 which you have to build up over the rounds provided you were successful in supplying them with cars each round), and 3. based on the combined demand tiles drawn (number sold depends on factory placement and modifiers based on executive decisions chosen).

You are trying your best to match demand and supply each round for each unsupplied distributor and unsold car will reap you a loss cube. You also gain loss cubes for factories that lag behind more advanced factories opened. However, our observation from our first play is that the penalty of taking loss cubes isn't too severe and various characters plus closing down your factories allow you to reduce your loss cube count. Loans while available also seem unnecessary as each player starts with $2000. We attributed the lack of tightness to the fewer players in the game - it would be interesting to try the game again with 5, which according to Wallace would be far more cut-throat.

Tulipmania 1637 (Marcus $20825, Me $14775, Val $12875)

Marcus introduced us to another game about the sale of tulips. The mechanics resemble a stock market of sorts where the price of different coloured tulips fluctuate depending on demand and supply, as well as speculation. You earn money via the tulip you put up for sale on your turn and try to accumulate tulips of higher prices so that once the 'bursting' point is attained, all tulips of that colour in hand can be sold at various prices depending on whether one owns matching buyer cards. It is one of those games where you struggle to capture its nuances the first time round, and which is highly dependent on the actions of others. It possesses some similar elements to a potential acquisition, Chicago Express, but somehow failed to capture my interest.

Sorry! Sliders (Marcus - Winner, Me, Val)

We had a little time left so I figured it was a good opportunity to give my new set of Sorry! Sliders a go. Acquired it to add a dexterity game to my collection. Was initially somewhat disappointed by the quality of the components but all in all, it was good fun for the short while we had a go at it. I guess deeper games still interest me more but I believe it will be a hit with the casual or non-gamers I game with.

4th June 2009 Session Report: A Short One In More Ways Than One

Wanted to have a go at the Catan Card game but Van preferred something snappy and picked Battle Line. I was hoping for something heavier but nonetheless this is an excellent 2 player game, always tense and intriguing. I promptly lost the best of 3 match 0-2, the first going 5-2 in Van's favour and in the second, I was helpless to stop Van gaining 3 adjacent flags.

10 March 2009 Session Report: The One Where I Tried To Convert 2 Non-Gamers

2 game sessions in consecutive days...I must be dreaming. Anyway, Sarah came over for a visit today while Van had Siew Min over to bake with her. After letting Sarah have a go at Wii Sports, we proceeded to try our first 'real' game. Considering that she hadn't been exposed to the world of Eurogames, I figured the first experience was key - it could either make it or break it. The other factor was that there were only 2 of us as the other 2 gals were busy in the kitchen. My initial plan was to go with Stone Age but fearing that it might be overly heavy as a first game, I decided to ease the process by opting for a shorter, simpler game. I went with Battleline which was one of my favourite 2-player games, hoping that the short yet surprisingly tactical game would make a good first impression. I would typically be concerned about starting someone on a Knizia due to its abstract nature but since Sarah was a chess player, I figured I might just be able to pull it off.

I naturally opted to play without the Tactic cards to avoid overwhelming her, which turned out to be a good decision. She got the hang of the game relatively quickly, the only blimp being she took awhile to familiarize herself with the various card combinations as she had never been exposed to Poker hands. I took the first game 5-1 but she came back with a vengeance in the second, and pipped me to the victory with a score of 5-3 - an impressive game played on her part indeed.

She seemed to enjoy herself so I took the risk of pulling out Stone Age next. I would have gone with Settlers but unfortunately it was not an option with 2. I was looking for a game of similar weight which scaled well with 2 and the choice was obvious. She was slightly overwhelmed during the explanation of the rules but quickly got into her stride after playing a couple of rounds. I made it a point to highlight to her some of the more important spots and she acquitted herself well. The game ended 249-212 in my favour but only because I was more intentional in collecting advantageous civilization cards.

Van and Siew Min finally finished baking and I was able to persuade them to join us in a game of Settlers. Siew Min was a hard sell but we finally managed to get her to give it a go. Apparently, her last attempt at Galaxy Trucker still left her somewhat scarred, hah. Van and I went easy on the 2 newbies, trading generously with them, and tried to steal from each other whenever possible. Settlers can be a somewhat confrontational game and mean play can really spoil the experience for those new to such games. We were all neck-to-neck for most of the game but the breakthrough came when Siew Min connected her longest road. Coupled with her sheep port, she took the win while I was stuck on 7 VPs with the other 2 at 6 VPs. 

Well done Siew Min! This seemed a much more palatable experience for her and hopefully this would encourage her to give other games a try. Sarah on the other hand did find playing 3 games in a row somewhat brain taxing but commented she especially enjoyed Stone Age and Battleline. Looking forward to introducing other games in my collection.

Boxing Day Session Report

While the rest of Singapore were thronging Orchard Road for the post-Christmas sales, I opted for the sane choice of staying within the comforts of my own home. 

Ben came over for games and I started the afternoon by teaching him Battle Line, a short and excellent two-player card game by Reiner Knizia that both Van and I enjoy tremendously. For its length, it has a nice degree of tactical depth but what I particularly like about the game is the constant tension present in managing your hand. 

We played the first game without the tactic cards so that Ben could get a hang of the mechanics. He won by taking three adjacent flags with a good draw at the end. After introducing the tactic cards to him, we played two more games which I won, probably due to a better understanding of how to utilize the tactic cards. 

Some on the geek forum have expressed preference for the vanilla version of the game, but having experienced the fine balancing play of the tactic cards, I would have it no other way. I particular appreciate the rule of being able to play at most one more tactic card than your opponent for it forces you to choose carefully both the right card as well as the right timing to employ it. Blatant use of the tactic cards is thus not possible, and overdrawing from the tactic cards pile means a diminished ability to hold number cards which is key to forming strong 3-card 'formations'.

With Van and Siew Min still busy in the kitchen, I suggested playing Agricola after enjoying it as a two-player with Van the day before. While Ben wasn't a fan of worker-placement games, he was open to trying it with the occupation and minor improvement cards since his only prior experience with the game was the family mode. 

I find the game less tedious with fewer players, especially with less resource replenishing to do between rounds. While I don't enjoy it as much as El Grande or Princes of Florence, it does scale incredibly well. At the moment, I probably enjoy it more with two or three than with four or five. 

I won the game with a better diversification of my farm though Ben did put up a good fight. He would probably have scored better if he didn't forget about the 'Wet Nurse' occupation card which he had in hand which allowed him to add a family member for free each time he added a room to his hut. We played with the K deck which I find much better balanced than the E deck though the 'Wet Nurse' occupation does seem somewhat overpowered.

The two girls finally finished up their baking and joined us for a game of Galaxy Trucker. This was only the second play for Van and I and there were some rules that we still needed to iron out. 

Ben and Siew Min seemed to catch the basic premise of the game after the tutorial round which makes me wonder if the game is truly as unaccessible to first-timers as some posts in the geek forum seem to suggest. Van managed to finish building her ship first each time and ran off with the game with a score of 106. I was a distant second with 64.  

The jury is still out on this one. I spent a long time considering whether to splash out on this game and it was eventually a substantially discounted price on CoolStuffInc.com that made me take the plunge. After trying it, I think it did concur with my prior research on the game. The ship building aspect is novel but the space flight segment seems largely on auto-pilot. Think I will give it a few more tries before determining if it is a keeper.

Siew Min left around dinner time, and the three of us continued with the final game of the night, Glory to Rome after having our fill. 

Glory to Rome has really become a crowd favourite since we started playing it which makes me wonder about its mediocre ranking on the geek. I suspect it is due to some feeling that the building powers are overpowered and while I do agree with that, it seems to me that they do balance each other out. There are sufficient powers available to hamper an opponent pursuing the Forum strategy, where you immediately win the game with each of the six roles present in your clientele. 

I made an effort to play my hands more efficiently today and took a close one from Van. I also paid more attention to the vault and stashed valuable gold earned from selling stone and marble materials in there. An early Shrine (+2 hand) and an eventual Circus Maximus (doubles the actions of clients led or followed) helped substantially as well.