Goodbye Power Grid & Red November...

Recently in an effort to trim down my collection in anticipation of the new games arriving, I sold off my copies of Power Grid and Red November.

Power Grid

It came as a surprise to me that I would be willing to let go of my copy of Power Grid. After all, it is the no. 3 game on BGG and before the phenom that is Agricola, Power Grid was firmly etched in its no. 2 behind Puerto Rico. Power Grid was also part of my first bulk boardgame purchase which represented my commitment to seriously get into the copy. Lastly, this is one of the heavier games that Van actually enjoys and she is some Power Grid player if I may add. 

I was tempted to keep it but the diminished plays it saw amidst the new kids on the block led me to finally pull the trigger. As awesome a game Power Grid is, it does come across somewhat fiddly. Some find the mechanics elegant but I'm part of the opposition who find that the game tries too hard to avoid player elimination. The mechanics are geared towards giving the trailing players an edge to enable catch-up. The effects are pronounced in multiple phases, providing an advantage in plant auctions, resource purchase and city connections, such that it pays to lag behind. This unintuitive approach coupled with the mathematically laden endgame meant that I would rather play Princes of Florence or El Grande with 4 or 5. While one of Power Grid's advantages is that it plays 2-6 and scales decently, it takes too long with 6 and loses some of its luster in the auction phase with 2 or 3.

Red November

Red November confirmed for me that cooperative games without a traitor element are simply not my cup of tea. While it had less of a puzzle-like element than Pandemic, it felt terribly repetitive and uninteresting with the lack of differentiation amongst players. Pandemic tackles this well with the different roles with special abilities. The use of the dice to determine if repair efforts are successful diminishes potential strategic/tactical play. While I can imagine some enjoying it as it is, it is clearly not for me. And when Van declared that she would rather play Race to the Galaxy than Red November, her dislike was similarly apparent.

17 March 2009 Session Report: The One Where We Tried High Society

Misplaced the record sheet so this will be a recap based on what I can remember.

Ben and Mun came over for games today. Mun arrived earlier so while waiting for Ben, I whipped out High Society which I obtained recently for a first attempt. It was typical Knizia - interesting mechanics especially with the twist of having the player with the least money being eliminated but came across slightly dry due to its abstract nature. Nonetheless, it seems like a keeper for my purpose of serving as entertainment for guests when I'm not able to join them. The short play-time and simple rules fit the bill nicely. Only question in my mind is whether For Sale would be a better option but that's a moot point till I'm able to get my hands on a copy at a reasonable price (which rules out the reprint :P)

Van took the first game and Mun the second. I couldn't make up for the negative cards I took in the first game while I overspent in the second. The feel of the game reminded me of a simpler form of Modern Art. For some reason while I usually do reasonably well in Ra, I don't seem to have a good sense of how to do well in this alternate form of auction games.

Seeing that it had been awhile since we had four seasoned players, I took the opportunity to bring our my newly acquired copy of Princes of Florence. Still prefer to play with the maximum of 5 but seeing that it was a rare opportunity, I decided 4 wouldn't be too bad either. First play for Ben. I made a couple of bad mistakes and so did Van but we still emerged on top, with me losing to Van by a single point. Could have taken it if I didn't miscalculate my finances, failing to outbid Mun for the last Forest. The extra 3PP from what would have been my fourth forest would have won me the game. After the play, I made a mental note to upgrade my rating of the game from a 9 to a 10. The fact that such varied strategies (banking on multiple prestige cards instead of producing works) were viable added a notch for me. Looking forward to my next play.

There were some calls for Glory to Rome but figured we should instead have a go at another old favourite, El Grande. It was previously my no.1 game but in recent months, it has fallen behind Glory to Rome and Princes of Florence in my book. Still rate it a solid 9 nonetheless. Van took the win by virtue of a strong early move where we allowed her to score close to 20 points by scoring the six and seven regions. I learnt today that defense was just as important as offense in El Grande and sometimes cards need to be taken not for personal benefit but rather to block an opponent from gaining an extreme advantage. The three of us failed to do that today and Van took the win easily. The issue however is that there is general reluctance to sacrifice as the blocker for it often means forsaking a card providing personal benefit to do so.

Mun had to make a move and with the time remaining, I decided to show Ben the mechanics of Red November since he queried about it. I decided to play a 2 player game with each controlling a single gnome. As expected, we both survived in view of the limited event cards we were exposed to. The game is clearly easier with fewer players even with the attempted scalability of starting further down the track with more players.

9 March 2009 Session Report: The One Where We Revisited Ra

We had a new friend, Shouqin at our gaming session tonight whom we met on the Singapore Boardgames Meetup forum. Marcus was also able to join us but before he arrived I took the opportunity to teach Shouqin the rules for Glory to Rome.

We started the game once Marcus arrived and it wasn't clear in the early going who was going to emerge with an advantage. My early buildings were unimpressive and I basically started building with whatever cards I had in hand to gain some influence points. Marcus on the other hand was quietly completing his Scriptorium which he learnt from his last game with me that it allowed the completion of multiple buildings with a marble material each. 

The breakthrough came when he used that ability to complete his Colosseum. I was more prepared for it this time round and started building my Palisade (Immune to Legionary) though it was only completed after Marcus had a turn at my clientele. He managed an early lead over the rest of us by stashing a couple of cards in his vault that very turn.

However, the killer blow came when he used his Scriptorium to complete a Prision which he in turn used to steal my Bridge. While I gained 3 additional influence points, it didn't make the loss any less painful. I built it in hope of breaching Van's Palisade but my failure to keep an eye on Marcus's buildings allowed it to be stolen and used again me.

The consequences were devastating. He now not only could overcome my Palisade but also steal from every players' clientele, including Van's who was sitting opposite him. The vault points he racked up easily steered him to victory while the rest of us were left in the dust. My decision not to build the Wall early in the game but instead use it as concrete came back to haunt me.

The final scores were 45 (Marcus), 31 (me), 20+ (Shouqin) and 14 (Van) respectively.

I was keen to get Princes of Florence out as the next game since it was rare that we had 4 at a session. However Shouqin needed to leave within an hour so we opted for Ra instead. Marcus and Shouqin were new to the game but picked it up quickly. Ra has simple mechanics but the tricky bit is to valuate the tiles appropriately in light of not just their scoring but also the proximity to the end of the epoch (round).

I had a small lead after the first epoch but the other players exited early in the 2nd epoch and left me to draw freely with 4 Ra spaces yet unfilled. I had good draws and managed to take 2 full displays with only one disaster tile with my remaining 2 number chips. This built me a comfortable lead and I took the game with 51 points. Marcus, Shouqin and Van had 42, 25 and 23 points respectively.

Shouqin had to leave after the game, and Marcus stayed back for a round of Red November. I was keen to give the game another shot after our last attempt at the 2-player variant. Playing with 3 was definitely easier than our last attempt with 4 gnomes. Marcus drank 2 grogs early and rode his luck for half the game. He eventually failed a faint check and got trapped in a room which caught fire. That spelled his doom. Van and I on the hand managed to experience our first rescue as we worked together to deal with the remaining problems. We almost succumbed to the expiry of the heat track on the last turn but survived. 

While we ended on a good note, Van was clearly not impressed by the game. Guess it's headed for the trade pile...

3 March 2009 Session Report: The One Where We Took Red November For A Dive

Despite trading for Red November awhile back, I haven't been able to get it to the table. Finally I managed to persuade Van to give it a go with me. While the game indicates the game 'only' scales from 3-8 players, we decided to adopt the variant of each controlling 2 gnomes.

Having read the rules some time ago, I needed to revise the rules again. The rule book unfortunately was rather unconducive to quick reviews and this led to substantial downtime during turns as I flipped the rule book frantically in search of answers. This happened more than a few times and Van was clearly getting bored by the excessive downtime. I tried to qualify that this was typical of first plays in hope that she wouldn't be turned off by a negative first experience.

Personally, it was helpful for me to get a first play under my belt as it gave me a better idea of the game flow and some referencing to Red November's rules forum after the game enabled me to pin down the game more or less.

Hopefully, the next game will go down better, especially with Van. While I wasn't wowed by the game and somewhat frustrated by the downtime, I do see some potential in the game. I can see how Pandemic is a better game in some ways which perhaps explains its considerably higher ranking but I suspect I will probably enjoying playing this more. Will do a comparison of the two when I get the chance.

I will probably try it again with at least 3 since the variant of taking 2 gnomes didn't seem to fly with us - you are less attached to your gnomes since you can afford to lose one and it was distracting having to constantly switch between considering each gnome's items and circumstances.

Oh and by the way, our sub got destroyed around the 10min mark. We probably would have blew up earlier if we played all the rules accurately from the start...

Goodbye Mr. Jack... Hello Red November!

Picture courtesy of Luis Nunes @ BBG

Traded away my copy of Mr. Jack for Red November. As usual, I will take the opportunity to note down some of my thoughts on the game.

Mr. Jack was an enigma for me. It's very well thought-off on the geek. Coupled with interesting mechanics and a reasonably short play-time, I figured it would be a shoo-in for my collection and I took the plunge despite the somewhat high prize tag for a game of this nature. However, despite a number of plays, the game never took off for me.

I'm intrigued by the mechanics and like the premise of the game of trying to deduce the identity of Mr. Jack. Unfortunately, two issues leave the game somewhat wanting in my eyes:

1. Downtime Due To Analysis Paralysis

Mr. Jack has a certain chess-like element which leads to a certain degree of downtime while players contemplate their moves. While I agree this varies from player to player, it has nonetheless been true of my games with Van. I in particular can't play the game by merely making cursory in-game decisions. 

While I don't mind downtime in some games, it is particularly frustrating here for the downtime is unproductive. What I mean by this is that while my opponent is contemplating his or her move, I am unable to use the same time to contemplate mine for my potential moves are highly dependent on the state of the board after the completion of my opponent's moves. 

Unlike Chess, the random nature of card flips on alternate turns limits the ability to think ahead and decisions tend to be confined within each player's turn. In addition, the variety in possible moves also add to the difficulty of planning ahead during an opponent's turn.

2. Insignificant Character Turns

As the game progresses, there are an increasing number of suspects proven innocent. Due to the rotational nature of characters, there will be occasions where players need to utilize certain innocent characters which have little to nil impact on the game due to their location on the board or the irrelevance of their special ability at that point in time.

A somewhat related issue is the variable movement of characters. More often than not, I find little difference in moving my chosen character between 1-3 spaces and thus the decision becomes much less meaningful.

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Picture courtesy of Jorge Portillo @ BGG

I thought I add some of my pre-play impressions of Red November which led me to trade for it:

1. Portable

2. Plays up to 8

3. Reasonably short game time - box says 60 minutes but I understand that is highly dependent on the number of players

4. Cooperative element - reviews and the rules suggest it does not suffer as severely as Pandemic from the 'puzzle' syndrome.

The rules did seem rather fiddly though, hopefully that will not be a game-breaker. Looking forward to trying it out. Unfortunately it doesn't play with 2 so Van and I will have to wait till we have friends over to give it a go.