11 Jan 2009 Session Report: The One Which We Played Settlers!

Mun joined us this afternoon for games. Hopefully, we will be able to get a regular session on Sunday going.

For some reason, we have been playing the same games for the past few sessions and today was no different. However, we managed to squeeze a game of Settlers in between Glory to Rome, Agricola, Stone Age and Galaxy Trucker.

I gained the upper hand in Glory to Rome again and took the game with 21 points to Van's 15 and Mun's 10. I'm increasingly convinced that the key to the game is efficient hand management. I make it a point to avoid 'thinking' (drawing of cards) unless the 'think' action reaps me at least 2-3 cards.

Van complained that the game ended too abruptly with me claiming the last 2 in-town sites to end the game. I took a quick lead in building completions and decided to end it while I was ahead. While I agree that it is rather easy to end the game by a building spree, that isn't much different from the use of the Catacombs (which ends the game immediately). I guess part of challenge of the game is ensuring that you are consistently in or near the lead so that you can benefit by initiating the endgame or discourage your opponents from taking the risk to do so prematurely.

We proceeded to Agricola at my request though I'm sure the other 2 were keen to play it too. I decided to use the Interactive deck this time round since we concurred that the 'Wet Nurse' occupation in the K deck seemed somewhat overpowered. We drafted in the same means as before and we were off to our farms! The game ended with Van and I tied with 31 points while Mun had 23.

Cards in the I deck were comparatively underpowered to the ones in the K deck. Van and I were struggling to feed our family members for most part of the game. Mun managed to obtain a generous supply of food but failed to extend/renovate her house and grow her family which proved costly. 

Mun and Van indicated a preference for the K deck, which is understandable because part of the thrill of Agricola is seeing a well-built up farm. With the weaker cards, it always felt there were many things to do yet too few actions to complete them. Nonetheless, the I deck while weaker came across more balanced than the E deck, which had a couple of comparatively stronger cards the last time we tried it. Perhaps we will attempt the drafting variant with the deck in future.

Van requested for the evergreen Settlers of Catan next and it was nice to take it out for a game since it hadn't seen many plays since we purchased the 4th edition. I guess we have also leveled up in terms of the weight of games we play but nonetheless it was nice to revisit the game which kindled our interest in euros every once in awhile. Van won the game with a victory card draw for her final point. I made the mistake of not robbing her of the longest road when I had the chance and instead opted to build an extra settlement instead.

The game played quickly as we typically play the tournament variant on BSW where we start the placement with a settlement/road, followed by a city/road and finally and extra road. This is my preferred variant as the build-up with the basic two settlements drags the game out and the lack of resources at the start feels rather tedious.

Mun finally got her win during our play of Stone Age taking it convincingly with a score of 178 while Van and I took up the rear with 153 and 147 respectively. Despite obtaining all 8 different green civilization cards, I was caught unawares by the civ card deck running out and ended up without an opportunity to trade in my 7 remaining gold for a corresponding building. It seemed that we drew down on the civ deck particularly quickly today leading to the quick game.

The last game of the night was Galaxy Trucker. As it was late, we only managed two ships - boards 2 and 3. Mun was substantially slower than both Van and I during ship building which was allegedly due to brain exhaustion (*wink*). She had to abandon the second journey due to the loss of all her crew. I pipped Van by a mere 8 points thanks to me taking advantage of the numerous slaver and abandon crew events in accumulating cosmic credits.

6th Jan Session Report: The One I Starved My Workers!

Mun joined us for games in the afternoon and we started off with a game of Agricola. I will probably have to return the game to Lawrence soon, so figured I better get as many plays out of it while I can.

I suggested drafting the occupation and minor improvement cards this time round. While it did take some extra time, it was quite entertaining being able to choose the cards we preferred.

We opted for a simple draft where we would take a predetermined number of cards and pass the rest of the hand to the person on the left, and this continued till each one ended up with 7 cards of each type.

We started with the occupation cards and selected 1-2-2-2 cards respectively. I was pleased to get the 'Lover' occupation which allowed me to acquire an added family member for 4 food without needing to build extra rooms. Little did I know that Van got herself the 'Wet Nurse' card (extra family member each time a room is built) and that would prove significant in the result of the game.

I managed to use the Lover card early and got myself up to 3 family members by round 3, but Van wasn't far behind. Before I knew it, she managed to build up to 5 rooms and increased her family size likewise to 5.

She eventually took the win with 47 points, playing her hand brilliantly.

Van's farm - Score also helped by 4 points from the Well and the max. wood bonus for her Joinery

I ended up with 44 points, surprised that I got as close to her as I did. My whole game was based on the 'Constable' occupation Mun played early on which awarded 5 bonus points to any player who ended the game with no negative points. I was the only who achieved it and that aided my score despite a failure to expand my house.

My farm - First ever time with a fully utilized player board

We moved on to Glory to Rome where I ended the game by taking the last in-town site. The scores were 24-14-11 to I, Van and Mun respectively. I chanced upon the prowess of the Scriptorium which allowed me to complete any structure with just 1 marble. This led to a spree of completed structures once I got my hands on a couple of purple cards with the help of a Temple structure which increased my max. hand size to 9. A large part of my scoring thus came from the influence gained through completed structures.

The last game of the day was Stone Age. It seems that we haven't been able to move away from these few games for the last few sessions. Whether this is due to the merit of the games themselves or just us jumping on the bandwagon of the cult of the new, that remains to be seen.

I decided to be adventurous and attempted a starvation strategy. This strategy is actually feasible here as compared to Agricola as the penalty of 10 points is consistent regardless the number of food short. I also realized that it was unwise to starve my workers too early and basically only started doing so when I got to 9-10 workers.

I was fortunate to get 3 out of the 4 worker multipliers including the 2 doubles and took a close one from Mun by a single point! The final scores were 228-227-216 to I, Mun and Van respectively.

While successful this time around, I can see how difficult it would be to attempt this strategy once your opponents get a whiff of it. Any failure to obtain majority of the worker multiplier cards would spell disaster and access to them can be easily blocked in a 3-4 player game. Other strategies would allow greater diverisfication unlike the starvation strategy which somehow feels like 'putting all your eggs in one basket'. It was nonetheless an experience attempting it.

29th Dec Session Report

Weilong and Mun joined Van and myself for games today which would probably be our last session before the reopening of the school term.

We started off with Stone Age which was relatively a new game for all of us. It was the second play for Weilong, Van and myself, and the first for Mun. I was somewhat lukewarm after my first play and hoped a second play would help me assess if the game was worth keeping.

I managed a respectable 2nd with a score of 140+ by nabbing all 8 green bonus cards despite trailing most of the way. Impressively, Mun took the win despite it being her first play with 157 points through some well-diversified scoring. In particular, she took 4 buildings of flexible scoring which secured the bulk of her points.

We then tried Galaxy Trucker since it was the final game from my recent games order that Weilong and Mun haven't tried. They were keen to try it especially after hearing about its 'jigsaw' mechanism.

I started well and took the lead with well-built ships the first 2 rounds. I also realized that being able to complete the ships first were highly advantageous. I managed to benefit from most of the journey cards and had the first turn of the timer during the next ship building phase.

For the 3rd and final round, I suggested to Van that we use the 3A boards since we were more experienced that Weilong and Mun and had relatively handsome leads over them. Boy, was that a mistake. The odd ship shape of the 3A board proved a real headache when searching for pieces. This struggle was accentuated with 4 players since there was greater competition for ship parts. In addition, I noted the long sides of the ship design and made a mental note to acquire side-pointing guns to reduce the ship's vulnerability.

Unfortunately, the pieces were hard to come by with Van snatching them up quickly and I failed to set up my ship as intended. This would prove to be disastrous as my ship quickly unravelled during the journey. We encountered a card with multiple side large meteoroid hits which smashed through the centre of my ship and ripped it half with the destruction of the pilot pod. I had to abandon the journey too as I unwisely released all but 2 of my crew during a previous abandon ship encounter which reaped my 10 cosmic credits.

Van took the win with 76, with an excellently built 3A ship. Mun again impressed with her score of 51 despite it being her first play while myself and Weilong took up the rear with scores of 48 and 28 respectively. Weilong was unfortunate due to the hefty cannon fire penalties during 2 consecutive cosmic zone encounters which took off the rear of his ship.

Van's 3A ship - note all the cannons pointing sideways

The final game we played before dinner was Glory to Rome. This is fast becoming a personal as well as crowd favourite. The game ended with me, Van, Mun and Weilong scoring 30, 17, 14 and 12 respectively. This was the first time we experienced the game ending through the draw pile being exhausted due to two early temple (+4 hand) builds by Van and I.

I took the win by amassing materials in my stockpile and scoring bonus points with the Wall (1 point for every 2 materials in stockpile at the end of the game) as well as hoarding the most gold in the vault with the help of an early Merchant client.

After dinner we decided to go for a game of Agricola at Van's request. Mun had a fantastic hand of cards and built up her farm easily. My cards had to do with food provision mostly which allowed me to multiply my family members early. I ended with a 5-room stone house, 4 farms, 3 stables, 2 pastures and just 1 unfilled space tying Mun for the win with 42 points.

My farm - scored most my points through family and house expansion

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.