inconsequential ruminations

I introduced my new 2nd edition copy of Age of Steam to the boys yesterday. There were four of us and we used the original map, as I heard it is the most novice-friendly. We used the beginners’ variant of letting people who run out of money get out of jail by issuing shares at $3 each. We also used Bruno Faidutti’s production variant, as it makes for a slightly kinder game:

the production action is clearly weak. I suggest the following changes: Production : draw four cubes and choose two, that you place where you want on the production grid. In addition, chose the result of one of the dice, before rolling, in the next production phase.

It was a learning game and I crushed the novices. The scores were 70, 42, 42, 38. I wish I had thought about handicapping myself, maybe by giving myself four shares, but only $10, at the start, but it is always easier to think of these things with hindsight.

Despite this, the guys still enjoyed themselves, and I am sure we will play again soon. My previous playings made it so easy to teach. I must try to teach myself rules better before introducing them to the group.

I also bought the England and Ireland maps yesterday from Spielenet for way too much money. It is totally sold out in the UK and I had to have them.

Although I enjoyed Swiggers, the games I played were a bit ordinary, so it was good to go back to the classics with the Settlers of Catan Book. We played the Specialists scenario. The rules are so short there is no need for me to paraphrase.

It is good, but not without problems. Rick Heli, master of pith, sums it up:

“The Specialists” tends to lock players into a particular strategy and then leaves it to Fortuna to determine a winner. At least it can be a good training scenario for new players who may not be familiar with all the strategic paths available in the basic game. In the three-player scenario, it seems that the third player has too nice an advantage in placing two settlements on productive locations.

We played with three and it panned out exactly as Rick says. The third player to pick got two prime map positions and, despite some appalling moves, still won by a mile. Definitely only play with four.

Having said that, we had a great time and Settlers was as fun as ever.

Last night at Swiggers Game Club was fun.

I found out about them a few years ago, looking for London games clubs, but I was put off by how far away it is, looking after my son and the fact that I was getting plenty of gaming at the time. About two months ago, I was in a restaurant with a non-gamer friend who I had introduced to a few €uro games. He told me that one of his work colleagues was a “games geek” like me and offered to introduce us. I agreed and a few days later Tycho from the Board Game Geek invited me to Swiggers. This week Ness and Oscar have been in Scotland with her mother, so I decided to go along and check it out.

The venue itself, The Bunch of Grapes, is in Southwark, one of the oldest and most urban parts of London, just by London Bridge and the London Dungeon. I find it an ugly, grimy part of town, although it can be quite atmospheric. The tube ride there made me remember how happy I am to have avoided commuting in my latest job. The pub was nice – the photos at the Swiggers website do not do it justice. The food was also cheap and reasonable quality.

John/Tycho showed up just after me and kindly took me under his wing. We played:

Ticket to Ride Europe
I have only played the original once, and everyone else knew the game well, so I struggled a bit at first. It is a little more complex, but a little more deep, than the original. They are both about as good as the other. If you mostly play with adults, go for the Europe map; if you play with familes, go for the US.

Flandern 1302
This left me cold. The theming was a distraction and did nothing to help understand the rules or excite the imagination, although the components were nice enough. I have not played very many area majority games, but to make me happy they need a little more excitement than that mechanic gives alone. Having said that, several people at Swiggers said good things about it, so maybe this is just sore grapes about coming last and not listening to the rules properly.

Geschenkt
This was the suprise hit of the evening. It is simple and blindingly fast, but quite tough. I will probably buy it, even though my games nights do not tend to involve or need fillers.

Wyatt Earp
Brian Walker of Games International taught us this one, but we only played one hand. It was a little confusing at first, but in the end turned out to be quite simple. It is decent enough. I would always suggest this over traditional rummy games. The cards are very nice. I am not sure if I will buy it, as it did not seem very challenging.

At closing time, I chatted to Brian Walker. My pal Michael writes reviews for him, so I mentioned this connection. We had a nice chat and he gave me a back issue. I subscribed today – it was only polite! Actually, it is a suprisingly professional publication. It is very glossy, the pictures are good and the writing is high quality. Maybe the pressure of writing for print makes people work harder on the reviews?

The most interesting thing for me was getting used to playing with strangers in a public club environment, with people dropping in and out of games groups and around 15 people playing several different games.

At an hour to get there and away it is impossible to fit into my normal schedule, but everyone was very welcoming and friendly, so I really enjoyed my trip. I will go again.

I turned on user registration in order to write comments. I did this to avoid comment spam, which was becoming unbearable. There are few things more irritating than having to delete a flood of 20 comments advertising pills, porn and poker.

If this puts people off too much, I might resort to captcha images.

It is a pity WordPress does not provide a plugin for TypeKey.

Since discovering podcasting through GeekSpeak, I have been looking for other interesting listening. IT Conversations has been the best source I have found so far.

One recording was thought provoking and is relevant to games reviewing. Malcolm Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point, explains how just trying to express our preferences leads us to change our preferences.

It makes me wonder if writing this blog is subconciously changing my taste in games.

http://www.pokerology.com/articles/howtoshuffle.htm

[via http://del.icio.us/popular/]

The videos are particularly useful.

After my last post there was a natural lull in my gaming activity, but then my project manager came down with a nasty case of appendicitis a month before our go-live date. He is the kingpin of our project, so I was deluged with work. He came back last week, so work has finally returned to a manageable level.

I will discuss the games I have played briefly:

Manifest Destiny

I played this at my friend Michael’s house. We all enjoyed it very much. The theme is a little rocky at times (how can developing Pro-Sports make you better at capturing cities?). It is also long, 4.5 hours, and a badly worded card, the Internet card – funnily enough, wrecked my game. Otherwise, this was rewarding. It is not particularly dense, after a while it actually felt quite freewheeling. I would rather play Die Macher, but it was still a lot of fun.

Dungeon Twister

If it were not for the swivelling floors, this would be a vanilla arena-brawling game, but having to think ahead to see how a shifted floor could make or break your game is fascinating. Maybe a sci-fi theme would improve it. I kept thinking that something along the lines of Warhammer 40k would have been a more suitable backdrop. I am suprised Bruno Faidutti has not put this in his Ideal Games Library. It is French and just the sort of game he enjoys.

Traders of Genoa

After a second playing, this was still long, dry and bitchy. I like negotiation games, but this one seems to involve a long stream of low-grade nastiness. I respect this game’s design, but I will not suggest we play again.

Age of Steam PBEM

I have cut out all my pbem games, except for Age of Steam, which has gone up to three simultaneous games.

• Germany
• London Underground
• Northern England

Havoc

Chris Brooks asked me to help playtest Havoc, a prototype he has mentioned several times on his blog. It is a poker-like variant on Ivanhoe, which arrived in perfect time after my group’s disillusionment with their favourite light game. The components were of fantastic quality, and superior to most professional games. With the last few months’ lack of gaming time, I only played it once, but we all enjoyed it. The rules could do with a bit of polishing, but otherwise it is ready for publication. I will certainly buy a copy.

I am going to Swiggers tonight. I have not been to a games club since I was about 17, so I am looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it is on the other side of London, so I doubt if I can go often, but it is worth a look.