Post Birth Gaming
September 7th, 2005Things have been quiet since the birth, but not totally dead.
Canal Grande
I played this with Vanessa at the hospital. We used Bruno Faidutti’s variant of adding more building cards to reduce the proportion of special cards. This improved things, but it felt more ponderous than I remember and the card art is still fugly. I will probably not bother with Adlung games again.
Downgraded to 6/10.
Age of Steam Scandinavia
This is a nice map. I really like the new coastal goods movement action, but I wish it had been explained better.
Wallenstein
I still like this, but I wish movement was more dynamic. I miss the drama of sweeping into Asia with hordes of troops, as in Risk. This slowness makes it much more difficult to peg back an early leader. I wonder if the basic setup rule that distributes players evenly over the map would be more fun, especially as it would cut game length?
Downgraded to 8/10.
Age of Steam Korea
I just finished a long PBEM of this. The map was very unpredictable, due to the variant movement rules. It might just make an intelligent game a little too clever.
Blue Moon
Christo from the BoardGameGeek suggested we meet up because we live close by, so we arranged to play Blue Moon at a pub.
We had a great time, and not only because this is an excellent game. I will have to buy a complete set and connect with Christo again soon.
Rating: 9/10.
September 8th, 2005 at 12:19
Playing games with your wife at the hospital while she’s having a baby – I call that pretty dedicated gaming don’t you.
Bridget would beat me over the head with a large stick if I suggested anything like that ….. (not that I intend to get into that situation you understand)
September 8th, 2005 at 12:26
AoS – I think Scandanavia and Ireland are the toughest Warfrog maps. One of the Froggies told me that Korea would ‘blow my mind’ but I found it a bit disappointing (although it’s AOS so it’s still excellent)
Wallenstein – way overrated. Will play occasionally on spielbyweb now but there are much better games.
Blue Moon – only played once but didn’t think it was as good as a lot of the other 2 player Kosmos games (notably Jambo, Heave Ho, Hera & Zeus, Caesar & Cleopatra). Another example of a Knizia game where people think it’s better than it really is just because it’s a Knizia game
September 8th, 2005 at 14:15
She suggested the gaming! She was five days in hospital, because Helena got jaundice, so while the little one was under a sun lamp, she got really bored.
Korea blew my mind, especially at first. You managed to control things pretty well. I was sure you were going to win it until I was forced to help Eric.
I am starting to agree that Wallenstein is overrated, but the tower is very nice.
You’re too harsh on the Doktor. I was not blown away by Blue Moon (maybe 9/10 is too generous), but it’s definitely very solid. I have only played Hera and Zeus out of that list and I would rather play LOTR: Confrontation instead every time.
September 9th, 2005 at 04:35
Wallenstein is overrated! Congrates on baby! Our fourth is on the way….
September 9th, 2005 at 14:09
Thanks Joe.
September 11th, 2005 at 19:00
Alfred’s Best of the Blogosphere
So, late one Thursday night, I decided to sit myself down and figure out what the best posts of the week were in the world of gameblogging…