inconsequential ruminations

Chris brought over Settlers of the Stone Age, as Catan is always a sure-fire winner for our group. We played with four. It is innovative and ingeniously develops on Settler’s mechanics. It was a very pleasant evening.

Rick Heli seems to be a big fan. His description of the game and beginner’s strategy advice is as succinct as ever. He includes a link to a two-player variant and a page of links about the background.

This variant has no roads or boats, instead explorers are sent out of settlements. Once they find a suitable spot, they are converted into new settlements. As the starting points in Africa are converted to desert and because there are bonuses for exploring, there is a nice thematic feel of emigration originating from Africa, spreading across Eurasia over to the Americas and Australia.

It is well worth trying. There are 14 copies for sale right now at the BoardGameGeek Marketplace right now. Apparently the German version, Abenteuer Menschheit, is perfectly playable in English, although I only tried the Rio Grande version.

Rating: 7

I had one of my best gaming experiences for a long time on Friday. I played Battle Cry with Andy Daglish (aforandy) on VASSAL, using Skype to communicate. It was a revelation.

I have never enjoyed textual chat. It is far too slow and makes my fingers hurt. Similarly, online board gaming has always felt frustratingly slow, impersonal and clumsy. In general, I would rather play-by-email or web or not at all. Yesterday was a major step forward.

I had never played Battle Cry before, only Memoir ‘44, but using Skype, we were able to fix rules questions, and other confusions really quickly. Andy was even able to give me a genuinely interesting little history lesson about the First Battle of Bull Run. The whole game experience was so much more enjoyable. Hearing Andy’s voice change as my cavalry crushed his artillery or when I stupidly moved my infantry outside my trenches was great.

This will definitely be the first game of many with the VASSAL/Skype combination. Andy said he enjoyed it too and even mentioned that he would like to try Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage,when we get burned out on Battle Cry. That could take a while, as there is no doubt it is a classic.

If anyone wants to try Skype/VASSAL with me, my username for both is icheyne.

I hope Skype supports more than three people and webcams soon.

Update
It turns out that Skype now supports full conference calling.

While all the beautiful people are in Essen, the rest of us are still getting on with it. Christo and Duncan came over last night and we had a lot of fun. Christo has written it up at his blog.

Evo
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It is light-hearted and reasonably quick, but requires plenty of thought and player interaction. Bruno Faidutti’s description is the best I have found. I really enjoyed how it felt like a race against time and the mutation auctions are very tense.
Rating 7/10, and that could easily rise.

Colossal Arena
For the second time in one blog post, Bruno Faidutti does the best job of describing a game. He also describes Reiner Knizia’s evolution of this simple game mechanic.
I bought Galaxy: The Dark Ages on eBay a couple of years ago, and we played it back in April 2004. I had heard it was inferior to Titan: The Arena, but I tried it anyway and we did not really enjoy it. Colossal Arena is more elegant and fun.
Having enjoyed this simpler version far more, I will try to play Grand National Derby with my Galaxy cards. We can always upgrade to Colossal Arena or Galaxy, with the same cards, if we get bored.
Rating 6/10.

I am distraught I am not going to Essen. I have never been and was planning to go, but the baby finished that dream for this year. The list of people I would have liked to meet is too long to itemise. Listening to Mark Johnson’s Essen Anticipation podcast made it even worse.

I have decided to try to steer clear of the Essen hype this year. It is very hit and miss. I learnt my lesson after playing Railroad Dice. This year I will let the usual filters sift the chaff for me before I get too excited.

There’s always next year…

After a long break, yesterday’s games night was almost ruined by El Caballero, but was rescued by San Juan.

El Caballero

I have heard lots of mixed reports about this one ever since I started gaming again. Even though it has an average standard deviation at the Geek, 1.43, it seems to inspire only love or indifference. In the end Derk selling it on BoardGameSpeak swung me and so I won it and Volle Hütte for €25 from German eBay.

I wish I had kept my money. The main problem is the rules translation. It is an unintuitive game, but the translator did not translate any of the examples in the rules. Either because of this or holes in the rules, it is hard to tell, far too many questions came up during play. For example:

1. If a castillo-protected caballero is returned to your court, what strength does it have?
2. To play a governor, when is a region enclosed?
3. If you play a caballero to the board, does it come out of the supply and is the same amount deducted from your court? Or do both amounts come from your court?

These are basic questions, but the rules did not cover them explicitly. I am sure good examples would have cleared them up, but they were in German. I loath rules ambiguities, and I have been spoiled by how clean most €urogames are, so this was hard to take.

This is hardly the fault of Kramer and Ulrich, but even if someone generous reworked the rules or produced an FAQ, I still think it would be mediocre. As I said before, it is unintuitive, far too much for an abstract game. The tiles are also pretty ugly. It also loses a point because the box is so much bigger than needed.

I cannot remember who said it, but I was originally attracted by the phrase “Carcassonne on steroids”. That maybe so, but it is a muscle-bound bodybuilder rather than a Tour de France rider.

Rating 3/10 and that is not too harsh.

I still believe someone can make an awesome gamers’ game with the map tiles and area majorities concept. Carcassonne is close, but too simple for me. Maybe Carcassonne the City or Carcassonne the Discovery are the answers? Nothing else springs to mind. I will have to try them out.

San Juan

We almost abandoned the evening in disgust, but luckily my friend Duncan suggested San Juan. It was the perfect antidote: fast, interactive, but skilful and innovative. I am relieved it plays at least as well with three as with two.

Rating upgraded to 9/10.

And the winners are.... Ticket to Ride Europe and War of the Ring

This is the first time I have ever owned (or maybe even played) a game before it won an award. Both are good games, especially War of the Ring. Ticket To Ride Europe is bland, but, as the voting procedure write-up makes clear, the lowest common denominator won.

I think that is appropriate for a game award. Voting Antiquity as the winner, because that was the winner of the first round, might have rewarded appealing to a subset of hardcore gamers, but would be useful to almost no one. Newcomers to the hobby will enjoy Ticket To Ride, and that is who awards are really aimed at. The cognoscenti made up their minds long ago.

Christo has put up a session report of our game of War of the Ring last week. He won, but only just as I was two Mordor spaces from victory. Very enjoyable, but we finished at 1am and I felt bad the next day.

Gamefest has a preview of the new expansion. It looks good, but I am worried it will extend the play time even more. I will wait to spray paint my figures until I can buy it and include the new ones.