The retreat didn't actually have a name. I call it the Yuhang retreat simply because it was organised by Yuhang. This was a private event of a group of boardgamers in Kuala Lumpur coming together for 3 days of gaming, staying at an Airbnb at Taman OUG. I didn't know Yuhang well before this. It was Jon who asked me whether I wanted to join. It was only after I had signed up that I found out I know several of the others who were going, like Julian and Tim.
We started Friday afternoon. Some already checked in by 3pm. I went in the evening. The original idea was all of us would stay at the Airbnb, so it would be three days of just boardgames, eat and sleep (and shower). However some of us (including me) decided to go home for the shower and the sleep. My home was only 20 minutes away. We went out for some meals, and ordered delivery for others. The latest I stayed up was about 2.30am. Some of them played till 5am. I don't have that kind of stamina anymore. In the mornings we started around 10am, and some started around noon.
I realised I hadn't played High Society after so many years in the hobby. This is a well regarded game from Reiner Knizia.
We brought out Splotter's Horseless Carriage. I own a copy but I have only played it once before. It was a three player game. I think this game is best with five. At the retreat we did a four player game, using Julian's copy. I had forgotten many of the rules, so he did the teaching. Look at all these folks looking so serious staring at their car factories. You know this is a tough game.
My factory
Julian had some 3D printed accessories which were very helpful. The slots for the white bars help secure them, in case the players accidentally knock these boards.
Game in progress
In this particular game we had much demand for sedans, and some for pickups. We had very little demand for sports cars.
I made a mistake when expanding my factory. I had one mainline producing sedans. I wanted to set up another so that I could produce and sell more cars. I think this is the minimum if you want to be in contention to win. It is something you need to plan for far ahead. If you look at the expansion board at the lower left, you will notice that the entrance is facing right. I had wanted to place another mainline in the lower right area, so that it could be connected to both the group of darkest grey tiles and also the group of light grey tiles. This way, the new mainline would meet many of the requirements expected by consumers. However my poor expansion tile placement from earlier on stopped me from adding the next expansion tile here. The doorway facing right prevented me from attaching an expansion tile here. I gave up, and I placed a ton of planning tiles on the right, on the other expansion tile I didn't have any use for now. This gave me an advantage in choosing turn order. I couldn't do much else with that expansion on the right anyway, so I might as well utilise it.
We had more demand than we could fulfil. I think that means we were not doing a good job. Most of the demand was either very cheap cars or very expensive cars.
Julian has this nice 3D-printed tray which I find super convenient.
Late in the game, I was on my way to come last when I realised I might be able to redeem myself a little bit. At the time Jon was still behind me, but he was catching up. I added a mainline to produce pickups at the top left. I fought for turn order so that at least for one round I had access to all the highest techs at the time, and I could make an up-to-par pickup. This didn't earn me much money (i.e. points) since it was quite late in the game, but at least it helped me hang on to third place. Barely. Sorry Jon. Lesson learnt - don't give up easily.
If you look closely at the photo above, you will find another bad mistake. In Horseless Carriage, those tiny arrows are important and you want to leave space to place them next to car part producing tiles. One car part you produce can give you several features, if you have access to the tech. However for each feature you must be able to place the matching arrow. I had not planned for this well, and later in the game when I was able to access the higher techs, I could not place the arrows, so I missed the opportunity to improve my cars.
Joon Lam (blue) and Julian (red) had a close fight, and so did Jon (green) and I (yellow). Jon and I were far behind the other two.
Julian, Joon Lam, me, Jon
We had friends who came for only part of the retreat. In total we had maybe 18 attendees, and at any one time I think the highest player count we had was around 14, i.e. three tables.
I did not play this. I just saw others playing it. I think Marc brought this. He and Joanne came all the way from Johor to join the retreat.
So colourful.
A jigsaw puzzle!
Captain Sonar was a game I brought. I have wanted to play this again for some time but it has been hard to find the right occasion and to get enough players. I'm glad I got to experience the excitement again.
Some of the whiteboard markers that came with the game had dried up. Thankfully I brought along some extras. I was the radio operator on my team, and I thought I did pretty well figuring out the position of the enemy submarine. However when they used silenced movement, it threw me off and I got confused. At one point I thought they were at the exact same position as us. I couldn't ask my captain to shoot, because the torpedo would damage us as well. The opponent sub managed to track us, and soon destroyed us.
This is Jon's prototype - Foundations of Rome. I have seen this game go through several iterations. It is like watching your friend's child grow up. I keep telling him this game is better than Castle Combo. He started designing this game before Castle Combo was released. These two games look similar, because you are also playing cards into a 3x3 grid. I found Castle Combo so so. Nothing really grabs me. I like that in Foundation of Rome you need to plan carefully how to upgrade your buildings. If planned well, they give you great rewards. You will be placing people on the buildings. People are one of the ways you score points.
Foundations of Rome (prototype)
I played a physical copy of Castle Combo for the first time. Prior to this I have played it several times on BoardGameArena.com.
I went for the money bag strategy, collecting many such bags, and trying to amass a healthy amount of money. Castle Combo is hugely popular now. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's a simple and accessible tableau-building game. I am not keen about it because it doesn't offer me anything particularly new or interesting. Jon loves this game. I realise Jon and I disagree on so many games. Maybe we chat often so we discover many games we disagree on. We do agree on many games too. Or maybe I'm just a hard-to-please.
Another one of Jon's prototypes I played was On Three. This is a two-player game which uses poker hands. I really like it. It's thinky and compact, and it uses just a normal deck of playing cards. I told Jon this is his Regicide.
Samurai Spirit was another game I brought. I have fond memories of it. It is a challenging cooperative game. We did a six-player game. We made it to round 3, but unfortunately we lost because we were short of one doll icon. All the villager families were killed by the bandits. Tragic!
Joon Lam asked me whether I brought my prototype Pilgrim Poker. I did. I didn't intend to push for getting it played. I wanted it to be there on standby. If the opportunity arose and people wanted to take a break from heavy games to play a light one, I could bring it out. I hadn't expected that it would be specifically requested.
We had great fun with it. In one particular round, I saw that Julian had a 13 (the highest card), and Joon Lam a 12. This would be difficult for me to win. The other cards were middling. Julian issued a Side Bet against Joon Lam. That made me go hmmmm.... Julian didn't know he had the 13. The only reason I could think of for him to go against such a strong card was I must be holding the special card (4 - Zhu Bajie) which made the lowest card win instead of the highest. Only then would the 12 be a weak card. This round we did several times of Side Bets and Raises. Eventually both Julian and Joon Lam folded. I had raised the bet amount to $10 (the max). I also had a Side Bet against Chan, at $10 as well. Now Chan had a special card too (10 - Sun Wukong). He did not fold. Win or lose, his bet would be doubled. I felt confident I could beat him, because I was pretty sure I had the 4. When it was time to reveal our cards, I was stunned. I did not have the 4! I had a 12. I panicked for a split second because this was out of my expectation. Then I felt relief. I still won because 12 beat 10, and I won a lot of money from Chan because of his special character. He had to pay me extra. That was a painful loss for him.
We discussed after that round ended. Julian explained that he was just bluffing when he initiated a Side Bet against Joon Lam. At the time, both of them were leading, and both had a lot of money. So for Julian to issue a $10 Side Bet against Joon Lam wasn't a big deal. Julian wanted to intimidate and confuse Joon Lam. I'm happy that hardcore gamers enjoy Pilgrim Poker. I try to make my games accessible to the casual crowd, and sometimes this means sacrificing gamers. So I am glad my game is interesting enough for them too.
Lifeboats is one of the most colourful games I played at the retreat.
This is a noisy game with much politicking. I will write more about it in a separate post.
Julian is a big fan of Obsession. He has a very nice insert set for it too. I am amazed by how well designed these 3D-printed custom inserts are.
Sticheln (1993) is a trick-taking game that's more than 30 years old. I've always enjoyed it. I think the latest version is called Stick 'Em. There is also a version called Picante. It introduces some interesting twists, and they make the gameplay highly strategic. At the start of every round, everyone chooses a pain colour. During the game, every card you win gets you only one point. Every card in your pain colour that you win costs you points, based on its card value. This can be very painful. With four players, the card value goes up to 12. Winning one 12 in your pain colour will cause you to lose 12 points. You will need to win three tricks to recover from that. So you play this game very carefully, doing your best not to win cards in your pain colour. This can be difficult, because of another unusual rule. For every trick, any colour which is not the lead colour is a trump colour. That means if someone leads a trick with your pain colour, you'd better have a small card in your pain colour so that you can avoid winning this trick. Or you hope someone else who has a different pain colour wants to win it for himself and will play a card of a different colour. The tactics in Sticheln take a little while to get used to, and you will experience pain in the process (my friends can attest to it). The game looks simple, but the implications of these little twists are many.
When they played the game, the first comment was this was obviously a pretty old copy. Some of the card edges had yellowing. Not exactly in bad shape, but the signs of age showed.
Xiu Yi, Yuhang and Chan. Some of them declared this the best trick-taking game they have ever played. I'm glad I introduced the game to them. We played this on the very last day of the retreat, when we had a smaller group. We were too tired to play any more heavy games.
One other game that was a pleasant surprise for me was Rajas of the Ganges. This is a pretty well known game, and I certainly have heard of it before. I did not have much interest to try it, because it sounded like just another worker placement game. Now that I have played it, yes, indeed it is a worker placement game, and it doesn't have any mechanism which is particularly innovative. However I found myself enjoying it a lot. I will need to think about why before I write more about this game.
I played 13 new-to-me games throughout the retreat. I will later write about them all. Gosh this one retreat is giving me a lot of homework.
This is the kind of retreat that makes you feel you are 30 years younger and still doing crazy stuff with your immature schoolmates. We were still in Kuala Lumpur and not some remote mountain, but the three days away from all other activities and worries, being able to spend time with friends who are equally mad about boardgames, playing and discussing and laughing, have been wonderful.
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