Titan

Fri 6 Feb 2009. Carcasean boardgame cafe. This was the day before I was to return to Kuala Lumpur after the Chinese New Year break. I squeezed in one last visit to Carcasean. This time, Han, Chong Sean and I played Titan, Han's copy. Titan is an old game, recently reprinted by Valley Games. It is a reputable classic that has been out-of-print for a long time. So I was happy to give it a shot.

Each player starts the game with 8 creatures, one of which is your titan. The gameboard consists of many spaces representing different terrain - swamps, deserts, woods, jungles, plains. The spaces are interlinked with different symbols which dictate how you may or must move around the board. Using your initial creatures, you move around the board and recruit more creatures. You can split your creatures into smaller parties, and you can merge smaller parties. You fight other players when your parties meet. If you kill an opponent's titan, he is eliminated from the game. So the game ends when there is one titan left, and the player with the last surviving titan wins the game. It's a pretty straight-forward concept.

What's interesting is in the details. The movement rules around the board is quite unique, and also a little daunting at first. You roll a die to determine how many spaces all your parties on the board can move. You can decide for each party whether to move that many spaces, or not to move at all. You must adhere to the movement icons on the board, some force you to move in a certain direction, some allow you to choose. The terrain that you move to determine whether you can recruit a new creature. There is a "tech tree" in the game. Usually you need at least two creatures of a certain type, and you need to be on a certain terrain type, to recruit a new creature. Usually you want to recruit a more powerful creature. When you get two or more of such a more powerful creature, then you can in turn use them to recruit another even more powerful creature. You work your way up the "tech tree". There are some creatures that you can recruit when you fulfill certain conditions, but those never occurred in our game so I have now forgetton how they work.

So, there's a bit of maneuvering on the gameboard. After understanding patterns in the movement icons, you will see there is an outer rim where parties tend to get stuck in, an intermediate winding path with some towers, and then a central loop. In maneuvering your parties around the board, you need to take into account such patterns, the positions of your opponents' parties, and terrain as well. You want to recruit more creatures. You want to avoid battle where you are weak, and you want to catch and fight when you have an advantage.

The battles are carried out on a separate board, depending on the terrain on the main board where the battle occurs. The attacker and the defender place units on the battle board, and they fight it out. The movement and battle rules are not complex. There are terrain considerations at the battle boards too. Different creatures have different characteristics. Some can fly. Some roll more dice than others. Some take more hits to kill. Some can shoot from a distance.

Other than these, there are some other rules like when you have reached a certain number of points (by killing enemy creatures), your titan becomes stronger, and you can recruit certain special creatures. These are things you can plan for in the longer term strategy. We never quite got there, since we only played a short time-constrained game. We played for about 1.5 hours, and whoever had the highest score at that point won.

The tiles with symbols are used to cover your stack of creatures, i.e. they are a flag for your parties. Your opponents cannot see what you have in your parties, and will have to try to remember them when you reveal them during battles. At the top are my titan and my angel.

The game board. Each triagle (or hexagon?) is a space, and there are 4 types of symbols dictating movement rules between every triangle.

My starting creatures. Everyone starts with the same, and you'll need to split them up into 2 parties because a party can have at most 7 creatures.

Game in progress.

Battle in progress on the battle board. The drop of blood signifies injury. Every creature has 2 numbers. The one on the left represents strength (how many dice it can roll) and health (how much injury before it dies). The one on the right represents skill level (when compared with the skill level of an opponent, determines how easy it is to injure that opponent) and movement distance.

Hey what's that calculator doing in this game?! This is supposed to be an Ameritrash game, not Power Grid or some mathematical Eurogame!! (Han helping me calculate my score after a battle).

Han and Chong Sean at Carcasean, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

All the creatures in the game. This is a limited pool. Whenever a creature is killed it is returned to the box and not to this pool. I can't quite imagine the players using up any creature type. Maybe when there are more players, or more experienced players.

In our game, which was pretty much a learning game, we did not have much strategy or long-term plan. We started off trying to recruit as much as possible, and when a convenient opportunity arose, we fought. I think we only had four battles. In two of them the defender conceded, which meant the defending units were all killed, but the attacker only gained half the victory points. I was involved in the other two, both of which I won. So when time was up, I won the game.

My first impression after playing the game is I don't understand what the big deal is. Not that there is anything wrong, just that it doesn't seem to be very outstanding. Granted I have only tasted a small part of the game, and am not familiar enough with it to have any coherent strategy. I do somewhat like the tactical battles (maybe because I won those). I like the system here more than the one in Memoir '44 because I have more control here. It is simpler than Memoir '44 though, and wouldn't make a very good complete game by itself. On the main board I have mixed feelings. There seems to be little control over your own movement. If you get lousy die rolls, you will have difficulty recruiting. Maybe I just haven't learnt to maneuver my parties well enough. There is some complexity in the game, and I think to appreciate the game you'll need to get familiar with all the rules and nuances. In our first game we were rather slow because we were still learning the game.

Battlestar Galactica

5 Feb 2009. Carcasean boardgame cafe. Chong Sean, Han and I played Battlestar Galactica, one of the hot new games, and a semi-cooperative game, a game with a traitor element. There were only 3 of us. The game is probably best played with 6. But we were keen to play and went ahead even though we didn't have the ideal number of players. This was the first time for all 3 of us.

In Battlestar Galactica (which is based on a sci-fi TV series), the players are humans trying to escape from Cylon (robots) attackers by finding a way back to Earth. There will be crisis after crisis occurring and the humans need to work together to survive them. Cylon spaceships will catch up with the humans, and will attack the human spaceships. Some Cylons will even board the human spaceships. The humans can perform hyperjumps to shake off the Cylon spaceships, but if Cylon boarding parties have invaded the spaceship, these of course will hyperjump together with the spaceship. They need to be defeated in combat quickly.

Then the twist - the traitor(s). Well, strictly speaking these are not traitors but spies. Among the humans are at least one Cylon pretending to be human, who will need to stop the humans from reaching Earth. He can operate secretly, sowing mistrust and sabotaging human efforts resolve crises. He can reveal himself at the right time, and thereafter work openly for the Cylons to try to harm the humans. Some players will find out (secretly) at the start of the game that they are Cylons. Some may only find out in the middle of the game that they are Cylons. The latter are sleeper agents, i.e. they are Cylons programmed to believe they are humans, until some programming triggers them to realise they are in fact Cylons. Something like that. I have not watched the show.

So the game is very much about a spy (or spies) in the midst, while at the same time trying to solve crisis after crisis and trying to survive the challenges that the game system throws at you.

The 10 possible characters that you can play as in Battlestar Galactica. I learned from Han and Chong Sean that in the TV series many of them turned out to be Cylons.

The very many game components. Quite typical of Fantasy Flight Games. This is probably already less than some other even more complex games from them.

In our game, we struggled through the first half trying to learn the game, having to refer to the rulebook many times. I was human. Han and Chong Sean seemed to be humans too. We were all working hard trying to solve the crises. Some were rather nasty, making many Cylon fighters (I forget the name) and Cylon boarding ships (I also forget) appear. Thankfully we always managed to hyperjump before any Cylon boarding parties come onboard our spaceship.

I was the Admiral, and one of my duties whenever we hyperjumped was to draw two cards showing the distance jumped and the penalties / benefits (usually the former), and then choose one without showing the other to the rest of the players. This mechanic is obviously something designed to sow mistrust. Since the other players don't get to compare the two cards, they can't know for sure whether I have chosen the better one. If I was the Cylon I could have chosen the worse card and lied that the other one was worse. If I was human and really drew two bad cards and had to choose one, then the real Cylon (still unrevealed) could accuse me of being the Cylon. Anyway, I happened to draw reasonably good cards, which allowed us to make medium distance hyperjumps, i.e. good progress towards Earth.

The came the mid-game human/Cylon check (I want to refrain from saying loyalty check). We drew our cards. I wasn't a Cylon. Then Han used the once-per-game special ability of his character to look at Chong Sean's loyalty cards. Immediately Han declared that Chong Sean was the Cylon. I looked at Chong Sean's expression, and decided that he was the Cylon. Of course Han could have been the Cylon trying to make false accusations. I had no hard evidence, and just relied on my gut feel. We threw Chong Sean into the brig, where his actions would be very limited. This would minimise the damage he could do to our crises and also prevent him from revealing himself as a Cylon and gain the Cylon abilities to more directly harm us. Chong Sean pleaded repeatedly that he was actually human, but I wasn't convinced. Han and I continued to resolve crisis after crisis, mostly quite successfully. The humans progressed well towards Earth.

Then came the bomb. When we were one turn away from hyperjumping to victory, Han revealed himself as the Cylon, used his reveal-Cylon-one-time-power to throw me into the brig (ouch), and reset the hyperjump readiness track (OUCH!). I was completedly surprised. Chong Sean was probably screaming inside "I TOLD YOU SO!!!". Now the Cylon was at large, and both the humans were stuck in the brig. It took us quite some effort to get out. We used up many skill cards. Han used a crisis card to bring our morale level down to zero, which means game over. Aaarrgghh... I have failed humanity.

Battlestar Galactica is a little challenging to learn at first. Similar to many thematic Fantasy Flight Games, there is a lot of details, special abilities, text on cards, etc. A little overwhelming at first. But actually once we played a few rounds, it is actually not very complex. The skill cards (which you draw five at the start of your turn) actually do not have that much variety. There are not many types so there is much repeating. Once you are familiar with them you just need to see the card name and you'll remember what it does. I think that's good. You spend less time reading text on cards. One thing about such thematic games is sometimes there are rules / special situations / cards / mechanics included for the sake of invoking the theme, rather than for the sake of good gameplay. Different people will have different views of how much of this is acceptable / tolerable. For Battlestar Galactica I feel there is some of this chrome that probably could have been omitted. Sacrifice some thematic element for faster / simpler gameplay. E.g. other than the main spaceship Galactica, players can move to another smaller spaceship to carry out some special actions. I'm not sure how often that smaller spaceship is used. Maybe that could have been omitted. Or maybe it need not have been treated as a separate spaceship, i.e. players need to pay a skill card to move between the 2 spaceships.

Well, I have only played the game once, and I have never watched the show, so my argument is completely based on gut feel. That said, I do not think Battlestar Galactica has too much chrome. I'd say most of the mechanics are just right.

One thing that annoyed me was the need to keep referring to the rulebook for die roll results. Having that table on the board would make things much easier.

Now I'd like to play Battlestar Galactica with 6 players.

Keltis / Lost Cities boardgame

5 Feb 2009. Carcasean boardgame cafe. While waiting for Han to arrive, Chong Sean and I played Keltis. This is the boardgame version of Reiner Knizia's Lost Cities, but rethemed. Keltis is the version released in Germany. In most other countries the game is released as Lost Cities: the boardgame. Keltis is Reiner Knizia's first game to win the prestigious Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year in Germany) award, after having had so many nominations in the past. I have read the rules to the game, and I did not have much expectations, because it seemed to be quite similar to the card game it is based on. I just wanted to try it.

To my surprise, I quite liked it. There are some additional quirks which make it different from the card game, and these additions make the game interesting for me. It is not a very deep or complex game. It is light, but there are enough interesting decisions. There is a race element to pick up the wishing stones. You also need to watch out for both the game ending conditions and time your game play accordingly. I suspect having the game end when 5 pawns the game-end area is what will usually happen. I find it hard to imagine running out of cards. We tended to not discard many cards. Well, maybe it was because we played one rule wrong. For 2-player games we were supposed to have removed 30 cards randomly before we started.

This is a game that I now have a dilemma of whether to buy or not. It's light and fun and I do enjoy it, but I'm not sure whether I will be playing it a lot. It may be one of those games that I do like playing, but there are other games that I will tend to play more. Thankfully Chong Sean doesn't stock it yet, so I couldn't buy it. That allowed me to put off buying the game, at least for now. I read about the upcoming expansions to the game, and they sound interesting to me.

I prefer the Keltis version of the game and not the Lost Cities the boardgame version. At first when I saw photos of Keltis I thought I'd prefer the Lost Cities themed version, but later when I saw the photos of Lost Cities the boardgame, I didn't like the graphics. I find it rather busy and not as user-friendly.

Colosseum

Carcasean boardgame cafe. Mon 2 Feb 2009. Han, Chong Sean and I played Colosseum. Chong Sean has played before so he taught us.

Colosseum is a game about putting up a good show. There are five rounds in the game, in which the players acquire various types of assets and put out shows. Each show earns some money, which can then be used to acquire more assets and put on bigger and better shows. The winner is the player who has put on the best single show ever. So although putting on many good shows is good for earning money, it is more important to have that one very very good show. Throughout the game the players need to plan for that masterpiece, which will usually be performed in the last round, but not necessarily. The game has a lot of planning ahead, like Princes of Florence.

Many things and factored in when determining how good a show is. First the scripts, actors and props. The kinds of actors and props you need are determined by the script that you plan to produce. Different scripts give different number of points. If you have all the required actors and props, you gain the full points of the script. If you are short of some, you can still produce the show, but you will gain less than the full points. Other factors include whether you have star performers, whether there are VIPs attending the event, whether you have sold season tickets, whether you have produced other shows in the past, whether you have been the player with the best show in past rounds, etc. So there is a lot to consider and to plan for.

Actors (actually some of which are trained animals) and props are obtained through auctions, and can also through trading with other players. Most other assets are bought, e.g. season tickets and scripts. You also need to expand your stadium if you want to make use of the better scripts to put on bigger shows.

In our game, my initial actors and props matche poorly against my initial scripts. Both Han's and Chong Sean's were better matched, and I think they both scored the full points for their first two productions. Chong Sean started off quite well, expanding his stadium already in Round 2 in anticipation for the medium production in Round 3. He kept producing the best shows round after round, and Han and I were struggling to keep up.

Then in Round 5, Han produced a superb 86-point show. He had been planning carefully for it, and it won him the game. Chong Sean, despite having 4 podiums from having the best show ever for each of the first 4 rounds, i.e. 12 points, could not beat 86 points. His actors and props did not allow him to go for the higher-scoring scripts. He was at second place, at 73 points. I came last, scoring 57 points.

My actors and props. Maybe I should say "performers" instead of "actors", since there are horses and gladiators. I have the star performer tile for the musicians. You get such star performer tiles when you have at least three of the same kind of performer, and you have more such performers than anyone else. These tiles were all larger than I had expected. They were easy to handle. I think they are about an inch wide.

This is how the overall board looks like. I think it is quite good and quite colourful. The inner area is for the auctions. This is surrounded by the "VIP track", on which the nobles move, and this is also where your stadiums are located. You want to get the nobles to step into your stadium when you produce a show. The outermost track is the score track, where you record the highest ever score of each player's shows.

My stadium in the middle of the game. I had one season tickets (upper left) and the emperor's loge (lower centre) which allowed me to move the nobles more. The blue coloured noble was in my stadium. I think he was the Consul. I had expanded my stadium once. The stadium started with only two pieces - the outer two semi-circular pieces.

The scripts that I had. The first two were free scripts you get at the start of the game. On each script, the top left number is the identification number, the top right number on a coin is the cost of the script. The bottom left number is the points you can gain from the script, followed by the reduced points if you are short of some assets. The centre row show the performers and props you need for the show. The lower right hand corner shows the size your stadium needs to be.

Chong Sean's stadium. This was Round 4, and he had won the podiums for all 3 previous rounds. Now he had two yellow noble visiting. Senators I think. I can't remember for sure.

This is how to match performers and props to your script. I had all the required performers and props, and even had one matching star performer.

In hindsight, I should not have lost the fighting spirit so early (which I think I did). I do think I was in the worst position from the start of the game. But I should have tried harder, even though I probably would have still come last anyway. "It is the goal that is important, not the winning", I quote Knizia. Losing heart in the middle of the game is poor sport.

After seeing Han's come-from-behind victory, I realised that the points that the scripts provide is a big factor. If you can gain the full points from one of the higher-end scripts, you will do very well even if you are short on other things like podiums, season tickets and VIPs.

There is a lot of planning ahead in Colosseum. The part on trying to match actors and props to potential scripts is rather time-consuming, at least for me as a first time player. The process is slow and painful. But I guess experience will improve that.

We played with the advanced auction variant, which is meant for gamers. The basic auction rules is meant for more casual players. I think I prefer the advanced version. It is more interesting. I also think the game will be better with more players. I think it needs more players for the trading part to work better. In our game, I was in bad shape because in the early game Han and Chong Sean mostly had what they needed and thus didn't need to trade, and I didn't have what I needed and couldn't trade for them because neither Han nor Chong Sean really needed to trade with me. So I am guessing more players will be better. However it may also mean more downtime and too much time wasted on failed trade proposals.

Chong Sean wasn't too happy with the components. The back of the board had a little mold. He also said that the touch and feel of the components is somehow off. He said this is because the game was made in China. I think the components are fine. The mold is not severe, and although when I look closely I can see the difference between the components of Colosseum and another game made in Germany, when Chong Sean asked me to touch them I sincerely could not tell the difference. What surprised me was when I let Michelle touch them she immediately could tell which one was inferior. I have always considered her more a gamer's wife than a gamer wife, although she plays lots of games, and even hardcore gamer games like Through the Ages, Race or the Galaxy. It seems she has cultivated a better feel for game components than me. 玩了那么多游戏可不是白玩的.

Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition

Han and I met up at Carcasean boardgame cafe on Mon 2 Feb 2009, and we played Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition with Chong Sean. This really is a game that should be played with exactly 3 players. There are 3 factions in the game, the Empire, the Rebels and the Hutts. Each has a different winning condition. The Empire needs to completely eliminate the Rebels. The Rebels need to find and kill the evil Emperor. The Hutts need to control 10 resource planets.

The basic structure is very much like standard Risk. You get reinforcements at the start of your turn, then you attack, and after you are done, you can do one strategic redeployment. If you have successfully conquered territories, you gain a card(s). There are a number of tweaks and additions based on the Star Wars universe. The cards have special one-time-use powers, e.g. allowing you to add troops when you are being attacked. Each can also be used to gain a spaceship (there are 3 kinds), which gives some advantage in battles. The cards add a lot of flavour to the game. There are other situations which let the players gain more cards, e.g. when the Force meter tilting is far enough to the Dark or the Light side, and when the Hutts are in control of enough resource planets.

And there's a Death Star.

The Death Star in this game is a super defender for the Empire. When the planet where it is located is attacked, the attacker needs to roll a total of 18 to destroy it first, else all attackers are killed. This means you need to have 3 attackers (3 x 6 = 18). There are ways to improve your chances, e.g. power cards and spaceships. Some spaceships allow you to roll using an 8-sided die instead of the standard 6-sided die. There are some cards that allow the Death Star to destroy a planet and all defenders on it. No kidding.

The green Hutts pieces. The bigger ones represent 3 troops, and the smaller ones 1. There are three types of spaceships, capital ships, bombers and fighter.

Some of the Hutts' cards. I happened to draw one of each type, for capital ship, bomber and fighter. The cards can be used to build a spaceship, or for their one-time-use powers.

Each faction has its own cards. The game comes with both 6-sided and 8-sided dice.

The Death Star, unfortunately out of focus.

The Empire's pieces. Unfortunately, out-of-focus too. I think my digital camera is a Rebel... a relative of R2D2?

In our game, I chose to be the Hutts, simply because they are green, my colour. Han played the Empire, and Chong Sean the Rebels. At the start of the game, we took turn to claim planets, and then reinforce the planets claimed. The Hutts could claim the least planets, the Empire the most. The number of troops is similar. The Rebels move first, followed by the Hutts, and lastly the Empire. The Empire, although in control of the most planets at the start of the game, is usually at the receiving end of aggressions, because it moves last, and it is also spread rather thinly. So I think the starting setup is quite balanced.

I played the game like how I watched the movies. The Empire is supposed to be big and bad, and all good people should attack it. Big mistake. In our game, Chong Sean (Rebels) was more like a big empire than Han (Empire). He expanded quickly, being the first to manage to monopolise a sector (i.e. continent) and Han was soon left with very few planets. What was very funny was Chong Sean drew a card that allowed him to destroy the Death Star on Round 2. Oops. Not a chance for the Empire to strike back.

I should have started attacking Chong Sean earlier. I should have played the balancing factor. In this 3 faction game, whenever one faction starts to do better than the other two, the other two should be cooperating, at least temporarily, to bring the leader back in line. I was enjoying the fall of the Empire too much, and a bit too greedy for my own gains, to do the right thing. So our game finished quite quickly. The Rebels won decisively, completely destroying the Empire. That was supposedly the Empire's victory condition.

Our first game played on 2 Feb 2009. This was the start of the game. Han had placed the Death Star in the orange sector in the upper right, to prevent Chong Sean from monopolising that sector.

By this time Han's Empire (grey pieces) only had 6 planets left.

The game is fast and fun, and quite thematic. Han said this game has fewer troops than regular Risk, which makes it shorter, and I think that's a good thing. It is not much more complex than Risk, and the different victory conditions make it interesting. In some ways it is still very much like Risk. It is hard to keep control of complete sectors (continents). Another player will always try to break through and break your monopoly. You still amass big armies at the start of your turn and try to wreak havoc and capture as many territories as possible during your turn, and that means you are spreading your forces very thin. I think the game should be played in a very light-hearted manner. Decisions can be made quickly, and the game can be played very fast. When we played, the attacker rolled dice for the defender as well, saving some time.

On Thu 5 Feb 2009 we played this again, all controlling the same factions. Han wanted a rematch after the very unfortunate Round 2 destruction of the Death Star. This time, the game was probably even faster. Firstly because we were now familiar with it, and secondly because we had a runaway victory again. Han and Chong Sean were so busy fighting each other, they didn't defend against me enough. I was the first faction to monopolise a sector (albiet the smallest one awarding only 2 troops). I had the opportunity to control a big sector but didn't bother to because I knew the monopoly could easily be broken. I wonder whether that let their guard down a little. I drew quite a number of cards, and using them to gain extra reinforcements, I managed to conquer 10 resoure planets and won the game.

This was our 2nd game played on 5 Feb 2009. This was the start of the game.

The Death Star placed on a resource planet (green outline), to prevent me (green) from conquering it.

Towards the end of the game. My Hutts were doing well, having control of two sectors in the lower right.

Tempus

Carcasean boardgame cafe. 1 Feb 2009. Tempus was the 4th game that Chong Sean, Michelle and I played that day. We had quite a productive day.

Tempus is a minimalistic civilisation game. It is so simplified that it almost feels like an abstract game. Yet it is quite thematic. All the actions that you can do it the game correlates to something that civilisations do in history.

At the start of the game, the players construct a landmass, which has different terrain, e.g. grassland, mountains, farmland etc. Then they place three tokens onto the board, representing their starting population. Throughout the game, you grow your population, you migrate, you build cities, you attack other civilisations, and you advance your technology. Your technology level impacts all the actions that you can take in the game, e.g. how many token you can move, how far they can move, whether they can travel by sea, how many power cards you can draw, your hand size, etc. Technology progresses every round. Civilisations that are behind previously first catch up, and then all civilisations are compared to see which one (or more) will progress first to the next technology level. As the game progresses, there is more and more that you can do. Your actions become more powerful.

At game end, you score for cities you have build, the spaces occupied by your tokens, and for being the first to invent the aeroplane.

In our game, we created a landmass with lots of lakes. This is interesting because lakes allow you to move quite far. With one move, you can move a token from a space next to a lake to any other space next to the same lake. I was conservative and placed my tokens together. Chong Sean and Michelle split up their tokens. Throughout the game I wasn't very aggressive in pursuing technology, which requires placing tokens on specific terrain types. I think out of the whole game I only had a technological advantage for one era, out of 10 eras (I think). I also soon found myself hemmed in, when Chong Sean and Michelle still had space for expansion. So I schemed to start wars, to destroy their cities to make space for my own cities. Cities cannot be built on mountains or next to one another, so suitable locations are limited. I did manage to win some battles, but it was not enough to catch up. Chong Sean won with 24VP (10VP from cities, 11VP from spaces occupied and 3VP for flight). Michelle had 22VP (13VP from cities, 9VP from spaces occupied), and I had 18VP (16VP from cities, and a pathetic 2VP from spaces occupied).

Early in the game. I was yellow (no green available) and concentrated my people in the south east. Michelle (red) and Chong Sean (blue) were more spread out. I was the first to have built a city.

I had expanded across that long lake and built another city. Chong Sean had 2 cities and Michelle 1 at this point.

By now I had also used lake movement to expand to the central northern land piece.

This was at game end, I think. Chong Sean had quickly spread out his tokens to occupy as much non-mountain hexes as possible. Experience shows. I did manage to raze one or two of his cities, and built my own cities over the ruins. But Michelle had also razed one of mine and built over my ruins.

I find that the game is very spatial. Before the start of the game you need to study the board and strategise. Space is limited, forcing the players to compete, both in the form of a race to claim land and in the form of warfare after space starts to run out. Movement is rather limited, so moving your armies around and maneuvering in preparing to fight a war is very expensive (in terms of actions required, there is no money). There was less fighting than I had expected. Fighting is probably not the most effective way of gaining points, but I think towards the end game a well planned and executed war can mean the difference between winning and losing the game. So one should always be prepared for war, or even plan for it if it looks necessary. This feels right. Your civilisation needs to expand, you need to build cities, you want to improve your technology. But while you are busy with all this, you must not forget about the threat of war. I would say the game is 80% expansion and development, and 20% warfare. War may not be necessary, but the threat is definitely there.

I rarely talk about game components when I write about my gaming experiences. I think Tempus is probably the boardgame with the worst component quality I have ever seen. The publisher is cafe games, and I think this version is made in China. I think there is more than one version. Not that made in China means poor quality. I have no problems with Ticket to Ride Switzerland and other games made in China. For the copy of Tempus that I played, the components were literally falling apart. The printing on the cardboard tiles were coming off like dandruff. Chong Sean asked me to use a pencil to write the city size numbers on the city tiles where the numbers were fading. I did so. Then when I tried to blow away the tiny spots of paper that had broken off, my breath tore away a few big chunks of paper / printing. Oops. I felt like an amateur archaeologist accidentally destroying a precious thousand-year-old document. The tiles in the game were that fragile.

Witch's Brew

Carcasean boardgame cafe, 1 Feb 2009. Witch's Brew is a game with some similarities with Citadels. Players all start with equal resources, and compete to gain the most victory points by brewing magic potions, acquiring bookshelves of (I assume) spellbooks. The theme in this game doesn't really matter. It is just for flavouring. The game is all about double-guessing your opponents.

Every player has 12 cards, which allow you to do different things, like collecting ingredients, earning money, brewing potions and buying bookshelves. However every round you can only choose five cards (or five roles). The start player declares which role he wants to play. The next player, if he has that role card in his hand, can decide to usurp the role to reap the full benefit, or let the previous player keep the role and settle for a lesser benefit. The reason for doing the latter is there may be other players behind you who may also have this role card. If you settle for the lesser benefit, you gain it immediately and do not need to worry about the role that you have just robbed from the player before you being in turn taken away from you by the player after you. Of course if you are the last player and you have the role card being played this round, you would (normally) usurp the role from the previous holder of the role. There is noone else after you to worry about. This is the gist of the game. It is about guessing what roles you opponents would choose, by studying what resources they have, and what potions and bookshelves are available on the table. It is about how to choose the roles yourself. Sometimes you may want to pick the same roles as your opponents (so that you can spoil their plans). Sometimes you may want to pick different roles, so that your own plans will not be interfered with.

As I played the game, I found yet another layer of thinking. When you "win" a role, you become the next start player, which is the most vulnerable position to be in. The role that you play when you are the start player has a high chance of being usurped by another player. So sometimes maybe you don't want to "win" a role, because it would make you the most vulnerable the next round.

There's more. When choosing your five roles, you can think of choosing offensively and defensively. Some roles can be bait. Let someone else win it and put yourself in a better position to usurp another role which you want to win.

Sometimes taking the lesser benefit can be better than taking the main benefit of a role, because the lesser benefit is effective immediately, while the main benefit is only gained after the round completes. Only at the end of the round, after every player has had the chance to show whether he has the role card, the final winner will be known.

The rest of the game is resource gathering and management, and converting them into victory points. Nothing very special about that.

The three types of potions and two types of bookshelves that can be won. The liquid drops and coins on top of each card are the cost, and the numbers in the lower right corner are the victory points.

One of the spellbook cards. With every set in the game (a set is when every player chooses 5 cards and all chosen cards are played), there is a new spellbook card. One of the 12 roles allows you to make use of the power on the spellbook card.

Five cards that I had chosen for one of the sets in the game. I like the artwork. The iconolgy and design are functional. The colour coding also helps. The green ones let you collect ingredients. The yellow ones let you do something related to money, e.g. the one here lets you buy vials (which are 1VP) using money. The blue ones let you brew potions. The red ones let you buy bookshelves.

The game that we played was quite fast. We enjoyed saying "我才是!" ("No, I'm the one!") dramatically every time we usurp a role. There were sometimes very little overlap among the roles we selected. I'm not sure whether it's because we just so happened to have chosen mostly different roles, or three player games tend to be like that. 12 roles sounds like a lot to choose from, but by looking at what resources your opponents have, there are ways of guessing what he will likely do. But then he may guess that you'd think that way, and intentionally choose to do something that is suboptimal or unusual, just to counter your move. There can indeed be a lot of double-guessing. However I think this can and should be played as a light game.

Downfall of Pompeii

Another game played at Carcasean on 1 Feb 2009. Downfall of Pompeii is designed by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede, the designer of Carcassonne. In this game, you place your people on various buildings on the board, and then the volcano erupts, and you try to save as many of those people from the city as possible. You win if you save the most people. But the tiebreaker is the least number of people killed. So being able to place many people in the first half of the game may not always be a good thing. More people can mean more people to save, but can also mean more people to have killed.

In the people-populating phase of the game, you play cards to place your people on the board. Many buildings on the board have numbers, and they have different number of spaces that your people can occupy. There is a rule for you to place more than one people on your turn, which we call "bringing your relatives". We tend to make use of this as much as possible to bring more people onto the board, and we will try to deny this from other players. There is also competition for spaces nearer to the city gates. The people there are more likely to be able to leave the city in time.

Then once in a while omen cards will be drawn. This is when you get to throw an opponent's people into the volcano. I think this is meant to be some kind of human sacrifice to appease the gods. This is a fun and nasty thing to do. When I explained the rules Michelle said that's nasty. But when we played the game she seemed to enjoy doing this.

The first half of the game will end when most of the buildings are populated. Mount Vesuvius erupts, and lava spews from 6 tiles in the city. The people need to run for their lives. Every turn you add one lava tile, which can kill people, or block city gates, or trap people. Then you can move your people, and try to save them by having them exit any of the city gates. The number of steps a pawn can take is the number of pawns (yours or your opponents') in the space when it starts its move. That means if you are in a crowd, you run faster. Hmm... not sure whether this makes sense in real life. Anyway, it works in the game. There is an element of trying to make use of your opponents' pawns.

The game ends when no more people can be saved. Either the remaining people in the city have all been killed, or they are all trapped.

The game does sound rather nasty. Pompeii was a big disaster, many people were killed, and we are playing a game about it?! But the game is fun! And exciting too. I'd say it is quite thematic too. I especially love it whenever I get to throw people into the volcano. Call me childish.

The gameboard, with the volcano in a corner. This was still quite early in the first half of the game, when we were placing our people onto the board, the city of Pompeii.

A close-up of the board. Some buildings are numbered, and there are grey buildings which are not numbered. Most buildings have more than one space for people to be placed on.

The cards in the game.

This was early in the second half of the game. Lava had started spewing out from quite a number of places inside the city.

Near the end of the game. The lonely black pawn on the left was about to run out of the city gates. That big group of pawns in the middle were doomed. Most of the city gates had been sealed off by lava. Some pawns were still trying to run towards the city gate in the upper left corner, but in the end they didn't make it.

In our game, Chong Sean was most efficient in placing people into the city. He had played the game before, but he told us he still hadn't quite grasped the strategy, because he had never won. There was one particular building that was quite jinxed. Whenever someone drew an omen card and had to throw a pawn into the volcano, a pawn was always picked up from that building.

The game moved at quite a quick pace. Turns are quick as the decisions within each turn are simple. When it came to the second part of the game, the turns were even quicker. This was when things get interesting. Which pawn to save? Where to place the volcano tile? Do I sacrifice this relative who had been mean to me so that I can trap this whole bunch of relatives of my opponent? (yes of course)

At game end, both Chong Sean and I had 8 pawns saved, and Michelle had 7. Tiebreaker was fewer pawns in the volcano. Chong Sean had more than I, so I won the game. I guess he still hasn't broken the curse of not winning this game.

I think the game is quite fun. Two drawbacks are firstly there are some small rules which are a bit fiddly, e.g. how the omen cards need to be set up, when you can start "bringing relatives", how many lava tiles to play before you can start moving your pawns; and secondly the last few turns of the game may slow down, as players start to count everyone's pawns and start to plan how to maximise each move. I don't think either are severe though. I quite like the game. How many other games do you get to throw people into a volcano?

Um Reifenbreite

On my second visit to Carcasean this year I played Um Reifenbreite, a Spiel des Jahres winner about bicycle racing. I played against Michelle and Chong Sean. I made an appointment with Chong Sean beforehand to visit him on a Sunday, and I didn't realise he is actually closed on Sundays. So he actually went to the cafe just to play with us, which is very nice of him.

In Um Reifenbreite, you have a team of 4 cyclists. To win, it is not only about being the first to cross the finishing line. This is a team game. Points are awarded for every cyclist, depending on the order of arrival. The first to cross the line gets the most points, the second gets less, but still a significant number, the thirds gets less than the second, and so on. The gaps between the earlier positions are larger, and the points earned by the later cyclists is few. So there is still emphasis to make sure most of your cyclists cross the line early. You cannot rely on only one star performer.

Movement is by rolling 2 dice. However you have some energy cards (numbered 5 or 6), which can replace one or both dice. One important aspect of the game is drafting. When the cyclist in front of you moves, you can choose to draft, i.e. following him. This is nice especially when he rolls a high number. You are basically piggybacking on his good fortune. There are some rules about when you can or cannot draft, e.g. terrain and breakaway. If you use an energy card, you can choose to declare a breakaway. When you do this, cyclists behind you cannot draft. Drafting is not just for taking advantage of your opponents' cyclists. You can also use it to help other cyclists in your team.

There are event cards in the game. Whenever 7 is rolled, an event card is drawn and executed. Use of energy cards is considered a die roll too. I know one of the events is a fall. Thankfully I didn't experience this in our game. When a cyclist falls, he causes other cyclists immediately next to him and behind him to fall too, and they in turn can cause other cyclists to fall. There can be quite a nasty chain reaction.

There are terrain effects too. When on cobblestones or when moving uphill, your movement is reduced. When going downhill, your movement in increased. There are corners, where if you are on the inner lane there are fewer steps, i.e. you can go past the corner faster.

We played a short game of this. I just wanted to get a feel for it. We played a route of our own design, not one from the rules. It had cobblestone, uphill stretches and downhill stretches. Michelle was not very fortunate, and had some laggards early in the game. Chong Sean had a star cyclist who lead the pack. He was quite liberal is using his energy cards. In contrast I was rather conservative. I had a few unlucky rolls, e.g. a cyclist about to pass the finishing line rolled a small number, to stop just before the line. Well, at least I didn't roll a 7 and get a "fall" card for that cyclist on the following turn. I was surprised I didn't come last. Michelle came last. She had a cyclist beating all of mine, but all her other cyclists did worse than most of mine too.

Cyclists in a pack, turning an uphill corner. Red terrain means uphill.

The board has cartoonish artwork, and the first thing Michelle said when she saw it was, "Is this a children's game?". The transparent dice tower is Chong Sean's and doesn't come with the game.

One of the drawings showing a cyclist cheating.

This is a light and fun game. I think the short game is probably not enough. It doesn't feel satisfying enough, and I think with a longer route there is a better chance for luck to even out. Although there is luck in the dice rolling, I think there is still a fair bit of strategy in the game, in drafting, in when to use your energy cards, when to break away, in how to position your cyclists. You don't need to move the full movement points that you roll, and sometimes it is better to move slightly less, e.g. you move to the position right behind another rider, i.e. you have the opportunity to draft later. Sometimes you can take a route that will prevent other cyclists behind you from drafting. So there are interesting decisions. There is also blocking to consider, although we didn't use this tactic much in our game. I think the game needs the full 4 players, i.e. 16 cyclists, to be at its best.

We played the advanced rules. There are three rule sets, basic, advanced and professional. The professional rules add things like cheating, i.e. you cheat and get to move faster, but risk being photographed and disqualified. There are also sprints, i.e. bonus points for the first three cyclists to pass interim checkpoints. They are a bit too much for me for the first learning game so I decided to play without them. But I don't think they will add too much complexity after you are familiar with the game.

I think Um Reifenbreite is alright. It's moderately light (Carcassonne + Inns & Cathedrals-light but not Coloretto-light) with enough interesting decision making. There are opportunities for clever play. There is interaction with your opponents. It is quite fun. I don't need to own it, but I wouldn't mind playing again.

Perikles

I usually return to Sabah for Chinese New Year, and one thing that I never miss when I'm in KK (Kota Kinabalu) is Carcasean boardgame cafe. I emailed the cafe owner Chong Sean a few weeks before I came back, asking him what new games there were. I read the rules and prepared concise reference sheets in anticipation.

On Sat 31 Jan 2009, Simon and I visited Carcasean, and we played Perikles with Chong Sean.

Perikles is a game about the battles among the Greek city states, after the Persians invaders have been defeated by their joint forces. There are 6 city states in the game. In the game, over three rounds, players compete to have their people get elected to be leaders in each city, and then upon taking control of the cities, send the citizen armies of the cities to battle. There are 21 battles, i.e. 7 will be fought each round. You gain victory points for winning battles, for getting elected as mayor, and for remaining influence it the cities at the end of the game.

The policital phase of a round is done by placing cubes, i.e. influence, onto cities. Sometimes you can assassinate an opponent's cube. Sometimes you can propose a candidate early. There are only 2 candidates allowed per city, so it is possible that even when you have the most influence in a city, you don't control it because you didn't manage to get your people nominated. Being mayor means a monument will be erected for your guy, and that monument is usually worth some points at game end, depending on how well the city did in battles throughout the game. That's an interesting consideration which intertwines city control and choice of battles.

The battles phase is done by players taking turns to deploy armies and fleets to the battle locations and to choose sides (attacker or defender). There are main and supporting attackers / defenders. Battle resolution is by dice. It is slightly convoluted and needs some effort to digest, but once you understand how it works, it is quick. Victory points earned from battles are fixed. They are printed on the battle tile (location tile).

That's the game in summary. But this being a Martin Wallace game, there are some quirks in the rules, which I won't describe. But I'd say these details are quite thematic. E.g. there is one special game end condition. If Sparta or Athens suffer 4 defeats, the game ends immediately. This is a kind of twist often seen in Martin Wallace games, e.g. Byzantium.

In our game, Chong Sean had a poor start, controlling only one city. However he had a good comeback in Round 2. In Round 3, he also did quite well, controlling 3 cities, when Simon and I had 1 and 2 respectively. In the policital phase I was overconfident and careless. I could have won 3 cities, but I made a mistake. What was worse was both Simon and I did very badly in the battle phase. We both decided to fight at two locations, and allowed Chong Sean to win the other 5 locations without contest. We were so absorbed in those two locations that we didn't realise who stupid our deployments were. Chong Sean had 3 armies. So we really should have worked together to hinder him.

Chong Sean won at 80. I had 72, Simon 60. I had the most cubes remaining on the board. In hindsight I probably should have used them up to deploy more armies, which Simon and Chong Sean did. I think with fewer players it is more worthwhile to use cubes this way, and especially so in the last round, because you don't need to leave cubes to contest for city control the next round. I overestimated the importance of the cubes. Or maybe I should say I underestimated the importance of winning battles. In hindsight, I should have treated cubes as a tiebreaker (it isn't).

Round 1. This was after the policital phase and after army deployment of the battle phase. We were about to start the battles themselves. I was (as usual) green, Simon was orange, Chong Sean red. There are 6 cities on the board, each of a different colour. The cities are where the policital aspects are played out. That complex-looking but actually not really complex table on the right is the battle table. The centre column is for the 7 locations being fought over each round. The colour of the location indicates which city the location belongs to, i.e. that city cannot attack its own location. Players place armies and fleets on both sides of the location tiles, to indicate whether they want to attack of defend that location. That grey stack of armies to the left of Argos is the Persians. If you fail to control any city, i.e. you have no army, this becomes your army for the battle phase. So this is a pity-army, to make sure you don't sulk in a corner when the other players are happily waging war.

One of the cities - Sparta. The newly elected mayor (small square tile) is sitting above the city. On the roof are the alpha and beta signs, which are the spots for candidates. Among the pillars are the influence cubes. The oval on the left is for placing monuments of past mayors. The rectangle on the right is for placing the stack of armies and fleets belonging to this city. The four squares below denote the possible values of a monument in this city. Whenever a location belonging to this city is conquered in battle, i.e. battle tile of this city's colour, a defeat token is placed on the highest number, thus reducing the value of the monuments.

Close-up of the battle area. Most battles consist of two phases. Either land then sea or vice versa. Only the result of the second phase determines the winner, but winning the first phase gives an advantage when you get to the second phase. Soldiers are deployed face-down so you don't know the combat strength of your enemies (which range from 1 to 4).

This was Round 3. See how many green cubes I had left on the board. I was in control of the green and yellow armies, and Simon blue. See how stubbornly we deployed to fight over those two blue locations, which basically handed the victory to Chong Sean. We were both kingmakers.

I think Perikles needs to by played with 4 or 5 to be good. With 3 players, I find it slightly lacking. In our game, there was a tendency for each player to have controlled a city exactly once. Since each player would have a monument, there was no point in trying to make that city lose a battle which would lower the value of its monuments.

I find Perikles alright. It feels very "Wallace". I would like to play it again, just not with three.