Taipei meet-up and Witch House

I visited Taiwan in early June. It was a family vacation, and I took the opportunity to meet up with my old friends. My boardgame journey started in Taiwan about 11 years ago. It was then that I got hooked on Eurogames. I played frequently with my colleagues at work. It had been a long time since I last met them. Many things are different now - we have kids now, we are working in different fields - but when we got together again, the camaraderie was just like 11 years ago. I felt 11 years younger. I should to go Taipei more.

We met up for dinner, but dinner was definitely not the only thing on our minds. We brought games. Yes, I brought games all the way from Malaysia to Taiwan, which is perfectly normal. After dinner, we continued our gathering at Cher's office, which was near the restaurant. We played games in the conference room, which reminded me of how we used to play Carcassonne in the Director's office during lunch break 11 years ago (the Director was usually not in the office).

I taught them Templar Intrigue, a secret identity team game. I've written about it before here in case you do not know the game. We had much fun, and most of it was not because of the game, but because of the people - the spontaneous jokes, and how we simply click. I explained the game using the characters in the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs (which was remade in English as The Departed). In one game Rick said he would prove that he was Tony Leung (the undercover cop) by giving Carina Lau a phone call straight-away. Each game of Templar Intrigue requires a precise procedure to be followed to allow some players to know the identities of some other players. One of the steps requires everyone to close his eyes, and then the Templar Grandmaster (the mafia boss) and the Templar Archivist (the mafia's mole in the police force) open their eyes to identify each other. In one of our games, when it was time for these two characters to open their eyes, we had three players opening their eyes instead! That led to much laughter. It was Michelle who made the mistake. She was a Templar Traitor (undercover cop in the mafia) and she thought when I announced "mole" I meant her too. Then there was another game in which only one person opened his eyes at this phase. Rick was the Templar Grandmaster and when he couldn't see anyone else with eyes open, he asked for a stop. I was the moderator so I checked everyone's cards, until I realised I was the Templar Archivist who was supposed to have opened his eyes. I was too absorbed with being moderator that I had forgotten my own character.

Templar Intrigue was a great choice. It is simple, it supports up to 10 players, and it's a riot to play.

I'm the king of the kids.

This is Tony Leung, a.k.a. Templar Traitor, a.k.a. undercover cop in the mafia.

Jessy, Crystal, Cher and I playing Carcassonne. This was one of our favourite games from 11 years ago. Others include Ra and Ticket to Ride.

We visited Witch House, where my boardgame hobby began. When Michelle and I lived in Taipei, we were regular customers. After 11 years, the place still felt the same. The main difference was we were now bringing along our children and not coming as a couple. The game in this photo is BANG!. I didn't do any preparation before the visit, since I didn't know what games were available at Witch House now. I decided we'd just play games I'd played before or simple games. Surprisingly we managed to spend about 3 hours there, which was longer than I had expected, given my lack of preparation.

This is the dice game Pickomino which I own.

Talk about horrible luck. It was my turn. On my first roll I picked two 5's, and on my second roll I picked three worms (which were 5pts each). I had 25pts locked (the row of dice at the bottom) and three more dice to roll, which was a very good position to be in. I just needed to roll 1's to 4's to further increase my point value. And what did I roll? 5's and worms! I failed my turn, and instead of claiming a tile I had to lose one.

Selfie.

This is That's Life!, by the formidable duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling. The rules are deceptively simple, but there is some clever strategy. It looks like a race game, since you roll a die to move your pawns from starting line to finishing line. However the order of arrival has nothing to do with scoring. Instead you score based on tiles you collect during the game. When your pawn leaves a tile, if it is the last pawn to do so, you must claim that tile. This means the race track is constantly changing, getting shortened whenever a tile is claimed. Some tiles are worth points, some are worth negative points. Some are Good Luck tiles, which convert negative point tiles to positive point tiles.

The unpainted cylindrical pawns are neutral pawns called guards. They are initially placed on the Good Luck tiles and the high valued positive point tiles. On your turn, you may move a guard if there is another player pawn on the same tile as the guard. For example if your pawn and a guard shares a Good Luck tile, you'd want to move the guard away first, so that when your own pawn leaves, you get to claim the tile. Similarly, if another player's pawn shares a bad tile with a guard, you'd want to move the guard away to force your opponent to pick up the bad tile later.

My tiles at game end. The three Good Luck tiles on the left convert those three negative point tiles to positive point tiles.

The night before I left Taipei, Cher and Crystal stopped by bringing some gifts. I took the opportunity to teach them Love Letter.

Targi

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

"Targi" means the men of the Tuareg tribes, who live in the western Saharan desert. Targi is a game in the Kosmos two-player-only series, published in 2012. It has been getting consistent praise, and I was curious to give it a try. Allen has a copy. For the past few months he was often unable to join the Friday gaming sessions, so recently I suggested we meet up on a Thursday after work to play some short games. Our work locations are close. Playing in a public location means less space, so we decided to do card games with no boards.

The "board" area in Targi is a 5x5 grid of cards. The 16 border cards are fixed from game to game, but the 9 cards in the central area are set up randomly at the start of every game. During a game round, players take turns placing targi pieces (each player has three) on border cards. A targi may not occupy the same card as another targi, and also may not be placed such that it would be facing another targi across the play area. That means when you place a targi, it is monopolising that particular row or column. Once all targis are placed, if their rows and columns intersect, you get to place tribe markers at the intersections. Normally there are two intersections per player. After that the players execute actions on the cards where they have targis and tribes. Some cards let you gain resources. Some cards let you score points. The most important type if card is the tribe cards. If you have a tribe marker on a tribe card, you may pay specific resources to claim it and then add it to your tribe area. Your tribe area is a 3x4 grid in front of you, i.e. 3 rows each having 4 slots for tribe cards. Tribe cards grant special abilities. They are also worth victory points at game end. Each tribe card has a tribe icon. For each tribe card row where you have four of the same icons or four different icons, you score bonus points.

The game ends after 12 rounds, or after a player claims 12 tribe cards.

The blue and white pieces belong to the players. The light grey piece (bottom centre) is the robber. The robber moves every round, along the edge of the play area. He blocks targi placement, and when he reaches a corner card, he raids - players must surrender goods or money, or else lose victory points.

Whenever a card in the central area is executed, it is either claimed by a player or removed from the play area. A new card is drawn to replace it. The new card is kept face-down until the end of the current round. You can see one such new card in this photo.

This is a tribe card. The tribe icon is on the left. The cost is at the top right. The VP value is at the bottom right. The text describes the special ability you gain.

The Play

This is a VP-scoring game, and what you try to do every round is to maximise the effectiveness of your five possible actions. When placing targis you are directly choosing the action you want to perform. As more and more targis are placed, your options dwindle. So you need to prioritise which actions are most important to you, and grab them before you are blocked by your opponent. You need to consider what your opponent may want, so that you can try to block him too. Where your tribe markers will go depends on how you place your targis, and that's something you already need to consider when placing your targis. This is what makes Targi unique.

Most of your points will come from the tribe cards. You are constantly competing with your opponent to grab these. There is a set collection element, and a tableau building element. You want to get tribe cards which synergise. At the same time you want to prevent your opponent from doing the same.

My tableau of tribe cards at game end. I managed to put together two rows with the same tribe icons. That's a juicy 8VP.

The Thoughts

Targi is a light-to-medium weight game. More complex than the Lost Cities type, but not quite a medium weight game. It will work well as a spouse game and as a post-dinner game. It takes 30-45 minutes to play. It'll work as a after-the-kids-go-to-bed game too when I'm-too-tired-for-a-complex-game-and-I-just-want-to-unwind-a-bit. There is no direct conflict, but there is plenty of player interaction. You are competing to score the most points, trying to grab the most valuable actions and cards before your opponent. However you can't directly hurt your opponent. The targi placement mechanism which drives tribe marker placement is what's unique about the game. The set collection aspect will be familiar to Eurogamers, but it works fine. Collecting tribe cards is a tableau-building game.

The ever-shifting central area keeps players on their toes. You never know what opportunities will come up in the next round. In the game we played we exhausted the goods cards, and I think that's normal. You will cycle through the whole deck. However only about half the tribe cards came into play. So there will be variety from game to game.

boardgaming in photos: Saint Petersburg, Impulse, Jamaica

15 May 2015. Saint Petersburg was popular around 2004, and a new version has just been released, with new artwork, an addition to the rules, and the two previously published expansions included. I noticed that Jeff had stocked it at his webstore, so I decided why not revisit this old title and at the same time help him sell. I later found out he was already down to his last one or two copies, so it was unnecessary after all.

We did a full 4-player game. We played Jeff's copy, which is the first edition, and we included the New Society expansion. This expansion replaces some of the cards in the base game to rebalance it, and also adds some new cards. I have never played Saint Petersburg enough to find it unbalanced, so I never bought the expansion. Now that I've played the expansion, I quite like it. Unfortunately it has been long out of print, and it is very expensive in the secondary market. The 2nd edition contains the expansion, but I prefer the 1st edition artwork.

This was the second time I played Carl Chudyk's Impulse. This time it was a 4-player game using partnership rules. Jeff (light blue) and I (green) were on one time, and Ivan (white) and Boon Khim (purple) on the other. In the partnership game, a team wins when one of the team members reaches 20VP. I was the start player, and right off the bat all of us rushed to the galaxy centre to grab VP's.

My cards.

This was one memorable, crazy game. For the first few rounds my hand was a perfect storm for Trading (i.e. sacrificing cards for victory points). Within three rounds I was already close to 20VP, and was poised to win on my next turn. I neglected military and science, and poured all my effort and resources into scoring points. It was a gamble. It seemed mad, but it was very viable. I was betting on speed. I needed to reach 20VP before Ivan or Boon Khim could stop me. In Round 3, Boon Khim had no choice but to launch his attack. If he didn't stop me, I would cruise to victory. There was one crucial battle he needed to win. He needed to destroy my cruiser so that his cruisers could get past that sector to attack my transports, which were getting ready to score the last few points I needed to win. It was a 50-50 battle. Both of us had only one cruiser. Unfortunately I couldn't hold the line. My front (which consisted of exactly one cruiser) crumbled, and I was soon completely wiped out. It was crazy, and it was great fun.

At this point I (green) had been exterminated. Jeff (light blue) was later destroyed too by the combined forces of Ivan and Boon Khim.

22 May 2015. It was pirate theme night at Boardgamecafe.net. Other than Madame Ching I also played Jamaica, a race game. It is not only about racing though. You also score points by digging up treasures, collecting gold coins, and even robbing the other players. These three are action cards. Everyone has a hand size of three, and every round you simultaneously pick one to play.

Your ship has five cargo holds, and each can only store one goods type - food, cannons or gold coins.

Madame Ching

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

It has been a while since I last wrote about a new game I've played. I do have quite a few new-to-me games to write about, just that I have a rather long backlog to catch up on - old games played, new games played, fun experiences, photos taken. Since I'm itching to write about something new, I'll let Madame Ching cut queue.

Madame Ching is about a famous Chinese pirate Mrs Zheng who lived during the Qing Dynasty. You are her followers vying to outdo one another in leading raids, and your objective is to win the most glory to become her right-hand man.

The basic mechanism is quite simple. You have four navigation cards in hand. Every round everyone secretly picks a card and reveals it simultaneously. Then in order from lowest to highest card, you add it to a row of cards in front of you. This row of cards represents your current raiding voyage. Cards must be played in ascending order. When you add a higher card to the row, you continue your voyage. When you play a card which cannot be added to the row, you complete your current voyage and start a new one with that card. After that you pick one of the cards displayed on the board to be added to your hand. So every round is basically playing a card and drawing a card.

When you complete a voyage, you gain something. Every space on the board has a voyage value. Depending on where your ship ends its voyage, you get to claim a mission tile, which is worth victory points (in the form of coins or gems) and sometimes gives you bonus cards (called encounter cards) too. The game ends when all mission tiles are claimed. There are two other things you may gain from your voyages. Some navigation cards have skill symbols, and if your voyage cards contain specific combinations of these symbols, you get to claim a skill card. Skill cards give powerful special abilities. If you collect all four types of skill cards, Madame will promote you to captain of her flagship, the China Pearl (you get 5VP), and the game will end.

The other big reward is the 10VP for raiding Hong Kong. When sailing, you sail either to the right or to the lower right. Sailing to the lower right is usually more lucrative because the voyage value increases more quickly. To do so, you need to play a card of a colour which is new to your voyage row. To reach Hong Kong, which is at the lower right corner of the board, you need to have collected and played cards of 7 different colours, which is no easy feat.

The gameplay is all around embarking on voyage after voyage, and you try to make the most from every raiding expedition. You also need to plan which reward to go for, and when.

The two spaces at the top left are for the navigation card discard pile and draw deck. The two spaces at the top right are for the encounter card draw deck and discard pile. The four spaces between these are for the replenishment cards for the current round. The square tiles at the bottom are the mission tiles. Not all mission tiles will be in use in every game, so there will be some variety from game to game.

The three cards on the right are the navigation cards. The full number range is 1 to 55, and for each smaller range within there is a specific colour. The three cards on the left are encounter cards (bonus cards).

My current voyage has five cards. I have two kite symbols and two lantern symbols. If I can get a third symbol for either kite or lantern, I would be able to claim a skill card.

The Play

I did a four-player game with Dith, Vence and Sinbad. That's the max player count, and I think it is the best way to play. The game plays very smoothly, since every round is simple. You rarely get to directly interfere with others' voyages, but there is still much player interaction in picking cards. Sometimes you want to play a smaller card just so that you can go earlier and pick a card you want. There is an interesting pacing element. If you can adjust your tempo to be opposite of your opponents, e.g. you want lower cards when they want higher ones, you will face less competition. The nature of the competition is the who-will-get-which-first type. There are many rewards to go after, and the question is which ones you want to go for, and in what order. You can spend much effort to go for one, but if an opponent beats you to it by a hair, you will have wasted much effort and have to settle for a smaller reward.

There are many tactical decisions to make. The new cards revealed at the start of every round drive the decisions for that round. Sometimes a card useful to you comes up. Sometimes a card useful to your opponent comes up. Sometimes a card useful to multiple players comes up. Sometimes all the cards are rubbish. One of the cards is face-down, so if all the face-up cards are lousy you can go for the lucky draw.

You need strategic planning in deciding which rewards to go for, but you are at the mercy of the cards which come up, so you often need to adjust your plans, sometimes grabbing unexpected opportunities, sometimes cancelling plans altogether to do something different. The game is an interesting mix of strategic planning, tactical decisions and luck (both good and bad).

Most of the mission tiles have been claimed by now.

There is no text on the encounter cards, only icons. The card on the right is the Madame Ching card. If you complete a voyage and you are one symbol short of qualifying for a skill card, this card can be used to fill in for the third symbol you need.

These are all the rewards I have claimed during the game which give victory points. I only went for the mission tiles which give encounter cards. I was first to raid Hong Kong and gained 10VP, but after the game I found out that I had made a mistake. You are only allowed to play one encounter card per round. In order to reach Hong Kong, I had played more than one encounter card within that particular round.

The Thoughts

Madame Ching is a medium weight game. The core concept is simple. The strategy revolves around which of the many rewards to go for. There is a fair bit of luck in the encounter cards. I think they are quite powerful, and some may be overpowered (e.g. the one that lets you draw three more encounter cards). There is also some luck in what cards become available every round. Sometimes there is simply no good card for you. That's where hand management comes in. This is the main challenge in the game. There are plenty of tactical decisions to be made. The game situation is quite fluid - not unlike braving the fickle seas.

I quite enjoyed the game. The balance between luck and strategy is of the family game type, so you will feel that your decisions do matter, and at the same time luck (both good and bad) will inject excitement and laughter. Skill does not always guarantee victory. Madame Ching will work as a family game, but perhaps not for younger children, because picking objectives to shoot for requires some strategic thinking that they may not be ready for yet.

Machi Koro: Harbor Expansion

Plays (of expansion): 3Px1.

The Game

Machi Koro is a favourite among the new-to-me games played this year. It was recently shortlisted for the Spiel des Jahres award. Many fellow gamers say that it must be played with with Harbor expansion. I had the opportunity to try that, so I grabbed the chance.

If you are not familiar with the base game, see my previous blog post from a few months ago. Here are what the Harbor expansion changes:

1. There are quite many new buildings. Many of the building numbers overlap with buildings in the base game, but naturally the building powers are different.
2. To win, you need to construct six landmarks instead of four. The two new landmarks are the harbor (of course) and the airport. Like the landmarks in the base game, these two new landmarks have their own unique abilities too.
3. To me, the most important change is this: Instead of having every card in the game available for purchase at all times, the central card pool now only allows 10 types of cards. At the start of the game you shuffle all cards and then draw them one by one. Cards are placed face-up in the card pool, with cards of the same type stacked together. Once you have 10 stacks, you stop. Some of these stacks may have only one card. Whenever all buildings in one stack are sold out, you start drawing cards from the draw deck again to be added to the pool. Once a 10th type of card is drawn, you stop again.

There are only 10 types of cards available in the pool. At this point most of these stacks have only one card.

The row in the middle is the landmarks. There are seven of them, but the first one is a free building. It is already constructed and functioning at the start of the game. It is a consolation building - when you run out of cash, it gives you $1. Among the other six landmarks, at this point I have built only one. The row at the bottom are my regular buildings. I prefer to arrange them by number. Each time the dice are rolled, I can easily look up the cards with the relevant number.

The Play

With the 3rd modification above, the game changes significantly. You can no longer play a game with a preconceived plan like in the base game. The starting set of 10 cards differs from game to game, and the number of initially available cards of each type will differ too. You really have to go with the flow and try to make the most of what opportunities present themselves. It is much harder to execute those perfect combos in the base game, because you can't count on specific combinations of cards being available. What's even rarer is the availability of many cards of the same type, which is often the cornerstone of powerful strategies in the base game. Many strategies which are applicable in the base game have to be thrown out the window or have to undergo major surgery.

The way cities grow now feel more organic, as opposed to those perfectly planned and executed cities in the base game. In a way the game becomes more tactical and less strategic because you can't predict what cards will come up next. You need to adapt to the ever changing card pool. You react to opportunities that crop up. The game is much more fluid. I like that.

One interesting point: with the Harbor expansion it is rare to see many copies of the same building available, unlike in the base game. Quite often if you see only one copy of a card, there is little incentive to buy it. Ideally you want many copies of a few different types of cards which combo well with one another. However, if a particular stack is neglected for long, gradually there will be more cards drawn and added to it. As the number of cards increase, that stack will become increasingly tempting because a strategy centred around it will become more and more viable. This is an interesting dynamic.

Chen Rui (8) prefers to arrange her cards by colour. The colours have meaning, e.g. red cards trigger on your opponents' turns, blue cards trigger on everyone's turns.

A three-player game takes up quite a bit of space.

I was only one landmark away from winning, but eventually was beaten to it by Shee Yun (10).

The Thoughts

With the Harbor expansion, the game does take longer to play. It is much harder to build those super-efficient engines very quickly like in the base game (e.g. buying up all the ranches and cheese factories). The two additional landmarks required do increase the play time, but they are not the biggest contributor. The main contributor is the additional challenge in getting your city's growth engine running.

I definitely prefer playing Machi Koro with the expansion. It greatly increases replayability, and makes each game more varied. In contrast, the base game feels rather limited in strategic options. It's fun, but you will tend to gravitate towards a handful of powerful combos. One thing that doesn't change is the lottery joy. You are building your city and setting up combos, and you are praying to the dice gods to grant you your number. The anticipation at every die roll and the exhilaration when hitting the jackpot are what keep me engaged and in love.

This is a wonderful light strategy game for families. My children beat me frequently. There is luck, but we still feel that we have control, that we have achieved something, that we have done something right. If we lose, it's because we just needed a little bit more of good luck. If we win, it's because we've been clever.

boardgaming in photos: Sekigahara, Antiquity, Glory to Rome

3 May 2015. I finally managed to play my copy of this Black Box Edition of Glory to Rome. This was a gift from Allen. It would be a shame to not get this beautiful version played. I much prefer this artwork over the original. The cards themselves are actually a little flimsy though. I probably should sleeve them, but if I do, they wouldn't fit into the nice box insert that comes with the game.

I convinced my wife Michelle to play this with me, saying it's a little like Race for the Galaxy. When I taught her the game, I was reminded of how difficult it could be to learn this game. Even Michelle felt a little embarrassed when she asked me the same question a third time. I felt a little guilty for having led her to believe it would not be hard to learn. Thankfully she persevered and we played quite a few games. I think now she is more comfortable with the rules and she will still be willing to play in future. I think Glory to Rome can be a good spouse game. It is probably better with 3 players, but 2 is fine too.

4 May 2015. It had been a while since Michelle and I played Antiquity, so she needed a rules refresher. When we play, she always picks the Saint Cristofori, who gives her infinite storage capacity, and whose winning condition is to stockpile three each of the eight types of food and luxury goods in the game. I, on the other hand, like to try all saints. She wins more often than I do because she has specialised and she has learned to play Saint Cristofori well. I more often lose because I am mostly flailing trying to work out my strategies. However I enjoy the exploration and the challenge.

In this particular game I wanted to try San Giorgio. The winning condition was to completely overlap another player's area of influence with your own. Unfortunately my planning was poor, and I later changed my mind and went for the same saint as Michelle. That didn't work out well. I wasn't well prepared for that either, and in the end Michelle won quite comfortably.

In this photo I (yellow) had built my second city. Michelle (red) had planned to stick to just one city, but later had to go for a second one because she wanted to build a Market (which allows you to trade for goods you don't have) and her first city was full.

I like Antiquity a lot, yet sometimes I wonder how big the strategy space really is. It's a tough game and you need to work hard to even survive. In order to survive, there are many things you can't do. You can't be wasteful. You cannot not do things which help you survive. You don't have the luxury to tinker and see what works. The game can feel restrictive. Then there are the various saints and their unique winning conditions. Once you pick a saint, you need to make sure you stick to a strategy that utilises his power and most efficiently pushes you towards victory. In fact you probably want to decide on which saint to go for even before you build your cathedral, so that you already work towards your goal much earlier. The game is a stressful race against time because the famine level increases every round. You need to reach victory before the world goes to hell. Sometimes I wonder whether Antiquity is mostly about figuring out the best ways to play each of the saints, and once you've figured that out, these broad strategies don't change very much from game to game. Still, being able to figure them all out will already require many plays, so the game will already have given you your money's worth.

One thing that others have complained about is the low player interaction. I don't find that a problem. Indeed you won't be able to interfere with many of your opponents' actions, and it can feel like a swim-in-your-own-lane race game. However there is player interaction, and sometimes it can greatly impact the outcome of a game. Some player interactions are very direct, e.g. when you are fighting for land.

10 Days in Asia is something quite different from other games. I can't think of anything quite like it, other than the other games in the series. It's refreshing to bring it to the table once in a while. It was Shee Yun who suggested it this time. The game teaches some geography, and that's certainly a handy excuse, if you need one. I bought the Asia version because I live in Asia.

8 May 2015. Boardgamecafe.net was closed this day, so I asked some of the regulars whether they wanted to play at my place instead. Only Dith could make it, so I suggested Sekigahara, one of my favourite games, which he hadn't tried before. I let him play Tokugawa (black) while I played Ishida (yellow), because I think Tokugawa is slightly easier to play.

Dith aggressively went for the resource locations. Controlling more of these brings more troops into the reserve box at the start of every round. I focused more on grabbing castles. More castles means drawing one more card every round. I sat at the northern edge of the board, so left is east and right is west. I (yellow - Ishida) dominated the west very early in the game. In the early game I had the right cards which allowed me to make some swift attacks. This was bad news for Dith. I captured his Fukushima recruitment centre and held it securely, which prevented him from mustering new troops at this centre for the rest of the game. This more or less made all his Fukushima cards useless.

In the east (left), the war between the Date clan (Tokugawa faction, black) and the Uesugi clan (Ishida faction, yellow) was long and hard, and had some surprising twists. I didn't draw many Uesugi cards, and could not fight very effectively. I kept reinforcing, hoping blocks from other clans would be able to help the Uesugi clan. Dith probably didn't have very good card draws for Date in the early game either. We just danced around each other and hollered. Around mid game, he marched a Maeda army from the northern coast (foreground in the photo) all the way to the east (left), and then launched a coordinated attack together with his Date army. That was a huge battle, and a meticulously planned one. Dith had even planned for the possibility that I would play a Loyalty Challenge. Unfortunately (for him), he had misunderstood that each player's deck contained only one Loyalty Challenge card. When I taught the game, I had forgotten to mention how many there were. So he was caught by surprise when my first Loyalty Challenge failed, but later on I played a second Loyalty Challenge card. It was because of this Loyalty Challenge that he lost the battle. It was a costly defeat.

This photo was taken soon after this major battle. I (yellow) had a stronger presence in the area, and had even sent out one block to capture undefended resource locations. Later on Dith launched another major offensive, and this time I could not push him back. I lost the east.

This was the final siege of the Uesugi clan castle.

After controlling the east (left), Dith organised his troops to march west. I had enjoyed superiority throughout most of the game, but now I found that Dith was poised to make some simultaneous attacks, and I had to tread carefully to stop him from grabbing enough castles and resource locations to win the game. I was leading in points, but he only needed to win two battles to turn things around. I was weak at the northern coast (foreground), and I expected the Maeda castle I was controlling would fall. So I gave that up, and focused on other areas. Dith had a large army approaching along the southern coast (far side). I had to prepare to meet him in one last climactic battle.

I was quite strong in this area, but my forces were slightly scattered. It would be costly to try to merge them. I'd have to spend cards. So I decided to group them into two armies. The first would face Dith's Tokugawa army. If I lost the battle, the backup army would counterattack. It was the last round, and Dith and I had our last grand battle. I managed to beat him back, and that secured my ultimate victory, 14VP vs 13VP. Tokugawa Ieyasu himself narrowly escaped death on the battlefield.

After our game we had a discussion about how impossible it seemed for Tokugawa to win by capturing Osaka. The western area is the homeground of the Ishida faction, and also there are many Mori troops sitting in Osaka. I still can't imagine how a Tokugawa player can pull this off. However if I consider the likelihood of winning by victory points, then I think the Tokugawa player has a slight advantage. His recruitment centres are more evenly spread out, while three of the Ishida player's four recruitment centres are clumped together near the western edge.

10 May 2015. Michelle and I did 2P Goa. She beat me 40VP vs 39VP. Just one point!

Labour Day gaming: Hoity Toity, Attika, Ark

In Malaysia we had a long Labour Day weekend 1 - 4 May 2015. Labour day was on Friday, and Wesak Day on Monday. Michelle and I decided to have a family boardgame day. We revisited some games which we hadn't played for quite a while, and I also introduced some new games to the kids.

At the Gates of Loyang. I am lukewarm but Michelle likes it, but if she suggests to play, I'm more than happy to oblige. I'm not a big fan of this particular design from Uwe Rosenberg because I see it as a logistical exercise of coordinating supply and demand, ideally maximising supply and then optimising demand (unmet demand results in penalty).

These three are my regular customers, i.e. I have signed contracts to deliver vegetables to them for four consecutive rounds. Unkept promises can result in a penalty.

In our game Michelle forgot to open a new field in two rounds, resulting in a shortage in fields. The mistake probably happened around mid game, but we only discovered it in the late game. It was too late to fix. Needless to say, she didn't win.

This is a German version of Attika which I bought in Taiwan around 2004. I don't know German, so it is slightly inconvenient. I need to refer to the player board more often. In Attika your objective is to be the first to construct all 30 of your buildings (the round tokens). However there is an instant win condition, which is to connect two temples using your chain of buildings. Based on the current board situation in this photo, the connection victory is not possible. I (green) would need to add a terrain tile at the upper left in order to join up my separate territories. Michelle (red) would need to add a terrain tile at the lower left to reach that temple on the left.

This is the player board and also a reference sheet. It tells you how the buildings related to one another - which building when constructed next to another can be constructed for free. I use the blue player's components to mark the buildings I have already constructed.

Michelle managed a connection victory using her streets (strasse) to reach the temple on the left. This is so easy feat. Connection victories are difficult because they are normally easy to defend against. The tricky part is how much effort you are willing to spend on defense because it could mean sacrificing efficiency in constructing all your buildings as quickly as possible.

This is the main board of Power Grid: Factory Manager. It has the Power Grid brand slapped on it, but is a wholly independent game. Not an expansion, not a variant. It is quite a compact game. Not short, or simple, but compact. There are only five rounds. There aren't really that many decisions to make. However most of these decisions are important. That's what I mean by compact. You need to understand the game reasonably well to understand the implications in order to make sound decisions.

I played a 2-player game with Michelle, and around mid game an interesting situation arose. We had made all three of the best storage solutions tiles available to be purchased. I was start player, and I had good cashflow. I could afford to buy two of these tiles, which would boost my storage capacity to the max, and I would not need to worry about it for the rest of the game. I could also choose to buy only the best tile among the three, which would still give me a very strong boost, but I would not hit the max. The challenge was deciding whether I would need that additional storage capacity towards game end. If I could not boost my production capacity to match my maxed out storage capacity, that storage capacity would be wasted. If I spent my money on two storage solutions, that would mean less money for other machinery. So I decided to buy only one storage solution. Michelle took the plunge and bought both.

I had better cashflow throughout the game. However when we reached the last round, I found my growth hampered by my storage capacity. It was too late for regret. Michelle's income surpassed me in the last round, and because the profit in the last round was doubled, she managed to amass just enough wealth to beat me. I should have been bolder and made that investment in mid game. I had let the opportunity pass me by.

Chen Rui (8) playing Mystery Rummy: Al Capone and the Chicago Underworld. The 4-player partnership game is great fun. The card rack she is using is from Ticket To Ride: Asia.

This is Hoity Toity, a.k.a. Adel Verpflichtet, a.k.a. By Hook or by Crook. I had not played this for a very long time. Michelle had played it before, but had forgotten all the rules. It was as good as playing for the first time. I find it a very good family game. It definitely deserves the Spiel des Jahres award. The pace is brisk, actions are simple, there is no down time, and everyone feels involved all the time. It is a joy to play.

Like rock-paper-scissors, this is a game about guessing your opponents' intentions. Everyone makes decisions simultaneously, and then reveals them together. Every round, you can decide to go to the auction house or to the exhibition hall. Among those who have decided to go to the auction house, you secretly decide whether you will bid for an artifact, or you will try to steal the money paid in the transaction. If more than one player wants to buy an artifact, naturally the highest bidder wins the auction and gets the artifact. If there is only one player trying to steal money, he succeeds. That is, of course, subject to someone having bought an artifact that round.

Among the players who have decided to go to the exhibition hall, there are then three options, which they also pick simultaneously. Players can exhibit their artifacts, and those with the most impressive sets score points. They can try to steal artifacts, provided that someone else is exhibiting so there are artifacts to steal in the first place. They can try to arrest thieves to score points, which is of course subject to thieves being present.

The outcomes of your decisions very much depend on what others are doing. Player interaction is high.

These are my artifacts. When putting up an exhibition, you must display at least three artifacts, and there can be no gaps in the alphabets. The alphabets run from A to F. The middle alphabets like C and D are often more hotly contested because you need them to link up the others. I only have one D artifact. I need to be careful not to lose it to thieves, because it would break my nice big collection of artifacts into two smaller and much weaker sets.

This is Ark, a game about helping Noah load his ark before the flood starts. This looks like a children's game but it is not simple at all. There are many restrictions when you load animals. Carnivores cannot share a cabin with other animals smaller than them. Herbivores cannot share a cabin with provisions (vegetables). The total weight on the port and starboard halves of the ark must not be too much off balance. Animals from specific climates must be stored in rooms of the appropriate climate. After our game Michelle said she needed to take a nap to recover.

Even the children looked very serious when playing.