gaming in photos

3 May 2009. Race for the Galaxy. This kind of starting hand makes me want to cry. I start with a novelty goods (blue) producing world, I have another novelty goods world in my hand, and the Free Trade Association, which is good for novelty goods. Then I also have 3 other cards in my hand that are good for a genes (green) strategy. Also getting these nice 6-cost development cards so early is a pain, because at the start of the game you can ill afford to build them.

4 May 2009. Agricola. This was the highest score that I ever had so far - 57pts (excluding solo games). This was a 2-player game, and I hadn't expected to score that high. I went with a plant-grain-bake-bread strategy, which meant slower to set up my food engine.

My cards worked quite well together.

Michelle's farm in this same game. She had a card that allowed her to keep one animal per room in her house, instead of one animal for the whole house. Thus this unusual sight.

Michelle's cards.

16 May 2009. Through the Ages. At one point in this game, I had two such colonies, and a whole bunch of idle workers. I had too many yellow tokens and too much food, and had to keep, ahem, pumping out population, to avoid corruption. One of these colonies was won from a normal event, the other was discovered by Columbus.

This was the state of my civilisation in the middle of the game. I previously had two Level I farms, and I had destroyed one of them. I simply had too much food. My mining technology was literally stone age. It was my undoing. At this point I had 5! mines. Not good.

My civilisation at game end. In this game I started off reasonably well, maintaining a military lead, and having an extra civil action from the Pyramids. I also had a healthy culture rate. Things started to go wrong when my mining technology failed to progress. Well, I should say I failed to improve my mines. At one point I could choose between picking a mining technology card and a wonder (I think St. Peter's Basilica). Michelle taunted me, and I decided to take the wonder. The wonder was nice enough, but it meant my mines later became obsolete, and I started to suffer from corruption. I kept telling Michelle "Hey, this is just like Malaysia!". I fell behind in production. The other factor that expedited my demise was the fight over colonies. After winning the early colonies, I lost my military, and never managed to catch up. There were many turns where a colony came up, and I had no soldier to fight for it, so Michelle picked those up with just one lousy warrior. I also started getting hammered by events because of my military weakness. E.g. I had lost one of my colonies that gave more yellow tokens.

My special techs, wonders and leaders. This was the first time I had Robespierre as my leader. I only used his ability once. In this game I had two (almost) one-time-use leaders, the other one being Columbus.

Michelle's wonders, special techs, leaders and colonies. She was very technologically advanced, and had many Level III techs.

Michelle's civilisation. I realise we still tend to spend little on military units technologies.

Game board at game end. Michelle was scientifically advanced. I was quite science poor. My culture level was slightly higher, but this was probably only on the last one or two turns. Too little too late. Her total culture overtook mine in mid game and I never managed to catch up. Militarily I was also weaker.

gaming in photos

19 Apr 2009. The very nice box cover of Metropolys. I first played this at Jollythinkers boardgame cafe in Hong Kong last year. I find it quite unique and interesting.

The thirteen buildings available to you. Try not to arrange them in order so that your opponents can't guess what numbers you have remaining.

My copy of the game came with two blue 9's, but no 6. I added another dot to one of them, and designated that to be the 6.

Many think the board graphics is bad. I thought it was fine, and functional. The districts individually are actually quite nice, just that when looking at the whole board together, the colours can be jarring.

Game in progress, against Michelle. She found the game so-so, probably because she couldn't quite grasp the tactics yet.

A game of Agricola played on 25 Apr 2009. I had a nice big stone house - 6 rooms, more than I could have people for. The 6th room was a free one given by one of my Occupation cards (Master Builder).

These were my cards played, pretty good combination for house-upgrading and farming grain and baking.

Michelle's farm. She worked much more on animals, since I almost completely ignored that aspect.

Michelle's cards.

26 Apr 2009. We still enjoy playing Through the Ages a lot. Somehow, we still spend 2 hours plus per game. But 2 hours of 1 game we enjoy a lot is better than 2 hours of 2 games that are so-so. We prefer to play Through the Ages in the morning when we are fresh. It is a very involving game. This photo was the end of the game.

Michelle's civilisation (1 of 2). She was militarily stronger for most of the game, and also more action point-rich than I was.

Michelle's civilisation (2 of 2). She had 6 civil actions since quite early in the game, because of the Pyramids wonder and the blue tech that gives one more civil action (which by now she had upgraded to the Civil Service tech, which gives 2 extra civil actions and 3 extra blue tokens). She had Einstein yet again. She tends to take Einstein very often, just like how she likes to have more civil actions.

My civilisation (1 of 2). I switched government twice, but the second time mostly because of hoping to take advantage of the end-game event cards. Like many of my past games, I went all out to build Computers because I had Game Designer as my leader. Quite often I pick him, just like how Michelle often picks Einstein.

My civilisation (2 of 2). Caesar was quite helpful in letting me draw more military cards and choosing the most potentially beneficial events card to seed into the future event deck. I even played some Aggression cards against Michelle, although not always successful, and not really too damaging. Well, at least not enough to get myself banished to the sofa that evening. My killer combination this game was Michaelangelo + St. Peter's Basilica + Hanging Gardens. I was Culture Club and was spreading culture like crazy in Age I and Age II. Michelle really should have denied me Michaelangelo. I think she could have done so if she was determined enough. In other areas - food, production, civil actions, military, colonisation, I wasn't as strong as she was, but my culture growth zoomed ahead and she never managed to catch up. Later on Game Designer also helped me gain many culture points.

1 May 2009. We had a great day of gaming on Labour Day. Chee Seng, Sui Jye and Jing Yi came to play. Chee Seng stayed for dinner and we continued playing in the evening. This was Chee Seng's first game of Metropolys, and see how happy he was after having placed all four of his big buildings, and all of them fulfilled his secret (well, not so secret by then) goal of placing buildings at both ends of bridges.

... then he realised he was very screwed because with only small and medium buildings remaining, he won't be seeing much action for the rest of the game.

Look at Chee Seng's four proud skyscrapers.

Chee Seng, Sui Jye and Jing Yi, all new to the game. I, being the teacher and having played 5 games of Metropolys before this, came in a very distant last. I can only console myself that I was a great teacher. In this game, Chee Seng very quickly used up all his big buildings. I was overly conservative and keep holding back my buildings. I was last to have any buildings built. When I started constructing buildings, it was done in a kind of haste, because I was starting to get desperate. I was also the only one to be willing to build on archaeological sites and thus taking the negative points. That cost me quite a number of points. There's a group mentality in this aspect of the game, and in hindsight, maybe I should not have collected those negative points so bravely, or maybe I should have made better use of this group mentality. In my first game with Ah Chung, Ben and Moh Yen, we were all reluctant to touch these negative points too.

Sui Jye paced his buildings very well, getting rid of the small ones at a good rate. Chee Seng saw the end coming, and made a play to allow Sui Jye to end the game, hoping that Sui Jye would not be able to outscore him. That was a good move, since he was quite screwed anyway, and his best hope was that the big scores he had earned from the early game was enough to keep him in the lead. However it was not to be. With his last two buildings, Sui Jye outscored Chee Seng. Their final scores were 33:31. Jing Yi had 19. I had 12. That's so embarassing that I wonder why I publish this.

Obviously they all enjoyed Wasabi. This was my first time playing with more than 2 players, and the game is a little different. Thankfully I had discovered a rule mistake earlier, and taught them the right rules - when you pick an action card after completing a recipe, you must not choose the same card that you have just played that turn, if possible. This prevents you from using the same action card over and over, and makes things trickier and more interesting.

Me, Chee Seng, Sui Jye, Jing Yi. Michelle took this photo for us. Wasabi with 4 players is more chaotic, and I can now see why some people do not like this chaos. With four players, your best laid plans can be completely destroyed unknowingly by your opponents. By the time your turn comes around, the board has been changed by 3 other players, and if your luck sucks, all 3 of them would have changed something that messed up your plan. This was what happened to me and my 5-ingredient recipe. Conclusion - (1) don't play Wasabi too seriously, (2) try playing with 2 or 3 players.

Chee Seng and Michelle. I think this is the first photo of Keltis at my blog. When I first played it at Carcasean boardgame cafe with Chong Sean, I forgot to take a photo. After buying it, I had played it quite a few times, but never remembered to take a photo, until this day.

Keltis was a surprise hit for me. When I learned it was the boardgame version of Lost Cities it didn't really excite me. After I read the rules, it didn't really excite me. I just wanted to give it a try. It won the Spiel des Jahres afterall. Then I played it. It has the juicy tension of Lost Cities, and the additional twists are interesting, which I hadn't expected. The five different paths will have different characteristics, unlike in Lost Cities where they are only different in artwork. I may end up liking Keltis more than Lost Cities.

In Keltis you move pawns down the tracks and score according to the position along the tracks. Random tiles are place along the tracks. You pick up the green wishing stones (orange background), and score points based on how many you collect. The clover tiles let you take an extra step with one of your pawns, and it can even be a pawn on another track. The number tiles just give bonus points. Everyone has one tall pawn, which scores double.

2 May 2009. Race for the Galaxy (with Gathering Storm expansion). Looks like a good hand. Problem is I couldn't bear to part with any of the cards.

My start world was Separatist Colony (#5). What a coincidence that the first two worlds that I settled were other military start worlds.

This was the end of the game. I built the Alien Tech Institute mainly for the first-6-cost-dev objective tile, but it did give me some points itself, and also contributed to the first-to-3-alien-cards objective tile. I thought I did pretty well...

... but it was no match for Michelle's tableau. The Terraforming Guild itself gave Michelle 18 points! And that's excluding the first-6-cost-dev objective, which she achieved at the same time as I did. She had tons of windfall worlds.

opening a game

This is probably going to be one of the geekier posts, which probably only the more hardcore boardgamers will appreciate, and the more normal people will just shake their heads or roll their eyes and think "geek", or "nerd", or "wierdo". These are the things that I usually do when I open a new game.

Punching - I enjoy punching cardboard pieces from the cardboard sheets. I do it with some care, so that I don't tear anything. The pieces must be punched from one specific direction, the direction where you can see the grooves. The other side is the flatter side. You must punch from the "groove-side" because it helps to reduce the risk of tearing. I find that usually games made in Germany have very good cardboard punches. Quite often some of the pieces have already fallen off by the time you open the game box, and the rest are very easy to punch out because they are cut so well.

Sprues (cardboard) - I used to keep them all in a bag, and not do anything with them except occupy space. Then I evolved to keeping them under the box insert. This lifts up the box insert slightly, so that when you close the box, the lid fits very snugly, with minimal space. Your components won't fall off their compartments and get mixed up if you store your games upright (which I do in most cases). Now I give the sprues to my children to play with as stencils. Sometimes I dump them into my recycling bin (for waste paper).

Bagging - I have many zip-lock plastic bags that I bought in Taiwan in 2004, varying from size #2 to size #6 (not sure whether there is an industry standard). I still have not used them up. Most games do not provide bags or do not provide as many bags as I would like, but that's no problem at all. In fact sometimes I prefer using my own bags, so that I can use a standard size. I prefer to use the same sized bags, so that after playing a game, I don't need to worry about which bag to use for which components. If that's hard to achieve, I try to use just two sizes, so that at least it's easy to tell which size for which components. E.g. for Agricola, only one bag size. 1 for all the animals, 1 for resources, grain and vegetables, 1 for round cards + begging cards + major improvements + ref cards, 1 for occupations (2P ones, as I mostly play 2P games), 1 for "used" minor improvements, 1 for "unused" minor improvements (Michelle and I shuffle all minor improvement cards to play, and we make sure we have played all of them before we shuffle all again and start again another cycle), 1 for each player's pieces - people, fences and stables, 1 for all cardboard pieces - food, guests, multiplier markers, 1 for wooden/clay rooms, 1 for stone rooms/ploughed fields.

No rubber bands - One of the basic laws of boardgamegeekdom. Rubber bands melt or disintegrate over time and leave stains on your cards. I bag my cards. I have heard of some elastic bands / elastic tapes which are suitable for cards, but I have never seem them before in Malaysia. Bags work well enough for me.

Box inserts - I usually keep them, but sometimes I throw them away if they are troublesome. I threw away the one for Through the Ages (2nd edition, i.e. FRED 1st edition), because I think it looks nice when you open the game, but it's not helpful when you want to organise the components well. I threw away the one for Race for the Galaxy: Gathering Storm so that I can put both the base game and the expansion in it. A Game of Thrones LCG because it's silly to have an insert which can be used only for your 4 decks of cards, and you have to hide all the other components under the insert. Power Grid because I want to put the France/Italy expansion, Benelux/Central Europe expansion and Power Plant Deck 2 expansion in together. The inserts for Lord of the Rings: Battlefields expansion and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation Deluxe Edition are poor, but I can live with them.

Catalogues and foreign language rules - I hide them under the box insert. I can't bring myself to throw them away, even the Fantasy Flight Games or Rio Grande Games brochures which I have so many copies of. I have some German version games. Usually I print the English rules or English translation downloaded from the net, and I hide away the German rules that come with the game.

Card sleeves - I usually do not sleeve my cards. Not even for Race for the Galaxy which I have played 200+ games. Actually, especially because I am playing it so many times. I find them a nuisance when playing and when shuffling cards. I can live with some wear and tear, as long as they are uniform. Well, with the Gathering Storm expansion added in now, if I want to I can tell whether it's a new or old card by looking at the card back only, but when I play, I intentionally avoid looking too closely, so that I wouldn't know. I apply the same principle to Carcassonne, which I have a mix of older and newer tiles. I do sleeve cards which will get heavily used - e.g. the role cards in Citadels, the major improvement cards and the round cards in Agricola.

Concise reference sheets - This is something I have been doing since I started getting into the hobby seriously. I do these quick ref sheets which I find handy when I need to teach a game and when I need to look up rules quickly (e.g. how much money you start the game with, or how many cards each player gets at the start of the game). Quite often before I buy a game, I have already researched it and have made a concise ref sheet for it. I'd print it out and put it in the box. I'll do some self-promotion here - the latest set of my concise ref sheets are uploaded to BGG, here.

Shelf space allocation - One of my relatively recently applied policy is that I have assigned one particular section of my boardgame shelves to be the hot section. This section is right at eye level and is easily reachable. Newer games which I expect to play more frequently go here. Some favourites, which I also tend to play more, also go here. I find this system quite convenient. Games which I think I will be playing less will get moved out from this hot section.

Update BGG - I keep my collection on BGG up-to-date.

Maaan... I just love opening new games.

Do you have any peculiar thing that you do when opening a new game? Smell the game? Record the box fart?

Bonnie and Clyde

I bought Bonnie and Clyde on a recent business trip to Singapore, at Paradigm Infinitium, Midpoint Plaza, Orchard Road. Chee Seng was the one who recommended this shop. I remember I have been to Paradigm Infinitium before, but the surroundings did not seem familiar. Maybe they used to be at another location, or this is a different branch. They have a very good selection, but prices are a bit steep. Well, I guess if you are Singaporean or earning Singapore Dollars they are OK, but for a Malaysian the prices are steep. Yet, I couldn't resist buying this, because I am a fan of the mystery rummy games designed by Mike Fitzgerald.

Bonnie and Clyde, like the other mystery rummy games, and like gin rummy, have you making melds (playing 3 of a kind), making layoffs (playing cards after existing melds), and try to "go out" by playing all the cards in your hand. Like all other mystery rummy games, it has the concept of gavel cards - cards with special powers but you can only play one during a turn, which means that they are handy, but they also make it hard for you to go out quickly. This time there is only type of gavel card - Ted Hinton, the sheriff, but you can use it in 3 different ways - draw two cards from the draw deck, pick any one card from the discard deck, or peep at one of the 10 location cards.

Location cards are the unique element in Bonnie and Clyde compared to other mystery rummy games. This game has a board, depicting 10 locations where events in the criminal life of Bonnie and Clyde took place. At the start of the game, the Bonnie card, the Clyde card, and 8 other regular cards are shuffled and placed face-down at these 10 locations. During the game, the players try to peek and pick up cards from these locations, in particular they will try to catch Bonnie and Clyde, the capture of each awarding you 10pts. There is a car marker which starts at location 1. When melds are played, it advances. When layoffs are played, you can choose to move it forward or backward. The location of the car and when you play melds or layoffs is very important, because you can only capture Bonnie or Clyde when you play a meld or layoff for the location where the car is located. I guess that translates to you, being a police officer, being at the right place at the right time. Also if the cards you play match the car position, you score double (4pts per card, as opposed to 2pts). The car position is also important because the player who goes out also scores a bonus based on it.

Like all other mystery rummy games, there is a shut out condition. If you capture both Bonnie and Clyde, and you are the one to go out, then you shut out all your opponents. They don't score.

Game components.

The car, the Ted Hinton (sheriff) card, the Clyde card and the Bonnie card.

Game set up and ready to go.

Game in progress.

So far I have only played 2-player games (the game supports 2-4). I quite like the game. It is quite simple. I'd say roughly the complexity of Mystery Rummy: Jekyll and Hyde. There is a tendency to hold back your cards and wait for the right moment to play them to score big, but that can be a risky thing to do, because your opponent may be doing the same, and may suddenly go out before you can play any of your cards. I find the manipulation of the car position interesting, also the bluffing of where Bonnie and Clyde are. I find that I rarely use Ted Hinton cards to peek at cards. I often use it to draw more cards, and occasionally to pick discarded cards, but almost never for peeking. Maybe there are some tactics that I have not yet explored.

Among the mystery rummy games that I have played, I'd rank them in this order: Jack the Ripper, then Jekyll and Hyde and Bonnie and Clyde, then Al Capone and the Chicago Underworld, and finally Wyatt Earp (not officially part of the series, but is similar). Al Capone is just OK for me. Maybe I was traumatised and thus biased by that 11-1 losing streak that I once had when playing with Michelle. I only played Wyatt Earp once, a long time ago, and don't remember much about it, other than that I didn't really enjoy it. In complexity, I'd rank them Jack the Ripper, then Wyatt Earp, then Al Capone, then Jekyll and Hyde and Bonnie and Clyde.

Fortress America

Fortress America is another old game that Han found on eBay. This is one of the games from the Milton Bradley GameMaster series, which included Axis & Allies (1984 version) and Samurai Swords. Quite a good find - the game is complete and in good condition.

The backstory is a fictitious future-age scenario, where USA is being invaded by 3 armies, an Asian bloc, a South American bloc, and a European bloc. Well, the game was published in the 1980's, so "future" may actually mean now, or a not-as-distant-as-before future. The invaders have a limited number of units, and whenever they lose a unit, it is gone forever. They do not receive reinforcements. At the start of the game each invader gets to deploy a number of units, and after that for each turn they get to deploy an additional fixed number of units. The Americans only has as many units as one invading army, but they are all deployed at the start of the game. Every round the Americans draw two cards, which usually give some reinforcements. The Americans also get to build a laser weapon every round, and each laser weapon has the chance to shoot down one unit that the Americans choose (usually they'll try to shoot down the best units - bombers).

The invaders win if they capture 18 cities (out of 30), and the Americans win if they can prevent that. If the invaders successfully conquer America, they compare the number of cities they control, and the invading army that controls the most number of cities wins.

Combat is done by dice rolling. There are movement rules and combat sequences and retreat rules, similar to many games in the GameMaster series. But there is one unique rule that I don't remember seeing in other games - the restriction in targeting enemy unit types. If an infantry unit makes a hit, it must choose to hit the enemy's infantry type unit first if possible. If there are no more such units, then it must choose to hit the enemy's mechanised type unit (hover tanks or mechanised infantry) if possible. If there are no such units left, then it can choose to hit an air unit (bomber or helicopter). This makes it important to have some infantry units to try to take hits for the more valuable units. The better units, like bombers, have no restrictions when choosing which enemy unit to destroy. However, it is not always best to choose the "most valuable" unit. Combined arms is another consideration. When attacking cities or mountainous areas, you need to roll a 6 to hit, but with combined arms (having all 3 types of units), you hit on a 5 or 6. So sometimes as a defender it is better to pick units to kill so as to make your opponent lose the combined arms advantage.

Look at all the cool units.

Han setting up his American forces at the start of the game.

The round city markers are collected by the invaders when they successfully capture a city.

The laser weapon at Milwaukee.

The eastern front. The light green units are American partisans. They fight better when they are alone.

The western front. San Francisco still holding out, but not for long.

The southern front. Some partisans popped up here.

Very very red. These are European communists.

In our game I played the three invaders, and Han played America. The invaders attacked from west, south then east (I guess Canada is friendly to USA). Han rushed his inland units to the frontlines as quickly as he could, but not before I was able to capture quite many border cities. Cities in the west and south were more sparse, which meant they were easier to capture because of the smaller American forces. But it also meant the invaders would soon run out of targets, especially for the western invaders, who would need to cross much vacant land to reach more cities. There were more cities in the east, which meant a tougher time for the eastern invader, but also more opportunities for them. The American cities fell one after another. There were some pockets of resistance here and there, but the American soldiers and partisans were simply overwhelmed by the invaders. Around New York the Americans managed to put up a good fight, but eventually the eastern invaders wore them down, and they did not get enough reinforcements to be able to match up with the subsequent waves of attackers landing at the American shores. By the end of the 4th round, Han conceded defeat. I would surely be able to capture 18 cities by the next round.

~ Round 1

~ Round 2

~ Round 3

~ Round 4

I find the game to be simply too tough for the Americans, especially when played as a 2-player game, where one player plays all 3 invading armies. If the invading armies were played by different players, then there would be some competition and fighting among them. If one invader is about to make the game end while leading in number of cities controlled, the other two invaders will try to delay the game end or even attack that leading invader. The Americans can then use this to their advantage, because this buys them more time, and time is on their side. Every round they build more laser weapons. Every round they get new inforcements, while the invaders only draw units from their respective fixed pools. I have a feeling that this game needs to be played with 4 players in order to be balanced.

That said, I definitely had a lot of fun playing the aggressor. Lots of dice rolling. The combat resolution is a bit more complex than Axis & Allies or Samurai Swords, but once you get the hang of it it's quick. This is a fun game to play when you're in the mood for something Ameritrashy. I'm sure Han will have fun with his two boys when they grow older.

Han later read the rules again, and found that we had played some rules wrong. (1) During combat, the more power units shoot first, i.e. bomber - helicopter - hover tank - mechanised infantry - partisan - infantry, not the other way round. This may not make a very big difference. (2) Game end condition is checked at the end of USA's turn, i.e. even if the invaders manage to take 18 cities, the Americans still has the chance to capture some cities back. This probably would not have made much difference in our particular game. (3) Partisans can appear behind enemy lines, which means the invaders will need to garrison conquered cities. This would make a difference. The invaders would not have been able to push so many units to the front line.