Tribune

I have played 3 games of Tribune now, one 4-player game and two 2-player games. The 2-player game wasn't as poor as I have been led to believe from reading reviews of the game. I enjoyed them. So, what made me buy this yet-another-worker-placement-game in the first place? Well, this being designed by Die Macher designer Karl-Heinz Schmiel did play a part in getting my attention. The worker placement mechanism in itself doesn't excite me. From reading game overviews and getting a rough idea of how the game plays, the game did not seem anything particularly outstanding or unusual. The remark that made me decide to buy was that it is a very well crafted game. Nothing very gimmicky. Nothing ground-breaking. Just old-fashioned hard work producing a quality game. And after having played the game, indeed that is what I think of the game.

When you play Tribune, you decide up front the set of victory conditions you want to use. There are various combinations that come with the game. E.g. needing to fulfill 4 out of 6 victory conditions, and the victory conditions being having a tribune marker, having a favour of the gods marker, having X amount of money, having Y number of legions, having Z number of laurel tokens. You don't always need to fulfill all victory conditions. You can pick and choose. In some scenarios there are obligatory victory conditions though.

To help you achieve the victory conditions, you need to gain control of the factions in Rome (there are 7). When you gain control or take over control of a faction, you gain some benefits, and thereafter every round that you maintain control of a faction, you gain some other benefits too. And to fight for control over the factions, you need cards. Every round many cards are placed on the board, and the players place their pawns on the board to compete for cards. Each area of the board has a different way of competing for cards (or for other resources). Some are direct buys. Some involve auctions. Some cards are face-down and there is a gambling element on whether they are cards that you need.

A very crude summary of the game would be: get cards - control factions - fulfill victory conditions. That doesn't sound like much fun. However as I played the game, I found that there is a lot of planning involved - prioritising which factions you want to fight for, which victory conditions to strive for. Sometimes your decisions can be quite tactical, depending on what cards are available at the start of each round. You also need to watch your opponents, what victory conditions they are likely going to go for, what cards they have been collecting, what factions they are aiming for. There is a chariot in the game which is auctioned by blind bidding at the end of every round. The winner can use this to block a faction from take-over in the next round, or set it aside so that no faction is safe from take-over. This can be a very lethal tool. I find this analysis fascinating, and the competition very interesting. You have flexibility, and there are many options, but as the game progresses and more and more victory conditions have been met, your choices start to narrow down and you are forced to focus on your remaining victory conditions and forced to compete fiercely to be the first to fulfill them. There is a sense of build-up.

The game emphasises on take-overs a lot over maintaining control over factions you are already in control of. The take-over bonuses do not sound like a lot, but they are actually a big help towards fulfilling victory conditions. Also there are leader cards which give you a leader bonus when they are involved in a take-over. You cannot strengthen your hold on factions that you are already in control of, but others can weaken your hold by assassinating your cards. The only strong defensive move you can make to stay in control of a faction is the chariot. Of course you can also try to deny the cards of that faction from your opponents, but it doesn't seem to be a very worthwhile exercise. The game encourages you to scheme to do more take-overs. This creates quite a dynamic and aggressive play. There aren't that many means for defensive play anyway.

In all 3 games that I have played, the game ended after 4 rounds. I guess this is quite normal. The quick end surprised Sui Jye. I should have warned them of this better. I did know that the games usually end at 3 to 5 rounds from reading the reviews. After my first two games I thought that getting a Tribune is the hardest. You need to get a scroll first, and then you have to be in control one of two specific pairs of factions at the same time. This can be quite tricky because by the time you take over the second required faction, the first faction may have already been taken away from you. In my third game I realised that getting the favour of the gods is also not easy. You need to have had control of the vestal virgin faction first, and in that game Michelle made a strong move of denying me this control by using the chariot. This won her the game very decisively. And I was the one who taught her to do that. I complained that that was a nasty move, and she teased me for being so bitter.

I still look forward to play Tribune. Maybe this weekend.

Blokus 3D

I bought Blokus 3D (originally published as Rumis) in Melbourne recently. I quite like Blokus and I think I like Blokus Duo (which I play using my Blokus set) even more. I have played Blokus Trigon (pieces made up of triangles), but found it just OK. I have not tried Gemblo (pieces made up of hexagons) though. The 3D aspect of Blokus 3D intrigued me, and I have been considering buying it for some time. And when I stepped into Mind Games in Melbourne, I could not resist getting a game (or two - I visited them again two days later and bought Tribune). Mind Games has an excellent product range. Unfortunately game prices in Australia are high.

In Blokus 3D you get 11 3D pieces, as opposed to 21 pieces in Blokus. Your objectives are to place your pieces in such a way so that at game end as many "squares" of your colour as possible are visible from above; and you have as few pieces remaining as possible. The play area is, of course, in 3D now. There are 4 templates for play, unlike in Blokus where you have a fixed board. A template defines the base for the play area, and also height limitations, e.g. in one template you have to build a pyramid shape, i.e. the sides have the lowest height limitation, and the centre has the highest. Another difference compared to Blokus is that instead of having to touch your own pieces at the edges when playing a new piece, the restriction is you must touch at least one face of an existing piece.

Having played a few games, I find Blokus 3D to be quite interesting. Similar to Blokus, it can be played quickly in a relaxed manner, and can also be played in a thoughtful way. The feel is quite different though, in that now the focus is on visibility and not setting up your opponents to easily reach the top positions. However blocking is still very important, which I found out the hard way. In a 4-player game with Han, Sui Jye and Jing Yi, I was doomed after the first round because I had been blocked off complete by Han and Sui Jye. We were playing the pyramid template and I had been careless with my initial placement. Blocking is much more vicious with more players. With 2 players it seems to be not as easy to block your opponent.

The game in which I was blocked off after the first round. I had 8 pieces (out of 11) remaining. My score was -1.

I saw in the brochure that came with the game that Blokus has won so many awards. There are probably about 15 to 20 different awards. I wonder whether the publisher has been actively submitting the game for game award panels' consideration. Certainly winning so many awards is good for sales, and not that it's not a good game. It's just... so many...

evening game session, introducing newbies

Han was back in KL on a short working trip, and we took the opportunity to organise a gaming session on Sat 20 Sep 2008 evening. I rarely have game sessions in the evening, but since Han had to work during the day, evening or not, we were not going to miss the opportunity to play. We also invited Sui Jye and Jing Yi.

We played R-Eco, Pickomino, Blokus 3D, Tribune, Lord of the Rings, Diamant, and Category 5. So, very much a focus on simpler and newbie-friendly games, with two "main courses", Tribune and Lord of the Rings, in the middle. My approach was let the new friends try different types of games, and then have them tell us what type of games they liked. Sui Jye liked Ticket to Ride and Pandemic from last time, thus Lord of the Rings this time. Jing Yi liked Risk Express from last time because she "doesn't need to think too much", thus Pickomino this time. Tribune came out mainly because of my own eagerness to play it. It was a new purchase from my recent trip to Melbourne which I had not had the opportunity to play yet. In hindsight, I probably should not have gambled and foisted this on newbies. They were a bit lost because there were too many options in the game. In contrast, they liked Lord of the Rings and felt it to be simpler, because each turn there are limited number of things to do. You must draw an event tile, and then you can (a) play cards, (b) draw cards, or (c) heal yourself one step. I think Lord of the Rings is a difficult game to learn by yourself, but in our situation there was me, an experienced player, to take care of the nitty gritty details and remind the newbies of rules. Also it is a cooperative game, i.e. open discussions, which means it is much less daunting in terms of learning to play.

Han, Sui Jye and Jing Yi playing Blokus 3D. This template was the Wall template, an L-shaped template.

Han, Sui Jye and Jing Yi playing Tribune. This was a first game for everyone.

I hope both Sui Jye and Jing Yi will become gamers and regular kaki's (players). Good thing that they live quite nearby. Thus far, having had 2 game sessions with them, they seem to be interested. Now that I am introducing some new players to the hobby, I started thinking about it, about how to entice people to get into the hobby, and what are the best ways of doing so, what are the best gateway games. Then I read this excellent article on Boardgamenews by Matt Thrower, and I found it to be very true. Two important things that I learned (or realised) from reading the article:

1. Some people just aren't going to be gamers, and some just aren't going to like playing the games you like to play. When I started getting into the boardgaming hobby in 2003 in Taiwan, I was very successful in creating interest among my colleagues, and we played very often, even over lunch time at work. After I came back to Malaysia, I have so far been unsuccessful in creating a regular gaming group like I had in Taiwan. Han was already a gamer when I knew him. Jeanne is interested but has now moved to Australia. There have been a number of other friends who have played with me, but very few were keen enough to be playing regularly. So, I now realise that although I should try to introduce people to the hobby, if the interest is just not there after the first session, then there's no point in keeping on trying to convert the same friend. Better chance at trying other friends who have never had the exposure before.

2. There is no such thing as a gateway game that will make a person who won't like playing boardgames otherwise like it. This is not to say that lower complexity games are no good / not useful in introducing newbies to the hobby. They are still suitable to bring out to show newbies what these games are like, to give them a taste. However I think one need not keep playing only "gateway games" with newbies for the first few gaming sessions. In fact it may be a bad thing, lest they think that these are the best that the hobby has to offer. I almost did not get into the German game thingy after I played Carcassonne for the first time. It was very different from the Ameritrash games that I was familiar with at that time. But of course now I'm very much into German / Euro games, and Carcassonne has later become one of my favourites after I started appreciating it.

I think it is OK to introduce medium complexity games to newbies. Lord of the Rings worked out well enough. I have introduced Amun-Re to relatively new players, and that worked out OK. I think Puerto Rico worked out OK too. If the newbie is keen to play, he/she will be able to handle this kind of complexity. Of course, I wouldn't go so far as to bring out Die Macher. If a newbie is not keen to play, then even Carcassonne will be a challenge for him/her to enjoy. In that case, you might as well not play games and do something else that everyone can enjoy.

In introducing new players to the hobby, I think it is more important to select the type of games that you think they will enjoy. Complexity level should be a secondary consideration. Don't underestimate your friends. No point in selecting a game that they can play. Select a game they can enjoy playing.

new friends and Hoity Toity

Mon 1 Sep 2008 was a public holiday. Chee Seng was back in KL from Singapore, so we had planned a gaming session beforehand. He brought along two friends, Sui Jye and Jing Yi (a couple), who were new to boardgames. It has been a while since I had the chance to introduce boardgames to new players, and also I rarely get the chance to play with four or more players. In picking games, I decided to focus more on newbie-friendly ones, but I also took the opportunity to bring out Hoity Toity, which I played once 4 years ago in Taiwan. I have traded for this (my first and only game trade ever) some time ago but never had the right opportunity to bring it out because this needs more people to be fun. Four players is probably the minimal for this to be fun. I imagine it would be even better with 5. It supports 6, but I'm not sure how that would be.

We played (in this order, if I am not mistaken) Risk Express, Mamma Mia, Hoity Toity, Pandemic (twice), Coloretto, Ticket To Ride. I think the new friends enjoyed themselves. Sui Jye seemed to like Ticket To Ride and the train theme. He told me he has played Diplomacy before, and some games ended with friends not willing to speak to one another. I wonder what he thinks of these German games. He seemed to like Pandemic too, and it was funny to see how concentrated and serious he was when thinking what to do on his turn. Chee Seng seemed to like Pandemic a lot. After losing our first game at easy level, he was first to request for another game. Pandemic is indeed a charming game. Quite easy to learn and intuitive. If we play this again I'm going to get them to play the normal difficulty level, now that they have beaten the easy level game on their second attempt.

Chee Seng was the biggest winner of the day, winning Mamma Mia and Hoity Toity, both by big margins. Sui Jye didn't win any game (I don't count Pandemic since it's a cooperative game). Jing Yi won Risk Express, which came down to the very last territory - Australia, when everyone's territories were safe, so it whoever conquers Australia would end the game and win the game. In a twisted way that kind of reflects the regular Risk where many people say that whoever controls Australia and turtles there will eventually win the game. I won Coloretto. Michelle (who only joined us for the last game) won Ticket To Ride. We have not played Ticket To Ride with 5 players for a long time, and it was quite tense because of the congestion.

Sui Jye, Jing Yi, Chee Seng and Michelle playing Ticket To Ride.

The east coast (which is the left side, since I'm taking the photo from Canada's direction) was very congested, with many players making disjointed paths, especially Chee Seng's black ones, which thankfully were eventually linked up. If we had been playing with a cutthroat group, there would have been plenty of vicious blocking. It was only in the later part of the game that some of us branched out towards the west.

Let's talk about Hoity Toity (unfortunately I didn't take a photo), aka Adel Verpflichtet (I think this was the original name, and this was what won the SdJ), By Hook or Crook and Fair Means or Foul. It is not new to me, but it's been so long since I played this (and I only played once) that it's like playing it for the first time. I (and Michelle) had a bad experience with this when we played it last time. We were at Witch House in Taiwan, and we played it with 2 other customers who have played it before. They taught us how to play (if I remember correctly), and then proceeded to slaughter us in the game. We didn't have much idea what we were doing or how to strategise. We were quite lost. That game left a bitter taste. Later at a local gaming event I traded away Domaine for this. I wanted to give it another chance, because I believed it was the players that spoiled the experience for us, and not the game. And thankfully I did so, because I now find that indeed this is a fun game.

In Hoity Toity, you play a snobbish artifact collector who likes to show off his/her collection to his/her friends. You can buy artifacts, you can steal them from your "friends", you can even steal money from them, and you can also get a detective to catch your friends' thieving accomplices. But, the main way to win the game is to show off your stuff. Every turn, players first simultaneously and secretly decide whether they want to go to the auction house or the castle, and then similarly they decide what they want to do at these locations. At the auction house you can try to be the highest bidder so that you can buy the artifact on sale, or you can try to steal the money paid by the buyer (if there is one). At the castle, you can show off your goods, or send a thief to steal the artifacts on display, or send a detective to arrest the thieves. Some call this game a glorified version of rock-paper-scissors, but I think that's not very fair. Indeed there is the guessing of what your opponents will do, but I don't associate rock-paper-scissors with that much fun.

Playing guessing (i.e. rock-paper-scissors) twice every round sounds rather repetitive, but I find that there are a few things which keep the game interesting. The victory points awarded for showing off your artifacts differs from time to time, depending on the position of the leading player. When the reward is higher, players will be more tempted to go to the castle to display their artifacts. The artifact available for sale also changes, and sometimes when a good one turns up then players will be more tempted to go to the auction house. Players start with a limited amount of money, and they are fixed amounts on a few cards. This pool of money cards in the game will gradually increase, and money will become more and more scarce. The only way for a player to earn money is to steal it from the auction house when another player buys an artifact. Every time there is a purchase and no successful theft, the money pool in the game dwindles. So there is a pressure on the players as the game progresses. However you also need to remember money means nothing at game end. They are just the means to an end. Winning is all about showing off your impressive collection.

The game we played was quite fun, with taunting and teasing and trash talking. There were groans and cheers when the wrong / right guesses were made. Chee Seng really ran away with the game. From about mid point onwards, he sprinted ahead and never looked back. I think I did rather badly, because I often got outguessed, which means I didn't benefit much or at all from my chosen action. I think I'm quite bad at double guessing. I still remember two games of Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation against Ricky at Port Dickson when he guessed my every card play. I wonder whether it's other people seeing through me too easily, or I'm bad at reading my opponents.

So, I'm happy with having gotten Hoity Toity in the trade. This is a family game I can probably play with my children sooner that the usual heavy Eurogames that I like. And next time I should try to play with 5 or 6 to see whether it gets even better.

Galactic Emperor

Han was back in KL for one day on Sat 16 Aug 2008, so we met up for some gaming. Two of Han's friends, Goh and Lim, were able to join, so we decided to play Galactic Emperor, a multiplayer conflict game set in space. It is not often that we have 4 players, so we used the opportunity to play something that needs more players to be good.

Galactic Emperor was a new game. In fact Han only opened the game that day. He had preordered it, and it had arrived in KL before he got back. I had downloaded the rules before but had only read part of it. Han assigned me the task of reading the rules before his two other friends arrived, so that I could be the rule explainer afterwards.

We only started game explaining at about 3:30pm. At first I was worried we might not be able to finish the game, but surprisingly we managed to finish at about 5:30pm. No wonder some people call this a short version of Twilight Imperium. I have not played that so I cannot comment on whether this is an appropriate description (other than the game length).

Game set up for 4 players. Four home planets, each with a fighter. Each player has a storage facility which can store 6 metals and 3 energies. That's the max you can have at any one time. In the setup everyone starts with one metal and one energy. The 7 possible roles are on the right side of the board. The various technologies are below the lower right corner of the board.

The planets. When you explore, you don't really go into unknown space and hope to find something good. You actually get to choose from these pool of planets and then place it wherever you want on the board. Of course you want to place good planets near your home planet, and poor ones (e.g. empty space) near your opponents' planets. The cubes on the tiles show what the planet can produce. Green = food, blue = metal, yellow = energy.

Spaceships. You are limited to the number of pieces in the game. Big = dreadnaught, most powerful, but only travels 1 space. Medium = cruiser, medium stregth, travels 2 spaces. Small = fighter, rather weak, but cheapest.

My starting planet Xandor.

Galactic Emperor is about building a space empire. You discover and claim new planets, produce food and resources, develop new technologies, build a space fleet, and maybe you go to war. It has a Puerto Rico structure - the role selection mechanism. Players take turns to select a role, and every time a role is selected, all players can do actions associated with that role, but the player who chose that role enjoys some special priviledges. There is a twist. The Emperor (i.e. Governor in Puerto Rico) can decide the direction of play, clockwise or anti-clockwise.

To win, you collect victory points. The main way of doing this is by controlling planets. Victory points from controlling planets are awarded only when the Regent role is selected, so they are not necessarily awarded every round. There are other ways of gaining victory points, but they are minor compared to being in control of planets. E.g. you do gain 1VP if you win a battle and destroy an enemy control marker (called "empire" in this game).

At the start of the game everyone is racing to discover new planets and to claim them. Some planets produce food, which is consumed by other planets in order to produce metals and energy (food, metal and energy are the 3 types of resources in the game). As you produce resources and earn money, you use them to research technologies that give you special advantages in certain situations, and to do your military build-up. As the military capabilities build up, there is a tension of who will make the first move. In a multi-player conflict game, there is a danger of the players engaging in warfare earlier losing out to the players who preserve their strength to be used on whoever survived the early war. 渔人得利. In warfare, your ultimate goal is to conquer planets, because these are what give you victory points. Of course each conquest also gives 1VP. So war is just the means to an end. Of course, sometimes it's fun to attack just for the sake of revenge, or even just for the hell of it. Sometimes when you get really worked up, who cares about victory points.

So, the game progresses from initial exploration and planet grabbing, to the eventual military showdown. At one stage of the game, the sun at the centre of the board will go supernova, and become a black hole. This adds a twist to the game. Spaceships can actually enter the blackhole, and then on the next turn these ships can teleport to anywhere (except a home planet) and even enjoy an attack bonus if they attack an enemy fleet. This obviously encourages warfare.

In our game, I was assigned to be the first emperor, and I actually stayed emperor until game end. There were some attempts to wrest the throne but from me, but they were just half-hearted efforts. Since Han is the most experienced among my opponents, I kept the game flow in the other direction most of the time, to make him the last in turn order. However with a game structure similar to Puerto Rico", it actually doesn't make too big a difference. In the early game I focused on getting cool technologies, choosing the Scientist role so that I get a 1 energy discount, i.e. I could afford to buy more expensive technologies. After a few rounds on military build-up, the attacks started. I think Han was the first to strike, successfully attacking and conquering one of my outposts. I retaliated and successfully wiped out both Han's and my own fleets. Oops... too trigger happy. Goh swooped in and also took one of my outer planets. From then on things went downhill for me. Everyone continued the military build-up, and soon the stakes were so high that nobody dared to make a move. I had both Goh's and Han's fleets near me, but although having the technology to give me die roll +1 when attacking, I didn't dare to make any attacks, fearing becoming the victim of the 3rd player, even if I were successful in my attack. So I was rather stuck. I dared not attack, and yet I had no other means of reclaiming "my" planets or expanding to more planets. Most of the galaxy had been explored and planets claimed. Eventually Han ended the game by triggering scoring and exhausting the pool of victory point chips. Guess who won. The guy who was never involved in any battle - Lim. I had thought it would be Han or Goh, because both of them gained ground during the war with me. Lim had been expansive and was not as consersative as Goh, so he did have a sizeable empire. I, of course, came in dead last.

Middle of the game, and two of my planets have already been taken over.

Goh, Lim (winner) and Han.

I thought the game was just so-so (being last may have made me a little biased... heh heh...). There are some small innovations. However I found the overall package to be nothing new. Nothing that really makes it a significant improvement over other multplayer conflict games. Viktory II is a similar type of game, and, to me, is better. Also, maybe I am getting a bit tired of the Puerto Rico structure, having seen it in San Juan and Race for the Galaxy too. I don't think using this structure is particularly interesting, or necessary, or thematic, in this game. I still feel the game has the turtling problem - players still tend to build-up, play defensively, and try to avoid getting into wars. And often the ones to get into the early wars will suffer. I think this is a common problem with multiplayer conflict games. However I think Viktory II handles this better and encourages attacking / discourages turtling better. Nexus Ops is also a more interesting and better multiplayer conflict game to me. So, in summary, I'd say nothing new.

Race for the Galaxy is fast...

... and this is not just referring to how fast the games are (Michelle tells me we play 4 games in an hour). We have now played more than 100 games, and among the four games in my collection that I have played more than 100 times, it is the fastest to reach 100 plays. At this rate, I have no doubt it will hit 200, especially since the expansion Gathering Storm is coming. A second yet-unnamed expansion is in the works too, but that won't be any time soon.

Game	Total plays	Time to reach 50 plays	100 plays	150 plays	200 plays
Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper	204	~3m	~1yr	~1yr 2m	~2yr 5m
Carcassonne	196	~2.5m	~6m	~1yr 3m	n/a
Ticket to Ride	139	~8m	~11.5m	n/a	n/a
Race for the Galaxy	109	~2m	~3m	n/a	n/a
Lost Cities	95	~6.5m	n/a	n/a	n/a
San Juan	58	~2yr 10.5m	n/a	n/a	n/a

I have a feeling San Juan will stay at 58 for quite some time. It's not my 6th most played game. I'm just including it here for comparison.

My Race for the Galaxy deck is starting to show wear and tear, especially on the edges of the cards. It will take conscious effort not to examine them too closely when the expansion comes out and I mix the old and new cards. Sometimes when I shuffle the cards they actually feel a bit sticky. I guess it's because of the grease accumulated after being handled so many times. However I don't plan to use card sleeves for them, like I did for Citadels in the past. I just don't like card sleeves because they make cards hard to shuffle and they are a nuisance when you play. I don't use card sleeves for my copy of Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper either. Those cards are showing obvious signs of wear and tear.

Sometimes I also wonder what keeps me coming back to Race for the Galaxy. Definitely Michelle's willingness (and sometimes eagerness too) to play this helps in pushing up the count. Being a quick card game contributes to this. Michelle can play this very quickly and she often makes the decisions faster than I do. Her 2 action cards are often down before mine are. The other reason is I still feel there are more strategies that I have not tried. The common strategies that we have been using are military, consume (with focus on novelty goods and rare elements being the most commonly used subsets of this strategy), and to some extent development and speed-play. We have tried the alien strategy. We haven't really done any genes production strategy, although we've used the pan galactic league (rewards genes worlds and military worlds) with many genes worlds settled. I've tried an explore strategy, which didn't quite work out, so I'm not sure whether an explore strategy can really stand by itself. It might be a tactic that you should attach to a military strategy. I've tried a trade strategy, which also didn't quite work out, but it may be because Michelle actively avoided producing so that I didn't get a free ride. I'm not sure whether a trade strategy by itself can work. I need to try it again. Michelle has used the Diversified Economy effectively recently (draw cards per different good type produced, and gain 3VP for 3 different goods consumed). There are some other quirky cards that we have occasionally found good uses for, e.g. the one that gives VP for discarding cards from your hand (I guess that's a bit like the church in San Juan where you bury dead bodies for VP).

We sometimes use a mix of strategies, and also sometimes switch strategy in mid game, and these are not necessary bad things to be doing. Sometimes an aimless or unfocused play (usually very bad and is a often seen in new players trying to learn the game) can win, but then maybe it is actually a speed-play in disguise. There are still so many cards that I have not used, or have not used effectively, e.g. the research lab, or the gambling world. I feel like I have explored 95% of the game, and there is still that little mysterious, seductive and elusive part that I have yet to fully grasp. There are still some unexplored possibilities and untapped strategies.

And I play Race for the Galaxy almost only as a 2-player game. If I can find a regular 3rd player in future, there is going to be more to explore. And the 4th player...

2-player Brass

On Sun 3 Aug 2008 Michelle and I played Brass for the 2nd time. Brass is a 3 or 4 player game (last time we played a 3-player game with Han), but I recently found a 2-player variant on BoardGameGeek by Henri Harju, so I was keen to try this out. If it's good, then I won't need to wait for a 3rd player to be able to play the game.

The 2-player variant, in a not-so-small nutshell, is as follows:

1. Board
   • Inaccessible: Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port, Stockport, Macclesfield, Oldham and Rochdale.
   • Canal connection available to Scotland.
2. Cards
   • Remove cards for inaccessible locations.
   • Remove 1 card each for Manchester, Wigan, Liverpool, Lancaster, Preston.
   • Remove:
     • 3 x Cotton Mill industry cards,
     • 3 x Port industry cards,
     • 2 x Shipyard industry cards,
     • 1 x Coal and Iron industry cards.
   • At the start of canal/rail period, remove 2/0 cards.
3. Resources
   • Skip $1 spaces on coal and iron demand tracks
   • Start game with $25
   • Remove one -1, -3 and both 0 distant market tiles (8 left)

The game played quite well with this variant. Competition was tight enough. I still experienced planning to build an industry at a particular spot, only to see Michelle take that exact same spot just before I could do so. Both Michelle and I had to take loans quite a few times.

In the railroad (2nd) age. Seven cities/towns are not in play, and I marked them off using the silver coins. The 1 Pound spaces on the demand track on the upper left are also not used, and are covered with silver coins too.

Michelle made good use of the demand track, building coal mines and iron works when coal or iron is in short supply, thus selling her resources quickly, making money in the process and also flipping her coal mines / iron works quickly.

In our first game, I misunderstood the canal/railroad scoring throughout most of the game and only realised my mistake near game end. This time with the correct understanding, I realised that the transportation network is a very important source for victory points, and is not just an enabler for your industries. I also find that this is yet another source of cooperative / competitive tension in the game. When you build a canal or railroad, if your opponents build industries in cities at either end, although they are taking "your" spot, they are also giving your canal / railroad extra points. I find this cooperative / competitive tension quite interesting. This canal / railroad scoring also reminds me of the houses and emissaries in China. You want to be where the crowd is, because that's where the big scoring opportunities are.

I'm quite sure 3-player games would be more interesting, since there is another player to consider, especially when this game has the cooperative element of taking coal/iron from an opponent's mine for free, which helps yourself but also helps that opponent in flipping his/her tile quicker. With 3 players you'll need to think of who you would benefit less. With 2 players, you'd probably just try to build your own coal mines and iron works. However I find the 2-player variant interesting enough and worthwhile enough. Hopefully I can play this again soon.

Euro / new boardgame burnout

Once in a while I feel like I am having a burnout. There are different kinds of burnouts. Sometimes I feel like not playing any games for a while, but this "burnout" that I'm having now is not of this type. The one that I'm having now is Euro-specific and new game-specific.

I always keep up-to-date on boardgame news on the internet. Reading about boardgames on the internet is a daily routine. I often download rules of new games that are made available on the net. Lately I am finding that many new games, especially Eurogames, don't excite me anymore. Sometimes I can't even get myself to finish reading the rules, e.g. in the case of The Golden Age. Confucius took much effort to go through too. Other recent game rules that I have read and found that they don't interest me much are Nefertiti and Tinner's Trail. I can't say these are poor games, since I have not even played them. But I get the "yet another Euro" feeling when I read the rules. Not that these games do not have new innovations, or are not thematic, but I just couldn't find anything really exciting about them. In contrast, I look at my collection of games, and wish that I can play more of some of these games. Maybe that's a good thing. I have far too many games that I don't play enough of. There are many games that I know I will enjoy more after I play more and explore and learn the strategies. There are some that I just want to play to have a good time. Lord of the Rings: Sauron, Lord of the Rings: Battlefields, Caylus, Age of Empires III. In this "burnout" mode, it is easy (well, maybe I should say easier) to convince myself to not buy new games and instead spend more time on games that I already own. But then, I still religiously maintain my game wishlist. Well, actually more a watchlist of games that I may buy. Only a few of them are marked as must-buy.

Lord of the Rings: Sauron

The must-buys now (which can sometimes change) are Race for the Galaxy: Gathering Storm, Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition, 10 Days in Asia and Agricola (pre-ordered). The may-buys are a very very long list. 32 games currently. Most of them will eventually drop off to the won't-buy list. Here are some that I am interested in.

Metropolys sounds like an interesting game with a spatial element. Seems to be quick too. I am interested to try this. Scott Nicholson's video review gives a good overview of the game. Dominion seems to be a complex card game, and being a big fan of Race for the Galaxy, I may like this too. Roll Through the Ages is a dice game by Matt Leacock, designer of Pandemic. This combined with the theme of Through the Ages, another favourite game, makes me very interested. Ticket to Ride: Nordics is a likely purchase, since this is also a 2-3 player only game like Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, which Michelle and I like a lot, and have played a lot. This should be worth the money because we will likely play a lot of it.

Photos of games played

11 Jul 2008. Han and Michelle and Race for the Galaxy, in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. I've played so many 2-player games of Race for the Galaxy, using the advanced variant (2 Develop cards and 2 Settle cards), that it feels strange to play a 3-player game, when you can only choose one role per round. It does make the role-choosing more important, and guessing and piggy-backing on your opponents' roles important.

12 Jul 2008. This bowl is very convinient for the Through the Ages tokens.

12 Jul 2008. This was a game of Through the Ages that I won (against Michelle) but only barely, 235pts vs 226pts. I had 5 colonies. (1 of 3)

I had some more advanced technologies but never quite made use of them. I think I used them only for the Age III event scoring. (2 of 3)

My special technologies and wonders. The pyramids and Universitas Carolina are two of my favourite wonders. (3 of 3) Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of Michelle's civilisation.

12 Jul 2008. A second game of Through the Ages played on the same day! To me, that exclamation mark is very much justified. I lost this game to Michelle by a wide margin, 262 vs 228. One of the main reasons for the loss is I was badly limited by having only 3 Level 0 farms. I had Moses at the start of the game, which made me complacent and I didn't develop my farming technology. I play white now, since there is no green. (1 of 3)

This was my first time using Elvis Presley as a leader. And I think it was the first time I had tanks too. Michelle and I are now exploring different leaders, units, tactics and wonders in the game, which is fun and interesting. In our earlier games we tend to only pick the obvious good ones only, and also we weren't that aggressive in pursuing military power. Now, despite still only playing the non-aggressive variant, we spend more effort on military. (2 of 3)

My first time building the Transcontinental Railroad wonder, and I kept forgetting to have one of my mines produce double. Doh! Nowadays I tend to like technologies that give bonuses for colonisation. Somehow I like colonising new territories, even though they are not always very critical. (3 of 3)

Michelle's civilisation. Very strong set of culture generating wonders. (1 of 3)

And a very strong army too. Nowadays we usually make use of tactics cards, unlike our earlier games when we usually ignored them. (2 of 3)

We both stayed despots to game end in this game. (3 of 3)

13 Jul 2008. Another game which I lost to Michelle by a wide margin, 268 vs 236. This was in the middle of the game when I had an overflowing mine, due to an event on Michelle's turn that caused mines to produce for free. (1 of 4)

My special technologies and wonders, and by Age III completely obsolete and pitiful army. (2 of 4) This was the first time I built the Kremlin. The unhappy faces were a big concern and I had to plan such that I developed some happy face generating buildings before I completed this wonder.

There is one heartbreaking/hilarious story in this particular game. Heartbreaking for me, hilarious for Michelle. Because of having decided to build the Kremlin, happy faces was very important to me. In this game, I was the early leader in culture, and since Michelle was having a better infrastructure than me, I needed to make sure I stay ahead and not let her catch up. So, one very important play that I made was to plant a territory with 11 culture points and 2 happy faces into the event deck. I needed the culture points to make my lead bigger, and I needed the happy faces so that I could complete the Kremlin earlier. In preparation for colonising this territory when it came up as an event, I had accumulated 3 colonisation cards, and had also developed a special technology to give myself a colonisation bonus. And then when the territory came up, Michelle won it! She actually didn't need it as desperately as I did, and she didn't even realise (at that time) that I needed it so badly. It just so happened that she had just drawn two powerful colonisation cards on her previous turn, i.e. she hadn't needed to discard her military cards yet due to hand size limit. So she just decided on a whim that she wanted that territory. 百年大计，毁于一旦。

It was a major blow to me. I not only didn't widen the score gap, I had let Michelle catch up a lot. In the end the 11 culture points wouldn't have won me the game, but the 2 happy faces probably would have helped me a lot.

Another thing which I miscalculated, and Michelle foiled my plans, was Michaelangelo. I had counted the position of that card on the card row (a.k.a. sushi belt), and knew it would still be available on my next turn. I built the appropriate technologies so that I could make use of Michaelangelo's abilities. I didn't expect Michelle to be interested in him, but she did, and she took him, and made very good use of him. We have never had Michaelangelo taken in any of our past games, so it was a surprise to me that she took him. Her many wonders in this game is partly due to him (discount of 1 civil action when taking a wonder).

This was a game that Michelle played very well. She made use of her leaders well. Her civilisation was well developed. She also had Einstein as an Age III leader, who got her some culture points too by playing technology cards. So, on losing this game to her I can only say 心服口服, she won it fair and square and she played a very competent game.

My mines, farms and two old urban buildings. (3 of 4)

I had 3 movie theatres, giving me 12 culture points per turn. Unfortunate I only built them on my last turn and 2nd last turn. I had 3 colonies, which was nice, but unfortunately I didn't get the colony which I was most keen to get. (4 of 4)

Michelle's civilisation. She had 6 wonders! Usually we have 4 per player in our past games. (1 of 2)

The rest of Michelle's civilisation. She had 10 civil actions and 4 military actions! (2 of 2)

We continue to enjoy Through the Ages. I have played 10 games, and Michelle 7. Michelle is probably enjoying it much more now, since she has just won 2 games in a row. The last time she won was her very first game. We are now exploring different leaders and wonders and strategies, and are having fun experimenting. I look forward to play more.

Brass

Brass is a game I have thought long and hard about buying. This is a Martin Wallace design. I have slightly mixed feelings about his designs. His games are definitely in the Euro camp, and many are complex Euros. Yet most of them have very unique stories to tell. My guess is all his games start with the story or background in mind, and then he developed the mechanics around this base idea. I liked Age of Steam, Railroad Tycoon. I didn't like La Strada, Mordred. I liked Byzantium at first, but later found that I didn't like the Bulgar aspect of the game. But generally I like his designs. They are unique, and they are mostly at the more complex end of Eurogames, which is what I like. Brass is definitely this type of game.

The other reason I hesitated is Brass is quite expensive at USA online retailers, where I usually shop. Then I found out that an old friend is returning to Malaysia from the UK, so I bought the game at a UK online retailer, and asked him to bring it back for me.

Brass is about the start of the industrial revolution in Lancanshire in western England. This is a game about building industries, building transportation networks (first canals then later railroads), and of course, making money. Well, there's victory points too, like most Euros, and thus also the balancing act of building up your money-making capacity and ramping up your victory point-generating ability.

The first thing I can say about Brass is this is a tough game to learn from the rules. This is a widely heard complaint of Martin Wallace's game rules, despite his games being so highly regarded. The rules are not incomplete, nor ambiguous, nor unclear, but somehow it's a pain to try to understand what's going on. And I can't even really pinpoint what's wrong with the structure. So I did a rule summary (like I often do), and that helped a lot in learning to play. Normally I can do a rule summary for any game using just half a Powerpoint slide, which can be printed onto a quarter of an A4 paper. Past exceptions are Wilderness War, Rommel in the Desert, Die Macher, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, Pacific Victory (mostly wargames), which needed one slide. I've even managed to fit these games into half a slide: Britannia (with faction details omitted), Crusader Rex, Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge, Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal (maybe this shouldn't count, since this was mainly a reference for important and easy-to-forget rules, and I didn't repeat information in the quick reference chart that comes with the game). Brass needed a full slide. It has quite a few special rules, and quite a few things that you can easily forget. I guess it's a balance between being thematic and having elegant rules, and also sometimes some quirky rules are needed to make the game work. Power Grid is a favourite which has some quirky rules. Despite the rules seeming rather daunting, and the game components too, Han, Michelle and I found the game to be not as complex as we feared. It only took a few rounds to get the hang of it.

The game board, soon after the game started.

Close-up of the game. This was still the canal period, so we weren't supposed to have more than one industry per player at the same city. Oops.

There are 5 types of industries you can build. The front and back of the tiles are different, the front showing the cost to build, whether it can only be built in the canal or the railroad age, any resources required (coal or iron), any resource to place on it when built, and also the technology level.

I like the artwork of the cards. Showcasing all 5 industries here.

This is the railroad age.

One of the unique aspects of this game is the tile flipping. When you build an industry, it (usually) doesn't make money for you or give you victory points immediately. It needs to be used (by yourself or by others) sufficiently before it can be flipped, and only then it increases your earning power, and it can give you victory points. E.g. when you build a coal mine, some coal is put onto it, and only when these coal cubes get exhausted, you can flip your coal mine tile. This is interesting. You need to anticipate, and also plan to use your industries. You can use others' industries for free, which is tempting, but you have to remember by doing that you are helping them towards tile flipping (i.e. profitability).

Another unique aspect is the cards. You must play a card for every action you do, but out of the 5 actions that you can do, only one has any dependency on the cards. When you build an industry, you must play a card showing the location where you want to build, or a card showing that industry. For other actions, like selling cotton, building canals or railroads, or developing your technology, it doesn't matter what card you play, and the card becomes merely a tool for tracking your actions remaining. However for the industry building action you cards are still important. It determines where you can expand your business (another important restriction being your transportation network), so when you do the other actions, you basically try to discard cards which you are sure you won't need.

We made 2 big rule mistakes in our game. In the canal age, i.e. first half of the game, no player should have more than one industry in a city. Maybe that explains why we didn't find the game too tough. I also made a big mistake in teaching the scoring rule for canals and railroads. I forgot that you should count the number of coin icons of the flipped-over tiles at the cities at both ends of the canal/railroad. We didn't realise the importance of canals and railroads in scoring and had thought they were only important for expansion.

The game played well otherwise. Not as difficult as we had expected. I like the game a lot and really want to play this again. Unfortunately this needs at least 3 players, and now that Han has moved to another city, it is not likely I'll get to play this again any time soon.