Downfall of Pompeii

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cards in the game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Um Reifenbreite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the drawings showing a cyclist cheating.

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

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

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

Perikles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gaming in photos

It has been quite some time since I last played Tikal, the previous play being in 2006. So we brought out this old classic. We needed a refresher before starting off.

17 Jan 2009, Tikal. This was near the end of the game. In this game Michelle was lucky with the treasures, while I was very lucky with discovering temples. My tent (natural wood colour) in the middle of the board helped me bring in researchers and place them at valuable temples.

This area used to be dominated by me, because of my conveniently placed tent. But later Michelle made some good moves and wrested away control of many temples, or forced me to be unable to score them.

Close-up of Tikal.

On 24 Jan 2009 I taught Chee Seng to play Agricola. I think he did quite well for his first game. Quite well balanced and no negative scores for any category except empty space. Also he even beat me to having a child.

These were Chee Seng's Occupations and Improvements. Quite nicely suited for baking bread. I spotted an error in his farm afterwards. He had the house goat, and thus should not have been able to place the wild boar in his home in the previous photo.

My farm. I had reserved some space for sheep. However Chee Seng took the 2 sheep on the last round, which I didn't expect, because he already had 6. He said he wanted to score the full 4pts for sheep.

My Occupations and Improvements played. I had a lot of clay because of the Clay Deliveryman and Clay Hut Builder. I actually had the Chief's Daughter Occuption card too, but too bad I didn't have enough actions to play it.

I also taught Chee Seng Dominion, which he also quite liked. We played 2 games, the first with the recommended setup for beginners, and the second with 10 random kingdom cards which were not from the previous game (except we swapped in the moat due to there being some attack cards). We enjoyed the second game much more.

Chee Seng happily having a fun "chain reaction", i.e. playing action cards one after another many times, because previous cards played allow drawing more cards and playing more cards.

Eventually he had 7 action cards played: Market, Village, Village, Cellar, Militia, Militia, Remodel. I was so happy to have my Moat card (the blue one in the foreground) in my hand when he played his first Militia card. Instead of discarding two cards, I got to draw two. But unfortunately he had yet another Militia card, and I couldn't defend against that, so I had to discard down to 3 cards afterall.

Axis & Allies Revised

On 17 Jan 2009 when Han came to play, our main course was Axis & Allies, the 2004 edition, which is also called Axis & Allies Revised. We both planned to buy the Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition which just came out end of last year, and were keen to play it. Since neither of us had it yet, we decided to play the 2004 edition, to at least temporarily quench our thirst. We planned for this session about one month beforehand. That's how keen we were.

Actually I was so anxious for some Axis & Allies action, I asked Simon (who has played many games with me but is in no way a gamer, and has never played anything like Axis & Allies) to play with me when he was in KL, on 2 Jan 2009. We started at 11:30pm, explaining the game took some time, and we finished at 5:30am. It was a good game, but unfortunately I didn't take any photo.

I played the Axis, and Simon the Allies. USA mostly ignored Japan in the Pacific and both UK and US concentrated on preparing to attack Germany. Germany's excursion into Africa was slow but steady. USA only sent forces to Africa once and after that ignored the African theatre to concentrate on Europe.

USSR had some initial successes, but Germany won one big battle, using its big stack to kill off USSR's big stack. I had been careful in the positioning of my German troops, in pushing my infantry forward, and in preserving my tanks as much as possible. That big battle was a big blow to USSR, killing off many Russian tanks, and USSR immediately got on the defensive. Later Germany also took Caucasus, which had the industrial complex, and had been heavily defended throughout most of the game. However this was at the expense of not defending Western Europe and not trying to get it back, allowing an Allied foothold.

Eventually Germany fell to a one-two-punch attack from UK and USA which I had underestimated. I had thought it was too premature for Simon to attack Germany. But the USA forces won, despite only having one tank and one bomber surviving. That was a crushing blow to the Axis. Although USSR was on the verge of falling, it still had enough forces to withstand Germany's last desperate all-out attack. When Berlin fell, the German troops were too far away to take it back. They were all right next to Moscow, and there was a big swath of nothing in Eastern Europe.

Japan, having been left alone in the Pacific theatre, had been expanding aggressively. I tried a one-two-punch attack on Russia, but by then Russia had been reinforced with British fighters, and my attempt was too little too late. I conceded defeat after that last desperate failed attempt. The whole of Africa, Middle East, India, China and almost all of USSR were under Axis control, but Japan will not be able to fight against the combined forces of the 3 Allied countries. It was only a matter of time for USA and UK to take back all those vacant Axis territories.

I still think Kill Russia First is the best strategy for the Axis, and similarly Kill Germany First for the Allies. Not that I'm any expert in Axis & Allies. I may be just unimaginative. Supposedly the Anniversary Edition addresses this problem (assuming this is a problem).

In this game against Simon, my biggest mistake was probably underestimating the attackers approaching Berlin. In fact, the British attack, i.e. the first half of the one-two-punch attack, fared poorly. And I probably should not have allowed D-Day to happen so early. Anyway, good lesson learned, which prepared me for the game against Han two weeks later. I was playing the Axis too, since the last time Han and I played this game in 2005, he played the Axis.

So here's the session report of the game against Han on 17 Jan 2009, with lots of pictures.

~~~~~~~

Game setup. I like the game setup of Axis & Allies Revised. There are interesting, i.e. tough, decisions for each country. Of course some of the decisions will depend on the outcome of battles in previous players' turns, but I think Round 1 is interesting, and often its outcome will determine the strategy of the players for the rest of the game.

This was Round 1, UK's turn. USSR had taken West Russia, that territory right next to Moscow with Germans on it at the start of the game, and Germany had taken it back. Soviet forces consolidated in Moscow, Causasus and the eastern border near the Japanese. The Germans had used a transport to bring troops from Italy to attack Trans-Jordan. The German submarine in the Atlantic had gone to Canada and had sunk the British transport there. German forces in Algeria moved to Libya, to prepare to attack Egypt. Now the British battleship, with the support of the fighter in Egypt and the fighter in the Indian Ocean, was attacking the German battleship and transport in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. This attack was successful, sinking both German ships, but the British also lost one fighter. The British sub south of Melbourne later attacked the lonely Japanese sub north of New Zealand, but only managed to get itself sunk.

Round 1, end of Japan's turn. The UK fleet on the west coast of UK had moved to the east coast. The UK fleet in the Indian Ocean had moved west. If you watch closely you'll notice that the British bomber is gone. Unfortunately (for Han) it was shot down over Berlin in its maiden strategic bombing mission. UK had built a factory in India, but it was immediately captured by the Japanese, which used the transport off Kwangtung to ship infantry over. Japan really went all out to capture India, including the support of the southern Pacific fleet. In hindsight, UK probably should have defended India more heavily. Japan attacked China, but that battle turned out to be mutual destruction. Well, at least the Flying Tigers (US fighter) were killed. Pearl Harbour happened, no surprises there. Japan built three transports.

Round 2, during UK's turn. USA had invaded the unguarded Algeria. The US infantry in Sinkiang came out to defend China. USA also started to rebuild its Pacific fleet. I think USSR took West Russia again, and then Germany captured in yet again, in the process destroying all Russian tanks. USSR has been very defensive, buying mostly infantry. Germany, which bought mostly infantry in Round 1, now bought mostly a mix of infantry and artillery. My plan was to buy slow moving units early, and then tanks later. Germany had conquered Egypt, leaving Algeria vacant. The Baltic fleet had come out to attack the British fleet (with some air support, of course), and won the battle! That was a bonus for me, because I didn't expect my Baltic fleet to survive. I only wanted to sink the British ships, which would help to delay D-Day. British aircraft were now attacking my Baltic fleet. This later ended as yet another surprise victory for me. He lost many precious fighters. I must have had a pretty good admiral. Han mixed his combat and non-combat moves, so you see his Mediterranean battleship had already moved west to Gibraltar, and his Indian Ocean fleet and Australian transport had already moved towards South Africa.

Round 2, after USA's turn. Japan had conquered China, and also broken through the eastern border of USSR. Now the path to Moscow was cleared. Japan had also conquered Persia, putting some pressure on Caucasus. Japan built 3 tanks in India, preparing to support Germany in executing Kill Russia First. The Indian Ocean fleet moved towards Japan to join forces with the Pacific fleet, because the Americans were threatening. The American troops in Algeria had another bloodless conquest - the vacated Libya. And finally the American fleet (from North Africa and the Atlantic Ocean) sunk my remaining German ships off Norway. UK was getting rather crowded so I put a marker on it and let Han place all the units off board (top left corner). I did the same for the American Pacific fleet which was building up off Los Angeles.

This was the American Pacific fleet being rebuilt. Two battleships, two carriers, one destroyer, one transport and three fighters.

This was where they were on the map.

These are the units in UK, now put off board because the populace was complaining about overcrowding.

The two Japanese fleets were about to merge into one giant fleet, in anticipation of the upcoming showdown with the Americans in the Pacific.

I think this was Round 3 after UK's turn. I can't recall what happened exactly on the Eastern Front. I know USSR attacked the Japanese-occupied Persia and won. Germany was now very close to both Moscow and Caucasus. I left West Russia vacant so that I wouldn't have to spread my forces thin. USSR didn't have land troops that could threaten my fleet of fighters in Belorussia anyway. I now dared to leave Western Europe lightly defended, because I had built a big group of tanks in Germany. I had also built a bomber to support the war on the Eastern Front. Rommel attacked the Americans in Libya and wiped them out, with some air support, of course. I left one infantry to guard Trans-Jordan against the Russians. I was betting the Russians would turn back to defend Caucasus. UK's battleship from the Mediterranean moved to the coast of France, and UK build two transports.

A zoomed out view to show the British ships from the Pacific Theatre still moving slowing to Europe. The Suez Canal wasn't an option since I had conquered Trans-Jordan in Round 1. You need to control both Egypt and Trans-Jordan at the start of your turn to be able to use the canal.

Round 3, after Japan's turn. The Japanese navy had joined forces off the coast of Tokyo. Now I was daring Han to attack me. If he dared to come close I'd probably attack with the support of my airforce.

Zoomed out view, to show that one of the Japanese tanks had blitzed through Sinkiang and was now at the gates of Moscow. The slower moving Japanese infantry and artillery had also conquered Yakut SSR. Actually, this was already USA's turn. The USA fleet off Norway joined forces with the UK fleet off Normandy. The bored US fighter in Algeria thought it would be fun to attack the lonely German fighter in Egypt...

... and got itself shot down. Oops.

I think this was Round 4, after Germany's turn. On USSR's turn, it attacked and conquered Trans-Jordan. It also got Novosibirsk back from the lone Japanese tank, and took the vacant West Russia. Germany tried to take Trans-Jordan back, but retreated back to Egypt when the battle went bad. However on the Eastern Front the battles went well, and both Caucasus and Moscow fell to the Axis. It was a costly victory, almost wiping out the German airforce (only that lone fighter surviving the battle of Caucasus). But the fall of Moscow was a big victory for the Axis. Han conceded defeat. D-Day never happened, and Midway never happened.

~~~~~~~

I had many lucky rolls in the early game. Han was very unlucky with his bombing runs over Germany. Not only he lost his British bomber on the first bombing run, he also later lost an American bomber, I think on its second bombing mission.

On the Eastern Front Han was mainly defensive, purchasing mostly infantry. He protected the factory in Caucasus well, and I didn't dare to attack until quite late in the game. On the Western Front the build-up for D-Day was too slow. So D-Day never happened.

We actually played with one random national advantage for each country. Russia had harsh winter - declare harsh winter at end of USSR round, and from then until USSR's next turn, Russian infantry defend on 3 instead of 2. Han used this, which made me delay my attack into Moscow by one round. Germany had wolfpack - when a group of 3 submarines attack together, they attack at 3 instead of 2. I never used it. UK had Middle East oil - if a British plane landed in an Allies-controlled Egypt, Trans-Jordan or Persia, it gets a free non-combat move. This was never used. Japan had entrenched defenders - infantry on islands defend at 3 instead of 2. Never used. USA had marines - infantry attack on 2 instead of 1 in the first cycle of an amphibious assault. Never used. Maybe next time we should play with 2 random national advantages instead. Or maybe more.

I definitely benefited from the recent game against Simon, in which I played the Axis too. Han was at a disadvantage because the last time he played was 3+ years ago, also another game with me. And there was a misprint on the UK chart. Fighter cost should be $10, not $12. He used the wrong price for all the Allies for almost the whole game, because the UK chart was the one right in front of him and he referred to it. Well, and the dice gods being on my side didn't help.

One thing about Axis & Allies Revised that I have a very different opinion of compared to other people is the graphics. I actually quite like the graphics. I like the dark map, more so than the 1984 version (lighter coloured), and also more so than the Anniversary Edition (natural coloured). I like the style very much. It has a feeling of doom. I prefer it over the 1984 version because of this. I prefer it over the Anniversary Edition because it is "cleaner". It has a serious tone. The one thing I didn't quite like is the production values. The cardboard pieces are quite thin. They also forgot that 6 and 9 look exactly the same when you don't know which direction to look from. They should have used a full stop or an underline on the army markers for 6 and 9. Well, I have never had to use 6 or 9, so this didn't impact my enjoyment of the game, but it just shows there was an oversight. The fighter cost on the UK sheet is a more serious error (and Han would definitely agree).

I used to read a lot of strategy articles about Axis & Allies, in the days when I played it more frequently with Ricky using the PC game version. That was still the 1984 version, way before the 2004 Revised version came out. Axis & Allies is very much about knowing what to purchase and knowing how to plan ahead. It is about preserving your units (especially so for the Japanese) and maximising your battle odds. It is easy to lose sight of the strategic view and the long term planning, when the game is long and there are many battles to absorb you into the tactical aspects. Naturally there is a fair bit of luck in the game, because of the dice. But I have learnt to not get frustrated with bad die rolls, and instead laugh about them. Before the dice are rolled, I should have done all I could to make the odds as good as possible, and if I haven't done so I should accept the risks of making the attack or the consequences of not preparing enough for the defense.

I just received my copy of Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition. So the next time that we play, it will be this deluxe version!

Ghost Stories

Han was in town over the weekend of 17 Jan 2009, and came over for some games. He had just picked up his new game Ghost Stories, so we gave it a go.

Ghost Stories is a cooperative game, where the players are Taoist monks defending a village from an onslaught of ghosts. The big bad ghost Mr Wu Feng is trying to came back from hell to do bad things to humanity (something like that). His minion ghosts are trying to locate his urn which is hidden in the village. The monks have to work together with the villagers to hold the ghosts back. To win the game, they have to defeat all incarnations of Wu Feng that appear during the game. There are many ways to lose. If all the monks get killed, you lose. If a certain number of village tiles get haunted, you lose. If you can't defeat all incarnations of Wu Feng when the ghost card deck runs out, you lose. Sounds like Pandemic doesn't it? One way to win, many ways to lose.

On a player's turn, he first does the "bad stuff" (in the game, called the Yin phase), and then he does the "good stuff" (Yang phase). In the Yin phase, some ghosts already on the board will do bad stuff. Some will move towards the village, threatening to haunt a village tile. Then a new ghost (drawn from the ghost card deck) may appear. Ghosts sometimes do something when they appear, and sometimes they do something every time that they are activated while still in the game, and sometimes they do something when they are exorcised (is this last situation sometimes they give a reward). After this, the active player gets to do something good. He can move, and then either get some help from the villagers, or try to exorcise a ghost or two. Each of the nine village tiles can give some form of benefit to the monks. There is even one tile (the cemetary) where you can bring a dead monk back to life! To exorcise a ghost you need to roll dice and get enough rolls of the right colour matching the ghost's colour and strength. You can make up the shortage by paying Tao tokens of the right colour.

So during the game, ghosts keep appearing and doing bad stuff to you and to the village, and you need to hold them back while trying to stay alive. The ghosts have many different characteristics. Some are easier to defeat, some are harder. Some cause trouble every turn, some only when they appear / go away. Some prevent you from using Tao tokens, which is nasty. You not only need to survive, you also need to prepare for the showdown with Wu Feng. Depending on the difficulty level, there can be one or four incarnations of Wu Feng that you need to defeat.

This is how the game looks like when set up. 9 village tiles randomly arranged in the centre, and four player boards on the four sides. The ghosts appear on the player boards, and some of them get a black figure which will attack the village, e.g. the one on the blue board.

Two Taoist monks confronting a ghost.

The two buddhas still chatting about last night's TV show without realising the ghost sneaking up on them.

Han and I played one 2-player game. Well, actually we played three games, but in the first two we played wrong and restarted. The first one was too easy, because we forgot to do actions for the two neutral boards. The second one was too tough, because we did too much for the two neutral boards. We played that they can add new ghosts to the game. Of course that turned out to be quite a nightmare. Double the number of ghosts were appearing. On our third attempt, we finally played with what was quite close to the correct rules (we later found out we did make some mistakes afterall), and won.

I find the game quite interesting. There are quite many choices - which ghosts to defeat first, where to move, which village tile to make use of, when to use your YinYang tokens and Power tokens. The game is a constantly changing puzzle of how to use your actions and resources most effectively. Sometimes there is some tough prioritisation that you are forced to do. The basic game structure is not complex, but there are many small details (e.g. the powers of each of the nine village tiles, and the unique powers of each monk) which although individually are simple, give you a wide decision tree that can be daunting when you are learning the game. In our first game we have only used a few of the village tiles. I am sure each tile can be very useful if used the right way or at the right time, but in our learning game, we have not yet appreciated all of the nuances. We tend to use the Buddhist temple (get a Buddha figure which can protect a space and instantly kick a new ghost back to hell), the sorcerer's hut (spend Qi, i.e. health, to kill a ghost) and the circle of prayer (discount when fighting ghosts or a particular colour).

As we played, the situation became more and more bleak. The number of active ghosts was growing, and we were starting to fall behind in trying to exorcise them quickly. By the time that Wu Feng finally arrived (11th card from the bottom of the stack), it was actually a relief, because we knew we just needed to defeat him to win, and we could ignore the other ghosts. And that was exactly what we did. It so happened that the incarnation of Wu Feng that we got was the one requiring 5 different Tao tokens. I already had four, and could use my Power token to use the Yellow monk power to get the fifth colour. So I instantly defeated Wu Feng on my next turn. It was actually rather anticlimatic, as if he came to save us from losing the game.

After the game, Han read the rules himself (I was the one who had read it first and I taught the game) and found that we had made at least two mistakes, both of which had made the game easier for us. (1) When using the sorcerer's hut to kill a ghost, we should not have gained the reward for defeating the ghost. (2) The ghosts which haunt village tiles only need to take two steps, not three, to haunt the nearest tile. The second mistake would have made quite a significant difference. So the next time that we play (I definitely want to play again) we probably should stay at Introductory level.

gaming in photos

1 Jan 2009. Michelle and Simon, playing Taj Mahal. I bought the German version a few years ago, at I think USD59, because the English reprint wasn't out yet. Unfortunately I have not played it many times. This is one of Reiner Knizia's classics.

Close-up of the game. Michelle did very well in this game. She ran out of palaces to place. Even by mid game she was already far ahead of us.

2 Jan 2009. Brass, with the 2-player variant. Non playable locations were covered with silver coins. This was at the end of the game. We had flipped the railroads to the canal side, to mark the railroads than had been scored.

Close-up. Hmmm... now that I noticed it, I wonder whether I forgot to score my railroad between Wigan and Bolton.

4 Jan 2009. Michelle and I played Age of Steam. This was the Korean map. The minimum number of players is 3, but since the Korean map seems to be quite tight, we decided to try it with 2. This was the start of the game. Two unique things about Korea is the hills are expensive to build on (+$3), and cities have no colour to determine what coloured cube they can accept. They accept a colour if there is a cube of such colour in them, which is an interesting twist.

Michelle started in the south east, and I started on the west.

Michelle built the two cheap tracks between Seoul, Suwon and Inchon. This is an anomaly of the Korean map. There are no hexes between these 3 cities, but you can put a marker on the circle between these cities as if you are building a track between them. Michelle's move didn't interrupt me much, as I later built another railway between Seoul and Inchon. It did help her deliver some goods though. Other than that, we delevoped our railroad networks quite separately.

Michelle did more urbanisation, and continued to expand northwards along the east coast. Korea turned out to be not as tough as I had imagined. Probably 2 players is not so suitable. You probably still need at least 3.

By now we are starting to build tracks for points and not really for delivering goods. Usually goods production in Age of Steam is a good thing, because it means there are more goods moved to the board for you to deliver. However on the Korean map this can be disruptive to your plans. Sometimes when you have planned to deliver a cube from one end of a long route to the other, a new cube suddenly gets placed in a city in the middle of that route, halfing your profit because then you would be forced to deliver the cube to this city in the middle rather than the originally intended destination.

This was the end of the game. No one wanted to build to Pyongyang in North Korea.

Aerial and "upright" view of the board at end game, for comparison against the starting photo.