Chen Rui's first outing to Sekigahara

25 Dec 2021, Christmas Day. During younger daughter Chen Rui's school holidays I taught her a number of games. Since she is usually open to try anything, I asked whether she wanted to try Sekigahara. She watches Japanese anime and I thought she would know Tokugawa Ieyasu and maybe Ishida Mitsunari, but she said no. She had not played wargames before. Going through the rules was a little overwhelming for her. I said don't try to memorise all the rules and just get a general idea. Although I had summarised the rules into a one-page A4 sheet, there was still a fair bit to go through, more than she was used to.  

I let her play Tokugawa (black), because I think it's generally more fun. You usually draw more combat cards and also more reinforcements. I played Ishida (gold). 

At the start of the game Chen Rui didn't have much idea what to do. Although she won the bid to decide who to be start player, she let me go first. This was the western side of the map (I sat at the north edge), and the Ishida faction was stronger here. I took the battle to the Tokugawa faction armies. 

In the east I took on the aggressor role too, since I had the right cards at the time. One unit split away and went north to capture a resource location. That allowed me to place a gold cube. 

In the west, although I was moderately successful, I did not manage to truly dominate the area. The Tokugawa faction had one special unit led by Ii Naomasa. This was the strongest unit in the game with strength 4. It could be deployed with any card unlike other units which could only be deployed using matching cards. Also it would never turn traitor. I remember in previous games Ii usually died early, because he was located in a hot spot. In our game Ii lasted a long time, giving the Tokugawa faction great support. 

The siege of Ueda Castle would always happen. It was just a matter of how long it could hold against the Tokugawa faction (black). Chen Rui sent Tokugawa Ieyasu himself to besiege the castle, and the castle fell quickly. Sanada in our game was not as successful as his historical counterpart. 

My Uesugi army (gold) in the east attacked Chen Rui's Date army (black). I wanted to capture her recruitment location so that I could take control of this area. 

In this battle I played the loyalty challenge card, and it was successful. One of Chen Rui's units turned traitor and came over to my side. However she too later played a loyalty challenge card, and was successful too. Although I won this battle, I did not gain much edge over her. One of her losses was taken by my unit which turned traitor. We lost about the same number of units. In the end I was only able to temporarily force her to retreat. I could not destroy her army. 

Chen Rui's Maeda army along the northern coast (lower part of this photo) had now marched to the front line to help protect her castle in the west (right). My army was marching towards that castle. Along the southern coast, Chen Rui sent a Tokugawa army from Edo to the west to help Ii Naomasa. They took the Tokaido highway, which allowed them to move faster. 

One of Chen Rui's castles (the rightmost one) was only garrisoned by one unit now. Unfortunately my three units besieging it could not muster the 7 impact needed to kill that last unit. I had to send in reinforcements before I could storm the castle successfully. 

Battle is met in the north west (bottom right). 

There is no randomness in the battle system in Sekigahara. Well, unless you argue that the card draw is a form of randomness. The strengths of the units on the board don't change. It's just that your opponent may not know them yet. Also he doesn't know whether you are holding the right cards. Conducting a battle is not so much about executing the steps. It is much more about deciding whether to fight. This is where the psychology and the manoeuvring come into play. 

In the east (left) my small army was about to be squashed. Tokugawa Ieyasu himself had come to make sure it would not live. In the west I had consolidated my power and could now plan my expansion. Most of the time throughout this game I fell behind Chen Rui in both the number of castles and the number of resource locations, so she usually drew more cards and reinforcements. I also suffered more battle losses than she did. I was constantly under pressure and lagging behind. 

I was now stronger along the northern coast, and eager to go on the offensive. The units in the central area had thinned due to the multiple clashes. One of my armies took the opportunity to capture a resource location. 

Tokugawa Ieyasu himself captured my only castle in the east. What was left of my army was just waiting for the inevitable. Eventually Chen Rui completely controlled the east. 

Chen Rui's (black) army attacked my army (gold) which included Ishida Mitsunari. This was a dangerous situation for me. If Ishida got killed, I would immediately lose. When the dust settled, I lost the battle and three units. Ishida was the only unit that survived. Chen Rui's Tokugawa army had zero casualties! Ishida had to run for his life through village roads and scurried back to Osaka. I even had to pay an extra card to let him run faster, else Chen Rui would have been able to catch him. It was quite a disgrace. 

Ishida barely managed to run back to Osaka. 

Chen Rui continued to send units forward using the Tokaido, and by now had assembled a large army of 11 units. My largest army in the area had 8 units. 

I managed to capture the Tokugawa faction castle along the northern coast belonging to the Maeda clan. This was an important 2 victory points for me. For most of the game I was behind in points. Only by the final round I managed to overtake Chen Rui. 

At this point it seemed the most likely battle would be the clash between our largest armies, and this was actually pretty near the Sekigahara battlefield. Ironically Tokugawa Ieyasu himself was absent. He was still far away in the north. He was within striking distance of my medium sized army which had captured the Maeda clan castle. Chen Rui still controlled some resource locations along the northern coast. She was worried I would continue to advance and capture those locations. She had one unit guarding a resource location which I could overrun, and she felt bad leaving it to die. She sent the small army led by Tokugawa Ieyasu to join forces with the lone unit, and at the same time help guard her resource location. I had told her previously this was risky because Tokugawa would come within striking range. She undid her move then, but later on she forgot about it and pushed Tokugawa forward. 

The upcoming Sekigahara battle looked rather iffy to me. Chen Rui had more units. I thought my odds would be better if I tried to catch Tokugawa. My whole army in the north were Ukita units. About half my units at Sekigahara were also Ukita units. I did have Ukita cards in hand. However I knew if I spent my Ukita cards attacking Tokugawa in the north, after the battle concluded, I might not draw enough Ukita cards again to be used for the Sekigahara battle. Attacking Tokugawa was a gamble. If I didn't manage to kill him, the Sekigahara battle would likely mean doom. 

Thankfully I gambled right. Although Chen Rui had three units, she was only able to deploy two. I had just enough impact to win the battle and kill two units. Since she had deployed Tokugawa himself, she must pick him as one of the casualties. That meant game over for her. 

Chen Rui could have decided not to deploy any units. If none of her units were deployed and I made only two kills, she could sacrifice the two other units and let Tokugawa escape. However I did have enough cards to inflict three kills. It would not have worked for her if she depended on me being unable to inflict enough damage. If I remember correctly, once I played my last unit, I would run out of Ukita cards. If Chen Rui played a loyalty challenge card then, I would have no Ukita card to show her. That would mean one of my units would betray me. I would not be able to inflict enough damage to get Tokugawa killed, and the traitor which went to her side would become one of her casualties. The battle would have ended with fewer losses for her. Thankfully I did not have to deploy my last unit and I did not use my last Ukita card. Else the outcome of this battle would have been very different. Tokugawa would have lived.

Chen Rui had a few loyalty challenge cards in hand which she had held on to for some time. The card value was high, and that made her reluctant to spend them. This was a little misleading. It can be bad having too many loyalty challenge cards, because it means you are less able to deploy your own units to fight. They reduce your fighting ability. Loyalty challenge cards can certainly be very powerful, but only when you play them at the right times. She probably should have used some of them and only kept one, or at most two. 

I could have deployed my last unit, but I did not need to. 

In the end we did not fight the Sekigahara battle proper. The game ended when Tokugawa Ieyasu fell in battle in the north. However we did run a what-if simulation. It turned out that I would have lost the battle. That meant I was right in gambling on being able to kill Tokugawa. After the Sekigahara battle, I would still have some units left, and Chen Rui would not immediately control the area. Time was running out, but since I would be weaker, she would still have a chance to capture enough victory points. We did not further simulate the situation, but I was not optimistic about my prospects. 

After the game Chen Rui studied the troop composition of the clans. She found that there were at most two gun units and two cavalry units per clan. I had never bothered to count that. 

The Gallerist

The Game

Vital Lacerda is a popular game designer. I am guessing The Gallerist (2015) is his bestselling game, since it has the most number of ratings among his games on BoardGameGeek.com. You play art gallery managers in the game. You discover new artists, buy their artwork, make them famous, sell their works to make a profit and increase the influence of your art gallery. At game end the richest gallery owner wins. Running an art gallery is a business after all. You have to make money. Money is victory points. 

There are four art galleries on the board. The game supports at most 4 players. There are four groups of actions on the board, with two options per group (the white squares). On your turn, you may place your pawn in any action group then pick one of the actions to perform. This is not a worker placement game. Other players' pawns being present does not block you. However once you complete your action, they have the choice of also performing an action by paying influence (a currency). This is a unique element in the game. Players tend to hope others will come to where their pawns are, so that they get to perform an action on other people's turns. When you remove your pawn from an action group, you may leave behind an assistant. When another player's pawn comes and kicks out your assistant, you also get to perform an action. Basically you'll often get to perform actions on other people's turns. You want to always have some influence so that you can afford to perform these extra actions. 

This is a player board. The upper half is your art gallery. There are four walls for you to display art pieces. There is a small work area on the right, big enough for four employees (assistants). The column on the far left are the assistants you can recruit during the game. 

These are two secret objectives dealt during game setup. You fulfil the one on the left by having sold specific types of art by game end. You fulfil the other by having on display specific types of art. 

When you discover a new artist, you flip over the artist tile to reveal a fame track. This particular artist is a sculptor. The white cube marks the fame level. As she gets more famous, her works become more expensive for gallery owners (i.e. players) to buy. The star icons indicate how much you can sell her works for. When the fame level hits the top, the artist becomes known as a master. Artists reaching master level is one of the conditions which triggers game end. The marker below the artist is a signature marker. Every artist has only two of them. When you buy an artist's work, you claim a signature marker. When you sell it, you return the signature to the board. This means at any one time there can only be two of an artist's works in circulation. 

The track on the right is used for tracking which artists' works you own and how much they are worth. The signature marker at the bottom means this is an artist you discovered and he still owes you a piece of commission work. When you discover an artist, he will be grateful to you and he will commit to sell you a piece of art at his base price, even if he later becomes famous and could have charged more. 

This part of the board, which I call the Facebook Like section, is for players to increase the fame of artists. You spend your influence (a currency) to help artists. It increases the value of their works.  

This part of the game board is all about long-term investments. You need to send assistants here, and they will be locked here for the rest of the game. The top half are bonus points you can score at game end, depending on how well you meet specific conditions. The bottom half is for bidding for imported art work. There is one each of the four types of art work, and everyone will get to pick one, except for the player who bid the least. How much you have bid determines whether you get to pick first. 

At the bottom of this table you see some bonus points. This is for area majority competition for each column. If you have the most assistants in a particular column, you score the highest number. 

Your art gallery is divided into two parts, the gallery itself (solid line) and the lobby (dashed line). Everyone's lobby is connected to the plaza outside, which is where visitors appear. During the game you need to collect tickets (a type of currency) and spend them to move visitors from the plaza to your lobby, and then from your lobby to your gallery. You need visitors because without them you can't sell art. They help you make money, gain influence and increase the fame of artists you support. Every time you sell a piece of art, you must discard a visitor from your gallery. That means you need to keep replenishing visitors. 

The lobby is not just a transit point. In order to claim game-end bonus points and to bid for imported artwork, you need to have specific types of visitors in your lobby. Visitors in your lobby can be moved out by other players. Only visitors in your gallery are secure. There are three types of visitors. The pink celebrities increase your influence. The brown investors help you earn money. The white collectors make artists more famous. 

This section at the bottom left of your player board is for placing your game-end bonus tokens. You have only six slots. When you place a token, you gain a one-time benefit according to the icons printed on the space. 

Three conditions cause the game to end. Once two of them are fulfilled, the next round will be the final round. The first condition is the bag running out of visitors. Most of the time you draw visitors from the bag to place in the plaza when you buy art. The second condition is two artists becoming masters. The third condition is the board running out of tickets. You have some control over how soon the game ends. 

When the game ends, artwork still in your gallery and not yet sold are worth points, based on how popular the creators are. You don't necessary have to sell them all. Selling art is important during the game because you need cash flow. You also need to sell to free up space in your gallery, so that you can continue to buy. By game end, your influence level is also translated to points. 

The Play

I did a 3-player game with Allen and Han. Allen and I were new. Han had only played once, and it had been a while ago. The rules were a little overwhelming to digest initially. There were many nitty gritty details and many small icons no look up in the rulebook to see what they meant. It took a while to get familiar with the iconography. 

Discovering artists, buying their works, making them famous and eventually selling their works to make money are a very logical process. When playing The Gallerist you have to manage a few such processes running concurrently. You will be managing multiple pieces of art by different artists and they will be at different stages of the process. You need to manage the currencies - cash, influence and visitors - to make sure you are not short in any, which could otherwise hurt your tempo. Your assistants are a currency to take note of too. 

The blue artists are regular artists. The red are the talented ones. The base prices of their works are higher, and they become masters more easily. At game setup, only one regular artist has been discovered. You need to discover the rest. 

We had started competing for the game-end bonuses. What we picked would affect how we play, since we would try to fully utilise the bonuses. 

The art galleries we used were at the top left, top right and bottom right. The unused art gallery at the bottom left was blocked with an unused easel. The easels in the game are just for aesthetics. You can play without them. They are just an indicator for how many imported works will be available, which is number of player minus 1. 

We started discovering talented (red) artists. Those stacks in the rightmost column are the works of art. When you buy a piece of art, the tile tells you by how much the artist's fame increases, which tickets you get to collect, and how many visitors get added to the plaza. 

Art pieces you have sold are placed along the bottom of your player board. Those which you have not yet sold are displayed at your art gallery, i.e. placed on the walls on your player board. 

One thing I struggled with was maintaining a healthy number of visitors in my lobby and my gallery. I didn't collect enough tickets and fell behind Han and Allen in this aspect. I also fell behind in managing a healthy level of influence. I tended to spend influence too freely, and I didn't earn it frequently enough. I had expected to lose to both of them by a large margin. When the game ended, I was surprised that I didn't do as poorly as I had thought. I had many valuable art pieces at my gallery which gave me many points. Indeed I had been aggressive in buying art. 

Both the artists who eventually became masters were painters (palette icon at the top left corner)

This was the imported art piece I won at the end of the game. It helped me tremendously. 

The imported art piece helped me fulfil some of my missions. 

I was surprised how much impact the imported art pieces had. They decided victory in our game. I (purple) had spent $9 on bidding for imported art pieces. Allen (yellow) and Han (orange) both spent $7, but since Allen had an assistant in the rightmost column, he gained an advantage over Han. I was first to pick an art piece, and Allen second. Han couldn't claim any. 

Allen was the eventual winner. His final turn, which was also the last one of the game, was crucial. He placed that yellow assistant in the rightmost column. Prior to that both Han and I had one assistant in the column and Allen had none. Han and I would have scored 12pts had Allen not placed his assistant. 12pts was a big deal. Also by placing this assistant Allen managed to get the extra art piece, which gave him the victory. Had he not placed this assistant, Han would have claimed the extra art piece. The extra art piece not only helped with missions, it was worth money (i.e. points) too. 

The Thought

The Gallerist is a heavy strategy game. The setting is a rare one and it is entertaining to experience something a little different, at least story-wise. This is a game about coordinating multiple concurrent projects. Every project is a lifecycle, from discovering an artist and buying his art to promoting him and eventually selling his art for profit. There is challenge in managing these parallel projects. This is not really a game in which you block your opponent much. You have much freedom to do what you want. You just worry whether your action will help your opponents by allowing them to perform extra actions. There are still some elements you fight over, e.g. the limited number of art pieces, the visitors and the game-end bonuses. Generally you can plan what you want to do without worrying about others hindering you. 

The game feels constrained to me, in the sense that as long as you follow the steps, everyone will score about the same number of points. The game seems to be so well balanced that scores will be close unless you play very poorly. This may not necessarily be a good thing. It felt a little like playing bowling with guardrails on. You can't fail too badly. I might be wrong, since I've only played this once. It's just a hunch. Games by Splotter (e.g. Food Chain Magnate, Indonesia) don't care about keeping players' scores close for the sake of making everyone feel he has a chance of winning. When you play their games you really have to earn your position. If you are able to keep up with your opponents, it means you really are doing something right (or everyone is equally lousy). One reason The Gallerist made me feel it constrains players into a narrow point range is how there can only be at most two art pieces for any artist in the market. This feels unnatural to me. The rule seems to exist for the sake of game balance. 

The Gallerist is a typical heavy Eurogame. The theme is a little different so if you like this kind of games it's worth trying. I can't say I like it. It was okay. So far of Vital Lacerda's games I haven't tried any I'm specifically keen about. I hear Kanban is pretty good. Hopefully I'll get to try that some day and it'll break the streak. 

boardgaming in photos: Lord of the Rings - Confrontation, Attika

16 Dec 2021. One day during younger daughter Chen Rui's school holidays, she looked a little bored so I asked her whether she wanted to play some games with me. She said okay, so I browsed my shelf for suitable 2-player games. At home Chen Rui is usually the one more willing to play boardgames with me. 

I picked Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I greatly admire this Reiner Knizia design. It is a simple and concise package but it packs many of the key elements of the story. It is amazing how much is being conveyed through this little box. 

The light side (the good guys) uses white pieces, while the dark side uses black pieces. At game setup, you are free to position your pieces subject to stacking limits. Initially you don't know who is who among your opponent's pieces. You will only find out when your pieces start fighting. The light side needs to send Frodo to Mordor - the last space on the dark side of the board - to win the game. Frodo's job is to destroy the One Ring. The dark side needs to kill Frodo. It can also win by having three pieces occupy the Shire - the last space on the light side of the board. That's the hobbits' home. 

Game pieces are only revealed when one piece attacks another, Every character in the game has a special ability. When a fight starts, you check the special abilities of both pieces to see if they determine the outcome of the fight. If they don't, both players simultaneously play a card to determine how the fight goes. All characters have a strength value. Most cards have a strength value too. You add both to determine your total strength. Some cards have special powers instead, and these too can affect the outcome of the fight.

The dark side characters have higher strength values and generally it is slightly easier to play the dark side. So I let Chen Rui play the dark side. That said, it is usually tough for a new player to win against an experienced player. There is a lot to learn about the interactions between character powers and card powers. It takes time to discover the many tactics in the game. 

The strength cards of the light side player are weaker than the dark side, but the light side has more special powers. It is important for the light side player to utilise the character abilities and the special power cards. The story in the game will develop very differently from that in the books and the movies. In the books most of the good guys survived till the end, but in the game many of them will be sacrificed to get Frodo to Mordor. 

This was a bad situation for the dark side player. Chen Rui (dark side) only had four pieces left while I still had six. Usually if the light side can force a one-for-one exchange, it would have already been a good deal. You clear the board to allow Frodo to sneak past the dark side defenses into Mordor. When the light side has more pieces than the dark side, it is very bad news for the dark side. 

In this game you must move a piece forward every turn. You can't turn back. There is pressure whenever you decide which piece to move and where to move it to. The dark side always needs to worry about guessing the position of Frodo wrong and letting him slip through. The light side is always worrying about walking into a strong enemy it can't take down. 

Frodo is a measly 1, but his special ability is being able to escape sideways when attacked. It's not easy to catch him. While playing Chen Rui complained that it was too tough. It was too difficult to make decisions. Indeed this is what makes this game great. You are often torn between 50-50 decisions, and you have to guess your opponent's intention. Winning or losing a fight comes down to reading your opponent's thinking correctly. 

Towards late game, since Chen Rui had few pieces remaining, I thought it would be an easy ride the rest of the way sending Frodo to Mordor. Unfortunately I became careless and Frodo was caught and defeated by the Black Rider. Chen Rui had first attacked Frodo with the Witch King. Frodo was able to escape sideways. To my surprise, on her next turn she sent the Black Rider moving multiple steps to reach Frodo. That was its special ability. I should have anticipated that possibility and I should have done something about it. Frodo could not escape sideways again since the Witch King was in the way. At the time both of us had only one card left, so we both knew which cards they were. I had the Magic card, which is normally the best card in the deck because when you play it, you get to reuse any other card on the table. It can be what you want it to be. However Chen Rui had the Eye of Sauron, which nullified any text card. Magic is a text card. Unbelievable! I lost to a newbie. Serves me right for being complacent. 

Frodo caught by the Black Rider.

The other game we played was Attika. I bought it in 2003 or 2004, when I first got into the boardgame hobby. I bought it in Taiwan. After so many years, I still enjoy the game. 

With 2 players, the map is set up using only 4 tiles. There are two ways to win. You either connect two temples with your buildings (the discs), or you construct all of your buildings. 

The player board is an important reference. It shows all the buildings you can construct, their costs, and which buildings can be built for free next to which other buildings. E.g. any ship built next to a harbour is free (bottom right group). I used the blue player buildings to mark which of my buildings have been constructed on the map. Some buildings are temporarily placed on the player board until you can construct them on the map. 

My copy is a German version, so all the building names are in German. It is slightly inconvenient since I don't know German, but the game is very much still playable. In fact I like that my copy is German because that makes me cool. Well, at least in Malaysia.  

Chen Rui started this game dominating the centre of the map, which had many resources. Resources on the map can be used by players when constructing buildings. You can use a resource when you construct a building next to it or directly on top of it. This reduces the number of resource cards you have to play from your hand. Once a building covers a resource on the map, that resource is exhausted. My buildings were divided into two groups. There wasn't enough space to go around so I was forced to establish a second group. 

There are four resource types in the game.

During the game you will get to place new tiles. This is important because you'll need the space for buildings, and resources that come with the new tiles will be useful too. You have to be careful when placing new tiles because you don't want to make it easy for your opponents to use "your" tiles. You want to position the new tiles where they would be convenient for you. Sometimes a new tile helps in connecting temples. Where there is new land, there may be new paths. 

The two temples were originally at two extreme ends of the map. Now the temple at the bottom was almost surrounded by land tiles. Due to competing for land and resources, Chen Rui and my buildings were split into groups. Normally you want to avoid creating separate groups of buildings. You need to pay an extra cost when creating a new group.

Chen Rui constructed her buildings in the backyard of the temple. 

22 Dec 2021. We played Attika again. This particular game above ended soon after this. I (green) was soon able to connect the two temples with my buildings. Chen Rui hadn't been alert about it and didn't defend against it. Actually even I didn't realise it until she noticed the opportunity for me and told me. When I taught her the game, I said it was usually hard to win by connecting temples. So she didn't pay much attention to the risk. Even I seldom allocate much effort to connect temples. 

This time I used glass beads to mark buildings already constructed.

This was another game. This time we each controlled half the map. We guarded our frontlines carefully. Neither of us jumped over each other's frontlines to create new groups. 

This game looked like multiplayer solitaire, with both of us carefully expanding in our own areas. However we did have to compete at the frontlines, and we also had to be careful how we placed new tiles so that the other party could not easily exploit them. 

An important way to discourage your opponents from stealing "your" new tile is to place it far away from them and near your own buildings. 

24 Dec 2021. I was very lucky with my initial building draws. I not only drew my capital Korinth, I also drew two buildings which could be constructed next to Korinth for free. This was very convenient. In this game I managed to construct all ten of the capital group connected to one another. This is usually hard to do because this is a big group. 

I (green) was close to connecting two temples. I had connected to the temple below, and was just two steps away from connecting to the temple above. Chen Rui was forced to stop me. She had to seal off access to that temple, even though it was a costly move. This is how threatening to connect temples can be effective. 

That tile at the bottom left was placed by me. Once I placed it, Chen Rui placed her three roads to steal it from me, blocking me off. She initially placed her road somewhere else. I saw that she could have placed it here and monopolised the new tile, so I advised her to do so. She gleefully accepted. I just screwed myself. 

I had not expected Attika to be among the fives and dimes for 2021. We had a spurt in December. The last time I played it was 2015. I didn't realise it had been that long ago. Now that Chen Rui and I have played a few games, she is getting more familiar with the tactics and I am remembering more too. Now we play in a more aggressive manner, actively grabbing land and resources, and always watching out for opportunities to jump behind enemy lines. 

I (green) had three groups of buildings, and Chen Rui (yellow) had two. During this game she sometimes had three groups, but later merged two of them by placing buildings to link them up. My capital Korinth was quickly surrounded by her buildings in the early game. Many of my buildings which could have been constructed for free next to Korinth then had to be constructed elsewhere at a cost. That was painful. I should not have constructed my capital that near the frontline. This was asking for trouble. It was a very close game. I beat Chen Rui by only one turn. After I constructed all my buildings, she only needed one more turn to construct all of hers. 

At the bottom left, I (green) had one "group" of buildings which consisted of just one single building. In hindsight, this was probably a lousy move. When I drew this building, I could build it here by spending just one resource, for starting a new building group. There were enough resources on the map which could be used for the building itself. So it seemed a good idea to do it. I saved an action. Otherwise the building would have gone to my player board, and I would later need another action to construct it. However having an additional group was a risk, because the next time I wanted to start yet another new group, it would be even more expensive. This single building group did seem rather wasteful. I didn't expand from there.