The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Brad, Pat, Nick, Alex, Paul.
Played: Shogun, Tichu, Settlers of Catan, Too Many Cooks.

A good five to start the evening hard with Shogun, although a few regulars were out tonight for Chinese New Year celebrations. It was suggested that to mark the occasion we play something like Tichu, and this too made an appearance.
Pics as usual are by Brad.

Shogun: Make temples, not war
Possibly one of the heaviest games I’ve played in a while, and I felt like I got my “money’s worth” with this one (figuratively speaking, since it was Brad’s game). Wallenstein-in-Japan has only minor differences to Dirk Henn’s original apart from the map, the main improvement being the bidding mechanism for play order and bonuses at the start of each turn.
In previous games of Wallenstein I played, there was much inter-player conflict, so I was a bit surprised on the first turn when everyone else ‘ducked’ on either one or both of the attack options. I had genuine invaders for both of my fights, and launched one of these on my neighbour Nick apologising as I did so. “Oh, that’s ok,” he replied, “they’re only cubes”.
His positive attitude was rewarded - I’m sure my attack was soundly routed by the time it emerged from the cube tower.
Actually Nick said very little during the course of the game, but any time he did it was gem: “Sorry Bingo, your number’s up”. Alright, this doesn’t look at all funny now in text, but at the time it broke us all up…
So the game ebbed and flowed, and having learned my lesson from the first turn I followed the example set by the other players and adopted a more pacifist approach. Pat made the point a few times that you can’t really afford to take a warring strategy in Shogun with the other players increasing their points tallies more efficiently through expansion into unoccupied territories and building. Hence attacks on other players are probably best exercised minimally and opportunistically only.
Pat eventually won the game by a significant margin, the main factor apparently being his building activity - lots of it, and optimised to pick up juicy bonuses thank you very much. And this was in spite of a poorly-considered last turn attack on a neighbouring non-player province. The attack was successful but put him over his revolution threshold, which subsequently cost him another province and net three points in the process.
20 mins rules and setup; 15 mins initial province seeding, and 135 mins game play.
Results: Pat: 49. Alex: 39. Paul and Brad: 37 (tie broken in Paul’s favour on money 6-4). Nick: 31.
(Extra note: Alex made the point that those with the most cubes left in the tower at game end deserve some kind of ‘moral bonus’, eg., 1 point per cube, although of course we weren’t going to be factoring this into the final score. That data then, for Alex’s benefit more than anyone else’s, is as follows: Nick: 7 cubes in the tower; Alex & Brad: 5 each; Paul: 4; Peasants: 3; Pat: 2.)

Tichu: Gong Xi Fat Choi
This might be a token playing in honour of the Chinese New Year, but Tichu is a popular choice with this group anyway on Sunday nights. I’ve said here before that I don’t quite ‘get it’ with Tichu, but since everyone else seems to love it so much that I should persist with it until I get some epiphany while playing. So we dug in for an hour’s worth (winner on 500+) - Al & me vs. Pat & Brad. Although I can’t report any revelations or lightbulbs above the head, this game was certainly more satisfying than any of my previous plays with it.
We got through five hands. Alex and I won three of these, including two at 200 points each for going out first and second in those hands. But there were still plenty of mistakes (on my part), the biggest clanger being the hand in which I’d depleted myself of all cards except for the Dog… and given away the lead. This was kind of dumb, the only saving grace being that Pat (to my right) went out first, thus giving me the lead and the opportunity to hand the lead to my partner Al on the playing of my last card. I won’t make that mistake again.

56 minutes (for an average of 11 mins per hand).
Results: Paul+Alex: 515. Brad+Pat: 285.

Settlers of Catan: Settlers of Truncatan
I left the room for a few minutes to dig out a pile of alternative, lighter titles and when I returned, lo and behold good ole’ Settlers was already set up. My set is the original Mayfair 1st English language edition, and the rules were being explained to Brad (have you really never played before?). Random lots saw me set up first, then Brad, Alex and Pat respectively. The course of placements that followed was the most intriguing I’d ever seen. While there were no surprises to mine, Brad’s and Alex’s, Pat then set his up in the most provocative manner. His first settlement was in no-one’s way, but the second was on a wood-clay-ore apex with his road competing directly with Alex’s for the next meaningful space. His automatic wood and clay meant that he’d almost certainly get to build the contested road section first, thus hanging Alex out to dry.
But Alex’s second placement took us all by surprise. He sacrificed the opportunity for one of few remaining lucrative 3-region corners, and instead went out to the coast, claiming the disputed section for himself in the setup. Inspired, and yet so obvious…
A few turns in (no more than three) and Alex had managed to upgrade both of his settlements to cities through a combination of shrewd trading and lucky dice rolls: Pat recorded three consecutive rolls of 9. Based on this there was a mutual consensus that Alex’s position was unassailable, and therefore by agreement we awarded the game to him with no further play!
7 mins rules explan, 14 mins play.

Too Many Cooks: Something short(-ish) and light to end the evening with. I liked Brad’s remark that this was Knizia’s best use of theme in any of his games!
So we started making soup, trying to spoil and/or ’steal’ everyone else’s pots. Brad was the most successful in the end, despite what looked like almost deliberate attempts to set up Pat with points, much to Alex’s annoyance. Not since the great gaspatcho boil-over of ‘96 has soup been so funny and frustrating at the same time.
57 minutes.
Results: Brad: 22. Paul: 21. Pat: 19. Alex: 7.

6 Districts:
To help tackle the enormous challenge of street addressing in 3rd world countries, the World Bank Institute, as part of a much larger initiative, recently announced a competition for game design submissions themed around this problem. The intention is to use the winning submission as an educational tool for public servants involved in or impacted by activities related to street addressing. The winner’s prize is modest but serious: a trip to Washington and a US$6000 consultancy fee to help finalise pre-production aspects of the game.
I was pleased to learn that Richard and Alex were teaming up to have a crack at this, although the time left available to refine the submission was not a luxury. They released v1.1 of the rules to Pat and me during the week, with the view to ‘’blind playtesting” on Sunday night, ie., to having one of us read and explain the rules to the players while they observed, to help debug the written rules. And apart from a few minor points, this passed the test well.
The game comprises cards that when laid together form a city street map of 6 different coloured districts (one per player), with criss-crossing streets that may change name as they pass through districts.
Game play is divided into two phases. In the first phase players build their map and earn points as they try to provide “services” throughout the city. In the second phase players jump through map locations Ricochet Robot-style, demonstrating the benefits of a formally addressed city plan.
Phase 2 played quite well, and this aspect alone should help nudge the game into the finalists list of the design competition. The playing of Phase 1 revealed a few problems, although Al and Richard have already implemented a major overhaul to this.
The remaining time is short to add the final polishing touches, but in their favour is the strength of the current phase 2 play, and Alex’s cards themselves - a very elegant prototype. We look forward to the next playtest, and the finalists announcements in about 8 weeks’ time.

Venue: Brian’s place.
Present: Brad, Pat, Brian, Andrew, Richard, Alex, Paul.
Played: Caylus, Attika, Clans, Tichu, Bohnanza.

We playtested a new game design by Alex and Richard this week, and a brief account of this may appear here soon. The rest of the evening was consumed with Euro titles.
Pics as usual are by Brad.

Caylus: I suggested this one because I had only played once before (some months ago) and was keen to give it another go. So I was surprised when this was not met with much enthusiasm. It seems that maybe Caylus has had its time in the sun, and is now falling off the popularity pace.
But we dug in, and it wasn’t long before I at least felt like I was holding my ground against my more experienced opponents. However, Pat stormed ahead anyhow with most of the building activity for the whole game, and before we were at the halfway point it was less a question of who would win than it was of by how much. In fact the whole game proceeded very quickly, and I believe Pat remarked later that this was the fastest game of Caylus he had ever played.
With the experience of (now) exactly two games, I wonder what the “normal” or typical frequency is of movements of the white token during the Bridge phase. I believe this option was not exercised at all during our game, and the Provost (did I get that right?) seemed to advance two spaces every turn.
There are two rules subtleties that I failed to appreciate until about the last turn of the game, which I may have taken advantage of had I been prepared:
1. When you reach the end of a Favours track, you can take the last level again when awarded another Favour.
2. The first player to build in the castle on any turn receives a bonus Favour.
Anyway, I don’t expect this will be my last game of Caylus, but I might not get too many more with this particular complement of opponents.
5 mins setup time (and rules refresher); exactly 60 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 73. Alex: 55. Paul: 51. Brad: 35.

Attika: The other guys played this twice in the time we played Caylus once.
Apparently Andrew beat Richard and Brian both times.
Note: The fish in the picture are inlaid into Brian’s table, and are not part of the game. Seems a shame that they couldn’t have been worked in somehow…

Clans: The same guys played Clans, in 18 minutes flat.
Results: Andrew: 47. Brian: 42. Richard: 41.

Tichu: Only played 2 hands as a filler. Much carrying on at the start again over the arrangement of partners. Because of my insistence that Pat and Alex should not be allowed to team, I was left to explain myself again as to why I would insult Brad by not wanting to be his partner…
Let me state again for the record, you manipulative buggers: Any insult to Brad would be that he would be stuck with me, not the other way around.
Honest.
Anyway, by random card draw (the second attempt!), Pat and I were teamed against Brad and Al. On Tichu calls in both hands Alex went out first for 150 and 145 points respectively, beating Pat and me for a total of 295 to 105.
22 minutes.

Bohnanza: Plantin’ them bean fields.
Well, I don’t know what the winning strategy is for this, but obviously I don’t have it. Manipulative trading? Could be - that would be consistent with Pat and Alex having the two highest scores. Third beanfield? Apparently not - neither Alex nor Pat invested in this. Only Richard and Brian bought one they ended up 3rd and 4th respectively. Focus on rarer beans: I don’t think so - only Richard seemed to take this strategy. Good fortune on card draws: Almost certainly a factor!
43 minutes.
Results: Pat: 14. Al: 14. Richard: 12. Brian: 11. Brad: 11. Paul: 9. Pat nudges out Alex on a tie break for most cards left in the hand (2 vs. 3).

(A continuation from the previous entry…)

Blue Moon City: Another new(-ish) Euro title good to get one’s hands on, if for no reason other than to satisfy the curiosity evoked by the attractive banner ads for this that appear frequently on BoardGameGeek. This attractiveness is also reflected in the building tiles, cards and little plastic dragons. The artwork reminded me of a blend of Leonardo Da Vinci drawings and images from the film Fantastic Planet, a surreal animated French feature from the early 1970s (see La Planete Sauvage on imdb, but no-one seemed to know what I was talking about on the night).
Although absorbing the back story and the relevance of the various races in the cards would add to one’s experience, none of this is necessary to play. I told Alex (who didn’t play this) that I thought this was a very much an “Alex game”, and he said that in fact he had Blue Moon, apparently the card game prequel to BM City.
As play progressed it seemed that everyone else again was gaining at a faster rate than me, in the form of crystal collection. But eventually they began to flow, and at one point Pat warned me against investing all of my card plays and building cubes in the one place - better to be part of the action contributed to by everyone else than trying to work building spaces just on your own. So I took his advice and expanded into more building tiles, but soon found myself drawn back to finish off previous buildings I had started. With dragon scales also amassing and paying off, it wasn’t long before I was drowning in crystals, even though my hand was depleted of cards. At one point I was in credit to an empty bank by 11 crystals…
After Pat’s first placement in the obelisk, I got my first in. Two turns later (with the benefit of a special card) and Pat had another two - one more would give him the game. My next three turns therefore were used entirely on spending crystals for obelisk cubes, and to my relief I played my fourth one turn ahead of Pat.
A final assessment then: This plays quite nicely, although seems a bit on the short side. I wonder why Reiner didn’t make the obelisk bigger and have the target say 40 points of crystals/cubes rather than just the first with 4?
About 14 mins rules explan, 43 mins game time.

Results: Paul: 4. Pat: 3. Nick: 2. Brian: 0.

Ra: The game played at the other table.
73 mins start to finish.
Results: Brad: 46. Jeff: 39. Richard: 29. Alex: 23. Andrew: 18.

Inkognito: There’s already been one movie reference for tonight, but here’s another two: Amadeus, and Eyes Wide Shut. Both of these came to mind on seeing the little masqued figures and the ball-based movement “nun”.
This is a neat little deduction game, certainly enhanced by the components which are simply expensive gimmicks, but the interesting difference is the teams aspect. Your objective is to discover who your team mate is, then accomplish your combined mission, which is typically about moving one of your pieces to a particular board location. Use of the Ambassador piece helps you narrow down information about other players much more quickly, although I think I got to use this once only while Pat positioned himself to use it over and over again! Eventually Nick figured out I was his partner (before me), and was able to provide his body type. This allowed me to manoevour him right next to our joint objective for him to complete on his next turn.
16 mins rules explan, 60 mins game time.
Results: Nick + Paul triumph over Pat + Brian.

Tichu: Andrew left a sharp 4 for several rounds of Tichu. Blows were cunningly avoided by making sure that Alex and Richard were on opposing teams.
Approx 50 mins game time.
Results: Richard + Jeff: 550. Al + Brad: 50.

Kathai: A curious little trading/economic card game, with a rules set so inscrutable we had to revisit it several times to be convinced that we were playing it correctly. We think we only got it right on the third run through, although the only difference was that we recycled traded cards rather than discarding them, with the effect that it simply made the game go a bit longer.
There were a few sources of confusion, but the main one concerned the playing of the blocking card, that simply swapped the positions (and payouts) of two adjacent commodities. This seemed largely pointless and a waste of card, since with five of us playing the chance of that commodity remaining unsold for a whole turn was not high enough to justify the cost.
Despite the general wierdness of and difficulty with the rules, I thought this played quite well as a short filler and source of amusement (”silk” became “towels”, and even “bandages” at one point), and it deserves at least another run before it gets relegated to the back shelf corners or the trade pile.
7 mins rules explan; 18, 14, 18 mins respectively for three hands.

Results: Game 1: Paul: 13. Jeff: 11. Brian, Alex, Pat: 8.
Game 2: Brian: 14. Alex: 13. Pat, Jeff: 10. Paul: 9.
Game 3: Pat: 18. Brian: 14. Paul, Alex: 13. Jeff: 9.

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Brad, Pat, Brian, Andrew, Richard, Alex, Jeff, Nick, Paul.
Played: Carcassonne, Humm Bug, Thurn and Taxis, Fresh Fish, Blue Moon City, Ra, Inkognito, Tichu, Kathai.

I decided to start subtitling my entries for the questionable benefit of anyone following this through a feed.
This week saw a big turnout - nine of us, just to make game selection an even more frought task than usual. In fact, with one exception (Humm Bug; see below), this wasn’t the case at all, and there was little if any controversy or down-time between games.
This week also saw the addition of Nick S. to the roll call of Sunday nighters. Plus, he even brought some new games over with him. Nick is a former Thursday night regular at Pat’s PGA (soon to be SIGA), and is generally credited as being responsible for the introduction of modern Euro games to the shelves of Dymock’s in the city.
Pictures: With the exception of Kathia, pics this week are by Brad and the return of his excellent contributions (click on ‘em!) is also welcomed.

Carcassonne: Brad, Pat and Brian got into this early while everyone else was still on their way. A sound whipping for Pat and Brad in about 20 mins.
Results: Brian: 103. Pat: 89. Brad: 87.

Humm Bug: The air was heavy with the threat of vetoes for this one, but the momentum was too great and the bill was finally passed (three metaphors mixed in one sentence - well done).
Teams of two (except for Andrew, Alex and me) were formed simply by seating positions. Fun, and yet slightly painful at the same time. The Richard + Jeff team were devastatingly effective, and won our reduced and simplified version of the rules, partly made-up as we went along, in 13 minutes flat.
We then split up into two groups, one of four and another of five players…

Thurn and Taxis: Always good to get a crack at something new and popular in the Euro universe, especially when it’s your first playing of the most recent Spiel des Jahre winner. Pat explained the rules and the whole thing seemed straightforward; I figured I could get up to speed in this quite quickly. Sure enough, a few turns in and I felt I was at least doing no worse than anyone else. Despite some early reservations that it would be difficult to construct mail routes, these came quite easily at first. In fact, I became the first player to achieve a six-town route, and gained a three-point bonus token as a result.
Of course, things became more difficult as the game got older, and certainly not helped by Pat’s frequent scrapping of the town cards on display. On at least two occasions this ruined my well-forming plans for growing routes, while Nick (to my left) appeared not to be impacted at all, and eventually triggered the game-ending 7-long route.
Although I ended up with two tokens for 6-long routes (for a total of 4 points), and the equal lowest number of “houses” (are these post offices, or mail drop points..?) I got no completed region tokens at all, and by a single turn failed to make a house in every region. As a result, my score was woefully behind everyone else’s, even though I didn’t think I played that badly. Obviously more focus is needed or getting those region score chips…
Although there are player interactions, they seem a bit thin to me, and so this feels more like a four-player solitaire or race. Perhaps with more practice I’ll pay attention to the actions of other players and adjust my choices accordingly. And although it wouldn’t have been my pick for game of the year, I can see why it won Spiel des Jahre. I look forward to playing it again soon.
15 minutes rules; 50 minutes playing time.

Results: Nick: 25. Pat: 16. Brian: 11. Paul: 7.

Fresh Fish: Run simultaneously with Thurn and Taxis. Approx. 85 minutes rules and game play.
Results (lower is better): Alex: 3. Richard: 14 (2nd on tie break). Brad: 14. Jeff: 17. Andrew: 32. What happened? “I got hosed!”

(more to come…)