The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Alex, Brian, Brad, Euhan, Neil M., Pat, Richard, Paul.
Played: M, Siena, Indonesia, Trendy, Chwech, Corsari.

I like getting in at least one meaty game on a Sunday night, and tonight there were two running simultaneously. If I could have divided my attention between them I would have happily played both.
Fillers on either side and in between, the first being Carcassonne between Brad and my 5yr-old, although not formally recorded. I will reveal that we played with a cut-down set (about a dozen random tiles removed) and cut-down scoring (one point each for road and city segments, shields, and for the first time, cloister neighbour tiles; no farmers). The 5-yr old won, BTW.
Thanks again to Brad for the pics, which will be appearing here soon.

M: That abstract pattern-matching tile placing and removal game. A long time between plays, and the guys got one of the rules wrong at the start that nearly broke the game. However this was soon rectified and Euhan’s early dominance was borne through to the end.
7 mins rules; 25 mins game time.
Results: Euhan: 410. Alex: 260. Brad: 230. Pat: 180.

Siena: Reprise
A second helping of Siena following last weeks’ experience, with the same five players sufficiently primed to get the most out of this game.
However, I have to report that I was disappointed with my performance overall in this session. I repeated many of my mistakes from last week, and even made a few new ones. One was buying too many Banker cards early in the game - although they may have paid off eventually, due to hand limit restrictions they cut down my flexibility (or at least, perceived flexibility - I never took advantage of the simple rule that you can just discard down if required).
As a merchant I got stuck in the same rut I did last week, as did Brian, of too many turns failing to earn income, points, or pick up good cards. At the time this didn’t seem so bad since all other players also seemed to be moving slowly and not picking up Senesi cards. But while everyone else was a merchant, and eventually banker, Brad stayed a peasant and raced around the money track, even crossing into the 200s. He had no point-scoring Senesi cards, but seemed well-positioned to pick up a bus-load of points whenever he chose to cross into the banker phase. He also managed to score the two “girlfriend” cards, and happily loaded up the inn with Courtesans for the first of us bold enough to cross the banker line. This was Alex, who bit the bullet for $80 to be the first around the city circle. In retrospect a good move.
By the time I moved up to the banker track it was probably too late already, and even worse for Brian who was one turn behind. Critically, I ended up with no tokens in the tower. My last turn ended in the inn, and despite the justified protests from Pat I put another artist work up for auction. The thinking was that unless this was a good card (ie., better than 3) then Brad wouldn’t bother bidding very high on it and I would scrape in a few extra points. It turned out to be a 6, which of course he was going to take and therefore move himself from 3rd to equal 2nd position overall. Damn.
3 mins rules and setup; 130 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 53. Pat (blue): 49. Brad (red): 49. Paul (orange): 40. Brian (green): 35.
Ratings: Pat rates 5 or 6 for gameplay, but theme pushes it to 7. Paul: 7. Brian and Alex: 7.5. Brad: 6.5.

Indonesia: A mere fifteen minutes into this game, Richard declared with much head-shaking that he had lost already - a 3p game and he had no crucial shipping capacity. Based on the layout of the board at this point - Neil in a strong position with one or more shipping companies - Brad predicted that Neil would win. You should go in Neil’s Rugby World Cup tipping competition, Brad. With predictions like that, I stand to win even more GG…
Later, Euhan was heard to declare, “I have an eviler plan…”. In response to quizzical looks, Richard made the point that “grammar is the loser at this table”.
23 mins rules and setup; 145 mins game time.
Results: Euhan: 1596. Richard: 903. Neil M: 701.

Trendy: A fashionable filler while waiting for the Indonesians to finish up. We played the fast-draw variant: After playing your card, you must draw your replacement before the next player plays their’s otherwise you have to play one card down for the rest of the hand.
This is such dumb game (unless you’re winning).
About 25 mins.
Brad: 115. Pat: 106. Alex: 105. Brian: 93. Paul: 81.

Sex and the Simpsons
Chwech is the Welsh word for six and is David Parlett’s alternative name for the game he originally called Sex (Latin for six; apparently changed to avoid unsavory associations).
A trick-taking game with a difference designed specifically for 6 players, the basic rules can be found online here: www.davidparlett.co.uk/oricards/chwech.html. We also play a misere rule that I suspect was in Parlett’s original game, but now left out of the current version. However, we also play a house rule variation on this that a misere player only scores a maximum of 8x the number of cards played.
Anyway, I insisted we use my Homer Simpson novelty cards, which are about 2-3 times the size of normal cards. While every one seemed to enjoy playing with them at first, I was outvoted on the issue of retaining them for the remainder of the game. So from the second hand onwards we had to use a regular size deck. Doh !
7 mins rules rehash; 48 mins game time.
Pat: 351. Richard: 315. Alex: 299. Paul: 278. Euhan: 254. Brian: 239.
Alex did a quick calculation using the “original” (more generous) misere rules, and found that the resulting position order wasn’t changed by this scoring method.

Corsari: Aarrgh, set ye sail as soon as ye scurvy dogs can…
3 mins rules rehash; 49 mins game time.
Results: Alex (winner): 47. Pat and Paul : 110.

Venue: Richard’s place.
Present: Alex, Andrew, Brian, Brad, Euhan, Neil F., Pat, Richard, Paul.
Played: Anagram, Runes, Coda, Fische Fluppen Frikadellen, Blue Moon City, Siena, Mississippi Queen.

A return to the more swollen numbers of recent gaming tonight, with nine participants. Thanks again to Brad for the pics.

Anagram: A word game filler. Draw a letter tile and try to add it to others already on the table to make four (or more) - letter words.
Less then 20 mins.
Results: Brad: 130. Pat: 121. Alex: 103.
So what would you rate it (out of 10)? Brad: for a word game: High; 8. Otherwise overall, 4.

Runes: Another word game started up at the other end of the table. In this one letters are made from combinations of four varieties of stick shapes: A large curve (as found in C,D,G,O and Q); a small curve (as in B,J,P,R,S,U); a short straight (A,E,F, etc.); and a long straight (about 3/4 of the alphabet).
Players think of a five-letter word, and in turn make successive guesses at any of their opponents’ letter elements until they guess wrong, earning one point for every correct guess. The first player to correctly guess an opponent’s word while on a score of 25 points or more is the winner.
Example words in play: Paul: SLEET. Brian: CLONE. Andrew: ONION. Euhan: PRICK. Richard: LAKSA (about which there was protesting…).
About 25 mins.
Richard: 39. Paul: 23. Euhan: 19. Andrew: 16. Brian: -1.
Rating: I’d give it a 6/10.

Coda: Another filler for the non-eaters while the rest of us feasted.
Neil F., Brad, Pat, Alex. Neil F. won.

Fishe Fluppen Frikadellen: Overheads
Fresh in peoples’ minds from last week, this was rolled out again but with 9 players this time - five starters on one board and four on the other. There was general agreement that the game went too short last week, so we made an instant house rule that all players had to change boards twice - once each in order to collect their second and third fetishes.
The play was hectic with much pussage. I felt that I had played a lot better in this game compared to last week, taking advantage of favourable prices and trades to give me a much stronger financial position. But this wasn’t reflected in the game results, where I apparently finished in the bottom third of players.
The outcome again was therefore rather anticlimactic. Significantly, it was also all over in what seemed too short a time - less than an hour. With nearly half an hour spent beforehand going over the rules and preparing the boards, and what seemed like almost as long sorting and packing away, the sheer overhead required for playing this game makes the whole experience a marginal one given the reward in the gameplay itself. As I said last week, I’d be happy if this one came out only once per 12-18 months.
25 mins rules and set up; 53 mins game time.
Alex: First with 3 fetishes. Pat, Brad, Neil F, Andrew and Richard all on two, with apparently Brad and Pat both 1- 2 turns away. Brian, Euhan and I were still on one fetish.
My rating on BGG is 5/10 for this.

Blue Moon City: The games night then split into two, with Siena on one table and BMC on the other.
A new game to Andrew, Euhan and Neil F., who rated it a 6,7 and 7 respectively.
~20 mins rules; ~40 mins game time.
Results: Andrew (blue): 4. Euhan (white): 3. Richard (purple): 2. Neil F (grey): 2.

Siena: Rich peasants, poor bankers
Pat had been lugging this one in his games bag for weeks now, and it had been tempting me for some time. The opportunity finally arose tonight, and with little resistance the suggestion of Siena was ratified and the box opened (several times in fact - this one has a reproducible and robust box-fart).
Siena has a mixed reputation, and it’s certainly true that on the first playing or so that it comes over as kind of strange. It has much “chrome” - those quirky, individualised rules that apply to certain cards or spaces on the board. To ease some of the quirky rules burden, Pat has produced a player aid using Excel, a task that apparently took him five hours to get right.
I prefer to think of Siena as “richly themed”, and the designer is to be applauded for making such an original game concept work as well as it does. Although I’ve played this only about 3 times is the past 12 months or so, I’ve always enjoyed it, possibly more with each playing.
Unless you’re miles in the lead or way behind, it’s difficult to know how well you’re doing compared to your opponents, and this was certainly true in this instance. After an inscrutable first few turns, I thought I was actually doing quite well in the Peasant phase. This carried through to the Merchant phase, which I jumped into quickly after Pat had crossed over. I got a good result from spice sales - one each turn for a brief period - and my Senesi card collection began to grow. Unfortunately these were mostly “1″s, but I ended up with a couple of “4″s in there too.
Then things ground to a halt, with action on the spice track either shutting down completely, or all the goodness being creamed off by Brian and Pat to leave me nothing for several turns in a row. Brad may have crossed over into Banker phase by this time, while Alex stayed a Peasant (an increasingly rich one), but wasn’t contributing to the spice track. Once both Pat and Brad were on the Banker circuit, I too made the leap on the first opportunity I could, eschewing another shot at a Senesi card in favour of the chance at maybe two contributions to the tower before the game ended. In fact, I only ever got to place one token in the tower.
Brian jumped into the Banker track not long after me, but Alex held his ground as a Peasant for as long as he could, monopolising the outputs of peasant income, and growing his wealth far in excess of anyone else’s - it seemed that he was in the range of 100-180 for much of the game. I think it was only when Brian hopped from Merchant to Banker that Alex decided to promote himself, and then he also moved into Banker almost immediately. As he picked off more Senesi and Artist cards, then finished off the tower, I thought he might have caught as all by surprise and jumped right into the winning position. Almost - this honour was retained instead by Pat, whose experience and familiarity with Siena gave him the edge. Al remarked later that he may have mis-timed his promotion by one turn (ie., too late).
Still, it was rewarding that the final scores were quite close, and for me at least this was a satisfying game experience overall.
28 mins rules and setup; 140 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 51. Alex (yellow): 49. Paul (orange): 47. Brian (green): 43. Brad (red): 39.
My rating: 7/10.

Mississippi Queen: Andrew had left the remaining three to this after BMC, while Siena continued in the background.
“Close game,” was the report from Richard.
10 mins rules and setup; 45 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 8. Euhan: 7. Neil F: 6.

Venue: Pat’s place.
Present: Alex, Richard, Brian, Brad, Pat, Paul.
Played: Hamsterrolle, Coda, Black Death, Fische Fluppen Frikadellen, Scream Machine, Ave Caesar.

Thanks to Brad for the return of the pics! The site was starting to suffer…!

Hamsterrolle: This was in progress when Richard, Brian and I arrived, so Pat left his place to Brian while he gave Richard and I a tour of the house.
Don’t know the results of the game, but I’m guessing that Alex won…

Coda: Nice pic.
Alex won. Brad and Brian also played.

Black Death: A pox on all your houses…
This was an unusual little game brought by Brad, entirely compressible into an A4-size ziplock bag. “This will be the first time this has been played in Australia…”, said Pat. I looked at him with a quizzical frown, as if to say “really?”, with some gullibility.
But he just shrugged and said, “I don’t know, but it’ll make a good point for the blog.”
In Black Death each player assumes the role of some disease (not necessarily the plague, btw), spreading itself across the populations of Europe. Before starting each player makes a decision as to what virulence/mortality configuration they want for their germs. This is simply a two-digit combination that adds up to 6, eg., 5/1, 4/2, etc. The Virulence number is an indication of how likely your disease will spread successfully to neighbouring cities. Mortality is an indicator of how many people with your disease are likely to die at the end of your turn. The resulting number of deaths is both a con - some of your pieces are removed from the board, and a pro - this number is converted directly into victory points, represented on a chart cutely labelled “Millions Served”.
There are five possible combinations of digits that add up to six: 1/5, 2/4, 3/3, 4/2, 5/1. Each of these was selected by at least one player, with Brian and Brad doubling up on the 3/3 combo.
Alex was the deadly but slow-spreading 1/5, and he struggled comically to gain a sustainable critical mass. Just as he’d make a nice spread of his own brand of pox, his mortality die roll would take out a significant chunk of his infected population counters. This was ok for small points gains from time-to-time, but for much of the game he was stuck on a risky one- or two-token presence.
At the other end of the scale was the highly virulent but low mortality 5/1 disease of Pat. This was also rather funny, as he’d spread himself quite successfully across the board, often replacing opponents’ tokens as he went but seldom claiming the lives of his infected populace. On at least one occasion some of his infected became cured, meaning a loss of tokens frorn the board with no corresponding points gain. Curiously, although Pat’s score was consistently the lowest of all of us, he was regarded as the biggest threat simply because of the aggressive nature of his expansion strategy. We called him the common cold, but suggested later that jock-itch or thrush might be a more accurate (and appropriately insulting) description.
Richard and I occupied the sub-extreme configs of 2/4 and 4/2 respectively, and both of us struggled to climb the score chart for reasons similar, but less severe than those of Alex and Pat. I thought of my disease as a nasty flu, and Richard’s as syphilis (for respectability reasons only :-).
Brian and Brad were the 3/3 diseases that proved to have the most successful combination of virulence and mortality (at least, for a six player game), and therefore were probably the most representative of bubonic plague. Despite being under the most pressure from Pat’s expansion, they both held their ground well and kept the body count ticking over - Brad more consistently, but Brian with a few major gains that were sufficient to get him first over the 10 point threshold.
Apparently a standard game runs to 30 points (”millions served”); we decided that 10 was enough. It was noted that that final points positions reflected a clear pattern with the virulence/mortality config chosen at the start: The 3/3s were the most successful, then in order 2/4, 4/2, 1/5, 5/1.
20 mins rules; 65 mins game time.
Brian: 10. Brad: 9. Richard: 8. Paul: 7. Alex: 5. Pat: 4.

Fishe Fluppen Frikadellen: Funny finance for fetishes
A Friedemann curiosity that rarely comes out - in fact, other than Pat I think none of us had played this before. The premise is quite simple - move around a board, visit merchants to buy and sell goods, trade up and collect sets, then trade in sets to collect victory tokens (”fetishes”). Basically your buy-low-sell-high style of economic game.
Apart from the trademark FF artwork by Maura Kalusky, the gimmick is that this game is apparently best played on multiple boards using two (or even three) sets of the game. You can change boards by moving your token to the harbour dock space, and in fact you need to do this at least once during the game in order to collect your three fetishes.
We played two tables of three, although this soon became a 2/4 split when I changed tables after being the first to collect two fetishes. Five minutes later Richard restored the balance by moving tables back to my original spot, and in another five minutes (or less) was able to claim victory with his third fetish.
There was some call to replay immediately, given that we all now had the hang of the game. But not all of us were so enthusiastic. Would I play this again? Of course - variety is always good, but I can’t see it being a first pick more than about once every 12-18 months. Sorry Friedemann, but Funkenschlag wins out for me.
65 mins incl. rules and setup.
Richard won with 3 fetishes; Paul, Brian and Brad sitting on 2; Alex about to collect his second; Pat still on one.

Scream Machine: Aaarrgh!
Sorry- the description here is rather more prosaic than the heading above might imply. Players are fairground and fun-park managers, attempting to lure customers to their particular combination of exhibits. Exhibit cards have a value of 1, 3, or 5, and an icon to indicate their type (eg., thrill rides, water, childrens’, vintage, food, etc.). New customer cards appear each round, carrying one of those icons to indicate what exhibit type they’re interested in. Some customers are ‘local’, in that they are dealt out to the spaces between each adjacent pair of players (as opposed to being ‘common’ and accessible by all players). After all players have had one round of gaining new attraction cards and building, the customers are allocated to those players with the highest value of their attraction type. Each allocated customer is worth one point on the vp track.
There is one unique customer type called the ‘cheapskate’, who goes to the player with the lowest overall value of attractions. Alex called this ‘Piss Weak World’, and succeeded in capturing this market a few times…
The game worked well from my point of view - I held the lead by a four or five point margin for much of the game! But this collapsed almost completely when competition from Brad and Richard cut my customers to a single point in the final turn. However, all players are largely at the mercy of the attraction cards that become available at the start of their turn, so luck is not an insignificant factor in this game.
12 mins rules; 37 mins game time.
Results: Paul (white): 26. Pat (blue): 25. Richard (red): 23. Alex (yellow): 22. Brian (green): 12. Brad (black): 11.

Ave Caesar: Our previous playings of Ave Caesar have been with Richard’s copy, but tonight we used Pat’s newer edition from Asmodee. The plastic pieces seem to be as good as, or the same as the original, although the board is smaller (to fit within a more ’standard’ Eurogame box size) and the artwork is arguably nicer.
One minor drawback is that the racetrack itself is slightly less aesthetically appealing than the original, with a stream running through some of the spaces (this could have been aligned with an edge), and board fold-cuts in the middle of others that from a distance appear to be extra space divisions. The overhead loop on the track seems to be a clever idea in theory, but this too led to some confusion albeit easily resolved.
We played our usual ‘whipping’ variant: when blocked by an opponent immediately in front you can play a “1″ to whip them from behind and change places with them. This is particularly funny when the whipped player reciprocates on their next turn, and even better when the reciprocatee counter-reciprocates! We also added a board-specific house rule, being that if you play a six that carries you over the stream, you die!
Anyway Brad finished first, then Alex then Richard then Pat. Brian played a 6 over the stream and died, and I was blocked from the Ave Caesar track on both laps and therefore became ineligible for a win - a euphemism for being lined up on Caesar’s special decapitation bench.
7 mins rules and setup; game time not recorded but less than 30 mins.

Venue: Pat’s place.
Present: Alex, Euhan, Neil M., Brian, Nick, Pat, Paul.
Played: Crokinole, Escalation, Hazienda, Clash of the Gladiators, Industrial Waste, Evo, Hey! That’s My Fish, Clue (the card game).

No special occasion to mark tonight, except that it was the first Sunday night session to be held at Pat’s new St. Ives Gaming Arena.
No Brad this week, unfortunately, so no nice pictures. I should have taken some with the Nokia but neglected to, so a rare text-only entry this week.

Crokinole: This was in progress when I arrived, so Pat graciously moved aside to let me play in his place, teamed with Euhan against Alex and Brian. I think we played a total of three or four “ends” before calling it, as the other arrivals began showing up.
By the penultimate “end”, Alex and Brian had us on the ropes, but my hand-eye coordination (and luck) finally kicked in, and we came home strong with about a net 4 or 5 disks left on the table and therefore a victory.
Paul (+ Pat) + Euhan: 50.
Alex + Brian: 35.

Escalation: A filler cardgame with overtones of Frank’s Zoo and Knizia’s Poison, but themed around neighbours increasingly heavily armed with various gardening implements through to deadly weapons.
Play a higher-valued set than your neighbour before you, or eat as negative points all of the cards previously played in the current round. Unfortunately I was the hungry bunny in the killer escalation round…
3 mins rules; 6 mins game time.
Results (less is better): Alex: 1. Nick: 5. Pat: 6. Euhan: 7. Brian: 8.

Hazienda: With Neil M.’s arrival we then split into a four-group and a three-group, with the latter choosing the Argentinian cattle industry.
14 minutes rules; 70 minutes game time.
Results: Euhan (yellow): 180. Brian (black): 151. Neil M. (green): 150.

Clash of the Gladiators, von Reiner Knizia, was Nick’s suggestion, and although I was dubious, it was another title I had never played before so I was happy to give it a go.
This was a strange game, but seemed to hold the theme pretty well. A little too well, actually - the sense of mass carnage in the gladiatorial arena was pervasive, and despite the careful selection process for your various teams’ skills, one quickly learned that there was no point in forming any kind of emotional bond to your any of your chosen characters.
For the first half of the game the gods of dice rolls actually looked down favourably upon me, and I claimed a good share of opponents’ heads. But in the second half their usual attitude of disdain returned and my prior successes stagnated.
14 mins rules; 68 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 24. Pat (blue): 16. Paul (green): 15. Nick (red): 9.

Evo: A bit of table shuffling after Nick left saw this selection emerge on one table, with one player (Alex) sufficiently experienced and the other two as newbies. The results show that this was clearly a game for newbies this time.
84 mins total.
Results: Neil M. (green): 49. Euhan (yellow): 35. Alex (pink): 32.

Industrial Waste: Keep it green
Brian proposed this one and it wasn’t too hard for both Pat and I to agree.
Early in the game I had decided on a particular strategy and pretty much stuck to it. This was to keep the orders turning over and focus innovations on one track at a time, starting with waste minimisation. This kind of worked, but the timing of available cards appearing was just a bit below optimal. I picked up more resource generation cards than I really needed, and I struggled to lay claim to the apparently rare innovation cards - Pat seemed to nab these faster than anyone else.
Brian pushed along quite well, the main differences being that he had managed to get his labour costs down, but his accumulated waste levels were quite high. I managed to hold mine in the green levels for the whole game and I think the same could be true of Pat. Unfortunately Brian’s hit the yellow, and even the red levels at exactly the wrong moment - the “accident”! As a result he suffered heavy penalties on his cash reserves and future productivity.
The game finally came down to who had to pay the least taxes in the last turn, which Pat scraped in.
60 mins total, incl rules.
Results: Pat (blue): 61. Paul (green): 60. Brian (yellow): 37.

Hey! That’s My Fish: 2 quick rounds of “penguin chess”. I obviously have a lot to learn in this one.
4 mins rules; 8 mins for two games.
1. Pat: 33. Brian: 30. Paul: 26. 2. Pat: 38. Brian: 35. Paul: 27.

Clue (the card game): A little bit of deductive reasoning to tie off the night. This played out quite nicely, except that 4 of my 6 dealt cards were locations, and on about the second round Pat hit me with a “show me all your locations” action card. No doubt this help set him up for the win a good two or three rounds ahead of everyone else.
10 mins rules; 25 mins game time.
Results: Pat won.

Brian writes:

Attendees:
Alex, Brad, Ken, Richard, Neil F, Neil M, Brian

Carcassonne the Discovery
Alex, Yellow: 92
Brad, Black: 88
Ken, Red: 51

Caylus
Ken, Red: 72
Brian, Orange: 72
Neil F, Blue: 51
Neil M, Green: 47
Since this was the first playing for Ken, Neil F and Neil M, Brian ceded victory in the tie to Ken (or Sir Ken, as he should be known from now on)

Bohnaparte
I don’t know colors or results
Richard, Alex, Brad

Simpsons Slam Dunk
I don’t know colors or results
Richard, Alex, Brad

KuhHandel
Neil M: 5640
Brian: 2300
Neil F: 1000
Richard: 970