The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Pat, Brian, Alex, Jeff, Paul.
Played: Geschenkt, Fairy Tale, Das Zepter von Zavandor, Evo, Amazing Flea Circus.

A very intimate session tonight with only five players out of the usual 10 or so. Time to get some serious game action in…

Geschenkt: I don’t think I’ve ever actually played this until tonight, including the English language version No Thanks. This turned out to be a far more entertaining little filler than I anticipated. Certainly some of the more subtle strategy points I didn’t get until near or after the end, so I’d like another go at this to redeem myself…!
3 hands; 22 mins incl. rules explan.
Results (lower is better): Alex: 84. Pat: 95. Brian: 103. Jeff: 104. Paul: 128.

Fairy Tale: This is the current standard fare for the non-eaters while the rest of us take care of sustenance requirements.
15 mins.
Pat: 53. Alex: 46. Jeff: 44.

Das Zepter von Zavandor: Dismal von Zavandor
A long one, but works well with five players so we all jumped in enthusiastically. The first several turns were typical magic-engine-building, with no or few card purchases and everyone grouped within one or two points on the score chart. It wasn’t long, however, before Alex started pulling away quite significantly. I don’t know what triggered this - whether he just grew his investment in opals or he scored himself the right card purchase early. But he just went for it after that, unfazed by the handicap on the leader’s card purchases after breaking the 10 barrier.
I was ok with the idea of hanging towards the back of the score track with Pat for a while, expecting my position to jump later as my engine built up. Although Alex seemed to be flying away in front, I was still comfortable with my relative position, until suddenly people were bidding on the sentinels way earlier than I was expecting. It was probably a panic reaction, but I felt I had to get in on this too or be left behind. My timing and bids ended being all wrong as I competed with Jeff for the Unicorn, thinking this was the only one likely to be any value because of my growing investment in diamonds. I ended up bidding too much for it, despite significant discounts. In fact, in hindsight, I should have let him buy that one while I instead should have gone for the Owl (which he eventually took rather cheaply).
Another mistake was my pattern of expenditure in turns where I had a ‘lumpy’ income. With no cards that gave me any boost to hand limit, I had to spend, and ended up planting a token in the pentagon rather late in the game. I compounded this error by buying a Cloak artefact later instead of a Talisman - the latter would have helped me complete another knowledge level and provided more points, while the former just gave me a second useless token in the pentagon. I was not going to get another opportunity to use its discount power for further sentinels.
I haven’t even mentioned yet another mistake of failing to take the bonus +2 dust with every concentrated energy tile, but nearly all of us forgot this rule too. I made yet another by failing to take a further 15 discount off my Cloak purchase (I should have bought this for 50), but this was something I realized only after the game was long over.
So my final score highlights fairly a pretty dismal playing of Zepter; probably the worst game I’ve ever had of this. Pat too was disappointed with his performance, although an email from him yesterday indicates that he’s ready to re-try his rubies strategy at the next reasonable opportunity. Bring it on - I need to make amends too!
Final sentinel counts were me with the Unicorn (points boost from diamonds); Pat with the Salamander (for rubies); Jeff with the Owl (knowledge levels) and the Toad (special artefact cards); Brian with the Fox (sapphires) and the Scarab (emeralds); and Alex with the Raven (special artefact cards) and the Tomcat (opals).
10 mins setup and rules refresher; 147 mins game time (as Pat observed, consistently half an hour per player).
Results: Alex (yellow): 73. Brian (red): 65. Jeff (green): 59. Pat (blue): 58. Paul (white): 47.

Evo: Triassic chaos
Haven’t played this one for ages, so although it wouldn’t have been my pick for the second big game of the night, I was quite happy to see this one opened. After the first turn I was feeling pretty good, having snared the parasite, or whatever the gene is called that gives you a one-space discount on all future gene purchases. However, somehow after just two or three turns I was slipping further and further behind everyone else on the score track. It might have been about then that Jeff played his Deluge card, wiping out one of Brian’s critters and two of mine. I know - we were warned at the start of the game that this could have been a possibility at any time from turn two onwards. That doesn’t make it any easier to swallow a dice roll having such a significant impact on one’s relative position!
The game pressed on with fierce competition for legs and especially horns. In spite of this, however, the amount of inter-player conflict was not as high as it might have been. I got myself a horn, but never got the chance to use it - the one turn that I was compelled to push into other players’ spaces, another Jeff card play stymied me again - no attacks! My investment in egg-laying also amounted to nought, as the extra births would die anyway. As for card plays, I had one that was any benefit (took out one of Jeff’s critters halfway through the game), but none of the others provided any help.
So by about 2/3rds of the way through the game, I was keen for that meteor to hit as soon as possible and end the misery.
In retrospect I made some not-so-good decisions, especially on the gene auction chart. But it seems that with 5 players, play is so chaotic that your destiny is not that well under your control.
15 mins rules and setup; 76 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 33. Jeff (green): 32. Alex (yellow): 30. Brian (pink): 25. Paul (brown): 21.

Reiner Knizia’s Amazing Flea Circus: Something light and new that we picked up at a local shopping centre book sale, although Pat said later that it was a re-do of something called Feuerschlucker - Fire Breather.
Really simple card play, point scoring and stealing, with the gimmick being that points are represented by little rubbery plastic dogs and cats.
This is certainly not one of the good Dr.’s more inspired creations, and I can’t see it ever coming to this group’s game table again. “Played it, trade it” was Pat’s summation, but I expect we’ll hold onto for a while for use with kids…
5 mins rules; 20 mins for two plays.
I should have won the first with 16 points, although technically Pat did. In the second game 3 of us shared victory on 17 points.

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Pat, Rick D, Paul
Played: Through the Ages.

Through the Ages: A rare mid-week opportunity saw Pat and Rick visit, the former with the latest civilization development epic tucked under his arm. In fact, I was to learn afterwards that TtA was inspired by the original Sid Meier’s Civilization game for the PC, something I ‘wasted’ many many hours, even days on, during the early 90s. Some of these memories actually came wafting back when the Hammurabi leader card appeared, but the connection was only confirmed by Pat after we’d finished the game.
The rules explan and setup was long at one hour, but this included frequent interruptions, clarifications and examples, and the need to read a bedtime story to a five year old!
For the record, we played with the Advanced rules rather than the Full game. Once we got going the three of us seemed to move forward at about the same pace, with the card draws providing considerable variability in plays. Pat did then begin to nudge ahead, probably due to his early investment in farm and mining upgrades, and at least one successful act of aggression.
After about half an hour I remarked that I felt like I was just ’standing still’ in terms of developing my civilization, and Rick indicated that he felt the same. But it was very soon after that I completed my Wonder (the Pyramids), then spent basically a whole turn’s actions increasing my mining output, with the real goal of eventually pushing up the light globes! I felt that I did achieve some modest success with this strategy, although looking at the final scores in hindsight, perhaps this was not the best way to focus my actions. For almost the whole game I pretty much ignored building up military strength, and suffered for this a few times. First, as I was the weaker player militarily, I became the natural target for aggression actions. Second, there were also a number of events that produced results that benefited the stronger players over me. It is worth pointing out that some of Rick’s aggression actions ended up backfiring - those Defence cards can certainly come in handy sometimes!
It seems that to play this game well you need to balance a lot of factors, including the opportunities provided by the card draws, while also trying to pay some heed to what your opponents are doing. I liken this to the vaudeville act of that guy who balances a dozen spinning dinner plates on sticks, setting up one after another then running back and forth between them to attend to the wobbly one that’s just about to fall.
While I managed with basic food production for almost the whole game, this caused me major problems in the last four or five turns that I couldn’t properly recover from in time - this was one of those plates that I neglected for too long and that eventually fell on the floor!
At the end, Pat also talked briefly about the Full game and the playing of Wars, and naturally I’d want to explore this too. But, I’d also be quite happy to play this version again (Advanced), preferrably sometime soon so that I don’t forget all of the lessons I’ve learnt from this session!
60 mins rules, setup and pre-game downtime; 170 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 115. Rick (yellow): 88. Paul (red): 83.

Venue: Richard’s place.
Present: Andrew, Pat, Brad, Brian, Neil F., Neil M., Richard, Ed, Euhan, Paul.
Played: Byzantium, Brass, Gloria Mundi, Elefant, Gloria Mundi (again), Goa, Roma, Robber Knights.

Byzantium: A somewhat special occasion tonight as we were graced with the presence of the rarely seen Ed, up in Sydney because of the opportunity provided by ‘Canberra Day’.
So Byzantium was pre-planned by Richard, leaving space at the table for another two seats, and at least 6 other people left to wait for another session!
After all the excitement, I got this pic but no gameplay results except for players’ names!
Richard, Ed, Neil x2
At least two hrs, but not more than three. Can anyone who was there remember the scores?

Gloria Mundi: Still getting it wrong, but not as badly!
Despite some reservations with this title following the setup error upon first playing, I was happy to give this one a second chance. And certainly the resulting game experience was a lot better, with more meaningful plays and card choices to make. Movement of the Goth still caused frequent carnage, but the impact of this was a little more controlled and manageable this time. That is, except for the one turn in which I forgot to factor in a double-tribute after subtracting a big building purchase, and I ended up losing two cards while my opponents suffered no losses… doh!
This wasn’t my only mistake - on another occasion I took a wall building card for the wrong resource type, again because of rules confusion (it does say first that red buildings can be built on any resource type!). But my opponents chose to let me get away with this one for the sake of game expediency - trying to roll it back would have been more trouble than it was worth.
For much of the game Pat and I leaped-frog each other on the Africa escape track, with Brad not too far off the pace. But Pat managed to score himself the building card that gives you ‘two spaces on the track if the Goth is on a peace symbol’ in lieu of a white peace token, and he just accelerated away from us. With one or two Peace cards as an insurance buffer, he was not going to lose this from a Goth rampage.
So a better game experience than our first with this, and although I’m not in any mad hurry to play it again, I would if the gods so ordained.
20 mins rules and setup; 72 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 38. Paul (green): 29. Brad (orange): 20.

Brass: Plays of this new classic can roll out in relatively quick time now that nearly all of the group is au fait with the rules.
125 mins.
Euhan (yellow): 188. Andrew (red): 163. Brian (green): 142.

Elefant: The Gloria Mundians chose something light while we waited for the Brassers to finish their game.
But I couldn’t find a groove with this one - my timing seemed to be perfectly out-of-sync with the other two, forcing me to “eat” the breakage cards at what seemed like every available opportunity!
8 mins rules and setup; 22 mins game time.
Results: Brad: 67. Pat: 63. Paul: 54.

Gloria Mundi (again): Apparently the Brassers couldn’t wait for us and launched straight into this while we were adding up the scores for Elefant!
Brian won the day as the most successful fleeing Roman noble, with Euhan close behind.
80 mins incl. rules.
Results: Brian: 38. Euhan: 35. Andrew: 21.

Goa: March of the penguins
It hasn’t been a vast chasm of time since I’d last played this, but I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy Goa.
Yet again I had resolved at the start to dig deep into the sextant card track, and I managed to scoop up some meaningful cards for a little while into the first part the game. But yet again I failed to stick to this plan, getting distracted instead by some of the other tracks. I did end up reaching the end of the shipping and the “penguin” track (the latter on the very last round of the game, which would have entitled me to at least one additional vp from a card that I forgot to take!). I did end up scoring all four colonies too, which was also rewarding in the final score tally.
Brad had a hard time with the colonies, choosing to live just too close to the edge with colonising attempts. He had at least three goes that failed, and this must account for a good part of his poor showing on the score chart.
There was further discussion at the end regarding the significance of choices and bidding in the tile array, with both Brad and Pat arguing that this part is key to the whole game. They’re probably right, but I rarely find these choices all that challenging. My pattern of play will always be to place my auction token on the tile I’d most like to win, or when I’m low on cash, the tile that I expect to get the highest price for. Perhaps this is an overly simplistic strategy and the reason why I rarely if ever win!
10 mins setup; 75 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 53. Paul (green): 45. Brad (red): 27.

Roma: Apparently not satisfied with the ancient Rome theme following Gloria Mundi, these boys broke this one open to give themselves even more hot toga action.
Times not recorded. Brian: 19. Euhan: 18.

Robber Knights: Hey you - get off my tile
Unless I’m missing a game, this one popped up with the remaining Byzantium players after Neil M. left at the conclusion of that game. Results recorded are close approximates (guesses) only:
Ed (red): ~33. Richard (green): ~28. Neil F (blue): ~26.

Although this was packed up afterwards, inclination and timing led us back after Neil F. and Brad left (after Goa). The other three (Richard, Ed and Pat) had all played Robber Knights before, and a quick rules explan was enough to get me to understand the basics of how to play. But, apparently not enough to arm me with how to play well. I reckon it was on about my last turn before I started to see some of the more clever ways to be playing tiles and tokens. Mind you, long before that stage the tile array boundaries were well-known, and these provide an additional feature to make meaningful plays around.
According to the box, one game is supposed to run for half an hour, making it a good candidate for future game session fillers. However, our session took twice that. Certainly as a newbie I contributed to some of the down-time (but not all of it!), and I can imagine, the time drag being reduced significantly with further plays. I look forward, therefore, to another play soon.
5 mins rules; 55 mins game time.
Results: Richard (yellow): 33. Ed (red): 27. Pat (blue): 26. Paul (green): 24.

Other commitments (the first One-Day International Final at the SCG, which was lost by Australia to India) saw me miss out on last Sunday’s session at Brian’s house. However, the following summary was kindly provided by Brad:

1. While people ate, there was 3 players of Dune Superlite, in order, Euhan, Pat, Brad.
2. Then there was Dune Chaos Edition, players were Brad, Al, Pat, Jeff & Euhan. Brad won, all that matters really.
3. 1 table then played Dune Depressing Midlands Version, not sure who won that, but Richard, Neil M, Andrew & Brian definitely played.
4. Pat showed Al, myself & Jeff how to play Dune Trucker & with the best creation of a sandworm yet, he is the Kwizatz Hadderach.
5. Neil F, Pat & I played Dune with Horns, in a close affair, Pat won by a point over myself, Neil bringing up the rear.
6. Al, Jeff & Brian played The Magic of Dune, no idea who held the Sceptre of Power at the end.

Pretty much covers it I think

There then followed a number of clarifications and qualifications. For the record then:

Pat: Actually Richard didn’t play Dune Depressing Midlands, he played DuneKogs with Neil. There must have been another game with Richard and Euhan and Neil and co but I forgot to look up during Dune Trucker so failed to take notice.

Andrew: Brian won DDM with a timely coal and iron blow.

Brad: The spice must flow.

Brian:
Archeology/Ancient Dune: A card game, made all that much more enjoyable by a very lucky draw of cards. Modesty prevents me from revealing how much I beat Richard by.
DDM/Brass: Neil cottoned on to the game early on, in spite of my fuzzy (and occasionally incorrect) explanation of the mechanics and rules. Andrew set his coals early, and with steely determination increased his income canal. I followed the ‘forget cotton, borrow a lot and build rails’ strategy as previously demonstrated by Mr. Blue. It was a win, but a win tainted by mistakes in my rules interpretations.
Scepter of Zavandune: Mr Yellow used his standard tactic of declaring regularly that he was not in the winning position, and subsequently advising that actions that disadvantaged the other players were for the betterment of all (why he isn’t a federal minister/state premier I don’t know). He romped home with a deserved victory that would satisfy a Wollongong developer.

Neil F: Richard, Euhan and I played Dune the Great.

Neil M: Actually, Brian and Andrew and I played DDM (aka Brass), Neil F turned up as we were setting up so Richard split off to play a game (or two) with him.
Paul, eventually you’ll get the whole story of the night from many witnesses, it’s a bit like Rashamon.

Thanks chaps. After applying some filtering, I think there’s a consistent story in there somewhere. Clearly everyone needs to be writing more session reports. Especially Brian - nice one!