Harrowed Halls

Ben is in England for the next two weeks, so it’s up to Owen, Mike and I to carry the gaming banner. This week we chose to play Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization. From the beginning I dubbed this game the most complicated card game in history, or maybe “of” history. Anyway, it’s complicated. We don’t even play the FULL game. We play the Mostly Full game called the Advanced game in the rules. (And yes, there is a level above “Advanced”.)

In the game, you must develop your civilization by selecting and playing various cards representing your population, your science, your production, and your military might. Sounds easy right? It probably is, but I don’t understand it. The way you win is by garnering the most culture points. So that’s what I concentrate on. It must have worked, because as the game progressed Mike and Owen conceded to me. This never happens. I immediately left and bought some lottery tickets.

 

But before I left, we also played a game called God Dice. The entry on Board Game Geek has a great description, so I’m including it below to describe the game:

“A strategic dice combat game that pits the 2-4 players in mortal combat with one another. Players choose from six classes consisting of Hero, Monk, Assassin, Sage, Bowman and Cleric. Players roll nonstandard six sided dice attempting to qualify for special attacks and spells. Along with this, prior to combat, the special God Dice are rolled to see which character if any has found favor. In some cases this favor can be devastating. This is a great quick game of combat with a number of interesting strategic choices for combat.”

I mopped up the table with my opponents’ puny heroes.

Again, Mike, Owen and I were left to our own devices for game night. (Ben returns from England this week sometime.) We chose to play a new game called Monuments: Wonders of Antiquity. It’s basically a card game where you build one of 12 types of monuments by collecting and playing cards. What makes this a really good game are the various options you have during your turn and during the game. It’s not just a card collecting game. You have decide on your turn whether to use one of your precious historians which will score you points later or take ands place monument cards that will enhance your various Monuments. Board Game Geek has it rated at 6.5, but I think it’s a much better game than the rating indicates. It’s also relatively quick to play.   

Owen handily beat us in both games, with Mike and I coming in around the same point total.

 

Amazingly we still had time for one more game so we broke out one of our favorite card games of all time, Ivanhoe.  Ivanhoe should be a staple in any game-playing household. Even non-gamers will like this easy to play card game. It was neck and neck as we came to the final hands of the game. In the end it was Owen who crowned me the winner. Not because he wanted to, but because of his sudden loss of all his game playing skill. He basically handed the game to me on a platter. Thanks Owen! (This will probably never happen again, so I have to harass Owen while I can.)

Teacher:Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you… and to hear the lamentation of their women! 

We got a few new games at Gencon and from ThoughtHammer.com. So in the following weeks we’ll be playing lots of new ones. This week we tried out Age of Conan: the Strategy Board Game. I like Conan. I like games with armies & waging war. The board game Conan has those and a lot more: Emissaries, sorcery, global objectives, Conan adventure cards and Fate dice. Fate dice determine just what actions are available to the players during their turn. 

The game has a lot going for it, but the 90 minute playing time it suggests has just got to be incorrect. Of course maybe the designers don’t have friends like Ben, Owen and Mike who fret over each turn like lamenting women. Don’t they understand that you must drive your enemies before you? Didn’t they read the intro? Ok, so I’m kidding a bit here. Owen, Ben and Mike are superior strategist. Since I’m not, my turns go a little faster. 

Anyway, we played for about 150 minutes and still had about a third of the game to go. We all liked the game a lot and now that we got our feet wet during the first game we are all looking forward to the next time we play.

 This week we played new game that was just released at Gencon–Deadlands: The Battle for Slaughter Gulch. It’s based upon the award winning Deadlands RPG designed by our friend Shane Hensley. Opening the box the first thing that hits you is that there are a LOT of discs, figures, cards, boards, and dice in the little box! This meant that it’s a little heavy on setup, but once you get going it moves pretty quickly (unless you’re playing Ben, Owen & Mike.) 

We had a lot fun playing it. Each player takes a Deadlands faction like Mad Scientist or Hucksters. Each faction has a bunch of discs, figures, and cards made especially for them. There are lots of different actions you can take in your bid to take over Slaughter Gulch.

On the last turn, Ben and his shamans viciously attacked my innocent mad scientists stealing away 10 victory points from me. This allowed the evil rangers, led by Mike, to win the game and take over Slaughter Gulch. I’m not bitter though and I certainly don’t hold a grudge. I DO keep a list though. And Ben’s name is on it multiple times.

Mwahahaha! Yep, that cry was heard a lot last night as we played the game of the same name.  But before we get into the game, last night was also gift night. Ben brought birthday gifts for Mike and I, plus my Christmas present for 2007. He gave Owen something, but I don’t know why. But enough about everyone else, let’s talk about my Christmas present for 2007. It was a hand-made, large scale version of The Settlers of Catan. Wow! It looked great and we can’t wait to actually play the game on it! (Now back to other game…)

Mwahahaha! is a card game of Mad Scientists and Global Domination. You assume the role of an (insane?) evil genius who builds a criminal empire and constructs a doomsday device with which to cow a trembling humanity. The only problem is your rival evil geniuses, those inept other players, are trying to do the same thing. During the game you gather the needed resources for your doomsday device, while also hiring minions and talking over factories, businesses, and institutions (empires). During the rivalry phase of the game you can attack a rival’s lair or one of his empires, thus setting back the development of his device. On the last phase of the round, you can threaten a city, state, country or the world with your device. If they do not concede to your demands you will unleash the awesome power of your device! The first evil genius who can successfully threaten the world is declared the winner.

What did we think? Well, for one, we had a good time playing it. The rules are long and wordy, but contain lots of explanations and examples. After a slow start, the game moved right along. There’s really not a whole lot of difference between the evil geniuses available to you. The doomsday devices vary somewhat depending upon what kind of strategy you want to employ. Owen chose to never threaten anything until he could threaten the world while the rest of us threatened whenever we could. We ran out of time with Owen being the only one to try threatening the world. He failed. Others would have been able to on the next round so we considered it a 4-way tie. My rivals insisted on a 3-way tie, leaving me out. But as the author of these chronicles, I can say whatever I want without ever getting my comeuppance.  Nope, no comeuppance for me. Never.

Yes, I changed the name of this…uh, series. Mainly because it’s less of a blog and more of just the annuals of the games we play ever week. So with that said, I have three weeks to catch up on.

05.27.2009

Back in May we played a new game called Ys. (Pronounced Ys.) Each player has a set of broker pawns worth from 2 to 5 points each. These are used to bid on various items in the game, usually precious stones, but sometimes influence as well. When bidding, two brokers are placed: one broker is placed revealed (showing its value), while the other is hidden. The object of the game is to amass as much gold (victory points) as possible. The player with the most gold at the end of the game wins. Two things stand to me. One is how the player order is determined. A card with a value of 1 through 4 is randomly given to each player. This is not the turn order; this is the tie-breaker. The turn order is determined by using two brokers to bid. These brokers will not be available to you the rest of the turn, but will, themselves, be used for tie-breaking. (There are a lot of ties in this game.)  The second thing that stands out to me is how victory points are garnished at the end of the game. All game you’ve been gathering precious stones of various colors and manipulating the value of each. You get more point if you’re the one with the most stones of a particular color. And even more points if that color has the highest value. Everyone else who has that color also scores some points.

Did we like the game? Yes, we gave it eight thumbs up out of eight. I don’t remember who won, but it wasn’t me.

06.01.2009

This week we played a new game of Owens called Through the Ages. The game is four player game, but we had five players this week because Andy joined us. That was ok, because Owen said he would just Game Master the game and lookup rules. Thank God he did. Although primarily a card game, this is the most complicated card game I’ve played. And we played the Basic Game! There is also an Advance Game, AND the Full Game. I assume the Full Game is similar to the Hell level of Doom 3. I should mention that besides just cards there is a main board and boards for each player. The player board holds various wooden discs that represent workers and the number of actions that player can take each round. You spend you actions buying leaders, wonders, assigning workers and military, and keeping them all happy. All the while scores the points that will win you the game.

Funny, I just looked on BoardGameGeek to see what they had to say about the game. I didn’t realize that”…the goal is to develop your civilization, not to destroy other ones.” Hmm, that’s probably why I lost. Mike won this first game, although I remember it being pretty close.

06.08.2009

We played through the Ages again. This time Owen played and we tried the Advance Rules which include more use of the military.  After about three hours we weren’t quite done with the game. Several players were poised to score points in the future, but at the cutoff, Ben was declared the winner, with Mike being close behind him. Mike is always close behind. It’s in his nature.

I didn’t mention if we liked this game or not. If we played it twice, we liked it.

Zombies! Nope, we didn’t play that game. Instead we played Mall of Horror. It has zombies too. And they are trying to eat us, just like in the other game. And we find equipment to use against the zombies, just like that other game. But instead of running into buildings and screaming in back alleys, you spend your time in the mall; running from one store to another trying not to be the one that is eaten by the growing groups of zombies.

Andy joined us so we had five players. The game deteriorated fast as the zombies took over the security office. This means that no one was privy to any foreknowledge of where the zombies were going. The good news was that I was still the security officer, which meant I got to go first each turn. You would think I could use this knowledge to leverage myself a win. But no, Evil Mike’s silver tongue had the other players waiting in line to throw their people to the zombies so he could survive. I also made a small tactical error at the end of the game that got my last person eaten. In the end Mike won, with Owen and Andy still with people alive in the mall—all huddled in the supermarket as the military helicopter landed to take them to safety. Ben and I lost all of our people to the zombies.

Since that game went so fast, we had time to play Ticket to Ride. Once again I started out strong with everyone else fighting for lengths of track in the east, while I was virtually alone in the west.  This overcrowding in the east was also to be my undoing. As the game progressed many cities quickly became unavailable as we all fought to get the remaining routes. Unbeknownst to everyone Owen was quickly completing many routes. He blew us away points-wise, and ended up way ahead of everyone else.

Mike came in last.

There was much senseless bickering going at the game table this time as we played Small World–mostly because it was up to me to explain the rules. Small World is all about picking the right combination of fantasy races and unique special powers. Using your choices, you rush to expand your empire – often at the expense of weaker neighbors. But you must also know when to push your own over-extended civilization into decline and chose a new on to ride to victory. It’s a little reminiscent of History of the World in this regard. We were well into the first game when Ben, rules in hand, noted that we needed to start over. We were doing the conquest of regions completely wrong. Even though I read allow the right way to do it, none of us followed the rules. Most fingers pointed at me since I started the game. Everyone assumed I knew what I was doing. Once again they learned that’s not the case.The second game went much better. You win Small World by being the one with the most victory coins at the end of the game. You get victory coins by controlling regions. When it was all said and done, Ben won by three victory coins. Owen was quick to point out that if on two occasions early in the game I had attacked Ben instead of him, I would have won. Owen was right, but Owen still came in last.

We had a little time so we broke out another new game Monty Python Fluxx. In this game we learn who know the most songs from Month Python and who could speak with an outrageous accent. As Ben put it, Fluxx was the perfect game to have a Monty Python theme, and I agree. Due to the cards in Owen’s hand and the rule forcing him play them both, Mike won. We played one more game of Fluxx. In the second game Owen was no longer the king maker, but the king himself.  

I recently bought the FRAG Gold Edition. It comes with a hard game board instead of the paper foldout maps. It also has tons of dice, plastic character figures, and dry erase marker character sheets. The only thing is it missing is five more dry erase markers—it comes with only one that we were constantly sharing. We finally resorted to the age old method of using dice to make the changes on your character sheet. Even though the previous releases were pricy and had cheap components, they were all fun games to play. Buying the Gold Edition with the upgraded components was a must for any guy who owns all of those previous FRAG sets—like me.

The dice hate me. That’s what I lamented all through the first game. Mathematically you have a 50% chance of picking up a gun or gadget when you move over a gun or gadget icon. I think I was closer to 20%. Ben on the other hand was closer to 80%. So I guess the math all worked itself out. Next time, I’d like to be on the 80% end of the deal. So you’re probably thinking that Ben won. Wrong. It actually came down to a duel between the two frag leaders, Owen and Mike. Owen made his move first and had a really good chance of fragging Mike for the win. Unfortunately the damage rolls didn’t go Owen’s way which gave Mike a chance to retaliate. Mike did and Owen died.

Seeing how I did so pathetic in the first game I changed my character stats. When I was done, I had a Speed of 1. As Mike and Owen pointed out over and over again during the second game, even the game rules state that a Speed of 1 is pathetic. And they were right. Especially when playing the other side of the game board. It contained six rooms, each with a spawning number and a one-way door. It was also filled with gun and gear icons. So you stayed in the room, filling up on guns and gear (except for the guy with a Speed of 1) and then exited to kill your opponents with your overwhelming firepower (except for the guy with a speed of 1.)

Once again Ben gathered up gun and gear like he was God’s gift to FRAG. That kept him alive, but still didn’t win him the game. Once again we conceded the game to Mike. They did let me play my turn where I attempted to kill Ben–just for fun. Just for fun, I was pathetic.

For many years now, Evil Mike has always pointed out that all of my RPG games seem to mimic Journey to the Center of the Earth, even though there has been only one game where they actually went to the center of the earth (in a giant drilling machine, of course.) So when I saw that there was a board game called Journey to the Center of the Earth, I knew I had to get it. Ben also mentions that all of my games end in a cave with a women tied to a pole. So far I haven’t found the Woman Tied to a Pole game—but I’m still looking.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (which I am now abbreviating to just Journey ) is broken up into three major phases. In the first phase you traverse rocky caves as you travel downward through an extinct volcano. The idea is that you are searching for and discovering fossils along the way. The fossils give you points, and the points win you the game.  One game aspect that I’ll mention here is that each player may control any of the characters at any time. Each turn the player decides which explorer he wants to move. He does this in an effort to gather maximum points. In the second phase, all of the explorer hop onto a raft and gently float across a lake filled with fossils and whirlpools. This phase plays slightly different from the first because moving the raft moves all of the explorers. When an area containing a fossil is found, all of the players get a chance to participate and garner points. Another difference is at the end of each player’s turn, a water event card is drawn. These can be good (pay the right combination of cards, get a fossil) or bad (ball of lightening.)

The last phase of the game is a fast ride up a lava spewing volcano. Never mind we’re on a raft made of rope and wood. During this harrowing ride, no fossils are found, but many could be lost if you don’t have the right tools with you.

Journey is suppose to last about an hour, ours lasted two. Ben started out strong and rarely, if ever, got a bad card. The rest of us struggled along. Owen started gaining ground though and soon had a pile of fossils to match Ben’s. Mike and I spent most of the game locked in a battle to see who would come in last. Ben won, although Owen did rather well considering his humble beginnings. Mike and I ate more lasagna and tried to figure out how Ben cheated us.