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Sid Meier’s Civilization

Last week we played Sid Meier’s Civilization board game again. In it Players are tasked with guiding an entire civilization throughout the ages, taking ownership of their people’s technology, economy, culture, and military, as well as all the choices that go along with them. There are four different paths to victory, and each is riddled with opposition. Each player plays a particular culture. I was Germany, again. I don’t remember what cultures Owen, Ben, and Mike played, but Mike’s culture sure seemed to have some great bonuses.

The game begins innocently enough with each player exploring the area around his home, taking over villages, and purging the area of any natives. Each turn you get to add buildings to you city, build a new city, or add more units to your army. You also get to research technology that improves your civilization and allows you to lord of your neighbors (Mike). You can also invest in arts. It turns out that investing in the arts gets you some great cards to play against the other, not-so-artsy, cultures.

From the previous game, I learned that you need to play to the strengths of your culture. So this time I went hard and fast for military might. In this game I learned that everyone else can also increase their military might just as hard and fast, basically negating Germany’s military edge. Some might say it was Germany’s leadership, and to those I say “firing squad”.

Once again, I think we were far from finishing the game when we stopped. At that point, Mike was the hands down leading player, with Owen and Ben being contenders. Me, I think I was just about to fall under Mike’s Egyptian rule. (It suddenly came to me what culture Mike was playing.)

We like the game–some more than others. I will not play Germany again, ever.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode XI

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode XI

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who run a great game of Pirates.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: a dual knife wielding maniac who lusts after a bigger ship.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter, who lusts after all the beautiful women.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded pirate who sleeps with his musket and steals clothes.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions, but still comes out on top.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

Words of the week: saucy wenches and adieu.

The adventure began with Nicholas arriving at our ship after his midnight frolic in a haystack with the beautiful Carmen. He was still picking the straw from his impeccable clothes when Robert Rook arrived to meet with Buck concerning a topic of mutual interest. Unfortunately the topic was a closely guarded secret and Buck, after trying many, many times, could not wrench it from the closed mouth Rook. Just why had he come here? Why did he want to meet with Buck? Will he accompany us back to see his father? Just what was his embarrassing predicament?

Time passed. Seeing that Buck was just about ready to kill him (or kill Ben the GM, it was kind of hard tell which), Rook decided to spill the beans. He had the Governor’s wife, and was willing to turn her over to us if we’d only help him get his ship off the sandbar which had him stranded here in Tobago. We agreed.

We sailed our ship, the Misery, around to where Rook ‘s ship, the Black Prince, was stuck on the sandbar. (How embarrassing.)  We expertly maneuvered our ship in front of his and began attaching ropes to pull his ship free. Then we spotted two Spanish ships heading directly for us. There were tense moments as we towed the Black Prince to freedom, hoping we could get it free in time so it could help us battle the Spanish ships.

It just so happened that Buck was on the Black Prince. He took over control of the ship during the battle. Nicholas handled our ship. I fell asleep. Then Ben woke me up and offered me the captains-ship of one of the Spanish ships–the one attacking Buck. I jumped at the chance of sinking Buck for the glory of Spain! Unfortunately a poorly timed joker (that Buck got) kept me from ramming his ship and sending her (and him) to the bottom of the sea. Seeing how I had steered the ship into an oncoming sand bar, I surrendered.

Buck was a gracious and gallant victor allowing the Spanish to flee for their lives with their personal belongings. This left him with their ship. There was some contention with Robert Rook over just what to do with the ship, but Buck eased his fears by reaching for his knives.

As for Nicholas’s ship battle, let’s just say there was very little left of the Spanish he fought.* Nicholas sent her to the bottom of the sea…which wasn’t really that far, so some of the ship jutted out of the water. Buck sent a few canon shots into the Spanish as well.

*Technically, Nicholas was below deck warming himself by the fire. But since he was the only wild card on the ship, he gets all the credit. Ok, Thomas was on board too, but the guy playing him (Mike) had to leave early. This left Owen in charge of his character; which leads me to the final action of the night…

Thomas nearly shoots the governor of Cartagena.

So let it be written. So let it be…uh, so.

Chaos Steve

Age of Conan

This week we played Age of Conan. Mike was out saving the world at his work, but fortunately Andy was available so we still had four players.

In Age of Conan the players are in control one of the major kingdoms of the Hyborian age. The idea is to take over the neighboring provinces thus gaining gold and victory points. You can take over a province by either using the time tested method of marching your armies into it or by using intrigue.  The other element of the game is that Conan is running around completing adventures that may help or hinder you.

As Ben pointed out during the game, Age of Conan has several overlapping concepts going on all at the same time.

Frist, there is Conan. Before each Conan adventure the players bid for control of Conan. A Conan adventure lasts for several rounds, allowing Conan to possibly help you and possibly hinder your opponents. Through each round of Conan’s adventure, players can acquire Adventure Tokens that can gain them immediate sorcery and gold or can be saved for later victory points and special magic artifacts. It’s a little confusing just when a player gets these adventure tokens. We had to look that up several times.

On a player’s turn he chooses a fate dice (previously rolled) to determine what action he would like to take: a military action, an intrigue action, or a court action. The court action allows you to play or draw Strategy and Kingdom cards into your hand. These cards are very useful.

The rules for the actions are in two places in the rules. We found we had to page back and forth a lot during the game as one section only tells you part of the story. Conan does come with a reference “sheet” for each player that just happens to look like a booklet—with tiny text.

So what happened during our game? Well, Conan is played of three ages each with four Conan adventures. In the two plus hours we played, we finished the first age. I couldn’t tell that one person was doing better than any other, although judging from forts and towers on the board, I was losing.

I think Age of Conan is a game you need to play a few times to get a good sense of what strategy to use. Sadly, we probably won’t play it again for months.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode X

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode X

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who run a great game of Pirates.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: a dual knife wielding maniac who lusts after a bigger ship.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter, who lusts after all the beautiful women.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded pirate who sleeps with his musket and steals clothes.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions, but still comes out on top.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

Word of the week: Topiary.

If you remember from last week’s write-up, lots of fun things happened. This week’s adventure was no different. We continued our search for James Rook and in the process attended a ball put on by the governor or Tobago. I’ll skip right to the highlights…

Buck bought a mask. It was half black and half white. It was important that his mask matched many others at the ball. Buck was in thieves’ heaven relieving the various guests of their ball sacks. Uh, I mean money sacks.

The front of the governor’s mansion was covered in pea gravel and protected by an elegant iron fence. No carriages were allowed close to the mansion, so we had to walk. The mansion was constructed of a fine, lightly colored stone that brought out the blue in Nicholas’ eyes.

Nicholas attended the ball as himself, escorting the lovely lady DeVrey. The rest of us weren’t even announced. This actually worked out well for us.

Once inside the ball room, Nicholas immediately zeroed in on the most beautiful women in the room, Sophia. She was the niece/daughter of the duke of Cartagena. His full name can be found on page 149 in the Pirates of the Spanish Main book. We shall henceforth call him Duke Rafael. Sophia was surrounded by suitors, but none had Nicholas’ wit and charm. Buck used this opportunity to relieve the suitors of their ball sacks.

Thomas made a complete fool of himself “stealthily” watching a dubious fellow at the ball. (Somehow this fellow was more dubious than Thomas himself.)

Duncan was completely taken in by the charm(s) of a beautiful senorita. The story of her oppression under her evil uncle, Duke Rafael, touched his heart. All she needed was the chest from the duke’s room and she and Duncan could run away together and be free. Needless to say, Duncan was up to the challenge. Using his wits and end of his fists (Hey, that rhymes.) he found the small, heavy, bejeweled chest. Unfortunately on his way back down to the balcony, the guards were not as friendly. This forced Duncan into his “fight or flight” mode. He chose “flight”. Bullying past the guards, he smashed through a glass door and then leaped from a balcony into the governor’s garden topiary. (He had a joker.) Duncan escaped over at +1 red brick wall.

Buck and Thomas were on the balcony when Duncan went leaping off of it. Buck asked the beautiful senorita what was going on. She told him of the madman’s rush through the door and off the balcony. Bucks, feigning drunkenness, also interferes with guards seeking to chase Duncan (said madman). The beautiful senorita mentions how she is feeling faint and goes back inside to retreat to her room. Buck hears a shot from inside and goes to investigate. The beautiful senorita is lying on the stairs, bleeding from a musket wound. She whispers to Buck to avenge her. But Buck has more questions and stays by her side until she grabs him and with all of her remaining strength tells him to AVENGE HER!

Buck finally gets the idea and heads upstairs.

Thomas, during this time, had climbed down into the topiary. He headed to the spot Duncan jump down to. There he finds the dead body of a guard who had broken his neck trying to jump from the balcony to give chase to Duncan. He immediately begins undressing the corpse.

Meanwhile, back in the ballroom, Nicholas is trying his best to seduce the lovely Sophia. After hearing the shot and shouts from outside, everyone panics and rushes from the ballroom. Nicholas stays close to Sophia, showing his gallant side, protecting her during the crowed rush.

Buck spends some tense moments upstairs trying to locate the assassin who has set a trap for him. Buck sees through the simple ruse and confronts the man (who has stolen Spanish documents). The assassin/thief turns out to be none other than James Rook. There is much banter as James escapes.

Recap:

Uncharacteristically, Buck killed no one during this session.

Uncharacteristically, Nicholas had no trysts during this session.

Uncharacteristically, Duncan actually did something that gained him treasure.

Hopefully Uncharacteristically, Thomas undressed a corpse. Let’s hope this doesn’t continue.

Final Scene:

The Lady DeVrey was very drunk by the end of the evening. Percy, the governor’s personal secretary, offered both her and Buck private rooms for the evening.He was happy to do so after the noble conduct of Buck during the theft. As Buck was getting settled into bed, the door to his room opened. A lithe form wearing a flimsy robe silently moved to his bedside. The robe is discarded and the slender form climbs under the warm covers next to Buck. There is a scream as Buck realizes the form is not that of the Lady DeVrey, but that of Percy the secretary.

 Chaos Steve

Sid Meyer’s Civilization board game

Last night we played Sid Meyer’s Civilization board game. In it Players are tasked with guiding an entire civilization throughout the ages, taking ownership of their people’s technology, economy, culture, and military, as well as all the choices that go along with them. There are four different paths to victory (Mike), and each is riddled with opposition (Mike). Each player plays a particular culture. I was German and I believe Mike was Chinese. I don’t remember what cultures Owen or Ben played. The game also comes with hundreds of cards and tokens.

The game begins innocently enough with each player exploring the area around his home, taking over villages, and purging the area of any natives. Each turn you get to add buildings to you city, build a new city, or add more units to your army. You also get to research technology that improves your civilization and allows you to lord of your neighbors (Mike). You can also invest in arts. It turns out that investing in the arts gets you some great cards to play against the other, not-so-artsy, cultures.

While there were no winners in our game (Mike), we each still competed against one another for valuable resources, and in some cases the domination of our neighbors (Mike). It seems the most important strategy to remember is to play to the strength of your culture, as each culture has their own special abilities. Mike did a great job of this, and so did Owen. Ben and I took other paths…mostly leading to death (from Mike) or limited resources.

All-in-all we all enjoyed the game: lots of choices and lots of ways to win the game.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode VII

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode VII

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who appears to know a lot about everything…appears.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac with dreams of glory as a pirate.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter. Not one to run TO a fight.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.
Andy as Pete “Sweep Pete” Jones: A brawny sailor with a lust for fighting.

This week a guest pirate showed up—our friend Andy. Fortunately his character had stowed away on Winnie’s ship and we took a liking to the cut of his jib almost from the beginning.

When we left off last time Winnie’s ship and our ship were being chased by two French ships. These French ships were bigger than either of our ships. Buck began hatching a plan on how to make one of the French ships his. The rest of us just wondered how we were going to get out of this alive. We were currently on Winnie’s ship, so we signaled our ship, the Clementine, to break from us. Hopefully this would draw off one of the French ships. It did. Knowing that our ship could handle shallow water better than the French’s, we began looking for a place where we could hold up where the French could not get at us.

We found just such a place. As night fell, we stealthy moved passed the French ship and into open water. The French ship found us the next day anyway, so we decided to ram her. This worked amazingly well and allowed us to all participate in a boarding action—all except Nicholas. He was busy doing whatever Nicholas does during a fight. Buck and Duncan were the first to board the French ship. They both fought valiantly. Thomas used his musket to good effect on the French musketeers. Andy’s character held back for a while sending shot after shot into the French crew. Then he two boarded their ship.

By the end of the fight, poor Duncan was lying incapacitated on the deck. Buck was sorely wounded too. Fortunately the French surrendered shortly thereafter. Nicholas came out of hiding and healed us both.

Now we have two ships! We’re heading to a friendly port to sell our old ship and repair our new one. After hiring some more crew we’re off to look for the lost son of a noble.

Chaos Steve

Galactic Emperor

For our holiday edition of gaming, our friend Andy dropped by to play Galactic Emperor with us. We’ve played this before and you can read all about that game here. Five players made for an interesting dynamic to the game as everyone’s home planet was pretty close to someone else’s home planet, while still being a galaxy away from someone else. Ben claimed first lost because he was seated between Mike and me. No one wants to get between Mike and me when galactic conquest is on the line. Ben, oddly enough, was also the first player to go offensive by trying to use his influence to rid Mike of one of his empires. Mike whined about it the rest of the game. Ben was aggressive throughout the entire game. He even bought the first Dreadnought. Also throughout the game, Ben was my main…uh, target.

One thing I enjoy about this game is that combat is inevitable. The galaxy is small, there are a limited number of point scoring planets, and everyone needs the resources those planets provide to build their space fleets. It wasn’t long before Owen was using his fleet to take planets from Mike. Owen also eyed Andy’s planets–Andy was situated on his other side from Mike—but Andy made some great defensive choices that caused his planets to be less desirable to taken by force. I should also mention that Owen’s dice rolling sucked the entire evening. Battles he should have easily won, met with disaster.

Mike played a steady game of non-aggression; mainly because Ben and Owen seemed to be gunning for him and he spent most of his resources defending his empire. As I mentioned before, Ben was my target of choice during the game. Fortunately for Ben, my dice rolling was worse than Owens. On two attempts with four dice, where I only needed a 3 or greater, I rolled 1’s and 2’s on three of the dice. My second attempt got me three 1’s! Oh the injustice of it all!

It was the unassuming Andy who really shown at the end of the game. His two neighbors (Owen and I) had left him alone the entire game and during our last round, he made us all pay for that mistake. He scarfed up a bunch of Planets (i.e. victory points) that basically got doubled because it was the end of the game. Andy ended the game with 20 points. His last point was because he has a single “space buck”. The rest of us had no money at all. Mike came in a close second with 19 points. Owen had a respectable 17 points, while I came in NOT LAST with 14 points. Last place was Ben, Just as he called it. He had some small number of points that I can’t find the number for on my keyboard.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode VI

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode VI

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who goes on and on about gorse and heather.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

Bodgit & Scarper

This week’s game included our heroic rescue of Thomas from the gallows. After much planning, calculating, and pounding the cobblestones for information, we came up with a daring plan. With the help of an informant with connections we were able to get Buck on as a guard for the wagon bringing Thomas from the prison to the gallows. Next, Nicholas was stationed near the gallows and would cause a distraction (and hopefully a human stampede) by tossing coins onto the street in front of the prison wagon. In the confusion Duncan and Desmond would help Buck free Thomas. A secondary target would be to recover Thomas’s beloved rifle from the guards. We were hoping to reroute the wagon by burning a house down but that failed miserably. But the smoke did help to conceal us rather well.

Buck started us out by immediately rolling a critical failure. Things went better after that though with Buck killing guards and jumping all around on the prison wagon. Thomas, still caged in the wagon, repeatedly had to be told that there were no windows on the roof. He kept trying to grab a fallen guard’s weapon that lay on the roof. Desmond was no help at all, while Duncan took on the main enemy rival…because he was carrying Thomas’s gun. That went better than expected for Desmond, whose motto is “Poor planning. Great dice rolls”. That is until he followed the escaping rival and got surrounded by guards. Desmond was sorely wounded and it was only with the help of Buck (who took three wounds in the process) and Thomas (who somehow remained unscathed this game) that he survived at all.

Nicholas did toss his coins on schedule and then ran away. He said something about getting help, but we’re not so sure about that.

Oh, and Buck killed a servant in cold blood.

 In the end, we did escape. Nicholas was able to doctor both Buck and Desmond back to health. Thomas was freed and got his rifle back.

Last I remember we were sailing into a sunset or something.

To be continued…

Chaos Steve

Settlers of America: Trails to Rails

 

This week we played Settlers of America: Trails to Rails. This is the second or third time we’ve played it. As the name implies, this game takes place in America and has the familiar hex layout on the board. Players use settlers to build towns that then produce goods. To win the game, each player must ship all of his goods to towns belonging to other players using his trains and rails. The game dynamics are very similar to the original Settlers. You use resource cards to buy settlers, rails, trains, and development cards. And these resource cards are generated by a dice roll and the proximity of your towns. Another use for resource cards is to move you settlers to new areas and to move your trains along the rails. This game also adds the dynamic of gold to the mix. Gold can be used to buy resource cards and to allow you to pay to use the tracks of the other players. You can also use it when trading.

I, personally, like this version of Settlers much better than the original. I suck at the original. Even if I should win, I don’t. The resource gods hate me. That’s one of things I really like about Settlers of America. You are getting lots of resource cards–mostly because you need lots of them to do all the things you need to do in the game. So instead of languishing a few turns waiting for the right cards to come along, you get to buy something on almost every turn. This makes the game much more enjoyable for me. They also incorporated the extraordinary build phase, from the 5-6 player game of the original Settlers, in to the normal play. With this, you feel like you are building something all of the time!

For most of the game all of us were pretty close in the running; the leader only having delivered a cube (or two) more than everyone else. When it came down to the end, Ben was leading but anyone could have won during the next couple of turns. Ben did end up winning, with Owen and Mike being close seconds, and me being a close third.

Chaos Steve

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode V

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode V

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who goes on and on about gorse and heather.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

It was a dark and stormy night in England. Fortunately we were in Port Royal. The weather there was sunny and beautiful. We were sipping brandy with Robert Rook at the fencing academy when he asked if we would rescue his son from pirates. It was hard to tell if his son had gone voluntarily with the pirates or if he had been shanghaied. Either way, Robert Rook thought it was scandalous. And for the sum of $8000 we said we’d bring the kid back either way.

We also found out the whereabouts of Sir Jacob Hamilton, who we had been hunting. He was attending the carnival at Port au Prince in two weeks hence. We decided to rescue the Rook boy first, and then head to Port au Prince. That is until we saw just how slow our ship was. We headed to Port au Prince instead, but not before hiring two salty sea dogs and a pilot as crew for our ship.

Once on the water our pilot promptly got us lost. We recovered though and made it in time for carnival. Nicholas and Desmond tried to one up each other as to who had the fancier carnival mask. We wandered the town and found the inn where Sir Hamilton was thought to be. We found him on the second floor balcony—a balcony being guarded by two, large men with even larger swords. As we were figuring out how to get onto the balcony, Capt Winnie made an appearance and tried to hook up again with Nicholas. Nicholas spurned her advances, already having a pretty bar maid on his arm. Thomas tried to shoot her, and Duncan tried to make his own advances towards the beautiful captain. Of the three, Duncan critically failed causing Winnie’s reply to be short and violent. (Apparently his French was not as good as he thought.) Winnie drew her pistol and blew the feathers off of Duncan’s mask. She was aiming for Duncan’s head. Two men then grabbed Duncan. (Desmond was no help.) Buck’s knives immediately leaped fatally into both men. It was then we heard the town guard approaching from downstairs…and everyone moved away from us.

Nicholas, with the pretty bar maid on his arm, quickly bluffed his way onto the balcony containing Sir Hamilton. And just as quickly was attacked by Jimmie Tim. Nicholas, sparing no time at all, leaped off the balcony and climbed down the trusses. Jimmie Tim and Sir Hamilton, seeing the town guard approaching, also made a hasty retreat off the balcony. They used a grappling hook and a rope.

Those big guards weren’t letting anyone else onto the balcony, so while Desmond distracted them, Duncan used his acrobatics to leap between them landing expertly on the balcony. He hastened to follow after Jimmy Tim and Sir Hamilton. Before leaping the balcony wall, Duncan paused just long enough to kiss Nicholas’s pretty bar maid. Then he was over the side and sliding down the rope…colliding with Sir Hamilton and knocking everyone to the ground.

Buck and Thomas were having their own problems getting by the guards. Thomas then had an idea that did not involve shooting his big gun. It did involve the big gun, but not shooting it. Thomas, using his big gun, intimidated the guards. They left with their giant swords between their legs. (At least I think it was their giant swords.) Buck and Thomas fled onto the balcony just as the town guard reached the second floor. Apparently the other patrons where all pointing at the escaping Buck and Thomas. Thomas fell under a heavy volley of gun fire. His near dead body was drug away to the dungeon infirmary where he would be tended to, tried for who-knows-what, and then hung.

Jimmy Tim was knocked unconscious from the fall. (He broke our fall perfectly.) We left him laying there, escorting Sir Hamilton to the docks. During the walk, Sir Hamilton spilled his guts about the treasure ship. Each of the survivors had a watch engraved; each with a part of the secret to where the ship lay. Sir Hamilton gave us his watch…for 5% of the treasure.

The next evening Nicholas and Duncan were invited to have dinner upon Capt. Winnie’s ship. It was then we discovered that she too was looking for the treasure AND had the watch that belonged to Elizabeth’s father. We decided to sell her our watch for $40,000. She would have to travel to England and back to get the money. In the meantime, we’d still look for the treasure, and for some reason, split it with her 70/40. I’m probably wrong about that whole affair. Nicholas did most of the negotiating. I was sampling the wine. As we left the boat, Winnie asked if Nicholas would like to stay on board a little long. He did. During this time Buck was doing something. I have it written in my notes. It says “Buck goes snopping out.” What the heck does that mean?

Chaos Steve