Harrowed Halls

We played The Age of Steam last night. Well, everyone else played it. I mostly floundered in a quagmire of poor choices, bad planning, and trains without any weapons. Ben assures men that none of the trains have weapons, but I’m not so sure. I should mention that we played the new 2009 edition. I don’t know if this is any different from the 2002 version. Ben might know, but he was too busy stomping our butts to tell me. I could lament for hours over the horrible things that happened to me and my train line, but I will spare you that. Instead I’ll tell of the terrible things that happened to the other guys. 

None. 

Yep, that’s right. Their schemes and plans went uninterrupted. Mike and Owen played very solid games, making just the right choices each turn and having the right opportunities available to them at the right times. Either one of them could have easily been declared the winner. But Ben, mostly due to his good track placement, previous playing experience (we had none), and maybe a little help from me, was able to continually score big points. Me, I languished in a pool of hydraulic train fluid as I attempted to form a plan, failed, and then continued on without a plan. 

I think the general consensus was that we liked this game better than Railroad Tycoon. Railroad Tycoon is so similar to The Age of Steam that I’m surprised no one got sued over it. 

Hopefully I’ll do better next week when we play Roborally.

We got some new games this week, so we tore the cellophane off of The Pillars of the Earth and set it up. We also tore the cellophane off of the expansion and used it too. We’re nothing if not zealous when playing games and expansions—we want it all! At first the set up looks daunting, but it went pretty fast for a game with the number of pieces and cards this one has. Plus we were also using the expansion that added even more cards. Pillars is management type of game. You are managing resources (sand, wood, stone, & iron) and managing your limited workers. The theme behind the game is that you are building a great cathedral; maybe the great cathedral. (I’ll leave you to figure out which one that is.) Anyway, the game has three phases. The first is where you choose the resources you will work on getting during the round. You assign your workers to these. You can also assign your workers to just generate victory points for you too. You can also buy craftsmen to further your cause. On the second phase, you place your master craftsmen. An interesting dynamic is that everyone’s master craftsmen are placed in a bag and drawn forth randomly. By placing your craftsmen, you earn all types of fun things like Victory points, extra workers, different craftsmen and the like. The final phase is resolving everything you did in phases one and two.

Our game went pretty smoothly with me jumping into the lead. If it would have only stayed this way, I might have won. …or at least came in second or third. I could tell that I would run out of steam towards the end of the game, but was powerless to stop that from happening–completely powerless. Even with me in the lead, the victory point values were very close between all of use. At the end of the game it was Owen, who leaped into first place with his fantastic choice of craftsman. I believe Ben was second, Mike was third, and I was dead last.

We all liked this game, even the guy that game in last. The guy that came in first really liked it.

Once again we played Ghost Stories, but this time we ratcheted up the difficulty level to normal. (Instead of squeamish, or whatever the previous level is called.) As in most cooperative games we spent a lot of our time bickering over what to do. Maybe I should call it strategizing instead. Fortunately our strategizing didn’t come to blows. Our first game was a disaster. Some poor choices and equally poor dice rolling got us in trouble quick. Mike died multiple times and I didn’t even have to help. Soon we were overcome by ghosts; all of us dying suitably horrible deaths.

Ah, but in the next game we thought we had it figured out and we tried a new strategy. It too ended in disaster. I seem to remember us all pointing at Ben at the end–just before the ghosts overwhelmed us…again.

Third time’s the charm. We were down, but not out. This time the beginning of the game went better for us. Yes, the ghosts were gaining momentum, but we were stubbornly (and slowly) sending them back to hell. Then we came to the point in the game where we could try and kill the main evil baddie and win the game. (We had never reached this point in the previous two games.) This was also the point in the game when the various arguments broke out on how to accomplish the task. Looking at the board, some of us were going to die. But we could still win if we could kill the big evil dude. Through sophisticated maneuvering and sleight of hand, we got the right players to his location with the right combination of items to easily kill him. It almost seemed anti-climatic–almost.

Ghosts Stories is still one of our favorite coop games.

Last night was race night at Mike’s house. We played the latest release of Formula D. Besides updating it with some nifty playing aids, they also added the excitement of illegal racing in the streets of the big city. Of course, that’s the version we played. All of us got a specific driver with a specific special ability. Our cars were all ridged a little differently as far as the points allocated to the various car parts and there were special areas in the city where additional things could occur. Things like the residents taking pot shots at you because they don’t appreciate your loud car or a hazard area where the road was littered with debris. Our cars also had nitro that we could use once per lap.

Our first race started out well…for everyone else. Me, I couldn’t get my car started so I lost a turn. As the race progressed, Mike and Ben became the steady leaders with Owen and I lagging behind. Mike drove his car with the pedal to the metal. We honestly didn’t think he would finish the race. Some would call his driving style aggressive and reckless. Ok, everyone would call it that. But this style served him well as he came in second behind Ben. Never mind where Owen and I placed.

In the next race, my car started normally. Now everyone knew what they were doing and we had a close race for a while. Ben again drove well and got a lot of lucky brakes as far as dice rolling goes. Mike kept to his normal hells-bells driving style. But it was poor Owen whose car was eliminated first from damage by various hazards and ‘bumping’ cars with Ben. Mike followed soon after when he up-shifted when he should have down-shifted. The resulting mechanical failures left him driving a large paper weight. Now only Ben and I were left. As we were coming into the last turn, I was in the perfect position to win. That is until I rolled the dice for my movement. I was one short of the curve, requiring me to down shift. Ben on the other hand hit it perfectly and sped by me to the finish line. That was Ben’s second win of the night. We all hit Ben with our gear boxes. 

Last night’s game of Stone Age was fraught with ooooh’s and aaaah’s, @#&*$’s and %$@(#’s. That last part was mostly from Owen. But before I get to that, Mike the younger joined us to replace Evil Mike. Evil Mike fell down the stairs. No, I didn’t push him and, as the surveillance cameras clearly show, I was nowhere near him at the time. But still the investigation continues. Hopefully Mike will be back with us next week…unless another completely random tragedy befalls him.

Mike the younger (we call him this to distinguish him from Evil Mike and because he is, relatively speaking, young) is a very good game player. Whenever he plays against us he usually ends up winning or close to it. Tonight was no exception. This was his first time playing Stone Age, while the rest of us had played it a few times. After Ben explained the rules and then Owen corrected Ben’s explanation, we started the game.

What to say about Owen? Owen had a terrible, horrible, no good kind of game. There were no tears, although I think he was close to it. His dice rolling was worse than I’ve ever seen it. Going first in this game is usually a good thing. When it was Owen’s turn to go first, the board really sucked so there was nothing for him to take advantage of. And to make matters worse, towards the end of the game, he made a huge blunder…that we would not let him redo.  Owen did have a plan though and he scored tons of points during the game. I should point out that it’s at the end of the game that most of the points are usually scored. But that’s the great thing about this game; there are many strategies to get points. Ben played a good game, but was far behind everyone in points during the game—far, far behind. He was banking on a bunch of points at the end. Mike just played a good, solid game and I thought he would end up being the winner. He too made a blunder near the end of the game when he misunderstood the payment for a particular hut card. This could have cost him the game. Me, I had a mediocre game. I had average points on the board and knew I’d get an average number of points at the finish.

So how did it turn out? Owen did respectably well even with his horrible bad luck the entire game. Ben scored around 150 points at the end of the game. A tremendous number, but it was not enough to overcome his in-game deficit. Mike and I ended up tying with around 190 points each. During the game, I had thought about the unlikelihood of ties in this type of game. Shows what I know. Mike came out on top in the tie breaker and was declared the winner.

This week we played another game set in the Greek isles, Parthenon. No man is an island, but in this game you are. Each player plays an island such as Crete, Chios, or Rhodes. Your goal is to be the first to complete all of your structures in the span of the three years. Each year has four seasons and each season has 10 phases. The rulebook has 24 pages and there 1.2 billion cards that come with the game. Maybe is only seems like 1.2 billion–especially if your rubber bands dry out and break. Then when you open the box all 1.2 billion cards are all mixed together. Yes there are a lot of cards and rules, but there are also a lot of player-created games aids out there on the net. I downloaded them all. Some are quite useful. My favorite is a pdf of fold up boxes for you to print, cut, fold, & paste together. Then you have something to put all those cards in. I didn’t do this. Way too much work. But I digress.

As I mentioned a while back the object is to build structures. You do this by producing and trading for various commodities. Each island produces its own set of commodities. The rest you can either trade for from other players or load your fleets up with them and set sail for faraway lands like Egypt or Italy. If you make it to these faraway lands, you get a much better return for trading. But the journey is fraught with hazards. And if you do make it to you chosen destination, you may find that there is a blockade at the harbor or worse. But we Greeks are a hardy bunch, so we sent the fleets out anyway.

Oh, I should mention about how our game started. Three islands are always used during game play. For a 4-player game, the fourth island is called the bonus island. That was Ben; he got a free army for being the bonus island. Mike and Owen got Gift of Poseidon cards because they matched something the bonus island had. And what did my island get? Zilch. So before we even started, I was behind and I stayed there the entire game. At first it seemed that it would be impossible to build all of the structures (6 Villages, 2 Workshops, 6 Acropolis Structures, and 2 Great Wonders) in three years. But each season there are event cards—some good, some bad. Clever use of these and various Harbor Status cards enables you to really clean house. Mike did a particularly great job of this. We all though Mike was the sure fire winner, but a Harbor status card right at the end of the game changed all that. In the end, Ben won. Mike and Owen were really close to him. Me, not so much. 

I think everyone liked this game. Me, not so much.

 This week we took on the Fury of Dracula. This is a cooperative game where one player (Owen) plays Dracula and his minions while the rest of us (Ben, Mike, Andy, and me) play vampire hunters out to kill him. The board consists of cities ranging over Eastern and Western Europe. Dracula secretly moves through the cities (and the seas) leaving minions and traps in his wake. Our job is to track him down by figuring out which city he is in and then attacking him. 

Early in the game we were hot on Dracula’s trail. It looked like it might be a quick game. But Dracula is a cunning opponent and he gave us the slip. We diligently keep searching, not really making much headway until much later in the game. I believe it was in Marseilles that we next caught up to Dracula. Nearly all of us had a shot at him, but poor dice rolling and Dracula’s night-time powers proved too much for us. Dracula is much more powerful at night. Still he was wounded and thank to Ben, down to just four lives. Now the hunt was on in earnest. Dracula was weakened and it’s daytime, when he is most vulnerable. At least 3 or 4 times a single roll would have spelled Dracula’s demise, but his powers were strong. Finally Ben once again came through and got him down to a single life. But we were running out of time. Once the timer crossed from night to day Owen would win from having enough vampires. Twice, just when things looked their bleakest, an event card was drawn that saved us. One of which actually set the time of day timer back one setting. We cornered Dracula in Augustine. He could not go to sea because it would cost him his last life and we were in each of the 3 surrounding cities. I tried to kill him but failed. Ben tried and failed. Finally Mike, who hadn’t really done any fighting (so had lots of good item cards) attacked and killed him. The day timer would have crossed to daytime on Owen’s next turn giving him the game. Instead the vampire hunters prevailed!

World of WarCraft: The Adventure Game
Ben had never player World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game so we set it up, picked characters to play, and started adventuring. We may have even explained to rules to Ben…but maybe not. Ben’s a smart guy and he picked up the game in short order. Soon we were all dispatching monsters in our attempts to satisfy our quests and gain those game winning Valor Points. I’ll say again that I don’t see how any group of four players could get through this game in 90 minutes as the box says. There is a slight chance that we are completely inept at the game. After three hours Mike was in the lead with two VPs. You need eight to win. We decided to call the game in another 30 minutes and whoever had the most VPs then would win the game and take home the prize. Ok, I lied. There really isn’t any prize other than being able to brag that you won the game, and that doesn’t last very long. By the last round we were all tied at two VPs a piece. When it came around to my turn, I was able to complete a quest for another two VPs, giving me four VPs and the game. This was completely by chance though, but I’ll take it. Kind of like the first time I won this game when we called it. The same thing happened. I was able to get a bunch of VPs right at the end of the game.

There were a couple of things that went differently in this game. Our characters all seemed to gain levels faster. Maybe we weren’t as timid about trying to do that as we were in previous games. Secondly, there was lot more player verses player combat. Most of this brought on by Ben’s quests, but even without that there was a lot. I still like this game better than the WoW board game.

This week during games we traveled back to the Stone Age. Evil Mike says I should know a lot about it since I was alive back then. Normally I would throw down the gauntlet and say something like “Let’s just see who wins this Stone Age!” It turns out that Mike was wrong; I really don’t know much about the Stone Age. Mike beat us by a substantial margin. But I get ahead of myself. Let’s talk a little about the game.

At first glance you might think Stone Age is just another resource management game: gather wood and bricks and use them to build the things you need. But it’s really more about managing your tribe and using each member to their best potential for scoring victory points. Each round you must make a decision where to place your tribe members. Will they be hunters, collectors, farmers, or tool makers? Some areas have a limit to the number of tribe members that you can place in them, so you almost never get to place them everywhere you want to. Add to that an ever changing set of huts and cards that produce victory points and give you extra resources–so each round to presents a new set of options. Oh, and at the end of each round you have to feed your tribe. If you don’t, you can lose a lot of victory points.

There are many strategies for getting victory points. This is one of the factors that makes the game fun to play. Also, you really don’t know how well you are doing until the end of the game when the points are tallied up. In our game, Mike was the clear leader by about 30 points, while only 4 points separated the rest of us. We all thought Ben was doing really well, and he end up in last place.

I’m sure we’ll be playing more of Stone Age.

We played a new game this time called Ghost Stories. It’s a 4-player cooperative game where the band of players is trying to stave off ghostly forces bent on haunting the nine villages of the game board. I’ll start off by saying this is the best cooperative game I have ever played. During the setup you get to choose one of the four levels of difficulty: Initiative, Normal, Darn Us to Heck, and the Hell level. (I can’t remember the real name of the third level, but you get the idea.) Being new to the game, we choose to start at the easiest level. That means we would have one big bad incarnation to kill during the game. To win the game, the players must kill all of the incarnations. In the higher levels of difficulty there can be more incarnations. We lose if four villages become haunted.

Each player has a specific power to aid the players in holding back the ghosts from the villages. Each of the nine villages also help the players in various ways. Reading through the rules, the players have lots of options and powers at their disposal. It sounded like a cake walk. Boy was I wrong. In our first game we lost even before the incarnation came out on to the board—overwhelmed by ghosts. We noted several errors we made along the path to disaster and vowed our second game would go much better.

The second game did go better, but it was touch and go for the last half of the game. The board filled up early with ghosts and we were sorely pressed to keep up with them. Once the incarnation did come out, we had a solid plan…that failed and failed and failed, until finally Owen was able to overcome it. I was dead by then. Possibly Mike too. Had Owen failed on his turn we would have lost the game. That’s how close it was. And this was the EASIEST level! Needless to say, we’ll be playing this game again. Until then we’ll wonder how the heck anyone survives the normal level of play.