Race for the Galaxy - 2 Player

After everyone else left Thursday night, Mando and I played Race for the Galaxy.

Frequent readers of this blog (I think that that pretty much means Ed) will remember that Race is one of my new favorite games. It's quick to set up and play, easy to explain, but the strategy is complicated and varied enough that it keeps me interested.

For this session, I pursued my standard produce/consume strategy. By the time that Mando, who was going for military, laid down his 12th card, I thought that I was too far ahead on points from using Consume 2x VP for him to catch up. He had two six cost cards that gave him huge bonuses, and he ended up passing me by two points. The win was somewhat tainted, however, by the fact that my opponent played two of the same card. Unfortunately, neither of us noticed the rule violation in time to correct it.

I need to switch to a new strategy. Mine worked well the first time I played, but it has let me down since then. I also need to pay more attention to the 6 cost cards.

Wits and Wagers

After Ticket to Ride (see this post), the five of us played Wits and Wagers.

Though I prefer games that require a lot of strategy, I don't necessarily dislike party/trivia games. For example, I love Taboo and have been known to play some Trivial Pursuit in my day. This game, however, doesn't do it for me.

The entire game consists of 7 trivia questions that each have a numerical answer. Each player writes down a guess. Then the guesses are placed on the board. The players place wagers on the answer(s) they believe is the closest to being correct without going over.

Thursday night was my second time to play Wits and Wagers, and it didn't get any better with repetition. I like the wagering mechanic, but I don't have fun playing it in general. There is a bit of strategy involved such as covering the most advantageous bets but not much. The win always seems to come down to the player who bets the most and wins in the final round. Patrick managed to be that player this time.

Ticket to Ride

JM arrived at game night Thursday after we had started Dominion, so, for our second game, we needed something that would accomodate 5 players. Ticket to Ride fit the bill in that regard and is considered to be a gateway game, perfect for a new group.

In this game, players draw Tickets that grant points for completing a route between two North American cities (other sets use different areas, such as Europe, but this one has the plus that El Paso is shown on the map). Routes are made by converting the correct number of color coded train cars, obtained by drawing cards, into a track made by your train pieces on the board. The creation of a track grants additional VPs depending on the length of the track.

In general, my strategy is to complete the routes on the tickets that I drew. I haven't had a lot of success with this method, however. Patrick won this game by using a technique that I hadn't seen previously; he neglected his route tickets and instead built the longest tracks that he could. He ended up beating JM by one point.

Ticket to Ride isn't the best game ever created, but it is a fun time. It plays quickly and requires very little set up time. It's also great for the less experienced players in the group.

Dominion - First Play

Mando, Patrick, Dani, and I all played Dominion for the first time during the Thursday evening meetup. Based on this one play, the game lives up to it's top 10 rating on Board Game Geek.

It's easy to explain, quick to set up, and has such an original feel to it. If you've ever played collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering, you'll especially appreciate the game play, but such experience is not necessary to enjoy playing it.

Dominion features three different types of cards: Treasure, VP, and Action. Each player starts with 7 1-count treasure cards (Coppers) and 3 1-count VP cards (Estates). Each player then shuffles their deck and draws 5 cards. Starting with a randomly determined individual, each turn is divided into an action phase where one action card can be played, a buy phase where one card can be purchased from the supply in the middle of the table, and a cleanup phase where all cards in the player's hand are discarded and a new hand of 5 cards is drawn.

Cards that are bought go into the discard pile. Once all cards in the face down deck have been drawn, the discard pile is shuffled and becomes the deck. Thus, the object of the game is to build the best deck.

You have to balance buying VPs, Treasures, and Actions. If you buy a lot of Estates, they each give you a point, but they also clutter up your deck, as do Coppers. Drawing a hand of 3 Estates and 2 Coppers doesn't help you nearly as much as drawing a mixture of good Action cards and Golds.

From the beginning of the game, it became clear that purchasing Golds (cost 6 Treasure, give you 3 Treasure each time they're drawn) and Provinces (cost 8, give 6 VP) as often as possible was the way to go. It also became apparent that some of the Action cards are quite valuable.

The game provides 25 different types of Action cards, but only 10 are played with each game. For our first match, we chose to play with the 10 recommended by the game rules: Cellar, Market, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, Woodshop.

The Woodshop (costs 3, allows you to take any card costing up to 4 during the Action phase) looked pretty good at first, and both Dani and I bought quite a few of them. By the midgame, however, I was disappointed to see these come up. While it's useful to gain that extra Action card or Silver during the first phase, your goal is to get 6 or 8 Treasure per turn in order to buy Gold and Provinces. The Woodshop simply doesn't help at all with this.

The Smithy (costs 4, allows you to draw 3 more cards) on the other hand, is excellent. Drawing more cards is always good, and this one, especially when combined with a Village, is the best card drawer that we had. Patrick and Mando seemed to like the Moat (costs 2, allows you to draw 2 cards and defends from attack) better. I'd rather spend the extra $$$ for the better card. For the same cost, I like the Cellar (costs 2, +1 action and discard any number of cards to draw that number). This one allows you to get rid of any cards that aren't helping you, replace them with potentially better ones, and then lets you play another action. Sweet.

Mando, who finished second only two VP behind me, was the only one to make use of the Militia (costs 4, gives 2 extra Treasure and makes all other players discard to 3 cards). This one is pretty powerful. The extra Treasure can help quite a bit (Mando purchased more Provinces than anyone else), and it hurts your opponents as well.

My strategy was to try to get as many cards in my hand as possible. To do so, I bought as many Smithys as possible and combined them with Villages (costs 3, give one extra card and allows you to play 2 extra actions) and Markets (costs 5, gives one extra card and allows one extra action, and allows one extra buy and give one extra Treasure).

In the end, my strategy prevailed, if barely. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably play in a similar fashion but wouldn't buy any Woodshops. I'd consider buying a few Militia as well. After all, when combined with any card that allows extra Actions, it works as a Silver that allows you to hurt your opponents.

Overall, Dominion is a lot of fun. I expect it to be one of the core games that the group plays because it has enough strategical elements to satisfy the hardcore gamers but is light and fun enough for the average member.

If I had to post one complaint, however, it would be that the Curse (costs 0, -1 VP) cards were never explained in the rules. I did some investigation after the fact and found that we were misusing them. We allowed players to buy and use them like Actions, giving them to opponents. This is actually not allowed. Apparently, the Curse cards only work with Witch and will be used more with some of the expansion sets.

Expansion Strategy in Settlers of Catan

The concept of the Expansion Strategy is to seek a balance of resources and try to expand rapidly early in the game.

In order to win, you’ll need to:

• Get most of your points from settlements and cities. However, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to build 5 cities. The additional points, obviously, need to come from longest road, bonus points, or largest army.
  
• Since you’re likely to have a good supply of brick and wood, the most likely source of additional points is the longest road. Of the 13 games that I won, I had longest road in 7.
  
• Development cards almost always perform a useful function, so, though this strategy doesn’t call for you to focus on buying them, you will occasionally make a purchase or two. In 9 out of my 13 victories, I had at least one bonus point.
  
• In most cases, you’re not going to be buying huge quantities of development cards. However, since soldiers make up a large number of the cards, it’s not inconceivable that you find yourself with largest army (4/13 for me).
  

I played 25 games against the computer using this strategy. Please see this post for details on the setup. My observations and tips are below:

• I won only 13 of 25 games (52%). When I first started playing Settlers, it appeared to me that this strategy of balancing and maximizing resources would be the way to go. It has not lived up to my expectations. In order to win, you simply need too many resources.
  
• Once again, I won well over 50% of my games in which I started in the 3rd or 4th position versus much less than half for those where I started 1st or 2nd.
  
• For this series of games, greater chances of getting resources did not translate into greater chances of winning. Granted that 25 games is an extremely limited sample size, but, for this strategy, it appears that quality trumps quantity every time. You need to get bricks, wood, wheat, and ore in decent quantities in order to win. Lack of any of these resources makes it extremely difficult to win.
  
• Pick your resources carefully. If you ignore the chances of getting a resource based on its number, it is easier to get wood (4 hexes) than brick (3 hexes). Since both are required in equal quantities, you want to focus on brick over wood. Likewise, wheat is more valuable than sheep. They both appear with equal frequency on the board (4 hexes), but wheat is more useful in that it is used in the production of cities while sheep is not.
  
• It’s tempting when using this strategy to disregard ore – a huge mistake. Without cities, it is impossible to win. 5 settlements give 5 points, and longest road gives an additional 2. Without ore, it’s almost impossible to get the additional 3 points.
  
• If you’re a good trader, you could try foregoing sheep. In the course of the game, you’ll need one sheep for each of your settlements and each of your development cards. At most you’ll build 5-7 settlements and a few development cards. Meanwhile, your opponents should have sheep in huge quantities for the four hexes and could be willing to trade. It’s risky but workable.
  

Summary of 25 games using the Expansion Strategy:

• 3rd Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 6 brick, 12 brick, 11 wheat, 10 sheep, 9 ore. Won. Surprisingly, the low chances of getting wood and wheat didn’t hurt me too much. I finished with 8 points from cities/settlements and 2 bonus.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 8 wood, 2 wood, 6 brick, 4 brick, 4 wheat. Won. This one was tight. I got a total of 6 points off buildings, 2 for largest army, and 2 for longest road.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 4 wood, 6 wood, 12 wood, 6 brick, 9 wheat, 11 ore. Lost. I got crushed. I was too dependent on the number 6, which didn’t come up as often as I needed. Struggled to get wheat.
  
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 8 wood, 11 wood, 3 brick, 6 wheat, 4 ore x2. Won. Easy game. 8 points from cities/settlements and 2 bonus.
  
• 1st Player. Initial placement 8 wood, 5 wood, 10 brick, 12 sheep, 3 sheep, 6 ore. Lost. Lack of wheat hurt early development.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 6 wood, 4 wood, 3 wheat, 11 wheat, 6 sheep, 5 sheep. Lost. Lack of brick and ore killed me.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 9 wood, 5 brick, 9 brick, 10 brick, 2 sheep, 10 sheep. Won. My numbers hit a lot early, allowing me to run away with the game. Finished with 8 points from buildings and longest road.
  
• 1st Player. Initial placement 8 wood, 11 brick, 5 wheat, 3 wheat, 10 sheep x2. Lost. I wasn’t able to expand quickly enough. The lack of brick and ore hurt.
  
• 4th Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 5 wood, 4 brick, 6 wheat x2, 11 sheep. Lost. This one was close. I would have won on my next turn. My six drew the robber often and lack of ore didn’t allow me to draw development cards to move it.
  
• 4th Player. Initial placement 6 wood, 4 wood, 2 brick, 6 wheat, 4 wheat, 3 sheep. Won. This one was surprisingly easy considering that I didn’t start with ore, and I was light on brick. I finished with 9 points from buildings and longest road.
  
• 1st Player. Initial placement 11 wood, 10 brick, 8 sheep, 3 sheep x2, 6 ore. Won. Close game. I finished with 6 points from buildings, largest army, longest road, and 1 bonus.
  
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 11 wood, 5 brick, 8 wheat, 6 sheep, 3 sheep, 4 ore. Won. Easy game. I finished with largest army, longest road, 1 bonus, 4 settlements, and 1 city.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 5 wood, 10 wood, 11 brick, 6 sheep, 8 sheep, 3 ore. Lost. This one was miserable. 11 never hit, so I never got brick. I also was poorly situated for expansion.
  
• 4th Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 11 wood, 9 brick, 10 brick, 12 wheat, 6 ore. Won. Easy victory by building 1 settlement and 4 cities and getting 1 bonus point.
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 9 wood, 5 brick, 10 brick x2, 8 sheep, 11 sheep. Lost. Even though I had a brick monopoly, there was no way to win without the wheat and ore to make cities.
  
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 4 wood, 3 brick, 8 brick, 4 wheat, 8 wheat. Won. Extremely close game. Built 2 cities and 3 settlements to go with 3 bonus.
  
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 6 wood, 12 brick, 4 wheat, 11 wheat, 6 ore. Lost. Not nearly enough brick. I was also too heavily invested in the number 6, which didn’t come up often enough in this one.
  
• 1st Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 9 wood, 6 brick, 11 wheat, 6 sheep, 4 sheep. Lost. Close but no cigar. Once again, lack of ore hurt.
  
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 4 wood, 9 wood, 2 brick, 11 wheat, 4 sheep, 8 ore. Won. Tight game. Won with largest army, 3 cities, 1 settlement, and 1 bonus.
  
• 1st Player. Initial placement 9 wood, 5 brick, 6 brick, 2 wheat, 10 sheep, 11 ore. Lost. Wasn’t able to expand fast enough and got cut off by opponent roads. Usually try to concentrate on outside hexes, but the best intersections were in the middle of the board.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 3 wood, 11 wood, 6 brick, 3 brick, 4 sheep, 8 ore. Lost. 3’s and 11’s didn’t come up, so I was starved for wood.
  
• 1st Player. Initial placement 5 wood, 9 wood, 4 brick, 10 brick, 6 wheat, 2 sheep. Won. Very close game. Won with longest road, 3 settlements, and 3 cities.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 10 wood, 2 brick, 9 brick, 10 brick, 5 wheat, 9 sheep. Lost. The opponent who concentrated on the 8’s jumped out to an insurmountable lead.
  
• 2nd Player. Initial placement 5 wood, 6 wood, 9 brick, 10 wheat, 11 sheep, 12 ore. Won. Easy victory. I finished with 3 settlements, 2 cities, longest road, and 1 bonus.
  
• 3rd Player. Initial placement 4 wood, 8 brick, 6 wheat, 3 sheep, 11 sheep, 12 ore. Won. Close one. I finished with 1 settlement, 4 cities, and 2 bonus.