Power Grid Mistakes

Manny, Richard, Nora, and myself met last night to play Power Grid, ranked the 3rd best game in the world by the members of boardgamegeek.com.

It was only my second session of PG, and it turned into my second loss. Hopefully, my mistakes will help you learn what not to do.

In my first game of Power Grid, I narrowly lost due to not having enough capacity on the final turn to power as many cities as my opponent. The lesson learned in that loss severely colored my play in this game, much to my detriment.

Here are some of the questions that I have about my play last night:

• I let Manny and Nora outbid me for Plants 04 and 05, leaving me with Plant 08 and last in line to place my first house.
• Nora, going first, selected the Pacific Northwest. Manny then took control of the valuable East Coast followed by Richard taking the Central Region. My decision was to fight it out with Manny or to claim an area for my own. I decided to take the expensive West Coast. This left no one to contest Manny for the east, giving him a tremendous advantage. I probably should have played it differently.
• With the highest numbered plant, I would remain the leader for 2nd round if I bought a house like everyone else the first turn. I decided not to. I’m pretty sure that this was the correct decision since it let me be first in buying resources and placing houses. Also, it only cost me 10 Elektros, which would have almost been completely consumed by what I paid for the resources. The problem was that I started paying way too much consideration to placing myself in a good position as far as the leader track. The disadvantages to being in the lead aren’t nearly severe enough to make staying back too far attractive. In the end, letting Manny pull ahead too far is what killed me.
• Later in the game, I really, really wanted a plant that was next up in the future market. With both Richard and me left to buy a plant, I took a chance and hoped Richard would outbid me for the one that I nominated. He didn’t. This blunder left me with a suboptimal plant that made me way to dependent on getting massive quantities of coal. In contrast, Manny bought much more efficient hybrid plants that allowed him not to be nearly as concerned with resources.
• Near the end, I had much more plant capacity than anyone but very few cities. Instead of concentrating on catching up in cities, I spent all my money on resources when it wasn’t necessary. Huge mistake. Manny raced ahead to 17 cities even though he could only power 15. I had capacity for 20 but only had 11. Manny won.

In contrast to all my mistakes, Manny, overall, played an extremely good game. He took an early lead, selected plants well, and managed his strategy to perfection. Maybe he should be writing this article…

A Few Chess Strategy Tips

I haven’t played Chess seriously since college. At that time, I met Dave Dawson. I helped him out with his Mechanical Engineering homework, and he, being a near master level player, tutored me in Chess.

We started right after my first ever Chess tournament. Going in, I thought that I was hot stuff. Most people that I had played barely could stay on the same board with me. Surely, these players couldn’t be much better, right?

Wrong. They wiped up the floor with me. One guy was so bored by the challenge, or lack thereof, that I presented that he walked around the room while I made my moves.

That’s when I got more serious about learning. I never got near the level of a master, but, with Dave’s help, I at least reached the point where I was competitive. After leaving La Tech, I lost interest in keeping up my study of the game, and that knowledge slowly started leaking back into the dark recesses of my brain.

Recently, a coworker, Enrique, and I have started playing at lunch. I’m a bit rusty, but some of what Dave taught me is coming back.

If you’re a beginning player who hasn’t read much about Chess strategy, these few tips should immediately improve your game:

· Don’t cede control of the center of the board: If you have a knight in the center of the board, how many spaces can it attack? 8. Put that same knight on the edge and see how many it spaces it can attack. Only 4. Your pieces, especially knights and bishops are more effective in the center. Don’t let your opponent establish control there without a fight.
· Protect your king: Note that both your king’s and queen’s pawns are usually advanced in the fight for control of the center, leaving your king out in the open. If you leave it there, your opponent is going to gain, at the very least, temporal and positional advantage. Castle as soon as you can. The only exception to this rule is if the queens are taken off the board early. Your king becomes a more valuable strategic asset without the presence of the most powerful piece on the board.
· Try not to move the same piece twice in the opening: The purpose of the opening is to get all your pieces in position to attack. If I’ve got all my firepower pointed at your king and three of your pieces are still sitting in their starting spots, you’re pretty much going down.
· Don’t bring your queen out too early: Have you seen Searching for Bobby Fischer? Seriously, moving your queen out in the early game allows your opponent to develop their pieces by attacking your queen. Trust me, this is not good for you.
· Rooks belong on open files: Moving into the midgame, place your rooks on those files where your pawns have been taken. They are much more powerful threats there.
· Connected rooks are more powerful than the sum of the two independently: If possible, keep your rooks on the same rank or file with no pieces between. This way, they protect each other and provide for a double attack.
· Passed pawns must be pushed: A passed pawn is one that has no opponent’s pawns between it at the 8th rank. Advancing (pushing) these pawns creates a threat with which your opponent must deal.

Pandemic - 2 Player Session Report

The meetup on Saturday was a bit of a letdown. 6 people showed up, not a bad turnout, but everyone left after 2 hours. All we had time for was one game of Apples to Apples and two of Scattergories. I don't consider either of those games to be worth a post.

My wife, Mandi, came to the rescue, though. She pretty much hates gaming, but, when she learned that I didn't get to play any games that I consider to be fun, she agreed to play one with me. I chose Pandemic because I figured she'd like the cooperative aspect of it.

This session was only the second time that I had played it. The first time, Manny led us through the game, so I didn't feel the need to do a thorough review of the rules since I had that prior experience. Oops!

The session at Manny's ended with us being overwhelmed by breakouts, and I was determined to not let that happen this time. Instead of choosing random roles, I assigned Mandi to be the Operations Specialist to build research stations, and I played the Medic to more easily clean out infected cities. Together, we concentrated, in order, on wiping disease out of cities that threatened to outbreak, curing diseases, and eradicating diseases.

We were doing really well, too. We had cured and eliminated all the yellow cubes and had cured the red disease. I noticed that we were getting near the end of the stack of player draw cards and read through the rules to see if we shuffle them and start over or what. Turns out, reaching the end of the draw stack is one of the loss conditions. At that point, there was no way for us to cure the remaining two diseases to win the game.

Lessons Learned:

• Curing diseases is the priority. Though eradicating them gives you a benefit, you just don't have time to do it.
• I think that two player is much tougher than playing with three or four. You have the benefit of moving each of specialist more, but you have less specialists, meaning less abilities and less cards.
• If you're going to play two player, I wouldn't use the Operations Specialist. Because you can only hold 7 cards, you're getting rid of cards all the time anyway. Use the extra cards to build research stations.
• The Scientist might be absolutely crucial. Needing only four cards instead of five may be the only way to get all four cured.
• The Medic is useful but, again, with two players, may be a luxury that you can't afford. The Researcher's ability to transfer cards may be too essential to leave him out of the game.

For next game:

My plan is to concentrate solely on getting the 4 diseases cured and manage outbreaks only enough to keep from getting hoses.

BTW, Mandi did like the game better than most that I've forced her to play. No word yet on if she'll ever play again, though.

My Take on the Dominion Kingdom Cards

I’ve been playing a lot of Dominion online at BrettspeilWelt, so my knowledge is increasing at a pretty good pace. The game changes dramatically depending on which 10 action cards are in play, so I figure the best way to improve is to get a good grip on how and when each card should be used.

My take on the 25 Dominion Kingdom (Action) cards:

Adventurer – (6, Reveal cards in your hand until you reveal 2 treasure cards. Put those two cards in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.) It’s a decent card but not great because of the cost. If you’ve got a big deck and either have eliminated the coppers or have a high percentage of Gold and Silver, this card can net you 4 to 6 treasure. Don’t go overboard, but one in a deck that meets the conditions stated above isn’t too bad.

Bureaucrat – (4, Gain a Silver. Each other player reveals a Victory card and puts in on the top of his deck.) This one isn’t bad, but it never seems to fit into what I want to do with my deck. That being the case, I usually ignore it. It is beneficial, though. If you need a lot of Silver, this card gives it to you while punishing your opponents. It can also help slow up an opponent who’s got a chain deck going.

Cellar – (2, +1 Action, Discard any number of cards and draw cards for each one discarded) Unless I’m building a super efficient Chapel deck, at least one copy of Cellar fits into almost all my decks. It’s a great card drawing engine especially combined with other card drawers. Play a Laboratory or two and use this to get rid of the chaff.

Chancellor – (3, +2 Treasure, You may put your deck into the discard pile.) I have never bought this card. Essentially, it’s a Silver in the guise of an action card with a minor ability. The fact that it’s an action card makes it inferior to the Silver in that only one action can be used per turn, so, unless its ability makes it better or you’re scared of the Thief, you’re better off buying the Silver. The only use that I can see for the ability is if you keep track of every card that you play and that you have remaining in your deck. If so, you’ll know when it’s advantageous to use this card. I don’t know about you, but I don’t put that much mental effort into Dominion.

Chapel – (2, Trash up to 4 cards from you hand.) Doesn’t look like much, does it? Hard to believe that it’s a game changer, right? Believe me, it is. The Chapel allows you to discard all the clutter and, in a game with the Witch, makes the Curses almost worthless. The object when making a Chapel deck is to get rid of all your Coppers and Estates (don’t forget to buy a couple of Silvers before getting rid of your Coppers, though.) in order to make the deck super efficient. In an ideal world, you could cycle through your entire deck every turn while buying Provinces. Be careful, however. The Thief can completely wreck the Chapel deck by stealing all the Gold and Silver. My plan is to write a future post solely devoted to the Chapel Deck. I need a little more practice first, though.

Council Room – (5, +4 Cards, +1 Buy, Each other player draws a card) It’s reasonably priced at 5 and allows you to draw more cards than anything except possibly Library. Then, it let’s you have an additional buy. Slam dunk, right? I haven’t used it that much. There have been too many times when I’m sitting there with 5 cards in my hand, and my opponent uses this thing. That sixth card is almost always exactly what I need to set my hand into action. To me, it’s not worth what I’m giving my opponents.

Feast – (4, Trash this card and gain one costing up to 5) At first, I thought that this card was the most worthless card of all. Now, I see its use, and it’s essential in certain situations. A lot of 4 count cards are good, but most of the cards that drive your engine cost five. For example, if the Witch is out, you NEED to be the first one to start handing out Curses. If you’re not drawing the coin, consider using a Feast to get there.

Festival – (5, +2 Actions, +1 Buy, +2 Treasure) Often, the person with the most Festivals wins. It’s that good. Chain a couple of these together, and you’ve got 4 Treasure and a whole lot of actions left to use some card drawers. It pairs well with any card drawer, but especially well with the Library.

Gardens – (4, Gives 1VP for every 10 cards in your hand) This card is another one that you can build a deck around. I’m still perfecting my Garden deck technique, but a key combination is to use the Workshop and cards that allow you extra buys. Once I gain a bit more experience, I’ll do a post strictly for this deck.

Laboratory – (5, +2 Cards, +1 Action) It’s a card drawer that lets you play another action. That is always a good thing. Some believe that this card is so good that it actually should cost 6 to buy.

Library – (5, Draw until you have 7 cards in your hand. You may discard any Action cards drawn.) This one can be a super card drawer in the right deck. If you’re playing Festivals, for instance, which give you extra actions but not extra cards, Library works perfectly to cycle through your deck. It’s also the only card that I know of that makes you think “Please, please play a Militia…”

Market – (+1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +1 Treasure) The phrase “Jack of all trades but master of none” aptly describes this card, and, as such, it will fit into almost any deck. Though it’s never bad to draw it, rarely do I think “Yay! A Market!” If you need cycling cards, and none better are available, go ahead and take a few. If you need extra cash that is Thief proof or extra buys for that Garden deck, go ahead and take a few.

Militia – (4, +2 Treasure, Each other player discards down to 3 cards.) For me, the attack feature of this card is minimally useful. Sometimes, it deals real damage, but usually it’s not that great of an impact. The attack combined with giving you essentially an extra Silver on the board makes it worthy of play.

Mine – (5, Trash a Treasure card from your hand and gain one costing up to 3 more and put it into your hand.) Any card that makes your deck more efficient is good. This one turns Copper to Silver and Silver to Gold. Unless you have a Chapel to get rid of unwanted cards, you probably want at least one or two of these.

Moat – (2, +2 Cards, Reveal to counter an attack) I screwed up the rules on this one for my first several games. I thought that you had to discard it to counter an attack. Not true. All you have to do is reveal it; you still have use of it for that turn. The difference makes this one almost essential if your opponents are utilizing Witches, Thieves, or Militia.

Moneylender – (4, Trash a copper card and gain 3) This one isn’t the most powerful of the conversion cards because you have to draw it and a copper at the same time, but it does have it’s uses. Unless you’re going for a Gardens deck, you want to be as efficient as possible, and getting rid of Coppers helps to make you much more efficient.

Remodel – (4, Trash a card from your hand and gain a card worth up to 2 more) Note that Gold costs 6, and Provinces cost 8. See a connection between that fact and this card? Think about it. Seriously, it helps make your deck more efficient, can get rid of Curses, and helps to win in the late game. Nice.

Smithy – (4, +3 Cards) I was completely enamored with this card when I first started. Draw 3 extra cards? Sweet! I still like it, but it does have a big drawback in that it doesn’t provide you with another action. Late in the game, I like long combos, and the Smithy can stop a chain cold. I usually want one or two in my deck, more possibly if Villages are involved, but that’s about it.

Spy – (4, +1 Card, +1 Action, Each player reveals the top card. Player of the Thief chooses whether the card stays on top or goes to the discard pile.) This one isn’t super powerful, but it can be useful if there are no Markets, Laboratories, etc. It will keep a chain going, give you some control over what cards are coming up, and possibly harm your opponents. It’s not a card that I seek out, but I’ll use it if I feel it’s my best choice.

Thief – (4, Each opponent reveals two cards from the top of their deck. If any Treasures are revealed, one of your choice goes to the Trash pile. You may choose to steal any cards sent to the trash this way.) This card can stop an efficient Chapel deck cold. Other than that, it’s a bit hit or miss. Obviously, it gains value if you’re playing 4 player, and your opponents have a lot of Silver and Gold. Basically, it has situational usage at best.

Throne Room – (4, Choose an action card from your hand. Play it twice.) You have to be careful, because this card is worthless by itself. If you’re playing lots of action cards, however, Throne Room can supercharge your engine. I usually end up with 2 of these in the appropriate deck but never more than 3.

Village – (3, +1 Card, +2 Action) I think that I tend to misuse this card. Since it’s so cheap, I tend to buy too many too early. Is it really that useful to buy it on one of your first two turns? Without many extra actions to play, all it really does is draw either another Copper or another Estate. It is a useful card that belongs in most decks, though.

Witch – (5, +2 Cards, Each other player gains a Curse.) This one is another key card that changes the game. You may be able to ignore it if you’re playing a Chapel deck. Otherwise, you usually want to get these and start handing out Curses to your opponents faster than they hand them to you.

Woodcutter - (3, +1 Buy, +2) No card in Dominion is worthless; some are more situation than others, though. This one is good if a) you’re scared of thieves stealing Silver from your Chapel deck, b) you’re running a Garden deck because it gives you extra cash and an extra buy, or c) there are no other extra buy cards to give your chain deck the ability to pick up multiple Provinces per turn.

Workshop – (3, Gain a card costing up to 4) I use this one primarily in Garden decks. It gives you a Garden and still leaves you your buy to gain an extra card.

BrettspielWelt

Though the title sounds like the hot new German game in town, it isn't. Brettspiel is a free online gaming site that features many popular board games. I've seen Carcasonne and Stone Age, and I've played, to this point, 26 games of Dominion - only winning 11. YIKES, tough competition.

BGG has a nice primer on it here. I would recommend checking it out before creating an account because the interface isn't as intuitive as it could be.

I'm BWFoster78 on the site. Look me up.

Stone Age Session Report

I played Stone Age with Nora, Manny, and Mando at the last meetup. For some reason, I'm enjoying playing it less now than I did at first.

I pursued my typical strategy of taking what was given to me. My priorities, in order, are:

1. Moving up the food production track.
2. New Meeples, but don't stretch food too thin.
3. Good cards for low resource cost; late in game, cards that give me a lot of points regardless of cost.
4. Huts that meet my resource needs.
5. Tools, don't want more that 4 to 6 total however.
6. Wood, good for trading for cards. Need to keep a bunch on hand.
7. Higher cost resources for getting points from huts.
8. Food, I can always throw meeples in the food production area since there are no limits.

Mando and Nora weren't really too much of a factor in the game, but Manny made a strong push at the end by trading in a lot of gold for points. He was able to accumulate a lot of Meeples quickly but wasn't able to move up the food production track enough to keep up with his population growth. It seemed to me like he was going for food almost every round.

His strategy seemed to be to get as much production of resources as possible and convert that into points. To do so, he almost completely ignored tools and cards. The lack of cards really hurt him. By getting a few more key bonuses that fit his strategy, he could have easily have pushed past me. Also, getting just two cards that allow him to roll for a food production bonus would give him 8 chances to roll a 6, pretty good odds. The extra food would have helped him a lot.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had he played a little tighter, especially since I made a major screw up in one of the last rounds miscalculating the number of resources that I needed on a turn.

Modern Art - Second Play

At the last meetup, I played Modern Art again and won easily.

From the standpoint of determining play strategy, games typically fall into one of three categories:

1. It is difficult to figure out how the game mechanics interrelate and thus hard to determine what moves to make.
2. There is a natural progression where I figure it out more and more as I gain experience.
3. It feels intuitive to me.

Games in category 2 are easy for me to analyze, and I can put my thoughts into words for this blog. The other two categories are much more difficult. With the first type, I don't know what to do myself, so it's the blind leading the blind. With the final type, it's hard to break out tips from play that simply "feels right" to me.

Unfortunately, Modern Art falls into the 3rd category, but I'll try for discern some tips anyway:

1. I'm not that aggressive in the first round. I have no information to tell me what artists are going to be valuable later on, so I'd rather bide my time.
2. As the game progresses, the cards in your hand become more valuable, so don't get rid of cards unnecessarily in the early rounds. Save those double auctions for the end.
3. Pay attention to how many paintings of each artist have been sold in the early rounds; it will allow you to estimate value for the final round. That artist that had five paintings out in Rounds 1 and 2 and another 3 in 3 isn't going to have a lot left to sell in Round 4. Conversely, you can pretty much guarantee that that artist that hasn't sold much the entire game is going to be pretty high on the list for that final round.
4. This game is all about maximizing value. To win, you have to buy paintings for less than they're worth and sell them for more. To do so, you must correctly judge value and use metagaming on your opponents.
5. In general, it's bad to close out a round. You're losing a minimum of $30,000. On the other hand, if there are two artists with 4 paintings out and you own a bunch of the one that you can close, the difference between first and second makes it equal if you own 3 paintings and a profit if you own all 4.
6. There are 12 paintings for Lite Metal, 13 for Yoko, 14 for Cristin P, 15 for Gitter, and 16 for Krypto. Obviously, more players are going to have more paintings from Krypto than for Lite Metal. Therefore, Krypto is going to have a greater chance of coming out than Lite Metal. Note, however, that the fewer paintings an artist has available the higher ranking in tiebreakers. If Krypto sold 5 and both Gitter and Yoko sold 4, Yoko will be worth $20,000 to Gitter's $10,000.

That's all I have for now. Hopefully, you can glean some information from this post that helps you in your bidding.

Two More Sessions of Dominion

Dominion is THE hot game for our meetup group, and I got a chance to play two more sessions last Saturday.

The first game pitted myself against JM, Mando, and Nora. I chose to pursue a Chapel (costs 2, trash up to 4 cards from your hand) strategy this go around. Not only was it successful, but it completely fit my style of play.

I started with my normal buys of a Village (costs 3, +1 card +2 actions) and a Smithy (costs 4, +3 cards). The Chapel was my third buy, and I followed it up with another Smithy and two or three more Villages. That was pretty much all I needed.

I used the Chapel to trash all my estates, and, once I got a few golds, all my coppers as well. At the end of the game, I had less than 20 cards, and an astounding 7 of those were provinces. Basically, the only turns near the end of the game where I didn't buy a Province were turns where I drew four of them in my hand to start. The rest of the time, the Villages and Smithies allowed me to cycle almost completely through my deck. I definitely want to explore the use of the Chapel more.

The second game, between JM, Mando, and myself, became my first ever loss after 6 consecutive wins. We chose a set of action cards that did not contain any way to trash cards and did contain a lot of attack cards.

I started out buying a Village, a Smithy, and a Festival (costs 5, +2 action +1 buy +2 treasure). Twice, I misused the Festival early in the game, which completely killed me. I forgot to add the 2 treasure to my total which in turn made me not even think about the extra buy feature. My plan had been to pursue a Garden (1VP/10 cards in your deck) strategy, and a couple of moats early on would have helped greatly. My screwup also caused me to undervalue the Festival (it's the first time I had ever used the card), meaning that I didn't buy extra copies as soon as possible.

Mando ended up winning by a very thin margin over JM. He used the Festival card to great effect, but also seemed to fall in love with the Spy. I didn't use the Spy and, though I agree it has some value, am not sure that it merits four copies in your deck. Truthfully, JM should have won but made one screw up that cost him the game.

He concentrated on getting as much Gold as possible and, on one turn, bought it when he could have afforded a Province. That proved to be the difference in the game. JM said that he didn't want to clog up his deck with the green cards too early. To me, it doesn't matter when you buy them; my whole focus is to get to 8 to buy Provinces.

He was successful enough in acquiring them, however, that he shortened the game. By the time that I figured out my mistakes, it was too late to recover. I ended up not buying a single Garden. Not very good when you're trying to pursue a Garden strategy.

Win or lose, though, I do want to try this strategy again.