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.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Shogun - First Play
It's been awhile since I made an entry because I haven't been to a game night in the last three weeks. Fortunately, Ed and I were able to make the one at Ray's on Saturday, and our first action was Shogun. Steve had just purchased it and was eager to play. He, Dee, and Ben joined Ed and I.
I had read about the Shogun's combat mechanic, but this was my first experience with the combat tower, which Ed promptly christened The Slide of Pain. I have to say that I like it. It's quick, and it's easy to figure out. Most of all, though, it's fun.
The game involves a lot of indepth thinking, which makes it good for players who like strategy. Having even one person who doesn't make decisions quickly, however, can slow the game down to sluglike proportions. I guess, however, that the same can be said for any one that requires a lot of thought.
While Shogun has the feel of Eurogame with combat, the metagame in my single experience devolved into Risk-like maneuvering for alliances. In fact, the whole game seemed to resemble Risk quite a bit. When we first set up the board, jokes were going around the table about how many bonus armies did you get for controlling the whole continent and who was going to get Australia.
Overall, I enjoyed my first experience with the game even if it did run a bit long. Ed claims that he won because he accomplished his goal of capturing and controlling Bitch'n (actually Bitchu, but who wants to quibble). The actual points leader was Dee, who came in two ahead of me and one ahead of Steve. I was knocked out of contention by a random attack from Ben, who was no where near having a chance to win and who later admitted to not having a clue what he was doing. Playing with him was like playing with a random chance element thrown in.
I need to play more times to get a better sense of how well I like Shogun, but my first impression was pretty positive. From a strategy standpoint, we debated a bit at the beginning whether it was better to control a region or have a bunch of territories spread out. After playing, I would lean toward controlling a region; it's a big advantage to be able to build and tax territories that you know cannot be attacked.
I had read about the Shogun's combat mechanic, but this was my first experience with the combat tower, which Ed promptly christened The Slide of Pain. I have to say that I like it. It's quick, and it's easy to figure out. Most of all, though, it's fun.
The game involves a lot of indepth thinking, which makes it good for players who like strategy. Having even one person who doesn't make decisions quickly, however, can slow the game down to sluglike proportions. I guess, however, that the same can be said for any one that requires a lot of thought.
While Shogun has the feel of Eurogame with combat, the metagame in my single experience devolved into Risk-like maneuvering for alliances. In fact, the whole game seemed to resemble Risk quite a bit. When we first set up the board, jokes were going around the table about how many bonus armies did you get for controlling the whole continent and who was going to get Australia.
Overall, I enjoyed my first experience with the game even if it did run a bit long. Ed claims that he won because he accomplished his goal of capturing and controlling Bitch'n (actually Bitchu, but who wants to quibble). The actual points leader was Dee, who came in two ahead of me and one ahead of Steve. I was knocked out of contention by a random attack from Ben, who was no where near having a chance to win and who later admitted to not having a clue what he was doing. Playing with him was like playing with a random chance element thrown in.
I need to play more times to get a better sense of how well I like Shogun, but my first impression was pretty positive. From a strategy standpoint, we debated a bit at the beginning whether it was better to control a region or have a bunch of territories spread out. After playing, I would lean toward controlling a region; it's a big advantage to be able to build and tax territories that you know cannot be attacked.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Age of Mythology
The second game that we played at game night, with the same crew - Dee, Ed, and Joe, was Age of Mythology. Though Ed and I had gone over the rules previously, it was our first time to actually play.
There was a slight misunderstanding with the rules at the beginning; I thought that you could only harvest resources if you had a peasant present, so I produced two houses at the beginning. I was a bit ticked off when the rule was clarified.
Playing Greek, I ended up attacking Ed, Norse, in the first round. The other Greek player, Joe, followed up with another attack on his turn, and Ed's army was decimated. Dee, the other Norse player, attacked me a couple of times putting a big hit on my army. After he used a god power to destroy my woodshop, I declared all out war on him.
There are many games where players have to make a decision about who to attack. My thinking is that, if you build up a reputation for being vindictive, it will give your opponents pause about choosing to pick on you. Whereas attacking Ed at the end of the game might have won the game for me, instead I kicked Dee even after he was down. Was this the right move? I don't know.
Dee turned his focus to buildings and economy while I rebuilt my military might. Between Joe and I, we were able to decimate his forces, and I personally destroyed 3 of his buildings. Going into the last turn, it was obvious that the player with the largest army was going to win. Dee and Joe didn't have a shot, but Dee was able to get his revenge by attacking me. His raid of my resources killed one of my soldiers and eliminated my ability to recruit two others. Ed got the largest army with 13 compared to my 12.
The detriment to Age of Mythology is the length of time it takes. Most of the popular games today run about an hour a contest; I didn't time our time for Age, but it had to have been at least 2.5 hours.
Still, it is fun to play. Like Ed says, all the resource allocation games that we play lack a combat element. This one doesn't. In fact, I absolutely love the combat! It has a very rock/paper/scissors feel to it as you try to guess what your opponent is going to choose. I kept going back to the Princess Bride - "but you know that I know that you know that I know..."
A quick funny side note: the Norse Frost Giant seems to be one of the strongest units in the game. He attacks normally with 7 dice, and, on this night, usually used more like 10 or 12. In five contests, it was defeated each time without rolling a single 6.
Overall, this is a game that I want to add to my collection and play again.
There was a slight misunderstanding with the rules at the beginning; I thought that you could only harvest resources if you had a peasant present, so I produced two houses at the beginning. I was a bit ticked off when the rule was clarified.
Playing Greek, I ended up attacking Ed, Norse, in the first round. The other Greek player, Joe, followed up with another attack on his turn, and Ed's army was decimated. Dee, the other Norse player, attacked me a couple of times putting a big hit on my army. After he used a god power to destroy my woodshop, I declared all out war on him.
There are many games where players have to make a decision about who to attack. My thinking is that, if you build up a reputation for being vindictive, it will give your opponents pause about choosing to pick on you. Whereas attacking Ed at the end of the game might have won the game for me, instead I kicked Dee even after he was down. Was this the right move? I don't know.
Dee turned his focus to buildings and economy while I rebuilt my military might. Between Joe and I, we were able to decimate his forces, and I personally destroyed 3 of his buildings. Going into the last turn, it was obvious that the player with the largest army was going to win. Dee and Joe didn't have a shot, but Dee was able to get his revenge by attacking me. His raid of my resources killed one of my soldiers and eliminated my ability to recruit two others. Ed got the largest army with 13 compared to my 12.
The detriment to Age of Mythology is the length of time it takes. Most of the popular games today run about an hour a contest; I didn't time our time for Age, but it had to have been at least 2.5 hours.
Still, it is fun to play. Like Ed says, all the resource allocation games that we play lack a combat element. This one doesn't. In fact, I absolutely love the combat! It has a very rock/paper/scissors feel to it as you try to guess what your opponent is going to choose. I kept going back to the Princess Bride - "but you know that I know that you know that I know..."
A quick funny side note: the Norse Frost Giant seems to be one of the strongest units in the game. He attacks normally with 7 dice, and, on this night, usually used more like 10 or 12. In five contests, it was defeated each time without rolling a single 6.
Overall, this is a game that I want to add to my collection and play again.
Friday, October 31, 2008
MAGDAR!
Ed and I wanted to try some new, quick games, so I went to Other Realms and picked a couple up. For our first play, we went with Magdar.
Overall, I had a lot of fun yelling MAGDAR! Other than that, there's not much to get excited about. The game seems to involve way too much luck based on random die rolls and no real strategy. There are some tactical considerations regarding which boulders to mine, but there's no chance to use them in any meaningful way because the game ends too quickly.
Ed and I started out even with 8 gems and 1 mithril apiece. He got a bit to greedy, and I was able to take out a 16 point gem while establishing one of my dwarfs mining a boulder behind his guy. I added 16 points and a mithril while he added another 8 that counted.
I can't recommend the game as great fun or something that makes you think. The only real plus is that it doesn't completely suck, and it takes only 10 to 20 minutes to play with a fairly short set up time. I guess it has value as something people can play on a game night while waiting for others to finish.
Overall, I had a lot of fun yelling MAGDAR! Other than that, there's not much to get excited about. The game seems to involve way too much luck based on random die rolls and no real strategy. There are some tactical considerations regarding which boulders to mine, but there's no chance to use them in any meaningful way because the game ends too quickly.
Ed and I started out even with 8 gems and 1 mithril apiece. He got a bit to greedy, and I was able to take out a 16 point gem while establishing one of my dwarfs mining a boulder behind his guy. I added 16 points and a mithril while he added another 8 that counted.
I can't recommend the game as great fun or something that makes you think. The only real plus is that it doesn't completely suck, and it takes only 10 to 20 minutes to play with a fairly short set up time. I guess it has value as something people can play on a game night while waiting for others to finish.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Agricola - 2nd Game
Ed had also been reading up on Agricola on Boardgamegeek.com and jumped at the chance to play it at game night. Dustin and Kwan, both experienced players, and Josh joined us.
Since playing for the first time last week, I had done a little research myself and convinced the other players that we should draft cards instead of passing them out randomly. I always loved drafting in Magic tournaments and figured that the mechanic would be fun here too. I was right. Something about it adds an extra element for me. I highly recommend it.
The first rule of drafting in Agricola, obviously, is to grab any Z cards that come your way. I ended up with Game Designer, allowing me to covert one each of a clay, wood, stone, and reed into two food and a bonus point at any time. Some important non-Z cards that I snagged were Slaughterhouse (one food every time an opponent slaughters animals), Woodcutter (gives me one extra wood anytime one of my farmers gets wood), and the Clay Deposit (action square that gives 5 clay. If other players use it, they have to give me a food. If I use it, I can choose to take 2 bonus points instead).
I really meandered through the first part of the game, and, just past the halfway point, thought that I didn't have a chance to win. Then things started to come together. I was the first to get my 3rd farmer and the first to get my fourth. Finally having figured out the farming mechanic, I sowed three fields, which gave me grain and vegetables for the end turns. I also was able to fence in a large chunk of my area and get some livestock.
In the end, I think that the Game Designer is what won it for me. I used it's ability 6 times, giving me 12 food and 6 VPs. I got an additional 4 points from the Clay Deposit. Overall, more than 25% of my total was bonus points, and I won with 39. The nearest competitor was Dustin with 30.
Once again, it seems like getting a powerful card and using it well is the key to winning the game. Of course, it also seems like getting extra people as soon as possible is a major factor as well.
So, after two times playing and winning both, I'm pretty ambivalent towards the game. If a group is getting together and needs a fourth or fifth player, I'll join in (especially if they've already set up the board), but I don't think that I'll ever crave me some Agricola action.
Since playing for the first time last week, I had done a little research myself and convinced the other players that we should draft cards instead of passing them out randomly. I always loved drafting in Magic tournaments and figured that the mechanic would be fun here too. I was right. Something about it adds an extra element for me. I highly recommend it.
The first rule of drafting in Agricola, obviously, is to grab any Z cards that come your way. I ended up with Game Designer, allowing me to covert one each of a clay, wood, stone, and reed into two food and a bonus point at any time. Some important non-Z cards that I snagged were Slaughterhouse (one food every time an opponent slaughters animals), Woodcutter (gives me one extra wood anytime one of my farmers gets wood), and the Clay Deposit (action square that gives 5 clay. If other players use it, they have to give me a food. If I use it, I can choose to take 2 bonus points instead).
I really meandered through the first part of the game, and, just past the halfway point, thought that I didn't have a chance to win. Then things started to come together. I was the first to get my 3rd farmer and the first to get my fourth. Finally having figured out the farming mechanic, I sowed three fields, which gave me grain and vegetables for the end turns. I also was able to fence in a large chunk of my area and get some livestock.
In the end, I think that the Game Designer is what won it for me. I used it's ability 6 times, giving me 12 food and 6 VPs. I got an additional 4 points from the Clay Deposit. Overall, more than 25% of my total was bonus points, and I won with 39. The nearest competitor was Dustin with 30.
Once again, it seems like getting a powerful card and using it well is the key to winning the game. Of course, it also seems like getting extra people as soon as possible is a major factor as well.
So, after two times playing and winning both, I'm pretty ambivalent towards the game. If a group is getting together and needs a fourth or fifth player, I'll join in (especially if they've already set up the board), but I don't think that I'll ever crave me some Agricola action.
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