2010 SWAG Dominion Tournament Recap

First of all, sorry that I haven't posted in a while. I'm going to be hosting a gaming tournament over the next 6 to 8 months and hope to chronicle the games here with session reports, etc, so look for new content fairly consistantly in the near future.

Our gaming group, the SouthWest Area Gamers (SWAG), has a decent number of members, but we have a hard time getting a lot of participation outside the core people to show up at events. The organizer and I recently began a series of tournaments to try to help drum up more interest. The following report is from our Dominion Tournament. The winner got a small trophy and the title of 2010 SWAG Dominion Champion.

We had two tables with each playing two games. The winner of each game got 7 points, 2nd place 5, and 3rd place 3. The top 4 finishers at the end of the two game qualifying round advanced to the single game championship.

Ofer, Laura, and I played at Table 1. I consider myself to be a pretty good player compared to the experience level of the rest of the players in our group (though not at all in the same league as the really experienced BSW players). Ofer has a decent amount of experience playing on BSW but hasn’t made it a point to study BGG strategy articles. Laura was at her first meetup and had never played.

Table 1 Game 1:

Cards were – Chapel, Chancellor, Moneylender, Throne Room, Militia, Market, Witch, Mine, Council Room, and Laboratory.

I started immediately with Chapel and a Silver and got rid of a bunch of my Estates and Coppers on my third round. Ofer expressed surprise at my ditching cards so early, and I knew then that I pretty much had the game won. He managed to give me a couple of Curses, but he didn’t run nearly enough Witches to seriously derail my strategy, especially since Laura didn’t add many, if any, Witches to her deck. I added a couple of Labs and Golds and was off to the races. Ofer used Militia more than anything else, but, with my small deck, all I needed was to draw one Lab to negate any deleterious effects. Final score: Me 37, Ofer 27, Laura 19.

Table 1 Game 2:

Cards were – Workshop, Remodel, Spy, Thief, Smithy, Throne Room, Feast, Gardens, Market, and Witch

I tend to prefer running efficient Lab or Chapel decks over the Gardens strategy, but, with only Market available and both Gardens and Workshop on the table, I pretty much had to go Gardens. Ofer let me buy 10 of the 12 Gardens (with Laura taking the other 2) and about 6 of the Workshops. I built my deck as large as possible with multiple buys from Market whenever possible and by using the Workshops extensively. By the time all the Gardens were gone, only about half the Provinces were purchased. I decided, at that point, to buy anything that had a short stack figuring that, since I was about maxed with points and my opponents could still get Provinces, ending the game sooner rather than later would be good. I finished with over 50 cards in my deck. Final score: Me 60, Ofer 50, Laura 38.

Jonathan, Michael, and Marc played at Table 2. I know that it was Jonathan’s first play and that Marc has some experience. I’m not sure how many times Michael had played.

Table 2 Games 1 and 2:

I wasn’t playing at this table, so I don’t know exactly what happened or the cards. I did get enough info, however, to give a brief overview.

In Game 1, Michael was able to develop an engine that allowed him to draw all his cards on just about every turn and ran away with the game. Final score: Michael 44, Jonathan 26, Marc 21.

I watched the end of Game 2, and it was the strangest Dominion match that I had seen. Apparently, all three players had gone Witch crazy the first part of the game and went through the entire stack of Curses. They spent the second part of the game mainly trying to get rid of the horrible purple cards via Chapel. Then came the weird part. They used Thieves to trash a bunch of the Golds (maybe fearing that they’d just be stolen back?). The game, obviously, then drug on as no one had a great deal of money. Jonathan in particular ended up with a very small deck with absolutely no treasure. Final score: Michael 48, Marc 28, Jonathan 6.

Marc and Jonathan ended up tying for fourth place with 8 points. Jonathan was then randomly chosen to sit at the final table with Michael, Ofer, and me.

Championship Table:

Cards were – Chapel, Cellar, Woodcutter, Feast, Bureaucrat, Militia, Smithy, Laboratory, Library, and Market.

Given a table with no Thief and both Chapel and Laboratory combined with my on preference for Chapel decks, the strategy choice was pretty much made for me. I opened with 4/3 and chose Chapel and a Silver. I thought that I was at a serious disadvantage, however, because Michael started with 5/2 Laboratory and Chapel. In retrospect, I’m not sure that this was the case. I think that having the Silver allowed me to Trash more Coppers early, which made up for my opponents early Lab buy.

What did kill me, however, is two early game Bureaucrat draws by Ofer. Ouch! He played the card exactly twice the entire game. Both times were early, and I had a Chapel and an Estate that I desperately wanted to get rid of each time. I think that I could have overcome those attacks, however, if not for a crucial mistake.

It was fairly early, and I had purchased 3 Silvers, a Gold, and one Laboratory. I got a draw that gave me all my Treasures, and I thought “No brainer. When you get 8, you buy a Province.” I’m almost positive that not picking up a second Lab here cost me the games. Though I was able to get another Province relatively quickly after that, my deck started to bog down, and I only ended up getting one more before the game ended.

Lesson learned – establish your engine before buying Provinces! Final score: Ofer 24, Jonathan 21, Me 20, Michael 18.

I Suck at Ticket to Ride

I've now played Ticket to Ride 4 times, and I have yet to win. Is it that the game requires a lot of luck or am I following a failed strategy?

On our Saturday, 4/4, meetup, Mandi joined us for six player Apples to Apples but left us on our own when we started playing the more complicated games. That means we had 5, Manny, Erin, Richard, Nora, and myself for the rest of the day. It made no sense to break up into 3 and 2 player games, so we needed ones that would accommodate 5 players. Ticket to Ride, though not one of my favorites, fits that niche quite well.

I felt pretty good about my strategy. I jumped out to an early lead by building a six piece track, and all my routes until the end of the game meshed well together. They were, however, all short, low to mid value routes. For my final draw of three tickets, though, only two were even possible, and only one seemed plausible. It, however, was not well connected to my other routes, and I ended up not being able to finish it before Erin used up all but three of her train pieces. This cost me -8 points. Still, I was competitive in total points by building, and I completed a pretty good number of routes.

When the final tally was done, Manny completely obliterated his opponents. He had as many or more routes than me, and they were all worth more points. Even if I had neglected the final round of tickets and concentrated on building 6 piece tracks, there's no way that I could have caught up.

So the answer to the question posed in the first paragraph - a little of both. There is a lot of luck involved, but I think that I also am pursuing a failed strategy. Some tips that I have learned:

1. Go for long route early, not the short ones.
2. In terms of both points and efficiency, it's better to use one long track than 2 or more short ones.
3. It's more efficient to draw tickets if you can than to pick tickets up off the board due to the potential for wild cards.
4. It's better to hold a lot of cards than spend consecutive turns building except for:
5. You have to claim choke points early.

I'll try these out next time and see if my play improves.

Shogun at Manny's

Richard, Manny, Cruz, and I played Shogun last night. It was a fun game, but it ran an hour past the 2.5 hours that it was supposed to take. I need to remember to add in serious time for teaching and for the fact that everyone moves slowly until they figure out what is going on. Additionally, there were several rules questions that came up during the game that I had to try to figure out, and I messed at least two of them up (when dealing with revolts, you do not remove the revolt tokens after a non-winter revolt, and bonuses are given to a defender without tokens, not the attacker going against a territory with tokens).

I can’t help but compare it to Power Grid, which we played last week. The rules for PG were much easier to figure out and easier to learn. Part of the difference is that, with Shogun, you repeat a long set of actions a relatively few times whereas with Power Grid you repeat a short set of actions more times. The mechanics, however, are interesting and create a great playing environment once you figure everything out.

In Shogun, you are a Daimyo controlling all actions and troops in an attempt to become the dominant warlord in Japan’s Sengoku period. Each turn, there is a blind auction in which the player offering the most war chests gets to choose a card that will give a bonus in one of the action phases and which also determines play order for that turn. Then you have the option of taking 10 actions, but each action may only be taken in a single one of your territories with each territory only having one action taken place in it. You may:

Buy a Castle for 3 war chests
Buy a Temple for 2 war chests
Buy a Theater for 1 war chest
Tax for rice
Tax for war chests
Add 5 armies for 3 war chests
Add 3 armies for 2 war chests
Add 1 army for 1 war chest and make a reinforcing move
Attack A
Attack B

The winner of the game (the Shogun) is the one who collects the most victory points. Victory reports are awarded as follows:

1 point for each territory
1 point for each building
1 point for owning the most Theaters in a province
2 points for owning the most Temples in a province
3 points for owning the most Castles in a province

Shogun is a nuanced game that requires great attention to detail. For our session last night, I was the only one who had previously played the game, which gave me a serious advantage. Years of experience playing Risk serves me well in Shogun too.

In Risk, you get bonus armies if you completely control an area. In Shogun, you get bonus points if you own the most of a building type in each province. There are subtle other advantages for establishing a secure home base as well. What happens if you tax a territory for rice or war chests and it gets taken before you get your resources? Basically, you’re screwed since you have no opportunity that turn to get your resources from another source. If your territories are safe behind other territories that you own, your opponents can’t touch them. Therefore, your strategy should be to develop a strong home area with no opponents around and then expand out.

Even having an understanding of this vital point, I still screwed it up. I started with 4 territories on the isolated west side of the board and 4 near the very congested center. Instead of abandoning completely the center ones and consolidating in the west, I reinforced two in the center, including putting 5 on one of them. With 8 armies, I felt like the space was fairly safe, so the next turn I taxed it for war chests. Inexplicably, Manny chose this well defended territory to attack, and, since the battle occurred before the taxing, I lost all money production for the turn and thought that I was sunk.

Having learned an important lesson, I abandoned the remaining center territories and concentrated on the west. Richard was concentrated mainly in the northwest and became my natural target. In the meantime, Cruz, who had a great position in the east, started loading more and more armies into his western territories and going after Richard instead of consolidating his eastern positions. By this point, Manny had firm control of the center but was surrounded by hostile forces. He chose to expand to the north, going head to head against, you guessed it, Richard.

Because Richard had to spend so much of his resources defending himself from both Cruz and Manny, it was no problem at all to take over all his northwest territories, granting me complete control of two provinces. Had Manny and Cruz focused on each other, I think that the game might have been a lot closer. As it was, my dominance was virtually uncontested, especially since Richard exacted his revenge on Cruz, my nearest competitor, by knocking him out of some valuable but poorly defended eastern territories.

A couple of tips:

A key fact to remember about Shogun is that it is a lot like Risk but it has key differences. The most important of these dissimilarities is that Risk allows you to attack as many times as you have armies to attack. Shogun only allows you a maximum of two attacks a turn, meaning only 12 for the entire game. An opponent does not have the ability to lay waste to your entire territory. At most, he can advance one per turn, and that’s assuming that you don’t adequately fortify in the meantime.

My opponents, for the most part, did not realize the importance of the rice. If you do not accumulate one rice per province, you are subject to peasant revolts. The more rice you’re short, the more revolts will happen in your territories. If you have a lot of land in the final winter phase, you’re probably going to have at least 2 or 3 revolts. It is crucial that you have enough armies in your most important territories to survive these attacks.

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.

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.

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.

Dominion - Some Additional Thoughts on Strategy

At our last meetup, I had the opportunity to play Dominion three times, two times using cards besides the beginner version. I've refined my play somewhat and will share with you some of my thoughts.

The basic strategy is to get enough gold in your hand to buy a Province. Failing that, buy a gold if you get 6 or 7 treasures. If less than 6, buy a silver or a card that's better than a silver.

My tendency right now (after only 5 plays) is to try to build highly efficient decks, ie ones that allow me to cycle through as many cards as I can. To this end, my favorite card is the Village (costs 3, gives you +1 card and +2 actions). In the past, I was in love with the Smithy (costs 4, gives you +3 cards) and would get all of them that I could. Now, I would rather load up on Villages and keep the quantity of Smithies to no more than 3.

Another fabulous card for an efficient deck is the Moneylender (costs 4, trash copper for +3 treasure). He gets rid of those early coppers for you and gives you a good jump in treasures for this turn. In the first game where I ever used him, I was able to trash 4 coppers, each time trading them for either Gold or a Province. I wouldn't buy more than one, though.

If your goal is to get to eight treasures in a hand, having an Adventurer (costs 6, allows you to draw through the deck until you get two treasures - discard interim cards). Assuming you have a tight deck and at least two or three golds, you're looking at an instant boost up to Province territory.

Next on my list to try: building decks around Chapel (costs 2, trash up to 4 cards from your hand) where you build a hyper efficient deck and Gardens (costs 4, 1VP for every 10 cards in your deck) where you try to get as many cards as possible.

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.

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.

Settlers of Catan Development Card Strategy

The concept for the Development Card Strategy is to ignore wood and brick completely when you are placing your initial settlements. Instead, you want, in order, Ore, Wheat, and Sheep. Cities and Development Cards are your friends.

To achieve 10 victory points, most of the time you'll want to:

• Establish one settlement in addition to your starting 2. You'll need to trade for the Wood and Brick that you need or use Year of Plenty, Monopoly, or Road Building to help yourself out.


• Turn all three settlements into cities. This should be the easiest part of the strategy considering how much Ore and Wheat you'll be producing.


• Purchase large amounts of Development Cards. You should be a shoo-in for Largest Army. Usually, the last 2 points come from bonus points given to you by the Development Cards.

I played 25 games against the computer and tried each time to follow the Development Card Strategy. See this post for more information on the setup. My results and observations are below:

1. I won 16/25 games (64%). While I tried to keep my expectations neutral, I did not think that this strategy was this potent. After playing all 25 games, however, I've changed my mind; this one is definitely playable, and I'll be trying it out when I play over the board games. I also feel that this winning percentage would hold up decently well if I played more games.
2. It's definitely better to be in the 3rd or 4th position (79%) rather than in the first or second (45%).
3. The data certainly seems to suggest that the more chances that you have of hitting one of your resources on any given dice roll, the greater your chance of winning the game. By adding up each resources chance out of 30 (eliminating the 6 chances to roll 7), the smallest number that I obtained was 15 and the highest 22. My winning percentage went up as I the higher the number, and the conclusion seems logical. However, I do not believe that I've played anywhere near enough games to be able to show causation, and I feel that, were I to run enough tests, the quality of resources becomes as important as the quantity.
4. My winning percentage was dreadful for those games when I had less than 5/30 chance of hitting either wheat or ore - 3/11 (27%).
5. I tend to try to avoid loading up on one particular number, especially 6 or 8. For example, If I've already placed first initial settlement next to an 8 ore, I'm loath to place my next one adjacent to an 8 wheat. I'm not sure that this has a large effect on winning percentage. In one game, I noted that 8's did not come up early, and the resulting lack of development may have cost me the game. In other games, however, doubling up had little impact. I think that it's more psychological for me; I'd rather get a small quantity each turn than get lots of resources on a few turns. I hate watching my opponents draw cards while I sit there.
6. It's hard for your opponents to block you in completely when you only need one additional settlement, and it is possible to win with only 2.
7. In only one of my games was I unable to draw the final bonus card that I needed. Regardless of what edition you're using, the percentages of various Development Cards stay approximately the same - 56% for Soldiers; 24% for either Road Building, Year of Plenty, or Monopoly; and 20% for a Victory Point. Since you're drawing a lot of cards, it's likely that you're going to get what you need. The key is to make the best use of the cards that you don't necessarily need.
8. The hardest decision when playing this strategy seems to be determining when to buy a card and when to wait to buy a city. The earlier that you can get cities the better, but you simply cannot wait to buy development cards. You're going to need soldiers to keep the robber off you, and the other, non-VP cards come in handy too. If I'm close to having enough for a city, I'll usually hold out. If I've already bought a couple of cards and have a soldier in waiting, I'll definitely try to save up. Basically, cities trump cards, but cards are important too.
9. The other hard decision is when to expand. If you're in a situation where your opponents can completely cut off your expansion, you need to make sure that you put down a road as soon as possible. Other than that, cities and cards generally take precedence since your initial settlement are probably placed in much better locations than your new one will be.

Summary of 25 games played using the Development Card Strategy:

1. 3rd Player. Initial placement 8 ore, 9 ore, 11 ore, 3 wheat, 10 sheep, 4 brick. Lost. Obviously, only two chances in 30 to get wheat is not enough for this strategy, and I struggled for wheat the whole game.
2. 3rd Player. Initial placement 3 ore, 8 ore, 3 wheat, 8 wheat, 5 sheep, 10 wood. Won. Resource allocation was good as far as percentages went - 7/30 ore, 7/30 wheat, 4/30 sheep. Unfortunately, production was based really heavily on 3's and 8's. These did not occur early, stunting my development. I was barely able to pull the game out.
3. 3rd Player. Initial placement 10 ore, 11 ore, 6 wheat, 9 wheat, 5 sheep, 9 sheep. Won. My production totalled 22, equal to the highest out of all 25 games. Ore was a little lighter than I would have liked, but excess sheep and wheat made up for it. I easily won despite not being able to place a 3rd settlement due to being blocked.
4. 4th Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 8 ore, 6 wheat, 11 wheat, 3 sheep x2. Won. I got perfect resource distribution, and won easily with largest army, 6 points for my cities, and 2 bonus points.
5. 4th Player. Initial placement 6 ore, 6 wheat, 11 wheat, 3 sheep, 5 sheep, 9 sheep. Won. I was heavily invested in 6's, and that number came up a lot early. The win was easy with longest road, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus points.
6. 1st Player. Initial placement 2 ore, 9 ore, 11 ore, 6 wheat, 6 sheep, 12 sheep. Won. Ore was a little light with only 7/30, but I won with the longest road, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus points.
7. 4th Player. Initial placement 2 ore, 6 ore, 3 wheat, 6 wheat, 9 sheep, 11 brick. Won. Easy victory with largest army, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus.
8. 2nd Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 8 wheat, 11 wheat, 3 sheep, 5 sheep, 10 sheep. Lost. Lack of ore KILLED me.
9. 3rd Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 11 ore, 5 wheat, 8 wheat, 4 sheep, 3 brick. Won. Easy victory with largest army, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus points.
10. 4th Player. Initial placement 9 ore, 9 wheat, 5 sheep, 10 sheep, 10 sheep, 2 brick. Lost despite placing a city on my first turn. Struggled for ore and wheat the whole game.
11. 1st Player. Initial placement 2 ore, 9 wheat, 5 sheep, 9 sheep, 2 brick. Lost. I was on the low end of overall resources with only 18, and I had only 1/30 chance of getting ore. Needless to say, I got toasted.
12. 4th Player. Initial placement 3 ore, 9 ore x2, 6 wheat, 10 wheat, 2 sheep. Won. Getting sheep was a challenge, but a deficiency with that particular resource didn't keep me from winning with largest army, 6 points from cities, and 3 bonus.
13. 1st Player. Initial placement 6 ore, 11 ore, 4 wheat, 10 wheat, 3 sheep, 9 brick. Lost. I had 9 points and couldn't draw one last point from the development card deck; I had tons of soldiers.
14. 1st Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 9 ore, 11 wheat, 6 sheep, 12 brick. Won. This one was close due to the fact that my total initial resources were only 15. I finished with largest army, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus.
15. 1st Player. Initial placement 6 ore x2, 11 ore, 5 wheat, 11 sheep, 12 wood. Lost. I struggled for resources in this one. Getting ore was dependent on a single 6, which drew the robber often, and only the single 5 gave me wheat.
16. 3rd Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 9 ore, 6 wheat, 5 sheep, 11 sheep x2. Won. I had plenty of ore, wheat, and sheep, which led to an easy victory with largest army, 5 points for 2 cities and a settlement, longest road, and 2 bonus points.
17. 3rd Player. Initial placement 5 ore, 4 wheat, 8 wheat, 11 wood, 6 brick. Won. Despite my best efforts to play a Development Card strategy, the best placements for ore and wheat gave me brick and wood, so this one played more like an expansion strategy. I finished with longest road, largest army, 2 cities, 2 settlements, and 1 bonus point.
18. 4th Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 3 wheat, 8 sheep, 5 sheep, 11 sheep. Lost. This strategy is not viable with such low quantities of ore and wheat.
19. 1st Player. Initial placement 6 ore, 2 wheat, 9 sheep, 9 sheep, 10 sheep, 5 wood. Lost. I struggled with wheat, having only 1/30 chance to get it. Still, I would have won next turn.
20. 2nd Player. Initial placement 5 ore, 11 ore, 10 wheat x2, 6 sheep, 8 sheep, 3 wood. Won. I cruised to victory with plenty of resources. I had 8 points for 4 cities and 2 bonus.
21. 1st Player. Initial placement 3 ore, 5 wheat, 10 wheat x2, 8 sheep, 11 sheep. Lost. I didn't have nearly enough ore!
22. 3rd Player. Initial placement 4 ore, 5 ore, 8 wheat, 12 wheat, 3 sheep, 9 sheep. Won. This one was easy because of the near perfect distribution of resources - 7/30 ore, 6/30 wheat, 6/30 sheep. I finished with largest army, 6 points for cities, and 2 bonus.
23. 2nd Player. Initial placement 3 ore, 6 ore, 6 wheat, 12 wheat, 9 sheep, 11 wood. Won. I had good resources again, very close to last game. I finished with longest road, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus.
24. 3rd Player. Initial placement 8 ore, 5 wheat, 10 wheat x2, 9 sheep, 4 brick. Won. I had a ton of resources, which made for an easy game. I finished with longest road, 6 points from cities, and 2 bonus.
25. 1st Player. Initial placement 8 ore, 8 wheat, 3 wheat, 4 sheep, 4 wood, 3 wood. Won. I had plenty of ore and wheat due to 8's coming up a lot. I finished with largest army and 8 points for cities.

Race for the Galaxy

At the latest game night, I played Race for the Galaxy with Dee, Ed, and Joe, and my winning streak was snapped with authority.

I started out following a very focused strategy of playing only worlds that gave me either a produce power or a consume power. I had 7 cards played and was getting my engine going when Dee ended the game. The points produced by his 12 cards easily dwarfed mine.

The first game or Race that I played, I won by getting huge points from producing and consuming, and I keep trying to go back to that strategy. Obviously, you win by getting the most points, and playing cards gets you points. Next time, I'm going to try optimizing VP production better.

3 Strategies in Settlers of Catan

I have identified three strategies to use while playing Settlers of Catan:

1. Development Card Strategy - Focus on Ore, Wheat, and Sheep, and buy lots of development cards.
2. Port Strategy - Settle a 2-1 port and concentrate on that resource.
3. Expansion Strategy - Expand as far and as fast as possible. Focus on Wood, Brick, Wheat, and Sheep.

My plan is to play 100 games against 3 computer opponents (1 Neutral Expert, 1 Aggressive Advanced, and 1 Neutral Advanced). For the first 25 games, I'll play Strategy 1, regardless of what the board looks like. For the second 25, I'll play Strategy 2; for the third, strategy 3. For the last 25 games, I'll play whichever strategy seems to fit the board best.

I'll write a post describing the results of each 25-game segment of my test. Let's see what I can learn.

Stone Age - 3 Player

Ed was busy trying out St Petersburg while I really wanted to get in at least one game of Stone Age. Since Steve had just finished playing a round with 3 other players and wanted to move on to another game, I was only able to corral two other players, Eve and Josh.

Three player has slightly different rules than the four player version - out of food field, the mating hut, and the tool hut, only two can be occupied and once a resource has two players occupying it, it is full. Other than that, and the fact that each player gets more turns because there is one less person fighting for cards and huts, the game plays similar.

I followed what is becoming my favorite Stone Age strategy:

• Get as many Tribespeople as is prudent. I've never tried the starvation strategy, instead I try to get only as many as I can support. I ended the game with 9.
• I try to keep my permanent food production within 2 or 3 of the number of Tribespeople that I have. The number gets skewed a bit at the start of the game since I start with 5 tribesmen and no food. Fortunately, I also start with 12 food, which keeps things stable until I'm able to increase my production. I added 2 food production before I added my first new Tribesperson.
• I cherry-picked the cards that I wanted and only paid more than two resources for one late in the game. By that time, I had 6 different symbols and was willing to pay whatever it took to get the extra 13 VPs that the 7th symbol would provide. My opponents were a bit inexperienced and allowed me to take whatever cards I wanted with very little opposition.
• I'm rapidly losing my love of tools. I ended the game with only 2.
• Whenever possible, I put all my resource gatherers on one task instead of spreading them around. Without a lot of tools, luck plays too high a role otherwise. After one round of rolling two dice for gold and getting snake eyes, I abandoned the one or two on a resource tactic unless I was forced into it. Note: an obvious exception to this is food. With one guy and one tool, you're guaranteed at least one food and could get as many as three. By the same token, if I only absolutely need one wood and I have a tool available, I feel reasonably comfortable devoting only one or two tribespeople to the task.
• Buy huts early and often.

I ended up with 154 pts on the track, good for second place before bonuses were counted. Unfortunately for them, my opponents did not understand the true value of the cards. After adding up bonuses, I had 303pts compared to Eve's 218.

I swear that I will post game reports of games that I lose as well, but I've won 6 straight since deciding to start this blog.

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.

Race for the Galaxy

Ed and I went to the club game night at Ray's place last Saturday night. Our first contest of the evening was Race for the Galaxy. Ed had read a lot about it on board game geek and wanted to try it out. Dee agreed to teach it to us, and Josh, who had played before, joined us as well.

It took a turn or two to figure out what was happening with the different phases, but, by the end of the game, I felt like I was an old pro. The path to victory became pretty clear: get a lot of cards and then play the ones that get you points and more cards. I apparently got a pretty good starting hand and lucky early draws because I was able to play a lot of cards that produced goods.

My early strategy was to produce and then consume/trade, giving me a few points and tons of cards. A couple of the other players made the mistake of producing on turns when I had picked consume, which helped me out tons. With a good engine going, I switched to consume/2x VP, and ended up winning with 43. Dee was a close second with 41.

After playing Agricola, Ed wanted to play Race again. Dustin and Kwan joined us for their first time to play the game.

This game was much slower for me than the last time. I had a hard time getting my engine going, and, since that's the only strategy I knew at the time, it hampered me quite a bit. It was also slow because all of us were inexperienced players. For example, in the first round, every single one of us picked explore.

Being as it was their first time to play, Dustin and Kwan seemed to focus on playing as many cards as possible, regardless of value, making the game end sooner than I think it would have normally. I was never able to get my produce/consume engine going and ended the game with only two VP chips. I thought that my, at that point, four-game win streak was in jeopardy.

In the end, though, the two first time players hadn't collected any VP chips and had played a lot of cards that didn't have a lot of value. Ed had 6 VP chips but had screwed himself early in the game by misreading a card that he spent his whole hand to play. Thus, he ended up playing only 6 or 7 cards the entire game. I had only played 9 cards, but most of them were at least worth 2 VP each. I won again with only 21 points.

I was unsure whether I liked the game or not after the first play. I grew on me the second time, as I had a bit more understanding of the game mechanics. I like that it plays fast - 30 to 45 minutes seems to be a max for this game so far - making it perfect for the start of game night or a nice distraction while waiting for someone to finish up at another table.

I haven't come up with any in depth strategies yet - I'll need to play a lot more for that - but I do have a few tips:

• In my limited playing experience, it seems that the winner will finish with somewhere between 20 and 50 total VPs. This total is relatively low, so every point counts. Make sure that every card you play has value, ie has a way to get you either cards, goods, VPs, or a combination of all three. Don't discount the value of playing a world that gives you 4 or 5 VPs even if it doesn't do much for you otherwise; those extra points may just win you the game.


• Keep a constant eye on how many cards your opponents have played. When they get close to ending the game, maximize the points that you can get in your final turns.


• Set up a produce/consume engine. Cards that give you a card and a victory point for consumed goods in phase IV are extremely valuable. Combine these cards with cards that produce a good of the same type. Use the 5 extra card explore to get the right cards in your hand.

That's all I have for now. I need to play it a lot more! Hopefully, after Christmas, I'll add it to my collections.

Settlers of Catan - General Strategy

The last post covered strategy for the placement phase in Settlers of Catan . This one offers up some general strategies for the game:

• Do not discount how important it is to get off to a quick start. If you can place a third settlement significantly faster than your opponents, you gain the potential for more resources, helping you to outpace your foes even more. Your best bet is to carefully place your initial settlements and roads in optimal positions as I referred to in my last post.


• If wood and brick look to be scarce, consider a card strategy instead. Forget the two entirely and load up on wheat, sheep, and ore. Use the Road Building card to create a space for a new settlement. Then you just have to trade for one brick and one wood to build it. You should easily get largest army, be able to make all three settlements into cities, and get two victory points directly from your cards to get you to 10.


• I played with a friend recently who loves to cut people off by building roads. If you really want to annoy one of your opponents, this is the way to do it. On the other hand, if you want to win, it's an epic fail. Both you and the foe that you are annoying won't have a chance to win. He'll not be able to build anywhere, and you'll devote too many resources to roads. Meanwhile, one of the other players will pretty much cruise to victory. It's not bad to strategically block opponents occasionally, but I wouldn't advise making it your primary strategy.

Settlers of Catan - Initial Phase Observations

I've been playing Settlers of Catan often lately. Here are some of my thoughts on strategy.

It seems to me that the game can easily be won or lost in the set up phase. Here are some of my observations:

• The first thing that jumped out at me, obviously, was the probability of each number being rolled. Fortunately, the game board does a lot of the work for you on this one. Each hex has dots representing the number of times out of the 36 possible combinations that that number will come up. For example, a 6 will occur 5 times out of 36 (1 and 5, 5 and 1, 2 and 4, 4 and 2, and 3 and 3). Thus 5 dots appear on the hexes with the number 6. The higher the combined number of dots at the intersection, the better. 10, 11, and 12 are all high totals.


• The second consideration regarding where to place your settlement is what resources you'll be getting. Do you want to make sure that, with your two settlements, you have access to each of the 5 resources or do you want to load up on some and trade? I've tried each of these strategies, and they both seem to work.


• How many different numbers pay you resources? I find that I like to try to get as many different numbers as possible on my initial setup rather than duplicating. Ideally, if you don't count the rarely seen 2 and 12, I'd like to get 6 our of the remaining 8 numbers. This strategy minimizes the luck component because you're collecting resources on almost every turn. Also, be wary about starting with multiple settlements grouped around the same hex. This situation tends to attract the robber, which can seriously hamper your production early.


• Don't forget that you get starting resources based on the last settlement that you place. Since wood and brick are so valuable early, if you place the second one next to these two resources, it helps.


• Is it better to go for a port or an intersection that gives you three resources? You're giving up a lot for that port. To begin with, it's usually the second settlement that you place, meaning that you're only getting only two resources instead of three to start. More importantly, though, you're giving up a lot of opportunities to get extra resources. That's one less number that you have available than your opponents. I find that it's only really worth it if you can max out on that particular resource by having at least 3 chances to get it.


• Once you've placed your settlements, you have the equally important choice of which direction to lay out the road. For this decision, you need to think about where your opponents are likely to play and try to give yourself multiple options. If your foes cut off both your roads from the start, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for you to recover.