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.

No Thanks!

No Thanks! is simple to learn and quick to play, a perfect filler game.

Each player is given 11 chips, and a turn order is established. A card is them flipped up in the center of the table. The first player has the option of taking the card or placing a chip on it to pass it to the next player. Each card counts against you based on the numerical value on its face, and each chip takes one from the total. The player with the least points after the deck has been gone through wins. The only slightly complicated rules are that some cards are removed from the deck and left face down so that no one knows exactly what cards are in deck and, if you get consecutive cards, only the lowest one counts against you.

Procrastinating for two weeks before posting this allowed me to realize that, out of all the games that we played at the last meetup, this one was the least memorable. I had to go to Boardgamegeek just to remember anything about it. Of course, it probably didn't help that we played two games, and JM kicked my butt both times. I do have a tendency to equate winning and enjoyment.

I'm willing to give it another try if only to see if I can figure out the key to the game. With most games, I pretty quickly ascertain at least the basic strategy, enough at least to keep me in contention. After two plays, I'm still searching...

Pandemic

Pandemic is a unique game in that it's cooperative. It pits you and your friends against the game itself, and, let me tell you, it's not easy to prevail, even on the medium difficulty level.

You and your team represent the Centers for Disease Control and must fight to stop outbreaks of different viruses. Each of you has special powers to help contain and cure, but the little bugs spread fast and furious. If you cure all the viruses, you win. If a certain number of outbreaks occur, you lose.

Unfortunately, JM, Angela, and I allowed pestilence to rule the world. Sorry about that all you who died horrible deaths.

What can you expect from our first attempt? I think that we can beat the medium setup with a little tweaking of our strategy. Man, I'd hate to see the hard level, though.

This one is going to require more play. That's why I'm so happy that my wife got it for me for my birthday!

Modern Art

While I can be a bit ambivalent toward card games, I generally love auction games, and JM introduced me to a gem of one last meetup, Modern Art. He also messaged me to let me know that it's on sale for half off at Barnes and Noble here in town and to admonish me for being so slow to update my blog. Sorry!

I did indeed enjoy the game and intend to pick up a copy ASAP.

Each player represents a museum and starts with a hand full of paintings by various artists. Following assorted rules, the players take turns auctioning their collections, receiving money from the other museums at the time of sale. Once five paintings from the same artist have been sold, the round ends.

At the end of the round, values are placed on the artists' worth based upon whose paintings sold the most. This sets a baseline value for subsequent rounds, and the game is on. The museum who manages to acquire the most money wins.

After the first round, the minimum value for the paintings has been clearly set, but occasionally I was allowed to purchase one for lower than that value. If that artist's work was worth $10000 at the end of round one, it will not be lower than that at the end of round 2, and it could go up in value to as much as $40000. Therefore, it makes no sense to let me buy it for less than the minimum $10000. By capitalizing on these mistakes, I ended up finishing with nearly twice as much cash as my nearest competition.

Take 6

Take 6 is a card game in which each player receives a hand of numbered cards and four cards are placed face up in the center of the table. Taking turns, the players place cards on the table next to the face up cards with the caveat that each one has to be placed next to the one that is closest numerically to it without going under. If you place the sixth card, you have to take the first five cards. If all the cards in your hand are lower than the ones on the table, you choose which row to take and start a new row with yours. Each card also has a point value, which are scored when you take them. Lowest score wins.

It's a short game, and we played it twice. JM kicked my butt the first game, but I managed to pull out a victory the second time.

As far as strategy goes, this game is all about card and hand management. You need to manipulate the situation so that your opponents are forced to take the points instead of you. There does seem to be a lot of luck involved however, because high cards do seem to give you a distinct advantage.

After two plays, I'm still on the fence. I need to play it a few more times to get a better feel for it.

Initial Impression of On the Dot and Jungle Smart

At our last meetup, JM brought out On the Dot and Jungle Smart. I'm reviewing them together because a) we played a lot of new games that night and b) the two are both puzzle games.

In On the Dot, players are given four transparent cards with colored dots on them. A card with a pattern of dots is flipped up, and players must manipulate their cards to replicate that pattern. The first one to do so, gets the card and the point. The game is challenging until you get the trick of it. Once you do, I guess there's fun to be had in trying to find the match before your opponents. Still, I'm not sure of the replayability factor.

Jungle Smart is very similar in that a card is flipped over, all players compete to see who can figure out how to move a lion, elephant, and bear into the order shown first. The trick is that you have to determine the moves mentally and be able to repeat them to the others to win the point. To me, this seems more like a good game to play with kids than a highly competitive adult game.

Overall, both were enjoyable for the first play, but I question how fun they would be with multiple replays.

Race for the Galaxy - 2 Player

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

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

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

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

Wits and Wagers

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

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

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

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

Ticket to Ride

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

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

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

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

Dominion - First Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expansion Strategy in Settlers of Catan

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

In order to win, you’ll need to:

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

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

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

Summary of 25 games using the Expansion Strategy:

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

St. Petersburg 5 Player Expansion

If there is one game that I don't seem to be able to figure out, it's St. Petersburg. I'm not sure why, but the strategy doesn't seem as clear to me as the ones for most of the games that I play. Since I haven't devoted the time necessary to overcome my deficit in understanding, I tend to shy away from participating when this title is called out. Steve wanted to try out the 5 person expansion, however, so I joined, him, Kat, Bob, and Ray.

The expansion introduces some slightly different rules to accomodate the 5 players and a few new cards. Examples include putting out 10 green cards for the first round of play, having a circular piece that awards two VP at the start of each round, and the 9 cost New Farmer which produces 3 rubles and 1 VP per green phase.

The hardest part of St Petersburg is all the little decisions that you have to make. Is it worth it to bury that blue card so you'll have a chance at buying a high cost orange card next round? The whole game is one big series of questions on what to buy and when to buy it.

I actually hung in there pretty well for most of this one. I got a few green, blue, and orange cards giving me VP each round and set up a pretty good money engine with green cards. I was only able to obtain 5 different aristocrats, however, which sealed my fate. Both Steve and Bob ended up shooting past me as the end of game bonus kicked in. I believe that Bob said it was his first time to win.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.