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Geeklists Some Geeklists I've written on topics that interest me (and, no surprise, very few other people.)
But Then Again, What Do I Know? A irregularly written column for the Boulder Games newsletter. (The versions here are my original submissions before they were edited for length.) Likes To Win, Loves To Play My not so monthly column for The Strategist, the paper newsletter of the Strategy Gaming Society.
Game Notes #4 - "Overlooked Games" LOWENHERZ (Rio Grande/Goldsieber) 4 players - 2 hour playing time I'd be hard-pressed to call this Klaus Teuber (the designer of SETTLERS OF CATAN) creation an overlooked game, but Jay Tummelson, the head honcho of Rio Grande Games, recently said in an interview that this was the game that had most disappointed him in sales. That means there are a lot of folks out there who need this gem in their collection! As in many recent German games (KING OF THE ELVES and KNIGHTS OF THE RAINBOW, to name a couple), the king is dying and players are cast in the roles of princes vying for power. The focus in LOWENHERZ is on the acquisition of territory. The larger the area you capture, the more "power" (victory points) you receive. Silver mines and cities advance you even farther on your quest to inherit the throne. There are two mechanisms that I believe have caused this game to falter in popularity... both make it difficult if not downright impossible for new players to compete with experienced players. First, while the taking of territory is vital for winning the game (and keeping others from winning), it's easy to "bite off more than you can chew." The penalties for losing territory (esp. having large sections of one of your kingdoms become neutral) is large. It's easy for new players to find themselves losing more points in the last few rounds of the game than they gain. Second, the actual value of the choices you have each turn (buying intrigue cards, adding walls to the map, recruiting new knights, and expanding kingdoms) is difficult to judge until you've played once or twice. My advice? Commit to playing 2-3 games of this classic work before you make a final judgment. While simple on the surface, the game rewards multiple playings. One last note: the red player in the "suggested" first time set-up is in great danger from the yellow player in the lower left hand corner of the board. The red player must quickly build another knight to prevent himself from being trapped. (We use a variation on the basic set-up. The four corner kingdoms with their walls are placed on the board... then the next two pairs of castles & knights are placed as in the advanced rules. You don't use the A cards when playing in this manner.) CANYON (Rio Grande/Abacus) 3-6 players (best with 4-6) - 1 hour playing time Dismissed at first as an "Oh Hell" variant with an unnecessary board, CANYON is one of the great hidden gems of family gaming. The recent addition of the free Grand Canyon expansion for this game adds a whole new level of Cosmic Encounter-like special powers to each round. (The last place player picks first from a roster of Indians who can do a variety of things: allow you to break suit, let you push another canoe, let you hop other canoes, change the number of cards in the next round, even miss your bid without penalty!) As well, there are extra pieces for making more choke points on the river. What started out as a simple (and overlooked) trick-taking game with an interesting scoring mechanism becomes a fun free-for-all. Our experience with CANYON/GRAND CANYON is that the scoring is tighter with the expansion and that it only adds about 10-15 minutes to the game. If you own CANYON, you need the expansion! If you don't own CANYON, make sure you get the expansion when you order it. It s an excellent game for gamers & non-gamers alike. FINALE (Kosmos) 2 players - 45 minute playing time Finally, this sports-oriented game from Kosmos two-player flat box series (which also includes LOST CITIES and the German version of the SETTLERS CARDGAME) is a much-maligned game which is actually great fun to play. I've heard it all: "I don't like the photo-gooed pictures on the cards." "There's too much dice-rolling." "There's not any strategy." Yadda, yadda, yadda. I'll give you that the artwork is odd... but very functional. The old saw about "too much dice-rolling" is one of my pet peeves... under that peculiar theory, AXIS & ALLIES, Avalon Hill's THIRD REICH, and a host of other games are "bad" because you roll dice literally 100x more than you do in a 45 minute game of FINALE. Save the "dice-whining" for someone who cares! And the crack about "no strategy" misses the heart of the game entirely. Granted, you are subject to the cards you draw and the vagaries of the dice... just as any soccer coach is subject to the field conditions and the health & attitudes of his players. FINALE's strength is not in it's chance-free simulation of a sporting event. (By the way, there is no such thing as a chance-free sports event... just ask Tampa Bay fans about the calls made in the NFC playoff game last month!) Where FINALE shines is in giving you the opportunity to create a team and an overall strategy (via a simple deck construction system) and then play it out against an opponent, adjusting as you go for injuries, red cards, and the occasional lucky shot. Another factor that hurt FINALE was the very fuzzy rules translations that floated around after it was first released. Ignore the nays-sayers and call your team to the field! FINAL THOUGHT These aren't the only 'downtrodden' games out there... Goldsieber's EDISON & CO. and GALOPP ROYALE, Avalon Hill's GUERILLA, Kosmos' WETTSREIT DER BAUMEISTER, and Flying Turtle's SINDBAD all could have easily pushed their way into this column. (I'm saving my thoughts on EDISON & CO. for another time.) My word of advice: don't buy into the negative initial reaction about a game on rec.games.board or in a gaming magazine. Give it time... ask around... hear more than one opinion. I missed out on the joy of ENTDECKER for over a year because I took the word of one negative review. Don't you do the same. But then again, what do I know? Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, a Nashville based gaming group and website. His favorite game this week is DIE ERBEN VON HOAX. Game Notes #? - "New Games From Nuremberg 2000" Thanks to Jay Tummelson (the Grand Mogul and Chief Bottle Washer for Rio Grande Games) I had the opportunity to play a number of the new releases from Nurembreg last month. After I finish doing my Gloating Dance (which consists of me sing-songing "I got to play 'em before you did" and doing my usual white-guy-with-no-rhythm dance moves, I'll take a minute to tell you about them. (imagine me dancing here) OK, after you wipe that nightmarish image out of your mind, on to the important stuff. I figure you'll be hearing plenty about TAJ MAHAL (best with 4, by the way!) and CAROLUS MAGNUS, both games that are already developing fans across the country. So, I'm going to concentrate on those games you may not have heard about. DILEMMA (FX Schmid) Open the box and find a plastic ash tray (large enough to throw cards into), a number of red wooden markers (life blocks), five wooden circles with crossed swords on one side and a handshake on the other (dueling stones), one green wooden hexagon (stumbling block?!), and a set of 10 cards (1-10) for each player. In turn, each player takes the stumbling block (a big name for a player turn marker) and throws one of their cards into the ashtray. The first player to throw a *different* numbered card into the ashtray duels with them for the two cards. They take their dueling stone and choose one side, placing it under their palm. The choices are revealed simultaneously and the duel resolved. If both players choose peace (handshakes), they trade cards. If one player chooses war (swords) and the other peace, the warrior gets both cards but loses one life block. If both players choose war, both cards are thrown out of the game and they both lose one life block. (In a 5 player game, you only get 2 life blocks). When a player runs out of life blocks, he can only choose peace in a duel. Finally, if no one throws a second card, the player who started the turn gets to keep his card. The objective is to capture the most points worth of cards. Early moves seem obvious (I'll drop my 1, so someone will drop their 2, then we'll trade), but even those moves are better short term than long (if I hang onto my 1 right now, I may be able to force an *ugly* trade later!) What seemed simple at first turned out to be a bit more complicated. Jay called it a party game, and I'm ready to guardedly agree, but it definitely has more going on strategy-wise than most party games. I'd say it'd be better with 4-5 non-gamer friends who want a little more mental challenge than APPLES TO APPLES. Rating: 7 out of 10 At the right price, I'd be happy to own this interesting 20 minute filler game OHNE FURCHT & ADEL (Hans im Gluck) This is one beautiful and enjoyable game. The artwork is as spectacular as the samples indicated... it has a wonderful painted quality to it that enhances the game. Each player is attempting to build a city of eight buildings... a few have special powers but most simply have value (both economic and victory point-wise). Each turn, players choose, VERRATER-like, from a series of roles that allow them to acquire money, cards, and/or do damage to other players. You have to balance what other players might do with what you need to do and/or need to defend... very tricky. I'm not sure what the playing time is (pretty short, I think... 1 hour?!... if you cut out all the distractions) but whatever it was zipped by as I was caught up in the parry & thrust of the game. There is a small language issue (12 cards with German instructions, plus the need for English player aid cards), but it shouldn't be a big deal. This game is worth the hassle of jumping the language barrier. Rating: 8 out of 10 This is on my "MUST BUY" list! SCHWEINS-GALLOPP (Abacus/Rio Grande) Racing pigs... yep, that's what German games are famous for... those themes that just grab you and say "buy me now!"<P> Anyway, this is a kid's game with a little added oomph. 5 plastic pigs are lined up (one after another) on a circular track. The deck is shuffled and 7 cards are dealt to each player. The cards are the various colored pigs. So, when I play my card, I jump the pig whose color I played to the next empty space. If that happens to be the front of the pack, I get a food card. Yawn, you say? Well, it's not rocket science, but there is one nice twist. The only way you get to *keep* the food you earn in a round is by using your last card to move that colored pig to the front of the pack. If he doesn't become the front-runner, your food has the same fate as Bill Bradley! The most food after 3 rounds wins. (There are some variant rules for adding food to the track, but we just played the basic game.) Rating: 6 Keep in mind that I'm rating this as a children's game... this is a a 6 on the "CANDYLAND - LOOPIN' LOUIE" scale, not the "GLOBAL SURVIVAL - EL GRANDE" scale. SOLCHES STROLCHE! (Amigo) I have no idea what the title means... possibly "Find the Neon Colored Animal" or something like that. Anyway, a bunch of heavy stock cards are laid out on the table, each depicting one of five animals (cow, horse, pig, dog, cat) in one of five neon colors (purple, blue, yellow, green, red). The top card of a second deck of cards is flipped over, and the game is on! The second card shows 4 different animals, each with a different color. Your job is to find the missing colored animal and slap it ala SLAP JACK. Kind of like SET for kids.<P> Rating: 7 Again, as a kid's game... this SET with animals game works well even with *young* kids. It's a good little game... fast, furious, and fun.<P> TIME PIRATES (Piatnik/Rio Grande) The theme itself is intriguing... pirates wandering through time stealing treasures for wealthy clients. The board art is good, too... sci-fi-ish but clean & easy to use during play. The one possible graphic glitch: some artifact pieces have extra symbols which allow you to use them to travel through time or to trade artifacts with another player... they would be difficult to see under the wrong light. The game is yet another set collecting romp from Alan Moon... in your turn, you can only take two actions: move from one time period to another (by following one of two lines into another century), collect an artifact (by picking it up off the board), or fulfill a contract (by turning in your artifact for "points" in the form of contracts). As well, a player can request (like FREIGHT TRAIN) at the beginning of their turn for a time period to be re-stocked with artifacts, and players may use the above-mentioned special artifacts in addition to their normal moves. Each type of artifact has a number of available contracts: worth 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7... and costing 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 of the same type of artifact (respectively). In addition, there are (numbers are sketchy in my memory here) wild card contracts worth 2, 3 & points.. and costing 3, 4 & 5 of the same type of artifact. But, the Time Pirates are not only racing each other across the centuries, but also the Time Police (the cops, the fuzz, the Man), representing by a black pawn on the board and by Police chips mixed into the artifact bag. If you start your turn on the same space as the Time Police, you must lose your most valuable set (first wild cards, then the set you have the most of) AND spend your first action to vacate that century. The Time Police continue their cruise through time when time periods are refilled... if their chip is pulled (can you tell I've been 'translating' via Babelfish a bit too much?), they are moved that number of spaces and then another chip is drawn. When the eighth Time Police chip is drawn, the round is scored. The third time you score, the game is over. Aaaahhh, time (unintentional pun alert) for one last wrinkle. You get a 2 pt bonus for having contracts in all five types of artifacts... and 2 pts for having the most valuable collection of contracts for each type. So, players stack their contracts into five face-down stacks and assign wild cards where they think they'd be the most helpful. Next question: does Alan Moon borrow from himself more than any designer on the planet?! (OK, Knizia's up there, too.) Note the GET THE GOODS timed scoring mechanism, and the FREIGHT TRAIN re-stock. Mind you, they're both good ideas... it's just interesting to see them keep popping up. My reviews of this are mixed... you know, an o.k. family game, maybe in the same class as ANDROMEDA. Then we found out that Jay had taught us a rule incorrectly... chips turned in for contracts do NOT return to the bag until you score the round. (We had put them back in the bag.) This would cut a good bit of time off the game and up the tension level, which means I will definitely have to give it another try. Rating: 7 out of 10 With the rule correction, this could be a wonderful family romp or a 45 min. gamer filler. VAMPIRE (Goldsieber/Rio Grande) First problem: My complaints about SCHOTTEN-TOTTEN seem equally valid here... this game could be about literally anything. I've always thought that BASARI kind of had a lock on disconnected themes, but it looks positively 'American' compared to VAMPIRE. That said, the game itself is a simple RUMMY variant with a LOST CITIES-like discard scheme. Players are (ha!) vampire hunters, collecting cards worth one or two points and then melding them in sets of three or more. On your turn, you can take 2 cards from the deck, then meld or discard one card to the appropriate discard pile (one for each 'suit' of vampires), OR you can pick up the entire discard pile of one suit and then you must meld. A second meld of a type of vampire you already have sends the first meld off to the discard pile. The game ends at the (hallo, Knizia!) end of the deck OR when (hallo, Knizia again!) one player has a meld in each suit. (Shades of ZIRKUS FLOCATI). At that point, the lowest meld on the table of each type (counting not melding as a zero meld) is discarded and players count up their points. That's it. Really. Can't say it's a bad game... but it's not really about anything... and the card play is interesting but not spectacular. Yes, I'm damning it with faint praise, but I guess I was expecting a little more here. (To be fair, the art is not terribly graphic but rough for the RUMMY-like nature of the game.) Rating: 5 out of 10 I should note that my wife enjoyed the game of this she played later in the weekend... evidently going out fast & furious with a win. It also seems to be gathering some positive press likening it to other 'lite' Knizia games. WEB OF POWER (Goldsieber/Rio Grande) Each player represents (I'm guessing here) the head of an order of monks, bent on influencing the Known World for good and the benefit of the people. (Yes, this is an optimistic view of ecclesiastical power struggles... what can I say?) Anyway, each player has two resources at his disposal to accomplish his ends: cloisters and advisors. The 'battle' rages across 12th century Europe. On your turn, you use the three cards in your hand (two identical cards can be used as wild cards... and all the cards except those for France allow you place pieces in one of two countries) to start monasteries (cloisters) and send advisors to the various kings. At the end of your turn, you refill your hand, choosing to take from two face-up cards or the top of the deck. When the deck runs out, you score the cloisters... the player(s) with the most in any country score the total number of cloisters in that country. The second place players(s) score the number of cloisters the first place player has, and so on. In the second (and final) round, a number of new scoring opportunities present themselves. If you have a line of 4 or more cloisters (that cross a national border), then you score the number of cloisters you have in the 'chain'. As well, the player(s) the most advisors in BOTH of two adjoining countries score the total number of advisors in both countries. One final rule: a country can only have as many advisors (from all players) as the number of cloisters held by the first place player. (This is the rule we screwed up in our first game - which I won... kind of throws a pall over my victory, eh?) There's nothing terribly original here... but what IS here is very, very good. I see this occupying a closer niche in our gaming group... at 30-45 minutes and very fast game play, it will work very well! (I think it will also work well as introduction to non-gamers for games like EL GRANDE and EUPHRATES & TIGRIS... again, short playing time and simple rules - with the cards reducing your options to manageable levels.) Rating: 8 out of 10 EL GRANDE-like with nice graphics and quick play... and some very interesting scoring tradeoffs. But then again, what do I know? Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, a Nashville based gaming group and website. His favorite game this week is CLOUD 9. Likes to Win, Loves To Play - March 2000 Greetings & Salutations A good friend once attempted to delineate what made me (and my friends Greg Schloesser, Ted Cheatham, & Ty Douds) different than other gamers he'd met. He came up with: "You guys like to win but you love to play." Couldn't have said it better myself. Not that I mind winning, or that I'm the poster child for "Losers Anonymous". (For the record, I win about 38% of the games I play.) Winning, however, isn't the only great gaming experience for me. There's the sharp intake of breath when you open a new game and pick up the bits for the first time (ah, the first time I saw the Castillo from EL GRANDE).... or the audible 'click' in your brain when you see how a particular set of rules work (as I did with MEDICI)... or the joyous rush of making a most excellent play that manages to better your position at the expense of your chief nemesis. (This is probably the best feature of TORRES.) Great gaming experiences include those perennial favorites (my yearly playing of THE GOTHIC GAME or my now 11+ year battle against my in-laws at CANASTA) as well as the joys of playtesting... and even the occasional dud. (Hey, MAGALON may not be a very good game, but we had a lot of fun playing it!) Over the next few months, I'll be telling you a little more about myself and my gaming habits. We may even delve into the caverns of my long-term memory (which my wife swears are filled with bat guano!) and explore how a shy, bookish elementary school student became an outgoing game collector running a gaming club and a website. Before we continue on, let me get a couple of things out of the way. I'm a thirty-five year old resident of Nashville, Tennessee, happily married to a beautiful woman who tolerates my gaming obsession as long as she doesn't have to play SETTLERS OF CATAN. (Amazingly enough, one of her favorite games is the odd cooperative horror game from GDW, MINION HUNTER.) Despite having no children (yet!), I'm in the process of collecting a rather large stash of children's games. But enough about me... Easy As One, Two, Three Each month, this column will feature my own highly opinionated listing of the top three games of a particular type. For example, I might choose to give you the top three dexterity games, or the top three games about being a gangster, or the top three games from a particular company. This month, we'll start with something easy. Though not the first German game in my collection (that honor belongs to Ravensburger's SCOTLAND YARD), DIE SIEDLER VON CATAN (aka The Settlers of Catan) from Kosmos/Mayfair has taken up a huge chunk of my gaming time and attention. And I'm not alone. Kosmos realized quickly what a major hit it has on it's hands and haven't wasted any time in exploiting it. There are currently 6 expansions and 4 stand-alone games based on the Settlers system. (Klaus Teuber, the designer, is a very busy - and wealthy - man!) All those named in English are available in English from Mayfair Games. Expansions
Stand-Alone Games
By now you're thinking, "I thought this clown said he was going to rank the top three!" Well, by golly, you're right. On to the serious business of waving my opinion in the air like a red shirt in front of a bull! (Note: I have not played DIE SIEDLER VON NUREMBERG and so will not attempt to rank it.) 1. The best of the bunch is the HISTORISCHE SZENARIEN (Historical Scenarios) These two 'alternate settings' for the game add some interesting twists without disturbing the basic game unnecessarily. Both use one side of a double-sided mapboard and a set of extra counters (gold, events, etc.). The first scenario, Cheops, was originally released as a poster (complete with mistakes!) and it's popularity led to the production of this much nicer boxed set. Set in ancient Egypt, players compete not only to build up a network of settlements but also to help Pharaoh complete his great pyramid. Trade is vital in the scenario, as no player can assure himself of an even distribution of resources due to the nature of the board. For me, Cheops betters TAL DE KONIG, an expensive but beautiful pyramid building game. The second scenario is my personal favorite, Alexander the Great. Players take the role of Alexander's advisors, bidding resources for the right to establish new villages and solve problems in the wake of Alexander's conquest of the Middle East. Markedly different from any other Settlers variant I've seen, Alexander the Great manages to incorporate auctions into the tried & true Settlers system with great play results. Nothing is required to play these scenarios besides a Settlers base set. Prices for this well-produced box set run around $20... making it an excellent value. 2. Next in line is THE SEAFARERS OF CATAN. Finally, a use for all those dad gum sheep! With the addition of ships (built for a wood and a sheep) and a wide variety of scenarios, this expansion breathes new life into the Catan franchise. Granted, some of the scenarios are slightly unbalanced, and most of the "exploration" scenarios are essentially luck of the draw, but it's still a lot of fun to play. Expect it to add 30-60 minutes to your average Settlers session. There are a bunch of new hexes included as well as a nice frame for the board. It costs the same as the basic set (roughly $35) which makes it on the expensive side, but it does have great play value. 3. To round out the top three, THE SETTLERS OF CATAN CARDGAME. It's difficult to take a game that centers around trading cards and convert it into a two player game, but Klaus Teuber did it with style. The spinning card mechanism to indicate which resources you've received is brilliant and the artwork on the cards is stunning. (In one of their wisest moves, Mayfair retained the German artwork for their English edition.) Complaints about luck are lessened by the one-time use of action cards and the ability of either player to "search" a deck at the cost of two resources. Yes, the game is a bit long for what it is (about 2 hours) and after a number of playings with the same player can devolve into repetitive patterns, but I'm looking forward to Mayfair publishing the Theme decks to take care of that. At $20, it's a very good game for two players, especially two Settlers players who can't find anyone to play with! But what about the 5-6 player expansions? Well, I'm of two minds about those. While I enjoy them and the variety they add to the game, Settlers works much better with four players. DIE STERNFAHRER VON CATAN and STADT & RITTER I've played once each... enough to know I enjoyed them but neither was exciting enough for me to pay the price for them. In related good news, Kosmos will be putting out another box like HISTORISCHE SZENARIEN in the upcoming months. Don't Buy the Hype The other montly feature of this column will be my attempt to pump up an under-appreciated game (aka EDISON & CO) or poke a hole in the over-inflated reputation of some other games (aka DIPLOMACY). Nothing like rocking the boat a little! And speaking of rocking the boat, take this as your warning to avoid the leaky yacht that is SCHOKO & CO. Granted, it's an excellent business simulation with a well-thought out set of interlocking mechanisms. Sad to say, it's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness. It's just not that much fun to play. Ty Douds put it beautifully: "It's too much like work." There are plenty of other games that deserve the 3-4 hours required to finish a game of SCHOKO & CO. that won't (a) give you a headache, and/or (b) make you feel like anoverworked businessman. (Of course, if you enjoy feeling overworked, you're probably not going to have the time necessary to play this game!) Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, a Nashville, TN, based gaming group and website. This week his favorite game is VINO. Likes To Win, Loves To Play - June 2000 Greetings & Salutations Thanks to Jay Tummelson (the head honcho of Rio Grande Games), I've had the opportunity to play a number of the upcoming games released at Nuremberg Toy Fair. Here's some short (but hopefully helpful) first reactions to four of those games. (Note: it's unfair to call these reviews... with a couple of exceptions, I've only had the chance to play each game once.) TAJ MAHAL (Alea/Rio Grande) Beautiful production combined with elegant mechanics make for an enjoyable 2 hour game. This newest offering from Reiner Knizia is a bit long for what it is (the same "auction" is repeated 12 times), but could still be a strong contender for the Spiel des Jahres. The hand management decisions can be excruciating. [after one play, it's a 7 on a 10 pt scale] OHNE FURCHT & ADEL (Hans im Gluck) Stunning artwork on the cards coupled with a nice re-working of the "choose a role" mechanism from VERRATER blend together for a nail-biter of a game. Granted, it's a bit like GROO (build your city) but with much more control. This will not be released in English any time soon (due to art costs?) so go ahead and pick up the imported edition. (A player aid sheet with a few card translations will make the game easier to play.) [after one play, it's a 8 on a 10 pt scale] WEB OF POWER (Goldsieber/Rio Grande) This game of clerics & ambassadors in medieval Europe is very similar to EL GRANDE with it's placing of pieces for influence and scoring. What makes it so intriguing is the speed with which it plays (45-60 minutes) and that it scales well from 3-5 players. This is likely to become a standard 'strategic' closer in our gaming group. [after two plays, it's a 7 on a 10 pt scale] CAROLUS MAGNUS (Venice Connection) Yet another placement game, with an interesting twist. Pieces in five different colors can be placed on the 'board' (a circle of disconnected territories) or in your court. The player with the most of a color in his court controls all of those pieces on the 'board'.... which keeps changing as territories are connected. This game works very well with 2-3 players and plays in about an hour, making it another excellent closer. [after three plays, it's a 7 on a 10 pt scale] Easy As One, Two, Three Each month, this column features my own highly opinionated listing of the top three games of a particular type. For example, I might choose to give you the top three dexterity games, or the top three games about being a gangster, or the top three games from a particular company. This month, the top three games of "Chicken." That's right... the game you played as an elementary school student on your Big Wheels (pedal furiously at each other and see which person veers off first) and that hopefully you stopped playing before you got your drivers license. "Chicken" is a dangerous, testerone-filled display of macho stupidity in real life. In boardgames, however, it refers to any set of mechanisms that pit players against each other to see which one will blink first. POKER is a classic example, with the ante & bidding system. DIPLOMACY (which is English for "incredibly long game that works only with 7 players") is another example, especially for the two players with the roles of Germany & Austria/Hungary, who must spend most of the game back-to-back, waiting for the right moment to turn on each other like vote-hungry Democratic primary candidates. 1. The number one "Chicken" game is a nifty little card game called FOR SALE (FX Schmid). Designed by Steffan Dorra, this quick-playing adventure in real estate speculation fuses a POKER-like bidding system with the fundamental mechanism of RAJ. Each player represents a speculator, who uses is stake of $15 million (in chips) to buy up houses at auction. Each turn, the same number of houses (valued from $1 to $20 million) is available as the number of players. Each player may bid, raise, or check the amount already bid. If he decides to pull out of the bidding, he receives the lowest valued house and 1/2 of his bid (rounded up). The last player in the bidding loses his entire bid but receives the most valuable house. The key to the game is, of course, deciding when to get out, as dropping out early may cost you less while leaving valuable property available to the remaining players at a reduced price. The second round of the game begins with the buyers appearing in the form of another small deck of checks (valued from $3 to $20 million - with two checks worth nothing!). The same number of checks as players are laid out on the table, and each person chooses one home from the hand of houses they've bought in the previous round. These are revealed simaltaneously, with the the most valuable house getting the biggest check, the next most valuable the next biggest check, and so on. Careful play in this phase can overcome a string of bad luck in the auction phase. The total of your checks and the leftover chips is your score for the game. (We typically play 3 games and total scores to reduce the luck factor.) For me, FOR SALE combines some of the best parts of POKER (the bidding) with high-speed play. The auctions are tense and the reversals of fortune in the second round can cause serious wailing & gnashing of teeth! 2. Another great "Chicken" game is MEDICI (Amigo/Rio Grande). While both editions of this classic auction game have graphic design flaws, it's a tremendous play experience from the master designer, Reiner Knizia. Player are medieval merchants (hey, that's another great game I like to play!), filling the holds of their ships with various goods: dye, cloth, spice, grain & fur. Each good (a numbered card) is worth one step on a commodity ladder as well as it's numeric value (used to determine the total value of your hold at the end of each round). Cards are auctioned in a "once around" auction, with the auctioneer choosing to offer up 1, 2, or 3 cards, as well as having the last bid. A day (round) ends when each player has filled their hold (each one holds only five cards) or the deck has run out. Large amounts of money are dispensed for the richest hold, then money is also given to the top players on each commodity ladder. Three rounds are played to determine the wealthiest merchant. It sounds deceptively simple. The difficulty comes in the second and third rounds, as gains on the commodity ladder remain from round to round. You find yourself wondering if bidding on an important load for another player will cause him to pay more for it... or if he'll let you have it to fill up your hold with useless junk. One caveat: if you have players who are subject to analysis paralysis, this is probably not a good game for them. All of the information (except which cards have not yet been auctioned) is public. Late in the game, folks with this tendency can grind the game to a halt while they compute the exact amount they can or should bid. With that said, MEDICI is a favorite at Game Central Station (the club I run). 3. CLOUD 9 is my 'sleeper' pick in this category. Released last year by FX Schmid USA, this children's game designed by Aaron Weissblum has been unfairly overlooked. I'll be the first to admit that the artwork is just plain bad and that the theme (of players jumping out of a balloon to collect magic dust) to be a bit odd as well as pasted-on. But don't let that run you off from this fast-paced game. Players have a hand of colored cards... four different colors plus a couple of different wild cards. In turn, you roll the dice, which denote which colored cards you must give up in order to make the balloon rise. Then, before you play those cards (if you have them!), the other players choose in order whether to jump off the balloon (and take the points currently available) or stay on in hopes that you'll be able to play the correct cards and take the value up. If you can't make the balloon rise, all players still on the balloon receive no points for this trip. Then everyone climbs back on board, and the game goes on. When one player passes 45 points, the game will end with the current balloon trip. The player with the most points at the end wins the game. I'm leaving out a couple of mechanisms, but you'll figure those out if you buy the game. At it's heart, this is "Chicken". Do I jump early and often (for lots of small point gains... and a big hand of cards for late in the game)? Do I "let it ride" and try for big leaps (but few cards at the end)? Can I fake the other players into thinking I don't have the cards to make the balloon rise, causing them to jump too early? While there are optional "adult" rules for bluffing & lying, they don't really help the game. It's at it's best with the basic rules. (One note: the original prototype of the game had a longer scoring track. Try starting at 33, crossing the start line, and going back to 45 for a more strategic game.) CLOUD 9 is fast fun... and an excellent example of the "Chicken" genre. Don't Buy the Hype The other monthly feature of this column is my attempt to pump up under-appreciated games (aka CLOUD 9 - see above!) or poke a hole in the over-inflated reputation of some other games (aka AXIS & ALLIES). Gamers unite! You have nothing to lose but your piles of chits! No chit-bashing this time around, though. I'm taking aim at the pseudo-historical simulation/diplomatic/economic mishmash kown as AGE OF RENAISSANCE (Avalon Hill). Not only can I not spell the name of the silly game correctly without a spell-checker, I can't play it without feeling lost in a morass of conflicting mechanisms and bookeeping that could guarantee my accountant employment for years to come. The game requiring players to use 1/2-size chits (ok, a 'little' chit-bashing) to track an economic system that is the key to the game should have been my first warning. (Yes, I know that some industrious soul has printed up CIVILIZATION-like commodity cards on the Web... but shouldn't a $55 game have fixed this problem before it was printed!?) My second should have been reading through the event cards. Some (like the Black Death or Civil War) can send one country back to the Stone Age... and effectively destroy their chances of winning the game. If I want to play a civilization-building game with event cards, I'll stick to SVEA RIKE (where the shear number of cards compensate for the varied value of their effects.) My third warning was the combat system, with it's odd "guy who kept the most money has the best chance of winning" mechanism. The crowning idiocy of the game is it's length. Those of you who know me realize that I'm not a fan of long (3+ hour) games, and AOR is an excellent example of why I've developed my tastes. Just as in CIVILIZATION, a mistake early on can be perilous, while the focused attention of a couple of event cards can prove fatal to your chances to win. However, you've still got 3+ hours left to play... and no graceful way to bow out. (Yes, I'm aware there's a mechanism for this in the rulebook... but it's just a slapdash fix for a bigger problem in the game design.) Games that last an afternoon need to have some sense that players are controlling events. Unfortunately, AOR uses it's prodigious bookkeeping of Advances (roughly equivalent to Civilization cards in CIV) and the Misery Index, as well as decisions about stabilization, card play and token placement to mask it's inherent randomness. For better games in the same genre, check out SVEA RIKE (Casper) or VINCI (Descartes). Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, a Nashville, TN, based gaming group and website. This week his favorite game is TAJ MAHAL. Time Pirates review for The Strategist - December 2000? Imagine yourself at the end of time. According to Alan Moon & Aaron Weissblum's new game, TIME PIRATES, there are folks who have nothing better to do than to put together collections of objects from the past. In fact, they'll pay big money for these artifacts scattered throughout time. That's where you come in... as a Time Pirate with access to the latest technology, you can scour the multiverse for valuable artifacts and whip back through time to sell them at the Bazaar at the End of Time. (This part always sounds dangerously like a Douglas Adams book to me.) Your little money-making trips through time, however, are not technically legal. The Time Police cruise the multiverse as well, looking to pick up Time Pirates and stop them from ransacking the past. One Little Problem Like many of Alan's other games, this involves collecting sets (in this case, of artifacts scattered throughout the timescape) and dealing with a variable round & game ending mechanism. The only problem: there was a little disagreement with the company that published it (Piatnik) about the rules. Alan has suggested in an interview with Stephen "Snoop" Glenn for the FunAgain Games website (which is quite good and worth your time to read) that Piatnik either changed and/or misunderstood one rule... regarding the restocking of epochs. (Jay Tummelson corrected this error in the rules translation in the Rio Grande Games edition of Time Pirates.) At the end of this article is a chart listing that rule change and the others that Alan & Aaron advocate in their "designer" rules posted at The Gaming Dumpster (www.gamingdumpster.com) I have used the "designer" rules and believe they are the "best of the bunch", so to speak. Mechanics The game itself is yet another set collecting romp from Alan Moon... you can only take two actions per turn:
As well, a player can request (as in Alan's FREIGHT TRAIN) at the beginning of their turn for a time period without Time Pirates to be re-stocked with artifacts, and players may use the two special artifacts ("atomic move" and "forced trade") in addition to their normal actions. Each type of artifact has a number of available contracts: worth 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7 points... and costing 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 of the same type of artifact (respectively). In addition, there are wild card contracts worth 2, 3 & 4 points.. and costing 3, 4 & 5 *different* artifacts each. However, the Time Pirates are not only racing each other across the centuries, but also the Time Police (the cops, the fuzz, the Man), representing by a black pawn on the board and by Police chips mixed into the artifact bag. If you start your turn on the same space as the Time Police, you must lose your one item from your largest set as well as all your wild card artifacts AND spend your first action to vacate that century. The Time Police continue their cruise through time when time periods are refilled... if their chip is drawn, they are moved down the appropriately numbered time path and then another chip is drawn. When the eighth Time Police chip is drawn, the round is scored. The third time you score, the game is over. Aaaahhh, time (unintentional pun alert) for one last wrinkle. You receive a 2 point bonus for having contracts in all five types of artifacts... and 2 points for having the most valuable collection of contracts for each type. So, players stack their contracts into five face-down stacks and assign wild cards where they think they'd be the most helpful. Question: does Alan Moon borrow from himself more than any designer on the planet?! (OK, Knizia's up there, too.) Note the GET THE GOODS/UNION PACIFIC timed scoring mechanism, and the FREIGHT TRAIN re-stock. Mind you, they're both good ideas (my one game design, TED GOES TO GULF GAMES, borrows the timer idea as well). It's just interesting to see them keep popping up. Other Stuff While some have complained about the graphic design, I like it (except for the goofy pirate on the box cover.) It's appropriately sci-fi, while clean enough to make it easy to play. The one possible graphic glitch: some artifact pieces have extra symbols which allow you to use them to travel through time or to trade artifacts with another player... those small symbols can be difficult to see under the wrong light. Our first playing (back in March of 2000) featured a number of rules errors and accounts for the decidedly lousy initial impressions of the game. (We were putting artifacts back in the bag when they were sold or lost, having the Time Police steal ALL of your largest set, etc... a bad time was had by all.) With the correct rules, it's an enjoyable family game that my wife especially enjoys. It takes about 45-60 minutes to play and handles 3-5 players very well. (Pieces are provided for six players, but it isn't as successful with that number.) Rules Changes & Clarifications
Clarification from Aaron & Alan: Once your turn begins, you can not be caught by the Time Police. This includes restocking an epoch and having the Time Police enter your current epoch OR moving into the same epoch as the Time Police during your turn. Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, a Nashville, TN, based gaming group and website. This week his favorite game is JUMBO GRAND PRIX. | ||
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