Game Night 17 brought us our first full house. That meant we could not play Square Mile this week, as it is only a 5 player game. So we pulled Shadows from the Shelf and dove right in.
Shadows is a good game -- it blends relatively simple mechanics, with an ever tightening economy, and the paranoia that you are about to be betrayed.
The downside to the game is not teamwork so much as explaining the minutia of how teamwork needs to happen to ensure the group's victory. This can lead to multiple conversations going on at once, ranging from simple questions, to strategy, to interrogation... which makes it hard for anyone to actually hear or understand any of those individual things.
If this chaos were more integrated into the game play, I think we would be happier with it. As is, it just seemed to stall the game out.
I actually missed an earlier chance to win the game, sadly. Would have saved an hour worth of game play. Though I suppose that made it harder to determine whether I was the traitor or not...
Next week will bring Square Mile and possibly a side game of Criminals. Both of Which I've been itching to play again.
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<p>While Mecha and Shawn P were away, I was joined by John lovejoy, Drew, and Skwabuck for three very close games. This was happily unexpected, as we were planning on canceling game night this week, due to scheduling issues.</p>
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<p>Skwa was running late, so we started with Pizza, Smutty Nose beer, and two rounds of Guillotine. Nothing unexpected happened, but we had fun all the same. John and Drew both nabbed a victory.</p>
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<p><b>San Juan</b> came next, and ran remarkably tight. All three of us have a decent amount of experience with the game, and each has a favored play style. I squeaked by with a minor lead, but it was good to see how close different strategies will keep you.</p>
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Power Grid may have been the tightest game I have ever seen. Perhaps it was because everyone was familiar with the rules, or perhaps we've all figured out an optimization system that works for us, or maybe it was just how the cards came out. Whatever the reason, the final positions really say it all:
Gavin
POWER = 7+7+5 (19)
CITIES = 17
$ = 6
Drew
POWER = 6+6+6 (18)
CITIES = 17
$ = 2
John
POWER = 7+6+6 (19)
CITIES = 16
Skwabuck
POWER = 6+6+4 (16)
CITIES = 18
The game ran about as long as it can. No power plants we left in the market and the Coal was almost gone. Seriously, an awesomely tight game played by all.
This coming week's game night is cancelled due to travel. However we will be back for the following week (the 14th?). If you would like to join us and are local, drop us a message on robot martini's facebook page.
Beginning the game took a little while. Skwabuck hadn't played the game before, and while the rules are relatively simple to understand during play, they are challenging to explain in a vacuum. It doesn't help that the rules for setting up the game (like how much money to give each player, how many factories are removed from the deck, etc) is scattered all over the 6 page rule book and not especially well marked. Grrrrr
Drew arrived just as we finished explaining the rules, but fortunately had played the game before. Begin!
The game started normally enough, but by turn three we knew something was out of the ordinary. Very high value power plants were showing up and actually getting bid on -- we acquired all of the 20-29 value plants by turn five -- leaving the looming blight of bad plants for us to encounter later in the game.
Also, players scattered all over the board. Drew (green) took the west, but was hemmed in by MechaShiva (red). Shawn (violet) took the south without conflict, Skwabuck (yellow) took the south east with no conflict, and I (blue) took the mid atlantic without conflict... all in all, low cost properties, with very little overlap until the mid game.
as expected, the end game became a practice in frustration. We consistently drew power plants of values lower than 20, and for several turns no one could catch up to Skwabucks 13 production power.
In fact, because nothing better came out, Skwabuck pre-empted the end of the game, by buying 15 properties and powering 13. Even though this was a low number for a game of power grid, MechaShiva and Drew could only power 12, and Shawn and I could only power 11.
Notably this continues Skwa's winning streak of at least 6 game nights in a row. Next week we will be playing this again and perhaps then, we will be more lucky.
closing thoughts in the video below
Renee, Squabuck, Shawn, Wolf, and MechaShiva play Ticket to Ride Europe. Despite their intensely happy expressions and large portions of Orange Drink, the game was a so-so experience.
Our second week of train-themed game nighting saw Alan Moon's Ticket to Ride Europe on our table. We chose it over classic Ticket to Ride because we remembered it having a few more options and (perhaps) better balance. Since T2RE is a 5 player game, I sat out and became the official rule reader & camera man.
Having not played the original, Squabuck asked for a description of the game. Jokingly we said "It isn't Risk", but as the game progressed that description seemed to fit best.
Generally speaking, we had fun as a group in spite of the game. Squabuck's brought a lot of fun to the table, and her native american heritage let her trump Renee on a few "affirmative action" gags.
As for the game itself, misunderstood may be the best way to describe it. Mechanically speaking, I understand how the new components improve the game: train stations make it harder to truly block a player's route; tunnels add a level of uncertainty to high value routes, and ferries make certain routes slower.
Unfortunately those same rules also fuss-up and confuse new players. The proper use of train stations was probably the most confusing, and after reading to the group I realized I haven't been using it right myself.
Over all, the game loses much of the casual, easy to grasp fun of its predecessor. It isn't a bad game -- there are certainly many worse -- but it isn't as good as the original, which wasn't perfect itself.
Squabuck probably said it best:
"I loved it… it's exciting, colorful, long (relatiely). I would play it again if payed to or given an equal amount of Orange Drink. It was definitely a lot better than risk"
you can tell a lot about a person by how they organize their trains… maybe
while the selling point for a few games can be summed as "They aren't risk", I'd hoped for better in Ticket To Ride Europe. Fortunately we had huge beakers full of Orange Drink to distract us.
TransAmerica
The first game of the night was the casual track-laying game entitled Transamerica. The game challenges each player to connect 5 locations on the board with tracks. Each player's locations are unique, but "roughly" the same distance apart.
To make connections, players must link their colored pawn to each destination using track pieces. A player may fill two gaps on the board per turn, unless the 'gap' has a double track cost. Also, players share their track networks when they are in direct contact.
This last aspect is the core of the game play, which forces the players to consider timing when laying track too close to an opponent's network.
Over all the game was easy for everyone to understand and enjoyable to play a second time. However, as can be seen in the video, the second game devolved into dirty jokes when several players noticed the starting locations can, ultimately be totally unbalanced and essentially impossible to connect in time.
Senator
I really liked this game when I first played it years ago, but since… not so much. Senator is a straight forward bidding game, where the goal is to collect the most auctioned items. The catch is that certain items cancel other items out, which guides what you do and do not want to collect during a round. The additional hook is that each item also grants you an ability when collected, which ranges from getting a bid card back, to collecting a second item, and so on.
The game is slow, mostly because players are constantly referring to the rule booklet to figure out what each item's power is. However, it is also slow because every aspect of the game is so balanced out that the game usually ends in a tie. This is the fifth time I've seen 3 or more players tie for the win.
Over all, big stinko. Senator was dull, slow, repetitive, and didn't feel like it had a winning solution. (aside from tying all other opponents)
dull senator video here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4SR1Vr9oF8
The Mister Taru show "gets you over the hump"
Drinking with GWG
Sidescroller(Astrobrot)
Tapped / Drink of the week / Drinking with GWG rep
Game night / Test Session