Long time gone - time to Go

Ice Hockey stole my life for a few years which really put a dent into my time budget.  Sadly, gaming suffered most out of the 'other things' in life (eg. family, work, gaming).  First to go were board games.  Next, online games dropped in frequency and then almost out of the equation (limited to World of Tanks).  And then I took a redundancy and moved to the country so everything got packed and stacked in boxes and still pretty well remains there (not sure if you'd call my present state one of semi-retirement or not, but I sure have kept busy).  And before you know it, the years have rolled by (take note, young ones).

There was the odd game in the past few years, but very few.  So few, I can recall them!

Condotierre - against the nephews, winning two out of three.
Settlers - against the nephews, winning none, losing two.
Ticket to Ride - against the daughter and grandson, miracle victory as the cards fell my way.

And, recently, Go.  This one has really taken my attention for a couple of months now, playing or studying it for a minimum of an hour a day.  I use an online go site and it has started refreshing my mind back into the gamer's mindset.  Very enjoyable, and a great relief for someone who is hours away from all known gaming opponents!

But, my gaming related interests have continued.  History, and anglo-saxon / viking / early norman periods in particular.  And rules get looked at.  And armies get planned in the spare moments while chopping wood etc.

And I've even had a look at Alcazia again.

And thus it continues...

AAD and other things

Well, I hope all those who read this had a safe and fun silly season. We at Adelaide Gamer did, most certainly. Not much in the way of games though, except for a bit of Tanks. And a recce on some modelling, for when I get the chance.

In the World of Tanks I have seemed to shift up a gear in my playing style, although it isn't necessarily immediately obvious when viewing the stat pages I think I am playing a lot smarter than I was a month ago. This is reflected in steady kill ratios of 1 per game or higher, and climbing averages for experience across my stable (T34, T34-85, IS2, SU-85, MS-1(!)).

I have also joined a clan, the ANZAC Armoured Division (2nd Battalion) - or AAD2 for short. The core of the clan consists of committed long term WoT players, it was formed in April 2011. The original AAD is presently 89 members, the 2nd Battalion has 30. The 1st Battalion is the gang who will provide the armies when Clan Wars finally starts up a Asia-Oceania server and fighting the daily round of battles in the quest for World Domination at a time more suitable for oceania timezones than does the present North American based server (early afternoon aussie time).

When you realise the First Battalion is composed of those with top level tanks waiting for the clan wars to start, and that the Second Battalion is for the more relaxed, less developed Tanker, then you'll probably understand that I give no secrets away when I say that the plan is to hit the ground running when Oceania opens up for conquest, grab territory and hang onto it. Apparently there's some well established russian clans with the same idea, so it will be interesting.

On a more mundane level, the AAD runs a basic forum and Team Speak set up which, when combined with a little message discipline and the ingame information streams in WoT, provides good forums, meeting points, communications networks and information storage to run a pretty major operation. The TS server set up is good, with channels for individual platoons, companies, training ground players and miscellaneous use, as well as main lobbies. Very functional and focused, without being neurotic about it. Kinda like us ANZACs (Australia New Zealand Army Corps, from WWI and Gallipoli) like to think we are.

Oh. And I'm chasing down some putty for the T34-85 model, and eagerly awaiting the end of silly season so I can set up and use my new air compressor and spray gun.

And there's a Knizia game of the Hobbit to learn and play.

And S&T is releasing its Germany-Russia 1920 hypothetical game in a couple months.

2012 looks like being a very good year.

The day after the day after

I almost was a xmas grinch by throwing out our old tree when one of the elves dropped off a new one the day before the day before. Instead, I left it out on the roadside verge in case anyone who saw it needed a tree (with a little note saying they're welcome to it). No-one took it, and the bin won't have enough room for it for a week or two to come, but at least I avoided grinchisness.

As for the treasure ... a high grade micro air compressor (variable flow, water trap) and modeling airbrush plus fixtures, models of Fokker Dr VII (biplane) and 1:35 Russian Tank Crew, an Order of Battle of the Red Army's main fronts in WWII and a more detailed history of their armoured forces, and a military history 'daybook'. Treasure for those near and dear included 'The Hobbit' boardgame (a Eurogame designed by Knizia) and a pretty dramatic scaletrix track and cars (slot cars). So, Santa was kind indeed, and at least as perceptive as has been in past years.

And it was nice on the day after the day after the curse of grinchisness was avoided to finally take some time out and settle back into some solid driving on my IS-2 in World of Tanks. More on those adventures later ...

Settlers Game

In the first week of January (just shows how long I can wait before posting if I'm busy elsewhere) Nancy, Shaun, Paul and I played our first game of Settlers of Catan. We all agreed it was good fun, took us a bit over two hours. We played the recommended starting set up for a first game rather than use the randomisation of geography etc which gives the game its newness on each play. Using the standard set up, I presume, gives each player a roughly equal chance to win while displaying some of the different 'styles' required to master the game. In this trial, Shaun (White) won with an expansionist approach, Nancy (blue) came close with her trading approach, I (orange) kept myself happy with a coastal network and Paul (red) got frustrated by playing an expansionist style when he should have concentrated on internal development. All good fun and hope to play again in not too distant future.

Lord of the Rings - Knizia board game

Have just purchased Knizia's Lord of the Rings cooperative board game from the pawnbroker (of all places). Will let you know how it plays when we take on Sauron - but the concept of a 'corruption line', the artwork and the favoured status of almost anything designed by Knizia leads to good prospects.

After having read the rules and finding them somewhat intriguing because of the new possibilities opened by the group v the system approach I went for a quick google to see what sort of a game this was. I have found nothing but praise so far, but what was interesting is that I found this academic article on cooperative and collaboration game design ("Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games" - Zagal, Rick, Hsi). It uses Knizia'a LOTR as its case study of a 'collaborative' game that works, is itself an attempt to draw lessons for use by the MMORG fraternity. Worth a read, as are the archives for The Gaming Journal (which I found in the article's bibliography).

PS sorry again for delays, RK has taken over again. I'll post sometime a summary of what's happened there. Suffice to say my character is now Field Marshall of the Royal Scottish Army, married, and rather busy in the role play side of things.

As a final note, I've activated word recognition in the comments on this blog as a result of the massive spam influx on the previous post.

Real Game! Tigris & Euphrates!

Had a cool game of Tigris and Euphrates last weekend. It's been over a year since Nancy and I had last played it, Wayne had never played it. We were spending Easter in a big farmhouse up in the riverland and were at loose ends for something to do once wee Blake was in bed. I'd brought T&I (along with Caesar's Legions, while Nancy had brought along Pass the Pigs, Rook and Farque, and we had acquired Where's Wally Wordhunt from a Jumble Sale on Easter Saturday, so we were well equipped). So we fitted in a quick game.

The rules were easy enough to grab the second time around, and easy enough to explain to Wayne as we played. Considering neither myself or Nancy are fluent with this game, I don't think the noob suffered a disadvantage.

In any event, 'twas me came last, then Wayne, and Nancy won easily.

Paul was around this evening and noticed the game amongst the other things I haven't unpacked since our holiday weekend. Although we couldn't fit in a game straight away I'm sure that means we'll get one in over the next week or so.

Tigris and Euphrates - Jarrad wins!

I introduced Jarrod and Jess to T & E the other night. They both picked it up frighteningly quickly. Took us about two hours to play a game from scratch.

There were four monuments on the board by the end of the game, with control of different spheres of the two major kingdoms see-sawing in the later game. Jarrod ran a strategy of continually balancing his tallies for the various colours, which served him well. He won with a score of 18 points (black?), myself second on 6 points (black, including three treasure) and Jess on 4 points (red).

Both seemed to enjoy it, and it took them away from their seemingly endless reruns of the Avalon Hill classic - 'Civilization'.

Tigris & Euphrates - Trial Game

Nancy, Paul and I played our first game of Tigris & Euphrates tonight. It took about 3 and a half hours (but I would expect that to drop to around 2 hours if we three played again).

The game was good fun, with Nancy romping home as a decisive winner. Her lowest scoring colour group were green markets, scoring her 22 points. Paul and I tied for second/last place, he with 6 blue farms and I with 6 red temples for our respectively lowest scoring colours. Nancy's dynasty settled into a well balanced and isolated mid sized kingdom whilst Paul (with a large kingdom) and Mark (with a smaller ephemeral set of kingdoms) got involved in minor dogfighting over influence in their regions. A total of three monumental ziguratts were built.

Paul stirred the pot once he realised his blue leader was going to have a hard time generating victory points, allegedly to drag me down low enough so that he wouldn't come last. I guess you could say he achieved his aim, by way of converting Nancy's likely victory into a steamroller as he handed her my head on a platter after formenting major external conflicts between her kingdom and my lesser principality.

At least, that's what it felt like.

It was great fun! For most of the game we were concentrating mainly on learning the game mechanism. The game drew to its sudden end when Nancy closed it out by trading in her unused tiles to drain the bag of those few that were left.

The game certainly has great replay value. I suspect it is likely to be more conflictual in future, especially when we play with four dynasties!

We are all looking forward to playing Axis and Allies tomorrow. I expect it will be quite a different experience!

PS - I have added the new category, 'Eurogames' to the blog index on the left sidebar.

Tigris & Euphrates - Preview

For some obscure reason I had to go to a game shop this morning and get another game. Games I considered included Samurai, Ticket to Ride, Amun Ra. In the end I went for Tigris and Euphrates, another game designed by Reiner Knizien (creator of Puerto Rico). Haven't played it yet, but certainly look forward to doing so asap.

The Board is big and solid. Players get to place tiles on the map, spreading farms, temples, markets and cities across ancient mespotania. As they do so, they each use their various 'factional' leader types (each player having a king, farmer, priest and merchant in their dynasty) to gain control of the various regions of developed countryside and milk them of victory points. Monumental ziggurats get built, catastrophies disrupt the political landscape and treasure is looted from the most ancient of temple sites.

Being, at one level, a territorial game, there is conflict between forces of opposing players. It is more of what I call 'political' conflict rather than military, the contest being played out between the dynastic factions belonging to each of the players.

The design is crisp and attractive, the pieces being either clearly printed on sturdy card or cleanly machined and coloured wooden markers. Rules are easy to read with clearly illustrated examples, appearing to be comprehensive in explanation of simple game mechanics. The large number of tiles come with their own linen bag to draw them from, suitably sized and carrying an ambience of ancient agricultural society rather than modern industrial kitch.

Again, the mechanism of the game appears to be an interlocking series of subsystems that each have indirect impact upon the others. When mixed with the victory mechanism (where the player wins whose dynasty has the highest score for their weakest faction), it looks to be a finely balanced and subtle game.

I hear it's another masterpiece. Can't wait to find out.

Puerto Rico - my first win!

I just got back from a weekend at Burra when I had the lovely surprise of my teenage daughter offering to play any game I chose with her and her friend. This was after I said I wasn't upto playing Monopoly, which would have been her first choice (she went out and got a copy of the Austalian version of Monopoly a couple days ago and has already played three games of it - I find it not the most exciting of games but will occasionally play a game of it to be polite. Not today though).

So we played a three player game of Puerto Rico, myself and two teenagers. It was their first try of the game, but we didn't need to play any 'test turns' 'cause they were comfortable with the system very quickly. It was a close game, with Jarrod leading in the middle game, myself swinging into production/export mode and stacking on victory points in the later game, and Jess blindsiding us by getting enough doubloons to purchase city hall and colonise it in the last turn of the game. The game ended when we ran out of colonists.

I held them off, and won with 44 points. Jess came narrow second on 43, and Jarrod a respectful third with 34 points. Whole game was over within two hours.

They enjoyed the game, and were picking up on how the mechanics interact quite comfortably by the end of it. So we now have eight people who can play the game, should make it relatively easy to organise a session which includes it in future (perhaps as a prelude to Diplomacy, which seems to be a perrenial favorite).

Puerto Rico and Billionaire

Tonight we had a bit of a gaming session. Started with eight player Billionaire. Then five player Puerto Rico.

Billionaire, as always, was a noisy and fun game, with lots of minor subplots as people traded pairs back and forth and tried to keep track of the taxman. Wayne was pretty chuffed to have an eight player game.

Nancy won, followed by Paul, Wayne and Jess (tied for third), Me, Jarrod, Shaun and Marko.

Paul, Marko, Wayne, Shaun and myself then played a game of Puerto Rico. This was the first time we've played this five players, and the first time Wayne and Shaun had played it. They both picked up the mechanics pretty quick. The Game took a bit over two hours, ending when victory point counters and colonisists both ran out on the same turn.

Shaun won with 64 points, having chased the money early and had the coffee market to himself for awhile. I came a narrow second (62), having used a customs house to magnify the VP bonus I'd derived from moderate but constant volumes of produce going through my harbour for almost the entire game. Paul and Marko came next (50 and 49 respectively), with Wayne (36) bringing up the rear in an honourable late recovery following about three turns where nothing went his way.

Good clean fun game, but might have to try something else next time to let the lessons settle in.

Puerto Rico - Robbo wins!

We played another game of Puerto Rico tonight. Same four of us who played it last time, but the game progressed quite differently to the first time. This time around, the game went for a shade over two hours (including a break in the middle), ending when Mark Robbo completed his building program with a second major building. He won, with a score of 38 pts, then came Paul (35), myself (31) and Nancy (26). Fun time by all. Rules continue to deal with contingencies as they arise without giving rise to argument.

The fact that the scores are much closer, and that the winner is only in the thirties this time, arose from the fact that no-one who had a major building (where large bonuses of victory points arise at game end) had colonists on them (required to activate their special bonuses). Mark won because he integrated his economy a bit better than anyone, and because no-one chose the role of 'Mayor' in the final turn (allowing all players the chance of placing colonists on their major buildings). Paul had his chance to, but didn't. He seemed to keep chosing the role of 'builder' during the game - a bit inflexible as a strategy once others realise it, I think. Nancy never seemed to get off the ground in adding value to her produce. Similarly with me, except I managed to produce a lot more stuff for overseas consumption generally than she did and scored slightly higher accordingly in the end.

I think we all played the game better than the first time, and probably got a bit more anticipatory joy out of the playing. It didn't seem so intuitive, but that's to be expected as we play with the possibilities within the rules over our next few contests.

We played a game of Farkel afterwards, to wind down a bit.

Puerto Rico

We did go and get Puerto Rico from the Game Shop at Tea Tree Plaza shopping centre. Cost about AU$70. Well worth it. As soon as we had it, we let Paul and Mark know we were keen on a game. No need to ask twice, they agreed to coming around our house in the evening and settling down to a few hours of fun. Mark even left his beloved O-game campaign (online MMORG space trading/conquest game) behind for a few precious hours!

Puerto Rico's components are good looking. Lots of small wooden pieces, colourful card player mats, crisp and solid 'cards' for buildings, doubloons etc. The 8 page rule book was tightly and clearly written, not too hard to understand the mechanics. Paul was a little perturbed that he couldn't work out a game strategy off of the rules, despite the fact that the mechanics were quite clear.

The game occurs over a number of 'rounds'. During each round and starting with the 'governer' for the turn, players take turns to adopt one of several 'roles' for that turn. They do their actions, followed by the other players, as appropriate for the role they chose. The next player then chooses a role and does the relevant actions, followed by the other players. This continues until each player has played one of the roles (there being more roles than players, not every role gets used each round). Once each player has played a role, the 'governer card' moves clockwise one player, the roles are all made available again, and the next round begins.

There is no central 'board' which players move anything on, it's much more conceptual than most 'traditional' games. The developmental side of the game is much like 'civilisation', the taking of roles reminded me of 'geronimo'. The beauty of it all was that there was still a tremendous amount of interaction in this seemingly abstract game, and the theme (of developing a colonial plantation based society) rang true through the game. Made it easy to immerse oneself in the experience and have fun.

The idea is to make a prosperous little plantation economy, shipping goods back to the old world and developing infrastructure around the port. Population and production must be offset against investment and development. Despite all of the counters and cards, the game is neither fiddly nor messy. It is fairly easy to take in the situation at a glance.

At game's end (when the first player filled up all twelve available building spaces on his player mat), about 2 hours of playing time after we started, Paul had accumulated more wealth and infrastructure than anyone else and thus won the game on 62 victory points. Mark was second on 54, then Nancy on 43 and myself a distant last on 32.

It was a fun game, with plenty of interaction and everyone always engaged. There was no combat, but plenty of postitioning. Numerous strategies suggest themselves for future games, and we all agreed it would be even more fun with five players.

I have no doubt that it won't be long before we again play this engagingly elegant game of multi layered possibilities.

NB After everyone else had gone home I settled back into my cockpit for several hours flying. Flew Norwegian until I had been shot down three times by AA over japanese airfield at Okinawa, flying P47 D trying to take out those same AA! Then went up over Darwin on 'Zekes v Wildcats', got shot down twice by scrapping zeros. But, again, I managed to get into good gunnery positions several times only to be hunted down after my shooting let me down. Incremental improvement continues.