Friday, October 20, 2006
Tuesday 17th October
In attendance:
Huw Morris
Adrian Barnard
Simon Canter
Ralph Grimble
Rick Appleton
Joe Platt
Joe runs another gaming club in Oxford, the Galadriel Games club, which meets on a Monday night at the Fox & Hounds. He also plays a lot of Magic: the Gathering, which is how some of us met him. He was joining us for the first time.
Simon and Rick arrived first, and were in the middle of a game of Magic when I arrived. Simon's nasty artifact deck crushed a slightly mana-screwed Rick, who was playing one of the old World Champion decks. Joe arrived, and I taught him how to play Lost Cities. I won by a mile thanks to two huge expeditions, funded by Joe's inexperience with the game. Adrian and Ralph arrived, and we split into two groups of three.
Caylus
Adrian, Simon and I went for the heavyweight option. All of us had played before. I went for the building track, Adrian went for the points track and Simon ended up on the (weaker) cubes track, since he really needed a cube for next turn's building.
The best resource is often cloth, which means that the 2C/1F building is very useful. Adrian built that, and the 2S quarry early on, which over the course of the game gave him many points. By the time I got to build a stone building thanks to a King's Favour, my only other cube was a cloth, so I couldn't build one of the strong production buildings, and I had to build the one that allows you to build residences (the Architect?) I didn't really want that building, but it had a huge effect on the game. Midgame, I was allowed to go first far too often, which meant grabbing the two cloth and giving a point to Adrian. Then the architect was invariably free and I ended up placing in there - often to make sure I dropped out last. The upshot was that I built four residences in all. One of those residences went over the small market, which meant that for the remainder of the game, I was cash rich while both Adrian and Simon were cash poor. Throughout this stage of the game, Adrian and I were about level, with Simon a little way behind.
My opponents were also lax in allowing me to grab both the quarry and the gold mine, so that I was able to build both the Cathedral, and the Statue. The combined points from these two were about the difference I had over Adrian at the time. Simon would have built a blue building, but the game ended the turn before. Probably it would not have been enough to quite catch Adrian. Scores: Huw 106, Adrian 78, Simon ??
Adrian adds: I figured this time I'd try and get lots of money and advance the
points track. Early game I had lots of money, falling a little behind in
points. Fairly early on I built the 2 cloth / 1 food, and stone quarry
tiles. These earned me around a dozen points in the game, later I also
built a peddler who gained me another few. This was mainly since Huw was
no stranger to using these features, as ever to better advantage. Simon
lost a little ground to me here by my performing what he wanted to do
the move ahead of him.
The later mid game saw me fairly short on money on a fairly permanent
basis, Huw however had employed the 'Money grabbing landlord' TM tactic
of building residences over pretty much everything - mostly 'cos he
could! We realised prolonging the game longer at this stage was only
going to boost Huw into an ever more embarrassingly massive victory so
spending a little cash to hurry the bailiff along the track became the
wisest spending tactic. Huw capped the 'MGL'(TM) tactic by adding a
'gnomes of Zurich' flavouring by always mining the gold then simply
showing off with the cathedral and all sorts of other bonuses on the
last turn to cap the century score line (with 'help' from his unwitting
fellows).
Simon's planned come back was torpedoed by the speed up in games pace,
the collection of resource to build a statue while gathered was not
going to build one! Even with this Adrian would have still been 2nd,
it's just that his score wouldn't have been quite such a disaster.
The points track did me okay, but allowing Huw to get away with what he
did given the second time round similar set up isn't going to happen.
(he'll just have to walk all over us using some other tactics!) I put it
down to being on early shift.
Ticket to Ride
Joe had brought along Ticket to Ride, which he played with Ralph and Rick. I believe this was the first game for both of them. I don't know how it went, except Joe won (of course!). TtR is a shorter game than Caylus so there was still time for..
Carcassonne
Joe, Rick and Ralph had a game of the basic Carcassonne. I don't know how that ended - one of you guys want to write a report?
And with that we were done by 10:30. Time for a good chat about possibly more integration between Oxford Plus Gaming and Galadriel and an unusually early night.
Huw Morris
Adrian Barnard
Simon Canter
Ralph Grimble
Rick Appleton
Joe Platt
Joe runs another gaming club in Oxford, the Galadriel Games club, which meets on a Monday night at the Fox & Hounds. He also plays a lot of Magic: the Gathering, which is how some of us met him. He was joining us for the first time.
Simon and Rick arrived first, and were in the middle of a game of Magic when I arrived. Simon's nasty artifact deck crushed a slightly mana-screwed Rick, who was playing one of the old World Champion decks. Joe arrived, and I taught him how to play Lost Cities. I won by a mile thanks to two huge expeditions, funded by Joe's inexperience with the game. Adrian and Ralph arrived, and we split into two groups of three.
Caylus
Adrian, Simon and I went for the heavyweight option. All of us had played before. I went for the building track, Adrian went for the points track and Simon ended up on the (weaker) cubes track, since he really needed a cube for next turn's building.
The best resource is often cloth, which means that the 2C/1F building is very useful. Adrian built that, and the 2S quarry early on, which over the course of the game gave him many points. By the time I got to build a stone building thanks to a King's Favour, my only other cube was a cloth, so I couldn't build one of the strong production buildings, and I had to build the one that allows you to build residences (the Architect?) I didn't really want that building, but it had a huge effect on the game. Midgame, I was allowed to go first far too often, which meant grabbing the two cloth and giving a point to Adrian. Then the architect was invariably free and I ended up placing in there - often to make sure I dropped out last. The upshot was that I built four residences in all. One of those residences went over the small market, which meant that for the remainder of the game, I was cash rich while both Adrian and Simon were cash poor. Throughout this stage of the game, Adrian and I were about level, with Simon a little way behind.
My opponents were also lax in allowing me to grab both the quarry and the gold mine, so that I was able to build both the Cathedral, and the Statue. The combined points from these two were about the difference I had over Adrian at the time. Simon would have built a blue building, but the game ended the turn before. Probably it would not have been enough to quite catch Adrian. Scores: Huw 106, Adrian 78, Simon ??
Adrian adds: I figured this time I'd try and get lots of money and advance the
points track. Early game I had lots of money, falling a little behind in
points. Fairly early on I built the 2 cloth / 1 food, and stone quarry
tiles. These earned me around a dozen points in the game, later I also
built a peddler who gained me another few. This was mainly since Huw was
no stranger to using these features, as ever to better advantage. Simon
lost a little ground to me here by my performing what he wanted to do
the move ahead of him.
The later mid game saw me fairly short on money on a fairly permanent
basis, Huw however had employed the 'Money grabbing landlord' TM tactic
of building residences over pretty much everything - mostly 'cos he
could! We realised prolonging the game longer at this stage was only
going to boost Huw into an ever more embarrassingly massive victory so
spending a little cash to hurry the bailiff along the track became the
wisest spending tactic. Huw capped the 'MGL'(TM) tactic by adding a
'gnomes of Zurich' flavouring by always mining the gold then simply
showing off with the cathedral and all sorts of other bonuses on the
last turn to cap the century score line (with 'help' from his unwitting
fellows).
Simon's planned come back was torpedoed by the speed up in games pace,
the collection of resource to build a statue while gathered was not
going to build one! Even with this Adrian would have still been 2nd,
it's just that his score wouldn't have been quite such a disaster.
The points track did me okay, but allowing Huw to get away with what he
did given the second time round similar set up isn't going to happen.
(he'll just have to walk all over us using some other tactics!) I put it
down to being on early shift.
Ticket to Ride
Joe had brought along Ticket to Ride, which he played with Ralph and Rick. I believe this was the first game for both of them. I don't know how it went, except Joe won (of course!). TtR is a shorter game than Caylus so there was still time for..
Carcassonne
Joe, Rick and Ralph had a game of the basic Carcassonne. I don't know how that ended - one of you guys want to write a report?
And with that we were done by 10:30. Time for a good chat about possibly more integration between Oxford Plus Gaming and Galadriel and an unusually early night.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Tuesday 10th October
In attendance:
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Simon Canter
Steve Sykes
Janet Rintoul
Adrian Barnard
Rick Appleton
Simon Waldman
Tom Fowler
Tom was joining us for the first time. Ralph had bought a copy of Goa, and kept quiet about it. We've been waiting for this reprint for so long, it's aquired an almost mythical status. To say I was pleased is a bit of an understatement! Goa only takes four players, so Ralph, me, Simon C and Steve played that, while the rest played a 5-player Settlers Cities and Knights.
Goa
Ralph and I had played before, but Simon and Steve had not. I think we must have done a pretty good job of explaining, since they both picked the game up quickly and played very well.
I started with the flag. My strategy was to advance the card track as quickly as possible, and despite failing with my first attempt to found a colony, by the end of the second round, I had advanced all the way to the bottom of the card track. Steve was focussing on the money track, and had the most money all game. Simon was trying to advance all tracks equally for the bonus action, and Ralph was advancing the card/colonist/replenish tracks.
Mid game, I think I was a bit stingy in my bids. In particular I needed to have bid more aggressively to secure a pepper plantation, to allow me to advance the replenish track more easily. That's always the way with auction games for me - I'd rather lose the item than overpay (especially when that money goes to another player rather than the bank!) and I'm a weaker player for it. I was also having great difficulty winning any auction that involved extra actions, and that can be fatal. There was one turn when Ralph, Simon and Steve all held three action cards, when I had none. That was the point when I realised I probably couldn't win the game.
By the end of the game, everybody had managed to establish all four colonies except me. A first turn failure followed by generally sub-par colonists on the cards proved hard to recover from. One notable settlement came when Simon took a gamble and attempted to colonize Calicutt, needing 5 colonists from the cards - and got them, the lucky swine! I had two 4-point bonuses, and Steve had a 3 point bonus. I can't remember who had 1 point plantation bonuses, but I think it was just Steve and Simon. Steve also had the bonus for most money, unsurprisingly.
Final scores: Steve 45, Huw 39, Simon 38, Ralph 37. (I announced 37 at the time, but looking back I didn't add on the 2 points from my cards, which propels me from joint last to second..)
Cities and Knights
(report by Adrian)
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Simon Canter
Steve Sykes
Janet Rintoul
Adrian Barnard
Rick Appleton
Simon Waldman
Tom Fowler
Tom was joining us for the first time. Ralph had bought a copy of Goa, and kept quiet about it. We've been waiting for this reprint for so long, it's aquired an almost mythical status. To say I was pleased is a bit of an understatement! Goa only takes four players, so Ralph, me, Simon C and Steve played that, while the rest played a 5-player Settlers Cities and Knights.
Goa
Ralph and I had played before, but Simon and Steve had not. I think we must have done a pretty good job of explaining, since they both picked the game up quickly and played very well.
I started with the flag. My strategy was to advance the card track as quickly as possible, and despite failing with my first attempt to found a colony, by the end of the second round, I had advanced all the way to the bottom of the card track. Steve was focussing on the money track, and had the most money all game. Simon was trying to advance all tracks equally for the bonus action, and Ralph was advancing the card/colonist/replenish tracks.
Mid game, I think I was a bit stingy in my bids. In particular I needed to have bid more aggressively to secure a pepper plantation, to allow me to advance the replenish track more easily. That's always the way with auction games for me - I'd rather lose the item than overpay (especially when that money goes to another player rather than the bank!) and I'm a weaker player for it. I was also having great difficulty winning any auction that involved extra actions, and that can be fatal. There was one turn when Ralph, Simon and Steve all held three action cards, when I had none. That was the point when I realised I probably couldn't win the game.
By the end of the game, everybody had managed to establish all four colonies except me. A first turn failure followed by generally sub-par colonists on the cards proved hard to recover from. One notable settlement came when Simon took a gamble and attempted to colonize Calicutt, needing 5 colonists from the cards - and got them, the lucky swine! I had two 4-point bonuses, and Steve had a 3 point bonus. I can't remember who had 1 point plantation bonuses, but I think it was just Steve and Simon. Steve also had the bonus for most money, unsurprisingly.
Final scores: Steve 45, Huw 39, Simon 38, Ralph 37. (I announced 37 at the time, but looking back I didn't add on the 2 points from my cards, which propels me from joint last to second..)
Cities and Knights
(report by Adrian)
Variation: we seemed to be missing around 3 tiles! So the island was a
little smaller than usual - for 5 players this was not as constricting
as it might have been for 6.
There were okay spots for all dotted around the island, ore was likely
to be the least prevalent resource given it's 12, 12, 3, 4 and 11
numbers and placement, clay was likely the next most rare due to it's
mere 3 tiles, the numbers here being poor too.
Rick gained an early lead - 5/13 lent itself to a lot of early flak from
the other players. Janet seemed to be doing the majority of the robbing
and swindling of people, especially as her trade abilities rose on the
'calendar'.
Tom made a conscious effort to stay behind to use the cards he had, an
error in my view, I feel that moving to the front in mid game with such
cards in reserve for catch up if required is a better manoeuvre.
Allowing the barbarians to burn your city down when you could have taken
two more with you was an 'interesting tactic!' He only got to use one
action card to gain two resource cards from one other player, once it
became obvious we weren't going to complete the game. Not revealing his
'printers' card lost him a point to a spy as well.
Rick suffered from the early lead he gained and therefore the early take
down, he'd managed to seriously advance his 'calendar' and expand his
road network to some good locations.
Janet suffered as did others from the early arrival of the ship borne
barbarians, more so having only one city, most of the rest of the game
Janet had to make do with settlements, and creating strife for other
players.
Simon had a steady game but ended up a bit boxed in, not disastrously so
but restricting none the less. He also seemed to be Janet's main
thievery target.
Adrian gained a very early city and managed to get a double knight ahead
of barbarian arrival so retained this edge. However whilst having all
resources the numbers were poor and the likely expansion numbers were
poor. Upon realisation that we'd come nowhere near completing the game,
due to very hard trading, Adrian stole Ricks trader to bring him up to
the same points as Tom's points grab longest road build.
The final points likely don't reflect the end, Rick was set to expand
well with good numbers at his attained build sites and the calendar
means to have a good advantage over all. Adrian's and Tom's scores were
merely boosted 'cos they could be. Simon also had good numbers at his
restricted sites.
Mid game close:
Adrian:8 3 cities, 1 points card, trader. (level 3 knights)
Tom: 8 1 city, 4 settlement, longest road. (aqueduct)
Simon: 7 3 cities, 1 settlement.
Janet: 6 1 city, 4 settlements.
Rick: 5 2 cities, 1 settlement. (3:1 port, 2:1 commodities, aqueduct)
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Tuesday 3rd October
In attendance:
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Simon Canter
Steve Sykes
Ian Jenkins
I'd thought that we were to be only four strong tonight, so I brought Primordial Soup. We were in the process of setting it up when Ralph arrived, fortunately bringing Age of Steam.
Age of Steam
Ian and Simon had not played before, so needed a (very) quick explanation of the rules. With 5 players, the basic map can get quite congested, so Ralph and I both built on the Eastern edge of the board for guaranteed early shipping. This proved to be a bad mistake, as we were both locked out of the Centre and the West. Compounding this, Steve chose to urbanize first, and put the sole purple city on the Western side of the board, denying Ralph and me access to purple cities altogether. There were quite a few purple cubes on the Eastern side of the production board, which proved practically impossible for either of us to ship all game. In fact, early in the game, twice I had to move back one space on the income track, as I didn't have enough shipping to cover my costs.
Ian made a run all along the Southern side of the map for the first 5-shipment, but Simon had reached the North-West and had the best route. Steve picked up some of Ian's cubes in the South West, then built North, and did the same to Simon.
In the end, Steve's routes proved to be just that little bit more flexible than Simon's, and was able to find more high value shipping towards the end of the game. Ian was level on income with me, but I'd only got there by issuing extra shares. Ralph had got shut out and was further back. Final scores: Steve 70, Simon 63, Ian 57, Huw 49, Ralph 38.
Looking back, I think Ralph and I made one crucial blunder. If we'd monopolised the Urbanize action between us, we would have had enough cities to ship to, and we wouldn't have had difficulty around turns 3-5 finding some medium sized shipping. I eventually realised this, and took 3 shares in order to guarantee being able to take Urbanization one time, but it was a couple of turns too late. I should have bitten the bullet and done it earlier. Ralph tried to escape his predicament by desperately building track to the West, but he was asking too much of himself to actually manage to join his track in time.
Perhaps the other mistake we made was offering too good advice to Simon and Ian.. ;-)
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Simon Canter
Steve Sykes
Ian Jenkins
I'd thought that we were to be only four strong tonight, so I brought Primordial Soup. We were in the process of setting it up when Ralph arrived, fortunately bringing Age of Steam.
Age of Steam
Ian and Simon had not played before, so needed a (very) quick explanation of the rules. With 5 players, the basic map can get quite congested, so Ralph and I both built on the Eastern edge of the board for guaranteed early shipping. This proved to be a bad mistake, as we were both locked out of the Centre and the West. Compounding this, Steve chose to urbanize first, and put the sole purple city on the Western side of the board, denying Ralph and me access to purple cities altogether. There were quite a few purple cubes on the Eastern side of the production board, which proved practically impossible for either of us to ship all game. In fact, early in the game, twice I had to move back one space on the income track, as I didn't have enough shipping to cover my costs.
Ian made a run all along the Southern side of the map for the first 5-shipment, but Simon had reached the North-West and had the best route. Steve picked up some of Ian's cubes in the South West, then built North, and did the same to Simon.
In the end, Steve's routes proved to be just that little bit more flexible than Simon's, and was able to find more high value shipping towards the end of the game. Ian was level on income with me, but I'd only got there by issuing extra shares. Ralph had got shut out and was further back. Final scores: Steve 70, Simon 63, Ian 57, Huw 49, Ralph 38.
Looking back, I think Ralph and I made one crucial blunder. If we'd monopolised the Urbanize action between us, we would have had enough cities to ship to, and we wouldn't have had difficulty around turns 3-5 finding some medium sized shipping. I eventually realised this, and took 3 shares in order to guarantee being able to take Urbanization one time, but it was a couple of turns too late. I should have bitten the bullet and done it earlier. Ralph tried to escape his predicament by desperately building track to the West, but he was asking too much of himself to actually manage to join his track in time.
Perhaps the other mistake we made was offering too good advice to Simon and Ian.. ;-)
Tuesday 26th September
In attendance:
Huw Morris
Adrian Barnard
Ralph Grimble
Simon Canter
Rick Appleton
Steve Sykes
After a couple of weeks of not finishing our games, I was absolutely determined that we would actually finish a game this week, so I brought along some of the shorter games in my collection. I learned that Steve was on his way, but would be late, so we started off with a quick game of Bluff while we waited.
Bluff (aka Liar's Dice)
There's not a whole lot you can say about Bluff. The usual probability-stretching distributions, the usual terrible bids (which often as not paid off!) Simon was out first, quickly followed by Rick. I was third, leaving Adrian and Ralph left with one die each. That's a bit of a crapshoot really. Adrian went first, bid incorrectly and Ralph won.
Steve turned up, so we quickly taught him how to play (which takes, ooh about 30s) and had another game. Steve was a bit unlucky and was out first, so he was told to rummage through the game bag and set up whichever game he preferred. I was out second, so joined Steve in the next game, and Rick was third. I didn't see who won - perhaps one of the remaining players can enlighten me as to what
happened next?
Steve, Rick and I played this, as the first three players out of the previous game. Only I had played before, and that was some time ago, so I had to read the instructions again while teaching. Rick won the first game, as I quickly found my camels all hemmed in. We had a second game, which I won, with Rick and Steve equal second.
Carcassonne
The one game of Carcassone took approximately the same length of time as the two games of Through the Desert. Adrian departed, but the rest of us stayed on for a game of Frank's Zoo. We agreed to play the basic rules, finishing at 11pm (rather than 20 points as in the rules.)
Frank's Zoo
Frank's Zoo is always a fun game to play, and this was no exception. It was most memorable for the frankly dominating performance of Ralph. We had time for 4 rounds in all, and Ralph was first in 2, and second in the other 2, giving a score of 14 out of the 16 possible. Miles back in second was Rick with 8, then Simon, Steve and myself with 6. Is it a game of skill or luck? Obviously with my score, I'd say luck...
Huw Morris
Adrian Barnard
Ralph Grimble
Simon Canter
Rick Appleton
Steve Sykes
After a couple of weeks of not finishing our games, I was absolutely determined that we would actually finish a game this week, so I brought along some of the shorter games in my collection. I learned that Steve was on his way, but would be late, so we started off with a quick game of Bluff while we waited.
Bluff (aka Liar's Dice)
There's not a whole lot you can say about Bluff. The usual probability-stretching distributions, the usual terrible bids (which often as not paid off!) Simon was out first, quickly followed by Rick. I was third, leaving Adrian and Ralph left with one die each. That's a bit of a crapshoot really. Adrian went first, bid incorrectly and Ralph won.
Steve turned up, so we quickly taught him how to play (which takes, ooh about 30s) and had another game. Steve was a bit unlucky and was out first, so he was told to rummage through the game bag and set up whichever game he preferred. I was out second, so joined Steve in the next game, and Rick was third. I didn't see who won - perhaps one of the remaining players can enlighten me as to what
happened next?
(From Adrian:)Through the Desert
Bluff game 2: The second game again ended up with Adrian vs. Ralph, I
seem to remember having two dice to one on this one, with the
predictable result of a win. So that's a 2nd/5 and 1st/6 for me.
Steve, Rick and I played this, as the first three players out of the previous game. Only I had played before, and that was some time ago, so I had to read the instructions again while teaching. Rick won the first game, as I quickly found my camels all hemmed in. We had a second game, which I won, with Rick and Steve equal second.
Carcassonne
Carcassonne using the 'free' river expansion, saw Adrian, Ralph and
Simon playing. Adrian gradually fell significantly behind, a super large
city complex being 'taken over' ahead of completion by Ralph saw a
counter move from Adrian that would cease completion while getting him
back into it and denying Simon the farming points. Up until the end
Simon looked like he would win it on farms, Ralph was desperate for a
curved road on grass to allow his overturning of Simons dominance of
much of the board in this respect. Adrian took great delight in
continually drawing these tiles out and placing them away from Ralphs
last gasp plan.
Ralphs last draw saw a curved road on grass and this removed Simons
points while boosting Ralphs over most of the board. Positions Ralph 1st
Simon 2nd Adrian 3rd (that's a way, way back 3rd which is likely why I
totally forgot to record the scores) Ralphs final tile had almost wiped
my farm results out in their entirety losing me around 20 - 24 points.
The one game of Carcassone took approximately the same length of time as the two games of Through the Desert. Adrian departed, but the rest of us stayed on for a game of Frank's Zoo. We agreed to play the basic rules, finishing at 11pm (rather than 20 points as in the rules.)
Frank's Zoo
Frank's Zoo is always a fun game to play, and this was no exception. It was most memorable for the frankly dominating performance of Ralph. We had time for 4 rounds in all, and Ralph was first in 2, and second in the other 2, giving a score of 14 out of the 16 possible. Miles back in second was Rick with 8, then Simon, Steve and myself with 6. Is it a game of skill or luck? Obviously with my score, I'd say luck...
