Economy games are my favourite type of games. I can't even imagine, why. I fully admit that for some people these look like chores... or accounting... or solving math exercises. On the other hand - I find most of the set collection games quite repetitive and boring, so go figure.
Anyhow. I played Poseidon second time yesterday and decided to write down some thoughts about it. Basically it's an 18xx system, stripped down to the basics and then given an euro-style look. You know, fixed length, no stocks per se, merchants, temples etc - but at the heart the 18xx basic mechanics are still recognizable. But for going bankrupt you have to try it very hard.
About the game then. I started the purple company (umm... sorry, country. With some ancient name I can't remember, so let's call it Purple. Company.) with 5 merchants and bought all of these. As from the initial purchase round I got the double-value private (yeah-yeah) I used it already at ER1 next to my base, so I got to run 8-income tile already with 2-ships. During ER2 I ran for 55 income so this was pretty neat (compared to 18-20 incomes) and as neither green or black company were started, purple had good opportunity to own all the gulf left from the peninsula (area excluded from 2-player games).
First half of game was quite slowplay, in shiprusting terms - we had Phase 1 until the MR3. I was quite happy with it, as my two cheap 2-ships were generating nice profit. When MR3 started it was quite clear that during next ER there will be new phase triggered, so everybody tried to secure another country for himself. I had the last opportunity to do so - but there was only Black left and it was kinda blocked out already by Purple - but I decided that having friendly Black nearby is better than hostile, so I started it as cheap as possible for maximizing the overall revenue.
What happened during next ER was that not one new phase was triggered but it happened even twice - so both 2- and 3-ships were rusted/sunk during that round. Yellow had some serious issues with one 4-ship and facing the arrival of E-ships with not enough money. Another interesting moment was that when MR3 ended there were no merchants available in merchant pool... but at the end of next ER there was plenty of there, in all the colours.
Last rounds went quite fast, due to forced purchases both yellow and the union of green-blue were out of competition to the first place. All the rest had quite healthy income (30+ per merchant) with their countries so it looked like there'll be fierce struggle for first place. And it was - when everybody had added together their wealth, it appeared that difference between first and second place was 9 money, between second and third place 32 money. As the total wealth was near to 3000 you can imagine how close results those were. Especially as I had the second place :)
Good game, afterall. In other news: looks like in my 5 Nation 1830 tournament I've secured the third place. 1830 is a cut-throating game :)
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Luckily we have here some gamers who are not afraid when box says "4-8 hours" about playtime... so last weekend I had nice game of Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568-1648. It simulates the power struggle between five fractions during Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands. It was first time for all players and at least I had some cautious approach towards this game - will it be at least some moderate fun or complete waste of time. Instead it was very tense and enjoyable game, after we managed to get through the rules (2 hrs for that).
We had four players, so Nobility fraction was not participating, but Catholics, Habsburgs, Burghers and Reformers were all there. I got the Burghers, so my special victory points were coming from securing the "high-commerce" towns. After first round Catholics had big lead but during next turn they were (naturally) quite heavily pulled back. With great help of Habsburgs, I should mention - closest fraction to ally with for Catholics - so the Pope had to hire some expensive armies and this was the start of their downfall. Well, not only this... but I suppose this was the ignition. As a result of those conquests Habsburgs had quite a nice lead during next turn - so all eyes turned to them. Meanwhile I had managed to get quite a nice setup, with establishing strong base to the Geldland and Holland but Reformers were quite weak. I was afraid that Habsburgs continue their invasion into my lightly-guarded territories in Zeeland, so wealthy Burghers spent some money to change the influence of two cities in Flanders into strongly Reformist. This was the biggest mistake I made - and this time it was also determining the winner - but we knew nothing as half the game was still ahead. What happened was that suddenly Reformers became from nothing into everything and with that momentum it was quite impossible to stop them. But still, game was on and Burghers were leading on score track, so my intent was to maintain the status quo. Burghers hired an massive army and tried to "liberate" the Artois - but without success. During last turn Burghers lost one of their cities to Reformers by citizen allegiance, another by siege - and this was enough for Reformers to win with end scores as 12-11-10-10.
An excellent game! Total playtime (excluding the rules explanation): 5 hours.
We had four players, so Nobility fraction was not participating, but Catholics, Habsburgs, Burghers and Reformers were all there. I got the Burghers, so my special victory points were coming from securing the "high-commerce" towns. After first round Catholics had big lead but during next turn they were (naturally) quite heavily pulled back. With great help of Habsburgs, I should mention - closest fraction to ally with for Catholics - so the Pope had to hire some expensive armies and this was the start of their downfall. Well, not only this... but I suppose this was the ignition. As a result of those conquests Habsburgs had quite a nice lead during next turn - so all eyes turned to them. Meanwhile I had managed to get quite a nice setup, with establishing strong base to the Geldland and Holland but Reformers were quite weak. I was afraid that Habsburgs continue their invasion into my lightly-guarded territories in Zeeland, so wealthy Burghers spent some money to change the influence of two cities in Flanders into strongly Reformist. This was the biggest mistake I made - and this time it was also determining the winner - but we knew nothing as half the game was still ahead. What happened was that suddenly Reformers became from nothing into everything and with that momentum it was quite impossible to stop them. But still, game was on and Burghers were leading on score track, so my intent was to maintain the status quo. Burghers hired an massive army and tried to "liberate" the Artois - but without success. During last turn Burghers lost one of their cities to Reformers by citizen allegiance, another by siege - and this was enough for Reformers to win with end scores as 12-11-10-10.
An excellent game! Total playtime (excluding the rules explanation): 5 hours.
Friday, January 25, 2013
And now for something completely different. Well, not completely different... but still. I have played the Arkham-themed Elder Sign only 2 times as boardgame... but more than 30 times on my Android. I had played the "computerized" versions of boardgames earlier as well, but when I tried this first time, it was astonishing. I bought it one evening around 11-ish PM and decided to give it a go once. You know, one of those "I will just check if this will work" moments. Next time I was looking at clock it was 2 AM. This game is addictive. Best 3€ ever spent for a game.
Graphics are excellent, game is running smoothly and, as you are in charge of all 4 investigators, there is no downtime at all. With my favourite "team combo" I have managed now to defeat all three Ancients included in base game (yes, you can buy expansions as well, for couple of dollars each) but I wouldn't say that the base game is now becoming "exhausted" or "boring". Not at all - plenty of other investigators yet to try, so Elder Sign: Omens is still a perfect solution for situations when you have 15-30 minutes free time with nothing to do.
And despite of having played it a lot on Android, I'm still ready to play also the FTF game with good company.
Graphics are excellent, game is running smoothly and, as you are in charge of all 4 investigators, there is no downtime at all. With my favourite "team combo" I have managed now to defeat all three Ancients included in base game (yes, you can buy expansions as well, for couple of dollars each) but I wouldn't say that the base game is now becoming "exhausted" or "boring". Not at all - plenty of other investigators yet to try, so Elder Sign: Omens is still a perfect solution for situations when you have 15-30 minutes free time with nothing to do.
And despite of having played it a lot on Android, I'm still ready to play also the FTF game with good company.
Monday, January 21, 2013
During last couple of months there were constantly 7 readers of this blog, according to Feedreader. And then, after some messing with Blogger's conf module this number jumped to 66. I'm not even sure which number would be more correct :)
Anyhow. About the games then. Last Friday I received my designer copies of my second designed game - small and simple card game Puppy School. Yay. Promotional game, so won't be available from stores near you.
Whn I look at my January playlog, the biggest hit is... dum-dum-dum.... Start Player! We played it 7 times in a row in our New Year party during first 15 minutes of this year. I won only once but the owner got the majority of wins, so I heavily suspect that his card deck was modified. Should be banned!
Second on the list is Astra Titanus - an zip-lock solitaire game from VPG. Until I got it (thanks, Tim!) I had no interest in zip-lock games, solitaire games nor VPG. I'm glad to say that this one game changed everything. It has relatively short playtime, space battles theme, clear rules, decent amount of counters (i.e. chits) - what would you want besides of that? I have played it 4 times, won first three scenarios, lost terribly fourth one ("Terrible Twins"). Those two titans drove all the way until they were in the middle of our fleet and then, at the same time, fired their Omega weapons. Kaboom-kaboom-kaboom - my heavy cruisers were damaged and then kaboom-kaboom-kaboom... what heavy cruisers? An excellent game!
Third place goes to... Uchronia. My wife bought the second-hand copy and we've had lots of fun with it. Shorter and simpler than Innovation, but still quite a good game.
And then in no particular order. Android: Netrunner. A game I have teached to more people than I have managed to play myself. Really promising game. ("Promising game", heh - A:N is currently in BGG TOP10). Braggart - a game I have to thank my Secret Santa for. Really nice filler/icebreaker, you just have to be fluent in English. But that hasn't been a problem so far. Most of the times. König von Siam - after I read the rules, my first thought was: Liberte, Light Edition. But it's not like Liberte, although you have to collect some followers during power struggles between three factions. Pretty interesting mechanics. Oddville - from makers of Vinhos and Vasco da Gama. Simple, fast and enjoyable. That's the way I like it.
Ok, that's all folks. Have to keep something for next time. Perhaps a bit more in-depth overview about something then. Another playtest is waiting tonight, for Roundhouse Kick (working title). At least the name is catchy, eh? :)
Anyhow. About the games then. Last Friday I received my designer copies of my second designed game - small and simple card game Puppy School. Yay. Promotional game, so won't be available from stores near you.
Whn I look at my January playlog, the biggest hit is... dum-dum-dum.... Start Player! We played it 7 times in a row in our New Year party during first 15 minutes of this year. I won only once but the owner got the majority of wins, so I heavily suspect that his card deck was modified. Should be banned!
Second on the list is Astra Titanus - an zip-lock solitaire game from VPG. Until I got it (thanks, Tim!) I had no interest in zip-lock games, solitaire games nor VPG. I'm glad to say that this one game changed everything. It has relatively short playtime, space battles theme, clear rules, decent amount of counters (i.e. chits) - what would you want besides of that? I have played it 4 times, won first three scenarios, lost terribly fourth one ("Terrible Twins"). Those two titans drove all the way until they were in the middle of our fleet and then, at the same time, fired their Omega weapons. Kaboom-kaboom-kaboom - my heavy cruisers were damaged and then kaboom-kaboom-kaboom... what heavy cruisers? An excellent game!
Third place goes to... Uchronia. My wife bought the second-hand copy and we've had lots of fun with it. Shorter and simpler than Innovation, but still quite a good game.
And then in no particular order. Android: Netrunner. A game I have teached to more people than I have managed to play myself. Really promising game. ("Promising game", heh - A:N is currently in BGG TOP10). Braggart - a game I have to thank my Secret Santa for. Really nice filler/icebreaker, you just have to be fluent in English. But that hasn't been a problem so far. Most of the times. König von Siam - after I read the rules, my first thought was: Liberte, Light Edition. But it's not like Liberte, although you have to collect some followers during power struggles between three factions. Pretty interesting mechanics. Oddville - from makers of Vinhos and Vasco da Gama. Simple, fast and enjoyable. That's the way I like it.
Ok, that's all folks. Have to keep something for next time. Perhaps a bit more in-depth overview about something then. Another playtest is waiting tonight, for Roundhouse Kick (working title). At least the name is catchy, eh? :)
Friday, January 18, 2013
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