Friday 26 November 2010

Wednesday 24 November 2010

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Amphitheatre

This Tuesday saw Adam, Joe, Sam and Andrew go head-to-head over a brand new game, Colosseum. This game of showbiz management in Ancient Rome proved to be quite silly and fun after the grinding strategums of Age of Steam, Brass and Medici that we’ve had recently. This night was a time for a bit of glitz and glamour as the four gamers put on show fit for an Emporer. Or Consul. Whichever was nearest to the theatre.

After a brief but thorough run through the rules, we were thrown into the world of before-Christ light entertainment and our faltering tactics took a while to get going. Andrew tried to sow up the low end of the market with shows about the god of wine Bacchus, or about some woman’s revealed secrets. Meanwhile, Joe tried to appeal to those in power with Ceaser’s Triumphant March, or some similarly titled propaganda.

In the end, both of these populist tactics backfired on them, as Sam stole first place from Andrew in a closely fought final round by a single point: Sam 82, Andrew 81... I can’t remember what the others got, but Adam was third and Joe came fourth by a country mile; his final epic show stymied by a complete lack of actors. Maybe Sam’s victory was a result of the good karma he picked up for supplying mid-game cheese and crackers.

So Colosseum is an enjoyable, if lightweight game. Perhaps it needs a little more opportunity for ruining other people’s shows. Or perhaps it was that lack of double-crossing that left Adam and Joe in third and fourth, since that's usually when they flourish.

The evening ended with Joe regaining some pride (and £1.50) on a quick game of No Thanks, with everyone putting in 50p. Adam’s lack of chip management meant he ended up in last (threatening to break Andrew’s record high score of 118 points). An uncharacteristically bad night for Adam.

The Leaderboard


PlayedPoints
Joe1428
Adam1526
Sam919
Andrew1718
Steve49
Jonny68
Will24
Quentin22
Hannah11
Jon11

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Steam age man

With a very special guest appearance this week from Jon Burgess and a featured role for Steve Dale it was a crowded table in the depths of beautifully redecorated Montpellier.

Making a decision from the fine selection of games presented to the group was a tough call – Agricola and Cosmic encounters were there or there about and Colosseum was piped at the post by Age of Steam (“Colosseum will be fun and only take a couple of hours” – “we’ll just play Age of Steam quickly, it’ll be fine!” were the fateful words). By the time the rules had been explained (move things towards cities that are the same colour!) it was half eight and the stock needed to get rolling.

Green – Joe
Red – Steve
Blue – Jon
Purple – Andrew
Yellow – me (Adam)

We chose the classic Rust Belt map and at the start there was none of the usual crowding in the middle as everyone rushed to the double goods at the edges – Jon taking the north west, Andrew the south, Joe and Steve the east leaving the middle the only place for me to go. Early urbanization and lengthening of the engine (sorry) saw me nudging into the lead. Jon was struggling out in a deserted city-free wasteland once he’d transported his first goods, Andrew was making good progress staking out St Louis and Joe led Steve a merry dance in the mountains around Wheeling.

In the mid-game I took control of the centre of the board, extending my engine to a powerful four lengths and making it hard for anyone else to get at the four cities I controlled. Even ineptly gifting some precious cargo to Joe and Steve couldn’t derail this momentum. Joe was only ever a couple of spaces behind on income, but had taken more shares so needed to pull out something special. Andrew started to flag as the strategy of singing Lonnie Donegan failed to pay off while Steve and Jon started getting the hang of it, building some cities of their own and getting into profit by round five.

Finishing a round “early” at 11.30 the final scores included a late charge from Steve hurling himself into third while Jon had the luxury of an hours journey home to ponder on lessons learnt:

Adam 78
Joe 52
Steve 36
Andrew 35
Jon 26

The Leaderboard
PlayedPoints
Joe1327
Adam1424
Sam815
Andrew1615
Jonny68
Steve49
Will24
Quentin22
Hannah11
Jon11

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Medici: the return

With six people attending, there were big points at stake for the leaderboard. A quick game of For Sale was rattled off while people arrived/got comfortable, which Andrew won. Alas, that was as far as his luck went for this evening.

Medici was chosen as tonight’s game, with some crazy talk of Robo Rally as a possible second game. Quentin was thrown in at the deep end, since this was his first time playing. Meanwhile, despite an early lead, Andrew faded into fifth place by the end, edged out by Will. Adam (who kept his hat on all evening) impressed everyone with his colour co-ordinated ship in round two, which bagged him lots of wheat, but it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between the last four and the front two. In the end, Joe strode away, putting his success down to getting points for the largest boat twice.

Since there were six players, we thought that there’d be a lot more competition for goods to specialise in, but as it turned out, it was all quite evenly spread, with everyone getting bonus points for goods by the end of the game. Final scores: Joe 101, Sam 90, Adam 80, Will 78, Andrew 77, Quentin 75

We ended the night with Perudo, with everyone putting in a pound. Sam took the money in a close battle with Andrew, although getting two aces when the other guy was on his last die was a stroke of luck. Joe, however, beat the odds with a statistics-defying call of "calza", correctly guessing the number of fours when almost all the dice were still in play. An amzingly long shot that came off. If Evil Knievel played Perudo, that’s how he’d do it.

The Leaderboard

PlayedPoints
Joe1223
Adam1319
Sam815
Andrew1513
Jonny68
Steve36
Will24
Quentin22
Hannah11

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Where there's muck . . .

So last night, after a late cancellation by Steve and Anja, we were down to three; Adam, Andrew and me (Joe). Last time we three met, Brass happened — and so it was again. I think we were all keen to explore it a little more, and the replacement of the plastic coins with real old English pennies was more than enough to seal the deal. After setting up it was 8pm, and there was no need for lengthy rules explanations this time — as Andrew said "let's just play, and Joe can tell us why we can't do what we want to." Adam jumped in with a £30 loan on his first turn, an unusual opening strategy as it pushed him £3 into debt - the lure of the real copper coins I think. Iron was in scarce supply throughout the canal phase, and while I scoured my cards for somewhere to build an ironworks, Adam seemed to have all the right locations and made a lot of headway through selling iron back to the demand track. Both Adam and Andrew built early coal mines, which lingered on the board for quite a while, though none remained unflipped by the phase end — Andrew managing a daring turn 10 flip I think. I struggled in the first half, no real plan emerging, and the canal phase scoring saw me in third place by quite a margin. The rail phase was a bit more fruitful for me, particularly since Adam spotted that we were in the final round for taking loans and announced the fact after he and Andrew had missed their opportunity to do so, and I was able to take a final hand-out (thanks Adam).
Andrew did his customary late-game Shipyard build (in both phases), and I used my new-found wealth to build 4 pieces of track in one turn, draining the coal track dry, and prompting
some over-building, a new experience for all of us. In the end though, Adam was victorious with 174 points, me in second with 173 (curses), and Andrew in third with 147.
This was my third face-to-face Brass game, Andrew and Ads second, and Andrew and I have played a few two player games online. I'm not completely grabbed by it. I like it, but compared to say, Age of Steam, another long and competitive game, it feels a little convoluted. I do know that it's supposed to be at its best with four players, as there's a lot more competition for industry spots, and we've yet to try a four-way, so that would be interesting. But strategy-wise I'm not totally feeling the love that I've read about elsewhere. It seems to be a game of opportunism as much as strategy, and I'm not sure I can see multiple paths to victory. The shipyards, for instance; they take so much to get on the board, and then there are at most two per phase, each only scoring once since the canal phase shipyards get discarded, so I can't see them being part of a winning strategy really.
Perhaps we're none of us being competitive enough — if you see someone building cotton mills without ports, you could sweep in with your own mills and bottom out the cotton demand track, for instance. You could also use canal and rail track to secure certain cities, since other players will find it more difficult to build if they can't ship coal and iron via their own networks.
There's lots to love, and I'm prepared to think that we're not quite getting it yet, but it doesn't have the economic tension (translation: fear of bankruptcy) of Age of Steam, nor the heart-pumping exhilaration of Caylus (I'm serious), and for a three hour plus game, that's a big commitment — it's a whole games night! We could have played three games of Medici!
So anyway - four player Brass . . . anybody not yet dipped their toe in the sooty waters who feels up to the challenge? You'll have some catching up to do, but don't worry; Andrew, Adam and I will be there to tell you exactly why you can't do what you want to . . . Wallace!

The Leaderboard


PlayedPoints
Joe1117
Adam1215
Andrew1411
Sam710
Jonny68
Steve36
Quentin11
Hannah11
Will11