Before Steve and Anja arrived in their car (which was, apparently, on a meter which made me think it would suddenly cut out after a set time) the six of us managed to squeeze in a game of Tsuro. This sedate version of Tron’s Light-Cycles game was pretty tense, but soon saw my early demise at the hands of – who else – Quentin. Hannah couldn’t get out of a corner, so span off in fifth and then Joe took out Quentin in a crazed suicide pact, leaving Sam and Adam on the board. Unfortunately, Sam’s lone tile took him straight off the board allowing Adam a comfortable win.
1. Adam
2. Sam
3= Joe
3= Quentin
5. Hannah
6. Andrew
When Steve and Anja arrived, the group split into two groups of four. Quentin, Hannah, Anja and Steve played Batavia: a jolly game of trading with the exciting new market of the Indian sub-continent. Hopefully one of them can fill us in with the details later.
Joe, Adam, Sam and I played Chinatown. In this game, each player has to build up businesses which then bring in money. This game is reliant on negotiation and I’m simply too laid back to haggle. My first transaction with Sam brought forth insults and derision from Joe and Adam who insisted we do it again with a proper price this time.
Before long we started to get more into the swing of things. Sam built up some nice businesses early on, so Adam’s tactic seemed to be bleed Sam for whatever he could get. Joe was Mr Quiet, building his empires unnoticed. Although we thought he was in the lead, even we were surprised by the bonus he reaped in the last round with his newly completed businesses. I just muddled along, man. It’s only money, after all.
Joe $1,210,000
Sam $1,060,000
Adam $990,000
Andrew $650,000
The game on the other half on the table ended at almost the same time, with Quentin continuing his good run of form.
Quentin 62
Steve 39
Hannah 30
Anja 22
Quentin decided he had to dash, and so he bade is farewells. The seven of us split again into groups of three and four. Steve, Hannah and Joe played TransAmerica while Sam, Anja, Adam and myself chose Poison. The two games played out in near silence as the tension rose. In our game of Poison it was a close run thing from the start. However, in TransAmerica Steve ended the first round very early. Joe pointed out to our colour-blind comrade that he hadn’t picked up an orange card, and so one was quickly given to him from the remaining cards. Steve wasn’t down-hearted for long since he then linked to this last station with his next go, sending Joe and Hannah hurtling up the score-track towards the train shed of doom. After that, it was just a case of hanging on for grim life for Hannah and Joe as Steve ran out a comfortable winner in three rounds.
Steve 1
Hannah 13
Joe 15
In our game of Poison, Adam started badly but cleared the last round with no points at all. It wasn’t enough to close the gap on Sam, though.
Sam 13
Adam 14
Andrew 17
Anja 23
I wasn't going to add a leaderboard so soon, but since we managed to squeeze so much into one evening, I may as well...
| Points | ||||||
| Sam | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| Adam | 2 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 16 |
| Joe | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 17 |
| Steve | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 18 |
| Quentin | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Hannah | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
| Anja | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
| Andrew | 3 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
Very nice to start the new year with so many faces, thanks everybody.
ReplyDeleteNot sure where I stand on Chinatown; I liked it at the start but the 'open' maths allied to Adam's ruthless logic made it an oxymoronic combination of tense, yet predictable. Odd.
Batavia game report
ReplyDeleteThis present from Santa is fast becoming one of my favourites of the moment, the pace is quick (once the fairly lengthy game rules explanation is complete), there are plenty of factors to weigh up to keep you engaged and the pirate wheel adds a nice level of tension and/or skulduggery!
Once Steve had explained the rules, and we realised we hadn't previously been playing the pirate wheel properly, we settled into the game happily, with Quentin getting the hang of the game rather too quickly. He gained a strong position, was able to gain many different company seals and plenty of commodities, including a virtual pepper monopoly. His only real challenger was Steve, who despite the usual quantity of complaints over how everything was going wrong, finished well in second, leaving Hannah in third and me rather shipwrecked in fourth place.
"Get your hands off my nutmeg!" came the cry from Batavia, wafting on the breeze down in to Chinatown. Meanwhile "I could really do with more seafood — does anyone fancy dim sum?" was the refrain at our end.
ReplyDeleteI liked Chinatown — but I would say that, I won. It seems a tad straightforward, and as the game progresses it becomes easier to calculate the relative worth of the deals, but it seems pitched at just the right level of maths for me.
Andrew, I agree with your feeling that deal-making games can be too un-relaxing and stressful, but this stays the right side of the line for me. When we played Genoa, I found myself stepping back because I found the negotiation and calculation too exhausting; with this, the stripped back nature of the game allowed me to keep at least a general idea of what everything was worth throughout, and so I could play it a bit more instinctively. Of course, Genoa has many more elements, and is a more rounded, if longer, game. Chinatown is "just Chinatown", after all.
Now that we've played, it seems that $1,000,000 is a reasonable score to shoot for; I wonder if you could win by simply selling all your lots and tiles each round — you'd need to make an average of $150,000 per turn. I suspect it wouldn't work, but might give a general sense of what the deals are worth.
Thanks Sam, as ever, for hosting.
Joe I agree with the Genoa comparison, I rate Genoa higher but conversely would be more amenable to breaking out Chinatown again. But that's purely down to length. With Genoa people's cards are hidden so there's an element of what I have just termed in my head 'secret math'.
ReplyDeleteIn Chinatown it's all in the open (except cash totals, though I have a hunch Adam keeps track of those) so there is a 'going rate' quickly established on deals - and hence, a feeling of predictability. I wonder what would happen if someone chose to play hardball - would the 'going rate' become a harsher one for buyers across the whole game, or would the player who tried this find themselves isolated?
The latter, I suspect. That said, we all chose to make separate businesses early in the game, so there were a lot of straight swaps — if a player chose to compete directly for businesses, and could procure one or two extra lots, maybe then that player could put the screws on — either you buy the tiles from me at an inflated cost or I use them myself, kind of thing.
ReplyDelete