Thursday 10 May 2012

Gamers on the freeway, destination unknown

Tonight, a last minute call for an evening's entertainment went out, but where? Sam couldn't host, so maybe Joe could. Then Joe said he might not be able to but equally he might, so Adam stepped forward. But then Adam couldn't get hold of Hannah to clear it with her, so the ball was back in Joe's park. In the end, me and Sam were driving down the legendary Ashley Down Road, and we still weren't sure where we were headed. "We don't know where we're going, we only know where we've been" as the song goes.

We soon learnt that we were going to Joe's. Stopping at the off licence beforehand, of course.

So five of us: myself, Sam, Hannah, Adam and Joe convened around Joe's kitchen table. We chose a new game: Manila. Well, it sort of chose itself. First, I got the board out to see how it looked. Then Joe explained the rules so after all that we thought we may as well play it.

It's a neat game of betting on a number of events in the game. How many (of the three) ships will successfully come into harbour; which of the ships will make it; which won't; will any land on space thirteen (and get plundered by pirates) and so on. On top of all this, there's money to be made on successfully transported goods, and on holding shares in frequently transported goods.

It's very simple, but it did need quite a lot of reference to the rules which weren't always as clear as we wanted. But we came up with a couple of impromptu house rules, and the game carried on without a hitch. And also, if a player runs out of money, they can bring in some cash by choosing to encumber a share. Not a wise move, tactically, but it's a lot of fun to say "encumber".

I found it very interesting. Perhaps not at its best with five players, since by the end of the round the choices available were pretty limited. However, this was balanced by the chance to bid money to be The Harbour Master, which gave you the chance to buy shares and – most importantly – place your pieces first.

It is a clever game with plenty going on. I was the only player to successfully grab a ship using pirates, and I think that was the vital factor in my win.

Andrew 139
Adam 109
Sam 98
Joe 82
Hannah 52

After this Hannah decided she had to go. However while Joe, Sam and I decided what game we could play to finish the evening, she must have been swayed by the cornucopia of delights we were considering since she then decided that perhaps she could stay for one more. We chose Incan Gold, our new favourite game of stealing precious artefacts from dead civilizations.

It also demonstrated Sam's new-found psychokinetic abilities. In the first round of the game, he was able to call forth zombie ladies at will. Unfortunately he did so well, that he ended the round too soon and everyone lost their treasure.

It was a low scoring game, with bad things usually coming in pairs. As it was Sam and I were quickest on our feet in the face of any potential danger, and it went down to a tie-breaker (number of artefacts) to decide the winner.

Andrew 17 (+ 1 artefact)
Sam 17
Hannah 13
Adam 12
Joe 8

Although I should thank Adam for pointing out that I had 17 points, not 12 as I had stated. I think I was a bit drunker than I thought. I suspicion I later confirmed to myself when I got home and tried to swat a moth on the ceiling, almost falling off my bed in the process. But drunk or not, I rise back to the top of the Form Table.








Points
Andrew1 1 313 9
Adam4 2 1 2 1 10
Steve 1 2 2 1 5 11
Sam2 3 3 2 2 12
Hannah3 5 11313
Anja2 5 2 2 415
Joe5 4 2 3 2 16
Quentin 1 35 5519
Jonny 2 25 5519
Sally 3 55 5 5 23

4 comments:

  1. Falling off your bed whilst attempting to swat a moth? Partridge-esque.

    Very nice evening, thank you everybody. I like Manila a lot. Andrew's pirates aside, however, I thought I was making the most money over the five or so rounds... so was I stupid then, or am I stupid now? Either way (or both ways), let's play it again soon. That and Wallenstein have re-energised my gaming mojo...

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  2. I thought you'd done better Sam; but then I thought I had too, until my ridiculous bid for Harbourmaster in the last round. Forgot to add the cost of a share, despite pointing that out to everyone on previous rounds.
    I think you're right Andrew, four is probably the best number in terms of keeping things tight.

    Here's that Ludology episode about 'expectation value' I mentioned - well worth a listen (it's only 5 mins long).

    Ludology bonus ep - expectation value

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  3. I liked the maths behind expectation value in Manila, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do them mid-game... I was just basing my piracy on how many boats could land on wave 13 in the next round - if only one could it wasn't worth the shot, if two or more could then it was.

    Here's the game theory episode of In our time (scroll down to Thu, 10 May 2012 if you are reading this in the future):

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot

    It hasn't told me how to win every game yet, but I'm only half way through.

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  4. Here's the clip that Adam was talking about from Golden Balls.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8&feature=g-vrec

    Starts from 2:30.

    ReplyDelete