Coppers and clowns

After last week's romantic interlude for many of our regulars, we were back to a full complement this Tuesday. Sam was hosting and Ian, Martin, Joe, Katy, Andy and myself were guesting.

When I arrived, there was a game of Fuji Flush already underway. It was a family affair, since Sam, his sons and his wife were among the competitors along with GNN regulars Ian, Martin and Katy. Even with the language toned down it was still plenty fierce. Katy won it, with her final card linking to a bunch of fives. With everyone else on one card, except Sally and the Sam & Joe team. There was also the matter of an early game of Herbacious in which Sam lost to both his sons, 49-49-47.

And now, with the young ones in bed, and other GNNers arriving, it was time for the juicy part: the games. Martin caused some surprise when he brought a game that lasted longer than 30 minutes. It was called Circus Train, and he'd mentioned it recently on the blog getting some interest so he brought it along.

The other game had also been written up for the blog, Copper Country. This was one of Sam's oft-considered-but-never-chosen games that he's working his way through.

We split into two: Martin, Andy, Joe and Katy played Circus Train while Ian, Sam and I chose Copper Country.

Since Copper Country has already been described in detail on GNN, I won't go over it again. I will say that I found it a very pedestrian affair. Very little spark and, apart from a small episode between Ian and Sam, not a great deal of interaction. I found myself repeating the same actions over and over with little joy to show for it.

At first I jealously looked over at Circus Train, with its Colosseum type theatricals and the many songs the players had come up with to accompany various aspects of the game.

But as our game headed towards a conclusion, they were still scrabbling together enough horses, human cannonballs and freaks to put on a show.

Copper Country came to a halt just as I was starting to see the point, and I was enjoying our grimly blasé attitude to dead miners. I thought Sam, with his early flurry of mining, had won it, but it turned out otherwise.

Ian 39
Andrew 37 (wins tie breaker)
Sam 37

The tie breaker was a new one: remove all your copper cards where miners died, and then calculate your score again. I didn't get it at first, but then I realised that penalising the player with the highest mortality rate probably made sense.

Since Circus Train was a long way from finishing, we got out Quantum. With three of us, we set up a tight nine-tile play area with lots of eights and nines to be won. Sam did not do well, spending the first three rounds with a resolutely low-value fleet of ships.

I got very lucky, rolling two fours for my starting fleet. Since they have the ability to change to three or five for free, I was able to put a cube down on a nine, then an eight, early on. I also got two good cards to aid me. The most important of which was one that allowed me to adjust one die up or down by one. In this game of small margins, that was pivotal.

As I became a clear leader, Ian found himself in a dilemma. Attack me, and prolong the game, possibly to Sam's benefit. Or attack Sam, effectively giving me the win but claiming second place for himself. He did the decent thing and went after me, although I snuck a win anyway with a nice move (deploy, free warp, then place cube) which I didn't see til the last moment.

Andrew 0 cubes left
Ian 2
Sam 2

Circus Train still hadn't ended, so we broke out Push It. First to seven.

Ian's propensity for scoring doubles continued at the start of this game. Meanwhile my recent poor form remained as well. In attempt at making things difficult for Ian, Sam tried knocking the jack towards Circus Train, but this just made the other players nervous, fearing that one of the many tiny game pieces might be dislodged.

In the end, it was not a successful ploy anyway.

Ian 7
Sam 4
Andrew 2

And by now, Circus Train had finally rolled into the terminus. As they counted up the scores, there was a dawning sense of amazement as to how close the scores were.

Andy 49
Joe 48 (wins tie breaker)
Martin 48
Katy 47

Katy was not a happy bunny. To end the game in last, after all that time and effort... As they packed away (a marathon effort in itself) she vowed to never play the game again.

Finally we were all back together so we decided to end on 6nimmt. As one of Katy's favourites, we were amazed that she complained. She said she was too exhausted for a game as stressful as 6nimmt. Her complaints fell on deaf ears, and we dealt her in.

After an early mix up when she picked up when she felt sure she was safe ("I can't even count to six!") she decided to go Dirk. And say what you like about our lovable imaginary friend, he doesn't usually play a winning game. Ian did, though. And Martin took great pride in being the only player to play a clear round.

Ian 13
Andy 28
Martin 32
Andrew 35
Sam 39
Joe 46
Katy 83

And so we were done. Good night all. Thanks for hosting Sam, and happy birthday. In the meantime, the Division is back to normal this week. Ian continues his march up the table.

Driven to Extraction

Last night as part of the new disciplined gaming strategy, I bashed through a game of Copper Country with myself and Dirk. 'Bashed' is probably putting it a bit strongly - it took a while. I find the only way to avoid glazing over whilst reading rules is to read them aloud, so that's what I did.

In Copper Country the players are squabbling over the metal in question in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, starting in 1840 and continuing up into the 20th century. The by-product of mining in Tinner's Trail is water, but here - I guess things are geologically specific - the by-product is poor rock. A track of poor rock runs around the board which slowly is added to the board, revealing certain progressions in the game - new eras mean more advanced buildings can be built, and card-hand size increases, representing your growing company.

Mine, all mine

Each turn is pretty simple - take two management actions and one labor action. Management actions are (broadly speaking) about gathering resources and building buildings, whereas labor actions are mostly about mining.

The game reminded me just slightly of Beowulf. Miners (and buildings) minus poor rock equals how many shifts you can work in a mine; each shift represented by a production card being flipped over. If you have all the resources to take the production card, you pay them and take it. Or you can pass, or you can stake a claim - taking the card, but not the copper until you meet the requirements at a later date.

But the other thing that can happen - and happens more the longer the game continues - is that the pass option is no longer available, and if you can't meet the resource requirements your miners either go on strike, or die in a horrific underground accident. Neither is good for business.

sorry!

Fortunately there is a constant stream of immigrants arriving in Michigan willing to risk their lives for you, so you can replace dead miners quite easily (one management action) or negotiate (also one action) to get the striking miners back to work. Tired miners also take an action to get them ready for another shift.

perky miner, ready for his demise

So it's pretty simple up to a degree. New eras and business and event cards triggered by the poor rock track are straightforward, and give the game extra replayability. But the way the buildings work is more complex - there are three types, each of which can be built from a particular era onwards. The first (company houses) allow you to take more shifts in adjacent mine spaces, and give you a little bonus depending on how many you've built. After that the buildings (shafts and hoists) begin to combine together: as long as one vertex of the hex they are adjacent to joins with one vertex of a hex the other building is adjacent to, then all the hexes any one building is adjacent to receives the benefit of those buildings ...It's a little more fiddly than Tinner's Trail at this moment.

you can't build these until you can

When the poor rock track is totally empty, the game is over.  I didn't get as far as the third era though, as having started just after 9pm, I quit at 11.30. I never built a hoist house or indeed use the shaft house I'd constructed. I did kill off about three miners, alienated a couple of others, and - as always happen when I play for myself and Dirk - I lost to my imaginary German friend.

I'm not totally bowled over by that first play - but I am intrigued enough to play it again. I could see that with more than two players opponents would start to get under each others' feet - you can nip in and mine where an opponents miner is based, filling up the space with poor rock and, essentially, pissing on their fire. You can also mount hostile takeovers - stealing an opponent's company card (which work the same way as a claim) before they secure it for themselves.

And I have to give kudos to the detail here. The designers have even included a history of Copper Country in the rulebook, which includes a list of the all the deaths by country in an industry sustained almost entirely by immigrants. Wouldn't happen now, of course - they'd all be plotting to blow up Finland.