Everyone meet in San Francisco

 The rain that had peppered Bristol’s streets faded away in the evening, allowing walkers and cyclists alike the chance to converge on Joe’s kitchen for another night of games.

Before I'd even arrived, I was informed of an early game between Joe and Sam of Crokinole which was won by Joe.

I had to take a detour to a pharmacy so my ETA went back to 8pm and when I finally arrived, they (Joe, Adam T, Sam, Martin and Ian) were just finishing a game of Money.

Martin won, top of a crazy spread of scores that left Joe bemused as to what exactly he did so wrong. 

Martin 840

Adam 510

Ian 280

Sam 210

Joe 40

We were currently a six and we were expecting Katy at 9, dashing over from her book club. What could we play in an hour? Around The World In 80 Days was mooted, but probably too long with six.

Instead, Ian,  Sam and Joe played Foundations of Metropolis. A game I still haven't played but looks like area-control mixed with tetris. 

Adam, Martin and I pretended to think about what to play but, with a copy of Impulse on the table, it was never in doubt. 

We set up with only the slimmest of rules refreshers needed. We began in quite a generous mood, I put a draw card on the “impulse” (the communal row of cards we can all use) that allowed us to all take more cards into our hands and this seemed to set a trend. Adam even checked the rules regarding whether a player can draw more cards if they're at the hand limit. 

Over on Foundation, Ian made some disparaging remark about Joe not having any money. Sam, meanwhile, cried out “tear down those schools!” with delight. In the end, Joe upends Ian’s dismissive attitude towards the poor with a win.

Joe 105

Sam 101

Ian 86

As for Impulse, we were pretty close together until Martin attacked Adam and landed on 12 points - the level from which he usually pushes on to the game-winning 20-point mark. I had to do something so, after Adam sadly defended himself against further attacks from me, I used up most of my cards and all of my plan in one big push for victory. I got as far as 16 before I stalled. Still, I told myself, if Martin doesn’t reach 20 points, I’m a certain winner!

What a delusional fool I was.

Martin 20

Andrew 16

Adam 7

Now Katy was here. I don’t remember if there was a slight staggering in the end of games or if fate just kept us in the same groups, but Katy joined Sam, Joe and Ian for a delightful romp of Around The World In 80 Days. Martin, Adam and I decided on another old familiar, San Francisco.

This meant that one group was playing a game in a location that appearing in the other group’s game. I don’t think that’s happened since Wallenstein and Castles of Burgundy were played on the same night.

In fact, we noticed that 80 Days contained a lot of locations with games named after them (London, Yokohama etc…). We considered a variant whereby landing in a location meant you had to all actually play that game. The longest board game in the world!

We started at about the same time, with Katy promising us that she’d let us know when they arrive in San Francisco.

As for the games, Joe spent 12 days going from Bombay to Calcutta on an express elephant. Ian, for the record, was first to get to San Francisco and the first to return to London. [spoilers for the original novel] And he didn’t even need the International Date Line quirk to succeed [/spoilers]

Ian 72

Katy 73

Joe 90

Sam stuck in New York

As for the real San Francisco, it was all about Martin. Whatever I tried, nothing seemed to stop him from picking up massively beneficial cards. He built skyscrapers, completed rows, got architect tokens. Adam and I were reduced to fighting over majority points for most workers in a row. My two skyscrapers at least stopped it looking like I hadn’t even tried.

Martin 16½

Adam 8

Andrew 7

At this point, not quite ten o'clock, I chose the sensible option and left. I missed the rousing finale of 80 Days but got the scores from Sam in a late night message.

Then I learnt about their two attempts at So Clover. The first ended 31/36 but was notable for Joe’s clue of Dildo for double/end as “it was the only thing I could think of with two ends.”

Then they tried again with 34/36! Oh, So Closver!

Thanks all. Special as always.

Have a Knizia. Have a-knother Knizia

I arrived at Joe's studio after seven to find the evening in full swing. Joe, Andy, Sam, Katy and Anja were playing a boisterous game of Money, the first of many Reiner Knizia games to grace the table tonight. Before I’d even got my coat off, Katy told me she’d been winning but wasn’t anymore. I sat down to watch and was so comfortable that I didn't get up to answer the door despite me being the only one not participating. It ended

Katy 1420
Anja 1400
Sam 1380
Joe 1360
Andy 1350

A close game, but I especially enjoyed Joe saying “that’s what I want” when picking up his selection of cards. Money: that’s what I want. Get it?

Never mind. During this game, Martin arrived and introduced us to In Vino Morte. Very simple. Everyone is dealt a card face down which is either wine or poison. The dealer chooses who gets what. Then they can either drink and reveal the card instantly or, if they think the dealer slipped them a mickey, they can swap with someone else who hasn’t revealed yet. Once everyone has made a decision, everyone reveals what they’ve got. Continue until one is left alive.

We played twice. Sam seemed to have struck upon a clever bluff when he dealt to me, Martin and himself by saying “oh no, I fucked up” leaving us wondering how you could fuck it up. Anyway, I won that won by taking Martin’s card in the final round and giving him my poison. Round two, it ended with Katy versus Martin and Katy drank straight away and won.

We split into two. Joe, Katy and Andy played Tajuto. All I know about this was it took a long time for anyone to score any points.

Joe 13
Katy 8
Andy 8

The rest of us played Babylonia for another Kniz fix. I put down five farmers early on and leapt into the lead. Anja swooped in and grabbed farm tiles and then she was in the lead. Sam went big in cities and got the city bonus tile and before long he was in the lead. Martin cursed me for scoring a city that got Sam nine points when he could have completed it without it scoring at all. I was pleased with beating 100 points, but I looked forlornly at my 18 point move which would never be played since the penultimate city was scored and the game ended.

Sam 152
Martin 147
Anja 116
Andrew 110

Then two quick games of In Vino Morte where the final rounds were Martin beating me and then me beating Anja. Four games and I’d been in the final three times. Finally, a game other than Fuji Flush that I seem to be good at.

Anja left for home at this point so two new groups emerged. Tajuto with Joe, Sam and Martin and Downfall of Pompeii with Andy, Katy and me.

Pompeii began with the usual rules check regarding the set up. Then we populated and depopulated the doomed Roman city with abandon. I got what meeples I could to safety pretty early on, but couldn’t draw the necessary lava tiles to stop the other two.

Katy 13
Andy 11
Andrew 10

I didn’t follow Tajuto at all, apart from noting down that Joe’s heavy sigh of “Fucking finally!” at one point of the game.I guess his point scoring came even later than before.

Sam 15
Martin 14
Joe 4

Then they played Letter Press, which is a reworked Moveable Type or something.

Joe 25 (“Wrecking”)
Martin 19 (“Quizzed”)
Sam 17 (“Whites”)

And we played Keltis, the card game. This now means I’ve played all three types of Keltis. I feel like I should have a badge.

Andy 24
Katy 19
Andrew 18

Then, with the eleventh hour approaching and an offer of a lift from Sam, Katy and I jumped ship and everyone else called it a day, too. Thanks everyone. It was a gem.

Where there's a will

As Ben, Ian and I discussed events of the day suddenly lightening flashed, thunder boomed. Then the doorbell rang: it was Joe, soon followed by Chris, and finally a slightly damp-looking Andrew, who didn't escape the downpour. The rest of us wrapped up our game of Pairs as it stood (Chris won) and went into the front room to discuss options.

I kept mentioning Lancaster, but nobody seemed that interested. However, as the discussion slowly broke down into a kind of collective diffidence, I realized people were weakening: I pushed for Lancaster again, and managed to rope in Joe and Ian. Ben also returned to the kitchen, allowing Chris and Andrew to make the choice for the other game: they went with Castles of Burgundy.

I talked Joe and Ian through the rules of Lancaster, and we were off. Because the heart of the game is worker-placement/bumping, the finesse of it comes in the voting for laws: at the end of each round certain laws reward certain players, so how you spend your votes (you potentially have many) can be crucial. Ian and I didn't manage to prevent Joe from ushering in a 9point swing in his favour, as he was rewarded for battling the French in three different places. In the early rounds I decided against screwy moves, and in the later rounds I failed to stop myself making stupid ones: twice I voted the wrong way on something - after the first do-over, there was no excuses.

Joe sped off into the lead and stayed there. Ian and I battled for second, and during the final round I realized that the strength of my knights meant I was looking at third place - so it ended. I didn't jot down the scores, but Joe was miles ahead on the scoretrack and Ian a solid 8 points or so ahead of me. Joe didn't rate the game though, only being able to raise a shrug of indifference. Maybe it was too easy. Conversely Ian and I liked it; the hidden voting gives it a flavour that Waterdeep doesn't have.

Castles of Burgundy was still ongoing, so Joe dealt out the cards for Money. This was new to me, but the rules are simple enough, as long as you're no fool. I was a fool, however, and had misunderstood the scoring to the point where I was literally throwing away points during the game, allowing Joe to pick them up. He won with a thousand points; Ian had 870 and I - thinking I was about to pull off a debut win - had a measly 520. I wouldn't mind trying this again, but it did feel a little like a mechanic more than a game.

Castles of Burgundy was finally over, and Andrew had pulled off a solid win:

Andrew 186
Chris 166
Ben 129

And while Andrew headed off into the night, the rest of us played Not Alone, Joe's new game of alien predation/human survival. Joe took the role of the alien, trying to second-guess our human destinations as we roamed the planet, holding on until the rescue ship arrived.

It was a close thing at the end: we were staring up at the sky, waving excitedly at the rescue ship, when Joe stole in and sucked the will out of Ben in a gruesome end to the evening.

You know where you are with a one

Tuesday’s at Sam’s brought a collection of gamers in from the balmy September evening. We were eventually seven, but while we waited for Hollie, six of us bashed out a game of For Sale.

During the opening round I only got a bunch of middling cards to use in round two, so I can’t complain about my middling position. Even the iconic 1 card in my hand didn’t help. Ian had the 30 card, and used it immediately to nab $15,000. He wondered if he might have overpaid for it, as everyone else went low that round.

Andy $55,000
Matt $49,000
Joe $42,000
Andrew $41,000
Sam $37,000
Ian $33,000

By the end of this, Hollie had arrived and while she and Sam talked about animation, everyone else decided what they wanted to play. As it was, Joe, Andy, Ian and Matt chose Isle of Skye, while I joined up with Hollie and Sam.

We looked at the games cupboard, although games section-of-wall might be more appropriate now. When asked, Hollie said she felt like something sci-fi-ish, which left our choices a bit limited. If only she’d said “engine-building with a vague medieval European theme pasted over the top” we’d have had no end of possibilities.

In the end I pushed for Quantum as being shorter than Eclipse or Ascending Empires, and longer than Cosmic Run and less silly that Galaxy Truckers. However, I’d forgotten how complicated it can seem on its first play. Hollie was more or less guided through her first two moves by Sam. He even suggested that she attack him if he thought it was the right move.

But there’s no denying Sam mastery at the game as he suddenly won the game by putting down one cube, getting a card that increased dominance enough that he was able to put a second (and his last cube) down.

Sam 5
Hollie 3
Andrew 3

Isle of Skye remains a mystery to me, and I was aware of people complaining about tiles and money, but little else. The game ended:

Ian 78
Joe 74
Matt 73
Andy 72

At our end of the table, we began a game of Cosmic Run. More dice, but less confrontation, with fate being the meanest opponent. It was all about avoiding the minus points at the bottom of the planet tracks, mostly. Other than that, Hollie and I used the previously untried crystal method. It works pretty well.

Andrew 72
Sam 66
Hollie 66

While we played Cosmic Run, the other four played Money, the cunning Knizia game. Was Andy distracted by his overwhelming sense of deja-vu? He kept mentioning a niggling memory that he’d played it before. The scores were fascinating. Ian was pleased with his 500 points (more than twice his previous score) but was in for a rude awakening.

Joe 810
Matt 530
Andy 520
Ian 500

All except Joe had a full set of a currency, while Joe had most of one, and some scoring sets from others. Last time we played, there were five players. I suppose with one less, there’s more opportunity to diversify.

Now, we were all together for a rousing game of 6nimmt. Andy set off home and Hollie preferred to watch. The remaining five suffered through a tough first round, followed by a second round in which Joe manfully took all the hits for the rest of us. In the third and final round, Matt picked up a cornucopia of cows, while Ian’s clear round almost saw him steal the win.

Sam 30
Ian 33
Andrew 35
Matt 53
Joe 76

And as we head toward the last week of this sparsely populated season, I top the table in points, Adam has points ratio and Katy still has the medal table, even though she’s not been here in weeks.

Oh, and the title’s a bit tenuous, but I did notice that in tonight’s games, several had an important (if sometimes illusory) role for the one: For Sale, Quantum, Cosmic Run and (sort of) 6nimmt. One: it’s a number you can trust.

Money, money, money

Tuesday evening, and as the clouds slid across the full moon in a school-exercise-book-blue sky, six eager gamers congregated at Joe’s place for their weekly fix. Tonight’s leaderboard games all had a strong money theme to them, hence the blog title.

But first, we were all suitably impressed by Joe’s very own bespoke GNN money, for use in games that can only manage cheap plastic tokens. Very nice they are too.

Apart from Joe, we included Ben, Ian, Martin, Adam, and myself. But at the start, Adam was absent and not expected for another half an hour. We banged out a game of Reiner Knizia’s Money: a set collecting game of foreign currency. This is a typically clever game of balancing risk and reward.

It’s hard to describe quickly, but for the most part, players are bidding for one group out of two sets of four cards/money in the middle of the table. They bid with cards/money in their hands, and the person who put down the highest value of money/cards shown gets first pick. But (and this is the clever bit) they might chose another set of cards used as a bid by another player, if those cards make a set in his hand.

This means that one the one hand, you’re trying to gauge how much to bid on a particular hand, but you also don’t want to give away certain cards and then again might be keen to get rid of other cards. It’s all very clever.

At the end, you score points for collecting over 100 of any denomination, or points for collecting all three 30s or 20s in a particular denomination. Ben and Joe managed to collect ALL cards of a certain currency. Well done them.

Joe 550
Ben 530
Martin 400
Andrew 370
Ian 200

Then Adam arrived, exactly when he said he would, and with six players and no Sam we got out I’m The Boss. This game of wheeler-dealering and annoying interruptions from the other players is a rarity on GNN, but always a noteworthy event when it happens. Joe kindly brought out his shuffling machine to help with recycling the discard pile, and very convenient it was, too. Mostly.

This time, amongst all the fraught negotiations, the most notable event was the infinite Wadsworths: where Adam played a card representing the Wadsworth family and no matter how many “Wadsworth on holiday” cards Ian played, Adam always seemed to have one more Wadsworth card left.

Also noteworthy is how long the random end of the game lasts. Usually, it is decided by the roll of a die once a game reaches a certain point, but for some reason the die didn’t want to play ball and the game kept going for several rounds longer than expected. Martin was appalled as he saw his strong position weakened as deals were made when he could barely participate. It helped me, though, as I was able to take advantage of the general lack of cards and wrap up a couple of last minute deals to push me out of what I suspect was a miserable last place. None of this could distract from genial Joe’s negotiation skills.

Joe $54m
Adam $49m
Ben $36m
Andrew $35m
Martin $29m
Ian $26m

Then we broke out a bit of Team Play, the only non-leaderboard game of the evening. No one swapped seats, so it was Ben and Ian versus Martin and Andrew versus Joe and Adam. Martin and I got off to a slow start thanks to my frustration over trying to get a full house. Before we knew it we were 7-7-5 mission cards behind. But then, thanks to a bit of luck (or because of some great TEAM PLAY!) Martin was able to clear two mission cards in one go and before we knew it, he triggered the end of the game.

Andrew & Martin 29
Joe & Adam 27
Ben & Ian 26

Then it was back to the leaderboard for a final game of For Sale. This canny game of bid then re-bid is always welcome at GNN, and the more (up to six) the merrier.

The bidding for houses was monopolized early on by Adam until he ran out of money. I saved money by ducking out of a bun-fight for middling cards by picking up a one card for nothing. And, as Joe says, you know where you are with a one, so it’s not such a bad deal.

In the end I won, although I must sort of apologise to Martin: it took me so long to count up my winnings that he thought he’d won.

Andrew 55,000
Martin 50,000
Ian 49,000
Ben 39,000
Adam 32,000
Joe 30,000

A satisfying end to an evening. It was still semi-early, but an offer of another game was turned down by three players with babies/buses to deal with. And so it ended there. Another glowing chapter in GNN history comes to a close.