Italy: Two different ones

Tonight was the last games night to be held at Sam's old house before the big move, and it saw two games based on two different parts of Italian history. Andrew, Adam and Hannah arrived first, and tiptoed through the piles of cardboard boxes to the only board game that hadn't been packed away – Medici. This was chosen as a quick game to do while Joe waited for the dog to come back from training and then it'd be his turn to be let out of the house.

Hannah got a crash course in the rules and soon she was bidding with the best of them. Andrew specialised quickly in two products, but never got the largest boat award, thanks to some lucky tiles drawn by Adam at the end of round two and this proved costly. Sam and Adam tussled over herbs and cloth while Hannah diversified. Adam came first, probably swooping to a last minute win, or something.

Adam – 120
Sam – 116
Andrew – 115
Hannah – 70ish

Then Joe came round with Colosseum. This firm is becoming a firm favourite with its silly imagery (Joe putting on a show with two gladiators and a flower pot in a huge arena) and trading, there's a lot of interaction involved. Hannah and Andrew were quick out of the blocks, but you're only as good as your last show in theatre, luvvy, and when the last round arrived, Andrew found himself short of cast for Ceaser's Triumphant March. This wasn't the first time that this play has caused ruin to whoever chooses it.

Sam put on Anthem to Cupidon several times, while building up points for best actor, best singer and best white guy with a stick. Hannah charmed the crowds with her Ponies of Epona, especially when she got some horses. Adam gained fame for his Lion's Procession, but it was the eventual winner, Joe, who demonstrated how you should never lose hope in this game.

Early on, he had boats, lions and horses. There's not a lot of plays which need those (perhaps a really weird version of Swallows And Amazons) yet throughout the game, he built up a cast to put on the spectacular Neptune's Fury, catapulting him into first place.

Joe – 89
Sam – 87
Adam – 75
Hannah – 61
Andrew – 55

The leaderboard...

now has the points ratio column included.

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	6	31.5	5.25
Joe	6	24	4
Andrew	7	21.5	3.07
Sam	4	20	5
Quentin	5	20	4
Hannah	3	11.5	3.8

Stuff and Nonsense

What's fast becoming 'the usual' crowd last night, comprising Adam, Andrew, me, Quent and Sam.

Sam was going to be arriving late, so we needed something for four that wouldn't take ages. Ingenious caught Adam's eye, Reiner Knitzia's crowd-pleasing abstract. It is very simple, with a clever scoring trick that is similar I think to Tigris and Euphrates (also by RK), in that although you are advancing multiple tracks, your final score will be determined by your least advanced one. So it's imperative that you try to push each of the six tracks evenly. This becomes harder to do as the board fills up, and your opponents cap off big point-scoring chains. Everyone grasped it quickly, and although it looked like I was winning, my trailing yellow track proved my undoing, Adam winning by a couple of points. Quent and I came joint second, Andrew third. It's a great two-player game, not totally sure about the four-player . . .

Next up was 7 Wonders for five, Sam having joined us by then. It was the usual fast-paced stuff, and it is in fact during the scoring round that everybody sits up and takes notice of each other's achievements, the majority of the game being played in relative silence. Adam romped in to first with a cracking 63 points, Sam in second with 49. Quent came third, me fourth and Andrew fifth. It's the second game in a row I've played where several turns have felt like there's nothing useful to do — several identical cards meaning you can't even deny your neighbour something helpful. I think the key to combatting those lulls is to hold off building your wonder stages until there's really nothing better to do with the cards in your hand.

I played the Colossus of Rhodes (B), which only has two stages to build, so perhaps that's a consideration. Or perhaps I'm just rubbish. Anyway it was fun; as I remarked at the time, rather than giving me the flavour of a big civ game in a fraction of the time, I find it gives me a bit of a yearning for one. But perhaps that's a symptom of a couple of weeks playing a few short games rather than one big chewy one. Republic of Rome next time then? Or Die Macher?
We rounded out the night with No Thanks, and Quent trounced us all despite (or maybe because of) being the only neophyte.

[edit]Hello - Andrew here. Despite Joe's peculiar belief that having a leaderboard increases a games club's mortality rate, here's this weeks update. I've decided to use Quentin's method, hereby known as The Q System.

	Played	Points
Adam	4	22
Quentin	5	20
Joe	5	18
Andrew	5	16
Sam	2	10.5
Hannah	1	5

Czars and Boxcarz

What better way to follow Stabcon than jumping in to two new games in one night. New, at least, to Andrew and Me. Quentin, Adam and Hannah had all played both before.

First we tried St Petersburg, which Quentin had brought along, having bought it for friends at christmas and borrowed it back for the evening. Definitely a game that will repay further plays - it's not until you've finished that first game that you start to see the order in which purchases should be made. I have a feeling it could become rather mechanical once you've figured it out, and there is certainly very little interaction between players. But nice enough, and one I would happily explore a little more. Especially since it is quick enough to play before or after another game in the same evening. In the end, Quent's experience/cleverness/luck lead him to a substantial win up in the hundreds, with Joe, Andrew and Adam sitting 5 points apart around the 50 point mark.

While we were playing St Petersburg, Hannah arrived with Ticket to Ride Europe. TTR is one of those ubiquitous games I've wanted to play for a long time, but never got round to it. And when Adam suggested it earlier in the day, I was initially unenthusiastic. That's only because I'd been busily genning up on share-dilution strategies for Chicago Express, a game I long to understand better, so had my eye on getting that to the table.

As it turned out, TTR was the perfect thing to start at 10pm on a tuesday night — the rules were easily grasped in 5 minutes, and play was simple and engaging. A much more interactive affair than St Petersburg, lot's of opportunity for screwage, and some nail-biting tension as you watch your coveted route being whipped out from under your nose.

As predicted by Adam, we finished at 11.20 on the dot, and it was a very close-run thing. Ahem. Apart from me, who had made a frankly disastrous decision during the late game, and was unable to complete my long route. Doh! In the end, Adam clinched it with the 10 points for longest continuous route. Hannah and Andrew came joint second, Quent third and me in very last place. Great fun though - the perfect mix of light strategy and tension, and very pretty to boot. If I get it, okay okay when I get it, I'll just have to replace the plastic trains with my Age of Steam wooden lovelies!

Let me know if I've got the leaderboard wrong, still getting my head round the new system.

	Played	Points
Andrew	3	15
Quentin	3	15
Joe	3	14
Adam	2	13
Sam	1	7
Hannah	1	6

Stabcon Report

Come last Friday afternoon four of the GNN regulars (should we think up a Tuesday night group moniker, as well as/to double as the website one?) were in Joe's Fiat Multipla headed to Stockport for Stabcon, a celebration of strategy gaming, role-play-gaming, and various degrees of facial hair. No-one knew what to expect, but if the wildest imaginings of Joe, Adam, Andrew and Sam included being dipped headfirst into a pit of complete obsessives then they would have been reasonably accurate. In fact, having attended and enjoyed it immensely, we must begin to wonder if, as we have reassured ourselves, we are the 'acceptable face' of strategy gaming after all, or if the acceptable face of strategy gaming is actually a face with no discernable friends, acquaintances, or indeed features attached at all.

We agreed to play a mini-tournament between ourselves, which was impossible to score with definitive accuracy as we occasionally splintered into different groups and games, but decided that 1st, 2nd, 3rd and anything lower than 3rd would score 4,3,2 and 1 respectively. Unable to realistically break open any of the games Joe and Sam had brought in the car, we contented ourselves with doing multiple crosswords on the way up as the tension mounted, and Joe's knuckles slowly drained of blood on the steering wheel. For some it was all too much, and Sam actually passed out and snored his way through the last hour, although maybe his anticipation was dissipated by the appalling hotel reviews of our destination Adam had sourced online. Vomit-stained carpets and inch-thick dust?

In the end that turned out to be a bit of an exaggeration. While no honeymoon destination, the hotel was perfectly adequate for our gaming needs, housing as it did a room to sleep in, a room to play games in, and a pool so hot that Andrew had to fend off sleep after every allegedly refreshing dip.

Stabcon itself - a large hall laid out with tables, in turn bedecked with enthusiasts, most of them with a generous supply of games. There were also three smaller rooms nearby housing most of the role-players. The ambience was very laid-back and friendly, and it was a joy to wallow in our oft-mocked pleasure unselfconsciously, without my wife there to snort derisively to herself in the background, and afterwards insist that she was clearing her throat while it's patently clear that she believes my hobby is somehow justifiably scoffable-at, as though I spent every spare evening cutting the heads off matchsticks... er, where was I? After a brief sortie to a local carvery on the Friday night, we began gaming, and didn't really surface again for pure air until Sunday lunchtime. Many, many games were played, so many that to dwell on any one here would be a little incongruous, but in terms of new games played we were impressed with Goa and Glory of Rome; generally amenable to Citadels, Traders of Genoa and Tikal (which Adam insists on pronouncing as Tickle); a little mixed about Heck Meck; and unimpressed with Dominant Species (long and over-complicated, according to Andrew) and De Volgari Eloquentia - Joe's high hopes for were dashed on the rocks of rambling and unfocussed gameplay.

We none of us probably met as many other gamers as we might have, but through Joe's boundless enthusiasm we did establish contact with the Area 51 crowd and a couple of others, as well as sitting down for a game of 7 Wonders with event organiser Hammy. He hated it.

Come Sunday we were all a little reluctant to call it a day, and by that time the final mini-leaderboard was wrapped up comprehensively by Adam who scored a huge 37 points. Joe and Sam were joint second with 27 and Andrew slightly behind on 24. A weekend completely removed from the most tenuous link with the zeitgeist, populated by freaks and weirdos? Absolutely. And we'll be going again next time too.

Felix Annus Novus!

A new year and a fresh start to the Leaderboard. Four of us made it out with enough festive cheer to last one more evening. Andrew, Joe, Sam and Quentin chose Colosseum as the night’s challenge.

The rules were explained to newcomer Quentin, and before long the game(s) began! Joe and Sam bought a Loge to maximise their chances of getting some toff to attend their shows, while Andrew and Quentin decided on an early season ticket to maximise its returns.

Andrew made the early running, scoring the most points in the first three rounds, but with no resources to expand his limited repetiore (his Circus Maximus started out as a bit of a Circus Minimus), he found himself with only two shows under his belt by the end. Others fared better. Sam found himself with plenty of boats early on so he bought the rights to The Fury of Neptune way in advance of being able to stage it, and what seemed like folly at the time was to prove instrumental in the final rounds.

Meanwhile Joe and Andrew battled over who had best horse and/or gladiator as Joe put on a number of shows which left him cash-poor early on, but those +5 points all added up and he ended on a triumphant show about lion hunters. Quentin was still finding his feet, and while he managed to stage a convincing Great Prophecies of Jupiter, Joe cursed him for giving Sam an extra 4 points in a trade that gave Sam the best actor.

By the end, the leaders were clearly those that had chosen the Loge as an opening move. Like hawkers outside a theatre, they were able to usher point-scoring nobility into their stadiums or onto resting points from an early stage. As such, Sam took the year’s first first place with 82 points, Joe followed with 77, then Andrew with 66 and Quentin with 63.

The Leaderboard

The new scoring system, after several half-hearted attempts at discussion (and this can still be changed), is now that the first place always gets seven points. Second gets six, third gets five etc. I think this is fair and it rewards those who turn up when no one else can be bothered. But I’m not sure if an evening with just two players should count. Unless they play Caylus.

The ratio of points per game will come in once we’ve played four or five games. It’s a bit meaningless just now.

	Played	Points
Sam	1	7
Joe	1	6
Andrew	1	5
Quentin	1	4

Any ideas on when we should end? First to fifty points?

(Oh, and thanks to Quentin for the Circus Minimus joke)

Agricola: Farmers of the Moor

So it was the last games night of the year, and the leader board was delicately poised with Adam and Sam level on 40 points. We settled down to the choice of Colosseum or Agricola: Farmers of the Moor. Yet again Colosseum was overlooked for a newer, more enticing, complex game, a decision that caused some cussing about three hours later.

Adding horses, forests and clay pits to the basic game there were also new actions that could be taken without using a family member and even more confusing (yet apt) a need to heat your house during the winter. This was particularly hard until about the eighth round when we discovered that wood burns, at which point we stopped just using piles of peat as blankets.
 

Quentin quickly established his crop growing strategy with occupations that gave bonus veg and grain whenever he took food. Sam struggled after being dealt a hand bereft of useful improvements and created some beautiful rolling pastures that were only missing animals. Andrew’s board had a little of everything, but not enough to pile up the big points. I started with a card that deducted 4 points at the end of the game but gave me one of every item and a nice leg-up at the start. I built up a stock of sheep for food and horses for points and renovated as soon as possible to reduce heating costs. Joe looked to get his crops going and his house expanded and renovated into the most magnificent neo-gothic original-feature-filled 17th Century barn conversion you’ve ever seen. By playing the yeoman farmer he was able to completely ignore livestock and concentrate on maxing out all the other scoring categories.

In a seasonal interlude the crisps and beer were interrupted by a round of some quite scary (but delicious) biscuits and tasty warm mince pies, giving the gang just enough energy to get to the end of what would be a long night.
 

If your answer to the question “Is Agricola confusing enough?” is "No, I understand every aspect of it perfectly and never have to ask for something I should have collected last round." then FotM is the answer to your prayers. It turns out though that (apart perhaps from Quentin) our answer is "Yes". Maybe as a two- or three- player game it will liven things up, but a mind-mangling range of options isn’t lacking in the original game...

As we drew to a close Quentins board looked most balanced and but for missing out on the riding stables in the last round it should have handed him victory. Only the poor workmanship of his house counted against him, while Joe scored big on house, family and garden, and I scored on horses and bonus points. The final scores saw a tie for first place:
 

Joe 45

Adam 45

Quentin 44

Sam 36

Andrew 19

The Leaderboard

All of which means a decisive two-point win this year for me (unless you count points per game in which case Sam just pips Steve, but we don’t, okay?)

	Played	Points
Adam	20	45
Sam	15	43
Joe	19	41
Andrew	23	29
Steve	6	16
Quentin	5	11
Jonny	7	10
Will	2	4
Hannah	1	1
Jon	1	1

So next year our more egalitarian points-scoring-system is going to be 1 point each for turning up as we all know that games should just be played for the joy of playing. Right guys? Group hug!

Seven wonders x 2

After last week’s cold snap played havoc with the fixture list, it was back to the usual Tuesday evening shenanigans for five regulars: Sam, Adam, Andrew, Joe and Quentin. Quentin asked for a couple of quick games as he hoped to push himself up the leaderboard before it ends for the year. As such, Seven Wonders was chosen as a swift gaming fix.

In game one, with Quentin new to the game, everyone chose side A of their wonder – the easy side. And while Adam, Quentin and Joe all had occasion to ask to redo their go, it was level-headed Sam and Andrew who streaked ahead. But despite Quentin being new to the game, he soon worked out where the easy points were and forced his way into third, ahead of the leaderboard high-fliers, Joe and Adam. Adam overloaded on military might having realised his wonder could never be built due to lack of resources, and Sam again proved that diversification, not specialisation, wins you the game as he fought off Andrew’s and Quentin’s impressive advances in the field of science with a canny mix of war, temples and guilds. Final score:

Sam 57
Andrew 53
Quentin 50
Adam 49
Joe 30

With everyone familiar with the rules once again, another game of Seven Wonders was recommended. This time everyone chose the B side of their wonder (less victory points, but more skills), except Andrew who thought the B side of the Temple at Ephesus looked a bit rubbish. Perhaps this cost him dear, as he played a listless game which lacked the focus of his earlier second place.

Meanwhile, Adam stopped building armies and tried his hand at religious blue buildings and Quentin invested heavily in guilds. However, again it was Sam who showed the way. His military might was enough to pick points off the hippy-ish non-confrontational Andrew and Joe, but his winning move was by completing his wonder so he could copy a guild from a neighbour, which nabbed him an extra six points for no outlay. Final score:

Sam 58
Adam 54
Joe 50
Quentin 42
Andrew 38

Seven Wonders is a great game for a quick battle, but if everyone knows the rules, there's very little interaction. You play your cards, pay the cost and move on to the next round which leaves it strangely unsatisfying, socially.

The Leaderboard

So now the leaderboard now looks very different as Sam picks up ten points and charges to the top. It also means he takes the highest points ratio from Steve, with 2.86 points per game. And he won five quid at Perudo as well! Is there no stopping this man?

	Played	Points
Sam	14	40
Adam	19	40
Joe	18	36
Andrew	22	27
Steve	6	16
Jonny	7	10
Quentin	4	7
Will	2	4
Hannah	1	1
Jon	1	1

Discussions are ongoing regarding the scoring system for the 2011 season. Rumours that Sepp Blatter wants a convoluted system of secret votes to decide each weeks' winner have been refuted by the Games Night regulars.