Just Seventeen

Just Seventeen, often referred to as J-17, was a weekly magazine aimed at teenage girls, published by Emap from October 1983. The market leader until the launch of Sugar in 1994, after which sales began to fall. In 1997, the magazine was changed to a monthly format in response to the declining circulation, but finally closed in 2004. OK, so that has nothing to do with NoBoG and is just a circuitous way of mentioning that we had record attendance at the Ribs of Beef with SEVENTEEN turning up to play games. Is this the Golden Age of NoBoG? I’m certainly not declaring such a thing. I know full well that if I did we’d be down to just two of us next week -  forced to play Kogge, Vampire: Prince of the City or Medici with a man drinking cream.  So no, I dare not suggest such a thing.

Last night was great, if a little cramped in the Wherry Room. So I took a contingent consisting of Ed and three newcomers, Owen, Grant and Mark, upstairs to play Amun-Re. Nicky, Alina, Matt and Martin played Hansa Teutonica - and then played it again for good measure. Jimmy, Tom and Dean played Castles of Burgundy. And on the end table there was the only marr on the evening as Pete, Rich, Stu, Moritz and Sam inflicted Race for the Galaxy on themselves - twice - followed by Alhambra.

Winners for the evening were: myself (tie-breaker with Ed), Alina, Matt, Jimmy. And on the table of gruelling punishments: Rich swept the board with three victories.

Who Is This Rory? And How did he Manage to Win Puerto Rico???

We where 9 this week and cracked out Puerto Rico and Amun Re, I did the rules session for Puerto and we got together a group of players either new to the slave trade or at best inexperienced. Rory won but I don’t know how (Jimmy did ask and we believe it was corn strategy but Rory seamed unsure himself). A lot of euro games are about taking advantage of what’s available rather than strategy, what’s more, good strategy can be difficult on first and second plays. Some games just aren’t fair when experienced players know the strategy and puerto rico is often seen as that type of game. One of my personal favourite nights at games club was when we ran the puerto rico contest and this number one ranked game got 4 plays and an ultimate champion.

I played Amun Re with Dave and Hal who were new to this Kinizia classic, making up the five where Luke who I believe had played it before and Jimmy. Id forgotten a couple of things and was shouted down early doors and having creamed this game last time I played I wanted to avoid the temple strategy. Hal managed to acquire 4 temples in the first era and 2 other players went heavy for farmers so Hal had a commanding lead. Jimmy went the other way wanting camels, as a result he was left behind in what turned out to be a money rich game. At the start of the second era it was pretty close with me in second and all others close behind. With bidding becoming extreme and 21 being a typical price to pay for regions all players fed the system and those that stepped back ran a risk of either falling behind or with luck winning. In the final count Hals lead was virtually unassailable......virtually Jimmy got very close and even closer having finished with the most money and I finished in second two points short.....then Jimmy realised we hadn’t counted my one temple and I narrowly piped Hal at the last. All things considered Hal played a blinder for his first game and all patronising aside he had the moral victory.

I had for some reason thought Rory was called Hugo??? I dont know why??? but the original picture didnt make sense so I had to find a rory???? so Stoke fans know whats going on but everyone else is asking why does a boardgame blog have a picture of a mediocre footballer??

I'm NOT playing with YOU again

Adam and Rachel played Stoneage (played last week with Ben) with Cpt John and partner. It was enjoyed immensly and Rachel trimuphed. Wierdly they played it and finished it in around an hour, last week it took much longer......

Meanwhile Jimmy Led Pete, Luke and Ben in a game of Princes of Florence, with the new expansion. I loved princes of florence and until relatively recently when we had a puerto rico contest POF had been the only game with the honour of having been played on two tables simultaneously way back in week 2 or 3 of the official NBG (possibly amun re too). Since then more modern games have taken many of the concepts and tweeked them and POF can be critisised as being a fairly solo game with only minimal interactions. There are seven rounds, each round consisting of two phases, the first phase being an auction (the only real interaction) the second phase being two personally selected actions (limited resources could be seen as a slight interaction), this gives players only 14 actions in the entire game to play with so quiet a few people out there have crunched the game and experienced players know how to spend most of these limited actions.

The new expansions adds a third phase in the middle (after the auction and before the actions). There are 8 (?) different role cards which each have a bidding track around the outside and in turn order players choose to bid on a role, possibly outbidding other players who subsiquently re-bid on their turn, until all players have a different role. This of course adds further interaction but also adds significant depth to the game as many new tactics are worthwhile. I wont go into all the roles but they include, a bank awarding a set amount of money which increases if nobody took it last turn. One role allows you to not pay for your next first round auction (or take some vp should you prefer). There is a bonus to works being produced equal to the round so in round 5 you get a qualifying score of +5. One role gives alternative role scoring counting improvements as scoring +3 buildings and arcitects as +2 and workers as +1, allowing alternative building strategies. A take a free bonus or presige card role and finaly a role which gives you 3 rather than 2 actions. the bidding process is similar to Amun-Re and well understood by us so most of the time the stronger roles went for more money. on two occassions everybody wanted different roles and cards where cheap.

All in all I prefered the game with this expansion as it added significant levels of replayability to a game that had previously been played to death. Its not that it had been played alot more that it had been explored and been found out. This new expansion gives princes of florence a new life at NBG and Im sure it will be played again relatively soon.