Draw!!

What a bizarre night. Not because everyone arrived on time, or because we could see what we were doing in the murky dungeon of the ribs of beef, but because the end results in the games we played was eerie and spooky. By this I mean there where more draws than usual. Now I come to read back what I wrote it occurs to me that things were not strange…..but they certainly felt it at the time…at least to me.

Chris and Adam played Pompeii which was decided in Adams favour by one extra guy being in the volcano for Chris. A very close game and thanks to the boys for generally sitting out of the first round of games in case some others turned up.

Rich, Jimmy, Dylan and Andy (I think this is correct) played cosmic encounter. Which saw a shared victory for two of the players – Or Rich won by of course playing well but also of the virtue that his combos kicked arse – Hello rich nice to see you as always.

Matt B, Ollie, Rachel and Luke played container. This was a first play for Ollie and I and we expected to get a bit of a whipping by Matt or Rachel and so it began as after three rounds Matt had loads of containers on the centre map and was smacking us down like the bitches we were. As the game developed Ollie got into an increasingly good position and after a few rounds he had equalled Matts position and a few rounds later he was ahead. By the end of the Game Luke was delivering and buying so much stuff that there was little noticeable difference between these three players. Rachel had hardly any containers delivered and was playing a different strategy and we wouldn’t know her position till the end.

The game was very, VERY money tight and this squeezed the market. As we became more desperate for cash we lowered the prices of the goods we had to try and gain some cash flow, resulting in very small cash incomes meaning we ourselves had very little to spend on anyone else’s goods. This seriousness of this credit crunch was a result of several factors. The money available during the game came down to the following factors. 1st 3 out of the four players took money out of the game early on by purchasing infrastructure. 2nd money only came back into the game when players agreed to take an offer from a player for containers delivered to the central island. Because nobody had any money, nobody offered anything worth taking, so players refused the four euros and chose to pay this instead for the containers and larger reward of victory points. Thus taking more money out of the game. 3rd several loans where taken by Rachel and Luke, a quick injection of cash you might think but they spent the money again mostly on infrastructure, again returning the money to the bank but this time with the added interest payment squeezing more money out of the game every round.

Two factors slowly changed the credit crunch. The first was when Matt and later Ollie took loans and used this money to buy goods or participate in auctions. A much needed cash injection. Rachel and Luke also took additional loans having paid off previous ones and used their money to do the same and capitalism started to work. The other factor was Rachel reminding everyone of the rule (all be it a beginners rule which we chose to adopt given the scarcity of wealth) that at the start of your turn after you have paid loan interest you can sell one of your goods at the production dock for 2 euros. A useless sum meant as a ‘if all else fails’ measure, however all else was failing as all players were offering all there goods for this price anyway and were sitting around waiting for anyone to buy. Selling back to the bank meant that every go you had an income and every two or three goes you could produce more goods and after a few goes you could buy someone else’s goods. They would then have enough money to buy yours and hey presto more capitalist success.

This selling back to the bank fiasco served to prolong the game just long enough for Crocker to get back into it. More over it was he more than any player who capitalised on the lack of money and was winning auctions for cargo for approximately the same price that he was selling cargo for shipping, money was off set for one round while the tankers where at sea but the revenues from victory points more than made up for this.

When it came to the final tally. Rachel was fourth and Matt was third. Ollie and Luke both finished with exactly the same amount of cash. Unfortunately the count back was number of containers in the centre and we had packed this away as we calculated the scores. Initially Ollie was insistent that he must have delivered more than Luke and Luke was equally as insistent. Much debate and frowning took place and eventually cooler heads prevailed and a draw was agreed. Don’t worry all will be decided with the next game…..

If Ollie and Luke were at a disadvantage for the first game being newbie’s then it was Andy and Ollie who had the upper hand over Luke and Matt for the second game of the night which was Thebes. A game which has so much luck that it kind of is ok. Every player is subject to the same random card draws and same random tile draws. Yes one player can be overly lucky but taken over time this we hope normally cancels itself out.

Despite multiple different approaches at the end of the game Luke and Ollie where again tied. Unfortunately there was again no count back that could separate them. So despite over three hours and two games Luke and Ollie remained drawn. Freaky. Well maybe not so much.

I hope to see you all at the NBG soon.

I'm not going down there...

Amidst personal turmoil I found myself turning up at NoBoG, waiting to see what kind of games they would throw at me. It had been some weeks since I ventured downstairs at the Ribs, to prostrate myself at the feet of the God of Euros (Luke Crocker, for it is he) and get mercilessly destroyed at board games. I have been on a roll of late personally, barring a pair of defeats in Tide of Iron I have been handing out smackdowns in other such war games as Eisenbach Gap, and who could forget my epic 13 hour WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin struggle with Matt just two weeks ago - the game to end all games. The game which may have changed my approach to games forever. So here I was, ready to do battle in the field of the "impress the vicar" scoring tracks, with wooden cubes and convoluted mechanics. And here was Luke, being very generous and suggesting we play Fury of Dracula! Normally I would have jumped at such a chance, but Matt had brought Container, the final works of the much under-rated games designer, Franz Benno Delonge. I am a huge fan of two previous Delonge efforts, those being Manila and Big City, so I was eager to give the tediously themed Container a go, as I had no doubts that the late Delonge would have left us with one final enjoyable game. Luke was clearly shocked that I would opt to play a Euro where the object of the game was to buy cuboids and ship them to an anonymous island. But thems the breaks. Luke, Olly and Adam played Puerto Rico. Matt, myself, Rachel and Chris would push cuboids around on pretty boats for two hours.

Container is a cracking game, actually better than I was expecting. Manila and Big City are two excellent Euro-ish games, but they seem to be mercifully divulged from the slightly more serious Euro scene that has produced such behemoths as Caylus. A scene which fails to inspire much excitement in myself. Yet Container leans more towards the serious end of the spectrum. You have to have your wits about you - you are basically manufacturing and purchasing goods, then shipping them to the central island where you aim to sell them to other people, or keep them yourself if you judge them to be worth more than your offers, all in the name of making more money. The only scoring system in the game is money, which is fantastic. You always have a pretty fair idea of how you are doing, just not how your opponents are doing, as for each player each container is worth a slightly different, secret amount. There were several strategies employed. Chris went for a production strategy, generating large numbers of containers but never purchasing them when they were delivered to their destination. I indulged in some wild, reckless capitalism, buying in huge numbers everyone elses products and selling them at tiny profits. I adopted the "Tescos Strategy". I then using my tiny profits and generous bank loans to secure product upon delivery to the island. Matt produced nothing, and stocked nothing, but his boats for often full of goods that he flogged to us or coughed up the readies to keep. Using this devious plan he saved up, took out two loans at an opportune moment and bought huge amounts of delivered product just as the game seemed out of reach. Rachel was a very tidy player, very frugal and efficient, producing and stocking where necessary, and selling me tonnes of product at bargain basement prices. Rachel and I were mutually assisting each other with sales and purchases throughout the game without really intending or declaring it and this caused Chris a lot of problems, but it never really paid off in chasing down Matt. For Matt's bold strategy won out. He purchased a lot of delivered goods for knock down prices, I was in a position to deny him his final delivery purchase but had over-stretched myself. Just 2 or 3 more in cash would have perhaps tipped the scales in my favour but it wasn't to be. Matt romped home with 96, I had 76, Rachel had 70, and Chris had 59, tripped up by being the only real producer of goods, and then having to sell them at cheap prices. The game provides a curiously fascinating insight into capitalism and market forces, and I believe that the player created economy and balance should mean that Container is highly replayable and offer a variety of options each time out. Very impressive stuff!

Over on the other table, Luke had destroyed everyone at Puerto Rico, and then they played some game called "LE SCORPION!" or something, which seemed to involve Olly talking in a terrible French accent, with sounded more Rommel-esque to my untrained ears. This game was clearly nonsense, it had a striking resemblance to a game I played in my extreme youth, possibly snap. There was no winner, only a loser. Basically you played a card, declared what was on it (in Franglais) and the other player had to guess if you were lying or not. If they were wrong, they took your card. Your card seemed to have a picture of a spider, or a scorpion or some other creature on it. IF you got 4 cards of one type, you were out. The person who was out first was the loser, everyone else won. Genius! Luke lost, I am pretty sure on purpose as he appeared to detest this ridiculous "game". LE SCORPION!

We finished up with a vibrant round of Saboteur, almost ruined by the lad who came downstairs and said very loudly "I AM NOT GOING IN THERE, IT SOUNDS F**KING AWFUL" before retreating to the safety of the upstairs bar. Saboteur was a new one on me, it is quite fun, very chaotic but you don't get much chance to influence the game. A fine end of night game nonetheless. I was the saboteur twice, and I was quite happy to let everyone know about it. Unfortunately I was unable to make serious inroads into sabotaging everyone, which was quite disappointing. We had three rounds and Adam ran out a worthy winner, though I have no idea how the scoring system worked at all. Saboteur is fun enough that the issue of winner and loser is quite irrelevant to be honest.

And that was that. Things were packed away, and we all faded away into the foggy night, a successful evening of fine gaming. GAME ON.

Primordial Soup for the Soul

A quick post me thinks to bring us all up to date. After the tomes that I have been churning out everyone will no doubt be relieved to see that this post will be short, well that is the intention.

A collection of 7 debated which games to bring to the table this week and after much polite Britishness we settled for ‘Primordial Soup’ played by Jimmy, Matt, Rachel and Adam. And Cuba played by Ollie, Luke and Tom.

Adam won the ‘P-soup’ with an aggressive eating strategy that allowd him to not be hit by the general peeks and dips that other players suffered through. Jimmy played a long game and planned his points well being beaten at the end by the smallest of margins. Matt languished in third never reproducing enough to real compete with Adams eating strategy. Rachel was last due to her inability to avoid Adams hungry grasp. Jimmy had top protection and was unaffected by Adam, Matt had a 50/50 chance of survival so all things considered Rachel was the object of Adams machinations and mastications.

After carefully setting up Cuba and choosing it ‘to see how this plays with 3’, we were joined be Jack ‘Sgt. Slamtastic’ Shannon and Levan (the spelling of all names is purely guesswork). Ollie was not bothered by the mayo chip infested students and allowed them to freely touch his game and we began a rules session led by Luke and supported by Ollie. Ollie was the more accomplished player and through the game cultivated a much better maximisation of opportunity and resources. Tom sitting to Ollies right had opportunities to ship rum before him unless Ollie was first player (which I believe happened possibly twice). However despite several rum ships appearing near the beginning most of the powerful rum ships did not materialise and cigars and products where the resources of choice in the middle rounds. Levan was next in the pecking order comfortably moving away from Jack by reason of 2 points per building at the end of the game. Levan used the 1 and 2 VP buildings well and had he more Cuba experience would surely have accumulated more points that he missed with minor mistakes. Luke sporny **** that he is purchased the building that created 2 blue cubes a turn only for the VP per blue cube law to be proposed in round two. Where upon he bought political influence +2 votes and passed the law. He then proceeded to acquire the veto sanction and allowed the powerful VP per blue law to remain in effect for the entirety of the game. Where others gained resources and then converted and then shipped taking for most 2 turns Luke just sat back and got small reward followed by small reward. By the end of the game he had acquired 9 blue cubes and was getting substantial VPs through doing nothing. In the end the distance between 1st and 3rd was twenty odd points. Had the laws been completely different other strategies would no doubt have been adopted but clearly the points margin was a reflection of how early that card arrived and was not removed. Its just a shame Luke couldn’t have got the golf course as well as then the real points would have a racked up.

The Cuba table finished within 5 minutes of the ‘P-soup’ table which meant that we were able to chat and pack away as a group which made a nice change.