First Rate Games, Second Rate Player
Session report for Aug 14, 2006
I played 3 games last night. All of them were first rate, and I came in 2nd place in all of them.
One was Pacific Victory, a 2 player wargame, so "2nd place" really means "I lost." This is the third time I've played the mini-scenario, and I'm beginning to think it's not well balanced. Regardless, I think it's a good way to introduce the game w/o overwhelming new players. You use most rules, but only about 8 blocks each.
Then was Beowulf. Like many Knizia games, the more I play this game the more layers I find. There's a strong push-your-luck element, and a lot of folks are bothered by that, but I like it. Another great feature is that the theme is tightly integrated into the game, although like any Knizia game it's no simulation. Michael won, Brian and I tied, Mark came in last, but he made a good showing for his first game.
Finally, I played my first ever game of Knizia's Samuria. It's interesting, and definitely worth study. It's an elegant little strategy game that took Michael, Brian and I about 30 min to teach and play. Brian was first, then me, then Michael.
Recently I've been coming in 2nd in a lot of games. In the last 10 or so games I've played, I've won none, but come in 2nd place in about 8. Not too shabby, but not as nice as having a few victories.
What other games were played Mon? I know there was a big crowd.
posted by Ted @ 4:49 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
We mainly played Party games earlier. I played two games of Attribut, and two games of You Must Be an Idiot. Jonathon's ability to accidentally get the correct answer (which disqualifies you if you drew an idiot card) continues to astound.
We also played Winner's Circle and there were a few games of Villa Palleti (which can apparently be found at Tuesday Mornings for $6.
Finally, after everyone else left Michael, Jonathon and I taught Dennis Indonesia, which he almost won. In fact, the margin of victory was due to my winning a rubber company which instantly merged for a $20 profit. I think I owned it a minute. (The winning score was around $1340).
Well, as Ben posted, we played Shifting Sands. I'll add my thoughts under his post.
After that, I came out of our cave, hung out for ten minutes...saw a game of Pitch Car where Dennis apparently had his victory stolen from right under his nose. Plus, Ted's game of Samurai was about done. Ted, I agree; it is a good thought-provoking game. I've had it in my wishlist for a while.
Tonight I played Thurn and Taxis with my wife. She won by 1 point. It's a good good game, if a bit overhyped, with many good mechanics borrowed from other games: mix some Ticket to Ride (route-building), a handful of Bohnanza (forced to play cards from your hand that played at the wrong time, can destroy your whole plans), a dash of Puerto Rico (role-selecting), a teaspoon of Knizia (pasted theme), and you got it.
Indonesia seems to play differently every time. Certainly at this point, no one particular overarching strategy has appeared to dominate others.
The party game-fest was a nice change of pace. My two accusation strategies, only accuse innocent people and accuse nobody, seem to be sub-optimal. I think next time I'll go with accusing only idiots.
Beowulf was fun as always. I wish I had snagged a half price copy.
The "wishing that the laws of physics do not apply to you" strategy does not work in Villa Palleti unfortunately. I was in a situation where I really wanted to get a piece out but it was fairly obvious that it was suppoting half the tower on its own. Hoping for a minor miracle (maybe a stiff a/c breeze could have shifted the weight just as I was removing the support), led to disaster. Ahh well.
After looking at the rules for Beowulf I realized I didn't add my bonus points for not having any wounds. Oh well, lesson learned. Enjoyed the game even though I had no clue what I was doing until the end of the game.
Pacific Victory is definitetly a game I want to play more of and look forward to playing a larger scenario.
Me too Mark (about PV).
Mark,
If memory serves, you had 19 and Brian and I had 23. If you add 5 pts, you would have had 24, making you 2nd, thereby breaking my string of 2nd places.
Post a Comment
<< Home