Saturday, November 25, 2006

No pun session report


I arrived at Casa de Amy & Jeff and chatted with the hosts and Ben as others arrived. We had six, no ... seven. Luckily, we started 6 Nimmt! which could handle stragglers. By the time rules were explained, we had ten. Chad generously started collecting early; but none could withstand Ben The Cattle King, so after two hands it was all over. We then broke into two games.

I taught Die Macher. Numero Uno. The Big Fix. Players try to take control of the the German Federal Elections by managing seven regional elections. It's like being George Stephanopolous, only with a longer name.

Die Macher isn't complicated as such, but there are lots of moving parts. You've got money, trends, media, workers, contributions, shadow cabinets, party platforms, opinion polls. donations, the 'party base' and regions. Dennis had played before, but everyone else was learning as they went. I had a nice match with the first region, Bayern, also the largest single region in play. My early momentum got me nice contributions, which lead to a snowball effect. I also got several 'deals with the devil' Coalition partner offers to join in with a weaker player. A bit of luck, and having played the game before. Die Macher is now in it's third edition (although I don't think anything changed between 2nd and 3rd). Apart from language.

After that we settled in for some cuthroat chocolate making with Shoko & Co. It's an auction/management game. Players hire their employees, then jet off to the glamorous Cocoa auctions (in New York, Paris, London, etc). Then we make the bars and have a reverse dutch auction. The auctioneer names a price ("I'll buy 50 Tons of Chocolate for $30,000") and keeps raising the price until someone bites. Shoko remains the only game I can think of where you also employee salesmen, accountants, and secretaries administrative assistants. (The event cards also have lazy workers, chocolate melting heat waves, and even some sexual harassment). Again I taught several new players, and again I caught a break or two and never looked back. I have to apologize to Chad, I looked at Walt Mulder's translation later and there shouldn't be any event card on the first turn. [Chad lost some chocolate due to a random event ...] One other minor rule I got wrong ... in setting the Cocoa demand, each player can only say as many as they can hold in storage, not sixteen. In thinking about it, I mentioned I didn't like playing with the Express cards (mainly "Take that") but perhaps you do need to stop a runaway leader.

By this time things were breaking up, I pulled out Air Baron. Jeff, Amy and I just played the basic game, but now that I've got a few converts I'm sure we'll be playing again Michael. I'd write up the game, but we'll all be seeing plenty of Air Baron. Oh yes.

And other games were played, too. I know of Ra, Samurai, Power Grid, and the Director's Cut of Crokinole (now with 60 extra minutes of footage!)

10 Comments:

At 10:46 PM, November 25, 2006, Blogger Simon said...

I left my copy of Timbuktu at your house, Jeff. Are you coming on Monday so I can pick it up?

I'll follow up with a review of Friday's events shortly...

 
At 1:39 AM, November 26, 2006, Blogger Michael said...

Yeah, when you get the nine hour game of air baron thanks to 10 fuel hikes you will come around.

 
At 8:08 AM, November 26, 2006, Blogger Ben said...

My sincere thanks go to Jeff and Amy for hosting such a large crowd in your wonderful home. You truly have arranged a gamer's paradise in your loft!

I can see why people rave about Die Macher, though its not for the faint of heart. This is hard-core Euro territory to be sure. If Leonardo da Vinci is a light bowl of pasta primavera, this is a huge plate of steaming bratwurst with a tankard of dark ale to wash it down. Once you get past the language and a little cultural weirdness, there's a lot of goodness here. Its the same feeling I get whenever I step off the plane in Frankfurt...

 
At 11:00 AM, November 26, 2006, Blogger Brian said...

I've posted my Die Macher variant thoughts. http://gaming.powerblogs.com/posts/1164556302.shtml

As for Air Baron, Michael has discovered why some people don't play the advanced game. But I've played it 15-20 times, with nothing more than 2 hours.

 
At 11:01 AM, November 26, 2006, Blogger Brian said...

And thanks for hosting. The pie was surprisingly good. Who knew ham went with pumpkin?

 
At 12:25 PM, November 26, 2006, Blogger Rick N said...

Jeff and Amy, thanks for hosting. Amy, it was great to meet you and thanks for explaining Power Grid to us.

I've only played Air Baron once, but we had a great time. I'd try that one again.

 
At 11:05 PM, November 26, 2006, Blogger Simon said...

Jeff?

 
At 8:49 AM, November 27, 2006, Blogger Jeff said...

I left my copy of Timbuktu at your house, Jeff. Are you coming on Monday so I can pick it up?

eBay auction number 421138X6669



I plan to be at DL (hopefully for gaming, but at least to drop-off/pick-up)

 
At 12:24 PM, November 27, 2006, Blogger Jeff said...

Y'all are quite welcome. We enjoy having these all-day events.

I played six different games over the course of the day, and Brian taught three of those, so a special thanks to Brian for his efforts - especially for teaching the mammoth Die Macher to three newbies at the drop of a meeple.

 
At 11:28 PM, November 27, 2006, Blogger Rob said...

Sweet die macher... and sweeter report.

 

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