More Power !

Jeff and I started up with Voltage, a fast two player card game. It's ... ok. But that started us on a "Power/Industrial" theme that kept going. After running our power plants, Sean showed up and we ran some Factories for Fun. I still like this one, as its reasonable quick, but fills that 'puzzle game' niche well. Dennis and Rick showed up, so we briefly paused for Cineplexity (ok, two pauses) then expanded our operation from one single plant to a whole string of them. This was my first time for the print-and-play Power Grid Atolla Modulis expansion, but our group likes Power Grid. Anyway, the game play is identical, just with the (modular) map. Overall, I think it went reasonably well. However, there are way too many cities that have no connection cost -- not only do several of the tiles have clumps, but the rules (as written) only put connection costs between cities that connect through a linking tile (one without cities). I think breaking the costs into "small" and "large" (whatever those may be) and putting the small tiles between cities (which would normally have no cost) and the large on the linking tiles will fit. Perhaps making the small costs the 1-10, and the large 10+ or so would be about right.

Overall, I'm glad I got this (I traded a game for a nice set), but I'd still be happy to play some of the other expansion boards too. Still, this is better than another game on the basic US/Germany map. (And soon the 2nd power plant deck will be out!).

After that we completely left industry behind to build up our huts in Taluva. This beautiful game, vaguely reminiscent of Java (with it's 3D building), seemed interesting, but really should only be played 2-player. Otherwise you get into the "No, you stop him!" issue. On the other hand, I think Attika (also designed by Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle) is OK with 3 or 4, great with two. I'll need to play this a few more times to see, but this does look promising.


By this point everyone else had bailed, so I taught Starship Catan to Sean. This is a cute little game, really part of the "Settlers" genre by courtesy only. You have resources (and the race for 10VPs) but the heart of the game is the flightplan. There are four sectors, each with 10 cards. During your turn you pick one, shuffle it, and your opponent flips out the cards one at a time. Most of them let you buy or sell, but some are blank, some are 'destinations' (to finish adventures), and even a few pirates. It took me a bit to review how to play, but we got started and ended up with a tight race. Sean got to 9 VP and made his purchases to earn him a tenth on his next flight. I made my flight and claimed my 10th VP, but then a recount showed that we were tied for "Diplomatic Friendship Points." This gives a longest road style VP, but unlike Settlers if there's a tie the VP is taken away. So my "10th" VP was actually my 9th. But my flight let me flip through 7 cards (out of 10) on the stack and the final card earned my actual 10th VP, letting me squeak out the win.