Rockin, Gamin' and Chillin'

The day in brief:

After swinging by to pick up Michael, upon arrival at the casa de Chris there was some rockin'. The band switched between Chris, Steve, Michael and me. We did decently. It took the arrival of Brian to prompt some actual gaming.

We played Tribune, before breaking to order some pizza, and some more band stuffs occurred. Steve convinced me to try a nice, quick, painless war game. I we played Command and Colors Ancients. He won. But I did some damage. I still think he was going easy on me, to give me a feel for the game, but he insists that he didn't.

Then there was some more rock band. Until the pizza came, and Steve left before the pizza came.

And so we decided to play a nice game of Agricola to pass the time until the game started. and Mr Black tried to play in the game bags, with very little success. But he was not deterred. And One game turned into two. And i think Michael won both games.

And then we watched the Cowboys win. And we dispersed and went home.



Thoughts on Tribune: Yet another worked placement game. Similar to Pillars in the fact that you are placing your pieces to take certain cards/actions. There are several conditions to victory, most of which are achieved through the powers bestowed on you by controlling various factions of the roman populous. It was a close game, we were all within about 6vp of each other, and we all achieved the conditions for victory at the same time. I liked the game, fairly straight forwards. I don't think that it will be a massive repeat play like Agricola, since the only variety is which cards come up/the value of the cards. There is not a rule breaking mechanism to change things up extensively. But it is always nice to see a game about the Romans that does not involve a war. Other than perhaps Ostia (which is about the harbor of Rome and not Rome itself) and maybe the aquaduct game, there isn't really a large niche for non-wargamey ancient roman games. Which is a shame, but they were rather efficient at the fighting thing. I think it would be fantastic to have a game about the founding of Rome with Romulus and Remus, populating the seven hills and what not, but that might just be me. I don't know how a game mechanism would deal with the signs from the gods as to which brother was going to be in charge, but thats a different story.

Thoughts on Command and Colors: So I was the Syracusians (i think) and Steve was the Carthiginians. And I was defending my home against the forces of Hannibal Barca, son of Hamilcar. (Though I really think that Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major is a much better name. And the man with the better name ended up winning the battle in reality as least). So other than the issue that what you are doing is significantly limiting. And I didn't really know what my troops were doing. So there was a lot of wait -- how many do these ones move-- how many dice do I get -- if I do this then I can do that???? -- sort of things. But Steve was very patient. And he won with five decimated troops to me three. So what didn't really make sense to me, was the fact that out of the 12 units you start with, you only have to kill off 5. That just seems -- too easy. It really should be at least a majority, or something. But it wasn't so bad. I might even play it again. It is, and I am horrified to admit this, a nice change from the resource management worker placement buts. i am not saying that I loved the game, but i was not opposed to it. It seems kind of light and fluffy, and as long as I only played light fluffy wargames, I might play more of them.

Agricola: So tonight we had some evil killer card combinations. I had the wet nurse which let me pay a food to get a family member every time I extended my house by a room. Which was nice to never have to take family growth. Brain got a card that let him pay one food to steal a wood anytime someone took any wood, which he used just to piss people off sometimes (and by people i mean me) and then Chris played some occupation that he got a wood from the 3 wood space anytime anyone took the three wood space. I am getting a little better at having a consistent score in the 30's. And this pleases me. One of these days i will break 40.

And football was nice as well. It is nice to see the Cowboys win, despite some fumbles and interceptions and things.