We played games today!
What games did we play?
cquire! The game of hotel chains.
ge of Steam! The one with trains!
gricola! With sheeps and more!
ncients! The Commands & Colors War!
Yay! They all started with A!
Labels: channel Dr. S, session report
posted by Brian @ 4:53 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
That is a nice theme we have going there. :) I am impressed. I am also glad we got to play something that wasnt just an economic game.
Acquire -- took some getting used to in order to see just how the merging and selling went. At the end of my first game I am still not certain I know how to play anything remotely resembling well.
Age of Steam - Western US map -- that I feel much more certain about. Much like Powergrid (in that you are limited by money and number of spaces you can ship based on train length) one you get a feel for the order of things, and what roles bring what benefit, things run a little smoother. I am glad we started with the map that starts with more money.
Agricola -- how I love thee. it had been too long. Unlike Mondays game with Sean that went very well, this one was a rather low scoring game. But, as always, enjoyable.
Next time I play I wanna break out the X deck and add a little variety to the mix. You want that first stone space -- well deal with the repercussions of the X-deck card as well. It will be nice to change things up a bit, I think.
And I think more with the four seasons post card needs to occur as well. Since that is a fun little addition. Definitely changes the dynamics of the game.
Don't forget about Rock B"A"nd.
Overall, I enjoyed getting to play some of the games I don't get to play quite as often. I'm still just shaking my head that we had 7 people and no Battlestar Galactica. Bottom line is that I still think it's the most popular cooperative game we've got in our group. I definitely like it better than Shadows over Camelot. Pandemic has just never grabbed me--it just feels more like a strange mathematical exercise than a game to me for some reason. I like Arkham Horror more as far as coop goes, but that's more of a niche interest game, and it doesn't play as well anyway with the number of people we usually get at gaming sessions.
Anyway, Saturday's selection of games was a real home run for me. I genuinely like each of these games, especially because they're intellectually challenging (as opposed to some other games we play that feel less intellectually challenging but perhaps more outright fun, such as BSG). Normally, I favor new games pretty strongly, but I enjoyed getting to play everything Saturday without having to learn rules and gameflow from scratch.
Tiff, you did really well in Acquire for a first play. You picked it up much faster than I did when I played the first few times.
Age of Steam was unfortunately a big flail for me. It's clear that you need to look forward a fair amount as you play to see that you're getting reward for the moves you're about to make. It is a real tempo game, and if you're not keeping pace with locomotive advancement and planning the payoff for that advancement at the same time, you fall off that tempo and there's no real catching up unless the leaders make mistakes. Once you fall off, you're much less competitive for turn order bidding on a consistent basis. In this game, success seems to perpetuate success, and I respect and like that kind of design. It's the type of game that I've got to play over and over before I start to see the right moves, but I'm definitely ready for another game. Overall, it seemed to play five players pretty well.
I was glad to introduce Scott to C&C:A. Dennis seemed to like it when he played it a few months ago, and if Scott likes it, then that's a good thing for C&C:A fans like myself. It's sometimes hard to get it played because it requires splitting from the main group (and I'd usually rather play a big game with everyone than a small game off to the side), but I'm sure we'll break it out every now and then.
Plus I'm glad the Rock Banders enjoyed playing. Sometimes it's pretty loud, but other times it's not too bad having a band playing in the background. (I noticed the board gamers tapping out beats at several points as we played during yesterday's gaming.) Overall, I just want people to come over and have a good time doing whatever they enjoy (within legal limits), and I'm glad people seem to do that.
Yes, we had a very low scoring Agricola game. I now realize I misplayed the Merchant, who costs a food to use. So Tiffany should have won. (I won by a point, having to pay 3 extra food would have certainly cost me a point or more).
Aquire would be willing to play Aquire again, but I dont know if it is one of those games that I need to own. It was neat to be able to count tiles, and see how many moves it would take to make mergers happen, or block other moves, etc, but at the same time, the random tile picking made it harder to guess the timing of things.
Age of Steam has a much higher learning curve, and I can see that taking some getting used to. I would not mind playing the same map again to see how differently it goes.
And Rock Band was fun. And the new songs were a nice change from the old favorites.
I will say that I missed Saturday marathon gaming. :) So this was good.
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