New England

I had got this game on a Funagain offer for just 10$. The first play happened in December last year and it was a complete disaster. Aarthi was sleepy though the rule reading and therewas some confusion on the the interpretation as well. The game just did not flow then.

Shreyasi had been bugging me to play a new game she had not played that had money in it. So I took out New England because I really thought there was more to the game than what I had seen. Aarthi also joined us on a 3 player and it played very very well. I took up a particular interpration of the confusing rule and the game flowed nicely with Shreyasi saying ‘Good game I like it!’ Of course she won the game with 34 points. I got 31 and Aarthi 29. One of these days I have to just count the number of times I come in 2nd place. I always seem to come in 2nd. Reminds me of the Seinfeld take on winning a silver medal at the Olympics!

Also checked BGG and found that my interpretation was right. In case you are planning on getting this it is a very good game. But please check out this also before you proceed to play. Will be useful.

Ticket to Ride - Unofficial expansions

I was just browsing this blog and came upon this page. We all love Ticket to Ride  and like all the new editions. Am waiting for Marklin that is likely to reach here next week. I read somewhere on BGG about a Switzerland map available online. I remember the game’s designer Alan Moon posting on BGG and saying that he had an India edition planned! (Of course that came after I had posted, and my post showed where I came from!)

Now I saw this page and just look at the no of unofficial expansions!!!!! There’s a complete ‘cottage industry’ out there I say!

Naturelich Games: Unofficial expansions Archives

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Its a Knizia game! No wonder!

Renier Knizia is regarded as a superstar boardgame designer. The first Knizia we got was Samurai. As soon as I opened it, set the game up, the first thing that struck me and my wife was the fiddly nature of the components. In India we normally have a fan to provide air as centralised air conditioning is not exactly affordable in all residences. So the screens used in the game kept falling. The board itself is designed like a big jigsaw puzzle with 4 pieces that need to be fixed together. The quality is not really great and the board does not sit on a table easily.

The next Knizia we got was Tutankhamen. Nice interesting game that even my 5 year old could play. But the set up takes so long! So many small pieces that have to be arranged before the game starts. that small pyramid into which we slot the coins in keeps moving everytime some one wants to slot a coin.

And then we got Through the Desert. Wonderful game! We all loved it, but…. Try playing a 2 player game. First we have to get all the riders up on the camels. Then we have to fill the board up with the water holes. And then we start playing and finish the game so fast that the set up actually took longer! That's when my wife Aarthi first said "Reiner Knizia? No wonder!"

I got a small game called Maginor basically becasue it was a Knizia and it was available at 75% discount. This time the game and the components were fiddly. I can understand why the game is not highly ranked.

And then I finally got the game I had been wanting for a long time - Ra. Excellent game with interesting mechanics and choices and so easy to explain and get people to play. But look at the no of tiles in the game. You have to fill them all up into that black bag and then it is so heavy to pass around for people to pick! Aarthi exclaimed "Renier Knizia? No wonder!"

Of course there are other Knizia games that I have and feel good about. we have a small children's game called Schildkroetenrennen, that great horse racing game Royal Turf and his highest ranked game on BGG - Tigris and Euphrates. Not too much to complain about here though. Let me get more Knizia games and then see.

Settlers of Catan - 5 to 6 players expansion

I had got the 5-6 players expansion of Settlers because we had enjoyed the basic game so much and thought it would be fun to have more people playing the game. yesterday Shreyasi's friends Guha and Sai joined, Aarthi, Shreyasi and me for a 5 player game of Settlers with the new expansion. The game is the same as the original with the expansion just offering extra hexes, cards and counters. The only change is an extra opportunity to build after everyone's turn. This ensures that we can trade intelligently and get rid of extra cards before the next player rolls a 7! Aarthi won with me just following at 8 points. After 30 rolls or so we got an 8! So much for probabilities. The trading phase however takes a bit longer because of more players. But the expansion retails at 20$. Too much for just adding 2 more players I think.

Elasund - The First City

Klaus Teuber is a favorite at home. The first game I got of his was Lowenherz and the next his all time hit Settlers of Catan. So when I saw some favorable reviews of Elasund I wanted to get it.

The game is very well produced with good quality components. The player aid cards are really excellent and help newbies get into the game very quickly. I really like this because I am the guy who has to explain the rules here and once I go through them the players can manage with these turn aids very well.

Since the game is a part of the series on Catan adventures there are a few elements taken from Settlers. The first being rolling dice for production. But there are 2 distinct differences. Firstly there are no hexes. There is a rectangular board and a ship track with numbers corresponding to each row. Based on the type of building you build and if they exist on the row rolled for, gold or influence cards are generated. So the production sequence is much simpler because there are basically only 2 different types that we are rolling for.

Both gold cards and influence cards have a variety of uses so that an excess of one over the other or a balance of both helps us in our performance. This and the fact that we can pick up 2 gold cards freely per turn also instead of another option - that of placing a building permit, removes the uncertainty element of not getting favorable rolls. In effect you can go through 3 turns of not getting favorable turns but still collect 6 gold cards.

Placing a building permit is the precursor to building. Buildings generate income and victory points. Victory points are in the form of 10 victory cubes given. The first person to place all his 10 victory cubes is the winner of the game. Victory cubes can be place on certain types of buildings. They can also be placed on certain city walls. There are 9 walls given to each. Most of them generate an influence card when built. A few of them give you a chance to place a victory cube. There are also some squares on the board with windmills. When a building is built on this there is another track that you can move your counter on and place victory cubes once you move a certain number of spaces. When your building gets displaced you have to move down the track and lose the victory cubes you had placed earlier!

There is no trading in the game but player are allowed to build over and displace others' buildings. Here is where influence cards also come in play. The can be used to place building permits, pay off others' building permits and use those to build your own buildings, pay off others when building buildings of the same size as others etc. There is also a church that can be built This is very powerful, has 9 pieces and each pieces can hold a victory point, and can displace a building of any size. Finally as in Settlers a pirate is activated when a 7 is rolled and forces people to give up cards. The can be picked up by the pirate if he has a victory cube on a city wall.

The game is listed as 2-4 player. The board gets scaled down when playing with 2 or 3. It plays very well all numbers. I can see resemblances to Settlers. I also see a bit of Lowenherz in the game especially going down the track when losing a square with the windmill. Overall I have really enjoyed the game and is my current hot favorite. The components are completely language independent.

Stranded boardgamer

Living in India and trying find 'our' type of boardgamers is now very similar to what has been written below

A stranded boardgamer in Alaska!

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Downgrading some of my 10 rated games on BGG

I was just going through my game collection on BGG and found that I have given a rating of 10 to 15 games. Now normally I would rate a game a 10 if I thought I would be ready to play it whenever I am asked. That I should want to play it anytime is probably the biggest and most singular reason to rate a game a 10. I was going throught this list and wanted to see if I still felt the same way about them. Since I did not I am downgrading a few of them now. 

 Citadels - I did enjoy it a lot when it first came out. I would still play a game if asked but then maybe I might just prefer one of the others. So 10 has become 9 now.
Samurai - Again one of my early acqusitions. But the plays have dried out a bit of late and I would like to play some of the newer games. So 10 becomes 9.
San Juan - I got this first because I thought it was cheaper when compared to Puerto Rico. really really enjoyed the game. Played only 2 player games. But after we got Puerto Rico recently, I guess 10 has to become 9.

Last couple of days

Had some good gaming the last couple of days. Kids still have holidays and the afternoons generallyare filled with gaming. Shreyasi brings her friends over and I try and spend some time gaming with them.

Got back from kochi a couple of days back and so the last two afternoons were good. Elasund - The First city of Catan is really holding my attention now. Have already played 3 games since yesterday. 1 four player game and 2 two player games with aarthi. will sit and write a review tomorrow.

Puerto Rico - We played a good 4 player game today. Took about a half hour to go through the rules but we had a long game. I won with 65 points. Shreyasi's friends Sai and Guha were playing their first games and did creditably to come in 2nd and 3rd with 52 and 51 points. Poor Shreyasi came in last with 50! Very close game for the others. and after a number of playings this was the first time the game ended with all the victory points given out.

Also played Vampire, King Me, and Fearsome Floors.

Alhambra

Alhambra was the new game we tried today. A tile laying game withsome good strategy. It is simple to set up and learn even for newbies. For those familiar with Carcassone there is a certain likeness in the way the Alhambra or palace is built. But we are talking about an individual Alhambra as opposed the common in Carcassone. Another factor here is that tiles have to be purchased here with money cards. Money cards are in four different currencies and there is abulding market for the tiles. The market carries 4 tiles but each has to be paid for by a different currency. So when u have the currency the cost of the building might change as someone else would have bought what u had in mind. So there is a lot of choices to be made in each turn with taking money cards, buying and laying tiles or redisgning the Alhambra by taking away a tile, placing a new tile or exchanging a tile. Here is where a stock of reserve tiles not used for the building comes into play. 

 The most advantageous position for one would be when u have the exact amount required to buy a building because if u pay more u do not get back change! Now when the exact amount is paid u get another free turn to do one of the three actions. Tus a maximum of 5 turns can be exercised if u can buy all the 4 building on the market by paying the exact cost in that exact currency. In essence u also have to collect and save your money cards to maximise a good turn.

Scoring happens only three times in a game. This comes when a scoring card is drawn which was originally placed inside the pile of money cards. In the final round the longest connected road also scores points. There are 6 different kinds of building tiles and points are given for the holding the most of one type of building.

 We played a good tight 3 player game. Even though it was our first game we got into it pretty fast and there was tie for the 1st place between Aarthi & me. Everyone liked the game and we are looking forward to more plays.

 The game is simple, plays fast and is easy to understand. A typical Spiel des Jahres winner (2003). The quality of the components are excellent and the game comes in a smaller compact box.

Personally I neither found it strategically exciting like Puerto Rico or Funkenschlag nor was it great fun like For Sale or Ticket to Ride. But I think it is likely to grow on me after repeated plays. 

Vampire - Game review

I was looking at this game store and found a 75% sale going on. I looked at Vampire, saw the Wolfgang Kramer on the cover and I saw it was marked down to about 9$. So I just bought it. Today I was looking at the rules on BGG to see if it was simple enough for me to try it on my 5 and a half year old son Sushanth becos he was bugging me about how he could not play Puerto Rico as yet!

So I took out Vampire and began to set it up. The components are really nice. There is a board which has a space for a set of stairs to be attached and a castle set up to give it a 3d effect. and the counters are all placed in the compartments with each floor or stair havving marked spaces. The extended board below has rectangular squares that line up to columns on the spaces in teh sstairs.

The game is quite simple. We have wooden vampire slayers that move on the board below. There are 3 types of surfaces, lawn, bog and bushes. The slayers cannot move on the to bush squares. The castles guests are the vampires and they are set up in different rows over 4 floors. There is a set of butlers on the fifth row and a set of coffins on the sixth row. There is also a count which has the highest points and makes its appearance after all the castle guests have been captured.

There are also two sets of cards - Vampire cards and Chase cards. Vampire cards have to be drawn every turn. The cards have four rows with markings on the number of vampires to be moved on each floor. The chase cards are of two types. One is a bat card and the other a garlic throw card. A small garlic counter has to be moved along the column where the slayer stands and if it hits the vampire u score for it. If a coffin exists in the same column on the 6th floor that is also collected. The garlic counter moves the number of floors or spaces as indicated by the chase card. In case a bat card is drawn, the slayer and the garlic moves back a space. But slayers on bog spaces need not move back.

You are allowed to perform one of the following three actions per turn - Move a slayer - Pick three additional chase cards - Throw the garlic counter. The chase cards on hand are always kept face down. So the throwing the garlic is taking a chance with the cards u have. But u can choose the no of cards u want to use for throwing the garlic from 0 to 6. 0 can be chosen only if there is no vampire in the column where the slayer stands.

The game is very simple and lot of fun for children of 5 or 6 years. There is a bit of strategy in moving the vampires and choosing the no of cards to hit the vampire. because if you choose 5 cards and u hit the vampire with the first, u have to forfeit the rest. But the a 2 player game can be a it long especially when the no of vampires come down and we have to keep moveing the remining vampires until they are in a column where a garlic can be thrown.

I think the game lives upto its rather low rating here. It is only a children’s game and it gives kids like my son a chance to feel important about a game for him. Especially since my older 9 year old daughter plays most of the games in my collection. The bits, the theme and the simple game make it a good addition to my kids game collection. But won’t my son get tired of it soon? I think he will!