Spiel: Boardgaming in the UK

There were five of us this week and so we were, at last, able to try the 10th game in the Alea big box series: Rum & Pirates. This has come in for some criticism as it is a bit more family-oriented than others in the series but I think it stands up as a very good game for what it’s seeking to be (albeit that it may be a bit long at 5 rounds for 5 players).

Anyway, the five rounds represent five days during which your band of pirate followers are scouring the various town locations for the best plunder before heading to the ship to try and secure a comfy bed for the night. On your turn, you choose between visiting a location, paying a coin to rest, and heading to the ship (which ends your involvement in the round until the beds are allocated). There are 10 different types of location to visit, each of which gives the visitor a different benefit. Most of them allow the active player to gain VP tiles but others allow you to recruit an extra pirate (useful for extending your turn) or claim some rum (which allow 2 re-rolls if you get an unsatisfactory dice result. When you go on the ship, any pirates you have left help you in the wrangling for a decent bed. However, rolling consistently low means you get eliminated pretty quickly, irrespective of how many pirates you take on board (Do I sound bitter? You betcha!) Whoever has the most VPs after five days wins.

Rum and Pirates is a lot of fun, providing you take it in the right spirit and don’t mind the die rolls interfering with your best laid plans. I enjoyed it and found that there is a bit of thinking required to map out the best locations to visit, trying to slow your pace to delay going onto the ship and trying not to leave the next player with easy points to be had. I failed remarkably in this respect as Mark G managed to clock up some high-scoring visits that I hadn’t spotted. For example, he managed to get to a four tile pub late in the game with no-one able to join him for some very easy free points. None of us were surprised that he emerged the winner, although his margin of victory wasn’t as high as we thought it was going to be. Good fun and one I’d lie to try again with either 3 or 4 players.

This site has not seen much activity of late for two main reasons:

– We’ve been moving house and blog time has been sadly lacking for obvious reasons

– The comments section of the site has been broken by comment spam (again).

Anyway, we should be back up and running now so content will start to appear again. Thanks for your patience.

 

This week, we started off with the excellent auction game, Pizarro & Co. It’s a while since we last played it and, as a result of us forgetting the relative values of things, Nige got a very cheap James Cook on the first auction. Things soon tightened up, however, and it was difficult to tell who had the best position until things were totted up at the end. If the last couple of auctions had gone differently, Nige would have got the necessary points on his James Cook expedition to win. However, I was shunted out of a Pizarro auction by Mark G with a bid of about 45, so I took the Cook auction but it wasn’t quite enough for me as ‘dark horse’ Steve had completed his expeditions cheaply and had enough gold cards left in hand to ease past my total.

 

We then turned to Tsuro which is a very quick connections game. Players add a tile to the game board and follow the path created by that new tile. Eventually, the paths meet up and players are forced to follow paths placed by others. If these lead them off the board, the player is eliminated and the last person left alive wins.  

This is a very simple game and there doesn’t appear to be a lot of control one can exercise in a 6-player game. Undoubtedly, there would be more control as a 2- or 3-player game, but 6 players is a fun romp. Now, we agreed at the start that we all had to make sure that Steve lost this game but Nige clearly wasn’t paying attention as the first damage he could cause was to join my and Mark K’s paths together, eliminating the two of us together. Meanwhile, Steve managed to tuck himself away from everyone else and watched while we all conspired to jump off the board in pretty swift order. Another win for Steve.

 

The final game of the evening was Saboteur, which I’ve been wanting to show the rest of the group for a while. Actually, John already had a copy but his prior knowledge didn’t do him any good (and neither did mine). The game is played over three rounds and most of the players represent hard-working dwarves, tunneling in the ground searching for gold. However, one or more of the group may be traitors trying to stop the rest from their goal. Players either play a tunnel card to extend the network towards (or away from) the gold, or they play an action card to hamper the progress of another player or help themselves. If the gold is found before the deck is exhausted, the good dwarves share some gold (not always evenly). Otherwise, the traitors receive a fixed amount of gold. After the third round, the player with the most gold wins.  

This is a fun end-of-evening game with lots of bluffing. The first round, the good dwarves won quite easily but, in the second, their fortunes were reversed. I had all the decent tunnel cards and my fellow goodies were highly incompetent in freeing me from the tirade of broken picks and lamps that were sent my way. In the final round, Mark K found it tough going as the only traitor and the good dwarves emerged triumphant. The bad news, however, was that Steve clocked up a third win of the evening (this time shared with Mark G). The Hall of Fame is looking very depressing for the rest of us.

There were only three of us this week so it was the perfect opportunity to try out The End of the Triumvirate, which has been waiting for ages to get to the table. This is an interesting light war game, where there are three routes to victory: military, where you manage to gain control of 9 areas; political, if you get elected to the senate twice; and competence, when both your military and political standing have reached a certain level. Each player represents one of the major Roman figures of the time: Julius Caesar, Pompeiius or Crassus.

A player’s turn is made up of three phases. Firstly, the areas you control generate supplies of troops and/or gold, plus you get a couple of bonus supplies from Rome. Then you get to move troops around the board and battle for control of the areas. Finally, you get to spend gold to perform up to three actions, depending on the type of area in which your character piece ends its movement. These will be to improve your military or political standing, to buy weapons to help in future conflicts, or to rally support from the citizens for the next election.

The starting positions and initial supplies push each of the characters down different strategies. Julius Caesar (Mark G) is slanted towards the military option and he took full effect on the first turn by blitzing one of Pompeiius’s (my) regions. This seems the obvious first turn and immediately put me on the back foot. As supplies are dictated by the areas you control, losing one before you begin seems harsh and I felt forced to retaliate despite Mark G’s military superiority. Going for Crassus (Mark K) instead might have been an option but that would have just left Mark G even stronger for his next turn. Crassus is suited to the political track and Mark K followed that route very successfully while I was the whipping boy in the middle. Mark K won the first year election and I knew he looked strong to continue his political domination. However, my pleas to warmonger Mark G, that he should turn his attention to cutting down the other guy, fell on deaf ears and Mark K ran out an easy winner at the end of the second year.

I enjoyed Triumvirate but am struggling to see how Pompeiius gets a decent foothold. I’d very much like to try again as the game plays really nicely with some good ideas but, taking only three players means its opportunities are going to be limited.

We followed up with a short game of Flaschenteufel, the Bottle Imp. This is a very good trick taking game where you want to take tricks with high cards but not with low cards. One card represents the Imp’s number (starting at 19). Providing all cards played are above that number, the winner simply takes the cards into their score pile. However, if any card in the trick is below the Imp’s number then the trick winner is the player who laid the highest card below that Imp number. They take the cards into their score pile but also take the Imp’s bottle and the card they won with becomes the new Imp number. Whoever has the Imp’s bottle at the end of the hand scores negative points rather than positive so you want to avoid that if possible. But, getting rid of low cards without taking the Bottle is tricky and calls for good judgement.

After an aborted first round where I had completely misunderstood the Imp rule, we played three rounds, each becoming more interesting as we got to grips with the slightly twisted trick winning rules. You certainly have different things to think about when evaluating your hand, compared with most trick-taking games. I managed to avoid taking the Bottle each time and ran out a reasonably comfortable winner. I love these clever little card games and Flaschenteufel is certainly one of the better ones. Excellent stuff.

This weekend sees the newest UK convention kick off. The Cast Are Dice takes place on 12th and 13th August at the Regent Theatre, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

The idea behind The Cast are Dice is to create an accessible and friendly gaming weekend, with the emphasis heavily on board and card games. Loads more detail including registration and hotel info is included on the website here.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to be there as I will be on holiday in Devon but I hope the event is a success as I’d like to try and make an appearance if it is held again next year.

 

This week, we tried the new game by the Ragnar Brothers, Canal Mania. Unlike their previous games, this has been released with a professionally produced board and components, rather than the trademark tea towels. I think this is a good step and hope all their future designs follow this course.

Canal Mania is about the rise and fall of the British canal system in the 18th and 19th century, with players taking on contracts to build canals between certain towns and cities and shipping goods between them. A player’s turn is made up of three elements: Firstly, players can choose between accepting a new canal contract (if they are working on fewer than two contracts); enlisting the specialist help of one of the five famous engineers (which give advantages when building); or changing the build cards available in the second hase of the turn. Secondly, players can collect build cards or play cards to construct elements of the canals they are working on. Constructing canals follow a number of rules in terms of the maximum length of the canal and the combination of level stretches, locks, aqueducts and tunnels to be used. Completing a canal then brings a number of VPs according to the make-up of the canal (the more intricate the route, the more VPs are awarded, as beauty of the canal system is important to the client issuing the contract). Thirdly, the player gets to ship goods over the canal network for additional VPs, the further shipped the more VPs. Once someone reaches a given number of points, a couple more rounds are played, after which points are scored for incomplete canals, any remaining goods that can be shipped, and rewards for completing the most canal contracts. Most VPs then wins.

There was a fair amount to think about in this game, particularly trying to put a value on the available contracts and how they might mix with contracts you had already acquired. There was some luck in the cards that became available to take on your turn and Nige suffered a bit in not being able to get decent cards for his Leeds-Liverpool contract and it remained uncompleted throughout the game. I tried to ship goods as often as I could and managed to get a decent four town route through Manchester, which built the points up fairly regularly. Mark G managed to establish a good circular route in the South Midlands but didn’t get the chance to ship as often as he would like due to competition for goods with Mark K. Steve and I had a bit of a spat in the North East, with Steve cutting me off from Goole costing me a couple of cards to my annoyance. However, I managed to get my own back by shipping a good on his Sheffield-Goole canal onwards to Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield for unexpected points to me. The final scoring was close as Mark K ate significantly into my lead as most prolific builder but I just managed to hold on.

Canal Mania was a good game, although it took a while to determine any semblance of strategy. Next time will be better as we’ll have a clearer idea of what we’re trying to achieve but I enjoyed the game enough to make sure it’s one we play again soon. Nige was less complimentary but he may have been influenced by poor cards, which cut him out of challenging for the win a bit too early. It did take a while to complete but, hopefully, we should get it down to under 2 hours with more familiarity.

 

I’m a bit late posting this but the German game of the year (family variety) turns out to be Thurn und Taxis, designed by Karen & Andreas Seyfarth and published by Hans-im-Gluck. Congratulations to all concerned.

TuT would not actually have been my choice but it is a pretty good game. I would have picked Blue Moon City (Kosmos) and given Reiner his first SdJ award. The other three finalists were Seerauber by Stefan Dorra (Queen), Aqua Romana also by Queen and Just 4 Fun by Kosmos. 

Next up is the Deutsche Spiel Preis, the voting for which ends on 31st July. Caylus is probably the game I expect to win … and I wouldn’t be unhappy with that decision, but Shadows Over Camelot may stand a chance based on its Meeples Choice showing.

The next UK game convention is taking place this weekend. ManorCon XXIV will be held on 21st to 24th July 2006, in Shackleton Hall, Birmingham University, Birmingham.

Manorcon is the largest UK convention and has plenty of organised events. Tournaments will include: Diplomacy, Settlers of Catan, 18XX, Outpost, Acquire, Puerto Rico, St Petersburg and Croquet. There will also be plenty of non-tournament games on offer – far too numerous to mention! Other events will include the a games stall, a pop quiz and a treasure hunt.

Further information is available here.

I wasn’t at this week’s session but Steve kindly sent me a report.

The first game was Amun-re. The game is split into two scoring rounds and both myself and Mark G where floundering as to what was the best strategy, we consequently scored a very lowly 6 and 5 respectively, having not picked up any bonus scoring cards, together with very suspect postioning on the board. Phil (who hadn’t played before) took the lead at the half-way point with 16 with Nige on 13 and Mark K slightly further back on 11, but with a huge amount of money.

In the second half me and Mark G came back with a vengeance, I scored 25 and Mark 24 (the two highest scores of the second round) to take our scores to 31 and 29. Phil managed 21 to take his score to 37 and Nige and Mark K took their scores to 32 and 29.

Me and Mark G in the auctions had both played for areas that would take advantage of bonus scoring cards and other scoring opportunities (something lacking in our play in the first half of the game) The other three struggled to pick up bonus power cards and their second half scores reflected this.

Phil looked good for the win, but there was still the question of points for the three richest players. Mark K was still very rich and took the 6pts, I managed 4pts for second highest and Nige got the 2pts for third highest. This made the overall scores Phil 37, me and Mark K on 35, Nige on 34 and Mark G on 29. Mark G had little chance of being richest as he was using a 10 gold card to secure the first place in the sacrifice phase, saying that “it was all I had” until Nige pointed out you could get change from the bank, much to everyones amusement.

A very close finish in the end and a good win for Phil, although I did say it was a win for Garry as none of the closest contenders on the hall of fame had won.

Warhamster Rally

This week, we decided to have a go at Warhamster Rally, although Nige wasn’t keen when I described as a cousin to RoboRally. It’s not quite as brain-burning as RoboRally though as you are only programming one move ahead rather than a series of moves. Players try to race their Warhamsters down one side of a course, round a marker post (actually a Battle Budgie) and back to the finish line also marked by a Battle Budgie. The space you land on determines which direction you face at the start of your next move but, of course, just like RoboRally you can end up being shoved out of the way and hence facing a different direction from the one you expected. Then there are the other creatures who can also get in your way, which can make progress rather tricky.

John suffered early on and took quite a while to get even half way down the first straight. Mark K took a useful lead and was first to round the corner. Mark G shoved my Warhamster out of the way and proceeded to take a second move to go past me. Unknown to him, the shove put me in a better position and actually meant the move I had chosen earlier pushed him into a Kobold Khin space so losing him a turn. I then did my best to put obstacles in the way of Mark K and Nige came up on the rails. I made a mistake on my last turn as, had I chosen a different card, I could have crossed the finish line using my final action chip. As it was, all I could do was stare as Nige crept across the line to take the win.

It took us a while to iron out some of the rule ambiguities and that slowed the game down quite a bit. I think once we were familiar with the game, it would have played much quicker and on that basis Mark K, John and I gave it reasonable ratings. Even though he won, it wasn’t Nige’s type of game so he rated it pretty low.