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Here you can find recaps of gaming sessions that our members have been at. It's a great way to keep track of what games we've played and who has been victorious. As a note to our visitors, all of our members can place session reviews into the website. Look at the bottom of each entry to find out who wrote the particular report! 4/26/02 - hosted by John Palagyi Dramatis Personae: John P, Mike R, Ed J, John Mc, Luke H
(in order of appearence)
The musical programme: Marty and Joe (...and this one belongs to the Reds!)
The games: Wyatt Earp, Puerto Rico, Atlantic Star, Mexica
Wyatt Earp - While waiting the Johns, Mike and Ed broke out this unofficial fourth in the Mystery Rummy series. Players play rummy melds to generate capture points to catch such outlaws as Billy the Kid or Jesse James. Those with the most capture points split the reward money. The first to amass $25,000 wins. We played an abbreviated version to $15,000 with John Mc taking the honors.
Puerto Rico - Our full contingent then took on colonizing, producing and shipping goods from Puerto Rico. This is Alea's newest offering and a good one in my opinion. Each turn, each play chooses a role such as Mayor, Settler, Captain, etc. All players get to act out the role, but the player who chose it initially gets a special privilege too. You create plantations and buildings, populate them with colonists to generate goods for shipping and collect vitory points and money. So far in my playing close games have been the result and this was no exception. Luke took first with 50 vp, followed by John Mc (47), Mike R (47), John P (42) and Ed J (34). John Mc took Mike on the tie breaker and poor Ed had the unfortunate seat of the eveing and couldn't ship his goods as the ships were full by the time we got to him.
Atlantic Star - Next up was this Showmanager remake (see below). John Mc took his second victory of the eveing again over Mike, followed by Luke, John P and Ed.
Mexica - Luke, Mike and John P. then took on the newest from the Torres/Tikal/Java team. After the first scoring Mike and Luke were battling it out half way around the scoring track while John P trailed badly. Mike ended up taking the win narrowly over Luke while I was quite proud to get within twenty of the leaders.
Respectfully submitted, JP 3/22/02 - hosted by Dave Ehlers In Attendance: Janice Jezek*, Peter Jezek*, John McMillan, John Palagyi, Mike
Rosal, Scott Tullis, Dale Yu
* First-time participants
Games Played and Results:
Big Boss: Peter makes a splash at his first Cincy Gamers session with a win in
his first game.
1st--Peter
2nd--Mike
3rd--John M.
4th--Janice
5th--Scott
Foosball: While the others played Big Boss, Dale and Dave duked it out at the
foosball table. Dale went 3-0 in the Slop-Counts games. When things were
cleaned up, the games got intense, and Dave ended with a 2-1 edge in No-Slop
games. The surprise discovery of the night was that Intense Foosball + Dale +
Cranberry Cider = R-Rated Language
Mexica: The third in the Tikal/Java series...
1st--Scott
2nd--John M.
3rd--John P.
4th--Dale
For Sale:
1st--Scott
2nd--Dale
3rd--John P.
4th--John M.
High Society:
1st--John M.
Other players--Dale, John P., Scott
Evo: Mike's procreation strategy, along with some timely cards, puts his
Dinos into an early lead. Despite a devastating Small Meteorite and a close
chase by Peter, Mike pulls it off. The race for 3rd was intense, as Janice
and Dave (whose Dinos were inept in combat) managed a tie.
1st--Mike
2nd--Peter
3rd--Janice/Dave
Don (game 1): Despite having nothing to do with Chicago or the Mafia, this
quick card/bidding gamed proved interesting after we got the hang of it.
1st--Dave
2nd--John P.
3rd--Mike
Don (game 2): We couldn't end the night before 1:30am, so we went for one
last game...
1st--Dave
2nd--John P.
3rd--Mike March 9, 2002 - Hosted by Dale Yu We had a great time over at my house; 10 people total were there for the festivities. This may have been the longest night yet for the Cincygamers! We started at about 7:00 and went until 3:45AM. Congratulations to John P for being not only the first to arrive but also the last to leave.
In attendance: Dale, John P, John M, Mike, Scott R, Kelly, Cathy, Glenn, Rick, Luke
The games played were (winners first):
Loopin' Louie (multiple winners)
For those of you who don't know about this game yet - it's a simple kids game (in the same genre as Hungry Hungry Hippos et al) where each player is trying to protect his chickens. The chickens (OK they're really round tokens) are under attack from a circling airplane piloted by Loopin' Louie. During the course of the game, the plane goes around and around and each player has one small paddle located just before his chicken tokens that he can use to hit the plane and prevent it from hitting his chickens. Sound simple? It is (hence - it's a kids game), but still loads of fun. This game received perhaps the most response from the players, and people were always watching the games of Loopin' Louie being played from across the room. By the end of the night (and about 10
total plays of the game), we were getting quite adept at hitting Louie just right so he would just over one player's chickens and land directly upon the next player's tokens. A special thanks goes out to Scott T who provided some perfectly sized makeshift tokens for the game from his copy of "Twins". Definitely a 9 out of 10 (would be a 10, but is just a little too childish)
For Sale (*Dale, Kelly, Scott, John P)
As we were the first four together for gaming - having just finished 3 or 4 boisterous games of Loopin' Louie - we settled in for a quick card game to wait for the rest of the gamers. For Sale just came in from Germany in my latest order and this was the perfect chance to get it out. The game is essentially an auction game. The idea of the game is to get the most money. However, how you get the money is somewhat convoluted. The game starts by each player receiving 15 betting chips (each is worth $1 million). These chips are used to bid for buildings. In each round, a number of buildings equal to the number of
players is put face up on the table. These buildings have values from 1 to 20. Players bid, in turn, to try to acquire the highest numbered building. If the price becomes too steep, they drop out of the bidding, pay one-half of their current bid and take the lowest numbered building on the table. This continues until one player is left; this player must pay his entire bid and takes the
highest numbered building. There are 20 buildings total, so there were five rounds similar to this. Once each player had accumulated 5 buildings each, then you bid for the money (what you need to win the game). There are 20 money cards (ranging in value from 0 to 20 million). As in the previous round, a number of money cards equal to the number of players is placed face up on the table to be bid upon. But, instead of bidding with chips, this time you bid with your buildings. Each player secretly chooses one of his buildings and places it face down. When all players have chosen, the buildings are all turned face up. The highest numbered building wins the highest valued money card, the next highest building takes the next money card and so forth. Thus, how high of a building you will bid depends greatly on what money cards are available. Finally, after all the money cards are distributed, you total the amounts on the money cards and then add in 1 million for each betting chip you have left over from the first round. The player with the most is the winner.
In our game, I was lucky enough to win three buildings greater than 13 and this allowed me to win lots of good money cards. I was also quite lucky when my lowest card (I think it was a 6) still won me a money card of 7 or 8 million. Overall, a good quick game (about 15 minutes) that should get plenty of replays in the group. Rating right now 8 out of 10.
Drahtseilakt (*John P, John M, Luke, Scott)
I wasn't in this game, so I don't know the details, but this is a nice quick card game of balancing. Strangely enough, the title of this game roughly translates to "Tightrope". In this trick taking game, players play cards to win (or lose) tricks. There is one set of scoring cards that has a number on it. Each round, one of these is placed face up. Each player then simultaneously plays a card. Whomever has the highest card takes a number of red (positive) sticks as the number on the card. Whomever has the lowest card takes a number of blue (negative) sticks as the number on the card. This continues for 11 rounds until all of the scoring cards have been bid upon. At the end of this, players tally up their score. Each red stick cancels out a blue stick. The number of sticks remaining (either blue or red) is your score, and the lowest score wins. Other than knowing that John P was the winner, I know nothing else about this one.
Atlantic Star (*Dale, Cathy, Kelly, Glenn)
Next, we turned to this reworking of the classic OOP game "Showmanager". The rules are essentially the same, only the theme has changed. In this game, everyone is a director of a cruise ship line and is trying to construct the most appealing collection of cruises. This is done by collecting cards which represent the different legs of the journey. The catch in this game is how you collect these cards. There is a nice system of escalating costs used to get cards. You could take topmost card for free, or if you'd prefer, you could pay 1000, 2000, or 3000 dollars to choose one of the other three cards that you can see. While this sounds easy, it's quite hard to do well as you start the game with only 18000 dollars. Anyways, you collect cards, put together cruises and then you score points based on the cruise's relative rank against those cruises made by your opponents. Later in the game, you can borrow money against your already completed cruises, but this could jeopardize your final score as this could change your relative rank against your opponents' cruises. In this game, thanks to a few very very lucky card draws, I was able to construct a very valuable green cruise (which happened to be in the five-star - or highest
scoring - column) and squeaked away with a one-point victory over Cathy. Cathy probably would have won if she would/could have borrowed money against her already finished cruises. However, each time that she planned to do this, someone closed off the cruise by completing the final cruise of that type in the game! Glenn also made a quite respectable comeback after some early confusion with the rules - which no doubt have more to do with my inability to explain the rules elegantly than his skill. Still, this game was enjoyed by all. Rating 8 out of 10.
Traumfabrik (*Mike, Luke, John P, John M, Scott)
After finishing Tightrope, Mike R was finally able to make it. As such, that half of the group chose a nice game for five players - and the choice was Traumfabrik. This is a nice auction game by Knizia where you are the president
of a Hollywood movie studio and are trying to put together the best movies you can. You constuct your movies by putting together directors, actors, music, cameras, special effects, music and special guest stars into the movies. All of these different components are represented on different tiles. These tiles have different values (from 0 to 4 stars) for each of the components. During the course of the game, you bid on these tiles using "contracts". One of the neat systems in this game is that the money or contracts are a zero-sum
proposition. Each time someone wins an auction, the money is split up equally among the opponents who didn't win, thus ensuring that everyone will get a fair chance at bidding in the long run. This game is usually a favorite because the directors and actors are all real people, and there is usually much hilarity when someone uses Alfred Hitchcock to direct Bambi or when someone else has John Wayne as the lead actor in Frankenstein. Anyways, Mike ended up being the best movie maker in our group.
Royal Turf (*Glenn, Rick, Cathy, Kelly, Dale)
After Atlantic Star, we were looking for a quick game to pass the time until Traumfabrik was finished. We pulled out a quick Knizia game based on horse racing. In this game, each player secretly bids on 3 (out of 7) horses. Then, with the help of a die roll, each player takes turns moving one horse (each horse moves somewhat differently based on the die roll). There is some element of bluffing as you want to move the horses you have bet on forward, yet you don't want to make it so obvious that your opponents know for sure who you have bet on (as they would then try to stop that horse's progress). Due to time
constraints (actually because Traumfabrik finished sooner than we thought), we only played two rounds in this game instead of three. The game proved quite entertaining as Cathy always seemed to forget which horses she had actually bet on (making it difficult for her to effectively move her horses) and Rick seemed to always roll whatever die face he needed the least. While all this was happening, Glenn quietly snuck away with the win. But, this shouldn't come as a surprise; the people from Kentucky always seem to do well with the horse racing games! A nice light game - rating 7 out of 10.
Elchfest (*Mike, Luke)
This is a simple dexterity game that has really neat wooden bits. Essentially, in this game, each player is a moose. Each moose starts on different sides of an imaginary river. Then using wooden discs, he tries to make a bridge for his moose to cross this river. This quick game puts a premium on balance and good finger flicking skill. There is good opportunity for both offensive and defensive plays in this one. Mike proved the better flicker and walked away with this one.
Taj Mahal (*Mike, Dale, Luke, Scott)
Next we turned to yet another Knizia game, Taj Mahal. I hadn't played this one in over a year but have now played in twice in less than three weeks. I'm finding that I'm enjoying this one much more now that I did before. This is another auction game - this time you are trying to establish control over India - a very loosely pasted on theme. It has a unique auction mechanism where the
goal is often not the be the ultimate winner, but rather to know when to drop out of an auction when the conditions are most favorable for you to do so. Abstractly, each round involves six simultaneous auctions. On each players
turn, he can play cards which allow him to "bid" on at most three of the six auctions. At any time during the auction, you can withdraw. The key is that when you withdraw, if you are winning any of the six auctions at that time, you automatically win the auction and take the spoils. Therefore, a large part of the game is figuring out how to win what you want with as few cards used as
possible. But enough of the mechanics - in this game there were four (well really three) different strategies in place. Luke concentrated on winning the most he could with limited card play - his strategy was trying to take
advantage of the endgame bonus for the longest suit left in your hand at the end of the game. I think he managed a 22 point bonus at the end - by far the largest I'd ever seen! I tried my usual strategy of just going for the
elephant tokens and trying to get the largest commodity score possible. Mike, however, chose a strategy of trying to place as many temples as possible to link as many regions together as possible. At the end of the game, he had a string of 10 contiguous regions (out of 12 possible) - again, the largest I think I have ever seen! In the final analysis, Mike was the clear winner -about 20 points ahead of the rest of us who were nicely bunched together. Oh yeah, I said that there were four different strategies Scott had one of those moments that most gamers have when learning a new game. About 2/3 of the way through, the lightbulb over his head flashed on and he suddenly realized what he needed to do to win. However, this was about 2/3 of a game too late So we'll never really know what Scott had in mind, but I'm sure we'll find out the
next time we play this one!
Union Pacific (John M, Rick, John P, Glenn)
While we were struggling for control of India, the other four struck out to see who was best at piecing together railroads across the American countryside. This game is supposedly a reworking of Airlines which is very much like
Acquire. It is a shareholding game where you place tracks to expand different railroad lines and then you buy shares of stock in these railroad lines to try to take control of them. Points are given to those players who are in the
majority or 2nd place of the different railroad lines. The value of the railroad lines is also determined by the size of their rail system. Anyways,it is somewhat more complicated than that - but you should get the gist of the
game. At the end of this one, John M was victorious. He mentioned later to me that this was his favorite game of the night by far. Also, despite its tendency to be a "brain-burner", Glenn also said he enjoyed this one quite a lot.
Stimmt So! (*Mike, Dale, Luke, Cathy)
After Taj Mahal, we dove into this quick little Dirk Henn card game as UP was not yet halfway over. This game is also a shareholding game - but how you take control of your shares is much different. In this game, you use money of four different denominations to buy shares in seven different countries. Based on stock market a share is sold in, you have to use matching currency to purchase
it. Each turn, players have the choice of either buying shares from the board (assuming they have enough money in the right currency) or drawing a money card from the board to increase their hand/wealth. This game gives a nice balance between buying stock and choosing money cards from the board. Since you usually can't do both actions in a turn, you sometimes have to choose between buying a stock or waiting on it for a round and hoping it is still there on your next turn so you can pick up an especially valuable money card. The one exception to this rule is that if you are able to pay for a share exactly, you
get another turn immediately. Sometimes, this leads to people picking up very low-valued money cards in order to set up these exact-change purchases and the concomitant free turn. In our game, Mike showed unbelievable skill in buying shares with exact change only. As such, he had many more shares than the rest of us and walked away with an easy victory. This game is somewhat luck prone
as Cathy was continually stymied by having to choose from predominantly poor money cards each turn making it hard for her to buy expensive shares. Still, one of my favorite games. 9 out of 10.
Carolus Magnus (*John P, Glen, Rick)
As we redistributed ourselves, Rick wanted to get out one of his favorites for
three, Carolus Magnus. This game involves taking possession of little wooden bits and using them to take control of territories on the board. The game uses
a neat system of interlocking cards for the territories - when you control adjacent territories, you are able to physically combine them into one larger territory (which is then harder to take over as you now have many more of your own pieces in the territory). The one sticky part to the game is that the colors of the pieces that you can take is determined by a die roll. Some people don't like this element of luck, but I don't really mind. Anyways, this game proved to be a typical game that I've seen - there were many early battles and much time was spent pondering what move would be best to make. Then, in
the endgame, a series of battles quickly merged multiple territories into one giant territory signaling the end of the game. At the end of this one, John P was victorious. This is all the more amazing considering that the players all reported that John really had control of only one of the five colors for most of the game!
Metro (*Dale, Luke, Mike, John M)
While Carolus was going on, we set upon the task of making the most convoluted Parisian subway lines that we could. In this nice tile laying game, each player gets an equal number of subway cars to control. Each turn, players
place tiles with train tracks on the board. The goal is to have the most convoluted train lines possible for your trains because scoring is basically one point per each tile that the train track crosses. Additionally, if your
train line goes from the outside of the board to one of the stations in the interior, you get a bonus of double the score for that particular train line. This game moved along fairly quickly as we played the Basic Version (where you can only place tiles in one orientation - thus reducing the possible plays of each tile from four to one). John M and myself were trailing for most of the
game, but this was primarily because we had not yet had many of our trains scored yet. While Luke and Mike were slugging it out (and closing off each others' train lines), we quietly plodded away extending our own lines and closing off our opponent's when possible. By the end of the game, Luke and Mike were forced into playing tiles down for our trains, even when the plays were advantageous for us. As such, we leaped ahead with some high scoring
lines. In the end, I was ahead of John for the win. Good fun - but somewhat dizzying when you stare at the spaghetti junction of train lines for 45 minutes! 8 out of 10.
Evo (*Dale, Luke, Mike, John M, John P)
By this time, the group was thinning out as it was quite late (about 1 AM). But we decided to stick it out and fight for evolutionary supremacy in Evo. This game has each player taking on a species of dinosaur and trying to use their survival skills as well as their gene acquisition to become the prominent species. I took my usual yellow bird-like species which I used to call a
Pteradon. I'll however have to rename it as I recently learned that there is another birdlike dinosaur with the much cooler name of Bambiraptor. Anyways, John P and John M seemed to take the early lead in this game by virtue of
winning the mutant pickles early on. This gene doesn't do anything specific to your dino, but it does help in later auctions by reducing the cost of the auctions won by one point. This is important because in this game, you pay for the gene auctions with your victory points. Mike had plenty of great genes on his board but was not winning early on because he was paying seemingly astronomical sums for the genes he won. Dale and Luke didn't seem like they
were doing anything because they weren't winning many auctions. Though they therefore had less advanced dinosaurs, they were also in the lead as they had spent much fewer victory points in the auctions. The turning point of the game probably came when Mike played a card which flipped the climate around. As many of us were planning for a turn where the climate would most likely go to the brown section, Mike's card play made the climate end up in the desert-like yellow section (where all dinos in the brown territories would automatically die!). This wiped out many dinosaurs, most significantly John P's poor
Stegasauri which only had 2 dinos survive the heat wave. The game went on until the comet struck the planet, and Luke had a one point lead after the final scoring. But in a cruel twist of fate, a card which I won in an auction
(over Luke no less) for one measly point, gave me a two point bonus at the end of the game. This bonus was enough to take the one point victory. While this was great for me because I won, it pointed out the biggest flaw in the game for me - there is too much power in the cards (over which you have only Lady Luck to thank for your selection). I enjoy playing this one, but would likely never choose to play it. I don't like games that have a lot of strategy (over 90 minutes no less) that can have your entire plan overturned by one card late in the game. A 5 out of 10 (for me).
Ra (*John M, Luke, John P, Dale)
Well, the group thinned out even more as Mike felt he had to go home at 2:15 (weakling) As it looked like others were getting ready to leave (namely John M), we all decided to play one more. John P wanted to play Ra as he owned it but had not yet had a chance to play it first hand. This is yet another Knizia auction game (bringing the total for the night to 3!) where you collect tiles
to score the most points in ancient Egypt. While John P, Luke and myself were paying too much for not enough tiles, John M quietly collected monument after monument. In the end scoring, he took command by having not only 7 different monuments but also 2 different 3-of-a-kinds (I think). Anyways, much fun - but I think some of the decision making was suspect due to the late hour - we
didn't finish until 3:45 AM! Anyways, after this one was over (8 hours after we started), it was time for everyone to go home and me to get a few hours of sleep before my toddler woke up. Thanks again to everyone for showing up! February 9th, 2002 (Hosted by John Palagyi) Gamers in attendance: Jeff, John, Luke, Mike
The eveinging's game program with the winner. Since I'm writing this everyone else tied for second (or I'll get depressed seeing how I did).
Don (Luke)
Taj Mahal (John)
Vom Kap Bis Kairo (Luke)
Power Puff Girls: Villians at Large (Luke)
Atlantis: Paths of the Deep (Mike)
Adel Verpflichtet (Luke)
Attila (Mike)
More details to come when I have time.
Now (4/28) I have some time, if I only had the memory!
Luke won every game he suggested we play, what's up with that?!
Power Puff Girls and Atlantis were $2.00 specials from Kay-B Toys. They are almost, but not quite there games, but for $2 (or for kids), I couldn't resist.
Between the four of us, we had 1/2 game experience in Taj Mahal, but that didn't stop us. I won a squeaker over Mike (1 or 2 points, I can't remember), who began building palace chains and hasn't stopped since.
Respectfully submitted, JP January 25, 2002 (Hosted by Scott and Cheryl Tullis) Gamers in attendance: Scott and Cheryl, Dale Yu, Mike Rosal, John Palagyi, Jeff Finkeldey, Lucas Hedgren, and Dave Ehlers
Games played (winner listed first):
Urland (Cheryl, Scott, Lucas, Dave)
I can't remember who won, but it was someone with legs or muscles or something
Web of Power (Dale, John, Jeff)
EBay Auction Game (Dale, John, Jeff, Mike)
Atlantic Star (Dale, John, Lucas, Mike, Scott, Cheryl)
Axis and Allies (Dave and Jeff)
Rise of the Luftwaffe (Dave and Jeff)
HamsterRolle (John, Lucas, Mike, Cheryl)
Last Chance (Dale, John, Lucas, Mike, Scott, Cheryl)
Mr. President (Dave and Dale)
Union Pacific (Cheryl, John, Scott, Lucas, Mike, Jeff)
Nicht de Bohne (Cheryl, John, Scott, Lucas, Mike, Jeff)
Details:
Urland (Cheryl, Scott, Lucas, Dave)
I can't remember who won, but it was someone with legs or muscles or something like that. Someone send me an update on what happened.
Web of Power (Dale, John, Jeff)
Got in a quick game of this favorite of mine. Somehow, I still get surprised by the lack of alliances between Schwabia and its neighbors (not with Italy nor with Lothringen). I won due to some lucky advisor placements. I managed to win by using my most-recent-favorite strategy of winning the cloisters in France and then placing advisors wherever I can. I think one of the reasons
that I like this game so much is that in my 25 games or so of this one, I still haven't found one single optimal strategy. It is this variance of possible winning strategies that keeps me coming back to try it again to see if I can figure it out. Jeff's first time at the game proved to be quite good as he came in a strong second.
EBay Auction Game (Dale, John, Jeff, Mike)
Nice little $4.99 game - we sadly had much fun with the little computer yelling out when we could play. There are 3 objects for bid at any given time, and the computer just spits out colors at random. If your color is announced, you have 4 seconds to make a bid on an item (if you want to). At the end of each round (of about 30 total), the computer will decide if any auctions are complete. If
any are, whomever has the highest bid wins the item. Each item has an actual value that can be either the same, above or below the estimated value. At the end of the game, you total up the actual value of all of your auction winnings.
If you manage to collect three things in the same group, all their values are doubled. I think John won this one as he had sets of 3 in at least two different colors. Pretty good light fun for a filler. Total time about 30 minutes including an in-depth review of the rules (all 4 of them).
Atlantic Star (Dale, John, Lucas, Mike, Scott, Cheryl)
The bulk of the group then moved on to Atlantic Star, the new re-release of Showmanager by Dirk Henn. Quite fun - and basically the same game as Showmanager other than one small rule change (you can have 2 extra cards left over when you "produce" your last cruise instead of 1). Anyways, in this card game, you have to construct the best cruise lines to win, and I can't remember who won but I think it was Scott or Cheryl. Someone please fix my memory!
Scott and John tied - memory fixed by JP.
Axis and Allies (Dave and Jeff)
In this game between two veterans, Dave (the Axis) triumphed over Jeff. I don't have any more details other than that.
Rise of the Luftwaffe (Dave and Jeff)
This is a neat (and surprisingly quick for something produced by GMT) game which pits two airforces against each other. I only saw glimpses of the game, but it appeared to be card-based and pretty quick to pick up. I don't even
know who won this dogfight.
HamsterRolle (John, Lucas, Mike, Cheryl)
Time for a quick dexterity game as we waited for the wargames to end. After a quick rules recap, the game was underway. Mike came away with a close victory with Cheryl close behind. It will likely be forever uncertain if a certain crease in the table cover helped anyone as it took us 2 or 3 turns to realize that this crease stopped the Hamsterrolle from rolling
Last Chance (Dale, John, Lucas, Mike, Scott, Cheryl)
With the wargame almost over, time for one more quick dicefest. Last Chance is a game that combines elements of Yahtzee with betting. It's pretty fun (unless you're like Dale and Mike and tend to bet the farm way to early and put
yourself out of the game). There are 2 bets to be had each round (of seven total rounds). First, you can make a bet to try to roll the dice pattern on a card within the alloted number of rolls. If you successfully do this, you win the card and amount printed on the card (between $1500 and $4500). Second, if you're not rolling, you can bet up to $1000 on whether you think the roller will succeed or not. The winner is whomever has the most money at the end of the game AS LONG AS you also have one card in your hand (i.e. were successful rolling at least once). John ended winning this one rather handily.
Mr. President (Dave and Dale)
To round out the night, I talked Dave into a game of one of my old 3M favorites. In retrospect, my memory of the game was probably better than the reality of the game. In a somewhat lopsided battle, the Republicans (me) won the election after the Democrats conceded even counting the ballots after it was discovered that I had visited 36 states and Dave had only been to 23. I think that my 3 major press endorsements seemed to skew the balance of this
game too much. Again, fun but not that fun.
Union Pacific (John, Scott, Cheryl, Lucas, Mike, Jeff)
I think Cheryl won this, but I don't know much else.
Nicht de Bohne (John, Scott, Cheryl, Lucas, Mike, Jeff)
I think Cheryl won this, but I don't know much else.
That's it! Thanks again to Scott and Cheryl for hosting!
Dale October 5, 2001 (Hosted by Matt Gardner) Gamers in attendance: Matt G, John P, Dave E, Rick V
Games played (winner listed first):
Wyatt Earp (Dave, John, Matt)
Carcassonne (John, Matt, Dave, Rick)
Citadels (Matt, Rick, Dave, John)
Chrononauts (Rick, John, Matt)
Chrononauts (Matt, John, Rick)
Mystery Rummy #2, Rue Morgue (John, Matt) July 6, 2001 (Hosted by Matt Gardner) Gamers in attendance: Matt G, Scott, Dale, Mike
Games played (winner listed first):
Bali (Matt, Scott, Dale, Mike)
Settlers / Alexander (Scott, Matt, Dale, Mike)
Carat (Dale, Matt, Scott, Mike)
Marra Cash (Scott, Matt, Dale, Mike)
Lost Cities (Dale, Matt)
June 9, 2001 (Hosted by Dave Ehlers) Gamers in attendance: Dave Ehlers, Matt Gardner, Rick Vonder Brink
Games played (winners names listed first):
Carolus Magnus: Rick, Matt, Dave
Carolus Magnus: Dave, Rick, Matt
Torres: Matt, Rick, Dave
May 18, 2001 (Hosted by Scott Tullis) Gamers in attendance: Scott Tullis, Cheryl Tullis, Mike Rosal, Matt Gardner, Dale Yu, Dave Ehlers.
Games played (winners names listed first):
Tendix - Scott & Matt. Foamy rubber squares!!
Medina - Matt, Scott, Mike, and Dave. Matt and Scott share the victory in this game of city building.
Kohl, Kie$, and Knete - Dale, Matt, Cheryl, Dave, Scott, and Mike. Dale is the best dealer in this game of big cutthroat deals. Three-way tie for second place.
Liars Dice - Dave, Mike, Matt, Dale, Cheryl, and Scott. Dave proves to be the best liar!
Nicht Die Bohne - Dale, Mike, Matt, Scott, and Dave. Dale wins the "mean bean game".
San Marco - Matt, Mike, Cheryl, and Scott. Very close game. Matt ends up with the biggest piece of pie in the game of pie splitting.
April 28, 2001 (Hosted by Dale Yu) The gamers at this session were Dale Yu, Dave Stultz, Shelly Stultz, Mike Rosal, Chase Bramwell, Greg Doherty, and Matt Gardner.
Games played: Elchfest, Metro, Evo, Ra, San Marco, Metro (again), Aladdin's Dragons, Politics and Dirty Tricks (Dale's prototype) March 23, 2001 (Hosted by Rick Vonder Brink) Gamers in attendance: Rick Vonder Brink, Dale Yu, Mike Rosal, Matt Gardner
Games played: Star Wars: Queen's Gambit, Ra, Onhe Furcht und Adel, (others?) March 2, 2001 (Hosted by Matt Gardner) Gamers attending: Matt Gardner, Dale Yu, Scott Tulis, Tony Jones, Dave Ehlers, Mike Rosal, Rodney Varner, plus one person I have forgotten (Sorry!)
Games played: Onhe Furcht und Adel, Bohnanza, Tikal, Frank's Zoo, Wildlife Adventure, Princes of Florence, (others?) February 19, 2001 (hosted by Dale Yu) A very very impromptu meeting. Dale and Rick got together for a quick game of Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit. Dale was the Trade Federation and gamely fought off Rick from Naboo. The game started out rather even with Rick taking the early offensive inside the Palace and getting Anakin thru the first three stages early. However, with some good card draws, Dale quickly took control of the Jedi battle (managing to defeat both QuiGon and ObiWan) as well as stonewalling Anakin with a multitude of Starfighter cards. The balance of power quickly shifted and Dale started to pick off the Palace Guards one by one leading to eventual victory. February 11, 2001 (report from other gaming group) coming soon February 9, 2001 (hosted by Scott Tullis) For the records, games played were:
Rosenkonig
(Matt 180ish Scott 50ish)
In this battle for land control, Matt took the early lead by setting up a large contiguous mass of his markers in the middle of the board. (If you haven't played before, your score is based on the number of contiguous tokens you have _squared_). Scott tried to make a quick comeback, but Matt cleverly pinned Scott in the corner of the board causing Scott to have to pass a few turns as he was not able to find any legal plays. Anyways, I don't remember the exact scores, but suffice it to say that Matt's largest land mass scored more than all of Scott's territories put together.
Lord of the Rings
(Matt, Mike, Dale, and Scott lost to Sauron at 52pts)
Everything was going well in this cooperative game until the final board. The players had all cooperated well to pass most of the challenges faced in the first three boards. They had even managed to make it thru a small snafu when they passed out the wrong special action cards. Then, on the final board, Mike (who usually has good luck with cards) managed to draw an unholy number of sundial tiles in a row causing mass destruction to the poor Hobbits. If memory serves me right, the Hobbits had to endure four events before they took their first step on the main pathway for the board. This abrupt ending left some (well, at least me) with a pretty hollow feeling.
Drahtseilakt AKA Tightrope
Mike beats Dale, Matt, Scott, Cheryl/Amanda - no scores
Mike (who has a general prowess at all card games) quickly took the lead in this quicky/quircky card game and never looked back. Basically, this game is a trick taking game where positive points are awarded to the player who plays the highest ranked card and negative points given to the player with the lowest ranked card. Positive and negative points will cancel each other out so you have to balance your positive points with your negatives. After the three rounds in the game, Mike was in the lead (with a sizable margin).
Medici
Scott beats Dale, Matt, Mike, Cheryl, Tony - no scores
This simple bidding game got underway with the two newbies (Dale and Tony) pushing the bidding up way too far for the cards. At the end of the first round, Dale had managed to bid himself all the way down to 0 points (and didn't even have the 30 pt bonus in hand yet!). As the game progressed, Scott took a commanding lead after the second round as he had already managed to start collecting the bonus for being at the top of the Green pyramid.
Onhe Furcht und Adel
Scott over Dale, Matt, Mike, Cheryl, Tony
There was much interest in trying this game with more players as we had just played it with three players earlier in the weekend. The game did not disappoint, and the addition of the Assassin character to the game made for an even better game. While Mike and Tony appeared to be in the early lead (each had 6 or 7 buildings built out of the 8 needed), the other players ganged up on them which allowed Scott (again) to slip in and finish the city first. As has been the case in the other games I've seen, the four point bonus proved to be the difference again as Scott narrowly edged out Dale (who only had five buildings built but all of high value).
Nicht Die Bohne (The evil bean game!!!)
Scott over Dale, Matt, Mike, Cheryl, Tony - no scores
In this rather evil variant of the Bohn card game genre - the object of the game is to score the most points while avoiding the bad cards which can make your scores go to zero or even negative. At the end of 3 (of 4) rounds, Matt and Mike were separating themselves from the other four players with Scott firmly in 3rd place. As bottom three decided to gang up on Matt and Mike as they were in the lead, Scott slipped ahead in the final round to take the victory.
Showmanager
Cheryl over Matt, Mike, Tony, and Scott
In this game, you try to "cast" actors for roles in four big shows. The actors all have different point values which in turn make your plays more or less valuable. The catch is that you only have a limited number of cards that you can have in your hand before you have to put on a production. This can at times limit your options! You choose cards in a unique system. Four cards are placed face up on a ladder. You can have the lowest card for free or buy cards further up the ladder for 1000, 2000 or 3000 bucks. The catch here is that you have a very limited amount of money, so you can't always buy the cards you want. For 2000 bucks you could also choose to replace all four faceup cards with new ones hoping to find the right card for you. Anyways, you cast your shows and score points according to how powerful or popular your actors are. The better your shows are, the more points you score. At the end of this game, Cheryl was in a commanding lead as she had the best performance in two of the four shows and was second place in the other two. January 20, 2001 (Hosted by Dave Ehlers) Onhe Furcht und Adel
DaveE over MattG and Dale
In this remake of "Verrater" you try to build the most prestigious city. To do this, you are able to take the roles of different people during each turn. Each different role has special abilities that you can hopefully use to your advantage to build your city. At first, it seemed like the game would not be suited well for 3 (it is meant for 3-8 players), but as the game progressed, there was as much tension in this game as in any other I've played in a long time. This game basically boiled down to a battle between MattG and DaveE over who could build the 10th and final city district. DaveE won the race (barely) and, with the bonus he received for finishing first, won the game.
Settlers: Cities and Knights
Dale over MattG and DaveE
In this new variant for Settlers of Catan many new rules and mechanisms are added in to the basic Settlers mix. (Too many to explain now). Suffice it to say that it makes the game much more complex (took us about 2hrs to play) and much less friendly (there are definitely more ways to screw your opponents over in this game than in regular Settlers). This was the first time playing the game for any of the players, so no one seemed to have a good initial strategy. Also, DaveE was basically pushed out of the game by a relatively long string of rolls where he didn't produce anything. At the end of the game, Dale had snuck ahead.
Onhe Furcht und Adel
DaveE over Dale and MattG
As time was running short, we opted for one more game of this soon to be group favorite. DaveE again took early control and did not look back. He finished his city first again and needed the four point bonus dearly as he won by one point over Dale and two over Matt. January 3, 2001 (Hosted by Dale Yu) Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit
Dale (light) beats Brian
In this clever war/card game, two players take on the roles on good (Anakin, Queen Amidala, Obi Wan, Qui Gon, et al) vs. evil (Darth Maul, the masses of Droids, et al) to relive the final scenes of Star Wars Episode I. The game ends when either the good guys take control of the Throne Room in the Palace (need to have at least 3 people in the room) or when the bad guys kill enough good guys in the palace so that they can't take control of the Throne room. The board is split up into four different areas - 1) the outside battlefield where the Gungans fight the Droids, 2) the Space battle where Anakin tries to blow up the ship that controls the Droids, 3) the reactor core where Darth Maul has his deathmatch with Qui Gon and Obi Wan, and 4) the Palace Threed where Queen Amidala (and her doppleganger) attempt to regain control of the Palace. Play is controlled thru the use of two decks of cards. One deck allows play in either the outside battlefield or the space battlefield while the other allows play in either the Palace or the Reactor core. You have to choose your cards wisely because you need to balance your progress in all four battles in order to succeed overall. In this first game, Dale managed to get Anakin to the Droid control ship (rendering all the Droids useless) and effectively won the game.
Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit
Brian (light) beats Dale
As above, except this time, Brian managed to get Anakin to the Control ship just before Dale could kill the last few palace guards. Another victory for the good guys. |
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