Roads and Boats being reprinted

I am a fan of economic games, delivery games, tradings games, and their ilk. Acquire, Die Handler, Hansa, Motley Fool Buy Low Sell High, Traders of Genoa are all in my collection, and although rarely played, I will break them out whenever I have a chance.

One of the kings of this genre, and also of the "monster game" category, is Roats and Boats, by Splotter Spellen.

Out of print for some time, this game is going for $285 on eBay as we speak, and I've heard of it being sold for more. Rated 58 right now on the 'Geek, it is a 1-4 player, 4 hour economic beast that I would love to get my hands on!

Word is, it's finally being reprinted - check out this article on Boardgamenews. Supposedly to be shipped in June, no word on pricing yet - I will post when I hear anything. Check out the Boardgamegeek review of this bad boy, it looks awesome.

New players, fresh perspectives

My wife's nephew and niece stayed with us last week for a few days. Nicholas is 15, and Shelby 13(?), and of course I had to introduce them to some new games...

We played Alhamra, Railroad Tycoon, and Tigris and Euphrates card game once. Starfarers of Catan, we played three times.

Alhambra was excellent, I wish we had more time for it. A close game, we played with Grayson and everyone was riveted to each play. They took it really serious, and it showed in a tight game.

Railrooad Tycoon I played with Nick. and it was a blast. I lost by a single point, chosing the Northeast and building South and the West across the mountains to Pittsburgh, then Toledo and Chicago. Nick won in the SE and then out of Chicago and some key links in the South. He did a much better job claiming special victory point cards than I, and limited his borrowing to only one share to my three. Really enjoyed this one, looking forward to playing it with Kevin and our Northampton group.

Tigris and Euphrates was a bust I'd say, Nick was not to interested in the theme, we played it out but he didn't enjoy it and because of that neither did I. One problem with it that I see, is the space required equals that of the regular game! One of the advantages of any card game should be space reduction, this one requires a full table to set up 8 long columns of cards.

Starfarers was a bit of a surprise, as neither Nick or Shelby seem to have any love of sci-fi in their background - I thought the "garrish" bits and tacky theme would be a turn off. As it turns out, they went each of three different nights, Nick winning twice, and myself once. Grayson had a blast (so to speak) building maximum cannons on his ships, and Shelby and I generally raced to the different trade spots, and attempted to corner the market on the aliens. Nick cleverly snatched one from me to win the first game, and conquered the pirates and ice planets in the second (the first time I've seen anyone bother with these) for the extra VP's needed to win.

In third game, I finally figured out the necessity of getting to the aliens first, and then stealing one or two away from other players to come from behind. A balanced strategy, and playing for second place most of the game are strategies to often work in regular Settlers, and was the same here.

My big complaint with Starfarers are the pieces - I believe 3 of the 4 spaceship models all have their clips broken, so no boosters can be added. A fourth ship has it's top snapped off. For someone who takes good care of his games, this can be maddening!

While I am at it, it looks like I a missing a white building tile from Alhambra after our last Gathering (large groups are always hard on your games), and this will probably ruin it for me. :)

Origins '06: Wham and Knizia

I attended two large gaming conventions back in 1989 and 1990. Gencon (held in Milwaukee, WI) and Origins (a traveling convention hosted in Atlanta that year) were big events, with hundreds of games, demos, and a excellent dealer tables.

The big allure for me at the time, though, was the annual Star Fleet Battles tournament, which I did fairly well in both times. I made it to the "sweet-16" in the 128 player Captain's Tournament, a single-elimination affair, in 1990. I flew a Kzinti tournament cruiser and won the first three rounds, defeating a Klingon, Federation, and Tholian ship. I lost to an amazing Wyn player, who successfully bluffed me into dodging his first two plasma torpedoes and then ran me down with the real thing in the corner of the board, pointed in the wrong direction. But that's another story...

The reason for this post is to mention to of my favorite game designers, Renier Knizia and Tom Wham will be appearing as guest speakers at Origins '06 in Columbus, Ohio, June 29th-July 2nd.

Renier of course is know for the awesome Tigris and Euphrates, and Tom Wham for the great File 13 and Awful Green Things From Outer Space (pictured above).

Things learned at GOF 4

We had a lot of fun at our last Gathering of Friends, and in letting time pass a bit I've had a chance to reflect on what went really well at our event, and what could be improved...

What went well
I've written before about diversity in the types of gamers, and it continues to be a strong point in these events. There are several reasons, perhaps most of all that new players are required to keep the boardgame culture going! People move away, get married, get new jobs, and otherwise become too busy to attend, and recruiting new folks is necessary to account for attrition.

Another reason to have a variety of gamer types in some of your events is to make sure that families are included. They form the support group, and nothing really gets done on a regular basis if they're not included. It is also good because friends find opportunities to socialize differently than their normal routine.

The tournament format is certainly different for most of us. I like it because it gives each game more meaning, and players tend to take it a little more seriously. For those who have been honing their skills in certain games for years, they can then match them with comparable players to benchmark their progress. Those not as competitive will find that their games are of better quality, and they will learn strategies that they would not perhaps get to see in a single session once a year or more.

Different game types, from 2-player abstract, to word games, to dexterity, to those with the heaviest German game mechanics, all make for a fun time. It forces players away from their favorites, and yet rewards those with well-rounded experience. It also gives a chance for players to actually play their favorites, as not everyone wants to play Power Grid or Puerto Rico all the time. Many of our newer gamers have really no depth of gaming experiences to draw on, so even many of the classic two-player games are new for them.

What could be improved?
The tournament scoring was way too much for our group. I put a lot of thought into the points system, and tried to make an incentive to play for 2nd when first was not possible. I also made a big deal about each player scoring their own day, with an individual score sheet for everyone to record their progress, and also to serve as a record of the event. Most thought the scoresheets were cool, but only 1 or 2 people took the time to actually record their games in any detail.

I received feedback that it would have been much simpler to just give everyone a point for a win, and then build a playoff for the top 4-5 players at the end of the event. Would be much simpler, and accomplish the same thing. I'll ditch the individual score sheet next time.

continued...

Caylus online

Played first game of Caylus online, using Brettspielwelt (BSW). Impressions?

Like PR, Settlers, Carcassone, and other online incarnations of famous boardgames, there are a few benefits to playing with the computer. Low setup time (effectively zero except for match-making), no bumped tables disrupting the pieces, quick and accurate scoring, and limited table talk are the main ones I can think of.

Another huge benefit, of course is time. Generally online games cut the play time down by 2/3rds or so, based on my experience. I can play a 3-player game of Settlers in about 20 minutes, when it's typically an hour face-to-face (ftf) unless you are really hurrying.

Since my first game of Caylus took about 2.5 hours, and we expect that to come down to about 1/2 hour per player, my online expectations were for about 45 minutes for a 4-player game.

Well, I lost my first game online (pretty handily too), and it took just over 60 minutes to play a 3-player game. Wow. This means there is only a reduction of about 1/3rd off of play time online, making Caylus perhaps one of the longest boardgames online (I have not played Power Grid online, but suspect it is also just as long).

On Friday (what you would expect to be a big BSW night) I was looking to join a Caylus game, and one did not start in the hour I was waiting (alt-tabbing to Firefox every couple of minutes). With such a LONNNNG play-time, you could get in 3-games of Settlers, 1.5 games of PR, 20 games of Lost Cities, etc.

My concern about Caylus then, continues to be time.

Some things I enjoyed about my game online, and new discoveries?

There are several strategies that were employed that were fascinating to watch. The winning player owned almost all of the grey buildings, for example. He purchased half of them (it seemed) with favors which he had received from clever hosting of tournaments, and timely castle builds for favors as well. He generated so many victory points from this, along with his 1 cube of "rent" from the 2-blue+1-pink and 2-grey+1blue buildings, that his lead was insurmountable. He also demolished money generating buildings, to prevent us from easy picks.

Caylus arrives: First Impressions

Updated, 7:00pm (added a new paragraph, and a few sentences to clarify my opinion a bit).

Caylus finally arrived, and Doug was kind enough to host an evening of it last Friday. Kevin, Caleb, Doug and myself spent around 45 minutes learning the rules from Kevin, and about 2.5 hours playing our first game. My initial thoughts?

Length: It was longish. The game says "60-150" minutes on the side of the box, which equates to about 30 minutes per player (it can be played with 2-5). Two hours for a 4-player game doesn't sound like much, but it is actually somewhat long for a German game. I can't help but compare Caylus to Puerto Rico for many reasons, and PR played by 4 experienced players should not be longer than 90 minutes. Granted, it was a learning game for us, so we probably took significantly longer than necessary to make our moves.

However, there are many more options in each turn than their are in PR. Over half the time in PR, your moves are obvious, as you can eliminate choices very easily, and narrow down your role picks to 2 or 3 within a few seconds. Then, by examining your opponents positions, you can usually make your choice from there.

In Caylus, there can potentially be more than a dozen potential plays each turn, and with up to six pawns to place on the board in the placement phase, there are many more things to consider. One might argue that many choices work out to be of equal value. But when fighting against equally skilled opponents, searching for the tiniest advantage can really slow the game down, and I don't see how this can really be cut down much. One play is not enough to judge entirely, for sure. But the length of the game could be a concern.

Components. Beautiful board, nice wooden bits, well illustrated manual, box and buildings. Nothing new or original in terms of construction, we've see the pawns in Power Grid, Settlers, Tikal, etc. and the building tiles are the same type of cardboard seen in Alhambra or Carcassone. But still a pleasure, and the board would look great framed and on a wall (my personal standard for excellence in map art).

Theme. Winner here, the medieval theme fits the mechanics well, and seems to have a universal feel. The individual buildings seem somewhat generic, despite the differences in power and value. Illustrations on the tiles were fine, but did not stand out to me. Perhaps if the names of the buildings were on the cards, it would make communication after and before the game a little easier. As a "construction game", they seem to be always popular, and the different roles the buildings and actions play into this nicely, as one builds strength over time.

Balance. Yes, was extremely well balanced, as all choices are open to all players, and the ability to bid for play position (although an extremely artificially game mechanism) made the game very very agonizing, in a good way. I get the feeling after the first play that there will be perhaps dozens of games that will need to be played before the best strategies are worked out, and like PR, they may never be! Game lends itself immensely to expansions, as well...

Interaction. Some debate could be made that the game can be played in a vacuum, as it is impossible to plan your moves in advance (except perhaps when working towards a high-priced prestige building towards the end of the game). With no hidden information, you can simply "play the board", examine what each opponent can do, and select an action that limits their ability and maximizes yours. There is no need for communication between players, no negotiation mechanism.

Pushing the "thief" or "provost" around to block other players actions could be discussed and debate among players, but it is questionable whether this constitutes table talk. The lack of interaction between the players is the same in Puerto Rico, and it didn't bother me, so it's hard to criticize the game here. Perhaps in a 90-minute game of PR, the interaction is less of an issue.

To play a 2+ hour game of Caylus, with no need to communicate with other players...? Power Grid and Princes of Florence handles this through competitive auctions. Settlers through Trading. Mare Nostrum through trading and negotiation.

Fun. Yes, it was fun taking the turns, activating the buildings, moving the provost, and trying to make different strategies work out. I decided up front to sacrifice my early game chances by cornering the market on a couple of hot buildings, made myself cash poor and vulnerable for several turns. By passing, other players cut down my number of actions due to expense, and I had to spend valuable turns generating a money strategy. Once I did this however, I was able to control the board more, landing the valuable "1-1" space that kept my costs down, and keeping it. I was also able to move to first place in turn order late in the game and controlled the tempo from there, landing the 25-point prestige building and winning by a large margin.

Kevin chose to pursue a strategy based on favors in the early and middle stages, and converted to a "big-prestige" building late. Doug attempted to use cash to buy his VP's, and Caleb appeared to be trying to corner gold for a while. It was a great time discussing all the strategies during the post mortem, and I look forward to playing a few of them myself next time.

Agonizing decisions are generally always a fun part of any game - and Caylus delivered a lot of those. My only concern is that with a 2-hour time frame to play, will it drag on too long for players in last place? Will the lack of interaction during this time make the game feel too much like solitaire? Does this matter? (It doesn't in PR). More plays (which I definitely hope to get in) will tell the story for sure.

I can definitely see why Caylus is currently ranked in the top 3 games in the world right now.