Ludocracy Now

I got Jake back into the gaming fold today and despite his hangover I made him spar with me on the Aegean for a game of Antike Duellum.  We both were very well pleased with the quick tempo of the game and once as our civilizations started expanding and producing impressive amounts of resources the game become very enjoyable.  I did manage one final big assault to raze a Grecian temple and claim my ninth personage for the win.

Next, we dealt out two games of Innovation without any expansions.  I wanted to get back to my Innovation roots before the 2nd expansion arrives this week.  I’m finally realizing the power of sharing crummy dogmas in order to ruin my opponents position and gain a card draw for sharing.  I jumped out to an early achievement lead the first match but Jake caught up by tech-ing ahead quickly and snatching up achievements before I could even reach the age.  I did, however, manage a fantastic “tuck six” turn to claim the monument victory and the win.

Second game I again had a great early point engine and a hugely lucky Physics dogma to take the tech lead in addition to point supremacy.  The rest, as they say, is herstory.

Finally we finished up with a ~90 point game of Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game with me as the Imperials and Jake as the rebel scum.  My unfocused tactics and flying Darth Vader off of the map and into oblivion were not only painful to experience but also game losingly bad.  Jake won with barely taking any damage.

New game and new Star Wars ships?  All of a sudden I’m glad the Packers didn’t play today*.

*I’m not glad.

Gaming Streak = 2… He’s heating up!

I sent out the APB for some afternoon gaming yesterday and caught a beleaguered law student with my line.

Innovation x 2

Jake and I played our two longest games of Innovation with the expansion.  I don’t know if that’s a sign that we are getting better or getting worse but we were happy to at least get up to the level 7 and 8 techs.  I won the first game and only cheated (inadvertently) three times.  So I think that still counts.

Even though I’ve played this game 17 times, I still feel like I’m not being creative enough with my play.  I just look for an early point engine and if I don’t get it, I’m pretty lost until something slaps me in the face.  The game is still a wild ride even with my uninspiring play.  And even when I lost in the 2nd game it was a good time.  I was trying to be too cute and trying to snag only special achievements as Jake was running away with the score.  Turns out that is a bad strategy to follow.

Summoner Wars Swamp Orcs def Jungle Elves

Jake might know that there aren’t actually lions in jungles but he doesn’t know how to play this game very well.  I think he’s something like 0-7 in this game.  I hope it has more to do with him summoning too many commons than him being unable to focus on the positioning aspects of the game.

I say this because Star Wars X-Wing is coming soon and he would be a fantastic opponent for this.  He says he’s excited even though the game operates in one fewer dimension than he would prefer.  (If they develop a 3D expansion I’d buy it.) Hopefully he’ll have more success in X-Wing than he does in Itharia.

Amazons x 2

We then played a pair of Christmas themed Amazons, a new one to the ol’ Gobbler.  He was very impressed with the cleverness of the mechanics and I, too, was reminded of how fun this game is.  First game I won pretty handily, but Jake perked up in the second.  What’s interesting about this game is that you want to both isolate yourself and make sure you have options.  A thin line to balance and I manged to stay on a bit longer to squeeze out a victory in the 2nd game as well.

Carcassonne x 2

To finish our afternoon, we let our tired brains dine on a dessert of Carcassonne.  Jake had just seen the Lincoln movie so selected a troop of Union blue meeples when I chose grey.  First game we played with just vanilla tiles and, of course, fighting over farms was brutal.  I managed to bring a third farmer into the big field with the final tile to wash out any advantage he might have had.  This, thankfully, won me the game.

Second game we added in the Inns & Cathedrals and took the big meeple as a general for our troops.  Obviously we popped both of those suckers down onto the central farm early on.  The big farm was a wash but I got hosed on what would have been a sweet 27 point cathedral city when I could not draw for the life of me the damn tile I needed giving Jake the final win of the afternoon.  I need to find different ways to combat farms like 1) build bigger cities instead of smaller ones and 2) use roads effectively to keep the fields small instead of just dropping meeple after meeple on what ends up being ~15 point farms.  Anyway, it’s good for Jake’s ego to get in a win here and there.  Heh heh.

Can I make it three days in a row with epic gaming???  Tune in to find out next time on “Joe plays board games” hosted here on LudocracyNow!

Super necessary board game day yesterday.

Summoner Wars — Sera and I take down Jake and Tundle in a bloody and close match.

Innovation — I finally remember to score special achievements when I qualify for them and I avenge my loss from last time.  Also kind of fun to use the Soap technology to create an achievement out of thin air.

The Castles of Burgundy — Spielbox boards, I take 10d to Jake’s 10a.  10a does not forgive Jake’s misguided initial placement and he plays catch-up the entire game.  Same board that stymied me last time.  What are its strengths?  Does it have any?

Android: Netrunner — I’m up 4-2 but get snared and Private Security Force/Neural EMP’d.  Flatlined ignominiously.

Eclipse — Erik joined us for a Triple Terran Tussle.  Jake thinks he has the game won with his superior military but my one monolith and full on research strategy nets me a win 30-28-20.  Erik didn’t attack anyone until the very final turn.  V. Strange.

Pretty much got all my favorite games to the table today.  I’m really hoping there’s another day or two of gaming in the offing this week.  Until next time.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately board game-dome decree…

I learned something about myself yesterday: I am not above bribing people with air conditioning to get them to play board games with me.  I have no regrets.

Jake was unable to resist an artificially cooled environment, so he stopped by and I presented him with a swath of games.  Since he is a Hellenophile in extremis he chose Attika (designed by the same guy who did Taluva—another game Jake likes).  Knowing that Jake got a better grade than I in the Greek History course we took in college, I was a little worried.

However, Jake’s knowledge of Thebes and Sparta did nothing to help him withstand my quick temple connection.  Neither of us played with much aplomb but I saw a connection and finished it off before Jake could get his wits about him.  After gloating a bit, I obviously lobbied for:

Cassholes of Burgrundy!  Jake drew board 1/2 and I got 1/5 and we both chose to go with the prime numbered countrysides.  2 is characterized by a size 8 city, 5 is characterized by no groups of colors bigger than 3.  About 3/4s of the way through the game I was 40ish points ahead of Jake but lo and behold he finished his size 8 city for 38 points to come within reach.  I made a late and successful gambit for a size three pasture seeing three cow tiles available and managed to collect and sell a lot of goods.  This in concert with my 1pt per good sold knowledge tile propelled me to victory: 208 to 184.  Good showing from both of us.  Much different feel from my last game against Jeff when I felt constrained.  Either we both rolled much better (I commented to Jake that I had never felt so lucky in my rolls) or we managed the chaos much better.  I’m inclined to think the former is true.  Still not sick of this game!

As I have said before, I try never to let a gaming session with Jake go by without a game of Innovation or two.  Normally I wipe the floor with him but our first game saw Jake get some unstoppable light bulb synergy (Paper(?) and Perspective) which allowed him to draw a handful of cards and then score cards for every pair of light bulbs in his tableau.  I think I managed one achievement to his six—I could do nothing but admire his efficiency.

But Innovation is not a game that is satisfied with being played once—I demanded a rematch and took an early lead.  I had supremacy in everything but crowns and managed a situation where, with the Emancipation card, Jake couldn’t have a hand or I’d steal it for my score pile.  Then, he melded Combustion and snatched up every single card in my score pile and he quickly effected an 70 point swing and drained my score pile to empty.  I had an ace in the hole, however, with the technology of Bicycle.  I drew up a hand of 45 points and used bicycle’s “exchange hand with score pile” to take my sixth and final achievement.  Revenge!  And, also: fun.  Jake wasn’t too upset, though, as it was the first time he’d ever seen an age 10 card drawn.  And it was THE INTERNET!

Before he could leave, I made him watch youtubes of Crokinole to whet his appetite for my forthcoming board.  His reaction was a positive one—let’s just say that we may have a healthy contingent for the world championships in Toronto next year.  Anyway, I’m hoping to use my central air to woo even more Ludocrats out of their summer hiding—there are Burgundy boards I haven’t even played yet!  Until next time…

Sound the new game alert!  Last night saw the unveiling of a new (to me) game called Container.  But before I break that down, let’s talk Innovation.

As Jake, Erik and I waited for our fourth (Hannah) to show up, we played a round of Innovation.  We had previously tried to teach Erik the game and aborted halfway through, but this seemed a good opportunity to try again.  I think this game is about managing information overload and having the ability to find what is meaningful.  I abused the Agriculture card and the dogma combo that allowed me to draw twice if I had fewer cards in my hand than score pile.  These combined to rack up my score faster than the other two.  I won 5 achievements to Jake’s one to Erik’s none.  Jake and I still love this game, not sure what Erik thought of it. (Shout out to Nate for the awesome Innovation photography composition.)

OK, so!  When Hannah showed up, I made an earnest and supplicating plea that we play Container.  I think they were just happy I wasn’t trying to push Castles of Burgundy on them for the thirtieth time (we will play that one, soon).  Also, the fact that this game is by the designer of Fjords (a much loved game) didn’t hurt.

After bumbling through the rules (thankfully they are fairly easy) and stressing that 1) the economy can crash if we take too much money out of the system and 2) it is more appropriate to do the opposite of your opponents than to follow them we set out.

Erik and Hannah took a production route while Jake and I set up shops in our harbors.  Everyone wanted to ship.  Hannah spent a lot on auctions and ended up with beaucoup containers (stacked for realism) on her foreign island.  I spent a lot on trying to figure out what was at all beneficial.  It was hard.  Erik and Hannah took loans during the game to ensure auction wins and paid them back quickly.  We all ended up with at least one of every container on our island and fistfuls of cash.

Final scores: Erik - 115 (27 cash on hand, 88 for containers), Joe - 124 (44 cash on hand, 8 harbor inventory, 72 containers), Jake - 144 (86 cash on hand, 58 for containers), and Hannah - 148 (48 cash on hand, 100 for containers).

Awesome game and I think everyone liked it with Hannah even staying past her allotted time and saying “I want to play it again, right now.”

Until next time, when I play Virgin Queen this weekend!  These are very exciting times.

On Friday, Jake said he was available for some afternoon gaming and I leaped at the chance, naturally.  He said he wanted to warm up with the ‘catsup’ game and, correct me if I’m wrong, I think I may have lost to him in at least one of our Ketchup games.  It’s good to let people win once and a while so they keep coming back.

I then presented a variety of games and Agricola was Jake’s choice.  We, of course, played the family version and finished 38-33 with me taking the lead.  Excellent first play by Jake, I must say, to break 30, however.  He liked it and wanted to play again but I steered him toward Innovation since I knew he knew how to play.

I got Code of Laws early which I think allowed me to basically splay every pile.  I then got three special achievements pretty easy and then added score upon score to win the game in the sixth age, I think.  Jake did nab a fair amount of achievements but with all the splaying I had going on, it was difficult for him to do much of anything.

He left with a promise to come back later, and as the evening fell, Erik showed up for a low-key night in.  We played some heads up Carcassonne, Biblios (my Biblios winning streak continues), and TZAAR while waiting for Jake to return.

When he did, I strongly suggested Troyes.  I gave a better (I hope.  At least more sober) presentation of the rules and we gave it a go.  Definitely chalk this one up as a learning game as most of the game felt like just trying out mechanics.  I did win, however, with 40some points.

Scyler then returned from dinner with Grandma to play a little bit more Carcassonne before Jake whisked himself away, again.  We played with Inns & Cathedrals and I spent the majority of the game working on one 18 tile city with a Cathedral.  I finally got the tile to close it off…and Brekke sabotaged.  What a dick.  I got lapped by nearly everyone.

11pm was rolling in…  Many hours of gaming already behind me but I figured we might as well play Caylus.  I had to avenge my one point loss to Brekke on my birthday AND he had just ruined my 60 point City in Carcassonne…

I wasn’t feeling too confident after taking a -3 during Wall scoring, but I was the only one with enough gold to build prestige buildings and I built two in the last round for 30 points.  I squeaked out a win and put the long marathon day of gaming to rest.

A post about yesterday’s successful Abstract Gaming day will follow tomorrow—I have apparently broken Jeff’s camera with all my board game pictures so sadly you will all have to deal with the crappy iPod camera again…