Ludocracy Now

I got started on Day 2 of the Marathon slowly because I am a lazy beast.  When I got there, I did have time to play two games before I whisked myself away.

Sunrise City

A little bit of city zoning and building Art Deco style with this title that was new to me.  Pretty cute and unoffensive game (and tile laying is of course a favorite pastime of mine) but I’m not sure the scoring mechanism wasn’t just too goofy.  The score board runs 1 to 10 and you get a gold star every time you pass 10.  If you land on 10 exactly you get two gold stars.  Player with the most gold stars wins the game.  As far as I could tell, the chances of landing on 10 exactly had more to do with lucky timing and the play of your opponents around the table than real strategy.

Then again, the city planner at the table did win which seemed about right.

Troyes

Two of the players from the previous game stayed on and played Troyes with me.  And luckily they already knew how to play!  Which saved me (and them) a 30 minute long tortured rules explanation.  I was so happy to get this to the table so I can buy the expansion in good conscience.

My two opponents tackled the event cards hungrily while I focused on the yellow activity cards (ducat strat, for sure).  After five rounds of cathedral building, brigand battling and pilgrimage making we knew the scores were going to be close.  I finished in 2nd with 36 points, 3rd place had 35 and our winner had 37.  Literally can’t get any closer than that.  All three of us left the table reaffirmed in our love for this game.  Such a clever design.

This has certainly been the best Marathon yet, and it continues (for me) next Friday.  Until then I’m sure I can find some gaming on the side to tide me over.  Now, to get this copy of Morels played…

So Erik (not pictured as I am still failing at mastering photographic lighting technique) texted me that he was up for some games: “the gnome one” and even Troyes(!) because he felt he needed to avenge his loss.  I looked around for a third for Belfort but was rebuffed—at least it was an excuse to try the two player variant.

Troyes started out relatively uneventful: we both had two meeples in each building.  Erik started building cathedral and battling event cards (which, much to my chagrin, were not his character cards) and I tried to set up as many Monk/Merchant combos as I could to get the ducats (deniers?  every board game currency is now ducats to me.) to rule the dice.  I didn’t rule much of anything, as Brekke did, in fact, avenge his loss and won the game 43 - 40.  He outscored me on the activity cards 14 to 7.  Harsh.

I was a little nervous to put Belfort to the table with just two as the rule book recommends being “familiar” with the 3-4 player game before trying the two player variant.  There was no need for nervousness (it’s just a little turbulence. name that song) as the added mechanics to compensate for two players are simple to learn—you basically control two dummy players who fill up some of the buildings on the board and count as having 4 elves/dwarfs for scoring.  I rarely had any money and was worried I would have to lose points to taxes but I took the lead after Spring scoring and never looked back:  Joe wins 46-35.

Finally, I wanted to link to another cool boardgame tumblr I found while boardgamegeek was down for a few hours today (the HORROR, I know).  Everything I Played is kind of a better and more succinct version of what I try to do.  Check it out but make sure to come back—that blog doesn’t have any cat pictures… 

Erik asked me if I wanted to do happy hour last Friday.  I said yes and he agreed to let me choose the bar.  I chose: my house and a game of Troyes!  Being my friend must be really sweet.

Anyway, the game is still proving a little inscrutable although I managed to combine the influence, money and dice with the tradesmen, cathedral, events and buildings to win with a score in the high forties.  Even though this game is impossible to explain and can overwhelm with the available actions, I still love it very much.  Let’s play it again!

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…

So!  My Birthday!  Was a roaring success.  I think 9 separate hungover people came over to partake in more champagne and board games.  Annie got here first and demanded a play of Caylus which I was more than happy to oblige.  Scyler also wanted in!  The last time you may remember him as a Ludocrat was during a game of Founding Fathers.  Caylus is certainly a step up from that…

…but of course he won.  Now, I’m pretty sure he won because both Annie and I were giving advice and Brekke showed up mid game and started helping him exclusively.  But, really, he should have let me won.  It was my birthday!

As Charles and Tyler also showed up near the end of the game our numbers became six.  I held up Liberté and Carcassonne as my two French games that would work with this number.  Discretion said Carcassonne should be played so I added in the gray meeples and described Carc with just road and city scoring and off we went.  Much fun all around!

For our second game of Carc I introduced the Inn & Cathedral tiles (thanks, Ma!) and Farm scoring.  A touch more complicated but still very fun (more fun than I remember Carcassonne being, actually).  After two games of Carc, Tyler and Charles headed off to a Ham party (whatever that is), Annie left with basically anaphylactic shock (she is allergic to cats but could not stop harassing Puss), and Tom showed up.

Thus began a very sad presentation of the Troyes rules to the three remaining revelers.  I could hear myself explaining the dice, the buildings, the event cards, the character cards, the influence track, the tradesmen, again referencing the character cards, and I knew it was making no sense to anyone.  Thankfully, Christina showed up and I figured we should just abort mission and play Carcassonne again.  Scyler left to shower (finally), Nate and Jake showed up.  Nate with a birthday present of French cheeses and Jake with a birthday present of a hug.

Again, a six player road and city only game was started and I finally got my first and only win of the day.  We then, again, added in Farms, Inns & Cathedrals and near the end Nate and Jake took off and Charles and Tyler returned to take their place and we finished the game.

Now it was Charles and Tyler’s turn to demand that we build King Philip the Fair’s Caylus Castle so I dealt the remaining five of us in for one last game of the evening.  Brekke ruined my birthday by beating me by one point.  The provost wreaked havoc on many a good plan and the chaos of a five player game meant low scoring.  I did take a video of all the players Caylus reactions but I look and sound like a drunken fool so I will spare everyone from that.

Very successful birthday but I’m hoping I can learn how to explain Troyes better and get that to the table ASAFP.  Until next time, when I head off to the inaugural Minneapolis Abstract Gaming day!

Lucky for me, the gym closed about 9 hours earlier than I was planning yesterday so I found myself with some free time in the early afternoon.  I decided to do a complete play through of Troyes in preparation for Sunday’s game-a-thon (hopeful game-a-thon; not sure how many people are coming or how long the champagne will let us play).

I handed out character cards based on color and thankfully they were three that were easy to understand: money, influence and event cards.  I felt that orange was probably going to win as he had placed many more meeples on the action cards but blue scored just enough points during the course of the game to finish with the win and 45 points to orange’s 44.  Green trailed in last with 35 points, and at one time had four unused meeples in his supply.

After this game, I went on to Board Game Arena and tested out my skills against a live British opponent.  I was hitting some pretty sweet combos and taxing his yellow building advantage pretty steadily to win the game something like 34 points to 18.

There is a lot going on in this game and nearly every turn I have to remind myself “Oh, yeah, there’s the cathedral” or “Oh, yeah, there are the action cards” or “Oh, shit, I don’t have any money.”  Since the action spaces and event cards vary each game, there will hopefully be something fresh in every play.  Time will tell if this variety isn’t dampened by some over-arching strategy, but from what I’ve read on BGG (and the fact that I doubt I’ll play this game more than 40 times in my lifetime [although that would be a sweet 2012 goal:  Caylus and Troyes 40 times in the year!]) this game will have high re-playability.

‘Til next time!

It was much to my pleasure that the Postman brought, along with this month’s issue of Cat Fancy (thanks, Annie), my Board Game Geek Secret Santa Gift.

It was wrapped, and, maybe, I should have waited until at least Christmas Eve but my God I was dying to know what it was so I could waste more money on other games.  Lo, and Behold my Santa and her elves chose Troyes for me!  (What the hell, picture quality?  Were these taken in the 1970’s?)

Troyes has a theme nearly identical to Caylus: building up a cathedral in France in the 13th (through 17th) century.  However, the mechanics are much different (I mean, there are dice) and the win conditions change with every game—well, the win condition is victory points but there are victory point multipliers that are secretly dealt out to every player and affect every player.  Whacky!

Anyway, I set-up the game for a little bit of a play through and this certainly comes across as a game that will only give up its secrets after repeated plays.  It has a wide-open decision space and many paths to victory so let’s play it right away.