Session Report for Saturday, 11/18/2006

7 Players, 5 Games

---

Cartagena

(Kevin, Marshall, Chris, Ty)

MarshallPhilips –

Cartagena is one of those “why didn’t I think of this before” games – play cards to move forward and move backward to get cards, pretty clever. It seems like the key is to not leave two meeple spaces open very often (two meeple spaces rewarding two cards and three meeple spaces being “full”) and to move forward farther than you move back. Obvious I know, but an engaging enough challenge in a short game.

---

Amun-Re

(Kevin, Marshall, Chris, Ty, Clint)

MarshallPhilips –

Clint showed up towards the end of Cartagena and joined us for a game of Amun-Re. Amun-Re is probably about the heaviest Knizia game I can think of, it’s an hour and a half to two hours and it’s got a lot of math and tough decisions. Good stuff from Herr Doktor and it’s one of my favorite games.

Basically, Amun-Re is a build infrastructure (farmers, power cards) and convert it to points (pyramids) type of game which takes place in two distinct phases. The first phase is the Old Kingdom which lasts three game turns and after which the board is wiped of all province ownership and farmers but pyramids remain. The second phase is the New Kingdom in which players acquire new provinces (this time with pyramids left intact from the Old Kingdom) and develop them. Scoring occurs twice in the game, once after each kingdom.

Each game turn (there are six total) consists of the following actions:

1) Bid on provinces – There are 15 provinces in Amun-Re each with unique attributes from the number of farmers it supports, to the number of power cards it allows, to temples, to free pyramid stones. A number of provinces equal to the number of players is put up for bid (thus each round each player will acquire exactly one province).

Amun-Re uses a rather unique bidding system in which players must bid in increments of 0, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28 (basically a triangular series). Players bid on any province they want but must bid more than the last bid, if any, on that province. If a player gets overbid on a province they may re-bid on another province but not the one they were just over bid on.

Bidding ends when each province has exactly one bidder at which time players pay their bids and take ownership of their province (this method ensures that at least one province will be sold for zero gold).

2) Build infrastructure – Once players own a province they may begin building infrastructure on it. During this phase players buy power cards, farmers, and pyramid stones (in that order). Players must pay for each type of commodity using the same triangular series (1, 3, 6, 10…) from the bidding phase. Thus if a player wants 2 power cards, 1 farmer, and 3 pyramid stones it will cost 3 + 1 + 6 = 10 gold.

3) Sacrifice for Amun-Re – Next players sacrifice gold to appease Amun-Re in the hopes he will provide a good harvest. Players secretly select any amount of gold they wish to sacrifice or they may choose to steal three gold from the sacrifice. When players reveal their sacrifice the total amount of gold is added up and the quality of the harvest is set accordingly (better harvest for more gold worse harvest for less). Players who didn’t steal from the sacrifice are rewarded with free items (power cards, farmers, or stones). Players who did steal get three gold but no rewards because they have angered Amun-Re.

4) Harvest – After the sacrifice players receive the proceeds of their harvest. Players receive gold for each farmer (according to the quality of the sacrifice) and sometimes from camel provinces (if the sacrifice was poor). At this point the turn is over and the next turn begins at step 1 unless it is the end of a kingdom in which case scoring occurs.

5) 5) Scoring – Each pyramid is worth 1 point, each set of pyramids (players will own exactly 3 provinces and a pyramid on each constitutes a set) is worth 3 points, Each temple is worth points according to the last sacrifice, and power cards may add 3 points each if their criteria is met. After the new kingdom money is also worth some points.

There’s some more detail but that’s about it. It’s extremely crucial to be efficient in Amun-Re. Gold is king and you will be severely handicapped if you fall behind the other players. You have to bid wisely and anticipate the sacrifice of the other players because usually you want it to be at a certain level or you want more rewards than other players.

Amun-Re is one of those games where you basically have to devote a full game to just figuring out what’s going on and not worring too much about strategy. After you get the mechanics down you can concentrate on improving your play on subsequent games. It also becomes relatively important to know what power cards are in the deck so you can plan for potentially getting them.

---

Hansa

(Clint, Kevin, Bird)

---

Caylus

(Drew, Marshall, Chris)

This was the first time I’ve played Caylus with less than 5 players and it felt a bit different. It definitely seemed like you could get more favors and it seemed like you had more tactical control because there were fewer opponent’s turns messing up the board between your turns.

The rules explanation was pretty rushed for this one and it has been several months since I played it so we missed some rules. Most of them we recovered on, like the scoring for the castle bricks, and getting two gold at the beginning of each turn (I was beginning to think that money was a lot tighter than I remembered). One rule that we missed for the entire game was that when you build a residence you get an extra gold at the beginning of the turn. I had a residence for about the last three turns but that extra three gold wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, Drew was way too far ahead after maxing out the VP favors track and continuing to take VP favors.

---

Nuclear War

(Clint, Kevin, Bird)

---

-- MarshallPhilips - 21 Nov 2006
to top