Session Report for Friday, 4/7/2007

12 gamers 10 games

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Incan Gold

(Robert, Marshall, Chris, August, Russ, Tracy, Clint, Jason) x2

We had exactly eight people to start and wanted to play a filler in case more people showed up. This situation pretty much calls for Incan Gold which can easily handle eight. We ended up exploring the Incan Ruins twice, the second time with the artifact cards which add a little extra spice. This is a pretty simple game but it's quick and engaging and it has its moments.

Here's a picture of a player's tent and the "stay" and "leave" cards that are played every turn

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Conflict

(Tracy, Clint, Nick, August)

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Imperial

(Marshall, Jason, Chris, Robert, Russ)

This time we played Imperial right and it was even better. We always remembered to give the country the money when we bought bonds and we gave ourselves the right amount of money when we taxed. The result was a much more cash rich and dynamic game. Countries changed hands frequently and there was a constant sense of tension about the ownership of countries.

An interesting dynamic developed as the game went along because most people had a strong interest in two countries but not the same two. I often wanted Jason to use Russia to attack Italy because I had a strong interest in Russia but not Italy. Of course, Jason had an interest in both so he never made the attack. For that reason I briefly took control of Russia to launch an excursion against Italy in the Med. Chris had a similar situation with France and Italy and to a lessor extent Germany. As ownerships changed hands the dynamic of these built in alliances also changed, it was all very interesting.

One country that got completely hammered from the beginning was Austria-Hungary. It was mismanaged a little bit by Russ at the start because he didn't know what he was doing yet and it never quite recovered despite the leadership of Russ who took it over and tried to right it. In fact, the bonds of A-H were avoided like the plague as opposed to the other bonds. I'm sure Robert was wishing someone would take A-H off his hands but nobody would touch it.

Germany got off to a strong start under Robert's leadership but by the end it was being severely squeezed by me with Britain and by Russia.

I had quietly gotten Britain to a pretty good position and was hoping nobody had noticed. I thought I was home free because no one had shown any interest in British bonds until the very end when Chris swooped in and took the country then taxed and ended the game with Britain reaching 25. That move was enough to give Chris the victory.

Russ went for the interesting strategy of not owning a country. He would deliberately buy bonds such that he didn't take over ownership. This might be boring but it seems viable as his score was very competitive.

The game pushed 3 hours which is a problem but if the play time can be gotten down then this is a winner.

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Roborally

(August, Nick, Kevin, Paul, Tracy, Clint, Little Girl)

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Acquire

(Jason, Robert, Russ, Marshall)

Acquire is the classic business game from the sixties. Players buy stocks in hotel chains which grow and merge and provide big bonuses to the major stock holders. This game is a lot of fun but it is somewhat unstable in that if you miss out on the first few mergers (often through no fault of your own) you are effectively out of the game. This problem is mitigated by experienced players but it never quite goes away. This is why Acquire is only an occasional game for me, but it's a game everybody should play twice. I say twice because this game has an interesting learning curve. The first game will almost certainly go badly if you are playing against experienced players, but it takes exactly one game to figure out what to do. By the second game most people are quite able to play competitively. It's not so much a learning curve as it is a learning step.

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Power Grid

(Kevin, Tracy, August, Nick, Clint)

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Quoridor

(Kevin, August) x 3

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-- MarshallPhilips - 09 Apr 2007
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