Session Report for Friday, 04/07/2006

5 Players, 4 Games

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Coloretto

(Ty, August, Kevin K., Kevin L., Marshall)

MarshallPhilips -

On this night we were joined by Ty who was interested in trying out some Euro games and we were glad to oblige. We started out with a quick filler in case anybody else showed up. And that quick filler was? Coloretto of course! (Note: Poison wasn’t available).

Sometimes games end with a whimper, sometimes with a bang. This one ended with a pun… a bad one. Kevin K. ended up in a tie with Ty. groan

Neither man was content to let the game end in a tie, least of all Ty who wanted to know what the tie-breaker was. So I consulted the rules, sorry Ty but no mention of a tie-breaker in there.

Are we done?

Yes

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China

(Ty, August, Kevin K., Kevin L., Marshall)

MarshallPhilips -

We decided to stick with Michael Schacht games (Mr. Schacht also designed Coloretto) and give China another spin. This time we were determined to get the rules right after our first two attempts at this game in which we botched them. So let’s see if I can give an accurate run down of the rules:

Players attempt to score the most points by placing houses and emissaries onto a map of China divided into several provinces. Both houses and emissaries are placed in a province by playing a card matching the color of that province. If the province was empty then only one item can be played into it but if the province already had at least one house then a player may play two cards and insert two items into that province as long as there is room for them.

When a province is full (i.e. there are no more empty house spaces left) then that province is scored. The player with the most houses scores one point for each house in the province. The player with the second most houses scores one point for each house the first place player had. And so on for the third player until all players in the province have scored (in the case of a tie both players get full points).

Emissaries work differently than houses. First of all the limit on the number of emissaries in a province is set by the number of houses of the majority color in that province. For example, if there are three red houses in a province and this is the highest color then there may be at most three emissaries in that province. If another red house is played then another emissary may be played. Emissaries are scored at the end of the game when the Emperor visits each province pair (i.e. provinces which border each other). For each pair if one player has the most emissaries in each province (or tied for the most) then that player gets points equal to the total number of emissaries in the pair.

Finally points are scored for roads at the end of the game. A road is a sequence of four or more houses in a row uninterrupted and a player gets one point for each house in a road.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Players also have a single fort that’s played as a house. After a fort is played then a house may be played on top of it. A fort doubles the points scored for the owning player in that province.

The game improves significantly with the correct rules so I highly recommend playing it that way. In this game Ty was able to build a big 7 point road while I was able to place emissaries in a central province and also in most of the bordering provinces for big points. I think only August and I used our forts so that was a big oversight by the other players.

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Ra

(Ty, August, Kevin K., Kevin L., Marshall)

MarshallPhilips -

Ra has been pretty popular with the group lately but until now I’d missed out on playing it. One reason was that the only game I’d ever played of Ra, about three years ago, had left me a little underwhelmed so I haven’t been going out of my way to get into a game.

But I was wrong and I see the light now. Ra is a very good game, it just takes at least one game to internalize all the scoring options which are not intuitive. If you don’t understand the scoring then it makes it very difficult to evaluate the tiles up for auction and can be frustrating. But once you understand the values then the game is very tense and full of difficult decisions.

And the quality of the Uberplay reprint is very nice I must say. Better than the original printing as far as I can remember.

Here’s a picture of a cat playing Ra

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Modern Art

(Ty, August, Kevin K., Kevin L., Marshall)

MarshallPhilips -

We had time for one more game but we didn’t have an overwhelming selection of 5 player games. Railroad Tycoon and Powergrid take too long so we decided to stick with the Reiner auction theme and go for Modern Art.

Modern Art and Ra are both pure auction games but they couldn’t feel more different and I think there are two reasons for this. One is that in Ra your bid increment is very course, you only have three Sun Tiles to bid with and you can only use one at a time. Whatever the value of the tile is what you are stuck bidding, you just hope that the pot matches the value of the tile. But at least you know exactly what the pot is worth, you can tell exactly how many points it will bring you if you win it. In Modern are you can make very fine bids, down to the dollar. The difficulty isn’t in bidding it’s in knowing what the paintings are worth. Unlike Ra you can’t know the exact value of what you are bidding on. So in Ra the art is in making inexact bids for an exactly known pot whereas in Modern Art you can make exact bids for an inexactly known pot.

The second difference is that in Modern Art you are directly paying the other players when you win an auction (unless you buy from yourself then you pay the bank). This adds a whole new wrinkle in that whatever money you pay to another player is pure profit for them whereas you are taking all the risk in what the final value of the painting will be. How much do you help somebody else in order to help yourself? It’s a tough decision and it’s what makes the game interesting. In Ra whatever you bid becomes part of the next pot so in a roundabout way it does go to another player. But that player is paying for it so it’s not really the same thing as in Modern Art.

Two pure auction games, two completely different experiences – Riener Knizia is a genius.

In this game I ended up with $445, enough for the win but it beats me how I got it! I guess I don’t know much about art but I know what I like.

-- MarshallPhilips - 09 Apr 2006
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