Author Archives: nannyGOAT

Next Meeting – 31st December 2016

As is now traditional, our last meeting of the year will be the New Year party on Monday, 31^st December 2016. As it is New Year’s Eve we will be starting early and will be meeting in a private house in Stanford, with food later. Please get in touch if you would like to come along so we know how much food to prepare.

The plan is to start off early with the “Feature Game”, which, As has become traditional, will be the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar. We will be eating later and maybe set off some fireworks at midnight, depending on how cold and wet it is!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor garyjames

And talking of cars…

A policeman sees an elderly woman driving incredibly slowly on the motorway, so he pulls along side and notices her knitting in the driver’s seat. She remains focussed on the road and keeps knitting and driving.

He beeps his horn to get her attention, but she is oblivious and carries on.

Getting more frustrated, the policeman turns his siren on and, as she finally notices him, he signals for her to wind the window down.

After a time she finds the button and down goes the window.

Incensed, the cop yells, “PULL OVER!”

“Oh, no sweetie,” she replies holding up her knitting, “It’s a scarf, see?”

Next Meeting – 28th December 2016

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 28^th December, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be Chicago Express (aka Wabash Cannonball), which is an economic game with a train theme and zero-luck. The game is fairly simple, with three possible actions per turn and a maximum of eight rounds. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

And speaking of trains…

Jeff decided to visit his sister who was living in France. He assumed that most French would speak English, so didn;t even take a phrasebook with him. Unfortunately, Jeff fairly quickly discovered that many people spoke only their own language and this included the ticket inspector on the train. He punched Jeff’s ticket, then chatted cordially for a bit, making several expansive gestures. Not wanting to look stupid, Jeff simply nodded from time to time to show him that he was interested.

When he had gone, a pretty American tourist, also on the train, leaned towards Jeff. Initially, he thought his luck was in, but she just and politely asked if he spoke French.

Jeff blushed, “No,” he admitted.

“Ah, that explains it,” the American answered.

Not wanting to miss his opportunity with a pretty lass when she was a relatively captive audience, Jeff continued the conversation. “Explains what?” he asked.

“Oh!” she replied, “It explains why didn’t bat an eyelid when he told you that you were on the wrong train.”

13th December 2016

Unsure of who was coming, to get everyone in the mood, we started off with the quick set collecting game, Coloretto. We’ve played this little filler a few times, but somehow, Red felt she’d missed out. The game is very simple: on their turn the active player either draws a chameleon card and places it on a “truck” or takes a truck (which means they’re out for the rest of the round). The idea is that players are collecting sets of cards, but only three will yield positive points, with the rest scoring negatively. The really clever part of the game is the scoring which uses the triangular number sequence (one point for the first card, three points for two cards, six points for three cards etc.), which rewards one large set more than two or even three small ones. It was very tight between Blue and Ivory who both picked up sets of six, but Blue finished one point ahead thanks two her second set, three green chameleons.

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

With everyone arrived, we moved on to the evening’s “Feature Game”, Marrakech, a very simple little area control game played through the medium of the Persian rug. Played on a small grid, each player starts with thirty lire and a pile of pieces of carpet. On their turn the active play can rotate Assam, the master salesman a maximum of ninety degrees left or right, before they roll the die to find out how far he must be moved. If Assam lands on a carpet square of an opponents colour, then the active player must pay the owner “rent” equivalent to the total size of the carpet. Once Assam has been moved and any dues paid, the active player places a strip of carpet. The carpet pieces are all the same size (twice as long as they are wide) and cover two squares on the board. They can also overlap with pieces laid previously, but cannot be placed wholly on top of one single rug.

– Image by boardGOATS

This is where the strategy comes in – is it best to try to make a large contiguous area which will be very lucrative every time someone lands on it (but that players will avoid if at all possible) or is it better to make many small areas that players will be more likely to land on? The game ends when everyone has played all their pieces of carpet and the winner is the one with the most money (each visible piece of carpet earns its owner one lira). Marrakech is a nice little game, but what really makes it is the quality of the rendition. Assam is a beautifully made and painted wooden piece; the “coins” are wonderfully tactile wooden discs and the carpet is well, a strip of coloured fabric. Without these touches, the game would still be as good, but would be very abstract.

– Image by boardGOATS

We had two copies and plenty of people who were interested in it (to quote one of the GOATS, “I want to play the carpet game!”), so we played two parallel games. Red, Blue, Ivory and Pine were first to get going with the slightly newer, brighter version of the game. Pine and Red started out quite aggressively building large areas of carpet, trampling on each other and Blue and Ivory in the process and building a mini-carpet-mountain seven or eight layers high. Throughout, it felt tight, but in practice, there was only ever going to be one winner and Red finished eleven lira ahead of Blue in second place. On the next table, playing with the more traditionally “sandy-coloured” version, Green, Ivory, Purple and Black were playing a slightly more strategic and less vindictive game. The result was a closer game with everyone within four points of each other, but was won by Green, just two lira ahead of Black.

– Image by boardGOATS

With both games finishing almost simultaneously, there was a quick bout of musical chairs, with Green joining Ivory and Blue for a game of Ivor the Engine (its first outing with the “mammy sheep” picked up at Essen). This is a cute little game with a viciousness that lurks just below the surface and belies the gentle art-work from the Ivor cartoons as drawn by Peter Firmin. The idea is that players are travelling round Wales collecting sheep and the person with the most sheep at the end of the game is the winner. A single sheep can be collected whenever you start your turn on a town or village with sheep in it, but more sheep can be collected if you are in a town or village without sheep and perform a task to “help Ivor”. Helping Ivor comes at a price, however, as in order to do this you have to play one of the dual-purpose cards from your hand, which means you cannot use it to help you in other ways. At the end of your turn you add one card to your hand from the face up displayed cards, however, when the chosen card is replaced from the draw-pile though mixed in with the errand cards are event cards which can be nice or nasty.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue got lucky, and started off in Grumbly Town which happened to have only one sheep. Since she also had a card for Grumbly Town, this meant she could pick up the one sheep and then play the card to help Ivor, netting a total of six sheep before Ivory had even had a chance to take a turn. That was where her luck finished though, and Green soon caught up quickly followed by Ivory. The cards fell well for Green as he picked up several cards for Tewin as he traveled to the south-east corner of the board picking up lots of sheep as he went. Ivory had a little poke at him, taking a couple of his sheep when he had the chance, then , out of fairness, he then had a go at Blue, taking both the last sheep and the lost sheep token from her current location. Next turn, Green did the same to Blue and just to compound things, “the game” joined in, giving a total of nine sheep she’d missed out on.

– Image by boardGOATS

Feeling rather “got at”, and in desperate need of time she tried to stop Green from finishing the game by doing the only thing her cards allowed her to do – put sheep in Tewin to slow Green down. It was all too little too late, and twenty-five sheep is not an awful lot, so it wasn’t long before Green passed the threshold and triggered the last round. Still with no useful cards and in a position that was not going to trouble the scorers, Blue was forced to do nothing, leaving Ivory to do what he could to catch up. With some effort he was able to cross the line, but was still some way short of Green who still had his final turn to come. In the final accounting, Green finished on thirty-five, nine sheep ahead of Ivory, and more than twenty clear of Blue, in what had been a very unforgiving game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Red, Black, Purple and Pine were looking for something to play. With Burgundy away worrying about his MOT, Pine fancied his chances at Splendor. We’ve played this little chip-collecting and card development “engine building” game quite a bit, but we all still seem to quite like it when we are looking for a light filler game. Since Black, Purple and Red had also suffered at Burgundy’s hands recently, they were very happy to join Pine in the certain knowledge that, for once, Burgundy wouldn’t win. The idea of the game is that players collect chips to buy gem cards which can, in turn, be used in lieu of chips. More expensive cards are also worth points and the game end is triggered when one player reaches fifteen points (and the round is completed to give everyone the same number of turns). Points are also awarded for “nobles” which go to the first player to get a specific combination of gem cards and the player with the most points at the end is the winner.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Everyone was up for it, and it started out with players taking it in turns to pick up cards, keeping everyone guessing as to who had the edge. Before long, Black, Pine and Red edged ahead, then suddenly, Black declared he had fifteen points and everyone else panicked. It wasn’t long before someone smelled a rat and there were demands for a re-count. With the discovery that Black had miscounted and only had fourteen points, there were the inevitable tongue-in-cheek accusations of cheating and a second “final round” began. Although this gave everyone a second chance, it wasn’t quite enough, and Black won with eighteen (despite “cheating”). Pine finished in second, three points behind, so he’ll have to wait a little longer to win Splendor. One thing everyone was pleased about, however, was that at least Burgundy hadn’t won, and that was almost as satisfying as beating him, though not quite, obviously.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

With Ivory and Green heading off early, that left five players and a debate as to what to play next. Somewhere in the discussion “Beans” got a mention, and from then on, despite conversation moving onto Christmas music and everyone’s favourite version of “The Bean Rhyme” (“Beans, beans, good for your heart…” – who knew there were so many different versions?), the final game was inevitably Bohnanza. This game is very simple: in front of each player are two “Bean Fields” and on their turn, players must plant the first card in their hand and may plant the second. Once the active player has planted the card(s) from their hand, then they turn over the top two cards from the draw deck: these must be planted by the end of the turn, though not necessarily in one of the active player’s fields if they can be traded. Once all these cards have been planted, the active player can then offer to trade any unwanted cards in their hand before their turn ends with them replenishing their hand from the draw deck.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr

The catch is that players are not allowed to change the order of the cards in their hand which must be “planted” in the order they arrive. However, it is possible to remove unwanted cards by trading them away (either during their turn or with the active player). This simple mechanic coupled with the different availabilities and values of cards when they are harvested, are the critical parts of the game. Thus one of the key points is the ability to value a bean and not overpay for it, or equally important, not give it away for less than it is worth. The problem is that “value” depends on perspective, and this caused an otherwise friendly little game with a bit of bite to become a little bit nasty.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor spearjr

Blue had picked up and planted the first two Cocoa beans, so when Purple drew a third, Blue asked whether she would trade. Blue didn’t have much to offer, but offered what she could and pointed out that there were only four Cocoa beans in the game and since we were less than a quarter of the way through the deck on the first pass, Purple could be waiting a long time. Purple had other plans though and commented that it was a very valuable card and determinedly planted it. On her next turn, Blue dug up her pair of Cocoa beans and put both in her money stack. So it was more than a bit irritating for her when she promptly drew the fourth Cocoa bean card. Blue was feeling a bit obstreperous after the rough treatment in Ivor and Purple was unable to offer a good trade. So, much to Purple’s disgust and despite the difficulties it caused both of them, Blue planted the offending bean before immediately digging it up.

– Image by boardGOATS

This had a couple of consequences. Firstly, Blue’s plans were now in tatters, and secondlym Purple had to choose whether to get rid of the Cocoa bean (with singles being hard to get rid of) or whether to wait for the second pass through the deck. Purple doggedly stuck with it, so it was particularly unfortunate when Blue drew the Cocoa bean card almost as soon as the deck was turned. With little chance to get rid of it and still in a very kamikaze mood, Blue planted it a second time before digging it back up again. Purple was not impressed. Fortunately, on the third pass, the Cocoa bean finally landed in the hands of Red. She wasn’t in a silly mood like Blue, so Purple finally got her second Cocoa bean and was able to harvest them for two coins. It was only just in time though and she had played nearly the entire game with only one field, and still finished third – quite an achievement. Red finished in first place, just one coin ahead of Blue who had spent most of the game trying to dig herself out of her self-inflicted mess.

Learning outcome: Value is dependent on circumstances and very much in the eye of the beholder.

Christmas GOATS – Calendar Update

– Image from ranworthsquareprimary.co.uk

The Calendar has been updated, but here is a quick summary of the key dates for GOATS and Didcot Gamers:

Christmas 2016
Tuesday 13^th December 2016 (Last normal meeting of the year)	Games from 7.30pm at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale.
Friday 23^th December 2016 (Didcot Gamers at Home)	Games, but not at The Loop.
Wednesday 28^th December 2016 (Extraordinary Wednesday GOATS)	Games from 7.30pm at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale as usual, but on a Wednesday.
Thursday 29^th December 2016 (GOATS do the Quiz)	Quiz Night at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale from 9pm, with possible food before hand.
Saturday 31^st December 2016 (New Year Party)	Games and food from 7pm at Barney’s House.
Friday 6^th January 2017 (Didcot Gamers)	Games at The Loop in Didcot (back to normal).
Tuesday 10^th January 2017 (boardGOATS)	Games from 7.30pm at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale (back to normal).

Boardgames in the News: How to Beat Your Husband at Boardgames

According to an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia’s Christmas issue,¹ the trick to beating your husband at boardgames is to play Australian Rock Music. The study was carried out in May by Daisy Fancourt and co-workers from the Centre for Performance Science at the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London and won the journal’s “Christmas Crackers” competition. Three-hundred and fifty-two members of the public were randomly chosen to listen to either the sound of an operating theatre, rock music or classical music while using surgical tweezers to remove three of Cavity Sam’s organs from the game Operation. Researchers recorded the time taken to remove the pieces; the number of mistakes made in performing the surgery, and any perceived distraction.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor IronMoss

The researchers found that rock music (specifically the Australian AC/DC) impairs the performance of men, but not women when undertaking the “complex surgical procedures”. It leads to increases in the time taken to operate and a trend towards more surgical mistakes. Classical music, on the other hand, was associated with lower perceived distraction during the game, but this effect was attenuated when factoring in how much people liked the music, with suggestions that only people who particularly liked Mozart found it beneficial. The authors concluded, “Men are advised not to listen to rock music when either operating or playing board games.”

¹ Fancourt, D., Burton, T. M. W. & Wlliamon, A. Med J Aust. (2016), 205(11), 515; doi:10.5694/mja16.01045.

Next Meeting – 13th December 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 13^th December, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be Marrakech, which is a strange, yet very simple little area control game where players take the role of a salesperson who tries to outwit the others by placing pieces of carpet.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Ceryon

And speaking of carpets…

Jeff was engaged as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. One day, he managed to bully his way into a woman’s home in a rural area.

“This machine is the best ever,” he exclaimed, whilst pouring a bag of dirt over the lounge floor. The woman said she was really worried it may not all come off, so Jeff added, “If this machine doesn’t remove all the dust completely, I’ll lick it off myself.”

“Would you like ketchup on it?” she asked. “We don’t have electricity out here…”

Christmas GOATS – 2016

For the last few years, on New Year’s Eve, we have had a bit of a party in a private house with a bite to eat followed by games. These things rapidly become “tradition”, so this year we are once again holding the now “traditional”, New Year’s Eve Games Night. In the past, because of the way the holidays have fallen, this has replaced a normal Tuesday games night, but this year, we will holding both! So the next two meetings will be, Wednesday 28^th December, at the Horse and Jockey pub and Saturday 31^st December, at “Barney’s House”, sorry – wrong link, “Barney’s House”. The pub is also holding their usual Thursday night Quiz, and some of us will be going along on 30^th to make up a GOATS team. These are in addition to the normal meeting on 13^th December and 10^th January 2017. More details will follow nearer the time, but we look forward to seeing everyone at New Year.

– Image from youtube.com

29th Movember 2016

Different week, different people, different sickness, same late start… After Burgundy had finished worrying the pub staff by changing his supper order (given how fast Blue can polish off a pizza he thought he might be able to eat a Hawaiian quicker than his usual ham, eggs & chips – he was wrong), we split into two groups, with the first playing the “Feature Game”, The Climbers. This is a great three dimensional strategy game that looks like it is designed round a set of children’s building blocks. It’s appearance belies its true nature however, and, although it looks like a kiddie’s dexterity game, it is really a strategy game with almost no dexterity component at all. Red and Magenta thought it looked cool and Burgundy had read the rules on line so was also keen to give it a go, so the group was pretty much self-selecting with Blue making up the foursome.

– Image by boardGOATS

We began by placing the two Triple-height blocks in the centre and randomly piling the rest of the bricks round it, covering all the visible surfaces, then Blue started explaining the rules. It was at about this point that we realised that Burgundy had read a very different set. The game was originally released in German as Die Aufsteiger. Since it is very language independent, when they were translated into English, a few changes were made to the rules and when the second edition was brought out the rules were revised again with some of the additions listed as optional variants. This means that there are effectively three different sets of rules and to make things worse, lots of people have their own “House Rules” as well. Since nobody had played it very much we decided to stick to the rules as written in the copy we had, without the addition variants.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is played in turn order with each turn comprising three steps. Firstly, the active player can move a block, any block so long as there isn’t anything on it, and they can place it anywhere, in any orientation as long as there is sufficient space. Next the active player can move their Climber as far as they like within the rules. Climbers can climb up any step below their head height unaided as long as the face they are climbing onto is grey or their own colour. They can also use their long and/or short ladders to climb larger distances, but they are fragile and therefore single use (though that’s not very green as Red pointed out). Finally, the active player may place a blocking stone which prevents a brick being moved or used until that player’s next turn. Probably the most difficult part of the game is the concept of “space”. There are three different sized coloured blocks: Cubes (2a x 2a x 2a), Half-height (2a x 2a x a) and Double-height (2a x 2a x 4a). These blocks have each face painted a different colour, the five that correspond to the player colours and one side that is grey. There are also two Triple-height blocks that are plain grey and are the base of the setup.

– Image by boardGOATS

The square faces of the blocks can be considered to consist of four smaller squares – this is the basic unit (a x a). This basic “a²” unit is sufficient space for one Climber. Blocks can be placed offset, like bricks in a wall sitting on two or more other bricks, so long as these basic “a²” units are observed and remain whole. The undersurface of each block must also have full contact with the blocks underneath – there cannot be any holes or overhangs. If a Climber is sat in an inconvenient place, he can be “nudged” out of the way using a block, provided that he isn’t knocked off or moved onto a different block. This can make space for placing a block, or for a Climber: Climbers can only sit on their own colour or grey and need an “a²” unit each. Thus, several Climbers can sit on a large grey face. The winner is the player who’s Climber is highest at the end of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Red and Magenta started climbing one side, with Blue and Burgundy progressing up the other. Red stole a bit of a march as everyone else got in each others’ way leaving Magenta to fight a rear-guard action on her side. Meanwhile, Blue and Burgundy fought for supremacy, until Blue managed to extricate one of the large grey blocks and use it to simultaneously screw up Burgundy and create a second summit at a similar height to the one Red was occupying. With this second peak to fight over, there were effectively two races competing against each other, but it wasn’t long before first Burgundy, then Blue and Magenta were forced to take a pause in climbing. It was at this point that we realised the mistake we’d all made. Players can choose whether to climb or not, but the game ends when all players successively don’t (or can’t) finish their turn on a higher level. With all three of us failing to climb, that left Red with potentially the final turn. Although she was highest, Blue and Magenta were blocks at the same height, so we had to invoke the tie-breaker which meant the first player to reach that level would win. Since Red had got there first, she had no incentive to move and, in was thrilled to finish in first place in what had been a hard-fought game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Green, Black and Purple joined the others playing with children’s building blocks, with a game of Totemo, an early Tony Boydell gem (he of Snowdonia and Guilds of London). This game consists of of colored wooden blocks that have a small dowel attached on one end and a hole in the other. This allows them to be placed in the wooden peg-board. The game starts with one of the multi-colored wild pieces placed in the center of the board. Each player starts their turn with three wooden totem pieces. To place a piece, all totem pieces it touches must abide by the color wheel. So, for example, a purple block may be placed on its own or adjacent to purple, red or blue blocks; the more blocks it touches, the higher its score. There are also several blocks with two feathers on top which are totem toppers and cannot be placed on the bottom level. In addition, no other totem piece can be placed on top of them. Players can only place one totem piece per turn unless they land on a space seeded with a bonus marker. At the start of the game, several bonus markers are placed round the board – landing on these enables the active player to place another block, up to a maximum of three.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the end of their turn, the active player replenished their set of totem blocks. Each round, the start player moves the round marker until it gets closer to the tee-pee indicating the last round. Alternatively, the game can also end if there are no more totem blocks in the bag. With apologies for not ironing the playing cloth and quick recap of the rules, the game was under way. The first rounds were, typically, feeler rounds with players just trying to do the best they could. Black and Purple had played the game many times before while Green, had played it only once and that was a few years ago. Black and Purple managed to make use of the bonus markers by landing on the correct space on the scoring track and began to pull away from Green who was stuck with red bricks he could only place on their own since there was a predominance of blue bricks on the board.

– Image by boardGOATS

This forced Green to change his strategy from simply trying to get the highest score possible to getting the exact score to land on a bonus tile and go again each time. He started this new approach with a bang, placing all three of his blocks in one go and shot into a healthy lead. Throughout the game players were each left with one or two blocks they couldn’t easily place, either because they were the wrong colour or were “toppers”. The game took longer than it should have as everyone was guilty of over analysis at different times, but Black and Purple slowly caught up with Green, and going into the final round were both in the lead once again. Unfortunately neither could quite reach their respective bonus spaces and just added a modest amount to the final score. Green however, placed all three of his blocks and took the lead by more than ten points, with it winning the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

With both games finishing together and nobody up for a late night we decided to opt for a large group game, and prompted by Magenta, we quickly settled on Las Vegas. This is a very simple game where players begin their turn by rolling their dice, then they assign some of them to one of six casinos. Each casino is numbered one to six and has a jackpot drawn at random from a deck of money. Players must use all the dice of one number to bet on the casino of that number. Once everyone has placed all their dice the player who placed the most dice on a casino takes the highest value currency card. The really clever bit is that before any money is handed out, any “draws” are removed, which leads to a lot of barracking. This time we included the Slot Machine from the 2015 Brettspiel Advent Calendar. This is like a seventh casino, except that it can hold dice of any number, but each number can only be added once (though a player must add all the dice they have of that number).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

We also added the extra dice for more players from the Boulevard expansion, as well as “bigguns”, large dice which count as two in the final reckoning. Green kicked off the first round, which turned out to be very unproductive for both Blue and Burgundy who struggled to get anything of any value. Burgundy struggled in the second round as well, as did Black and their problems were compounded by the small number of high value notes that were repeatedly drawn. Meanwhile, Red was struggling to keep her eyes open, so while everyone else was playing the long game, she was played her dice as quickly as she could then dozing while everyone else finished the round without her. The problem with everyone playing small numbers of dice in the early part of the game and hanging on to dice for as long as possible was that it slowed the game down considerably, not that anyone really minded on this occasion. It wasn’t until the last round that we began to realise that this strategy didn’t really work, a conclusion that was reinforced by the fact that a slightly embarrassed Red won the game, some $50,000 ahead of Magenta and Blue in second and third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: Sometimes sleeping through a game isn’t a disadvantage.

Next Meeting – 29th Movember 2016

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 29^th Movember, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be The Climbers, which is an interesting and unusual 3D strategy game that looks like it is designed round a set of children’s building blocks. With a couple of ladders and a blocking stone, it is the player who’s Meeple climbs the highest that wins.

– Image by boardGOATS

And speaking of climbers…

A little old lady, who lived on the third floor of a boardinghouse, broke her leg. As the doctor put a cast on it, he warned her not to climb any stairs. Two months later, the doctor took off the cast.

“Can I climb stairs now?” asked the little old lady.

“Yes, of course” he replied, “But don’t overdo it…”.

“Oh thank goodness!” she said. “I’m sick and tired of shinnying up and down that drainpipe!”

15th Movember 2016

It was another very quiet night thanks to work commitments and illness, so we started late. Our numbers were bolstered by the return of Yellow, who visited back in July when he was in the area for work. Clearly we hadn’t frightened him too much last time and he made a return visit, bringing us up to a total of six. This gave us two possible options: split into two groups of three, or play something with six players. With six players, Keyflower is usually in the mix as it plays very well with that number, and indeed it had been part of the “possible plan” for the evening. However, the “Feature Game” was Key to the City – London which also plays six and is a slightly more streamlined re-implementation of Keyflower. Since everyone was keen to try it so we decided to give it a go with with the full complement.

– Image by boardGOATS

The basic structure of both Keyflower and Key to the City is actually fairly simple, but the strategy behind the games is much more complex. Both games are played over four rounds with players bidding for tiles to add to their village/borough. The bidding is particularly unusual as the currency is “Meeples” and, although bidding must increase and “follow suite”, it is free-form, i.e. all the tiles are auctioned simultaneously. So, players take it in turns to bid, but as the round progresses, players have to decide whether to “spend” Meeples on bidding for other tiles, or whether to keep an emergency supply in case someone tries to out-bid them on a tile they really want. Tiles are generally worth points at the end of the game, but most also provide some advantage when they are activated during the game. This could be the provision of a resource, or it could be the opportunity to convert one resource into another. Any tile in play can be activated by any player placing a Meeple on it. So players can get a benefit from tiles belonging to other players, or even tiles that are still being auctioned. Tiles can be activated many times, but each time, the cost goes up and the player must use an extra Meeple.

– Image by boardGOATS

When activating tiles, players also have to “follow suit”, so Meeples must be the same colour as any others already there, or, if the tiles is being auctioned, the colour should match any previous bids. At the end of the round, any Meeples used to activate a tile are returned to the owner of the tile, thus, player’s are effectively paying Meeples to activate other players’ tiles. And Meeples are valuable, very valuable. The disadvantage for the tile owner, however, is that once their tile has been activated, they may not have enough Meeples in the correct colour to use the action themselves. The round is over when every player has passed consecutively, at which point, all losing Meeple-bids are returned to their owner, all winning bids are placed back in the Meeple bag, all tiles are handed to the winner (or removed from the game if there were no bids) and any Meeples used to activate tiles go behind the owners player screen.

– Image by boardGOATS

Three of the players were familiar with Keyflower, but only one had played Key to the City before, as it was only released at Essen this year. Although the basic structure of the game is the same, it is slightly simpler and more streamlined. For example, in Keyflower, green Meeples are “special” and can only be acquired by activating certain tiles making them much rarer. Thus, players with green Meeples have a big advantage when bidding and activating as it is much harder for other players to follow suit. In Key to the City on the other hand, there are no green Meeples at all. Similarly, in Keyflower, tile placement is very important as resources must be located where they are to be used and can only be transported by road (which needs activation in itself). This is not a consideration for players of Key to the City, however, there is a different positional aspect to the game. The octagonal wooden resource cylinders that feature in Keyflower are replaced by wooden utility “connectors”. These are placed across the edge of a tiles and used to link tiles together. At the end of the game, tiles that are connected together can score points for players with the correct corresponding scoring tiles.

– Image by boardGOATS

Another significant difference between Keyflower and Key to the City is the way the rounds end. In Keyflower, players can continue taking it in turns to bid or activate tiles until everyone passes. In addition to the village tiles, players can also bid for boats which determine the turn order as well as the number and colour of Meeples they get in the next round. These are not present in Key to the City, instead, players have an additional, one-off option of “sailing”. When a player passes, they can, as in Keyflower, rejoin the bidding in later turns if they wish. In Key to the City, players can instead choose to sail, which finishes their round. This is potentially dangerous as it leaves the player without the option to counter-bid if someone else outbids them. However, there is an incentive to sail earlier as the first players to sail can choose to take the river tile (which give scoring opportunities) or start the next round, with the earliest adopters thereafter getting more Meeples to use in later rounds.

– Image by boardGOATS

With three players unfamiliar with both Keyflower and Key to the City we began with a rundown of the rules as well as highlighting the differences between the games for those who had played Keyflower. Once done, as everyone looked at their final round tiles, Ivory asked what a winning score might be. Simultaneously Blue and Yellow responded with “fifty” and “a hundred”! A quick look through the book showed, much to Yellow’s dismay, that the group’s winning scores for Keyflower have generally been above seventy-five. As everyone digested this and we began the first round rather tentatively as players were uncertain of the value of the different tiles. Blue and Yellow were keen to avoid over-paying as they had knew how valuable Meeples could be later in the game when they can get scarce, consequently, they refused to couter-bid beyond their comfort zone and finished the first round with almost nothing between them. Green, on the other hand, led the way and acquired a lot of tiles with Ivory, Magenta and Pine, all new to the game, following his lead. It was towards the end of the round that the great rules debate happened.

– Image by boardGOATS

Yellow and Green had both sailed and the question arose whether sailing counted as passing, because if so, everyone had passed, if not everyone else could continue bidding. Blue checked the rules which said, “If a player passes they can play again later, unless all the other players who have not already sailed also pass. If all the remaining players also pass then all players sail in the order that they passed.” Green was adamant that this could be read either way, and started checking on the BGG rules fora to see if there was discussion on the subject. By the time he had established that there wasn’t, everyone else had decided that bidding should continue, had done the bidding the wanted and the round was over. We muddled through the second round in a similar fashion with Yellow and Blue finally taking some tiles and strategies starting to emerge. Pine and Magenta struggled with the implications and wider objectives of the game, while Ivory (also new to it) purred quietly in the corner as he began to get his head round the game, collected tiles and started to build a strategy.

– Image by boardGOATS

Magenta started out enticed by the monument tiles while Yellow, struggling to win bids started collecting river tiles and began connecting them and taking tokens to exchange for upgrades. Ivory, still purring softly in the corner, managed to pick up tiles that required brown and red connectors as well as the Barbican which provided them. Blue was trying to connect her tiles, but didn’t have the tiles to provide the connectors as they had mostly come out in the first round when she had failed to pick up any tile at all. Pine was just starting to get his head round the iconography, but getting hold of connectors was proving challenging. Meanwhile, Green was ominously winning the bids for the buildings that provide Skill tiles, including the Bank of England and the Senate House and seemed to be trying to re-implement his favourite Keyflower strategy.

– Image by boardGOATS

As we went into the last round and the final tiles were revealed, everyone looked round and tried to decide what they might get and how far they could to push their luck to get a few extra points. With everyone trying to upgrade their buildings, the need for Skill tiles was great and, since Green had a most of them, he received a lot of Meeples in return, most of which were red. This inspired him to go for Lords Cricket ground which would give him two points for each one if he could secure it. Green commented how much he hated cricket at which point he realised that he was winning both the Oval and Lords. Blue took the Oval from him before Ivory went “all in” with a huge pile of red Meeples, with it taking about twenty points from her. With their own projects to complete, nobody obstructed Green in his plans and he finished with a massive thirteen red Meeples (and the scoring tile) as well as a very large pile of Skill tiles.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the final round over, players began to add up their points. Although six-player games can be epic, one of the disadvantages is that it can be very difficult to see what players at the opposite end of the table are doing. Thus, it was only at the end when we went through the scoring that players could really see what everyone else had been doing and where they were getting their points. Ivory, with his large pile of yellow Meeples, substantial sewage and underground systems finished with a very creditable sixty-six. This score was exactly matched by Blue who had a vast telecom’s network and had picked up a couple of monuments which she had managed to upgrade to get the full twelve points. It was Green however who finished with the highest score, nearly twenty points ahead of Yellow and Blue thanks largely to a massive twenty-six points for his pile of red Meeples and much the same again for his Skill tiles.

– Image by boardGOATS

As we packed up there was the inevitable postmortem. Magenta and Pine could both see how clever the game was and were keen to give it another try now they had a better understanding of its flow. Ivory had really enjoyed it too and was also keen to give it, or (Keyflower) another go. The others focused on the comparison between Key to the City and Keyflower. Green said he strongly preferred the artwork for Keyflower, while Blue felt that the axonometric projection and sharper style was better suited to the London theme. She also commented that if Key to the City had been released first, it would have received all the plaudits and Keyflower would have felt “more fiddly”, consequently, perhaps Key to the City was a better game to learn with. The overwhelming consensus though, was that a typical game collection didn’t really need both, but we’d happily play either. As Magenta and Ivory headed off, discussion moved on to the current KickStarter for Keyper, which it turned out, two of us had backed, but we won’t see more of that for another year.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was just time for a quick game to close with, and we settled on Isis & Osiris. This was a another game picked up at Essen and had got its first outing two weeks ago. Green was the only player who had been part of that game however, so we all needed a run-through of the rules, which were simple enough. At the start, players are dealt a pile of tiles, face down, and get a handful of octagonal wooden blocks in their colour. Game play is very simple: on their turn, the active player can either place a tile face down, first showing it to everyone else, or they can place a block. At the end of the game, all the tiles are turned face up and players score points for those tiles orthogonally adjacent to their blocks.

– Image by boardGOATS

As players played their wooden blocks, the following players turned over negative tiles and placed them next to them, ensuring lots of negative scores. As more and more negative tiles put in an appearance, we were all wondering what had happened to the positive ones. By about half-way through we were were certain they had to appear soon, but with four players, some of the tiles are removed from the game, and we were all coming to the conclusion that those tiles were all the high scoring ones. As it turned out, that wasn’t quite the case, though the balance of the tiles in the box was definitely on the positive side. Once all the spaces had been filled, we turned over the tiles and it became clear that one wooden block made all the difference. With three of us finishing with negative totals, it looked a lot like the score line from an episode of QI, but it was Pine that finished with a massive “plus seven QI points” to win the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Some games need to be played more than once.