Tag Archives: Citadels

18th October 2022

The evening began with introductions to two new people: Indigo and White. As everyone else arrived and we waited for the last couple of people, the group started with a quick warm-up game of NMBR 9. This is a quick and simple tile laying game where players take number shaped tiles and add them to their tableau. Tiles must connect to an edge of tiles already placed in the same layer, and when placing tiles on top of others, they must not create an overhang or sit wholly on one tile. At the end of the game, players sum the face value of the tiles on each layer and multiply that by the “floor” they are on. In other words, the ground floor is “pointless” whilst tiles on the second floor (or third level) are worth twice their face value.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although the game plays just four, with two sets squeezed into the box, all eight people were able to play together. Everyone was happily laying tiles, with those who had not played it before quickly getting the hang of it. A few people needed to be reminded of the fact that tiles on higher levels must be supported by at least two tiles and if not the first, must touch another tile on the same level. Most people managed to stay on the straight and narrow though and before long everyone was practicing their mental arithmetic to work out their scores. And it was really close at the top: it looked like Indigo’s score of sixty-nine was the winner until Teal posted his score of seventy, and then Blue just pipped him with seventy-one.

– Image by boardGOATS

By the time NMBR 9 was done, everyone had arrived including Lime with his copy of the “Feature Game” Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All, that he had borrowed from work. This is an asymmetric card game where players take on the role of a Disney Villain (Maleficent, Captain Hook, Jafar, Red Queen, Ursula or Prince John), and try to satisfy their own personal objectives. Although the game is fairly simple in concept, a sort of worker placement, where players move their “worker” to different locations on their private player board and then carry out all the associated actions. The fact that every character plays in its own way and has different objectives, makes it much more complex than it sounds, however.

– Image by boardGOATS

Disney Villainous unquestionably plays best with smaller numbers of players and, with two copies, the ideal would have been to play two games with three players each. However, several people were reluctant because the Disney theme didn’t appeal, or dueling card games weren’t their thing. So in the end, there were five playing: Black as the Queen of Hearts; Indigo as Maleficent; Blue as Jafar; Lime as Captain Hook, and Pine as Ursula (or Arse-ula as she became known). Each player took their booklet with their instructions (their “Villain Guide”), and that was Blue’s big mistake in her preparation. She had deliberately not read all the characters’ details in advance as she didn’t want an unfair advantage. However, because the characters were so very different, it meant she couldn’t help advise.

– Image by boardGOATS

For example, each character has two decks of cards: a Villain deck and a Fate deck. Players have Villain cards in hand, while other players (mostly) activate their Fate deck. The Villain deck includes Ally and object cards which are played below the action spaces on a player’s player board and usually enhance the actions in that space. The Fate deck on the other hand includes Hero cards which are played (usually by other players) above the action spaces on the player’s board and reduce the number of actions a player can carry out when they activate that space. Hero cards are a pain and most people can get rid of them by carrying out a Vanquish action, however, Ursula does not have a Vanquish action and instead defeats Heros using Binding Contract cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

The second mistake was that most people didn’t read their instruction booklet properly, partly because without knowing the game, it felt very abstract, and partly just because the situation wasn’t conducive to sitting down and concentrating. Indigo had watched a play-through video, so had a better idea of what was going on than most—Maleficent’s winning condition was to start her turn with a curse at each location. Curses are a card type unique to Maleficent and have an Ability that affects Heroes at that location. While Lime was still hunting for his Never Land Map to unlock the Hangman’s Tree and Pine was searching his deck for the Trident and the Crown, Indigo suddenly threatened to win as she had Curses at all four of her locations.

– Image by boardGOATS

This seemed to organise everyone else, as they collectively worked out how to stop her from winning. Meanwhile, Black was doing something odd with his cards, turning them sideways or “tapping” them. He, as the Queen of Hearts had to have a Wicket at each location and then successfully take a Shot to win. Wickets are Guard cards that have been activated. A Shot is then taken by revealing the top five cards of the Villain deck and if their total cost is less than the total strength of the Wickets then he would win. With several Guards played and and activated, he was making progress too, and aside from luck, nothing the others could do was going to stop him winning when the time came.

– Image by boardGOATS

While players took it in turns to prevent Indigo from succeeding, Blue had found the Scarab Pendant and the Magic Lamp cards that Jafar needed. Having not read her booklet properly, when she got her Magic Lamp at the Sultan’s Palace, she thought she was there, only to realise there was more to it than that and had to work out how to fix it. There was a feeling of achievement when Lime finally unlocked Captain Hook’s Hangman’s Tree and had found Peter and Pine finally found one of his special objects, but was still struggling with lots of power and no way of using it. By this time though, the game had been going nearly two hours and although nobody was going to just “let” Indigo win, most people had had enough and were starting to secretly hope someone would do the decent thing and end the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually, Black took a shot, and was unsuccessful. Blue, having worked out how to hypnotize the Genie had a path to the end, though someone ensured that would take several more turns by judicious application of a Hero card. Indigo was still doggedly playing Curses when Black finally had a Shot on target and everyone else cheered with genuine relief. Unquestionably, the game had outstayed its welcome, though that was largely caused by the number of players—three would have made it easier to focus on what others were doing and would have had much less downtime.

– Image by boardGOATS

The biggest problem with the game though, was the mismatch between the cutesy theme (and gorgeous artwork from the Disney films) and the isolated nature of the asymmetric multiplayer solitaire which means it is definitely not a kiddies game. This mismatch perhaps partly explains why there are so many copies of Villainous for sale cheap in online auctions. It would have felt a lot less isolated though with fewer players. That said, to some extent, the game is all about the individual players finding a way to solve their own personal puzzle, while trying to throw just enough spanners in other players’ works to delay them and ensure their own victory.

– Image by boardGOATS

In this sense, once a character has been played and “solved” it reduces the replay-ability, especially against new players, who have to solve their puzzle from scratch. This is perhaps why there are several other Villainous character sets available, and even Marvel character sets (which seem to be more popular). Lime though, was not looking forward to playing the game again (one of the conditions of borrowing it) and ultimately was very pleased when he was able to postpone the replay, indefinitely. That said, both Lime and Blue commented that they felt they had unfinished business with Villainous and would like to try it again sometime, though there are so many games and so little time, it’s not clear when that might be.

– Image by boardGOATS

While the first group fought with their Disney villains, everyone else settled down to a six-player game of Citadels. In this game, players take on new roles each round which represent Characters they hire to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The numbered Character cards are drafted in secret at the start of the round with one taken out before the draft and one left unused at the end, to ensure everyone has imperfect knowledge. Then, each number is called and the player with that Character enacts it. When called, each player takes their turn. First they take money (two gold from the bank) or draw two District cards and choose one to keep, then they may build one District paying the cost in “toffee-look-alike” gold coins.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game ends at the end of the round when one player builds their eighth District. Players then score the cost of each District they have built, plus three points if they have at least one District in each of the five colours, plus four bonus points for the player who triggered the end of the game and two for anyone else that succeeded in building eight Districts. This is an older game (one of Green’s first apparently), but nobody had played it in years so the group decided to play with just the basic characters:

Assassin — Names another Character that misses their turn;
Thief — Names a Character and at the start of their turn, steals all their gold;
Magician — Swaps their hand with another players, or replaces some cards;
King — Receives one coin per noble (yellow) District and takes the start player Crown;
Bishop — Receives one coin per religious (blue) District and protection from the Warlord;
Merchant — Receives one coin per trade (green) District and receives one extra coin;
Architect — Build up to three Districts and draw two additional District cards;
Warlord — Receives one coin for each military (red) District and destroys one District.

At White’s suggestion, the group tried a new method of choosing the start player, namely picking a character card at random and counting round the table to the number of that character. The King was the card revealed, and counting round four places landed on White himself. And so the first round started.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was no Assassin in the first round, so a gentle start. The Thief, White, decided to steal from the King; often a dangerous thing to attempt, but not so much in this game. Thus, the game began, with players taking money and building Districts, at least for White and Lilac, who had chosen the Magician. The King came next, and Green duly handed his starting money to White. With nothing much he could do, he took two gold coins and could build nothing, but did take over the calling of characters. Pink and Teal continued the round with taking money and building Districts.

– Image by boardGOATS

The next round was even more equitable as neither the Assassin nor the Thief were chosen. Teal took reign as King this time. Green was able to build his first District and everyone else was on two. During the third round there was much mirth as Green tried to steal from the Merchant, who turned out to be Lilac, his partner — how dare he! However, she had no money so it was fruitless anyway. Green’s starting hand was such that he still could not build, just as everyone else went ahead and built their third District.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the fourth round, Lilac was the Thief and chose to steal from the Architect, little realising that this time that was Green, and like last time, he had no money either! While all this was going on, the others had been building up some several Districts. Pink had blue and red Districts, Lilac had a green and a couple of blue, Teal had a couple of green and a red, while White was also mostly targeting red Districts. By this point, everyone was really getting into the game and there was a lot of good natured banter round the table. Somehow, Green was being picked on as usual, but this time not with intent. Teal was beginning to look strong and Lilac had a lot of Districts, but all relatively low in value.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the mid-point in the game, the Assassin finally came into play. Green chose him and selected the Merchant as his target. It turned out that was Teal, a good choice considering that by then he had three green Districts, which would have given him a lot of money. The King finally moved away from Teal (to White), but overall there were very few yellow noble Districts being built. During the second half of the game, the Magician began to cause a little chaos as hands of zero cards got exchanged with hands of four, five or even six. It was still looking like Teal was strongest, just as he nabbed back the King, but then White built a nice big purple Dragon Gate. This cost six Gold, but would be worth eight at the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

Somehow Teal had managed to get to seven Districts with the others on five and six. Green, sitting directly after Teal in turn-order, chose the Assassin and took one for the team. Since he picked second, the information available to him told him that Teal could only be either the Architect or the Warlord. He decided to try for the Warlord, on the basis Teal had two red Districts and a couple of Gold already, so could probably build his final card and finish the game. It wasn’t until the the very end of the round before this was confirmed, and Green had indeed been successful. Teal missed his turn. So everyone else was now on six Districts while Green was still only on five.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the final round, Teal was still the King; would Green try again? This time he chose a different approach and decided to try and steal from Teal instead. Teal was the Merchant this time, so although Green was successful, he could not not stop him from building his eighth District. Teal’s three green Districts gave him three coins, plus an extra one for the Merchant and the two he could take anyhow—more than enough to build his last District. No one else managed to build eight, though almost everyone else managed to get seven. Only Teal and Lilac got the bonus points for building at least one of each colour however.

– Image by boardGOATS

That meant Teal was the runaway winner with thirty-two, with White and Pink very close to each other in second and third with twenty-six and twenty-five respectively, and Lilac not far behind that. Everyone had thoroughly enjoyed it regardless of their final score—Citadels is good classic that works better with more people and this time it did not fail to deliver as everyone really got into the spirit of the banter. Players drifted away and once Villainous finally came to an end, there was time for some chatter about things including Christmas party plans, before everyone finally went their separate ways.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: In asymmetric games, someone has to know how the rules apply to everyone.

28th November 2017

The “Feature Game” was to be Lords of Waterdeep, and with a nearly full turn-out, it was simply a question of who wanted to play it. Some were a little put off by the Dungeons & Dragons theme, but Burgundy, Green, Ivory, and Purple were keen to give it a go, with Ivory and Purple new to the game. Each player is a secret Lord of Waterdeep, who uses their agents to recruit adventurers to collect gold so that they can complete Quests to advance their cause. Each player in turn places one of their “agents” on a building space on the board and immediately resolves the effects of that building. A player may not place his agent on a building space if it has already been taken; the round ends when all agents have been placed, and a game is exactly eight rounds long. Most of the buildings on the board give money or adventurers. The adventurers are represented by coloured wooden cubes: orange for Fighters, black for Rogues, white for Clerics and purple for Wizards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

The adventurers players collect are exchanged for completing Quest cards. These cards can range from only a few points (four to six), but an extra advantage or some adventurer returned (a bit like a cash-back scheme), to some that give a massive amount of points (over twenty). This is not the only source of points as there is also a substantial reward given to each player for completing the requirements on their secret Lord of Waterdeep card. Despite the Fighting Fantasy theme, Lords of Waterdeep is really just run of the mill worker placement game, with adventurers instead of resources. Unlike many games of this genre, “resources” flow in quite readily, but unfortunately they also flow out just as easily too…

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

When Green completed a twenty point Quest early on, he looked a long way in the lead, but although it took a couple of rounds for his advantage to be quashed, quashed it duly was. It didn’t take long for everyone to work out which Quest card types everyone had for their secret goals, with Green and Ivory both wanting Commerce, and Green and Burgundy both chasing Piety. Only Purple remained more elusive to work out which was not surprising since she was actually scoring for every building she built and not scoring for Quests completed at all. No-one guessed, even though she managed to build six out of the maximum ten built. To be fair to Green and Ivory, Green had only played the game once before and that was four years ago, and Ivory had never played at all. Burgundy was at least aware that there was such a task, but after the game commented that he never does well at this game (unusually for him), though he enjoys the challenge.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

Throughout the game, Purple employed an interesting strategy in that she built up a number of Intrigue cards without using them. She turned that round in the last two or three rounds as her pile of Intrigues got whittled down, gaining her bonuses at everyone else’s expense ( and occasionally to their benefit as well), until she ended the game with none. Ivory put a lot of effort into trying to get the big scoring quests and at one point was holding out for one on display to use with the building that would gain him an extra four points if he could complete at the same time as picking it up. In the end he bottled it and took it a turn earlier in case it was lost. It turned out he was right to do so, as shortly after he had taken it, all the quest cards were replaced. Ivory also managed to gain a number of bonus points as he too was a prolific builder.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Green was trying to get as many Commerce cards as he could figuring the low scores would add up (Peity cards, his other bonus challenge, were in rather short supply in this game). About half way through, he built the extra worker building that when used allows the player to choose an action before anyone else. Green then used this to great effect taking this piece regularly and combining it with the first player marker to get the first two turns. In a game where white Clerics were in such short supply (and many of the Quests that appeared later required lots of clerics), this really scuppered the plans of Ivory and Burgundy in particular. Peity cards need more Clerics than most, Burgundy’s game was often frustrated by the lack of white cubes, and although he kept the first player token in the early part of the game and made good use of it, he just couldn’t quite get his engine going.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

The intrigue cards added an extra layer and interaction into the game. Many of them gave a benefit, but also gave a lesser advantage to another player of choice. And some were downright mean to a player of choice, and so alliances were made and broken throughout the game. Reasoning and pleading were a regular feature—an enjoyable interaction which is not so direct in other games. In the end, it was a close game, but Ivory came out on top, just three points ahead of Green. Everyone enjoyed it though and would be happy to play it again, but there was general agreement that with five players it would get crowded and might begin to drag.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

Meanwhile, on the next table, they had a bit of a problem: almost all the games they had were four player games and there were five of them! That afternoon, Magenta had expressed an interest in playing The Climbers again and, as it plays five, it was an easy choice. This is a great three dimensional strategy game that we first played about a year ago. It looks like it is designed round a set of children’s building blocks, but 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. 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.

– Image by boardGOATS

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. Before the end of their turn, the active player may place their blocking stone, which prevents a brick being moved or used until that player’s next turn. These are also single use though, so timing is everything, in fact that is true for almost everything about this game which was amply demonstrated by Blue. Nominated to go first by random draw, she made the most of it using her long ladder and getting as high up as she could as quickly as possible, much to everyone else’s disgust. Black got himself somewhat stuck on a ledge, but Red, Pine and Magenta quickly caught up. Then it became a real game of chess with everyone trying to outmaneuver everyone else. Red accused Blue of using “Dubious Tactics”, but they proved to be winning tactics as she finished just higher than Red in second.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the Matterhorn conquered, and Lords of Waterdeep still going, it was back to the search for a five-player game, and Santo Domingo fitted the bill. This is a light card game of tactics and bluffing with a pirate theme set in the world of one of our more popular games, Port Royal. The idea is that in each round player one character card from their hand which are activated in character order and then are placed on a personal discard pile. The characters are designed to maximise player interaction, with their result dependent on cards that other players have chosen, similar to games like Citadels and Witch’s Brew. For example, the first card is the Captain who can take a victory point (from a track on a central game board) up to a maximum of twice. The second character is the Admiral who also takes one victory point, but this time up to a maximum of five times, but this is only possible if there are enough points available. This means players have to play “chicken” and try to time playing their second card when other players play something other than the the Captain or the Admiral.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players have to be careful though because the third card is the Governor which gives players goods (rather than points) for every player who played either a Captain or an Admiral card. This means players are trying to maximise their return by reading everybody’s minds and saving their Governor for the round when everyone else is playing the Captain and the Admiral. Cards four, five and six are the Frigate, Galleon and Customs are roughly analogous to the first three characters, except the Frigate and Galleon yield goods (instead of points) and the Customs card gives points (instead of goods). Goods are very useful as they can be turned into victory points using the Trader (the seventh character card). Timing is key here too though as the potential return increases for every round that nobody uses the Trader; the return also depends on the number of people to play the card though, so even if everyone waits and then plays the Trader at the same time, players may get less than if they had played a round earlier.

– Image by boardGOATS

The final card is the Beggar which allows players to pick up their discard pile so that they can re-use them in the following rounds. At the end of each round, players check to see if anyone has passed thirty points and if so, that triggers the end of the game where any residual goods are converted to points at the minimum rate and the player left with the most points is the winner. It was about half way through the game that Blue realised that there was something missing. When the Trader is played, the return is dependent on the yellow track and how many players play the same card. The problem was that once someone plays the Trader, that triggers a reset of the yellow, trader’s track. Unfortunately, we forgot the reset bit which meant that players who were prioritising goods were finding it easy to get a good return whenever they wanted. As a result, the game was very close and finished very quickly.

– Image by boardGOATS

Magenta took the first place with thirty-one points, just two ahead of Black in second. As we had time, we decided to give the game another go, playing correctly this time. Second time round was still close, though there was a better spread and the Beggar (who also gives goods for every Trader card played in the same round) suddenly became a bit more interesting. After doing well in the fist game, Black got his timing wrong and failed to trade his goods. Magenta was extremely efficient the second time round as well, but this time was beaten into second place by Blue. With the game finished, Red and Magenta headed home and Blue, Black and Pine began a game of Azul.

– Image by BGG contributor JackyTheRipper

This is a new release that Pink and Blue picked up at Essen this year and so far has been popular with the group as well as receiving a lot of buzz further afield. The idea of the game is that players are tile laying artists decorating a wall in the Palace of Evora with “azulejos”. On their turn, the active player can either take all the tiles of one colour from one of the factory display (putting the rest in the central market) or take all the tiles of one colour from the market in the centre of the table. They then place the tiles in one of the five rows on their player board. The catch is that each player only has five rows, each with a set number of spaces, one to five. Players can add tiles to a row later in the round, but once a row is full, any left-overs go into the negative scoring row. Once all the tiles have been picked up, players evaluate their board, and, starting with the shortest row, one of the tiles from each full row is added to the player’s mosaic and scored.

– Image by BGG contributor JackyTheRipper

Players score one point for a tile that is not placed adjacent to any other tile, whereas tiles added to rows or columns score the same number of points as there are tiles in the completed row (or column). The game continues with players choosing tiles from the factory displays and then adding them to rows, the catch is that as the mosaic fills up, it is harder to fill the rows as each row can only take each colour once. The game is actually much more complex to explain than to actually play, and as such is just the sort of game we really appreciate. Blue and Black had both played before, but Pine was new to the game. Last time he played, Black had commented that this was “just the sort of game that he really liked, but wasn’t any good at”, so it was left to Blue to lead the way. Pine didn’t need much showing however, and soon had a very fine wall of his own. So much so in fact, that when Blue was forced to pick up five black “azulejos” she didn’t have space for he was in prime position to take a well deserved win.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

While Azul was still underway, Lords of Waterdeep had come to an end, so Green, Ivory, Burgundy and Purple decided there was time for quick game of Lanterns: The Harvest Festival. This is a straight-forward, light tile laying game, where players are decorating the palace lake with floating lanterns and competing to become the most honored artisan when the festival begins. Each tile is divided into four quarters, each of which has a colour, red, orange, blue, green, purple, black and white. On their turn, players choose a tile from their hand of three and add it to the central palace lake. Every player then receives a lantern card corresponding to the color on the side of the tile facing them, with the active player receiving bonus cards for any edges where the colours of the new tile match those of the lake. At the start of their next turn, players can gain honour tiles by dedicating sets of lantern cards, three pairs, four of a kind or seven different colours. Each tile is worth honour points and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Purple, Burgundy and Ivory went for trying to collect for the full colour set, while Green was content to begin targeting the “two-pairs” or four of a kind. Purple was a late starter to exchange her cards, forcing Burgundy to go for a couple of two-pairs, and Green got stuck with three orange lantern cards with none left to collect. Part way through the game, they suddenly realised that the six point scoring taken was actually a nine point scoring token and everyone had to work out who should have earned what. There weren’t too many already taken, so the correction was worked out quite easily. Purple seemed to not only hoard the cards, but was also building a large collection of bonus discs, such that the others thought that she wasn’t going to be able to use them all. As usual there was the normal mutterings of the tiles being the wrong way round. Later on with shortages of some colours, tiles were placed in such a way to prevent some players collecting anything at all. As the game wore on Purple started to exchange her cards and use her discs. By the end of the game she had actually used them all, and it turned out that she’d used them to perfection, proving that hoarding can sometimes be a winning strategy.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Just as they started, Azul finished so Blue suggested Black might like to give NMBR 9 a try since he had been quite intrigued last time when Pine, Blue and Purple had played it. Black was Keen and Pine had enjoyed it, so Blue explained the rules. The idea is that players will play a total of twenty tiles, numbered zero to nine, with each one appearing twice. One player turns over a card and calls the number and players each take one tile of that number and add it to their tableau. Tiles must be placed such that at least one edge touches a previous tile. Tiles can be placed on top of other tiles as long as there are no overhanging parts, and the tile sits squarely on more than one other tile. At the end of the game the number tiles are multiplied by the level they sit on minus one. So, a five on the third level scores ten points (5 x (3-1)).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The game followed the usual course, but it wasn’t long before the the bingo calls started. Pine began, but Ivory on the next table soon joined in: “Number eight, garden gate”; “On it’s own, number one”. Pine finished with, “This number’s smaller, Ivory’s the caller!” And finished the evening just about was, with only the maths left to be sorted out. Both Blue and Black had managed to sneak a nine and a one onto the third story. Pine had more than Black on the first story, but Blue had more than either of them and finished with a grand total of fifty three, some five points more than either of the others.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Learning Outcome: Don’t be misled by an unpromising theme.

11th July 2017

It was another quiet night, with Ivory attending a course, Red recovering from partying too hard, Green and Violet learning about rocks ‘n’ stuff, and Pine delayed by work (swearing blind that his absence had nothing at all to do with how much he had hated 20^th Century last time). We had enough people though, with Turquoise putting in an appearance for the last time before travelling over-seas to visit family for the summer. While Blue, Burgundy, Turquoise and Magenta waited for pizza, they decided to get in a quick game of one our current favourites, the Spiel des Jahres nominated Kingdomino.

– Image by boardGOATS

Kingdomino first really hit the group radar after UK Games Expo when both Black and Purple, and Blue and Pink came back with copies. Both couples enjoyed playing it when they got home and immediately introduced it to the rest of the group who have also taken quite a shine to it. Despite this, neither Turquoise nor Magenta had managed to play Kingdomino, so Blue quickly explained the rules. The game consists of dominoes featuring two terrain “tiles” with some tiles also depicting one or more crowns. When the dominoes are placed, one end must either connect to another domino matching at least one of its terrain types or connect to their starting tile (which can be considered to be “wild”). All dominoes must fit in a five-by-five space and if one or more dominoes cannot be placed according to these rules, then they are discarded. At the end of the game, each player multiplies the number of tiles in each contiguous region of terrain with the number of crowns on the tiles in that region and adds them up together with any bonuses to give their score.

– Image by boardGOATS

It’s not a difficult game, but it is one where players can get themselves in trouble if they don’t play the early stages well. So everyone helped out Turquoise, especially Burgundy. In truth though, she didn’t really need it, instead, it was Blue who struggled with a complete inability to get any tiles with crowns on them. Burgundy had mixed results with a mixed kingdom and Magenta made good use of what she got building a massive lake which with a few smaller features gave her a total of seventy-four, enough for second place. With Burgundy taking Turquoise under his wing, the rest of us should have seen the writing on the wall, especially given how large the writing was! Her massive, high scoring woodland gave Turquoise eighty-five points and clear victory. Black, who had arrived with Purple in the closing stages commented that he could see how forests were potentially a game-breaking strategy, but that just meant we all now know what he will be trying to do next time we play.

– Image by boardGOATS

With what was likely to be our full quota of players we then moved onto our “Feature Game”, Santo Domingo. This is a light card game of tactics and bluffing with a pirate theme set in the world of one of our more popular games, Port Royal. The game is a re-implementation of the slightly older game, Visby, which was only given a limited release. The idea is that in each round player one character card from their hand which are activated in character order and then are placed on a personal discard pile. The characters are designed to maximise player interaction, with their result dependent on cards that other players have chosen, similar to games like Citadels and Witch’s Brew.

– Image by boardGOATS

Thus, the first card is the Captain who can take a victory point (from a track on a central game board) up to a maximum of twice. If more than one player has chosen to play the Captain, then players take it in turns. The second character is the Admiral: he can also take one victory point, but this time up to five times, giving him a maximum of five points, but this is only possible if there are enough points available. Since points added to the track at the start of each round, players want to try to play their Admiral card in a different round to everyone else so that they can ensure they get the maximum number of points. Alternatively, it could be looked at from the other perspective with players wanting to play their Captain at the same time as everyone else plays their Admiral so that they minimise the income other players can get.

– Image by boardGOATS

The third card is the Governor. This card is different to the first two as it gives players goods (rather than points) for every other player who played either a Captain or an Admiral card. So, for the Governor, players are trying to maximise their return by reading everyone else’s minds and saving their Governor for the round when everyone else is playing the Captain and the Admiral. The fourth, fifth and sixth characters (Frigate, Galleon and Customs) are roughly analogous to the first three characters, except the Frigate and Galleon yield goods (instead of points) and the Customs card gives points (instead of goods). Goods are very useful as they can be turned into victory points using the Trader (the seventh character card). Timing is key here too though as the potential return increases for every round that nobody uses the Trader; the return also depends on the number of people to play the card though, so even if everyone waits and then plays the Trader at the same time, players may get less than if they had played a round earlier.

– Image by boardGOATS

The final card is the Beggar which allows players to pick up their discard pile so that they can re-use them in the following rounds. Even this character has a timing element as player playing the Beggar are rewarded with extra goods for every Trader played in the same round and for minimising the number of cards they have left when they play it. At the end of each round, players check to see if anyone has passed thirty points and if so, that triggers the end of the game where any residual goods are converted to points at the minimum rate and the player left with the most points is the winner. Santo Domingo is one of those games that takes a little while to get the hang of, so the game started slowly with everyone feeling their way. Blue and Magenta had played before and led the way, but Black and Burgundy were quick to follow. It was a tight game with players taking it in turns to take the lead. It is a quick little game and it wasn’t a long game though before Black triggered the end of the game by reaching thirty points. Magenta just had the edge though and pipped him to the post finishing with thirty-three points, one more than Black.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was still plenty of time before Magenta and Turquoise had to leave, so we decided to give Las Vegas a go. This was another one that was new to Turquoise, but we’ve played it a lot as a group and all enjoy it as there is plenty of time to relax and offer unhelpful advice to everyone else between brief bouts of activity. The game itself is a very simple betting game. Players begin their turn by rolling all their dice and then assign some of them to one of six casinos (one for each dice face) each of which has a jackpot drawn at random from a deck of money. Players must place all the dice displaying one number to bet on the casino of that number, and when done, play passes to the next player. Once everyone has placed all their dice the player who placed the most dice on a casino takes the highest value currency card, with the person in second place taking the next and so on.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The really clever part of this game is that before any money is handed out, any “draws” are removed. This leads to a lot of barracking when dice are played as opponents try to encourage the active player to choose their favoured option. As usual, we included the Big Dice from the Boulevard expansion which are double weight and count as two dice in the final reckoning. We also included the Slot Machine mini-expansion from the 2015 Brettspiel Advent Calendar which acts a bit like a seventh casino, except that it can hold dice of any number, but dice of each number can only be added once (though a player must add all the dice they have of that number). Since we tend to play the game unusually slowly which can make it out-stay it’s welcome, we also house-rule the game to just three rounds rather than the four given in the rules.

– Image by boardGOATS

The first round had all the large value cards with every casino having jackpot of $90,000 or $100,000. This really put the pressure on early as with six casinos (and the the Slot Machine) and six players, everyone was under pressure to win at least one to stay in the game. Inevitably, someone didn’t and that someone was Magenta. Someone else was obviously the beneficiary, and that was Turquoise. There were plenty of slightly smaller amounts available as well, so things wouldn’t have been so bad if Magenta had picked up some of these. Sadly she didn’t though and got her revenge by knocking over a glass of water and drowning the lot. Reactions were quick and the game is hardy, so a quick mop and dry followed by a firm press and everything was fine.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The second and third rounds were much more evenly spread out, but the jackpots were also smaller, which made playing catch up more difficult. Much hilarity ensued when Magenta kept rolling “lucky” sixes, but couldn’t do much with them. Despite such “good luck” without the fourth round, Magenta felt she was pretty much out of the game, but everyone else was in with a good chance. There is a reason why winnings are kept secret though and as everyone counted out their totals, it was clear it was really close, with everyone within a few thousand dollars of each other.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ckirkman

It was only when Turquoise gave her winnings though that everyone else realised they were actually competing for second place, some four hundred thousand dollars behind her. It was just before Magenta and Turquoise headed off that Blue touted for interest in a weekend gaming session. Together with Pink, she had been asked to play-test a new game, Keyper, and was looking for one or two more to make up the numbers. Magenta and Turquoise were unavailable, but Black and Purple were keen to give it a go. So, with that matter of business out of the way, Magenta and Turquoise left and everyone else settled down to one last game, Lanterns: The Harvest Festival.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Lanterns is a straight-forward, light tile laying game, where players are decorating the palace lake with floating lanterns and competing to become the most honored artisan when the festival begins. Each tile is divided into four quarters, each of which has a colour, red, orange, blue, green, purple, black and white. On their turn, players choose a tile from their hand of three and add it to the central palace lake. Every player then receives a lantern card corresponding to the color on the side of the tile facing them, with the active player receiving bonus cards for any edges where the colours of the new tile match those of the lake. At the start of their next turn, players can gain honour tiles by dedicating sets of lantern cards, three pairs, four of a kind or seven different colours. Each tile is worth honour points and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

This was another close game, made difficult by the lack of orange cards in the early part of the game. Ordinarily, players can use favour tokens to make up a deficit like this. Favours are rewards for placing special tiles that feature a “platform”, and pairs can be spent to enable players to exchange one coloured card for another. It takes a while to collect favour tokens, however, so it is difficult to obtain and use pairs early in the game. Spotting how the lack of orange cards was making life difficult for people, Blue began hoarding blue lantern cards, quickly followed by Purple who hoarded purple lantern cards. It was another close game, though, with everyone finishing within five points of the winner. In fact, Black and Blue finished level with around fifty honour points, but Blue took first place with the tie-breaker thanks to her two left-over favours.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Learning Outcome: Light games are best when they are as close as possible.

Boardgames in the News: Another Year, Another Take-Over

For many, Asmodée is the boardgame equivalent of the Borg, so it should be no surprise that the New Year brings yet another Asmodée take-over story. This time the targets are the German publisher and distributor Heidelberger Spieleverlag, the French/Spanish company Edge Entertainment, and the Spanish distributor Millennium. Heidelberger are the German production partner for many companies that are better known in the UK including Fantasy Flight Games, Czech Games Edition, Iello, Indie Boards & Cards and Ferti; they specialise in fantasy, science fiction and horror Games as well as being the distributor for Alea Spiele in Germany. Edge performs a similar function within the French and Spanish games markets while Millennium is primarily a distributor, but has also produced French versions Citadels and Sutter’s Mill. The connection between them is that they were all foreign language partners for Fantasy Flight Games who were bought by Asmodée two and a half years ago. So, these acquisitions give Asmodée complete control of brands like Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game, Android: Netrunner, Cosmic Encounter and Arkham Horror.

– Image from asmodee.de

The list of Asmodée’s “partners” is extensive, so the question is, who will be next?

9th February 2016

Blue was delayed by washing machine shenanigans and Green by pancakes, so while Burgundy, Black and Purple were entertained by food, Red and Magenta distracted them with a few quick rounds of Love Letter. Magenta took the first two rounds winning the second by drawing the princess as the penultimate card; the third round went to Black when he played a Prince and asked Purple to discard her card which turned out to be the Princess. With the arrival of Green and Blue had finishing her pancakes, we decided to play our “Feature Game” which was Ticket to Ride and its variants.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Which variant was the subject of some debate as we had all played different versions and everyone wanted to try a different one. For example, Blue had never played the original USA version, but all those that had didn’t want to play again; similarly while Green was interested in playing Märklin, Black and Purple weren’t keen; they were interested in Switzerland or Nordic Countries, but Magenta, Blue and Green were unenthusiastic about that. And so it went on, in fact, the only thing everyone agreed on was that we should split into a three and a four and nobody wanted to play Europe edition (as everyone had played that a lot). In the end, the group of three was based round Black and Purple who wanted to play with the Switzerland map and setup, and were joined by Burgundy who was fairly flexible. That left the group of four who decided to go for Nederland as none of them had played it before.

– Image by boardGOATS

The basic Ticket to Ride game can be summarised as follows: players take it in turns to carry out one of three possible actions and when one player has two pieces left or fewer, everyone gets one more turn before the game ends and points are tallied. The first action is to lay trains on the map, but in order to do this, they must spend train cards in the colour featured on the map. Thus, if a player wants to claim a four car route, they must play four cards of the corresponding colour and finally place four of their plastic carriages on the board in the correct location scoring points as they do so. If they do not have cards to claim the route they want then they can, instead, choose two cards, either from the five face up cards next to the board, or from the face down draw pile. “Laying trains” scores points, but a large number of a player’s points are scored at the end through tickets which give points to players that have connected several short routes together to connect two more distant cities. Each player starts the game with some tickets (chosen from a larger number), but on their turn may, instead of drawing cards or claiming routes, draw more tickets. At the end of the game, tickets which have been successfully completed score points, while unfulfilled tickets score negatively.

– Image by BGG contributor stormrover

Although this is a fairly complete summary of the rules for the original base game, each different version has slight modifications and variations that change the game slightly. The “Swiss trio” got under way first as Burgundy was quite familiar with the rule modifications: tunnels, ferry routes and country-to-country tickets; locomotive cards can only be used for ferries and tunnels, but can be drawn from the face-up cards without penalty. The game was very close with Purple trying to make a long route from east to west, Black travelling north to south and Burgundy doing a bit of both. The tunnels were a bit of a hindrance with everyone struggling to get through the Alps without paying extra.

– Image by boardGOATS

As the ticket scoring came to a close, Burgundy had his nose in front and looked to have the win in the bag, but carefully counting up the trains gave Black the bonus for the longest route and with it, the win by just two points. Burgundy was particularly cheesed off as he had attempted to claim a tunnel on his final turn that would have given him the longest route, but the fates conspired against him. It was only later that we realised that there hadn’t been a recount for the points awarded as trains were placed on the map and as, invariably points tend to get missed out, a recount is generally sensible.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Blue, Green, Red and Magenta had worked out the rules changes applicable to Nederland. There are no ferry routes or country-to-country tickets and obviously, no tunnels, however, in this low-country with countless canals and rivers, there are bridges instead. and these have a toll. Each player starts with “toll tokens” to a total value of thirty. Most of the routes are double routes, so can be claimed by two different players, this feature is common with all other versions of Ticket to Ride when playing with the maximum number of players, but in this game they are used for all games. The first player to claim a double route pays the marked toll to the bank, but the second player to claim that route pays the toll to the player who got there first. These tolls become quite critical in the end game as there are bonus points available for players who manage to conserve toll tokens, and these bonuses are sizable with fifty-five points going to the player with the most tokens at the end of the game and thirty-five and twenty for second and third. Players who can’t afford to build, can borrow from the bank, but that removes them from the race for bonus points as well as costing points at the end of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

As is traditional, everyone began by moaning about where their starting tickets were. Beyond that, nobody really knew quite what to expect, but it was clear that this wasn’t a game where players could ill-afford to hoard train cards and wait as they were likely to find themselves paying tolls to other players and giving them bonus points. As such, everyone got going quickly and Red led the way placing several long routes giving her an early lead. Everyone else caught up, and as players started to run low on trains, they realised they had to watch the number of toll tokens they had left else they would have to begin to borrow and that would put them out of the running for the bonuses. Blue picked up extra tickets first, but they left her with a really tough decision as most of her track was in the north-west and the tickets she had were pretty much everywhere else. After a very long time thinking, she decided to keep them all and go for broke. The others soon followed, picking up more tickets, and Green had several goes with some corresponding to routes he had already claimed. It was only a couple of turns after she had drawn her extra tickets that Magenta counted her trains and started to make some uncomfortable sounding noises suggestive of possible problems ahead.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue triggered the end of the game and it was all too close to call with less than ten points between first and last before the tickets and bonus points were added on. Green was the first to count up and there was a stunned silence when we found he had a massive one hundred and thirty-seven points from the tickets to add to his train total of fifty-two. Red had a couple of tickets that she had failed to complete so her ticket total took a bit of a bruising, but her problems were nothing to Magenta’s. She only realised she didn’t have enough pieces to complete all her tickets when it was too late, so all her hard work to fulfil her initial tickets was almost completely negated as she finished with a ticket total of just one! Blue had managed to complete all her routes and was pretty much neck-a-neck with Green which, like the other game, left it all down to the bonus points for toll tokens. Red took the fifty-five points for the most remaining toll tokens, giving her a very respectable one-hundred and fifty-four and third place. Blue picked up an extra thirty-five points and finished forty points ahead of Green who finished with the fewest toll tokens and therefore didn’t add to his score.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine had appeared towards the end of the game and, after a brief explanation of the rules, had commented on the name of the game in German: Zug um Zug, which translates to “step by step”, although Zug also means train. This kind of double-entendre is not uncommon in Euro game titles and prompted a discussion of other games with similar “jokes”. Blue mentioned Tier auf Tier which literally translates to the English title “Animal upon Animal”, a children’s game where players stack wooden animals, creating “tiers”. Magenta brought up her favourite game, Bohnanaza, where “Bohn” is the German for bean. Green chipped in with his offering of Citadels, which is called “Ohne Furcht und Adel” in German which literally means “without fear and noble” (colloquially translated as “without fear and nobility”). This is actually a pun on “Ohne Furcht und Tadel”, which means “without fear or blemish”. It is an old-fashioned expression seldom used now except perhaps when describing a perfect performance by Michael Schumacher for example, that refers to somebody being very valiant and chivalrous (ala King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table). Interestingly, when trying to find the correct literal translation, Green submitted “Ohne Furcht und Adel” to Google and got “Citadels” in return, perhaps a measure of how embedded games are in German life.

– Image by BGG contributor dr.mrow

With eight of us, and nobody terribly keen to play anything too cerebral, we decided to go for something light, 6 Nimmt got a mention, but we settled on Las Vegas, using the extra dice for more players players and the wild cards from the Boulevard expansion, and the Slot Machine from the 2015 Brettspiel Advent Calendar. This was a Christmas gift and had its first outing in January when it was the “Feature Game”, but as a light dice game that plays a wide range of player numbers it is quite versatile. On their turn, each player begins by rolling their dice, then assigning some of them to one of the six casinos. Each casino is numbered one to six and has a jackpot drawn at random from a deck of money.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ckirkman

On their turn, 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. The Slot Machine 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). The game was a lot of chaotic fun with with lots of chit-chat and before long we had worked our way through the card deck and spent an hour doing it. Although there is a lot of down-time with so many players, it didn’t seem to matter very much and it was quite relaxing to chat about things.

– Image by boardGOATS

We found Slot Machine definitely added a useful extra option to the game, however, the “wild cards” were less interesting. This inspired a discussion about the value or otherwise of expansions. In an evening essentially devoted to expansions, it was interesting consider whether the addition of expansions took a simple game that everyone liked and made it unnecessarily more complex, or whether it breathed new life into a game people had become tired of. In the case of Ticket to Ride at least, it was clear that with a game that players had become almost too familiar with, the extra maps provided a nice alternative. Meanwhile, the game was providing an interesting background to the discussion and the end results were almost incidental. Magenta redeemed herself after the disastrous ticket fiasco, finishing with $390,000 and third. Second place went to Red with $420,000, but with her second victory of the night, Blue took home the bacon with $460,000, more than twice that of last place.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor joeincolorado

Learning outcome: Germans *do* have a sense of humour!

12th January 2016

With Red, Magenta and Blue moaning about work and only Burgundy waiting for real food, when Pine rolled up we began straight away with our “Feature Game”, the light filler, Las Vegas. This is a very simple dice game, but actually quite a lot of fun. On their turn, each player begins by rolling their dice, then assigning some of them to one of the six casinos. Each casino is numbered one to six and has a jackpot of over $50,000, drawn at random from a deck of money. Thus, each jackpot could be anything from $50,000 to $180,000 and comprise one to five notes. On their turn, players must use all the dice of one number to bet on the casino of that number.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Once everyone has placed all their dice the player who placed the most dice on a casino takes the highest value currency card. The player with the most money after four rounds is the winner. The snag is that before any money is handed out, any dice leading to a draw are removed. It is this rule that makes the game interesting, raising the decisions above the trivial and, in our view, making it a better and much more fun game than Qwixx which we played two weeks ago. Although the game only plays five (without the Boulevard expansion), Blue had added an extra set of purple dice just in case, so when Green walked in just before the game started, he was able to join in.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

In the early part of the round, each player has to decide whether to conserve dice or whether to make a statement and go in big. As the round progresses, players must choose where to place their bets then try to finesse their position before being forced to place their last die or dice based solely on chance. The factors that go into the decision include the value of the rewards available, the current position and the number of notes as well as the probabilities of other players interfering. The probabilities are non-trivial too, because rolling multiples can change the number of dice available for the next roll.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ckirkman

In the first round, everyone made the same mistake and committed too many dice too early, but after that, we all got the hang of it and the game was quite close. Players keep their winnings hidden, but since everyone had had rounds with lean pickings as well as generous ones, we all felt we were in with a chance. The last round began with it all to play for and everyone taking it in turns to roll lots of sixes. At the end of the game, we announced our totals in turn: Green finished with $260,000, Pine with $250,000, Burgundy and Blue tied with £270,000, but Magenta just pipped them with $280,000. Red, however, took longer to count up her cash for good reason and finished well clear with $360,000.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor joeincolorado

With the arrival of Black and Purple, we decided to split into two groups. The only game that everyone really wanted to play was Isle of Sky: From Chieftain to King, so since we only had the one copy, five went for that leaving the three others to find something else to play. Isle of Skye is a tile laying game where players play a sort of solitaire Carcassonne, bidding for tiles and scoring a the end of each of the six rounds. We’ve only played the game once on a Tuesday in November, but it has proven to be very popular at other local meetings too, so everyone playing had played before and the game was quick to get going.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Burgundy had played it a few times and, unusually, generally seems to struggle with this game. This time he started well, and took the lead from the start, unfortunately however, he struggled to pick up scrolls, so suffered in the end game scoring. One of the peculiarities of this game is the fact that from round three, at the start of the round players get one extra gold coin per player in front of them on the score track, increasing to four extra coins by the final round. This really adds up, and a player who takes advantage of this bonus can have a large impact on the score track. Black made hay on the bonus sitting at the back for most of the game, however, he failed to use the gold and finished with fifty-one unspent coins.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Punkin312

Between Burgundy at the front and Black at the rear, Purple, Pine and Magenta were jostling for position. Without sheep and cattle featuring strongly in the scoring tiles this time, Pine felt he would struggle, but he made a surge for the front in the final scoring. Magenta who had spent a lot of the game at the back of the pack with Black gradually moved through the field in the later rounds and finished four ahead of Burgundy in joint first with Pine on sixty-six, with Pine taking it on the tie-breaker.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, Blue, Green and Red were playing an aggressive game of Citadels. This is a slightly older, role selection game. Everyone starts with a hand of district cards and the start player, “The King”, also has a hand of eight Character cards. The Character cards are shuffled and one is placed face down blind. The King can then choose one Character card and pass the rest on to the next player. The cards are drafted in this way until (in the three player game) everyone has two and the remaining card joins the first card, face down to one side. Thus, each player has two Character cards and each Character card has a number and a special ability. “The King” then calls the characters in turn, by number and name, and the player who has that card then immediately carries out their turn.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor themilkcrate

A turn consists of either taking money or drawing two cards from the deck, then paying the monetary cost to build one of the district cards from their hand. The game ends at the end of the round in which a player builds his eighth district card. The scores are then added up with players receiving points for their buildings equalling the total cost to build them, plus bonuses for being the first player to build eight district cards, bonuses for having at least one district in each of the five colours and for achieving a total of eight buildings before the game ends. We played with some of the Characters from the Dark City expansion so “The Witch” replaced “The Assassin”, “The Tax Collector” replaced “The Thief” and “The Navigator” replaced “The Architect”. We also chose a random selection of the valuable “purple buildings”, a factor that turned out to be quite critical to the game play in the end.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Nodens77

Blue took an early lead, building a couple of “purple buildings”, in particular, the very annoying Ball Room. The “purple buildings are expensive to build, but generally come with some sort of special power, in the case of the Ball Room, if the owner is also The King, every player must say “Thanks, Your Excellency” before taking their turn otherwise it is forfeit. Without “The Thief” in play, Blue was able to let her money build up and was hoping to build the Library, when Red played “The Magician” and swapped hands with her. Unimpressed, in the next round Blue played the same trick, giving Red the apparently rather useless Armory in exchange. To make sure Red didn’t nick it back, Blue built the Library quickly, her third purple building giving her a healthy lead though she, like Green was struggling to get the blue cards she wanted to pick up the bonus for having a building of each colour. Green meanwhile was having other problems of his own, compounded by the fact that he forgot to be obsequious and therefore lost a turn.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

Red made persistent assaults on Blue, but it was when Blue had six district cards built and was trying to find a way to close out the game that Red decided to use that “rather useless Armory” to destroy Blue’s valuable Library. Discussion ensued as Blue had originally decided to ditch the Armory as it was too restrictive, but Red wasn’t so sure. Green resorted to looking it up on-line and found a wealth of discussion none of which really answered our questions. After a brief hiatus, we decided to let Red go ahead as Blue was so far in front, although it wasn’t that far as it turned out. Both Green and Blue hadn’t seen a blue district card all game so missed out on the three point bonus and, as Red completed her eighth building first, she also took an extra two points for that, finishing on thirty-seven. Green and Blue tied for second place though arguably Green should not have been able to take his last turn since he forgot to “Thank, Her Excellency” again…

– Image by boardGOATS taken from boardgamegeek.com

Citadels is one of those rare games that plays a wide player count, nominally from two to eight players. However, while there is a consensus that it does not play all numbers equally well, the on-line jury is still out as to where its “sweet spot” is. In fact, some people appear to think it is best with small numbers, while others prefer it with more players. We’ve played Citadels a few times on a Tuesday, a couple of times with just two players, but also with five. Blue and Green had been involved on each occasion and Blue in particular had quite enjoyed the game with just two players, but had hated it with five. With two she felt it was a game where players could really try to get inside the head of their opponent whereas with five she felt it was horribly chaotic and difficult to follow what was going on. Knowing this, Green had thought three might have some of the features of the head-to-head game while adding more dimension to the game play and, despite losing, Blue agreed, that three was an excellent number of players for this game.

– Image by BGG contributor lolcese

While Citadels was finishing, the other players filled the time with a couple of rounds of an old favourite, Dobble. The first round was a warm up which Magenta ducked out of as she has a bit of a reputation as the “Dobble Queen”. This was played with the conventional “Towering Inferno” variant, where players call out matches and grab cards from the central pile. In the second round, Magenta joined in so “The Poisoned Gift” variant was chosen, otherwise known as “Gang up on Magenta”. In this version, instead of grabbing cards from the middle for yourself, you match them and stick them on someone else’s pile (usually Magenta’s), with the aim to finish with as few cards as possible. Everyone accordingly rained cards down on Magenta who duly lost with Black winning by one from Pine and Burgundy.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari

Time was ticking on, so we decided to play a quick game of Saboteur. This is a team game where you don’t know who your team mates are. With eight players, there is a team of five or six Dwarves trying to find the treasure, and two or three Saboteurs, trying to stop them. On their turn, the active player can play a tunnel card to progress towards the three possible treasure locations, play an action card or discard a card face down (a very Saboteur-like action). The action cards come in a variety of flavours: broken tool cards that are played in front of other players and prevent them from laying tunnel cards; tool cards than cancel out broken tool cards; map cards that allow players to look at one of the possible treasure locations to see whether it contains the gold or not, as well as rockfall cards that allow players to remove tunnel cards that have already been placed.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

The game is supposed to consist of three rounds with the winning team taking prize cards, however, last time we played, we decided that the addition of prizes meant the game inevitably outstayed its welcome. We felt it would be better to play one round, and if we wanted, play a second, but treat them as separate games, which is exactly what happened this time. In the first “game”, Magenta and Purple claimed the gold was at one side, while Black and Blue claimed it was in the middle – clearly we had two of our Saboteurs, but which pair looked guilty?

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mikehulsebus

After a couple of rounds, Magenta showed her true colours and played a broken tool card in a Saboteur-like manner and she and Purple were promptly stomped on. Suitably, after everyone had doubted him for so long, Black was the one to finally find the gold. Green had had enough and headed off, but Pine, Red and Magenta agreed to stay for one more go. This time Red decided to have a go at Pine from the very start – maybe it was the pointiness of his ears or the way he carried his pick axe, but she claimed he was definitely a Saboteur. Everyone else was less quick to condemn, and before long it became clear that it was Red and Purple (again!) who were guilty and, although it was closer, the Dwarves still got to the gold first.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor mothertruckin

With people leaving, there was just time for Black, Purple, Burgundy and Blue to squeeze in a quick game of The Game. We started dreadfully, and two piles were very quickly closed off. Somehow we managed to keep going though and, despite an appalling run of luck and a couple of us making dodgy decisions, Black was eventually able to draw the last card from the deck. Playing just one card at a time made things a little easier, but we still had over twenty cards to get rid of. Sadly, it was not to be; the poor start had done its damage and we finished with a total of eleven cards in hand.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: When a game is *that* popular, bring it again!

9th September 2014

It was a very quiet night possibly exacerbated by the closure of the A417, which impeded everyone who comes from the south.

We started out with a filler game called Taluva. This is really a thinly veiled abstract, but is very pretty for all that. On the face of it, it has a lot in common with Carcassone: players take it in turns to play tiles and then place a meeple. However, the tiles are twelve sided and comprise three hexagonal regions or fields, one of which is always a volcano. When placing tiles, they can be adjacent or on top of other tiles so long as the volcano sits on top of another volcano (the tile must also cover more than one tile and there cannot be an overhang).

The meeples are the real difference though: in this game, they represent buildings rather than characters, and the rules for placing them are a bit arbitrary. Players can place their building anywhere (buildings do not need to be put on the tile they’ve just placed), but the type of building dictates where you can put it and how many you can place. Thus, a single “hut” can be placed on any level one field (excluding volcanoes) to form a settlement, that is to say, the hut cannot be placed on a tile that sits on other tiles. On the other hand, an existing settlement can be expanded by adding huts to all adjacent fields of the same type, but in this case, the number of huts added depends on the level. So, a level two field (i.e. one that sits on top of one other tile) would get two huts and a level three field (one that sits on top of two other tiles) would get three.

Each player also has three temples and two towers to place, and these must be placed adjacent to settlement containing at least three huts (and no other temples) and on a level three tile in a settlement of any size respectively. The game ends when all players but one are eliminated because they are unable to place a building, or when one player wins by exhausting two of their type of building or when there are no tiles left. In the last case, the winner is the one who placed the most temples, then the most towers and finally the most huts.

We started at a leisurely pace before Blue remembered that we should have started with a subset of tiles and then it all became a little more frenetic. Having played it a few times before, Blue should have had the edge over Green, however it is one of those games that Blue has a bit of a blind spot for. So although Green felt he was stymied at every turn, he was only ever one or two tiles from taking the lead. The game finished with Blue and green level on towers and temples, but Blue had placed more huts, so just kept her nose in front. We concluded that we liked it, though there was nothing in the theme to assist remembering the rules. We also thought is would play very differently with more players.

After much debate (which ended in rolling the dice) we decided to play our “Feature Game”, Darjeeling. This is a game about collecting and shipping crates of tea. Each player has a tea-collector meeple which moves around an array of tiles, picking up tea. When they have a set of complete tea chests, they can choose to ship them. Bonuses are awarded for shipping larger loads and for shipping the type of tea that is in the greatest demand and the game ends when a player gets to a hundred points. The demand indicator is very clever – it consists of a double set of wooden disks lined up on a sloping track: when a tea is shipped the corresponding coloured disk is moved from the bottom to the top and the bonus is awarded according to the number of discs between the two discs of the same colour. So, if there are two discs of the same colour at the top of at the ramp, shipping that colour will give no bonus. As other teas are shipped, however, these two discs will gradually move down the ramp together until they are at the bottom when they will give the maximum bonus possible.

The other clever part of the game is the scoring for shipping: points are awarded at the beginning of a players round according to the number of crates still on ships multiplied by their position in the boat-stack. When crates are shipped, they go onto a boat at at the top of the boat-stack, so a boat still at the top of the boat-stack at the start of a players turn will score points equivallent to three times the number of crates on the boat. When Purple, Black, Blue, Green and Pink played this game a while ago and Green managed to ship six crates and unfortunately nobody was able to ship anything for at least two rounds which meant for a while Green scored eighteen points every time at the start of each of his turn and consequently gave the rest of us a bit of a hiding. There was no way Blue was going to let that happen again…

Blue started, but Green was the first to ship with four crates. Blue followed immediately with four of her own. Since Green had just shipped, he was not in a position to ship again for a couple of rounds and as soon as he did, Blue shipped again straight away knocking Green off the top spot. Blue persisted with this strategy for several rounds, shipping immediately after Green even if the timing was suboptimal for her, but preventing Green from building up a commanding lead. In fact, before long, Blue was building a sizable lead of her own and it wasn’t long before she passed one hundred points, bringing the game to a close. A couple of poor final moves meant the score was closer than it should have been, but Blue ran out the clear winner.

We were a bit tired, so we finished off with a game we’ve played before, but haven’t played for a while, Citadels. The idea of this game is that players are trying to build a city and the game ends when the first player builds their eighth building. To do this, players choose character cards and then each character is called in the prearranged order. Thus, when the late characters are played, the situation may have changed significantly from when they were originally chosen. On a character’s turn, the active player first takes money or cards, and then (if they can) they build one of the building cards from their hand. There are bonuses available for players who get one of each building colour, the player who gets to eight buildings first (triggering the end of the game) and any others who finish the game with eight or more buildings.

With so few players, we included the Witch and the Wizard from the The Dark City expansion. Blue started quickly and built a valuable purple building, while Green started with cheaper buildings collecting a range of colours. Blue then built a very cheap red building which Green promptly destroyed using the Warlord. As the game came to a close, Green had a building of every colour while Blue had more buildings but was missing red and no matter what she did, could not replace the one that got zapped. Blue finished first with another high scoring purple building and Green finished with the Architect building two buildings to bring him up to eight. Blue’s valuable buildings and the extras for finishing first offset the bonus points Green picked up for a full set of colours and all eight buildings. So the game ended thirty-three all.

Learning Outcome: Sometimes games play very differently with the minimum number and maximum number of players possible.

27th Movember 2012

This week, some of the group turned up early to sample the food the pub offers (which was really rather good), and two people managed to squeeze in a very quick “learning game” of Mr. Jack Pocket before it arrived. Mr. Jack is an asymmetric two player game, that is to say, the protagonists have different goals. One plays “Mr. Jack” who is trying to escape, the other plays “The Investigator” who is trying to deduce who Mr. Jack is masquerading as. This version was the travel version, but is still just as much a brain burner as its big brother despite the diminutive size of the box.

Just as the diners finished, the others arrived giving us a total of five people who had braved the flood water. After a quick game sale, we started the “Feature Game”, Eketorp. This is a game where players attempt to gather resources to build their Viking stronghold on the Swedish island of Öland. In this game players try to second guess which resources the others don’t choose, with a battle and a potential extended stay in the hospital as the reward for failure.

Next, after some discussion we decided to play Citadels. Citadels is a role selection and city building game. Each round, players choose a role to aid them building their city, and each is called in turn to perform their turn. The first of these is the Assassin, then the Thief, then Magician, then the King etc. You have to be particularly careful of the first three, as (for example) the thief seemed to think royalty was a good target.

The last game was a very quick game called Dobble (aka “Spot It”), so we had several goes. There are lots of different ways to play this, but basically it is Snap, except that each card has more than one symbol. The idea is to call a correct match more often and faster than everyone else. Apparently every card has exactly one matching symbol, though a number of disbelievers amongst us felt the need to check…

Learning Outcome: Beware the magician who steals all your cards (though perhaps you deserve it if you set the example).

Planning Stages

So, after a lot of deliberation and many trips to the Jockey for a quick card game and a drink (which no doubt started a lot of gossip), we have a “day”, we have a venue, and we have a name, so then we got a website – and this is it. As the name suggests, we are going to meet on alternate Tuesdays in Stanford at the Horse and Jockey pub. The intention is that this website will be a record of the games played as well as a way of publicising meetings, so it is only fair to mention here some of the games we played during the planning stages…!

Citadels
The Bean Game (Bohnanza)
Mr. Jack Pocket
Saturn
Court of the Medici
Jamaica
Dixit
Die Erbtante
Jaipur
Hamburgum (or perhaps Londonum?)

Yes, we spent quite a lot of time thinking about it and playing games in the pub!

Oh yes, and we have settled on Tuesday 2nd October for the big day.

The Horse and Jockey Pub