Recently in More about games Category

I was writing about Cuba on the Finnish Board Game Society forums after my latest experience with the game and I think my friend Tommy hit the nail on the head on what I don't like about the game.

It's the lack of snowballing. Valerie Putnam wrote about Snowballs and Princess Brides on Boardgame News and here's the essential quote about snowball games:

Players start the game with minimal resources and must use what they have to build more. Slowly your meager beginnings, through careful effort, gain enough momentum to become self-sustaining. It's like a snowball that is finally solid enough to grow bigger just by pushing it down a powdery slope. The winner is typically the player who accomplishes this most efficiently.

In a way, Cuba feels like an economic game in the vein of Puerto Rico et cetera, but what you're able to do on turn six isn't much better than what you can do on turn two or three. Sure, you get more buildings, but the buildings are all the same, there's no "get small building, use it to get more stuff, buy a bigger building that's more powerful than the small building" effect.

And that, I think, is the biggest problem with Cuba. I don't get the sense of achieving something, it's all the same during the whole game.

Of course, the sense of achievement doesn't have to mean snowballing. Well, I think one can classify Age of Steam as a snowball game even though it isn't quite like the Puerto Rico family, but still: you start with minimal resources and build more. Building track produces income, which gives more options and so on... And in addition to the growing capabilities and satisfaction of actually making money, there's the sense of achievement from building track and watching the networks grow, making larger runs and so on.

Steam over Holland arrived today. Actually, yesterday I went to the Netherland's post web site to check when the package should actually arrive, and it turned out it was supposed to arrive yesterday or today. Well, here it is now, right on time.

I'm kind of used to 18xx games being drab and kind of minimalistic in their look, but this one's different. Right from the box, the game has a slipcase and a box, both very thick and sturdy. The contents are top notch: mounted board, nice tiles, wooden houses for stations, proper cards for trains and shares... The box has a nice insert, which keeps the board in place over the other contents. Best of all, there's a certificate of authenticity - like Mike Doyle suggested some time ago. Very nice touch!

What about the game? I don't know, seems interesting, I think I like the concept of game limited to 15 rounds (that is just five stock rounds and two operating rounds for each stock round). Other than that it's hard to say, hopefully I get to play this soon. The length is just long enough to make playing this on Thursday evenings tricky business, if we start by 16.30 (feasible) we can finish something that takes three hours, but that leaves very little room for explaining the rules.

I went and bought 1825 from BGG marketplace. It's a full set, too, all three units (but none of the extra kits). Why? I don't know, I suppose because it was there? Well, it does seem like an interesting game. I've read nice things about it from Geek and I think I might like the emphasis on track-building instead of stock manipulations.

Well, I'll see about that. I do like the flexibility on player amounts and the short playtime. If the game can be played in two and half hours in a meaningful way, that would be really, really sweet, because it would make playing on Thursday evenings possible. Three hours would be fairly cool, too. So, it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

I'm still waiting for my copy of Steam over Holland, sent from Netherlands two weeks ago. I'm getting anxious, because stuff usually arrives in a week from Europe. Well, the seller has only positive feedback at Geek, so I suppose he just sent the game using slower mail service (consider how cheap the shipping was, I'm fairly sure it wasn't priority mail). Not that I would have time to play the game, but...

Thursday I also received my copy of Ur 1830 BC, which is Splotter's slightly heretical take on 18xx. Instead of shares in railroads, players buy land in Mesopotamia and build irrigation networks. The basic elements of 18xx are there, with some interesting twists. The game has decent ratings, nothing superb but solid enough. I like most of what Splotter has done and I think the theme is quite interesting here. The way the irrigation systems works seems intriguing as well. I'm really looking forward to trying this one.

And finally, the VFLGS has made some deal with Mayfair Games and now stocks more of their games. That includes 1856 and 1870. My friend Tommy has 1856 and has played it few times. Most notably in the small con organised for Board Game Society actives back in 2006: they started Saturday morning and played for over six hours. Then they played something else, went to sauna (and played something else in sauna as well) and after that, decided to play another round of 1856. That was a quick one, just slightly over four hours. That's pretty cool, and probably a good idea too, considering most players were newbies. Like Tommy said, 1856 is as newbie-friendly as teaching someone to swim in a shark pool while beating them on the head with a brick... So anyway, there's a fairly cheap copy of 1856 calling to me, while I'm doing my best of resisting it's call. Sounds tempting, but the six-hour play time and brutality towards newbies means that the game is practically unplayable. I can imagine getting these three- and four-hour games on table, no problem, but six hours and more is just too hard.

So, all in all, I guess you could say I'm interested in 18xx games.

Ted Alspach released Ubongo Extrem Craxy Expansion today. It's a DIY set of 70 new puzzles for Ubongo Extrem. These craxy (extra crazy, that is) puzzles are five-tile layouts, and they sure look mean.

I printed mine out today, and after I spend some time cutting the puzzles apart (they're printed two per page), this one needs some testing. I printed mine on 100 gram colour inkjet paper, which is far from cardboard, but hopefully it doesn't matter too much in this game.

In his blog (which I hadn't noticed before) Ted has some creation notes for the expansion.

I bought some new games. Through the Ages was a must-buy after I played it with Tommy last year. I picked my copy of the second edition yesterday. A lot has been said about the production values of the new edition. I have little to add, except that it isn't that bad and it sure looks like it's made in China.

I don't like the Chinese shrink-wrap, that's for sure. Well, as I said, it's not that bad, especially if they're issuing replacement cards for the misprints. Replacement board is nice as well, though I think the numbering error (the culture score track jumps from 80 to 100, skipping 90) is really minor and seems a bit wasteful to me to print replacement boards and send them around the world to people. After all, it's such a small detail that doesn't affect play at all.

The cards might be a bigger problem, if they curl up or otherwise destroy themselves. I've got sleeves, so that should probably fix that. They don't seem very durable. The tiny beads of the original edition are replaced by tiny cylinders - I'm not a huge fan of either, but I do understand bigger bits would mean bigger boards and the game takes enough space as it is.

One question about the cover: why they put the choking hazard warning straight on the box cover? I understand they had to have that on the box, but why put it so visibly on the cover? It draws attention from the cover art (which I think is just fine).

In any case, the production values are decent and the game itself rocks. We're playing tomorrow!

I went hunting for card sleeves to the friendly local game store (formerly known as unfriendly local game store). I was disappointed, because they didn't have any. Bummer. Then again, the board game sleeves I was hunting for are a minority item and probably won't sell that much, as they only fit few games. They're perfect for Through the Ages, though, so I had to order them from Lautapelit.fi.

Well, I did check their games for sale table and I just had to buy Vegas Showdown. 22.50 euros, not bad! I haven't played it yet, but people I trust like it, so it can't be bad. Besides, I can probably sell it for 15 or 20 euros if I don't like it. But I do expect to like, it looks great and the rules made immediate sense.

I'm also contemplating about extending my 18xx collection (damn the rail bug). Currently I'm considering to buy 1860 and/or Steam over Holland... Heck, who am I kidding, it's "and" and the real question is "when". I mean, 1860 is good, I know it because I've played it and enjoyed it. Steam over Holland promises shorter playing time, meaning I could perhaps get a game done in our Thursday sessions. That would be cool.

Oh, and I just bought a used copy of Ur: 1830 BC.

I picked up Ubongo Extrem from the post office today. It's rather neat! The basic idea remains, but the puzzles are now much harder! The tiles are made of small hexagons, three to five per tile on most tiles. Three-tile puzzles are still fairly simple, but the four-tile puzzles are now downright fiendish. Even the most experienced Ubongo players should find them hard enough!

The scoring is simplified and I think it's better than before. There are four kinds of gems, worth 1, 2, 3 and 4 points. Each player who finishes in time gets a random gem from the bag. The fastest solver gets an additional gem worth 3 points and the second fastest solver gets a 1-point gem. That way in a close game anybody can win, but someone who can consistently solve the puzzles fast will get a big advantage in the scoring. I find the scoring simple and efficient.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing this game. I noticed Ted Alspach says on the Geek he's not going back to basic Ubongo - that's some praise.

I don't think I can help it: I can't wait for the English edition of Agricola to come out. All the talk of expensive euros and uncertain schedules, and all that time I could be happily playing the game with a German edition. After all, it is an excellent game and right now I have good opportunities to play games: Agricola is perfectly compatible with my Thursday sessions.

Besides, if and when the English edition comes out and I'll buy that, there's always a chance I can sell the German edition. If the English edition is $70, with the weak dollar that'll probably make 60 € or so - perhaps someone will rather buy a 20 € German edition from me? That's my plan.

Way of teaching Go is an instructional article describing a method of teaching Go to children (guess why I'm blogging this).

The article suggests playing Atari-Go (or Ponnuki-Go), which seems to be the recommended method of teaching Go to beginners. That is, play the simple capture game where the only goal is to capture one stone from your opponent.

Where the article gets interesting is suggesting to continue with Atari-Go to larger boards and upping the number of stones required. First of all, it can be used as a handicap: the better player needs to capture more stones. What's really interesting: when the game is played on a large board and both players need to capture, say, 10 stones, it's starting to get closer to regular Go.

That is, territory starts to count. In the end, the player with the bigger territory will win and sooner or later, you can start to quit games when you can see that one of the players will win, because they have more territory. When you reach that point, you're basically the ko rules away from playing regular Go.

This is something to remember. Oh, and if anybody has any practical knowledge of teaching Go to small children, I'm interested.

Before, Tom Lehmann simply didn't register on my radar. I'm too young or something for the TimJim Games and Fast Food Franchise to mean anything to me. However, now I take a look at my list of three most-anticipated games - Caylus Magna Carta, Race for the Galaxy and Phoenicia - and hey, two out of three are Lehmann's games.

I was completely unaware of Phoenicia until I read the designer preview at Boardgame News. After that, I was hooked. It sounds brilliant! I liked many bits of Das Zepter von Zavandor, but after playing once, I found the game lacking in many respects. Based on Lehmann's preview, he's went and fixed all the bits about Outpost (of which Zavandor is a rehash) I found lacking, excessive length and the clunky currency system being the two most important bits.

What comes to theme, I quite like Outpost's robot factories and whatnot, but very much prefer Phoenicia's ancient civilization theme (especially with the focus being somewhere else than military might) to Zavandor's bland high fantasy. I've browsed through the rules and expect to enjoy Phoenicia a lot. Must buy, it seems...

I've got this thing with war games. I'd like to have a tactical level war game in my collection. I like Memoir '44, it works well for what it tries to be, but I'd like something with more detail, more story to it.

However, Advanced Squad Leader and other games like it are way too heavy for me. ASL has won over many level-headed euro gamers on the Board Game Society forums, but reading their stories, I think it's way over my head. I also lack a regular and experienced opponent; even with the easier Starter Kits, I don't think teaching the game every time you play is feasible.

I've thought about Up Front, even considered bidding on it on Ebay. It's a tad expensive, perhaps, and the way people talk about the complicated rules makes me shiver. The lack of board also makes the mechanics intriguing, but tricky.

However, I think I have found a winner: Combat Commander: Europe sounds like the game I want. It combines low tactical level combat with clever card mechanism. I love card management with cards that have multiple uses (if I were to design a game, that would probably be the key mechanic). The cards also limit the possible actions, makings turns go faster.

Combat Commander looks like it would be easy enough to teach often and for the newbies to enjoy on their first go. It's expensive and the local store doesn't have it yet, but when they do, I'm going to get one. This is sad news for BattleLore, though - that has to wait, I can't afford two 70 euro games right now.