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I spent most of my yesterday attending Tracon. Tracon is a yearly convention here in Tampere, this was the third time it was organized. Tracon is mostly about anime, manga and role-playing games. In the first two Tracon's, I don't think there was any board game presence, but this time the Finnish Board Game Society organized a small board game room. Since Tracon was close and friends from outside Tampere were attending, I joined the fun.

It was quite popular event, with about 3000 people attending (according to the web site). The defining element of Tracon was without a doubt cosplay. It seems to me that cosplay is the new live-action role-playing. When I was a teen, larping became popular (I was among the first major LARP wave back in 1994 or so), now it seems cosplay is the hip thing to do. Japan is very popular in general, I think most kids who start drawing comics these days adapt a very manga-influenced style and J-rock is quite popular.

Which is cool, and certainly made Tracon interesting to see. Most of the attendees were fairly young, I think. While board games in Finland are popular over wide age spectrum, the hard core hobbyists are "university age", that is 20-25 or so, well 20-30 perhaps (I'm getting closer to 30 myself, so extension is needed here). These cosplay folks are probably around 15-20. High school kids, that is.

Our little board game room (the event was held on the local technical university, a pretty nice venue actually) was a small class room, with nice differential equations decorating the black boards from Friday's lectures... It was a pleasant center of normality in the con, as most people in costume avoided it. We had a fairly small bunch of hard core board game folks, I'd say probably less than twenty people spent their whole day playing board games. That was quite enough, though, and quality certainly beats quantity.

Well, the costume people and other anime fans did play some board games as well. I had carried my Crokinole board and, fortunately, it saw almost constant action. I had a rules printout and many people had the patience to learn the game from the rules. That was admirable. I suppose it just looks too cool to pass. The cool factor certainly made the other hit of the day, Hamsterrolle. This group of anime fans played the game for a really long time, having quite a bit of fun. That was very nice.

I was hoping to play Roads and Boats, but the lack of people made that impossible. That wasn't a problem, as I then ended up playing lots of smaller games. Roads and Boats hits the table later, I hope. Oskari had asked me to bring bunch of games he hadn't played, and we ended up playing most if not all the games I brought, and that I consider major success.

As a warm-up, we started with Crokinole. I played with three newbies and the result was rather clear: after four rounds my team won exactly 100-0 (I always play four rounds or 100 points, whichever comes first). It was fun to flick the discs, it's been a while since I last played the game. It's just too heavy to carry in a bus, and nobody ever comes to my place to play games (might be because I never invite anybody).

Next up was Race for the Galaxy with Sami, and later I played the game twice with Oskari. It's a nice, swift two-player game indeed, and I even managed to win all three games. And I think Oskari mentioned something about coming to teach me how to play... Well, he did have rotten luck with his cards in one of the games, though I won the otehr despite having rather weak set of cards on table.

I played Dvonn twice, first with Mankka and then with Oskari. Both were new to the game, while I've played it 100+ times (mostly on Little Golem). Interesting enough, while I was able to give Mankka the typical newbie handling, winning every disc, Oskari was able to beat me.

Let me be the first one to admit that I'm fairly clueless with the game, despite my quite extensive experience, though. I've made it to the second level of Dvonn skill and got stuck there, I suppose. I don't mind, because I like playing the game as it is and if newbies can beat me, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing in the end.

Qwirkle was one of the hits. I played it first with Mankka, then with Oskari and as the very last game I played, we had one four-player game. I got some confirmation that the game has a skill element, as I was able to win both two-player games. With Oskari, the final result was 256-183, which was pretty heavy. With four-players, the game was closer. I suppose the two-player game is kind of easier, as you get more tiles and have more opportunities for high scores. I made some pretty nice moves against Oskari, 17, 20, and 21 points! My average was about 7.4 points per move, so those were good moves.

Everybody liked the game and I noticed Mankka taught the game to Cane from Boardgaming Finland. My opinion of the game improved, as well. I particularly enjoyed the two-player games, as they have more turns and less downtime. That's always a bonus, as I don't find player interaction the strongest point of Qwirkle (bit of fixed fun there, I suppose). Not that the four-player game is bad, unless the players are extra slow. So, yes, it's definitely a good game, but I think I'll need to print out a score board, as writing down the scores is kind of annoying.

I played a game of Hamsterrolle as well. It's not my favourite dexterity game, but perhaps I just need more practise? Mankka was the only experienced player in our game and it showed, as his team won hands down. I guess I made the biggest blunder, dropping bunch of blocks from the wheel, thus sealing the fate of our team. Hamsterrolle is neat, but I actually might prefer watching the game.

Ubongo Extrem was on Oskari's list of games to test, so we played that next. Apparently Oskari didn't like it, at least not as much as regular Ubongo. I still prefer Extrem, the new scoring is just that good as it makes the game focus on puzzle solving. I do agree with Oskari that the timer is probably too long. I should find a quicker timer somewhere and try the game that way.

Kingsburg was the first new game of the day. This Italian-made game is basically standard resource management: players get cubes and turn them to buildings and victory points. There's worker placement, too. However, the main mechanism of the game is based on Yahtzee-like die rolling.

To start each round, players roll three dice. The board has 18 spots, numbered 1-18. Turn order is determined by the sums of the dice: smallest sum starts, biggest sum is last. Players can take any set of dice and place them on a spot marked with that number. So, if you roll 5-4-2, you could take spot 11 using all your dice, or take 9 and leave the 2 for later. Each spot can be chosen only once per turn, so you have to consider what other players have rolled. Players can also get +2 markers and some buildings allow a bit more flexibility.

Each spot produces stuff, with bigger, harder to reach numbers producing better results. Players must collect resource cubes so they can build buildings, but they also need soldiers. After three turns, there's war against enemies of the kingdom and if players don't have enough soldiers, they'll suffer penalties. There's some pressure and tension there, particularly in the end game when the opponents get tougher.

It's pretty neat and unusual. Oskari wouldn't want to play a five-player game and I can see why: the game has plenty of analysis paralysis potential. Choosing how to use the dice takes some thinking and the situation is sometimes hard to predict, so it's easy to get stuck. We managed to play our four-player game in 70 minutes, which was ok.

I think Kingsburg is ok, but not much more. My main problem is that I didn't have fun playing the game. Quite the contrary, I felt frustrated. I wanted to achieve things, but collecting resources was hard and with the dice having so big a role, it wasn't good hard. I don't mind difficult games, but here I felt I was too much at the mercy of the dice. So, I'd say try before you buy if possible, as I'm quite sure this game isn't everybody's cup of tea.

Fresh Fish was another one of Oskari's wishes. Too bad we didn't get anybody else playing. I can assure you this was quite likely my first and last two-player game of Fresh Fish ever. It just doesn't work with two, the board is too small and the auctions get uninteresting. Well, at least Oskari got some idea of how the game works, and he did seem to appreciate the road mechanic, despite his low initial rating for the game in Geek (6, but I wouldn't given a better rating for this particular game either).

Me and Oskari were getting slightly desperate with playing two-player games, that's my excuse for agreeing to play Pünct. I still don't like it, and I actually went and dropped my rating at Geek from six to four. I don't like it, but apparently can be talked into playing it occasionally... Pünct is easily my least favourite in the Gipf series.

Halli Galli Extreme was my party, but then again, opponents were all newbies to Extreme (some were total Halli Galli newbies). It was the same with Flix Mix, where I dominated against players who played by correct rules (one of them didn't, and won the first round).

Next, Tommy appeared out of nowhere (apparently he had been ice-fishing the whole day and decided to join the fray for few hours). Nice surprise! We instantly recruited him to our game of Dia de los Muertos. It was an interesting match of this old trick-taking twister. Points in this game are made of two cards: a soul and food to feed it. Me and Tommy got most of the food, while Oskari and Marko got most of the souls. Too bad we got two souls while they got only one food...

It's a twisted little game with lots of chaos and twists and turns, yet the game offers some good possibilities of control and deduction. I like it. Our game was curious, as of the nine possible points, we scored only three. A bit lame, I suppose. Cue the mantra: I need to get this out more often. Oh, and now I know: Four Dragons is going away, I'm selling it.

One final new game: Animalia. This is apparently fairly rare filler game, where players try to collect a good set of five animals. Basically you try to collect as many animals of the same kind as possible. If you have at least two of the same animal, you get as many medals as you have those animals. Single animal is worth nothing, unless all your animals are different.

After three rounds, most medals wins the game. There are few twists. First of all dedication helps, as you get extra bonus of five points for every five medals of one kind. Some animals have special abilities, allowing you to give away your animals or steal someone else's animals. Some have stars, and whoever has most stars after a round, gets bonus cards they can use to improve their collection.

It's all fairly simple and entertaining. The game looks pretty cool. The cards have few symbols, though, the different special abilities are integrated in the art. It's neat, but takes some getting used to. We had a bit of a problem, though: we ran out of medals in the end. The rules say nothing about running out of medals. Is that possible? We don't know. It certainly happened. So who gets the last medal? We don't know. The rules don't have a word about it.

That was a bit of a bummer. Later discussion on the Board Game Society forums seems to imply that medals are unlimited, as in the card game version there are no actual medals, they're just counted on paper with no limits. That makes sense, but it still makes things a bit difficult for the version with the insufficient medal tiles.

So, not my favourite, and while it's decent filler, there are plenty of better fillers that have complete, unambiguous rules.

And that's it. Tracon was fairly well-organized event from our point of view. We had the classroom and it was enough for us (though bit more traffic at the peak times and we would've run out of space), our tested game borrowing system worked well and didn't require much effort from our part. People played games and had fun.

Thanks to Mika for organizing a pizza delivery, that solved the food thing well. I didn't even have to leave the game room to eat, how efficient! I will definitely attend Tracon again if Board Game Society decides to have some presence and it fits in my schedule.

Another Helcon is gone (well, they're still playing, but I'm already back home) and boy, it was a good one! We started games on the train to Helsinki. Robert managed to get himself to the wrong train (for some reason there were to trains to Helsinki within three minutes), but I had Olli and Sami with me, so we could play. I had hoped to play something with Robert already on the train station - thanks to a holiday bus schedules, we both had to arrive quite early - but a train station full of drunks just isn't the best possible environment.

It's been a while since I last played Sticheln - so that's what we played. Olli had some limited experience and hadn't really made up his mind yet, but seemed to like it better now. Sticheln is good - as long as you stick to three players. We played six rounds and while I played some weaker rounds, we managed to beat Olli back from the top and I was able to take over. Ain't completely rusty!

We squeezed in a quick San Juan before the train got to Helsinki. A good game, which I lost because I finished it too quickly. Sometimes rushing isn't the best strategy, especially if you're missing a critical big building.

In Helsinki we met with Robert and made our way to the location. It's been cold, and it's started to snow, too. So, there we were, waiting for the doors to open with rather wet snow falling over us... Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long. After a quick trip to a close grocery store, I was ready for action.

While waiting for the tournament to start, I got into a game of the Holy Grail, I mean Race for the Galaxy. It was somewhat rushed, we had 45 minutes and that's what the game took. I think I figured it out pretty well, but others had more trouble with it, and I don't think it was a particularly pleasant first touch.

I loved the game, though, and I'm rather glad I've got my copy coming, hopefully early next week. The game rocks. It's like San Juan, only better. The simultaneous action selection works well, I like the consume mechanic, the card selection is interesting and, simply put, the game was fun! I got the New Sparta as my starting world and that settled my strategy: I got the Galactic Imperium and started exploring like crazy for rebel worlds to beat down. Add to that the New Galactic Order that rewards for military power and it works like a charm... or would've, had Ansi not hoarded rebel worlds when he noticed (or, when I was excitedly blabbing out about my delightful discovery) that I needed them.

Game of the year, hands down. It's seriously good. There's a downside, no doubt about it, though - the game is a bit complex. I can see trouble ahead: the game seems designed to be played fast and I like that, but playing with newbies or simply slower people who'd like to take one phase at a time just might be too much for my nerves. Give me experienced opponents and I'll pick Race for the Galaxy over San Juan every time, but with newbies, I don't know.

Then, the tournament. It was a team tournament with three-players teams and three rounds. On each round, the teams first voted which games they wanted to include and then put the chosen games in order of preference. Each team got three games to play and could assign team members to different games any way they wish. I instantly recruited Robert to my team and when I heard Olli was coming too, I got him as the third member of our team, Tampere Avengers.

First round was light games. I got into Turbo Taxi, our other games were San Juan (Robert, our expert, took that and won) and Fairy Tale (Olli played this one, enjoyed the very competitive and brutal game a lot, but didn't win). I believe I'm pretty good at Turbo Taxi, but still lost my game. It was tough. Stefu won, and I know he's good... I hadn't practised in a long time, so I was perhaps a bit rusty.

Still, it was a major embarrassment. I should've done better! Losing was completely out of question, with two (or one) newbies in the game! I don't know if I like the game anymore... Well, it's not bad, but it's definitely not my favourite speed game, never was - it's just not as much fun as some other games. I think I somewhat prefer slightly slower games: Flix Mix is a good example of a speed game with a slower pace, as is Sunda to Sahul - these two are my favourites, actually.

Next round was medium-length games. Robert got Carcassonne and lost that, not a surprise really, while Olli tackled Einfach Genial with little success. I got Industrial Waste. It was a curious game: it was the longest game of the round and probably the longest game of Industrial Waste I've played. I drew a disaster after disaster from the pack. Mankka, Stefu's brother, was particularly badly hurt as he was most of the time on the red. He ended up, what, 40 millions in debt - yet still got a pretty decent amount of points.

I was second: I only had to take one loan, which I paid back on the last round. I didn't have enough money, so perhaps more aggressive lending could've helped a bit, but Marko who won, did fairly well without taking any loans at all, so beating him would've been hard. A good, tough match that dragged out perhaps a tad too much, showing the ugly side of Industrial Waste - and a probable reason why it isn't a top-tier game. I still think Rio Grande should re-issue it as Al Gore's Industrial Waste.

Last round had me playing Amun-Re, which I wouldn't have chosen to play otherwise... I did my basic standard Amun-Re performance: two pyramid sets, some bonus points, but nothing big and ended last. It was a pleasure to see Petri, one of the better board gamers in Finland, play. Robert played Tigris & Euphrates and won, Olli struggled a long game of Imperial and won, too, I think. Thanks to the somewhat better last round, our team ended up, I believe, fifth out of eight teams. Not bad, but not quite what I believed we could do...

The tournament was quite good. It would've needed a computer to do the set up and there were some kinks in the selection system, but it worked out pretty well in the end. We got mostly the games we wanted, with some disappointments. Would I participate again? I don't know - perhaps I would've preferred to play something else. Turbo Taxi and Industrial Waste were good games and tough fights, but the Amun-Re just wasn't much fun. Also, the tournament would've been more fun if people would've known the games - now each game had newbies in it, which sort of removes some of the attraction of the tournament setting.

After a late lunch break - pizza from the grocery store, no expensive two-hour restaurant meals this time - I was more than happy to join Tommy in Agricola. I've been skipping the Essen stuff, mostly, but this one did pique my interest. For a reason, it seems! We quickly found out we had a full set of five players and a table full of cardboard: while Agricola is not a big league table hog, it still takes a large table to play it.

Agricola is a "life game": each player starts with two family members in a two-room wooden hut and tries to make a living. The family grows, builds a bigger house, farms the land, raises animals and tries to get enough food to feed all hungry mouths. Each turn each family member gets to do one action: typically actions either get more basic resources or use them to do something useful.

We played the basic, family game without any of the special cards. Apparently they give the game more flavour, but it's quite good even without them. Our first game took two hours, including plenty of reading rules and we did get quite a few things wrong, making the game slightly harder than it should've been. Still, it seemed interesting and most of us wanted to play a second round, this time with what I think were the correct rules.

The game sure flowed much faster. We finished the second game, with four players, in about 70 minutes. Not bad! The game is basically resource gathering and there are plenty of things to do, yet little time to do them. There's no direct player interaction, except for the competition over the actions, which are a scarce resource if any. I like the scoring: it's quite intuitive, as you get points for everything. It's also fairly clever: most things give you negative points if you don't do them, so you'll have to balance doing a little bit of everything and doing plenty of something, as if you only do a little bit of everything, nothing's going to get you lots of points.

So, yes, I love it. After that first game the game jumped from "hmm, this seems interesting" to "must buy as soon as the English edition arrives". I'm waiting - there's just too much German. It's not that bad, at least except for the cards, but still I'd rather wait. Having an English edition makes it just that much easier for the other people I'd play with, even if I can cope with the German (I've realized I've learnt quite a bit of German).

I'd also like to add that Agricola does have elements that can cause disturbing table talk, particularly the bits about having babies and perhaps the bits about animals as well... So yeah, we did have a blast playing this. I don't remember when playing a game was this much fun. And it's not just fun, but there's really a sound, mechanically solid game underneath that flavour and theme... Agricola is definitely high on my list of well-themed games.

Funny fact: Agricola - Latin for farmer - is also the name of the bishop of Turku from 16th century, who translated the Bible to Finnish and thus created the written Finnish language. Mikael Agricola was no farmer himself, but got his name from his father, who was. He's famous enough to be the first thing that pops into the heads of Finnish gamers who hear about this game.

I had organized a card game session at the end of the evening. We played Hungarian Tarokk and Doppelkopf. Tarokk was good as ever, though it was obvious it would take a lot more plays to make it more interesting. New players are simply too timid to bid, even with really, really good cards, and that somewhat hurts the game. I can understand that, and I think I'll need to encourage people to bid more, as winning the games as a declarer really isn't that hard (and losing is a good way to learn).

Doppelkopf was a new experience for me. Markku aka JoeLamer had played the game against computer opponents and in BSW. It's a tricky game: basically it's a standard ace-ten game played on a double 24-card pack, but the trumps have been complicated a lot. Ten of hearts is the highest trump, then queens, then jacks, then the rest of the diamonds in normal order. Plenty of trumps, as each card is doubled!

It takes lots of play to get one's head around all of this. I am humbled by the fact that Doppelkopf is very popular in Germany and played as a social game: nobody, and I mean nobody, plays games this complex in Finland for fun (I'm not counting Bridge, which is in any case pretty simple except for the bidding and perhaps the scoring). Talk about card game culture! We played three hands and each time I found myself holding one of the club queens, which made me part of the declarer's team, so to speak.

Doppelkopf was fun, but I don't think I'm playing it a lot. It's just too darn complex and would require lots of repeat play. I suppose it could be a fun way to spend few hours with three like-minded individuals as that would give enough time to get one's head around the game, but otherwise... well, there are games that are less complicated and pretty much just as entertaining.

As the tradition goes (last year, the year before that, the weekend before that, the year before that...), I met Tommy for a day of games. So, this year it was just me and him, and just a single day. It was great fun nonetheless.

We kicked off with 1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight. It's a small 18xx game, for two or three players basically. It worked well with just two of us. The map is small and the game quite constricted.

I enjoyed it. The game features interesting stock market moves: a company that pays out big dividends gets a huge boost in share value. So, dropping the value to keep money in company to buy a better train is not a big deal, as the new train and the increased revenue will make the share value soar.

I lost, in the end, 13000-11000 or so. That's still the largest number of points I've collected in any game, I suppose... My fate was sealed quite early, when we bought our second companies. I invested in FYN, which in retrospect was a really, really daft move. I might've got my investment back, maybe, while Tommy's second company was a major money maker. Well, you live and learn, and starting new companies is one part of the 18xx game I feel a bit uncertain about.

So, it's good, and if I played four-hour games more than few times each year, I'd probably hunt down a copy. It's that good.

After four hours of trackbuilding and stock markets, we moved to World War II. I revisited the Belgian chateau in Combat Commander: Europe, as I thought that would be an interesting introduction scenario - enough stuff, clear objective and so on. Well, that wasn't quite as successful as 1860.

Tommy, playing the Allied liberators, assaulted the chateau in a very straightforward manner. Protected by smoke he did a pretty good job, too. In the end I did squeeze the victory: he was doing well, but wasn't quite finished in the chateau when he ran out of time.

Tommy's initial rating is six, so he clearly didn't love it. I can see why - this playing made me to drop my rating to eight as well. I like it still, but the game just feels a tad too long for the meat of it. Antiquity, for example, seems to offer more decision-making goodness in the same timeframe.

Next up was some three-player games as Tommy's wife Laura joined us. I didn't mind: Space Dealer was high on my list of games I'd like to try. I'm glad to have that past me now, as I wasn't quite enamoured with the game. The concept is great, but it just wasn't that interesting.

The rules are a bit muddy, and I think adding some of the advanced rules could help, but somehow it was quite stale. I had time to SMS my wife while playing - so much for time pressure... We ran out of objectives to fulfill in the end, too, which added some extra frustration. I can try the game again, but I have definitely no need to buy it.

Factory Fun, in the other hand, was good fun and something I wouldn't mind owning. As puzzle games come, this is pretty solid offering, and while newbies will find it hard to beat an experienced players, building your factory is a fun exercise.

Well, maybe not, if you lack the visualization skills necessary, but still - I think it's pretty fun to arrange the pipes and the machines, and once you get them connected and something's kind of working in your factory, it gets pretty entertaining.

Through the Ages has been another title I've been curious to try. The concept is great: a civilization game that moves swiftly and does away with the boring military stuff. There's no map and no units to move on it - isn't that just great!

The game is quite abstract and it took me a while to wrap my head around the system and figure out how it works (and I'm still a bit fuzzy about the happy faces stuff). So there's a learning curve there, and it's of the steeper variety. However, once you figure it all out, it makes sense. The system is just brilliant. One of the definitely highlights in the world of new games, I'd say.

Despite the length of the full game (we played an advanced game, and I very much want to play a full one as soon as possible), this one's definitely on my buy this list once the new edition comes out (unless they ruin it somehow).

While waiting for sauna, we played a quick game of Celtica. My victories were scarce during the day, but this one I won, thanks to Tommy's reckless card drawing - he played more cards on just about every turn, giving me the first shot on just about every round (not a small advantage, come to think of it). I still think Celtica is a great filler and one of the better games of 2006.

Then, as the last game of the evening, Goa. Last time I played it, it left me with a sour taste. I should like it, and now, given another chance, I did enjoy it better. It's not a bad two-player game, either. Not my favourite optimization game, no, but clearly better than I initially thought.

So, it was a fine day of games (add in some Guitar Hero II on PS2, that was fun as well). The two-player concept worked great. Playing some Splotter games would've been nice, but since both me and Tommy do prefer the new games, this was good.

Helcon 2006 was a blast, and the most successful event of the Board Game Society history with almost 100 participants. I was there for the Saturday (limitation caused by being a parent; unfortunate for the gaming, but rewarding in other ways). I didn't play that many games, but as you will see, sometimes (well, often) quality is more important than quantity.

I got the first taste of games before the actual event, when I met Robert on the Tampere railway station. We got ourselves a table at the train and spent the trip playing games. Train left 30 minutes late, but hey, that doesn't matter when you've got games to play, right? We played few rounds of Blue Moon - always a pleasure, and Robert seemed to warm up for the game as we played too - followed by a round of Battle Line.

We used the tactics cards, because Robert was familiar with the Schotten-Totten version and wanted to try the game Battle Line style. I've been avoiding them, and this game reassured me my decision has been good. I find that the tactics cards add relatively little to the otherwise clean and elegant game.

We finished the games with a match of San Juan, played almost at a BSW pace. San Juan as a speed game, that's something I quite like.

The definite highlight was the first actual game of the event: 18VA. I ordered the game a long time ago, and finally got it in my hands. The production values are surprisingly good: the game looks really good. It's all very well done.

The game was great, just great. It took us about 30 minutes to figure out the rules (I had studied them, but we had some problems; some things could've been explained better in the rules, I think) and four hours to play the game. I know we had a ton of minor rules mistakes (very difficult to avoid in a complicated and fiddly game like this) and lots of blunders caused by the freshness of the players (all newbies, two having some 1830 experience from the PC version). Still it was great.

I won, too. The scores were very close: 5682-5393-5234-5148. I had the second best stock portfolio in the end (Tommy who was second had the best) and most cash in hand. I was a bit surprised by my victory, as I didn't feel like one of the power players in our game. I was the president of my small Virginian Railways from SR 1 to the very end, and that's it. I did have two of the privates, which my Virginian bought with the full price (and one of them was the $200 discount on trains, making sure I hadn't visit my personal cash reserves to buy trains like Tommy), that pretty much makes up the difference to Tommy I think.

Next time I'll know the rules better, and maybe it'll be even better. The playing time is a bit tough, but I think it can be squeezed to four hours including the rules explanation. I'm looking forward to have another go, I just don't know when that's going to be possible. Anyway, I'm now happily in the 18xx world, having perhaps dived in a fairly deep end, but I'm glad I have the game. As of now I feel no need to buy more 18xx games, but we'll have to see about that.

After a Nepalese dinner (quite like Indian, really), it was time for more trains. The game was Age of Steam, with JC Lawrence's London expansion. It's a really neat map - both in artistic and gameplay sense. The only problem is the huge size: the map doesn't fit in the box.

The game had two newbies in it, so I couldn't properly enjoy the cruelty of the map, as my game was fairly easy cruising. When you can get Locomotive for $1, you know everything's just fine... Well, the proper appreciation of engine power is something new players tend to learn towards the end of the game, which was the case this time as well. The new players got to five links on the last round, when I had already ran many rounds of five-link runs and got some six-link runs on the last round.

I like the new stuff on the London map. The instant production (new cubes arrive immediately after a cube is delivered, either to the begin or the end of the run) is fun, as is the ability to build up to five tracks, but with a heavy cost. We got the Urbanisation action wrong (there was a limitation I didn't notice) but that didn't matter much.

I had asked a friend to bring Reibach & Co he had bought from Essen. I've been talking about playing Union Pacific without the map, and here it is: Reibach & Co (or Get the Goods) is basically the stock mechanism of Union Pacific. I enjoyed it; it's not a great game, but good, and definitely better than Union Pacific.

I bought an used copy of Gipf and played a match, but with so wrong rules that it's a different game. Well, maybe next time I'll have the correct rules. I also bought Gipf Project Set 2, which contains the very necessary extra rings for Zèrtz.

Two Werewolf matches made it into my schedule. Those were fast and hilarious. Once again it was proven that I look guilty and werewolfish, even though I was innocent in both games. In the first game werewolves were able to take the victory, while in the second, we lynched a wolf on the first hanging and got the second one in the end. Good times, good times, particularly thanks to Anna, whose semihysterical defense speech after getting one vote in a test vote (not the actual voting round) was just excellent - of course she was hanged after that, and of course she was innocent.

Markku (JoeLamer from BSW) had bought a copy of Mauer Bauer and needed someone to explain the rules. Well, here's a Colovini game I'm always willing to play! Hopefully the rules got through; at least I beat the opposition neatly. It was a curious game with a huge megacity, which made things interesting.

Stefu had challenged yours truly and the world champion Markus to a speed game triathlon; that dwindled down to a match of Turbo Taxi between me and Stefu (and Phil, whose participation in the game was quite minor, in the end). Stefu got a good lead, but in the end made few blunders and I was able to even the score. I consider that a quite perfect result.

That's it, pretty much. There was a superb raffle with good prizes, with some very interesting games to win (and less interesting, as well). I got lucky and won a copy of Um Reifenbreite (which I played with Johanna yesterday; she didn't like it, and I don't think it's a particularly good two-player game). Not a bad prize at all!

The last game of the evening was a three-player game of Gang of Four at Tommy's, where I smoked the opposition. Overall my Saturday was full of victories, which was nice.

So, another Helcon gone. The quality of the event is better each year; it's definitely my favourite game event. Thanks to all organisers and people I played with!

I spent the weekend in FinDipCon VIII in Helsinki. It was a pleasant event, as they usually are, with lots of games played. The Diplomacy tournament was of course the main event: the Finnish Diplomacy champion in 2006 is Juho Malin. Another big deal was William Attia's presentation (or discussion) about Caylus. Unfortunately I had to miss that, but I hear it was a success.

I did get to play lots of games. Mostly old stuff, but good games none the less. Here's some highlights:

Halli Galli - An impulse buy on Friday, this turned out to be a good move. I ended up playing six games. I won four and placed second twice, how can you not enjoy that? As my readers know, I like speed games and Halli Galli is certainly one of the better. It's kind of like Jungle Speed, but I prefer Halli Galli's clarity. The bell is neat, too.

Hamsterrolle - The other new game. This dexterity game seems almost impossible at first, but eventually comes to an end. We won, so I guess we did something right. I played with my partner so that I made easy placements before him and he tried to make things harder for our opponents, and I suppose the strategy worked pretty well. It's a fun game, and looks quite good, too.

Age of Steam: Scandinavia - Not a new game, but a previously unplayed map. Seems a bit tough, as the connections are hard to make, particularly in Sweden where the distances are long. The move by sea action seems quite powerful. Our game had the worst case of runaway leader I've ever seen; it was obvious from, like, turn three that Stefu would win. I was prepared to give up at that point, but in the end it turned out Ansi got stuck and I managed to wrestle a second place out of the misery. Still - I think I did exactly one four-link move during the whole game, while Stefu did several six-link moves in the end.

Tichu - Played a bit of Tichu. In the first hand I had two straights of six cards (one up to ace), an extra ace and the dragon. Obvious tichu, but the opposition scored 95 points from the cards, so what can you do. In another round, two players had the same 11-card straight. That was unlikely.

Fresh Fish - First game in a long while, did terrible. The game was good fun, though.

Timbuktu - One of the better Essen releases. I like it everytime I play it, the challenges are interesting. The scoring seems quite dependent on the amount of goods you deliver, but of course the scoring system works well for breaking ties between players who deliver an equal amount of goods.

Samurai - First game of the event, played with William Attia, Matias and Ansi. I won, which is rare (both in Samurai and during the FinDipCon excluding Halli Galli).

Farfalia - Played some games with the Kumpula crowd, one of them was Farfalia. I know they like trick-taking games and are quite critical - so, what's better than playing a mediocre trick-taking game? They were a good sport, but I notice Tero gave Farfalia a 3 already...

For Sale - I finally bought the new edition of For Sale. The box is too big, but the game looks great and plays well. I like it, it's one of the better filler games around.

Saturday was a full day of games, though curiously we didn't play as many games as on Friday night. The games were longer, though. Stefu joined us for Saturday, and Tommy's brother Miikka did a guest appearance as well. The games were disturbed by an excellent meal of braised reindeer (nope, it wasn't Rudolph), which is one of the good things you get by having friends from Lapland.

Packeis am Pol. Quick filler to start a day while waiting for Stefu to arrive. I was no good in this, Tommy was an experienced player and Ari an old tournament Chess player. It was decent fun, and it's probably something I'll try in BSW one of these days.

Fairy Tale. Stefu didn't come yet, so another filler took place. Fairy Tale was much better for me, though I was somewhat surprised by my last place after a game I thought I'd played well. Oh well, it was a learning experience. Fairy Tale is definitely a game I should think about getting for myself: the drafting action was fun. I'd like to try the team game.

Antiquity. Stefu arrived, so it was time for the main course. Stefu and Ari were new to the game. It was Christoforo against Barbara - Ari and Tommy played Barbara, me and Stefu Christoforo (though I was planning to switch later- that strategy didn't work). I played my best game so far, it was just beautiful. I kept harvesting lots of resources through Forced Labour and used them well. A big bunch of fountains built by everybody kept the famine in check through the game, we had a total of ten graves or less during the whole game.

Ari played a spectacular game for a newbie. I don't feel bad losing to him at all, since his play was just superb. What a smart guy. I do know something: San Christoforo's time is up. I'm not using that strategy again, I'm done with it. I'll have to come up with something else the next time I play.

California. Here Tommy's brother joined us. Tommy seems to like Schacht's work for Abacus, thus California was a must-buy for him. For me, California is a Paris Paris, not a Web of Power - that is, one of the Schacht's worse games. I felt the game was awfully dry and boring. The mechanics are clever (for example the way the items on sale get cheaper every time someone takes more money), but it just didn't click the way it should. The game wasn't exciting or fun.

Manila. Now here's an interesting game. It was definitely fun and excitement, but also a bit lucky. I played a really terrible game. After a decent start it just went down the drain. Still, I was third, with a small margin. Why? I had two jade shares (got one, bought one) and the winner of the game, Tommy, was also pushing jade. That's why I did well. I didn't think my performance and placement in the end correlated much, but hey, it's a light game so I don't mind. I did drop my rating from eight to seven, though.

Klondike. Another game of Klondike, to show the new boys the game. This time we used the four-nugget rule, which was much better. I also played my best game so far, scoring three points. I'm miserably bad in this game.

Africa. Last game with Tommy's brother. A pleasant romp through Africa, this was a fairly balanced game all the way through. Good fun.

VOC!. Then it was time for real action. We tried to play VOC!, to found the Dutch East Indies Company, but that was pretty awful. Tommy hadn't figured out the rules properly, but it turned out that wasn't too easy. We were baffled by the fact that the rulebook says the game starts in 1590, even though the components start from 1585. That's what we did (and it turned out to be correct). However, after few rounds of jolly sailing, we aborted the game. It just wasn't fun, it was all too confusing.

The basic mechanic of sailing by drawing blind on maps was fun, but it also seemed fairly out-of-place in otherwise quite serious game. The game seemed long and dreary outside the sailing, and the confusion we had with the rules certainly did not help. We spent an hour or so scrambling through the first two rounds and quit after that. I might try it again, but it's unlikely. I can't understand why Doumen and Wiersinga could've done this...

Das Zepter von Zavandor. Next up was a fantastic optimization challenge. In Zepter von Zavandor players invest in gems that provide money to invest in new gems and finally you'll want to end up with artifacts and sentinels that provide points. Players also advance on tracks which give them special abilities. Very typical optimization stuff, and should be exactly the thing I like. But it isn't.

Zepter, as far as I see, has few pretty serious problems. First of all, it's very long. We played for two hours, which felt too long for me, particularly combined with a flaw of run-away leader: it was obvious for a long time that Ari would probably lose and Tommy and Stefu would fight for the victory. It's a fairly complicated game to figure out the feedback loop that provides most money (compared to say, St. Petersburg, where it's very simple - and for the length, imagine if St. Pete took two hours or more!).

The game looks like it would need some editing. Stefu particularly spent a lot of time counting money. Money in this game comes in a complicated form of different currencies that make it hard to count and you'll have to figure out the best way to pay things, as you can't get change without restrictions. There's also a hand limit, which will force you to spent some money instead of saving everything you can for the next turn. It all makes the game very math-heavy; if you're not good at mental maths or don't like it, stay clear of this game. I'm sure there's a way to make this game easier on one's mind by removing this stuff. I'd like to hear from Zavandor experts: why is the hand-limit stuff important? The way I see it saving money in an investment game like this is bound to be a bad strategy compared to just investing it, thus why the need for restriction against saving money?

I'll play the game again (and I'll be much wiser the next time), but with these problems, Zepter von Zavandor will not grace my shelves.

Die Nacht der Magier. Here's a tip: make sure you slide your wizard on the board, not on top of the discs. I won the first round, but after lights were turned on, it was obvious I had cheated: none of the discs in front of me had really moved. Oops. Better watch out the next time. I also noticed that while you can't see all the pieces in the dark, you can always hear Tommy.

Antike. My first game with correct rules... It was a good, close fight, with different approaches seen around the table. My arabs tried to build lots of temples and advance know-how, which turned out to be a pretty good thing to do. However, everybody else was doing well. The game turned out to be very close, actually. So close, we ended up calling it a draw after we had played 90 minutes and it was becoming obvious it would take a while to end it.

In the end, Stefu and Tommy were fighting for fleets in the Mediterranean, Ari was huddled in his corner and I tried to attack him or get 14 fleets on the Red Sea - all pretty far-fetched ideas. When we ended the game, I was in a position to destroy Ari's temple, but Tommy could've stopped me from doing that... Maybe playing to eight points would've made the game end in a more interesting phase; none of us really enjoyed this aspect of the game. It was a very good match and I'm happy to call it a draw, really.

San Juan. Final game of the evening was a San Juan match. Me and Stefu played the city building game, Ari had plantations and a Guild Hall, Tommy some kind of hybrid. In the end, the final scores were 32-31-30-30 to city builders' triumph. Too bad it was Stefu who won, leaving me without victories on Saturday.

All in all, it was an excellent weekend. Lots of good games, interesting new Nürnberg titles, some other stuff I was interested in trying and good older games. And of course, excellent company! Hopefully the tradition will continue next year.

We're having another game weekend at Tommy's. Tommy prepared for the weekend by buying some of the more interesting Nürnburg games, so we've had plenty of interesting games to try. Friday was an effective evening of games, from 18:30 to 1:30, with some interference from sauna and eating. Yesterday's line-up was me, Tommy and Ari from Tampere (who drove us to Vantaa, thanks for that!) and occasionally Tommy's wife Laura. Here's the games:

Mauerbauer. An interesting Colovini game. Clever mechanisms involve building walls with random houses and towers placed around them. Players try to form cities that'll match their target cards to score points. It's all very indirect. I enjoyed it. It's a bit lucky, but plays fast and offers some interesting challenges. I think I'd like to get this one. It's the best Colovini game I've played.

Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition. Ticket to Ride goes Germany. The game is basic TtR, except for passengers. Those are placed on the map, after which they travel through your network collecting points from cities. First one takes the highest points, thus there's added time pressure. Märklin is the best Ticket to Ride, if you ask me, but it's still just a Ticket to Ride. That is, it's fun, but nothing spectacular.

Thurn und Taxis. The golden boy Seyfarth teamed up with his wife to create this game based on a post office family. Players play cards to buil routes and can then place post offices on the routes to collect points. The catch is that you can only place post offices one each in each country you visit or in every city in one country. Makes for tough decisions. Very good SdJ material, and a light but tough game.

Nacht der Magier. The glow-in-the-dark game. This is to be played in pitch black. The idea is that you can see some of the pieces, but not all. Not that many games have invisible pieces! The game's fairly simple, as you try to push your cauldrons to the center of the board. Your turn's over if you drop a piece from the board - when that happens is a bit of a mystery, as most of the pieces are invisible in the dark. It's a clever idea and well-executed, too, thus making this the highlight (or the high dark?) of our evening for me. A must-buy.

Ubongo. The newbie won, mostly because I didn't get suitable diamonds in the end. I would've been a contender. Well, I played a good game, I can be satisfied - sometimes even the best play on the puzzles doesn't guarantee a victory, which is good (see next game for reason why). Ubongo is always fun, that's what matters.

Turbo Taxi. Continuing the speed game theme. Here I dominated: final scores were 10-0-0. Tommy was often one or two pieces behind me. Without handicapping, the guys wouldn't stand a chance to me, which is why Ubongo's semirandom scoring is a good idea.

Isis & Osiris. Haven't played this in a while. It was good, fast, innocent fun. Nothing spectacular, thus I'm nudging down the rating from 8 to 7. I haven't really felt the need to play the game recently, and that didn't change now.

Klondike. Another game of Klondike I simply sucked. In the end I had zero, again. So had Laura, so the race was between Ari and Tommy. Tommy had Laura's claims, Ari had mine, but Tommy won the game by two nuggets. We played the three-nugget game for simplicity's sake, but that turned out to be a boring idea: we had something like three to five 3-gold draws. Not good! Thus, I'm sticking with four nuggets. I just wish the game had bidding cards up to three to make it easier.

Big City. Another Delonge game, and a bit of an obscure classic, I think. The game sure looks good with all the plastic buildings. It was also fun to play (well, I won with a healthy margin), but I'm not sure how good it really is. Nice, but not great, that's how I felt. But it sure looks cool!

Diabolo. The English translation at the Geek doesn't really answer all the questions. We managed to scramble through a game, and after first round got it. Diabolo turned out to be a pretty good filler game. I'm not sure if I need to have it, but I wouldn't mind playing it again.

Today is the first Board Game Society BrettSpielWelt event. It started at noon, I had an hour or two to spend there. There was already about dozen people online, and more will come later, I'm sure.

It's a nice idea. Most of the face-to-face events have been in Helsinki, which is far from most places in Finland. This kind of event works well with a national society, I think, as the geographic distances fade out. I'm sure this won't be the last event of this kind.

We played some Diamant and Attribute, both excellent games for larger groups. My excellent track record in Attribute was tarnished a bit, as I placed third in the big challenge match. What can you say - aftger a bad start it's hard to catch up with someone who plays solid game, and you can't always control your own destiny. It was fun, though.

Maybe next time I'll have more time to participate. There are some interesting games going on tonight, I'm sure, and particularly if you're Finnish, check them out. The games continue until tomorrow 12 am.

Saturday was the big games day of the weekend, when Tommy and Stefu came all the way from Vantaa/Espoo and were joined by Robert of the local gamers. We started around noon and played almost 12 hours straight. It was pleasant, efficient and very entertaining. Here's what we played:

Flix Mix. I played this with Robert when Tommy and Stefu hadn't arrived yet. It's a great game, I like it. My rating (which I just bumped up to nine) stands out as the highest of the 18 ratings in the Geek. It's criminally under-appreciated, as it's definitely one of the better speed games, basically because it has a very nice and almost slow rhythm to it.

Ubongo was my only wish, and Tommy was happy to fulfil it, as he really likes the game. He's also quite an evangelist: Geek has nine Finns giving the game an average rating of 8.11, and all of them were introduced to the game by Tommy.

I enjoyed it. It's basically a tile puzzle, where you have to form a certain shape with three or four different pieces. You can flip the pieces, that's what caused me some trouble at times. Faster players get gems, and the highest amount of same-coloured gems wins the game. The scoring is kind of arbitrary, and the fastest player isn't a certain winner. Not bad at all, though the box is way too big.

Timbuktu was the first big game we played. It seemed confusing and even a bit stupid at first, but during the game's few rounds, it got better on each round. Players are moving their caravans to Timbuktu, and every now and then the robbers will strike the caravans. Everybody gets some information, in sets of three cards: which spots the robbers strike, which line they choose and which goods they steal. There are five combinations each turn. Everybody starts with one and they'll get rotated twice so you eventually end up seeing three.

So, you can guess a bit, gamble on odds, deduce stuff from other players' actions... I had luck with my pepper camels, until in the final round I couldn't get any information on pepper thieves and I had to guess and I guessed wrong. Timbuktu is a good game, because I didn't mind that. It was an exciting finish and that's all good and well.

I'm thinking about getting Timbuktu. If it makes it to the selections of the local store, I might go for it. It's deduction game, but not too heavy on brains (unlesss you want to really think about it), the whole gambling aspect of it makes it fun and exciting.

Antike. Wonderful game! It's a good game, and I played a good game. Once again I was the Germans on the Western Med map, once again Tommy was the Romans. I started with some iron cities, then moved to gold and started getting scientists after picking up two kings. Four scientists later I built five fleets on my cities to score a navigator and then produced marble to build six temples for the last missing victory points.

I finished the game two points ahead of Robert and four points ahead of Tommy and Stefu. Stefu got stuck in the corner as Phoeniceans. He was completely surrounded by Robert's Greece. At one point he built a huge army and did one 10-minute turn when he attacked out. However, that was as pointless as it was long, as it only gave him one point from the navigator he got. Lesson to learn: if you get stuck, start getting that knowledge fast.

Himalaya. This strange game was a candidate for Spiel des Jahres. I finally got a chance to try it. It's basically a mix of pick-up and delivery, programmed movement game (like RoboRally) and a majority game, with a clever Samurai-like scoring.

Players are moving between villages. Movements are programmed by laying out tiles: you choose if you want to move on ice road, dirt road or paved road. You can also perform an action in the villages. Action is either picking up stuff or fulfilling a contract. Contract involves paying stuff cubes, so collecting the cubes is pretty important.

There are few catches. The cubes have different values. When you pick something, you take the cube with the lowest value of those that are present. You can also take just one cube from a village each turn. It is also possible to wait on your turn, not doing anything - that might be a good idea sometimes.

When you do a transaction and fulfill a contract, you get two out of three options. First is economical: you get yaks. Each contract is worth three to nine yaks. Second is religious: you can build a stupa. Stupas are worth one to three religious points, depending on the size of the village. Third is political: you can send out a delegation. Delegations (again one to three members) are played on the spaces between the villages.

In the end the winner is decided by an elimination process. First you eliminate the player with the least religious power. His or her delegations are removed from the board. Then you see, who has the least majorities of delegations on the areas - he or she is eliminated. Of the two players remaining, the winner is the one with most economical power (three-player game works pretty much like Samurai).

It's an interesting system, but it has some potential for kingmaking. I'm not sure if that's a big problem or not. I do know we played the game wrong: we only chose one option, which meant the board was a lot emptier than it should be and there was little fighting for the majorities. Oops.

Anyway, I found Himalaya to be interesting. It's pretty good - I wouldn't probably buy it myself, but I'll definitely play it again. It was pretty fast, too: we used a one-minute timer on the programming phase and played the game in 70 minutes. Lack of time wasn't a problem in the programming, but it's more fun, if you have to rush it a bit.

Hazienda. I was eager to give Hazienda another go. It's definitely not a bad game, even if it's a bit - well, safe might be a good word. Ours was an interesting match, as Stefu took a quite extreme tactic. He built a huge land mass on one side of the board. In the end it was something like 14-15 land pieces. Of course it had several animal chains to it, but he touched only few markets.

It didn't matter, as he won the game. And why not? With a hacienda, that chain was worth many points. Me and Tommy tied just six points behind him with more markets. Tommy had the most, but I had other sources of points. Tommy could've been one point ahead of me, but he made a wrong move on the last turn and I didn't feel like mentioning it to him...

Well, anyway, Hacienda is a pretty good game. I mean, it's timed just right, there's plenty of good tension as you feel the pull to several different directions but it's not too anxiety-inducing... It's all really well done, yet it feels a lot like any other game. A very solid eight, but by no means a must-buy for me.

Domaine - a really vicious game. Our game saw a bad start for me (not a single border card), lots of idiot moves from me and total domination by Stefu and Robert. They both got four income pretty fast, while me and Tommy had to do with just one. It all ended pretty ugly, when I missed a possibility to build a 16-point kingdom, which Stefu did after me, winning the game hands down.

I mean, I know Domaine is a cruel game, but this match... It just wasn't any fun. I don't think anybody really enjoyed the game. I know I'll let the game gather a dust for a while, and I also bumped down it's rating. It can be fun, but it can be misery, and that's not good - kicking someone when he's already down is just ugly.

Fettnapf. Stefu wanted to try it, so we played a round. Robert was the Fettnapf-magnet this time. A bit of trivia: I've got the second most games of Fettnapf on Geek.

Victory & Honor has been on Tommy's list of my games to try for a while, and finally it happened. I paired up with Tommy, while Robert and Stefu formed the other team.

And boy, did we crush them! After a less-impressive first round, all the good cards seemed to flow to Tommy, and we ended up winning the game 162 to 82 (and we had 83 points after the second round out of four), mostly thanks to Tommy.

I like the game, but after this match it did move to my sale list. It's not a bad game - I still rate it 7 - but it has problems. First of all - it's got awful lot to do with the cards you get. If you have good cards, you are very likely to win. Second, it's a difficult game to play. If I play with less experienced players, I want something easier. If I play with experienced gamers, I want... well, something else. Victory & Honor lacks a spot in my ludological system. Not to mention the rulebook, which is horrible and the cards, which look boring.

Urland was a Robert's game Tommy had requested. Urland is an area majority game, basically, where players control prehistorical beings that live in the seas and begin the evolutionary process that leads to walking on land.

The game has an interesting structure. First player gets three numbers, that correspond to islands on the map. He or she chooses one island to score. Second player takes the remaining two, but does nothing else. Third and fourth player play their turns. The island is scored. Then the original second player draws a new number and starts a new round as the first player.

That's interesting, but also annoying, when you have to spend two turns doing nothing every once in a while. It does make the game a lot faster, which I understand was the goal. And hey, at least it's something different.

I had the worst early game, I was left without any victory points for a long time. I managed to climb up to compete for the second place, but Tommy was already far away from the rest of us and eventually won the game.

Obviously these area majority games aren't quite our cup of tea. I suppose me, Tommy and Stefu are more into these optimization games where other players can't foil your plans with unnecessary hassle, but Urland was definitely too chaotic. It reminded me of Mammoth Hunters: both have good ideas, but aren't that interesting games. At least Urland has super cute Doris Matthäus art. That saves a lot!

Industrial Waste. Sauna was supposed to be warm at this point, but I had screwed up and put it on timer (so instead of "stay warm for three hours" I had chosen "start warming up in four hours"). So, another game while we waited for the sauna to warm up for real. Stefu was new to the game and indeed had some accidents. Otherwise it was a tight match.

Puerto Rico. Robert left at this point - strange guy, he's been in Finland for years now and still doesn't like sauna - and we continued with just the three of us. Stefu wanted to play good old Puerto Rico, and so we did. I played a perfect game: start with sugar, get coffee, build Guild Hall and collect the full set. Stefu shipped some, and lost just a point for me. Tommy was out of tempo and lost badly. It was a seriously good match.

Big Kini is one of the hyped games of Essen this year. I wonder why, because it wasn't too special. The process of playing is fun, sort of, but somehow the game felt a bit broken. Like something important was missing... The game also ended prematurely - the length is good, but the game "arc" doesn't work.

Big Kini is about populating islands and voting oneself to high political positions. Items can be collected and islands discovered to gather points. The different strategies didn't feel too balanced. The shortness is probably the worst problem. Tommy also had a huge advantage as he had a two-spot breeding ground on his starting islands. I have no big interest to play Big Kini again.

We finished the weekend on Sunday morning with a final game of Industrial Waste. It was epic. Tommy was well ahead, but couldn't finish the game, so me and Stefu caught him. The final scores were 74-74-73, and Tommy won the game with a tiebreaker. Amazing game, really great entertainment.

All in all, it was a very good weekend. We played lots of games, very fast and efficient. I played several good new games, particularly Timbuktu stroke a chord with me. Domaine was a big disappointment, but otherwise even the weaker games like Urland were interesting experiences. Thanks to Robert, Tommy and Stefu for good game session!

Saturday was games, games, games. About 50 people participated, playing lots of games. Few bigger ones were scheduled and the Memoir '44 tournament kept on going. Here's my games:

Indonesia. Splotter was the theme of the day, and I started with Indonesia. The game's about development of Indonesian economy. When the game begins, there are just five cities and the first rice and spice companies are started up. Companies merge, new cities appear, old ones grow, new companies start up, until all three eras have passed and one player emerges victorious.

Mergers are what makes the game interesting. Anybody (with enough R&D) can choose to merge any two companies, which are then auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder. Original owners split the money according to the sizes of their respective companies. There's a minimum prize (and it's pretty heavy in the early game), so you can't just completely rip someone off.

Even though I lost big time (final scores were 1274-1242-1120-1040-695), I had a blast. The game is deliciously complicated, and things like turn order and the order in which you operate your companies make a world of difference, as I noticed when my rice companies failed because Tommy would flood the cities with rice from his much bigger company...

There are very interesting decisions to make. Who owns the shipping? Do I want to make a city grow? Who benefits, if the city can take more resources (rule of thumb: shippers rarely do)? Where to start new companies? Should I sell my business now? Should I buy this business that's being sold? At what price?

It's not completely without problems, though. While the map is really pretty, it has some usability issues. The swirly writing isn't a problem, as I think you'll get familiar enough with it during the first game, but seeing the borders of some sea areas is tricky, particulary with the area around Western Java (Java Timur, to be exact), as the sea area surrounds the island, which can be hard to see. Or does it?

Biggest problem is still the shipping, which can get quite complicated. Companies must ship as much stuff as they can, and should do it as efficiently as possible. That'll take most of the time in the game, especially in the end when the map is full of stuff. It's not hard, but it takes a lot of work and concentration. Some people will be put off by that, and while I bear it, it's one of those things you'd prefer computer would do. But, I don't think that's news to anybody who's played the big Splotter games.

I guess the question is, is the game worth the 60 euros I paid for it, without thinking about it? Definitely. The game feels really good after this initial play. Of course, the three and half hours it took means that despite it's greatness, I won't be playing it a lot...

Fettnapf and Geschenkt. Just two quick rounds while waiting for the oven to heat and the pizza to warm up... Both are good fillers, Fettnapf has the novelty, while Geschenkt is a bit tighter and probably slightly better. Still, both are excellent games.

Antike was pretty high on my games to play -list. Now it was the time! We got four players and chose to play the Roman side, giving us Romans, Phoenicians, Greek and the Germans to fight for the glory. I got the Germans. It was a quick match, over in 70 minutes! Most of the time the turns moved really swiftly (slowing down a bit at Tommy), which was great.

Robert was playing very expansionist with his Phoenicians, scoring three kings from his 15 cities. Well, so did I - though I had to conquer one of the cities from Tommy. That was pretty much the only military action during the whole game, even though the threat was there and some temple-razing would've been seen had the game continued longer.

Robert ruled the game, he was in the lead all the time. I came right behind him, passing him maybe once, but most of the time I was one point behind or tied. Kim was third, despite her constant confusion with the phases of the game. Tommy had a might fine-looking empire with his Romans, but for some reason failed to score points.

Robert won - he snapped some scientists right before my eyes and got to expand on the Eastern Med without any trouble. I think the center powers should probably push towards the corners, otherwise the corner people will get to expand too freely. Now Kim moved towards Tommy's Rome, which left lots of room for Robert. That's definitely something I'll keep my eye on from now on.

Everybody enjoyed the game, even Tommy. And why not? The theme is intriguing, the mechanics are super-clean and the game moves on fast. I was so close to winning... Antike will keep on the top of my hot game list, that's for sure. Rematch at next Seurapelikerho, Robert?

Phantom Rummy. I thought I had figured out how to play the game, when I found out the English rules had some serious mistakes (in addition to being pretty badly written). Those corrections made it almost crystal-clear, so I was in good position to try the game at Helcon. I also corrected some guys, who I saw playing the game. It's a shame, when the rules are that faulty...

Anyway, the game was good. It's basically Mahjong: you try to form a hand of three three-card sets and a pair. However, in Phantom Rummy, you must meld one of the sets on table, and you can actually meld as many sets you want, as long as you have at least one melded set and two sets and a pair in your hand. Cards are not drawn from the deck, but from open cards on the table. You can take someone else's discards, but only to meld; if you've said ready (you're one card away from victory) you can take a discard to win the game.

Points are scored for melded sets and red-numbered cards (each card appears four times in deck, one has a red number), and only for the winner. There are advanced rules, which give more points if certain conditions are fulfilled, but we didn't use those. Reaping in the points was easy enough: Ali won three hands, with six, four and four points, winning the game. I got the biggest score, though, as I scored seven points on one hand.

Phantom Rummy is light, fun and looks great. It's a simplified take on Mahjong, and at least I found it fresh enough. Tommy commented that the game didn't quite inspire him, so maybe it's attraction isn't universal, but if you like Rummy or Mahjong, Phantom Rummy is a solid, little game.

Antiquity. Like I said, this was a Splotter day! We kicked off a four-player Antiquity and I realised, I'm not that good in explaining the rules to this game. I don't know, I should probably think about it a bit, how to do it, as there's a bunch of details and explaining them in proper order is tricky. In this case, it was also a question of time: we had very little time to get the game going, so we could finish it in time (we had four hours, which can get tight - we finished in three hours, to my surprise).

Once again, it was a blast, but a very anxious blast. For some reason (hint: famine and pollution) the game causes anxiety. It's fun to play, sure, but it's strange kind of fun. I was quite happy, as I was able to fight the famine for a long time, even though I wasn't playing San Christoforo. I chose San Giorgio from get-go, and was lucky to get Ali as my neighbour, as he didn't expand too much.

Tommy had spoken with Robert, who obviously passed on the information about San Christoforo's excellence... However, he was the only one to dedicate his cathedral to San C., and he didn't win either! Winner was Ansi, who played San Nicolo. He had problems with the famine, as graves filled his last spots for houses, but he managed to build a third city to get room for new houses. Well done. He also built a dump in the early game to control the pollution, but then left it unmanned for a long time after building stables and inns, so he could dump the pollution to someone else. I also had a good time dumping pollution around Ali's city.

In the end Tommy lost by one round only, and probably could've won the game had he not made some mistakes. Too bad. Ali hadn't chosen a saint yet, so I don't know about him. His game looked like a failure, but to my surprise, he built a second city, a hospital and the faculty of alchemy and got back to his feet! That was quite surprising!

What about me, then? I managed the famine and expanded my network of inns towards Ali. I was quite close from surrounding him, when the famine got out of control and I had to start building a new city to hold the graves. It was close, but not quite there... I'm still very satisfied, because I did so much better than the last time (I ended the game with, like, nine graves, not 69).

It was good fun, and the game reduced my fears of San Christoforo superiority. After all, San Nicolo won and my San Giorgio wasn't too far. Like Indonesia, Antiquity takes a lot of patience when it comes to moving tiny bits of cardboard (and is much worse in that respect, really), but if one can take that, few games can offer similar challenge.

Jungle Speed. This one was a good game to end the evening with, as it gave my poor brains a chance to wind down a bit. A gaming event with this intensity (and especially with games as intense as Indonesia or Antiquity) can create headache and stop one from sleeping...

In general Helcon was a great success, I enjoyed it a lot. The new location was excellent, and will probably be used again. The Memoir '44 campaign had some problems, but was still enjoyed a lot and I'm sure it'll see a lot of development and new attempts. Perhaps we'll see how the Germans attack Russia in KinkkuCon in January? Anyway, thanks to Tommy, Stefu and Ansi (and others, of course) for all the work they did for Helcon and to everybody I played games with, you were great!

(No need to wait for Sunday's entry; I skipped Sunday to be home with my wife. A wise choice, let me tell you!)