Games - Samurai, Railroad Tycoon, Powergrid - Italy, Die Handler
Gaming session starts at 9.00pm with Jeff, Henry and myself. As Christopher and Kirshen were on their way, we did a ‘light filler’ game of Samurai!
Another game from the German master designer, Reiner Knizia, Samurai is a simple tile-laying game. It plays under 1-hour, and has some interesting surprises.
Basically, players are feudal lords vieing for control of ancient Japan.
The board is a map of Japan, divided into parts. Depending on the number of players, some parts of the board are fitted together to make a larger board to play on.
A fully constructed 4-player Samurai board (not our game)
On the board are Japanese cities, each with one or more of the following figurines:
1. High Helmets (government officials)
2. Buddhas (priests)
3. Rice Fields (peasants)
Figurines in contest
To capture the figurines, the players have the following influence tiles at their disposal:
1. High Helmet tiles
2. Buddha tiles
3. Rice Field tiles, and
4. Samurai tiles
A player’s full range of tiles
Players take turns placing one of their tiles onto the board. The tile influences on neighbouring figurines goes according to the following simple rule:
- High Helmet tiles influences the High Helmet figurines.
- Buddha tiles influences the Buddha figurines.
- Rice Field tiles influences the Rice Field figurines.
- Samurai tiles influences ALL figurines.
After a city is totally surrounded by players’ tiles, the players add up their influences for each of the figurines in contest. The player with the highest influence for whichever figurine wins that figurine!
Surrounding Edo with influence tiles
The ’surprise’ element in the game comes from a few game mechanics:
- A player have only five tiles at any one time and these are kept hidden behind a screen from the other players
- There is a special tile available which lets a player reuse a strong tile on the board
- There are ‘ninja’ tiles available which lets a player swap the figurines in contest or place additional samurai influences which does not counts towards the one tile limit!
As a result, there is tension in the game where a player can be completely caught out by surprise attacks from the other players.
Secret tiles behind the screen, what deviousness!
The game ends when all figurines are captured or when the fourth ties occurs during a contest of influence. The players then total up the number of figurines they captured. The player who have a majority in one of the figurine types wins, if the number of figurines in his other types is more than everyone else! Confused? No worries, just make sure all your figurines are roughly equal, you’ll stand a good chance of winning!
Here I am, looking at the board, planning my moves and treachery. Mostly treachery!
In this particular game at boardgamecafe, I outplayed, outwit and outlast Jeff and Henry, gaining majorities in two figurines and tie in the third! Granted that they did not see it coming from a first timer, but a timely ‘ninja’ move saw me gain three figurines in one swoop using three tiles. From now on, the ‘ninja’ tiles in Samurai is my favourite game mechanic!
Me laughing behind my screen, treachery scheme emerges!
As Christopher and Kirshen has arrived, we quickly tie up Samurai and moved to Railroad Tycoon (RRT)!
Kirshen, first time player, trying to look at the operations card in RRT and assessing their implications.
There is a twist in this game in that Christopher and Kirshen are relatively new to RRT but they have played Age of Steam (AOS)! Experienced gamers will know that RRT is a simpler version of AOS with just a few new mechanics. As the game progresses, we found out that Christopher and Kirshen can hold their own in the game!
The early game saw RRT veterans Jeff (purple) and Heng (black) battle over the north-east New York area.
Kirshen (yellow) started south-east to dominate the Charleston area, with an eye on some lucrative operations cards in the area.
Christopher (right) jumped in the east to fulfill some operations card before settling in the mid-west. Due to the size of the board, players often find it more convenient to stand up and do their planning…
Of course, veterans Henry (middle) and Heng (right) find it just as comfortable sitting down. (Notice how the humongous board barely fits onto the table with all the cards and the components…)
In the mid game, Heng found the competition stifling in the east and broke westward through the mountains using the cheapest route available: Washington to Wheeling. Henry (blue)’s monopoly on the northern Toronto line is starting to see some competition but is still in good shape to reach chicago first.
A confluence of players in the west, with Henry, Christoper (red) and Heng connecting to Chicago.
Henry putting all his effort into fulfilling the New York-Chicago-Western Link major line, grabbing it after some snafus and Heng’s blocking move. The move also finally puts him back into the contention after a long and difficult investment period.
The final score: Christopher (red) grabs the lead by fulfilling his Tycoon secret objective, followed by Heng (black), Jeff (purple), Kirshen (yellow) and Henry (blue).
Thoughts: This game taught me one thing. I had played the ‘hotel’ operations card rules wrong with my group! I played it as a permanent bonus for anyone delivering to a city with a hotel. Instead, a player should pick up the ‘hotel’ operations card first as an action and thereafter gain points for any delivery into the city with the hotel. This introduces some tension into the bidding for first chance to grab the hotel. Christopher owning the hotel in Chicago also manage to squeak out a significant number to points to boost him into the lead. Good play!
*images courtesy of Jeff and also various photo uploads at boardgamegeek*
I realise that I have been posting lots of new game impressions and descriptions recently. But that is because I have been playing new games almost every week.
As a consequence, my friendster blog account has reached its photo upload limit. This means that I won’t be posting another game impressions for the rest of the month, until my limit is lifted.
Now why is photos important to my posts? There are two parts to the answer. My first answer is that I’m lazy, and if pictures can speak a thousand words, I’m willing to let the photos fill up my thousand words report.
Secondly, it comes to my mission statement for this blog. I have been focusing on Eurogaming in my blog, which is a narrow enough subject. However, to give it more focus, I try to write my reports with a mind to intro my readers to the wide varied world of Eurogaming. That is why I use a liberal dose of photos, and I also try to explain game rules and mechanics as simply and as interestingly as possible.
I believe everyone loves stories. If by using pictures and storytelling, I can make Euro-gaming come alive as an experience, then I will have succeeded in my blog mission statement.
What do you guys think though? Enough pictures? Or are the explanations getting more complex?
OK, since Jeff has already done some writeup on this meeting at www.boardgamecafe.net, I’ll just put in my two cents on the meetup:
Kuhhandel (You’re Bluffing!)
I arrived late from the traffic jam to observe this game.
Generally, this is a fun negotiation game in which you try to form sets of animals by buying the animals from each other.
The gist of the game is that:
1. You try to get a matching animal from another player by offering them an unknown sum of money.
2. Since an offer can’t be refused, the other player will try to counteroffer with another unknown sum of money that is hopefully more than yours.
3. Both of you then exchange your offers and compare with each other.
4. The player with the higher offer gets the contested animal from the other player, and
5. Both players now continue the game using the money obtained from the offer exchange!
The bluffing aspect comes when you lie about your offer, so that the other player will either give you a lot of money in a supergood counteroffer, or give their animal to you at bargain price.
The fun aspect then comes when the other players pull the same trick on you!
As you can tell by the photos, everybody had fun!
Powergrid - France expansion
3 players squeeze into Paris!
Now, those of you who are my loyal readers will remember my last writeup on the Cameron trip where I lost two games to a ‘trick’. This time, I resolved to avoid the same ‘trick’.
But first, I had to get used to the France map where the connections are different from the US map. There is a special 3-adjacent-sectioned Paris city, an early nuclear power plant, and early cheap uranium.
I started by bidding highly for a low number hybrid power plant. Everyone seems to be scared off by that play and backed off. However, I consider that a good purchase seeing that the low number plant put me in a good position to buy resources and connections first.
My next power plant purchase was a nuclear plant. Again everyone backed off from my high bids. However, I still consider it a good purchase seeing that the uranium resources will be uncontested for awhile.
In mid-game, all the high numbered power plants suddenly came out. I got myself a good high numbered plant uncontested, which put me in the lead several times. Although I overspent on some resources and was screwed out of cheap city connections, I still consider myself in a good position solely because I had a high enough power plant for the end game.
Towards the end, I got myself another high numbered power plant which happens to be a garbage plant. Now, this was critical because:
1. Others are just starting to phase out their garbage plants and I can get cheap garbage resources.
2. Low numbered power plants started showing again, screwing everyone else’s expansion capabilities.
3. Nobody bid for the low numbered plants, causing stagnation in the power plant market.
4. Everyone waited too long for the high numbered green power plants in the futures market to move up, which didn’t, since the current market is stagnant.
5. I pulled the ‘trick’ I learned from Cameron Highlands.
What is the ‘trick’? Essentially, the game ends when someone builds to 15 cities. However, the game rules that you do not have to power all of the 15 cities! So I just make sure I can power 13 cities (which is more than anyone else) and end the game prematurely by building to 15 cities. The phase 3 card didn’t even turn up yet!
Yup, I stole victory right under everyone’s noses. In this game, I consider power plant purchases to be the critical points of my victory. However, I recognise that power plant purchases are subjective and everyone has their own assessment of the ‘correct’ price for a plant. Feel free to discuss on the four plants buying decisions I made, would love to hear opinions!
Powergrid, serious gamers’ game!
St. Petersburg
Contrary to popular belief, I don’t observe every game intimately. I was distracted soon after Rob’s game explanations, by Jeff who proceeded to teach me…
Battleline
me at battlelines, rob at st petersburg
Now this is a tough abstract mathematical game by the creator of Lost Cities. Like that game, there’s some luck in the drawing of the cards. But my mistake was committing my low valued armies too early, resulting in a breakthrough loss. Now that I get a taste of the game, maybe next time I can strategise instead of praying for the right cards to turn up! 
Diplomacy
This game we didn’t play, but Jeff brought it out to be oggled by Long, Henry, Rob and myself. The board was a close reproduction of the map of Europe, but the graphics, the components and the bits! Antique, man. Old Skool.
Yumcha
This is not a game but a hawker session at the nearby foodcourt. (It can be a future M’sian game, where the first expansion will be imaginatively titled ‘mamak’…:P)
For those of you wondering what sort of topics that went around, here’s a sample:
Interest in Gaming Getaway?
Where to go for Gaming Getaway?
Long games or short games for Gaming Getaway?
7 Ages long game Genting Getaway Gaming Galore?
Are Chess, Scrabble and Go considered boardgames?
Are Chess, Scrabble and Go heavier than 18XX?
Are Chess, Scrabble and Go dependent on genius intellect or laborious ‘moves’ and ‘vocab’ memorisation?
Why is ____ considered a word in Scrabble?!
Ticket to Ride & Puerto Rico, are they equally suitable as gateway games?
Why does Long prefer teaching Puerto Rico than Ticket to Ride?
Why does Jeff prefer teaching Powergrid than Puerto Rico?
Bear in mind that the above are a snapshot of the discussions that day, which may be modified by the effects of a 9pm-5am boardgame meetup session length and coffee.
Footnote: Reach home at 6am. So darn tired!
Tempus, a new release from Cafegames, is billed as a civilisation-lite game in the vein of Antike. For those not familiar with these terms, see my previous explanation on civilisation games and impression of Antike in an earlier posting. Civilisation ‘lite’ in this game means a short 90-minute game (shorter than Antike). This however, means that most of the civilisation details are even more abstracted out than Antike.
Coming from the respected designer of Age of Steam - Martin Wallace, Tempus receives a lot of hype prior to its release but subsequently gets mixed feedback after that. It is praised in some quarters but blasted in others.
Amid these interesting developments, fellow gamer Chua receives his copy of Tempus. Billed as the first copy of Tempus in Malaysia (information correct at posting time :P), it arrives through the mail rather than waiting for the usual friendly local crack dealer services.
A call quickly went out in the forums and four brave civilisation pioneers answered. Dave, KJ, Jeff Goh and Heng, join Chua 3pm sharp on Saturday 9 Sept 06 in Games Circle to answer a very important question: Is Tempus good or bad?. Jeff Au, despite registering his interest early, came late and his civilisation was replaced. In the world of Tempus, time waits for no civilisation (sorry Jeff!). Jeff Au was instead relegated to journey as a nomad Through the Desert (But that is another tale for another game…).
Jeff Au, as one of the nomads in Through the Desert!
In the beginning (of Tempus), the world was void, without form. Then, thee board was layeth and lo, the sea of Tempus formeth. By God-given-1st-turn powers, the Davian civilisation chose the first snowflake-landmass and created an island amid the sea. KJian, Jeffian, Chua-ian and Hengian civilisations followeth suit in clockwise order, extending the landmass across a turbulent sea. The creation continues anew with the Davians until all landmasses were used. The primitive civilisations all then stood back and surveyed their world:
“Hmm, there’s a peninsular and a lake.”
“I don’t know what we are doing.”
“First game doesn’t count, right?”
Exercising their God-given-1st-turn powers again, the Davians establish their 1st three tribes in the rich fields of the northwest, an area large enough for the expansion of one civilisation yet discourages other civilisations from setting up nearby. As a consequence, the KJian tribes went to the far north, while the Jeffian tribes establish themselves in the east. The Chua-ians and Hengians face a dilemma. All that is left are barren, rocky mountains, unable to grow civilisations. After much deliberation, the Chua-ians set up east of the Jeffians while the Hengians set up isolated in the south.
An island in the sea of Tempus! Davians (yellow), KJians (black), Jeffians (red), Chua-ians (light blue) and Hengians (purple) wage a contest of civilisations (Picture taken in mid game).
“The objective of each civilisation,” proclaimed the almighty rulebook, “is to be the most civilised people on Tempus.”
“This you do by building cities and controlling terrains.”
“Like any good eurogame, I shall limit your actions to the following: you can only
1. move your tribes to new pastures
2. have babies and multiply your tribes
3. have ideas and draw cards to give your tribes bonuses
4. build a city to improve your chances of technological superiority, or
5. have a fight and eliminate your neighbours”
“You shall start off uncivilised and you only have limited actions per round. You shall move slowly, have few babies, have few ideas, build small cities, have small fights.”
“But fear not. You all shall advance through the ages every round and discover technologies to increase your civilisation’s efficiency.”
The Tempus civilisation technology advancement track.
“At all times, one of you will be one step more advanced than others.
This is determined from the terrain you control and the technology being contested.
e.g. if you own more forest than others when advancing into the technology of writing or printing, theoretically your civilisation will have an advantage in producing more papers and hence gain the benefit of the writing or printing technology first.
The rest of you will automatically catch up to the leader at the end of the turn.”
With the knowledge thus gaineth, the civilisations went off on their business of being civilised. From the onset, it was clear that there were advantages to being the civilisation that is one step ahead in the technology advancement track. Each turn, the civilisations spent the bulk of their actions manuevering to dominate different types of terrain depending on the next technology advancement. Their tribes thus went back and forth: over the hills, forest, fields, pastures… This manuevering proved to be the focus and continuing effort of all civilisations.
Ai yah, where to manuever next? - Heng
Gotta stand up when making a bold manuever! - Dave
> Look! From this end you can still see me manuevering! - Jeff Goh
All together now! Hands-on-chin + Arms-folded analysis mode. Where to manuever?!
In addition to manuevering, the civilisations discover that having ideas are also very important. The idea (cards) add some randomness to the game when you draw them. However, they give extra benefits during actions and can also be used as +1 modifier cards during contest of fights or technology advancements.
The idea (cards)
In the end, the KJians emerge victorious with their multitude of civilised cities. Davians came second, followed by Chua-ians and Jeffians. The Hengians was badly beaten due to a combination of bad city placement, emptying of hand at the wrong time, and the misfortune of being set upon by vicious neighbours. Oh well… first game doesn’t count!
The winner in action - KJ (person in middle) consulting with Dave
KJ scratching head in thought
KJ massaging his fingers
Notes: The history of Tempus recounted above was obtained from the annals of the failed Hengian civilisation, which in turn referenced the records of a Chua-ian historian found here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/125737
Footnote: So, is Tempus good or bad? Overall, I feel that the landmass generating mechanic is nice and the randomness provides replayability. However, the abstracted nature of the civilisation theme kinda throw me off the experience. It feels more like a brain burning exercise in area manuevering-controlling instead of civilisation building. Playing this game gives one mixed feelings, one must try Tempus to ultimately decide whether they like it or not.
Courtesy of Mun Leng and Kin Seong, we have… news of gaming in Adelaide!
First up, Carcassonne! With many, many, many expansions:
Look at the length of the game! (and notice the Adelaidean carpet)
Look at the tiles, can you spot the pig from the expansion?
Next up, Thurn & Taxis!
A beautiful game which I had a taste here in Malaysia. Simple, fun, lots of eye candy.
The whole board.
Unfortunately, Mun Leng and Kin Seong got too excited of the games that they forgot to include themselves in the picture, but we assure you that the picture is from Adelaide!
We promise more news from gamey Adelaide as I reminded Mun and Kin to now try to get themselves into the pictures!
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