Heng’s Gaming Blog

20100226 - Dungeon Lords, Agricola: Farmers of the Moor

Ξ February 27th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Boardgames |

Right, so we had a quick gaming session yesterday, quick meaning two games and we ended at 4am.

impatient imps waiting to be deployed into dungeons while rhyen undergoes dungeon lord training

jack208 dropped by at 8.30pm while rhyen reached at 10pm. I did a trial explanation of the Dungeon Lords rules to  jack208 and stumbled here and there but by the time I taught it to rhyen, I was going at a rapid clip.

one of the training scenarios

The rules explanation was easier than I thought but it was helped no doubt by jack208 and rhyen’s fascination with the puzzle-solving aspect of the training scenarios. I think casual gamers might be turned off immediately with the training. However it is of paramount importance as I observed that in all four training missions, jack208 and rhyen had numerous questions, either one of which could turned out to be game breakers if went unexplained.

Explaining Dungeon Lords

jack208’s starting dungeon

imps mining and working the dungeon rooms

invading adventurers

So what did we think of this game? I thought it was fantastic, it went at a fast pace and there were only twelve actions to be taken before the adventurers start pillaging through your dungeon. The actions selection was less crowded than anticipated and the game wasn’t as tough as some claimed.

individual dungeon lords action selection

The main game action selection board

one of the monsters for hire. the kiddy artwork is misleading, the game IS complicated.

Of course there’s a caveat that we did two rules wrong, one was that we did not paid the monster’s hiring costs as we thought it applied only on Pay Day. Hence we were quite low on our Evil-o-meter and the Evil Reduction action did not have to be taken often. We also failed to attract the Paladin due to our failure to pay for the monster’s hiring cost with the Evil-o-meter. It could have posted a challenge for us.

We scored low on the Evil-o-meter

The wizards also got powered down in our game as I thought erroneously that 3 magic points were needed at all times to cast spells. turns out the total magic points needed corresponds to the rounds number eg. Round 1 require 1 magic point, Round 2 require 2 magic points, etc. As it were, we all scored in the 20s.

captured adventurers

jack208 and rhyen professed to like this game more than Galaxy Trucker due to the less random nature of the adventurers pillaging step. There’s control over the type of adventurers to attract, the monsters and traps to employ.  Overall a thumbs up.

using jedi mind tricks to find out the next trap card…

Next we did Agricola: Farmers of the Moor.  Briefly, this expansion introduced fuel as a additional resource and houses require heating every harvesting phase. The idea is that house expansion will be reined in by this additional requirement.

There is also a novel addition where every player’s board has a pre-determined setup of woods and moors. This does much to differentiate each player’s subsequent development.

The new initial setup

The new free actions is another novel approach as they are useful enough to warrant obtaining at times but taking it it could mean giving up lucrative first picks of the traditional Agricola actions.

Horses are a mixed bag as they could be high point scorers but have low food value. Personally I did not take any horses in my game so I can’t say its impact on the overall game.

I would give this expansion a thumbs up as well as it introduces new niggles to an old game which felt natural and smooth. There’s more things to take care of and to me can be overwhelming at times. Those Minor Improvements and Occupation cards still give me the analysis paralysis.

In our game, I did the traditional farming of grain and vegetables and trying to combo the fishing space with my minor improvements to net me reed and clays along with the action. The braggart come out last and saved me with my multitude of improvements. I have no idea what jack208 and rhyen did as I had my head full just trying to juggle my own farm.

my vegetable farming-fu

jack208’s animal farm

rhyen’s stone house strategy

 

Personal Money: The Intelligent Investor

Ξ February 15th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ personal money |

The Intelligent Investor: by Benjamin Graham

The central Idea that I got from this book is that an Index Stock Fund outperforms other equity funds on a historical basis. And sometimes it outperforms active investing too. And from my wife’s portfolio of 5 years, it seems to be true.

The other Idea is the emotional Mr. Market.  The stock market as a speculative investment is a zero-sum game, and Mr. Market plays the role of the crazy trader who trades stocks at a different price everyday. Of course, the book encourages investing for the long term where the stock value grows along with the economy. But for active investors, it is recommended that they study Mr. Market’s price variations and invest in their preferred stock at their lowest price.

Investment here is also specifically mentioned to be different from trading or speculating. Some may call it ‘Fundamental’ investing and what it means is just that one must study the company’s fundamentals (financials/management) before selecting it for investment. Normally the investment would be long term and the only time to sell is if the company’s direction or management does not fit with investor’s requirements anymore.

Lastly, the book introduces the concept of Margin of Safety. Of course, the writer puts this concept in context of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The idea is that even if a stock looks cheap on paper, you still can get screwed by the irrational Mr. Market who prices it lower and lower. So a stock that looks borderline cheap is not good enough. Ben Graham recommends to have a bigger Margin of Safety and buy it really cheap. It will help with the sleeping soundly at night too. It is the result of living through the Great Depression and it is a lowering of one’s risk to the point where the returns will be quite limited too.

For a basic course in investing, one cannot go wrong with this book, BUT for normal readers, the writing style might be a bit archaic. It IS written quite a long time ago. For those who have read this book, they will have the basics to invest but in order to get a better return, they must next read Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits.

 

Food Blog

Ξ February 1st, 2010 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |

This is my first unofficial food blog:

Ming Room - Was there for a wedding dinner recently and the food was excellent.

Starters: abalones in a shells and dollops of scallops in a basket.

Soup: double boiled chicken with…

… shark fin chunks.

Fish: individual plates with fish flesh delicately fried in pomelo and lemon sauce.

Prawns: nope, no prawns but soft shell crabs!

Desert finale: tong sui boiled in coconuts. Yum yum.

Cafe Barbera - was planning to go to subway but then pointed out by wife to this place.

Starters: salmon salad, with greens wrapped in salmon and doused with caffeine-laced sauce. Highly recommended.

Another shot.

Spicy Shrimp Aglio Olio. Yep, from the arrangements we divined that we had dined at a designer cafe.

The portions were small, so we ordered wild mushroom soup. Chunkiest mushrooms around.

We made excuses to order desert as well. Brownies ran out so we ate apple pies that melt in your mouth.

This is wife.

This is me.

This is menu.

This is indulgence.

This is bar counter with shiny brass fans and golden coffee maker machine thingy.

This is the place. Newly opened within two months, just off Jalan Maarof. Food price is designer price and portions are designer portions. Bring loads of dough or be prepared to swipe big sums. Enjoy!