Classic EndGaming Yesterday
Jan. 27th, 2005 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aYesterday night I did indeed go to EndGame for EndGaming; this should not be a surprise. After last week's low turnout, things were back to normal this week, and there was already a cluster of 4 people considering a game when I showed up.
The game under consideration was, unfortunately, a playtest that someone was trying to encourage of his newest design. After listening politely for about 5 minutes, I opted to pass on the play. On the one hand I hate to do so, because I feel kind of snobby about it. On the other hand, when I go to EndGame I try really hard to separate the games from work, which can be hard given that I work in gaming. Thus, I have two rules that I try and stick to as much as possible: no playing review games, and no playing playtest games. The idea is just to have fun.
So, I wandered on downstairs into the store for a bit. I'd saved some money this week to buy Lord of the Rings: The Conflict, a Reiner Knizia Stratego-like game, and so I did. I idly looked around for their newly received games (particularly Struggle of Empires), but couldn't find them; I didn't bother asking about them because I didn't have any more money anyway. I bought my copy of LotR:tC, and then wandered back upstairs. A couple more people had arrived by this point, so I felt able to start up a real game without cutting the legs out from under the playtest.
(I noted that Eric [not F or R] played in the playtest, despite some eyerolling in my direction when he was hearing the rules, and as far as I could tell he was a saint, playing the thing through, then offering some really constructive advice. A better man than I. On the other hand, he's brought his own game for playtest to EndGame on occasion, so he probably feels like fair is fair.)
Anyway, so there was a gaggle of players, and no one was willing to commit to a game. Finally, I tossed Mammoth Hunters on the table, and asked, "Who wants to play?" As usual, that has the desirous effect of getting people going. We ended up with 5, which is more than I've ever played the game with before, and so I suggested a slightly shortened game of 3 rounds rather than 4. (I think this was a good move, in the end.)
I continue to enjoy Mammoth Hunters. I thought it was a kind of interesting game at first, but as I've played more I've gained more of an appreciation for it. I should probably go back at revise my RPGnet review at some point as a result, and give it a "4" instead of a "3" (out of "5").
The game isn't the most strategic in the world, in that a lot can happen between your turns, and it's easy for a position to be utterly destroyed. I think it's that chaos that turns a lot of people off. Still, there's a lot of strategy, and although you can have a singular position destroyed, you still have a lot of positive board position to build from. If I had any complaint about the chaos, it might be that it's too easy to move the (scoring) mammoths around once they're all on the board, but that might be just because I saw it happen a lot last night.
On the plus side you have a lot of interesting and fairly unique game mechanics that make it a really different type of game to play. The biggest unique mechanic is the fact that you have to give other players free actions in order to earn stones to take your own actions; deciding who to let do what is a big part of the game. The second interesting mechanic is the fact that conflict occurs in overpopulated areas. I think these ideas are both entirely stand-out.
I took off to a fearless and big lead after the first round of play. I say fearless because it's relatively easy to set back the leader in this game. Nonetheless I managed to maintain my lead through the second round. However in the third round some mammoths got doubled up by other players. Combined with some unlucky conflict results I ended up slipping behind.
I lost by one point. I believe Helmut won.
There was more gaggling at this point, but once I convinced Patrick to toss Amun-Re on a table, we once more managed to quickly consolidate a 5-player game.
The most interesting element of this game was a bizarre strategy that Aaron tried. He didn't build any pyramids in the first kingdom, with the idea being that he could put his resources toward card purchase and also money allocation for the second round, after which point he'd concentrate on purchasing built up regions with 2 pyramids.
I meanwhile tried my most common strategy: building equal sets of pyramids, one set in the first kingdom, two in the second; building them carefully to score bonus cards each kingdom; and also achieving at least one "most pyramids" by overbuilding a region. Unfortunately in the first kingdom I was a bit careless, and ended up with a set of three regions that weren't valid for any bonus card; this was stupid. Even scoring two bonus cards in the second kingdom (farmers + next to the Nile) and achieving a "most pyramids" in each kingdom didn't help out.
Aaron's strategy, meanwhile, did about what he wanted. He hoarded a huge number of power cards. (At the very end of the game he dumped *7* which he'd been unable to use.) He didn't manage to go into the second kingdom with as much money as he wanted, but people were so worried about not getting the 0-pyramid kingdoms that I don't think anyone quite realized that he was gathering together all the 2-pyramid kingdoms. (Actually, I did, but only as he was closing in on the last one, which was one I couldn't take without ruining my bonuses.) As a result he managed to get up to a complete set of 3-pyramids, and win one of the "most pyramids", which together did indeed offset his slow start.
Still, I'm not convinced on the strategy.
However, I also lost by 1 point. Aaron won; he was tied with another player, but won on the pyramid count tiebreaker.
Last up with Linie 1, a game that I've never played before. It reminds me of Metro or TransAmerica, in that you're trying to connect up a number of points (two stations and three stops) on a grid you're sharing with other people. You draw a number of different connection tiles (as in Metro) and have to make the best of them. At the end you then race your cars across your connection; the one who finished the connection first usually wins, unless he did a bad job.
I found the spatial positioning on this game quite difficult, and I had troubles figuring out a best way to connect up my 5 points, and also how various turns were going to affect them. In other words, it was challenging, and I liked it.
Every one of our three players got their line connected up on the same round (me last), though mine was clearly the worst of the three lines, since it has unnecessary stops and went way out of its way. I came in last, and by more than "1 point" this time.
I need to find out if Mayfair still has the American version of this, Streetcar, in any quantity.
The game, by the by, is by Stefan Dorra. I've looked him up at BGG and was surprised to see how many old games he has, the things in ancient German-imported boxes that the grognards bring around. Linie 1. Tonga Bonga. For Sale. I was also surprised to see he's still producing, because I literally own nothing by him. However, Linie 1/Streetcar has now gone on my want list, along with Land Unter which I played last week. I expect I'm also going to get a review copy of Amazonas. So, I'll get to check him out more in the months to come.
The game under consideration was, unfortunately, a playtest that someone was trying to encourage of his newest design. After listening politely for about 5 minutes, I opted to pass on the play. On the one hand I hate to do so, because I feel kind of snobby about it. On the other hand, when I go to EndGame I try really hard to separate the games from work, which can be hard given that I work in gaming. Thus, I have two rules that I try and stick to as much as possible: no playing review games, and no playing playtest games. The idea is just to have fun.
So, I wandered on downstairs into the store for a bit. I'd saved some money this week to buy Lord of the Rings: The Conflict, a Reiner Knizia Stratego-like game, and so I did. I idly looked around for their newly received games (particularly Struggle of Empires), but couldn't find them; I didn't bother asking about them because I didn't have any more money anyway. I bought my copy of LotR:tC, and then wandered back upstairs. A couple more people had arrived by this point, so I felt able to start up a real game without cutting the legs out from under the playtest.
(I noted that Eric [not F or R] played in the playtest, despite some eyerolling in my direction when he was hearing the rules, and as far as I could tell he was a saint, playing the thing through, then offering some really constructive advice. A better man than I. On the other hand, he's brought his own game for playtest to EndGame on occasion, so he probably feels like fair is fair.)
Anyway, so there was a gaggle of players, and no one was willing to commit to a game. Finally, I tossed Mammoth Hunters on the table, and asked, "Who wants to play?" As usual, that has the desirous effect of getting people going. We ended up with 5, which is more than I've ever played the game with before, and so I suggested a slightly shortened game of 3 rounds rather than 4. (I think this was a good move, in the end.)
I continue to enjoy Mammoth Hunters. I thought it was a kind of interesting game at first, but as I've played more I've gained more of an appreciation for it. I should probably go back at revise my RPGnet review at some point as a result, and give it a "4" instead of a "3" (out of "5").
The game isn't the most strategic in the world, in that a lot can happen between your turns, and it's easy for a position to be utterly destroyed. I think it's that chaos that turns a lot of people off. Still, there's a lot of strategy, and although you can have a singular position destroyed, you still have a lot of positive board position to build from. If I had any complaint about the chaos, it might be that it's too easy to move the (scoring) mammoths around once they're all on the board, but that might be just because I saw it happen a lot last night.
On the plus side you have a lot of interesting and fairly unique game mechanics that make it a really different type of game to play. The biggest unique mechanic is the fact that you have to give other players free actions in order to earn stones to take your own actions; deciding who to let do what is a big part of the game. The second interesting mechanic is the fact that conflict occurs in overpopulated areas. I think these ideas are both entirely stand-out.
I took off to a fearless and big lead after the first round of play. I say fearless because it's relatively easy to set back the leader in this game. Nonetheless I managed to maintain my lead through the second round. However in the third round some mammoths got doubled up by other players. Combined with some unlucky conflict results I ended up slipping behind.
I lost by one point. I believe Helmut won.
There was more gaggling at this point, but once I convinced Patrick to toss Amun-Re on a table, we once more managed to quickly consolidate a 5-player game.
The most interesting element of this game was a bizarre strategy that Aaron tried. He didn't build any pyramids in the first kingdom, with the idea being that he could put his resources toward card purchase and also money allocation for the second round, after which point he'd concentrate on purchasing built up regions with 2 pyramids.
I meanwhile tried my most common strategy: building equal sets of pyramids, one set in the first kingdom, two in the second; building them carefully to score bonus cards each kingdom; and also achieving at least one "most pyramids" by overbuilding a region. Unfortunately in the first kingdom I was a bit careless, and ended up with a set of three regions that weren't valid for any bonus card; this was stupid. Even scoring two bonus cards in the second kingdom (farmers + next to the Nile) and achieving a "most pyramids" in each kingdom didn't help out.
Aaron's strategy, meanwhile, did about what he wanted. He hoarded a huge number of power cards. (At the very end of the game he dumped *7* which he'd been unable to use.) He didn't manage to go into the second kingdom with as much money as he wanted, but people were so worried about not getting the 0-pyramid kingdoms that I don't think anyone quite realized that he was gathering together all the 2-pyramid kingdoms. (Actually, I did, but only as he was closing in on the last one, which was one I couldn't take without ruining my bonuses.) As a result he managed to get up to a complete set of 3-pyramids, and win one of the "most pyramids", which together did indeed offset his slow start.
Still, I'm not convinced on the strategy.
However, I also lost by 1 point. Aaron won; he was tied with another player, but won on the pyramid count tiebreaker.
Last up with Linie 1, a game that I've never played before. It reminds me of Metro or TransAmerica, in that you're trying to connect up a number of points (two stations and three stops) on a grid you're sharing with other people. You draw a number of different connection tiles (as in Metro) and have to make the best of them. At the end you then race your cars across your connection; the one who finished the connection first usually wins, unless he did a bad job.
I found the spatial positioning on this game quite difficult, and I had troubles figuring out a best way to connect up my 5 points, and also how various turns were going to affect them. In other words, it was challenging, and I liked it.
Every one of our three players got their line connected up on the same round (me last), though mine was clearly the worst of the three lines, since it has unnecessary stops and went way out of its way. I came in last, and by more than "1 point" this time.
I need to find out if Mayfair still has the American version of this, Streetcar, in any quantity.
The game, by the by, is by Stefan Dorra. I've looked him up at BGG and was surprised to see how many old games he has, the things in ancient German-imported boxes that the grognards bring around. Linie 1. Tonga Bonga. For Sale. I was also surprised to see he's still producing, because I literally own nothing by him. However, Linie 1/Streetcar has now gone on my want list, along with Land Unter which I played last week. I expect I'm also going to get a review copy of Amazonas. So, I'll get to check him out more in the months to come.