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Goa-ing to EndGame (& Others)
Feb. 17th, 2005 01:43 amTonight was EndGame, and mostly a focus on one long game, with some fillers on either side.
The first game of the night was High Society!, which I'd brought. One of seven games that I brought, actually, and the only one that got played.
High Society is one of Knizia's auction games, usually considered in series with Medici and Modern Art, but of the three it's the lightest and the shortest. You bid for various valuable items, and there are just two catches: you can't make change, but rather have to supplement your bid with additional bills through subsequent rounds of bidding; and whomever has the least money at the end loses.
I'm usually very paranoid about that least-money bit, and so I'm always counting who's spent what out of the higher bills. At the end of this game the bid came to me for a 2x multiplier at $1, and I couldn't raise it because I knew that if I spent either my $15 or my $25 I'd end up lower than anyone else, because everyone still had their $25 left. So, I passed and the 2x went for $1. And the winner of that auction lost because he was the lowest with $25 left. Ouch. I meanwhile came in second. Cole won.
You gotta give Knizia kudos for putting such an excructiating choice in such a small package.This should become another of my bag games, because it's so short, rich, and teeny.
Krishna showed up around here and I broke away to play some games with him. He brought out a curious little game that I'd seen him play before called Flickwerk. It's a really simple game: you have a 3x3 grid, and 4 of the edges of the grid have computers that you have to connect to, while the rest of the edges you can not connect to. There's also a set piece in the middle of the board, different each round.
You, meanwhile, have 12 pieces, 3 straights, 3 corners, 3 t-intersections, 1 crossover, 1 double corner, and 1 cap. You have to use 9 of these pieces, including the set piece in its central location, to connect computer #1 to #2 and #3 to #4, and, as I said, not connect to any illegal edges.
You go through 12 of these puzzles, and whomever solved the most first wins.
I've seen similar puzzle games on the Internet, but this is a really nice real-time face-to-face version, though I'd bet the same players tend to win because it's 100% spatial skills. I did quite well at the start, but then either the other players got into the swing of it, or else I got tired of the rapid thinking. (I suffer from Boggle fatigue too, in a similar way, after a couple of rounds.)
This is now two 2F games that have impressed me (the other being Fresh Fish, which I've since acquired in a trade for Pizarro & Co.). He does good work on spatial orientation games. However, his logistical Power Grid hasn't caught my attention in the same way, but deserves another play.
The real game of the night was Goa, which was played by myself, Krishna, Jacob, and Kerin. Both Krishna & Jacob had specifically wanted to play with me; go figure.
I like Goa because it's a really solid game with meaningful tactical choices and the opportunity for long-term strategic plans. At some times tonight I had up to 5 future moves planned (which is actually pretty rare for me). I like that ability to think ahead, especially because Goa makes it easy with fairly simple turns.
On the other hand, I continue to feel slightly out of control in Goa, in that I can never tell how I'm doing. Tonight I figured out that part of the reason is that there's no interim scoring. You spend two hours doing your absolute best, and then you sum everything up to see what happened. If you just kept a tally of everyone's score at any time, for their colonies, technology, and other explicit points, the game would feel a lot more grounded for me. I think the geometrical progression of all the scoring is yet another element that makes it slightly counter intuitive.
This time around I tried to freeform my strategy a bit more than I did last time I played. Early in the game I pounced upon a few auctions where I could get a good price without worrying too much about whether those particular tiles fit a "strategy" or not. My getting good auction prices was helped by the fact that the person to my right was bidding a bit erratically, while the person to my left, who was doing that auctioning, understood the value of receiving a payment rather than paying for your own auction. (Basically, in paying for your own auction you lose out double, once for the money you didn't get and a second time for the money you spent, so it'd better be worth 2x what the previous person was bidding.) This was really a sweet-spot that helped out my gameplay (and is a danger in this type of game).
Beyond that I did a lot of just-in-time economics. I kept doing advances just as I got in ships or spice from auctions, and so didn't have to take ship or spice actions until I was up at #2 or #3 on each track. This probably helped me out a lot. By the end of the game I was at three level 4s, one level 3, and one level 5, which was more symetrical than I've ever had; I was surprised it worked.I even got to use vice king to pop me from a level 3 to a 4, which was a pleasure (and made it a 3 VP pickup).
My final score was 46, and I won over two 40s and a 33. My other good trick (which I used in my last game to no effect) was to grab two expedition card auctions *after* I already had cards in my hand. At the end of the game I had 5 expedition cards in hand which I couldn't have done just with expedition actions since my hand limit was 3. They gave me 9 points due to some nice pairing, but even at 5 points they would have given me a win.
A longer game than I usually play, but a nice change of pace, and played with good folks.
The last game of the night was just a casual game of Rumis. The more I play it the more I wonder how much strategic play can really affect victory. Yes, you can play really badly or really well, but I'm not entirely convinced that victory among a number of strong players doesn't have a large random component. Yes, that is a fancy was of saying I lost. I came in second with 10 points to Jacob's 11.
Still, it's a game that I always enjoy because it's pretty, it's tactile, and it at least *implies* important tactical plays. According to BGG, Rumis just became my first nickel of the year; that's 5 games played.
The first game of the night was High Society!, which I'd brought. One of seven games that I brought, actually, and the only one that got played.
High Society is one of Knizia's auction games, usually considered in series with Medici and Modern Art, but of the three it's the lightest and the shortest. You bid for various valuable items, and there are just two catches: you can't make change, but rather have to supplement your bid with additional bills through subsequent rounds of bidding; and whomever has the least money at the end loses.
I'm usually very paranoid about that least-money bit, and so I'm always counting who's spent what out of the higher bills. At the end of this game the bid came to me for a 2x multiplier at $1, and I couldn't raise it because I knew that if I spent either my $15 or my $25 I'd end up lower than anyone else, because everyone still had their $25 left. So, I passed and the 2x went for $1. And the winner of that auction lost because he was the lowest with $25 left. Ouch. I meanwhile came in second. Cole won.
You gotta give Knizia kudos for putting such an excructiating choice in such a small package.This should become another of my bag games, because it's so short, rich, and teeny.
Krishna showed up around here and I broke away to play some games with him. He brought out a curious little game that I'd seen him play before called Flickwerk. It's a really simple game: you have a 3x3 grid, and 4 of the edges of the grid have computers that you have to connect to, while the rest of the edges you can not connect to. There's also a set piece in the middle of the board, different each round.
You, meanwhile, have 12 pieces, 3 straights, 3 corners, 3 t-intersections, 1 crossover, 1 double corner, and 1 cap. You have to use 9 of these pieces, including the set piece in its central location, to connect computer #1 to #2 and #3 to #4, and, as I said, not connect to any illegal edges.
You go through 12 of these puzzles, and whomever solved the most first wins.
I've seen similar puzzle games on the Internet, but this is a really nice real-time face-to-face version, though I'd bet the same players tend to win because it's 100% spatial skills. I did quite well at the start, but then either the other players got into the swing of it, or else I got tired of the rapid thinking. (I suffer from Boggle fatigue too, in a similar way, after a couple of rounds.)
This is now two 2F games that have impressed me (the other being Fresh Fish, which I've since acquired in a trade for Pizarro & Co.). He does good work on spatial orientation games. However, his logistical Power Grid hasn't caught my attention in the same way, but deserves another play.
The real game of the night was Goa, which was played by myself, Krishna, Jacob, and Kerin. Both Krishna & Jacob had specifically wanted to play with me; go figure.
I like Goa because it's a really solid game with meaningful tactical choices and the opportunity for long-term strategic plans. At some times tonight I had up to 5 future moves planned (which is actually pretty rare for me). I like that ability to think ahead, especially because Goa makes it easy with fairly simple turns.
On the other hand, I continue to feel slightly out of control in Goa, in that I can never tell how I'm doing. Tonight I figured out that part of the reason is that there's no interim scoring. You spend two hours doing your absolute best, and then you sum everything up to see what happened. If you just kept a tally of everyone's score at any time, for their colonies, technology, and other explicit points, the game would feel a lot more grounded for me. I think the geometrical progression of all the scoring is yet another element that makes it slightly counter intuitive.
This time around I tried to freeform my strategy a bit more than I did last time I played. Early in the game I pounced upon a few auctions where I could get a good price without worrying too much about whether those particular tiles fit a "strategy" or not. My getting good auction prices was helped by the fact that the person to my right was bidding a bit erratically, while the person to my left, who was doing that auctioning, understood the value of receiving a payment rather than paying for your own auction. (Basically, in paying for your own auction you lose out double, once for the money you didn't get and a second time for the money you spent, so it'd better be worth 2x what the previous person was bidding.) This was really a sweet-spot that helped out my gameplay (and is a danger in this type of game).
Beyond that I did a lot of just-in-time economics. I kept doing advances just as I got in ships or spice from auctions, and so didn't have to take ship or spice actions until I was up at #2 or #3 on each track. This probably helped me out a lot. By the end of the game I was at three level 4s, one level 3, and one level 5, which was more symetrical than I've ever had; I was surprised it worked.I even got to use vice king to pop me from a level 3 to a 4, which was a pleasure (and made it a 3 VP pickup).
My final score was 46, and I won over two 40s and a 33. My other good trick (which I used in my last game to no effect) was to grab two expedition card auctions *after* I already had cards in my hand. At the end of the game I had 5 expedition cards in hand which I couldn't have done just with expedition actions since my hand limit was 3. They gave me 9 points due to some nice pairing, but even at 5 points they would have given me a win.
A longer game than I usually play, but a nice change of pace, and played with good folks.
The last game of the night was just a casual game of Rumis. The more I play it the more I wonder how much strategic play can really affect victory. Yes, you can play really badly or really well, but I'm not entirely convinced that victory among a number of strong players doesn't have a large random component. Yes, that is a fancy was of saying I lost. I came in second with 10 points to Jacob's 11.
Still, it's a game that I always enjoy because it's pretty, it's tactile, and it at least *implies* important tactical plays. According to BGG, Rumis just became my first nickel of the year; that's 5 games played.