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Mexican EndGaming
Mar. 24th, 2005 01:19 amI wasn't really planning to go to EndGame tonight, since I had a good day of gaming last Saturday, and we're going to be doing board gaming about this Saturday if the folks from my roleplaying group don't flake. But, somehow I ended up there anyway ...
First game of the day was Clans which almost always makes it into my bag nowadays, because it takes 5 minutes to explain and 15 minutes to play, and thus is a great filler when you're waiting for longer games to break up.
So, we played a little 3-player Clans game. One of the players hadn't played before and he was a bit obvious about what color he was playing (black). Somehow, though, he managed to pull out to a good lead right away. Afterward the other player and I were much more cautious about black getting points, but by the end of the game black was still tied for the lead (with my color, which was green). I lost by a couple of points because he had more village chits.
I suppose there's something to be said about being a little bit blatant sometimes in Clans, but I just have too much fun trying to make great moves without being obvious.
After that a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill started up, and I quickly fled.
For the next game I joined Will, Andrew, and Tom for Boomtown. This Bruno Faidutti game combines a clever auction, where players to the right of the winner get money while players to the left get early choice on cards, with a majority control system and some die rolling to see when mines produce gold.
My usual strategy in Boomtown is to try and achieve two majorities (out of five towns), which allows you to collect money from all the other players, and also earn some points at the end game. For some reason I had a lot of problem securing those majorities this game because of bad timing on auctions and surprise draws by other players (in particular Will, who was sitting to my right, drove me crazy by continuously taking the cards I wanted, even when it wasn't obviously in his best interest to do so).
By mid-game I'd started to recover a little. A couple of rolls of "2" left me rolling in money, because I had two valuable mines at that number, and I did manage to come up with one mayor. At this point I shifted my strategy to trying to get the most valuable mines I could, for end game scoring, without worrying about getting money in the game, and also trying to drive up the auction costs without actually winning. It was a good theory.
However in the end Will managed to win, 109 to my 96, Tom's 86, and Andrew's 48. Poor Andrew had gotten very hosed in the beginning of the game, taking a couple of dynamite in the teeth. Ouch.
Next up was Razzia, another game from my bag. It's Reiner Knizia's Ra, but with fewer cards (tiles) and no disasters. For this game, Andrew left us, but was replaced by Chris.
I've written up games of Ra here before, and I have the same comment: I don't know how to play the darned game.
This time around I got stuck with extra checks a couple of times, and in fact the first round of play was an unmitigated disaster. I ended up with -3 points that round, and the scant tiles that I had all were one-use things that went away! At keast I had good checks ($11, $12, and $4) for the second round.
If I tried to sum up what I usually do wrong with Ra(zzia) it's overvaluing my checks, and thus not getting tiles when I could (and should). In addition I think I undervalue the bodyguards (pharaohs) and thus am too willing to take the -5.
I'll be glad when I have a copy of Ra, as it's sometimes a bit hard to sell folks on Razzia, though one player said he liked the mobster game better.
Final scores: Will 32, Chris 14, Me 9, and Tom 8.
Last up I brought out a game that I've been wanting to play again for a while: Mexica. For this game Chris left us, and was replaced by Dwayne.
Mexica is a Kramer action-point game where you build districts, then fill those districts with pyramids, and the three players with the most pyramids in a district get victory points during the two scoring rounds. It's beautiful, it's evocative, it allows for significant tactics, and at the same time it's pretty simple.
Whenever I play Mexica (which has been about 4 games thus far) I try and treat it like an entirely tactical exercise. I do my best not to form attachments to things I've done in past turns, but rather look at how each individual turn can better my score.
Did I get overwhelmed in a district that I'd built ziggurats in? Oh well. I'm not going back unless it's really the best move.
So, the first thing I did was I built new districts whenever I could. Second, I dropped pyramids into empty districts when it seemed to make sense, but whenever I preferred to lock down a district by placing enough pyramids to fill all the empty spaces. I was willing to spend a full turn locking down a 5- or 6- point district, and in fact I ended up not competing at all for some of the 11- or 13- point districts.
I won the game at 110, to Will's 98, Tom's 85, and Dwayne's 85. (To be fair, only Will and I had played before.) I think I actually won the game on district creation. I was a couple of points ahead after the first scoring round, and then I made another 7 or 8 points on Will during the second round by building more new districts than he did. (I had one turn that I enjoyed quite a bit when I formed two districts, an 11-, then a 5- or 6-.)
I should bring this game more, as I liked it quite a bit.
This was a good day for my game bag. I brought 4 games, Clans, Razzia, New England, and Mexica, three of those got played, and still the bag was fairly light when I was carrying it to BART and back.
I was really thrilled to get to play both Razzia and Mexica, as they're both interesting & unique. And it was my first game of the year for everything but Clans.
First game of the day was Clans which almost always makes it into my bag nowadays, because it takes 5 minutes to explain and 15 minutes to play, and thus is a great filler when you're waiting for longer games to break up.
So, we played a little 3-player Clans game. One of the players hadn't played before and he was a bit obvious about what color he was playing (black). Somehow, though, he managed to pull out to a good lead right away. Afterward the other player and I were much more cautious about black getting points, but by the end of the game black was still tied for the lead (with my color, which was green). I lost by a couple of points because he had more village chits.
I suppose there's something to be said about being a little bit blatant sometimes in Clans, but I just have too much fun trying to make great moves without being obvious.
After that a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill started up, and I quickly fled.
For the next game I joined Will, Andrew, and Tom for Boomtown. This Bruno Faidutti game combines a clever auction, where players to the right of the winner get money while players to the left get early choice on cards, with a majority control system and some die rolling to see when mines produce gold.
My usual strategy in Boomtown is to try and achieve two majorities (out of five towns), which allows you to collect money from all the other players, and also earn some points at the end game. For some reason I had a lot of problem securing those majorities this game because of bad timing on auctions and surprise draws by other players (in particular Will, who was sitting to my right, drove me crazy by continuously taking the cards I wanted, even when it wasn't obviously in his best interest to do so).
By mid-game I'd started to recover a little. A couple of rolls of "2" left me rolling in money, because I had two valuable mines at that number, and I did manage to come up with one mayor. At this point I shifted my strategy to trying to get the most valuable mines I could, for end game scoring, without worrying about getting money in the game, and also trying to drive up the auction costs without actually winning. It was a good theory.
However in the end Will managed to win, 109 to my 96, Tom's 86, and Andrew's 48. Poor Andrew had gotten very hosed in the beginning of the game, taking a couple of dynamite in the teeth. Ouch.
Next up was Razzia, another game from my bag. It's Reiner Knizia's Ra, but with fewer cards (tiles) and no disasters. For this game, Andrew left us, but was replaced by Chris.
I've written up games of Ra here before, and I have the same comment: I don't know how to play the darned game.
This time around I got stuck with extra checks a couple of times, and in fact the first round of play was an unmitigated disaster. I ended up with -3 points that round, and the scant tiles that I had all were one-use things that went away! At keast I had good checks ($11, $12, and $4) for the second round.
If I tried to sum up what I usually do wrong with Ra(zzia) it's overvaluing my checks, and thus not getting tiles when I could (and should). In addition I think I undervalue the bodyguards (pharaohs) and thus am too willing to take the -5.
I'll be glad when I have a copy of Ra, as it's sometimes a bit hard to sell folks on Razzia, though one player said he liked the mobster game better.
Final scores: Will 32, Chris 14, Me 9, and Tom 8.
Last up I brought out a game that I've been wanting to play again for a while: Mexica. For this game Chris left us, and was replaced by Dwayne.
Mexica is a Kramer action-point game where you build districts, then fill those districts with pyramids, and the three players with the most pyramids in a district get victory points during the two scoring rounds. It's beautiful, it's evocative, it allows for significant tactics, and at the same time it's pretty simple.
Whenever I play Mexica (which has been about 4 games thus far) I try and treat it like an entirely tactical exercise. I do my best not to form attachments to things I've done in past turns, but rather look at how each individual turn can better my score.
Did I get overwhelmed in a district that I'd built ziggurats in? Oh well. I'm not going back unless it's really the best move.
So, the first thing I did was I built new districts whenever I could. Second, I dropped pyramids into empty districts when it seemed to make sense, but whenever I preferred to lock down a district by placing enough pyramids to fill all the empty spaces. I was willing to spend a full turn locking down a 5- or 6- point district, and in fact I ended up not competing at all for some of the 11- or 13- point districts.
I won the game at 110, to Will's 98, Tom's 85, and Dwayne's 85. (To be fair, only Will and I had played before.) I think I actually won the game on district creation. I was a couple of points ahead after the first scoring round, and then I made another 7 or 8 points on Will during the second round by building more new districts than he did. (I had one turn that I enjoyed quite a bit when I formed two districts, an 11-, then a 5- or 6-.)
I should bring this game more, as I liked it quite a bit.
This was a good day for my game bag. I brought 4 games, Clans, Razzia, New England, and Mexica, three of those got played, and still the bag was fairly light when I was carrying it to BART and back.
I was really thrilled to get to play both Razzia and Mexica, as they're both interesting & unique. And it was my first game of the year for everything but Clans.