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Schachty EndGames
Apr. 28th, 2005 12:04 amWent to EndGame tonight, catching a ride from Chris, which made the trip slightly cheaper and slightly simpler.
First game of the night was China, which I'd brought. As I've mentioned before, I don't tend to bring my new & review games because I want Wednesday to be my gaming night free of obligations, but I knew I was going to really enjoy China, and that it'd be just a fun game to play.
Other people apparently agreed, as we had 6 players who wanted to play. Eventually Eric V. very, very kindly offered to bow out, and we were down to 5. (He went off to try out a playtest of his new rules using the Nero pieces, which apparently worked out well, and will give him something to do with the game.) Our players ended up being me, Chris A., David, Karen, and Sam.
China is essentially K&K/Web of Power, on an Oriental board. This is a slightly baroque, but very quick majority-control game, where you place houses & emissaries on limited spaces on the board, and then score based on house majorities in each region and on emissary majorities in adjacent regions.
As I said, I already knew I'd like the game because I liked the one game of Web of Power that I played tabletop (and the dozens that I've played online). I also liked the new elements of China: the different boards for more or less players, the slightly different layout, the in-game scoring (you now score whenever a region fills with houses), and the fortifications. The fortifications are notable: you can lay them under a house, and your house-majority score in that region is doubled, as is the value of any chain that house is located in.
I felt like I was dominating the game. I used the strategy I picked up in the online game. I played 2-3 cards every turn and almost always played 2 pieces. I carefully counted majorities, did my best to generate ties rather than outright wins (though I fell down a bit here) and remembered the importance of the embassaries.
As I said, in this game some scoring does happen as the game goes on, and I was way out front on that, partially because I scored the region which included my fortification (and gave me 12 or 14 points) during the game. When we finished up, however, all the rest of the regions got scored, which included a number I hadn't participated in. A number of players closed in on me, but David managed to pass me, because he'd done well on the embassaries as well, and had also used his fortication to both double a region where he had the majority (just like I had) and to double the value of a 5-length chain. The final score was 48-46-?-?-?.
I'd packed a couple of other games in my bag that were the same size as China, and one of those was Hansa, ironically another game by the same author, Michael Schacht. This one also uses interesting connectivity networks, like China does, but it's an entirely tactical game, where you move a boat around those networks in order to buy and sell goods and set up markets in the towns of the Baltic. Our players were me, Chris, David, and Eric V. (returned from Nero-esque exile).
As I said partway through the game, I'd know afterward why I lost. To be precise:
Eric V., meanwhile, was awesome. He twice sold 4 pogs worth of goods, in two different colors, as a single action. He had majority in a number of cities, and managed to turn this into sufficient gold to, a couple of different times, make sweeping moves which resulted in massive victory points for him. He won by quite a bit, with Chris coming in second, David third, and me last.
Last game of the night was San Juan, which Chris had brought. (I played quite enough of it two player back when Kimberly was playing games, and so usually bring the games that aren't two player or else she didn't like. Still I'm happy to give it a play every once in a while.) We had the same crew for this game.
I decided early out to start off with a production strategy by taking an immediate builder and building a coffee roaster. That was soon aided by a Market Stall and I was in business. From there I managed to maintain a steady stream of cards by producing and selling.
Eric V. was struggling with a problem I've seen before: a first-round chapel. Chapels definitively get you more VPs than building, but it still feels like you're starved for cards. He also didn't have good production for a long, long time (which was probably a bigger problem), and thus his primary form of income was the prospector and a gold mine. Chris was meanwhile building fast, and I didn't really catch what David was doing.
I felt like I was doing pretty decent, though Chris A. was ahead of me in buildings. In the end I also got a little panicky because I didn't have any 6-point buildings, and because David had started producing two silver every production.
Nonetheless, I managed to win this one, primarily thanks to the two monuments that I built. Final score was 29 (me) to 27 (Chris) to 22 (Eric) to 18 (David). Chris had made good use of a City Hall, while Eric had no 6-point building and David had a Palace which just didn't pay out.
I was home relatively early.
First game of the night was China, which I'd brought. As I've mentioned before, I don't tend to bring my new & review games because I want Wednesday to be my gaming night free of obligations, but I knew I was going to really enjoy China, and that it'd be just a fun game to play.
Other people apparently agreed, as we had 6 players who wanted to play. Eventually Eric V. very, very kindly offered to bow out, and we were down to 5. (He went off to try out a playtest of his new rules using the Nero pieces, which apparently worked out well, and will give him something to do with the game.) Our players ended up being me, Chris A., David, Karen, and Sam.
China is essentially K&K/Web of Power, on an Oriental board. This is a slightly baroque, but very quick majority-control game, where you place houses & emissaries on limited spaces on the board, and then score based on house majorities in each region and on emissary majorities in adjacent regions.
As I said, I already knew I'd like the game because I liked the one game of Web of Power that I played tabletop (and the dozens that I've played online). I also liked the new elements of China: the different boards for more or less players, the slightly different layout, the in-game scoring (you now score whenever a region fills with houses), and the fortifications. The fortifications are notable: you can lay them under a house, and your house-majority score in that region is doubled, as is the value of any chain that house is located in.
I felt like I was dominating the game. I used the strategy I picked up in the online game. I played 2-3 cards every turn and almost always played 2 pieces. I carefully counted majorities, did my best to generate ties rather than outright wins (though I fell down a bit here) and remembered the importance of the embassaries.
As I said, in this game some scoring does happen as the game goes on, and I was way out front on that, partially because I scored the region which included my fortification (and gave me 12 or 14 points) during the game. When we finished up, however, all the rest of the regions got scored, which included a number I hadn't participated in. A number of players closed in on me, but David managed to pass me, because he'd done well on the embassaries as well, and had also used his fortication to both double a region where he had the majority (just like I had) and to double the value of a 5-length chain. The final score was 48-46-?-?-?.
I'd packed a couple of other games in my bag that were the same size as China, and one of those was Hansa, ironically another game by the same author, Michael Schacht. This one also uses interesting connectivity networks, like China does, but it's an entirely tactical game, where you move a boat around those networks in order to buy and sell goods and set up markets in the towns of the Baltic. Our players were me, Chris, David, and Eric V. (returned from Nero-esque exile).
As I said partway through the game, I'd know afterward why I lost. To be precise:
- I never held a majority in any town, which meant that I didn't get goods for free, nor did I get payment for goods from other players.
- I somehow managed to be the one paying the 1 gold to refill all the goods on the board 3 or 4 times--about half the time it happened.
Eric V., meanwhile, was awesome. He twice sold 4 pogs worth of goods, in two different colors, as a single action. He had majority in a number of cities, and managed to turn this into sufficient gold to, a couple of different times, make sweeping moves which resulted in massive victory points for him. He won by quite a bit, with Chris coming in second, David third, and me last.
Last game of the night was San Juan, which Chris had brought. (I played quite enough of it two player back when Kimberly was playing games, and so usually bring the games that aren't two player or else she didn't like. Still I'm happy to give it a play every once in a while.) We had the same crew for this game.
I decided early out to start off with a production strategy by taking an immediate builder and building a coffee roaster. That was soon aided by a Market Stall and I was in business. From there I managed to maintain a steady stream of cards by producing and selling.
Eric V. was struggling with a problem I've seen before: a first-round chapel. Chapels definitively get you more VPs than building, but it still feels like you're starved for cards. He also didn't have good production for a long, long time (which was probably a bigger problem), and thus his primary form of income was the prospector and a gold mine. Chris was meanwhile building fast, and I didn't really catch what David was doing.
I felt like I was doing pretty decent, though Chris A. was ahead of me in buildings. In the end I also got a little panicky because I didn't have any 6-point buildings, and because David had started producing two silver every production.
Nonetheless, I managed to win this one, primarily thanks to the two monuments that I built. Final score was 29 (me) to 27 (Chris) to 22 (Eric) to 18 (David). Chris had made good use of a City Hall, while Eric had no 6-point building and David had a Palace which just didn't pay out.
I was home relatively early.