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EndGaming Wednesday
Jul. 14th, 2005 10:14 amWent to EndGaming on Wednesday, as is usual, though I was lucky enough to catch a ride there with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
christophera_ this time around (not so a ride back, as he was engrossed in Arkham Horror when I was on my way out, and there's just no way to know when that game is going to end).
Played games with Chris, Eric V., the newly-met Mike N. (a friend of Mike B.) and later Krishna and Mike P. (What is it with the name Mike!? Including Mike A. and Mike C. that's five different Mikes that I've played board games with recently in the area! At least they maintain last initial uniqueness.)
Sadly, it was one of Krishna's last games, as he'll soon be moving to Boston to attend law school. He thinks he might be by one or two times more, but come a month or so from now he'll be jetting a few thousand miles east.
Our first game, while Eric V. was waiting for Mike P. to arrive, was Condottiere, a short French game of careful bidding. This was only my second game. I got pretty much shut out the first time due to some bad combination of overly cautious and overly flagrant bidding.
This time around I was slightly more willing to overspend when I needed to in order to ensure a victory, because otherwise the round-by-round rich gets richer can kill you. (You win cities through your play of cards, and then get more cards than normal at refill based on how many cities you have.)
I felt like I did much better than last time, achieving a second place finish to game owner Eric's first, but on the other hand I felt like I had great cards every round, while Chris and Mike N. complained a first times on the number of scarecrows they had (and indeed they each had four or five in a disastrous for them second round of play).
Still, I like the game even more than my first round of play, as I felt like I better understood some of the second- and third-guessing possible. I should go add it to my want-list at BGG.
[Ironically, it was already there, and I'm pleased to see the game is still in print.]
After that Mike P. showed up and we rearranged players so that he could join us for a 4-player game. I brought out Dos Rios which has been in my bag for the last month or so because Mike had been wanting to try it out.
I gave Dos Rios a mediocre rating when I first reviewed it. I wrote that it had too much downtime, that it felt limited in some ways, and that the last round or two of the game could be pretty boring because the winner was already obvious. I also thought the game was a bit dry and analytical, thought that doesn't appear to have made it to my review. A few times since writing that I've felt vaguely guilty because I've looked at the game on the shelf and thought, "Oh yeah, that was that fun, tactical game with the cool rivers", and I've wondered if I underrated it.
Well, after playing it again last night I thought that the downtime was excessive and that the game was a little dry. The last round or two of play also felt pointless because we already knew who the winner was. (Well, I could have won in that time, but it would have required perfect circumstances.) I think I did like the game a little bit more, because I wasn't as concerned about the singular axis of victory and was more able to fully plunge into the puzzle-solving aspect of the game.
However, if I rated it again on Substance, I'd give it the exact same 3+ that I did before (or on BGG: a 6). It's got some innovative ideas, but in the puzzling, tactical genre I've found recent release Australia ultimately a more fulfilling game because it goes faster and you have more choices at any time. Ditto Hansa, I suppose, which continues to get plays.
I got off to a terrible start, and was way behind everyone after the first few rounds of play. However about midgame I got pretty aggressive about damming up rivers to collect more dams and make other players casas useless. This helped me a lot. Eric V. won the game with 5 houses; I could have won the turn before him if I'd had $100 more and 1 dam. (I was still a full house behind him, mind you, but that $100 + 1 dam would have given me the alternate victory condition of 4 houses, one of them being a hacienda, and all of them being irrigated. My late start, and my aggressive control of the dams, helped me keep my houses on the river, which made this vaguely possible)
christophera_ this time around (not so a ride back, as he was engrossed in Arkham Horror when I was on my way out, and there's just no way to know when that game is going to end).Played games with Chris, Eric V., the newly-met Mike N. (a friend of Mike B.) and later Krishna and Mike P. (What is it with the name Mike!? Including Mike A. and Mike C. that's five different Mikes that I've played board games with recently in the area! At least they maintain last initial uniqueness.)
Sadly, it was one of Krishna's last games, as he'll soon be moving to Boston to attend law school. He thinks he might be by one or two times more, but come a month or so from now he'll be jetting a few thousand miles east.
Our first game, while Eric V. was waiting for Mike P. to arrive, was Condottiere, a short French game of careful bidding. This was only my second game. I got pretty much shut out the first time due to some bad combination of overly cautious and overly flagrant bidding.
This time around I was slightly more willing to overspend when I needed to in order to ensure a victory, because otherwise the round-by-round rich gets richer can kill you. (You win cities through your play of cards, and then get more cards than normal at refill based on how many cities you have.)
I felt like I did much better than last time, achieving a second place finish to game owner Eric's first, but on the other hand I felt like I had great cards every round, while Chris and Mike N. complained a first times on the number of scarecrows they had (and indeed they each had four or five in a disastrous for them second round of play).
Still, I like the game even more than my first round of play, as I felt like I better understood some of the second- and third-guessing possible. I should go add it to my want-list at BGG.
[Ironically, it was already there, and I'm pleased to see the game is still in print.]
After that Mike P. showed up and we rearranged players so that he could join us for a 4-player game. I brought out Dos Rios which has been in my bag for the last month or so because Mike had been wanting to try it out.
I gave Dos Rios a mediocre rating when I first reviewed it. I wrote that it had too much downtime, that it felt limited in some ways, and that the last round or two of the game could be pretty boring because the winner was already obvious. I also thought the game was a bit dry and analytical, thought that doesn't appear to have made it to my review. A few times since writing that I've felt vaguely guilty because I've looked at the game on the shelf and thought, "Oh yeah, that was that fun, tactical game with the cool rivers", and I've wondered if I underrated it.
Well, after playing it again last night I thought that the downtime was excessive and that the game was a little dry. The last round or two of play also felt pointless because we already knew who the winner was. (Well, I could have won in that time, but it would have required perfect circumstances.) I think I did like the game a little bit more, because I wasn't as concerned about the singular axis of victory and was more able to fully plunge into the puzzle-solving aspect of the game.
However, if I rated it again on Substance, I'd give it the exact same 3+ that I did before (or on BGG: a 6). It's got some innovative ideas, but in the puzzling, tactical genre I've found recent release Australia ultimately a more fulfilling game because it goes faster and you have more choices at any time. Ditto Hansa, I suppose, which continues to get plays.
I got off to a terrible start, and was way behind everyone after the first few rounds of play. However about midgame I got pretty aggressive about damming up rivers to collect more dams and make other players casas useless. This helped me a lot. Eric V. won the game with 5 houses; I could have won the turn before him if I'd had $100 more and 1 dam. (I was still a full house behind him, mind you, but that $100 + 1 dam would have given me the alternate victory condition of 4 houses, one of them being a hacienda, and all of them being irrigated. My late start, and my aggressive control of the dams, helped me keep my houses on the river, which made this vaguely possible)