East Bay EndGame Game Day
Jan. 21st, 2006 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aA bit to my surprise, I ended up at EndGame today. I hadn't really been planning to, but then on Thursday Brody mentioned that their bimonthly Saturday game day was this week; since I'd already bowed out of running an RPG today due to a lack of players, I decided to blow off the rest of RPGing and go to EndGame instead.
I had a bunch of fun.
I brought Wallenstein, under the theory that Saturdays are a great time to play longer games. Apparently other folks weren't really on the same page as me, as I could never convince anyone else to play. But, I did get to play 7 different games, which is an amount of variety that I really enjoy too. And one of them was a decently long wargame, satisfying that urge.
Alexandros. I always make sure to bring at least one short 2-player game to the Saturdays, because you can wait around longer before you get into a game. So Brody (who showed up shortly after me) and I ended up playing this one. I appreciate it more the more I play it, though I'm still not convinced I have the rules right. I think I've played something wrong every time I've played it (though not this time, I hope).
This was my first 2-player game of it, and I was surprised by how different it was. It's a lot easier to score, and so it becomes a game of efficiency rather than trickiness. That works quite well. I ended up a tad over 100 points, beating Brody by 12+. He realized he was sunk at the end because there was no way he could score without knocking me over 100 and ending the game.
Mexica. Since I bought Torres and Java late last year, one has always been in my game bag. I got some plays of Torres in late last year, but none since. This week I traded out for Mexica in my bag and I got enthusiastic requests for it. It's the simplest of the Kramer & Kiesling AP games (arguably; one player thought Torres was). We accidently ended the first half of the game early, but otherwise the play went well.
Titan: The Arena. This used to be one of my favorite games, as I recently mentioned at Gone Gaming. However on one of my first few trips to EndGame I got into a game of it with a few slow players and they utterly and totally destroyed the game. It was terrible. Titan is, and needs to be, a fast-moving game, and they angsted over every single card move. It was terrible. I've played it maybe once in the year since, and never at EndGame. This time around it was just me, Bob, and a south-bay gamer named Luke, and we played speed Titan. I got absolutely and totally wacked, because I was playing fast enough that I wasn't making the best moves, but it returned the joy to the game.
Taj Mahal. My second real play of this game. I tried to go for goods instead of chains this time, and I lost badly again. I'm still not sure of the best startegy. Goods have better scoring opportunities, but there's more contention, and you more frequently need to stay in a round longer. I'm really looking forward to Rio Grande reprinting this this year, though I see funagain has some very reasonably priced German copies now. If I had the money, I'd buy one instantly.
Antike. My one new game for the day, brought by Eric V. This is a new wargame with a little bit of technology. In other words, yet another Civilization Light. It has a very original and innovative action/role mechanism, where all the roles are listed on a circle, and you have to step around the circle (in steps 1-3 paces long, or longer if you spend resources), which introduces some interesting balance and several-turn long strategy.
I'm less convinced about the combat, which doesn't encourage attacking quite enough. Each side takes bad losses, but the attacker when he wins will get a slight leg up if he takes over a city. But for me just taking a city wasn't enough because I need 4 to get a VP, and the cities that were worth VPs by themselves (because they contained temples) were way too well defended. So I never attacked.
As it happens in those whole two hour "war" game there was exactly one attack by any player. Which makes you go Hmm. There's clearly some groupthink there, but it's got a basis in the mechanics.
Tower of Babel. I won this game by a point thanks to a few high-point majorities, a bunch of appearances in scored areas, and a whopping 30 points of bonus chits at the end.
Bohnanza. Another win for me, again by a point. Not much you can say about a Bohnanza game, however.
Overall, a very fun day. Apparently Aaron is considering moving these game days to monthly for a bit, which would make me quite happy.
I had a bunch of fun.
I brought Wallenstein, under the theory that Saturdays are a great time to play longer games. Apparently other folks weren't really on the same page as me, as I could never convince anyone else to play. But, I did get to play 7 different games, which is an amount of variety that I really enjoy too. And one of them was a decently long wargame, satisfying that urge.
Alexandros. I always make sure to bring at least one short 2-player game to the Saturdays, because you can wait around longer before you get into a game. So Brody (who showed up shortly after me) and I ended up playing this one. I appreciate it more the more I play it, though I'm still not convinced I have the rules right. I think I've played something wrong every time I've played it (though not this time, I hope).
This was my first 2-player game of it, and I was surprised by how different it was. It's a lot easier to score, and so it becomes a game of efficiency rather than trickiness. That works quite well. I ended up a tad over 100 points, beating Brody by 12+. He realized he was sunk at the end because there was no way he could score without knocking me over 100 and ending the game.
Mexica. Since I bought Torres and Java late last year, one has always been in my game bag. I got some plays of Torres in late last year, but none since. This week I traded out for Mexica in my bag and I got enthusiastic requests for it. It's the simplest of the Kramer & Kiesling AP games (arguably; one player thought Torres was). We accidently ended the first half of the game early, but otherwise the play went well.
Titan: The Arena. This used to be one of my favorite games, as I recently mentioned at Gone Gaming. However on one of my first few trips to EndGame I got into a game of it with a few slow players and they utterly and totally destroyed the game. It was terrible. Titan is, and needs to be, a fast-moving game, and they angsted over every single card move. It was terrible. I've played it maybe once in the year since, and never at EndGame. This time around it was just me, Bob, and a south-bay gamer named Luke, and we played speed Titan. I got absolutely and totally wacked, because I was playing fast enough that I wasn't making the best moves, but it returned the joy to the game.
Taj Mahal. My second real play of this game. I tried to go for goods instead of chains this time, and I lost badly again. I'm still not sure of the best startegy. Goods have better scoring opportunities, but there's more contention, and you more frequently need to stay in a round longer. I'm really looking forward to Rio Grande reprinting this this year, though I see funagain has some very reasonably priced German copies now. If I had the money, I'd buy one instantly.
Antike. My one new game for the day, brought by Eric V. This is a new wargame with a little bit of technology. In other words, yet another Civilization Light. It has a very original and innovative action/role mechanism, where all the roles are listed on a circle, and you have to step around the circle (in steps 1-3 paces long, or longer if you spend resources), which introduces some interesting balance and several-turn long strategy.
I'm less convinced about the combat, which doesn't encourage attacking quite enough. Each side takes bad losses, but the attacker when he wins will get a slight leg up if he takes over a city. But for me just taking a city wasn't enough because I need 4 to get a VP, and the cities that were worth VPs by themselves (because they contained temples) were way too well defended. So I never attacked.
As it happens in those whole two hour "war" game there was exactly one attack by any player. Which makes you go Hmm. There's clearly some groupthink there, but it's got a basis in the mechanics.
Tower of Babel. I won this game by a point thanks to a few high-point majorities, a bunch of appearances in scored areas, and a whopping 30 points of bonus chits at the end.
Bohnanza. Another win for me, again by a point. Not much you can say about a Bohnanza game, however.
Overall, a very fun day. Apparently Aaron is considering moving these game days to monthly for a bit, which would make me quite happy.