GEEKS TURN HUMAN!

There was a big scare at the London Apprentice last week as it was a good forty minutes of leisurely conversation, witty banter and all round bonhomie before anyone began considering playing a board game.  Mind blowing!  Still, once the world had been put to rights some corkers came out.

Attendees; Woody, Neil, Jon, Paul D, Guest Man, Barry, James, Noel, Philip, Gary, Andy, Dan.  Barrie also flitted in with Agricola under his arm, just in case his meeting had lasted thirty mins rather than the three hours it did!

San Marco (thank you James!)
After owning the game (twice) and attempting to play several times with no luck I was pleased to see Noel laying this out on the table and quickly put my name down for a seat... It's an odd game that really only works with 3 players (effectively) which I think is one of the reason's it's never easy to accommodate. Keith took the other spot as he'd played before and we were off before anyone else turned up having seen the label 3-4 players on the box and tried to get involved...

In the game on each turn players will take a number of cards and arrange these into piles, and then add a weight to each pile (in the form of number cards - once someone has a total >10 then this triggers the end of each round). Then in turn order other players choose which pile they want leaving the player who created the sets to pick up the remaining one. This mechanic is the heart of the game and creates the basis for the results of the cards which is to take control of areas in Venice using cubes. This part is *very* reminiscent of El Grande in that cubes can be placed, moved around, switched in and out etc and that there are several scoring rounds for specific regions before a final round when all are scored... Nothing too special here, but the game really is all about the card selection that drives what can be done with all the cubes.

I was the only person new to the game, but it's not too hard to pick up. Early rounds had some bizarre card combinations showing up with no cube placement cards arriving until a few rounds into the game. I decided to opt for a bridge building strategy, based on... well nothing more really than that I liked the idea. Noel was aiming to control some expensive areas and I'm not sure what Keith was doing but he seemed to know himself so who am I to argue ! It also seemed that Keith was getting the worse of the decisions when players had to choose who to shaft... which is strange as normally Noel and I would be picking on each other with no thought to the end result...
The first scoring round was triggered by Keith and as a result Noel and I had an extra turn... which ended up with both Noel and myself in a comfortable lead and Keith lagging behind.

The 2nd round was similar. I think Noel triggered the final phase, but after points were totalled I was in the lead by several over Noel while Keith felt like he was just there as an observer... to make sure Noel and me didn't start kicking each other under the table or anything untoward like that.
So the last round... a much tenser (and slower) affair as we could all see the impact on moves and how this might impact the final scores... and herein I think lies my problem with this game... I think the mechanic is great and the game simple to learn... but with all information totally open it's really hard not to want to spend AGES over each move as you can effectively role play all other players in trying to determine the optimal selection of cards and weights for each pile. As the game draws to a close and the impact of each move becomes more obvious I found myself fighting the urge to analyse this to the nth degree... but still probably (ok definitely) took too long on my turns.
..so the last round continued much as before but with a nagging feeling that Noel and me had been spending to long battling each other and ignoring Keith ... although he was still behind he had a lot more cubes in play that us and the final scoring was for EVERY region, of which he controlled several...
I managed to trigger the final scoring, (while spending ages trying to find a combination of cards that would enable me to recover 8 points on Noel...) but as scores started it became apparent that Keith might suddenly be in with a shot...
.. which turned out to be a total understatement as although I'd pipped Noel by 3 points, Keith won nearly all the regions at the end and finished about 10 points in the lead. A real-life tortoise and hare situation...
Lesson for the game, play a 3 player game with Noel and myself and you'll probably win (Note, rule does not apply to Jon, or Paul, or Woody...)

Final scores;  Keith 54, James 47, Noel 45

Tinners’ Trail (Cheers Woody!)

So .... digging for tin and iron in Cornwall whilst managing the water levels in your mines. Of course, because it is Cornwall, you may well stop from time to time for a Cornish Pastie!

Barry, Gary, Woody & Philip sat down for a game of Martin Wallace's Tinners’ Trail. Each round, the price of tin and iron is randomly generated and then players compete to take possession of areas to mine, acquire additional miners, ships, railways etc, all to improve productivity. At the end of each round, all ore mined is sold at the current rates and players decide how much of the cash generated they wish to use to buy VPs and how much to hang onto for the remaining rounds. VPs become more expensive each round but buying big early leaves you nothing to spend at the subsequent auctions. A close game with Woody short on mines and this showed in the end results ..

Final Scores; Barry 86, Philip 84, Gary 82, Woody 71

Brugge

 

So I’d invested in the German version of one of Stefan Feld’s new games.  It was very cheap on Amazon.de and although there is certainly quite a bit of language dependency I did get ‘O’ level germerman, my wife’s degree is in it and I could always offload it to my sis’ who lives in Berlin.  Justification to the nth degree.  Anyway, played it three times at home and although you need the translations for the cards we’d found it not too tricky to play.

Joined by Jon and Paul we were just setting up when Andy arrived, amazingly none of us had taken his preference for red so he happily joined us.  There are quite a few rules but once you’ve played a round it’s as easy as falling off a log as the saying goes.  Each player is dealt five cards and you choose to use four of them each round.  Your options are to;

i.             take workers – used to build houses and action some cards

ii.            take money – based on Feld’s dice

iii.          reduce a threat – and score a precious point

iv.          build a piece of canal – costs money

v.           build a house – costs one worker of the right colour

vi.          place a person in a house – costs money - thus allowing you the chance to action the card, sometimes once only, sometimes at a cost, sometimes every round, and sometimes during game end scoring. 

The cards are in one of five colours and you have to stick to these when taking your actions, with the exception of placing a person in one of your houses.  The latter options drive your strategy really although there are still a few other scoring opportunities; moving up the prestige track, and having a majority position on that track, in canal building, and placing people.

Each round you have to look out for the threats though.  There are five of these and whilst not game ending you can’t afford to succumb to more than a couple.

I based my strategy around these on this occasion and ‘knock me down wiv a feaver’ if the dice played out with considerably less threats featuring than in my previous games!  Jon went for ‘Canal Mania’ and Andy built up workers like they were North Korean nuclear missiles.  Paul fannied around a bit and had a couple of epiphanies around the half-way mark, too late but he was keen to play again, immediately!

And then the final scoring, points are dished out for each house you have, and each person in a house – including any end-game bonuses, for canal building, prestige track advancement and for bonuses collected during play.  Jon’s canal strategy worked a treat – and copying it over the weekend worked for me too I have to admit!

Final Scores; Jon  61, Andy  49, Neil  49, Paul  42

 

Escape; the Curse of the Temple

James, Dan, Keith & Noel played, James wrote; “Not sure who's going to pen the Indiana-esque level of adventure that were the 2 games of Escape... I doubt I'll have time myself. It'll take longer to write those up that it did to actually play the games.”

So, I’ll make it up… Rather than pairing up the intrepid explorers decided to carry Noel through from room to room, until of course Dan and James found themselves nice and cosy in a cul-de-sac and stopped adventuring altogether.  Nobody got out to write a report so it must be assumed they’re still in there waiting for a gong to sound…. 

Kingdom Builder (many thanks Gary!)

“A Barrett Homes wetdream...”

Following on from a period of 19th Century mining in the South Western corner of the UK, land development activities next turned to the rather more extravagantly fantastical setting of Kingdom Builder. Gary and Woody were keen to show that the more lushly dramatic landscapes of Mr Vaccarino’s world were more to their liking than damp and dark underground tin and copper mines. Sadly it was not to be….

The paymasters for this particular era of settlement building were the fishermen (spaces next to water), knights (horizontal line) and hermits (separate settlements). The landscape featured a mixture of taverns (build on end of row of 3), stables (jump a space), towers (build on the edge) and farms (build on grassland). A nice combination offering a variety of options.

Philip found himself a nice patch of lake-dotted flowering meadows to settle (picture the scene!), pleasing the fishermen no-end. Barrie set about collecting as many towers and taverns as he could, Gary’s early game collection of a stable on some parched desert space offered the hermits plenty of encouragement that they would be well-catered for and Woody was exclusively building up his own corner of the board.

Philip’s lakeland paradise continued to grow apace and, in this fantasy world free of planning restrictions and green-belt, Barry spammed the board with settlements in a way that Barrett Homes can only dream of. Meanwhile, Gary and Woody could be heard grumpily complaining about multiple consecutive draws of the same landscape (two deserts in the first two cards? Pleeaaaasssee!!)

As the endgame approached, Woody was stuck marooned in a large forest area unable to escape. Gary finally drew the flower landscape that he’d been waiting for only to see first Philip and then Barry also reveal flowers landscape cards immediately ahead of him and block off both of his potentially lucrative building areas, and then (with head now firmly and forlornly down) compounded his error by forgetting all about using his tavern to build his knight-pleasing horizontal row! Philip had quietly and confidently spread across the board, but would his cold shoulder to the heavily armed knight prove his undoing? And then Barry suddenly built his last settlement… whilst everyone else still had around 10 in hand!

So to the scoring. Cities were evenly scored, Barry took the knights favour (Philip looked disdainful), Gary had used his stable to provide homes for all those hermits, but with a flood of points from his effusive fisherman, Philip took the spoils (landed the catch?!)….

The final totals were (something in the order of): Philip 50, Barry 44, Gary 42, Woody 35

As with Cornish mining, so it was with fantasy themed estate development: Philip heading Barry, with Gary and Woody trailing in behind. What a strikingly remarkable coincidence …. or perhaps not….

 

Felix, the Cat in the Sack

Time for a four player round of cat snatching.  Barry whizzed through the rules which was new only to Gary.  Philip and I set up.  After a good first round I went into meltdown and picked up two horrendous fistfuls of negative cats.  Philip went with his collecting mice strategy and I have to say it was impressive, picking up just one of the nine sets of cards, and very cheaply, for a good number of points.  Barry looked to be close until he was made to pay out big time on the last hand.  It’s a good filler this, plenty of bluffing, plenty of thinking you know exactly what’s going down, as my score reflects!

Final Scores; Philip 79, Barry 55, Gary 35, Neil 12

Kingdom Builder II, ‘Kingdom Builderer’ (thanks Jon!)

After a great deal of faffing around, and with 45 minutes to go, Jon, James, Noel and Paul finally sat down to the second game of Kingdom Builder of the evening. The map was characterised by a huge central desert, and the score cards for the game were: Farmers (score points for settlements in the sector that you have least settlements); Lords (players with most, and 2^nd most settlements in each sector score 12 and 6 points) and Hermits (points for each separate settlement area).

These scoring cards gave an interesting amount of interaction to the game, as players were thinking about where they could gain bonus points from the Lords, without losing too many farmer points. Hermit points were going to be particularly tricky, as the bonus tiles on offer weren’t particularly helpful in terms of splitting up settlement areas.

Noel was most successful at splitting his workers equally between the 4 sectors for a good farmers score, whilst James was the only player to pick up the bonus tile which allowed movement of settlements already placed, so he scored better for Hermits. Jon managed to get buildings around several citadels and he and Paul also ended up scoring well for Lords. James managed to spend about half an hour on his final turn, but only succeeded in giving 6 extra points to Paul (due to the slightly dubious method of resolving ties for the Lords). This was enough to promote Paul into equal first place with Jon – which must have stuck in James’ throat somewhat…..

Paul opined that this might have become his favourite game, so we’re certainly likely to see more Kingdom Building in the future at IBG…

Final Scores; Paul 54, Jon 54, Noel 45, James 43

 

The one where Philip surveys all, and has no more railways to conquer........

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Players: Woody, Tom, Philip, Barry, Jon, Andy, Sean, Gary

A small but perfectly formed bunch of IBG'ers tonight, including a return from Sean, and an inaugural appearance from Gary, who had escaped the domestic bliss of Ealing to be with us for the first time this evening.

Quality rather than quantity tonight, with camels, trains (sort of) and rebuilding London being the order of the day.

No Thanks
A quick card game for the early arrivees. Jon played the Philip strategy (take everything and hope the right numbers are in the deck…..they weren’t) as did Philip. Barry didn’t do badly for a first attempt but it was Tom who played his cards right and ended up with the best score.
Tom 42; Barry 53; Philip 66; Jon 72


Snowdonia (thanks Tom for this report)
So with only eight brave souls braving the beautiful summer evening to sit in

a pub overlooking the Thames, it was decided that there would be an even split amongst these fellows. Four stayed within the confines of London whilst the other four jumped aboard a train to Wales, although there needed a lot of rubble to be cleared before they'd reach their destination.
Snowdonia was only on the games pile because Tom had bought Woody's copy. Tom wasn't up to speed with the rules and Woody was in Wallace Country, so rules explanation fell upon Phil's shoulders as a two game veteran. The boy did good and after 30 minutes of set-up and going through the key rules, we were on our way with the Snowdon scenario.
Certain rules would crop up now and again, especially concerning the events but a post-match review of the forums on the Geek showed that we played it pretty much correctly. Other than having too many trains available but that was no matter really.
Phil immediately tied his colours to the mast by consistently moving his surveyor forward at least one space until he reached the summit. This was assisted somewhat by a brief onset of fog and early rain which kept the excavation and track laying abilities to 2 and below. Tom followed suit briefly but by the end of the game only acquired 4 points for his surveyor compared to Phil's 21 points.
In the meantime, the others were getting to grips with the relevant actions with perhaps too much emphasis upon material acquisition and not enough upon acquiring and satisfying contracts.
Throughout the game, Jon kept a steady hand on the tiller in all respects and after acquiring his train early doors, seemed to have an endless supply of coal which he put to good use in keeping his drunken sot of a labourer out of the pub. There was a regular turn over of ore for iron bars which were put to good use by him in constructing various stations and tracks.
Tom soon acquired his No. 2 Train, Enid, with a view to using her to cheaply acquire iron bars for track laying which would in turn satisfy certain of his contracts. Unfortunately, he had not reckoned on Jon and Andy both jumping first thing on to the Works, preventing Tom from converting his large ore supply into an iron bar for the upcoming Train Maintenance. Next turn and two white cubes are drawn out of the supply bag (by Tom, of all ironies) and Enid was lost. It was only a brief affair but sweet. Tom is sure that he will be riding Enid again up the mountain soon enough; however, after than cruel blow, he couldn't look at another locomotive again and ended the game a train spinster.
Disregarding this stroke of bad planning on his part, soon enough Tom was back in the game as, thanks to some sunny weather, the excavation level was back up to three and he was able to excavate twice at double the rate (thanks to one of his contract cards). This netted him 12 rubble (meeting one of his high contract cards) and also assisted in getting bonus points for excavating two station spots.
Andy, in the meantime, was motoring along nicely despite briefly being tempted by the siren call of Phil's surveyor. He had been the first person to acquire a train (No. 3 Wyddfa) and this was greatly assisting his track laying and building efforts.
But then, the coup de grace. Both surveyor contract cards were revealed. Phil seemed to be the only one interested in them and no-one, in Jon's words, "took one for the team" in seeking to deprive him of either. Phil of course took both and would achieve them both (just) before game end. This resulted in a windfall of 50+ points to young Philip, a tidy sum.
Finally, after a bit of stop and start, the game was now motoring along with events dealt with without fuss and the weather engine kept ticking over by the team of Jon and Phil. The game decided to work against the players laying a significant amount of track (thanks to the sunny weather) and building a couple of stations too. Soon enough, the end was nigh. Some frantic building (and surveying out of necessity) ensued and the last track was laid. So now for the slighty bitty (but rather fun) gradual scoring process.
Tom took an early lead with his station tally of 32 with Jon trailing the pack on 21. Jon however jumped into the lead with 16 points of track; the others had a paltry seven points between them (of which Phil had none!)
There was a fairly even spread on contract points with only six points between Phil's 42 and Tom & Jon on 38. Andy had taken his eye of the prize with the contracts and was out of the running.
This led to scores of: Tom - 72; Phil - 71; Jon 75; Andy - 55.
Ah, but we've forgotten those poor surveyors freezing their proverbial walnuts off on the side on Snowdon whilst most of their fellows relax in the pub with a warm ale or heat themselves against the burning coals of Tom's beloved Enid. Phil's surveyor had scaled the mighty peaks of Snowdon whilst the others' hadn't even open their packed lunches for the hike.
This resulted in Phil winning the day with a mammoth score of 91. Tom and Jon were almost inseparable with 76 & 75 each whilst Andy was kicked out of Cymru with his score of 57.


London (thanks Gary for this report on your first visit!)
Four budding architects took on the monumental taks of rebuilding London's streets post the Great Fire in the shape of Martin Wallace's 2010 game, London. And it says much about today's globalisation that the task was entrusted to those from North America as well as those native to London (as well as the rogue West Midlander).
The game was new to Sean and Gary (as was everything on the table!), whilst Woody and Barry were comparative veterans of one play each. They made an effective double act in explaining the rules to the newbies and then we were underway…
The game is a balance of acquiring districts (on the board), building up your city (your card tableau) and running your city (using your card tableau), whilst all the time managing poverty and pauper levels, your money and not losing track of the need to acquire VPs.
Cultural differences soon emerged - Barry and Sean taking an expansionist approach and building large cities and taking on large amounts of debt (at least in Sean's case), whilst Woody and Gary tried to manage with much smaller cities to keep the poverty at bay (such compassion! Perhaps less compassionate was Gary's use of Millbank Prison to get rid of three paupers from his hand.) However, whilst Woody expanded quickly taking over a number of boroughs, Gary's natural disinclination to take on debt to expand restricted his options.
The rebuilding took most of the evening - newbie ignorance and some thematic filibuster brought on by the combined availability of Parliament and University of London cards contributed to lengthen what should probably be a pretty quick game (sorry, Woody and Barry!). But gradually districts were taken and cities built and run - we were even visited by a sightseer half way through, who seemed to like what they observed - how thematic is that!
Eventually Sean triumphed. It looked as if his early gifting of Parliament to Barry might be a terrible mistake, but his debt laden expansionist policy eventually brought him the delights of the Stock Exchange, streetlamps, hospitals, Parliament, University and many other iconic central London buildings. Woody meanwhile was intent on cleaning up his London streets to remove all the poverty from his manors, which he did successfully leaving everyone else to suffer the shame (and lost VPs) for their remaining poverty. Barry constructed a most impressive new London, including that Whitehall card, and was the first to get the Underground built, but, incomprehensibly, on the final count they brought him few VPs! Gary's strategy (ha, what strategy!) imploded as his unsustainable early city was never properly built over and left him stuck in the past.
Though it transpired that one important rule had been played incorrectly (cards in hand count towards poverty when running your city), so I'm calling it all null and void and asking for a replay….
Sean 55, Woody 52, Gary 38, Barry 37

Is there a message here for current Government economic policy? Too much fiscal constraint is not necessarily a good thing and borrowing more to spend more may be the winning strategy… at least in the world of Martin Wallace's London!
(On a personal note, I liked the game very much and would certainly like to give it another whirl - I might even buy it! - more familiarity with the cards and options would reduce the AP and playtime and it seems a great way to spend 90 minutes. Thanks to Barry for sharing his game and to Barry and Woody for being patient with us newbies!)


Samarkand
There was time to fit in another game at the end of the evening, and Tom

brought out this game which was apparently a hit with his wife. A fine recommendation indeed!
It is essentially a sort of cross between Chicago Express, Paris Connection and a game where you pick stuff up… The general idea is that you buy into families which then gives you the opportunity to expand their camel trains across the board, picking up tokens and meeting other families as you go. There are several ways to score points – meeting other families, connecting to icons you have cards for and good old fashioned cash.
The set-up is a wee bit fiddly (slight understatement) but Tom’s careful bagging policy did make it a bit easier.
At the beginning of the game, Tom and Phil both started controlling the same families in the same areas of the board, leaving Jon alone in the central region. This enabled them to expand quicker, and start to generate more income, whereas Jon made rather a plodding start. However, Jon was soon able to manufacture meetings between families that only he controlled, which was enough to encourage Philip at least to spread his wings and join in.
The game concluded when Jon helped the ‘brown’ family (the “Arabiens” to their friends) make as many meetings as the game allowed, and the scores were totted up. It is one of those games where it is difficult to tell who has done well (partly because a good portion of the scoring is hidden until the end), but it turned out to be a very close finish, with Jon just pipping the others to the win.
Tom mentioned at the end that he felt that the game played better with 2 or 4 players, so it will be interesting to have another go with one more player. Certainly a fun way to spend the last 30-40 minutes of the evening!
Jon 68; Phil 65; Tom 62

And that's all folks - see you next week!
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Table time for some classics

Players: James, Soren, Jeroen, Jon, Michel, Gareth, Paul, Woody, Philip, Andy and Barrie.

Thurn and Taxis (thanks James)

Been a while since we last played this, and given the current move towards getting some older classics to the table it felt time for a revival. Soren, Jeroen and myself as early arrivals thought we could get sorted in the 45 minute timeframe before others arrived.. of course as soon as we started some others arrived... but they seemed happy to play some San Juan so we were able to get the game in.  T&T is a great gateway game that suffers from a horrendus choice of theme... really... it's a hard sell to have a game with a title based on the company that formed the german postal system played on what is a pretty drab board centred around mostly medieval centres in Germany.  Not quite Ticket to Ride... or King of Tokyo when trying to encourage new players... 

Which is a shame as the game on top of all of this is great... and with a better theme would probably be sitting up there with the other popular gateways games and selling 10x the number of copies...

So, back to the session report... Soren (somehow) had never played before, but picked it up quickly, and began by going for bonus's based around the completion of regions. Jeroen was after the Lodz-Pilson route while I was trying to cover the one-in-each-region bonus attracted by mainly the higher value of the bonus points for this objective, rather than any long-term strategic thinking (ooh, look, shiney things...)

At halfway things looked close, although Jeroen seemed to be lagging behind. I had picked upto the 5 wagon while Soren/Jeroen were still on 4, so seemed to have the upper hand. Soren though was close to getting all 9 regions sorted while I'm not sure what Jeroen was trying but I'm sure he had some kind of plan in mind... probably... perhaps... he was getting a lot of pleasure out of flushing and changing all 6 cards each turn though :)

Towards the end though things started to get confortable for me as I'd completed several region bonus's and had the most wagons. All I needed was the Lotz-Pilsen route to come up for the 9 region bonus and once they did I was able to bring the game to a close by using all my route markers. The final scores weren't that close but Soren pipped Jeroen to a close 2nd place.

Great game, and even taking into account time to teach a new player we had the thing done and dusted inside 50 minutes. Each time I play this I feel like it's a really good game, but it never seems to get the love it deserves which I can only put down to theme... seriously, change this to something flash and I think it'd launch the game to a new level. Anyone ?



San Juan (thanks Jon)

Thurn & Taxis was being played on another table, so there was time for another mid-length game – and San Juan fitted the bill perfectly. This contained the much-coveted expansion cards, which give a really nice twist on this already excellent classic. As well as diluting the deck slightly (making a production strategy slightly less powerful), it also provides several new ways to score points, without adding any complexity to the base game. The event cards weren’t used in this game.

Jon saved up to put down an early Library, which quickly put him 2 buildings behind Michel, whose early goldmine turned out to be more of a tin mine. Gareth got some production buildings going quite early, and the later addition of the Harbour (put a card under it each time you make a trade) proved to be a nice little point-earner.

In the mid-game, Michel played a Quarry, which helped him with his final few builds, whilst Jon laid down the Bank (put as many cards from your hand under it, once in the game, for 1 point each). Although it meant foregoing trading for a couple of turns, Jon eventually picked the trader role, and used his Library ability to trade 3 goods in a turn. Combined with his Market, this gave him 8 cards which were quickly deposited into the Bank.

Gareth had saved up the 7 cards necessary to buy the Cathedral (score 4-3-2-1 for each other players’ 6-point buildings), but unfortunately he failed to score many points from it as only Jon had played a 6-point building.

Michel built his final building to end the game, and when the final scores were counted, Jon had pulled away from the others, with his Guild Hall and Bank doing the most damage.

This is definitely a game worthy of much more table time – especially with the new expansion cards.

Jon 35; Michel 27; Gareth 24


Chinatown (thanks Jon)

5 players and an i-Pad timer make for a great Chinatown experience. With each trading phase limited to 5 minutes, it really focussed everyone’s minds, although the end of each period often left trades unfulfilled.
For the first 2 rounds there was little building being done. In the third round, Jon and James were in strong negotiations to swap ownership of several lots in one district which would give James a nice 6-lot area, and Jon a 5-lot area. James was playing hardball, which gave Paul the opportunity to step in and sell Jon 2 of his own lots, giving him a 5-lot area and denying James anything worthwhile. The USP for this sale was “Not only do you get what you want, but you screw James over as well.” Paul knows which buttons to push….

Woody was going about his business in his usual understated fashion – moaning regularly at his lack of good lots or tiles, but eventually putting down some extremely lucrative businesses, and quietly doing some profitable trading.

Soren had spent almost the entire game trying to a 6-lot area (he had the tiles quite early on), and eventually made a deal with Jon in the last round to get what he wanted.

When the dust had settled (and James had stopped trying to negotiate trades outside of the negotiation phase) the money was totalled, and Woody’s quiet but steady accumulation of wealth had proved enough to have him crowned King of Chinatown.

Score: Woody 780, Soren 720, Jon 650, Paul 610, James 490


Paris Connection (thanks Jon)

Soren had played the old SNCF version, and Woody not at all, but the rules are pretty minimal so t

he game was soon underway. Soren spent his first 2 turns driving the red and yellow companies into the countryside, which left the other players scratching their heads and wondering if he had some uber-strategy up his sleeve (answer: probably not…)

The purple company soon increased its value, and Paul was keen to progress Brown too, until Jon helpfully sabotaged it around Normandy. Woody took the Blue company south towards Marseilles, but it ceased expanding well before it reached such a southerly destination. The Black company failed to exit Paris, despite Paul picking up some late stocks in the vain hope that it would suddenly spring out towards the profitable eastern side.

The trick of this game seems to be managing to pick up the maximum allowed stocks (12 in a 5-player game) but this is easier said than done, if you don’t want to end up with some duff stocks at the end. Jon had managed his stock acquisition the best of all the players, in what turned out to be a close game.

Scores: Jon 96, James 88, Paul 87, Soren 81, Woody 58



Carcassonne: the City (thanks Jon)

Woody had exited, so the remaining 4 players chose an older game to finish off the evening – namely the eye-candy that is Carcassonne: the City.
There are a couple more ways to score points in this version, as opposed to vanilla Carc, but with a first play, it’s not immediately obvious what to try to focus on. Having said that, it’s quite situational, so choices on each turn are fairly limited.
There is an equivalent scoring to the base game’s ‘farmers’, which scored well for Paul, but also placing guards on the walls at judicious spots can lead to some healthy points.
The game finished with the walls nearly enclosing the city soon into the third stack of tiles, and the final scores were incredibly close, with Soren and Jon sharing first place.
James remarked that he had no idea how he had scored so many points (maybe we had all lapped him on the score track?!) and Paul stated that he would happily play it again straight away (if it hadn’t been 11.20pm!) It sounds like it might make a reappearance in the not too distant future in that case…

Score: Jon 73, Soren 73, James 71, Paul 68 


Age of Industry (thanks Philip)

First game for all three of us. Barrie and I had at least played Brass befo

re, while Andy was new to the whole concept, and- as luck would have it- going first. After a brief consultation he drew two more cards and developed his factories. 

I placed a cotton mill and railroad over in the North East, Barrie drew two cards and developed his factories, and Andy drew two cards and developed his factories. I placed a port and shipped, paying back my loan. I think Barrie now placed a cotton mill and railroad in the South West. Andy placed a Coal Mine in Belgium and a railroad to the Ruhr. I placed a steelworks in the Ruhr and developed my factories.

Andy was able to build a factory in the Ruhr and sell to Belgium. I managed to build a factory in Hannover and sell to Holland, Barrie sold his cotton in France- twice I think. There now developed three networks of rails and industries. In the North-West Andy and I had a network based round the Ruhr. In the North-East Andy and I had another network based around Berlin- which reached as far south as Bohemia. In the South was Barrie's own little network stretching from France to Munich. 

Before the game began Barrie had been asking about walling a region of the board off from the other players and he was prety close to doing it, but of course the flaw with that plan is it only works against industry cards. I was able to drop a factory in Munich with a region card, spoiling Barrie's plans for the distant market in Austria. Not long after that the three networks became connected and we ran out of coal (on the board). 

Fortunately Andy swiftly overbuilt his own coal mines to replenish the supply. Barrie and Andy developed past their level 1 ports but I used mine- in the second case in conjunction with Andy. The Kiel distant market was no demand so there wasn't much building in Kiel or Hamburg for most of the game.

Eventually Andy's level 3 mines were exhausted, and the coal display, and Barrie overbuilt my coal mine in Bohemia. A little later I overbuilt his in France so honours were even. I was able to build and flip all my factories while Barrie and Andy had a couple unbuilt. The game ended fairly swiftly after the deck ran out, with me passing in order to discard my last two cards and stop the others earning more points.

End game scoring is a bit tedious with the railways, but eventual scores were Barrie 38 Andy 45 Me 51 (I think).

Good game, I like the flow of it better than Brass I think. Can't wait to try out the other maps (Minnesota/Japan was bundled into my copy at purchase)!


The other game to get an airing was Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries, which Jeroen used as an escape route North from Paris, although it remains writeupless.

"It's been far too long..."

Players Philip, Gareth I, Gareth II, Jeroen, Barrie, Soren, Amanda, James, Dan, Jon and Paul.

The outstanding game of the evening was a session of Saboteur right at the end of the evening, which hasn't been done for far too many Wednesdays, where the 'main' games of the evening all ran their course and finished at roughly the same time to allow for a large group game.  Lots of hidden identity, false accusations  bluffing and a lot of fun it was too (even Gareth who defeated the odds by randomly being selected as a saboteur for all three hands seemed to enjoy it).

Terra Mystica (thanks Philip)

Jeroen was going first and picked the Halflings. Gareth picked the Auren and I picked the Giants- I know they have a bad reputation but I have to play them some time and this looked a pretty good opportunity- Stronghold scoring on first round, guaranteed +1 temporary shipping, no neighbours on the terrain tile and good chances of power gain from the Auren.

Our initial placement had no settlements next to each other- I made sure I took spaces which were 1 shipping away from other red spaces (for those of you who have a map, I took D7 and G2). Gareth had exactly the same policy (taking C3 and G3). Jeroen was doing his own thing on the Northern continent.

As said I took +1 temporary Shipping. Gareth took the Priest, don't remember what Jeroen took. Gareth took the first opportunity to upgrade his shipping, so I anticipated his next move by placing a dwelling next to it (D6). From then on the Auren and the Giants were constantly gaining power from each other, with the Halflings out of the loop.

The Halflings didn't help themselves by rushing their stronghold- I did point out that the 5 VPs for it on that turn was less than the 6 Vps they would get for it if they waited for the turn with the Spade bonus. I also rushed my stronghold, but thats the Giants for you.

Matters proceeded quite efficiently- Gareth built 3 towns and I built 2 (with the help of a couple of bridges) and Jeroen 1 I think. I ended upgrading my Spade rate a couple of times, I think Gareth also upgraded his on the final turn for the points. Suprisingly Jeroen's Halflings didn't uprade their spade rate, despite the discount.

I was eventually able to connect all my structures through Shippping 2 and a judicious placement on the desert tile at the eastern tip of the central continent (E8). Gareth also connected all his structures through shipping, and he built more than me. Jeroen had fewer structures- poor access to power hurting him. 

Gareth of course motored up the cult tracks, easily scoring highest there too. I scored second most there, the halflings not even bothering with some tracks. Eventual score was something like Auren 138 Giants 101 Halflings 76 (The Giants score is accurate, the others are guesses).

On The Underground

James had played this elsewhere recently and decided it was good enough to make the purchase, so on that basis found it easy to tempt a table of London sightseers to chase round the classic map of the underground for 90 minutes. 

It seemed to have some similarities to other route building games, with the twist that there is a passenger who moves each turn, whose route can be manipulated and this generates some points along the way. In James' previous game, he won by focussing on this passenger, which was information he gallantly volunteered to give the rest of the players a chance. 

Paul played his first few turns using BOTH of his route colours - the obvious thing to do, so he thought. Then he looked round and saw that no one else had touched their second colour and his resolve was tested (well, it wasn't really because he couldn't take his moves back, but it did make him think twice). Amanda and James were snaking with long routes and it seemed after a while that both might get some nice extra points by forming a big loop, so some tactical blocking was employed and both plans came to naught. Dan raking in some points by hitting the terminuses (thanks to James for this new word) and Jon seemed to be focussing his initial efforts on the west, until his second line came out in the east.

At the end of the game it was pretty close and it seemed as though the passenger movement wasn't necessarily the game winner, but a combination of factors.

Scores: Amanda 34, Paul 34 (joint winners - the rules said that there was no tie break), Dan 32, Jon 32, James 31

High Society 

After On the Underground  Amanda left and the remaining players decided to play a classic filler, while waiting for other games to finish to play something together. Everyone knew High Society  although Paul needed to dredge it from his memory banks. He was bidding for the starting cards, whilst everyone else were only laying money on the table to push his bids up. It worked, and he had taken the 7 and a '2x' in the first two cards. At that point James then reminded him that 'the player with the lowest money at the end loses automatically, you do know that Paul, don't you?' So Jon kindly took the negative card, Dan got something  but the cards to mark the end of the game came fairly thickly, and the others started bidding high. Dan got to a stage where he'd got some cards of some value, but needed to go for broke in order to take the lead. He went for it, spent all his cash and went broke, meaning that everyone else only had to keep one money card to stay in the game and it was highest number wins. Paul's earlier efforts paid off nicely and he managed to keep ahead of James and Jon.

Scores: Paul 26, James 14, Jon 14, Dan 24 (but the least money so he lost)

Saboteur (thanks Jon - and thanks for the spelling lesson)

It was just like the old days - the end of the evening and 8 IBG'ers staying around for a few fun rounds of gold-hunting dwarf adventure.


3 rounds were played. The first was quite close, but the good guys got there in the end. This was despite Barrie having a peek at 2 of the destination tiles, to only then build a path straight to a piece of coal. This would normally be perceived as the work of a saboteur, but in fact turned out to be the work of a dwarf with the memory of a goldfish.

The second round was a whitewash. The good dwarfs very quickly built a path straight to the gold, before any of the saboteurs could intervene. Gareth (one of the saboteurs) showed his cards declaring "I had nothing useful to play". This was met with hoots of derision as his hand revealed 2 broken tools, a dead end and a rockfall - pretty much the best hand that a saboteur could possibly hope to have.

The third round was incredibly tight. James had joined the saboteurs this time and with some judicious tool-breaking and rockfalling, it looked as if the bad guys had succeeded. Only for Soren to pull a great path card out of nowhere, and with all 3 saboteurs amazingly having no evil cards to play, it was left to Paul to lay the triumphant final path card.

Loads of fun - it's been far too long....

Scores: Dan 8, Gareth II 7, Paul 7, James 4, Soren 4, Jon 3, Barrie 2, Gareth 0

And so the evening drew to a lively close with mined gold being dished out and much debate about the strategy that each team should have played. Also played this evening were In the Year of the Dragon and an unrecognisable filler at the start of the evening, although both go without a writeup so will very soon become distant memories.