A variety of games, most of them involving wealth, and one or two featuring gold mines...
We begin with some modern wealth...
Briefcase (thanks Jon)
It was great to see
John back in our midst again, and as usual, he was able to bring something new
and shiny for us to play – in this case, Briefcase. This is a deck-building
game set in the modern business world, which shares a lot of similarities with other
deck-builders such as Dominion, but has enough new elements to make it feel
quite different. Players have a deck that is comprised of only 4 types of cards
– Buy, Activate, Obstacle and Hire. These are used to purchase resources
(Steel, Paper, Concrete and People) and buildings. The buildings are then
activated by the players to give them extra cards and special abilities.
Buildings provide points at the end of the game, as long as they have been
activated.
As with many card
games of this nature, the first thing to get to grips with is the iconography.
Although not as mysterious as Race for the Galaxy, the icons did take a little
working out at first.
The first few turns
appeared to be fairly scripted, although maybe everyone was just following
John’s example, as he was the old hand. Therefore, people and steel were
collected to power everyone’s Power Stations to produce energy. Hire cards are
used to essentially rent other players’ buildings at half the usual cost – the
twist being that the cost is paid to the palyer themselves rather than the
‘bank’. For some reason, John and Paul both decided that Woody would be the
fortunate recipient of all these free resources, despite the fact that he had
the most buildings in his play area. Jon made some hurt, whimpering noises, but
to no avail – his buildings remained unhired, and he was forced to plough a
lone furrow. (Paul later admitted that he has a policy of not helping Jon in
any game. If Paul wasn’t soon to become a father for the first time, there
would be some choice words flying back in his direction…)
Anyway, the game
started to pick up pace as everyone became more familiar with what was going on
(and as a result of John receiving an SOS from his daughter…) and pretty soon
the end game loomed (3 piles of resources, or the ‘Buy’ stack running out). Jon
had the option to end the game, which would give just Woody a final turn, but
would not allow hom to score much, or to allow another turn for all players. He
chose the latter, which as it turned out, allowed John to score 7 points on his
final turn and win the game. Jon scored 6 himself, and lost by a single point
as a result of not having activated one of his buildings. Woody was also not
far behind, but Paul was languishing at the back in last place – his evil
machinations having come back to bite him on his not inconsiderable derriere…
John 20; Jon 19; Woody 17; Paul – a miserable 11
Now for Renaissance wealth...
Medici (thanks James)
Being late meant I was
in the position of grabbing any position at a table that was needed players,
and luckily a game of Medici was about to start with room for one more. I
hadn't played this for 3 years, in fact since my very first evening at IBG...
As luck would have it I somehow managed to win that game, and so my casual
arrogance with that memory betrayed me as I pooh-pooh'd the offer to review the
rules and just launched straight in... and proceeded to screw up the first
round totally, lagging in last place on about 75 points while Gareth and Andy
jumped ahead with around 120
Hmmm...
The more astute
readers might at this point marvel at the excessively high scoring in the first
round... indeed... just who are these talented Medici players who can score 100
points in a single round ?
Ok, perhaps at this
point I should mention that Gareth was responsible for reading the rules...
...and suddenly the
penny drops.
So... after a pause...
a review of the rules... and a re-scoring (10% from memory) of the first round
we carried on. Personally I was still last, but feeling like I had been brought
a 2nd chance.
And the 2nd round
everything worked perfectly for me, and I picked up the 30 point max, plus 25
from goods... which launched me into 1st place with Tara 2nd and the others squabbling
at the back.
To the 3rd and final
round. My plan at this stage was to do nothing rash as I had a 25 point lead.
Luckily Gareth and Barry had a disaster round as they were left at the end with
no cards and only 1/2 filled holds... This cemented 4th and 5th place and
despite some good scores from Tara and Andy my lead was unassailable. The
battle for 2nd was close though, with Andy just squeaking it with a 20 point
bonus for 1 of the goods. With 2 games in 3 years and 2 wins, I'm very much
looking forward. to trying this game out again in 2015.
James 129, Andy 105, Tara 104, Gareth 91 and Barry 69
The legendary wealth of Moorish Spain comes next...
Granada (thanks James)
Some people would call
this Alhambra with a proper board, Barry though was worried that a great game
would be ruined by an unnecessary tweaking of the rules. However both Gareths,
Barry and I decided to give it a go and see how it compared to its older
cousin.
So to create Granada,
take Alhambra, merge the boards into one proper board, change the walls for
moats, simplify the scoring (all colours are the same scores and have the same
tile distribution) and add some weird twist about double sided tiles. That’s it
really.
It was the first time
for Gareth (#2) and given this game punishes players who don't really get the
concept of construction of the palace it's hard to win I think playing more
experienced players. I was lucky to pick up initial tiles that all merged
perfectly for a long moat, and by the time the first scoring came round was already
on an 8 points bonus.
No one was choosing to
select the other side of tiles, so that aspect of the new game was pretty much
ignored, but by the 2nd scoring players were looking around to see where they
could compete with others for each for the 9 types of buildings in their
palaces. Again though experience worked and Gareth (#1) and I put together a
bigger score with me taking a good lead after this round.
The game then carries
on until all tiles are used from the bag. Gareth (#1) was in full catch up mode
by now, and Barry was collecting some solid tiles. Gareth (#2) by this stage
had probably realised where he had gone wrong and was struggling to put
together a moat of any size.
I was lucky though,
and picked up some tiles at the end to add to my moat and despite the initial
scoring giving Gareth a momentary lead I had enough points in the tank for the
end scoring to run away with the win. Barry almost pipped Gareth (#1) for 2nd
place with some late scoring as well...
Good game (well I
would say that...) , although Barry was not impressed with the differences made
to Alhambra. Personally I think Alhambra is probably a better game out of the
box, but this is a nicer package, and the simplified scoring helps a lot. The
double sided tile thing though is a mess... should just ignore this for future
games with the rule that tiles are randomly places meaning the distribution of
buildings is random each game.
James 151, Gareth (#1) 128, Barry 123 and Gareth (#2) 85
Followed by some actual gold mines...
Oregon (thanks Jon)
Woody and Andy knew
what they were doing, but Jon had only played once before a long time ago, so
Woody gave a nice clear recap. Woody was also good enough to give some early
game advice (take note Paul….) which was useful in helping Jon to build his
coal mine next to his general store.
Andy started right in
the middle of the board, whilst Woody managed to congregate several workers
around some harbours in the South West corner.
Jon had picked up a
couple of gold mines, and managed to build them next to one of Andy’s at the
top of the map. He then placed a worker right in the middle of them, picking up
3 ingots in a single turn.
It was looking like
Jon was going to end the game incredibly quickly, until a quick count-up
revealed that 3 of the green meeples were missing. Nevertheless, he was still
able to get them on the board in the next few turns and the game finished. Woody
had a large lead at this point, but Jon had spent much of the game mining, and
had racked up a massive 43 points in gold and coal, enough to overtake Woody
and take the win.
The moral victory goes
to Woody, though, for the generous strategic advice at the beginning!
An excellent 45 minute
game – must play more often…
Jon 97; Woody 84; Andy 69
Medieval wealth next- from Baking, mainly.
Troyes
Neill, Gareth and I
played, with my taking 1st player. I adopted a 2 red 1 white 2
yellow placement, with Neil 2 red 2 white 1 yellow and Gareth 1 red 2 white 2
yellow. Initial cards were Tithe (steal yellow dice), Baker (earn money for
yellow dice in the play area) and Archer (shoot at events).
I opened with Baker,
Neil with Archer and Gareth with Tithe. Play continued with everyone using the
cathedral and Gareth agriculture.
In round 2 Confession
(+2 to each die in a group), Militia (yellow dice to red dice) and Hunting (red
dice for influence) were revealed, along with The Resistance, an expansion
event that causes players to become spies or resistance members depending on their
secret identity... just kidding, it actually adds another red card and each
turn wipes 2 cubes off each event. The ‘knock cubes off the cathedral’ event
came out this turn and stayed around a bit, knocking 2 of Gareth’s cubes off.
Neil took Baker, Gareth
used Tithe for four cubes on Militia and I used the Archer to shoot at the
Resistance, only hitting twice on five dice.
Fortunately Neil was
also shooting and he had better luck and chose to take out the Resistance since
anything else would be lost to them next turn.
Turn 3 saw Pilgrimage
(VPs for dice groups of any colour), Sculptor (yellow dice to VPs) and Banquet
(VPs for most red dice in an area (need not be your area)). No one used Banquet
as red dice were fairly evenly divided. Gareth used Tithe with Baker for 16
gold (11 gold profit) and I kept shooting at the events while Neil went Hunting
and to Confession. Gareth had the money for Sculptor and I invested in Tithing
and pushed another follower into the Red and White buildings.
During Turn 4 Neil
shot down the ‘cubes off the Cathedral’ event which was now threatening his
cubes, I was able to Tithe into Baker and then buy Sculptor and Neil and I put
more cubes into the Cathedral.
Turn 5 saw more of the
same with Gareth going on Pilgrimage. Secret identities were money (me)
influence (Neil) and cubes in the cathedral (Gareth), with Neil managing to
score most points on all three! Unfortunately don’t have an exact note of the
scores but roughly...
Neill 45 Gareth 32 Philip 30
The wealth of Ancient Egypt...
Ra
Gareth, Neill and Tara
embarked on this without a cloth bag for the pieces so we had to use a shopping
bag. First Kingdom went smoothly with me on least Pharaohs and Neill on most
Pharaohs, a patter repeated for the rest of the game. Tara and Neill had Niles
and floods, I did not. We all managed a civilisation tile but Tara had three.
In the second kingdom
my suns were very low, resulting in repeated calls of Ra, which only served to
cement Neil and Tara’s lead, Tara collecting 4 different civilisation tiles
this round. I picked up a couple of disasters, killing pharaohs (whom I had too
few of to matter) and floods and niles. I did however manage to collect all 8
monument types, shame they don’t score yet...
Third kingdom my suns
were almost as low so more calls of Ra and I managed to collect 4 of one type
of monument. Neil also had all 8 monument types, Tara only had 3 and a set of 3
but nevertheless won, helped by her most suns to my least suns. Scores
approximate.
Tara 52 Neil 40 Me 25.
Ok, this one isn't about wealth...
Skulls and Roses
Reversing my usual tactics
I decided to bid heavily, resulting in an early flip to the Roses side and the
loss of three of my cards. Down to a rose, I switched tactics and pretended to
have only a skull left, passing except when forced to bid, and only bidding one
then. Meanwhile Woody was also on Roses but successive bids failed on Neil’s
repeated skulls, including 2 bids by Neil! Someone eventually turned my rose
over, forcing me back into the bidding. James made a successful bid and it
seemed to be between him and Woody, with Woody winning the final round by an
immediate maximum bid.
Woody won, Jon, James, Tara, Gareth, Neil, Philip lost.
P.S “Then Mines of
Gold of Wealth Untold” is a quotation from Utopia
Unlimited by Gilbert and Sullivan
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