Attended the monthly meeting of Boardgame Addicts of the Penninsula. I've got bad photos on my phone, but I left the cable to connect it elsewhere, so I've linked generic pictures for now. Soon to be replaced with poor-quality photos from my phone! Real camera coming as soon as I buy batteries.
Race for the Galaxy
This spinoff of Puerto Rico and San Juan has come to occupy a very specific niche: It's a 30-40 minute game for people who like heavier games. It manages to cram a lot of, if not depth, entertaining complexity, into a short period of time. As such, it is the perfect game for a group of gamers who don't have time to play a longer game. It is the cigar after the single malt scotch of Agricola, the lime after the tequila of 18xx, the shotgunned can of Pabst Blue Ribbon after the bootleg moonshine of Advanced Squad Leader.
Arriving at the BAP game day, a group of 3 was just finishing off a game. Once they finished, they asked if I'd like to join them. Tom, the organizer for BAP game day, had acquired the recently released second expansion for the game, Rebel vs. Imperium and I was excited to try it out.
Rebel vs. Imperium adds the ability to attack other players settlements directly to Race for the Galaxy. At first, this seems a fairly dramatic change for a game that has been accused (falsely in my opinion) of being multiplayer solitaire. The game does temper this interactivity by providing a fairly specific set of conditions on when and how these attacks can take place.
In this game, I didn't get any cards that allowed (or made me vulnerable to) direct attacks, but it is worth noting that I won anyway. The mechanics of when and how you can attack other planets struck me as a bit fiddly, but when I get my copy of this expansion, I'll probably have a better idea of how it works.
Chris 43
Tom 39
Game Time: 45 minutes
Cutthroat Caverns
In this game, players take on the role of a bunch of huge nerds an adventuring party exploring a dungeon. Over the course of the game, the players must work together to defeat a series of monsters. However, the only player who gets points for killing a monster is the one who strikes the killing blow, so players have an incentive to sabotage each-other. Of course, if players spend too much time and energy undercutting each-other, the monsters will likely overwhelm them.
The game (and its expansions) include a huge number of monsters that all use different and interesting mechanics to fight the players (you only fight 9 in any one game). This was my first play of this, but the balance between killing the monsters and messing with everyone else was quite well done. Sometimes the interaction of all the rules (monster powers + player powers + the cards that you use to inflict damage and screw up other players) can get a little tangled, but overall, my first play of Cutthroat Caverns left me eager to try it again.
Walter 14
Sean 12
Tom 9
Chris 7
Dave 4
Game Time: 90 minutes
Agricola
A game that simulates the breakneck excitement of running your own farm, this game is currently the #1 on BoardgameGeek.com, having wrested the spot from Puerto Rico, a game that simulates the breakneck excitement of running your own plantation.
Snarkiness about the theme aside, this game does an excellent job of providing variety within its framework. Even though "good" farms all look pretty similar by the end of the game (since the scoring encourages getting a little of everything), the abilities provided by your hand of cards are varied enough that the road you take to get there will differ dramatically from game to game.
This game illustrates that point very well. Agricola requires that you feed your family every few turns. In order to generate enough food to do this, especially towards the end of the game, you nearly always need to to either get a fireplace/cooking hearth (to turn animals into food) or an oven (to turn grain into food). In this game, I managed to cobble together food from a variety of other sources and fed my family just fine without any of the typical sources, and I won the game pretty comfortably.
Chris 43
Walter 32
August 28
Sean 27
Game Time: 120 minutes
Chicago Express
A nearly identical remake of Wabash Cannonball, this game simulates the westward expansion of the railroads from the northeast to Chicago. Rather than each player taking charge of one railroad, players can buy shares of 4 different railroad companies via auction and are repaid through periodically paid dividends. From what I understand, the 18xx series of railroad games work in a similar fashion.
The only luck in the entire game is in determining who starts the first auction for the first share. Other than that, everything is completely deterministic. They key to the game is in understanding how to value shares at auction, and this can be very tricky to do, particularly at the beginning of the game when the manner in which the companies will expand and develop is so unknown.
Either my poker experience gave me a leg up in these kinds of expected value decisions or I blundered into enough correct decisions that I was able to pull off a tie in my first game (2 of the other players were new to the game as well). Actually, I made a bad decision my final turn that probably cost me the solo victory, but I was pretty happy to do as well as I did in my first game of this.
Chris 64
John 64
Aliza 59
Sean 54
August 44
Game Time: 90 minutes
This spinoff of Puerto Rico and San Juan has come to occupy a very specific niche: It's a 30-40 minute game for people who like heavier games. It manages to cram a lot of, if not depth, entertaining complexity, into a short period of time. As such, it is the perfect game for a group of gamers who don't have time to play a longer game. It is the cigar after the single malt scotch of Agricola, the lime after the tequila of 18xx, the shotgunned can of Pabst Blue Ribbon after the bootleg moonshine of Advanced Squad Leader.Rebel vs. Imperium adds the ability to attack other players settlements directly to Race for the Galaxy. At first, this seems a fairly dramatic change for a game that has been accused (falsely in my opinion) of being multiplayer solitaire. The game does temper this interactivity by providing a fairly specific set of conditions on when and how these attacks can take place.
In this game, I didn't get any cards that allowed (or made me vulnerable to) direct attacks, but it is worth noting that I won anyway. The mechanics of when and how you can attack other planets struck me as a bit fiddly, but when I get my copy of this expansion, I'll probably have a better idea of how it works.
Chris 43
Tom 39
Sean 33
Dave 25Game Time: 45 minutes
Cutthroat Caverns
In this game, players take on the role of The game (and its expansions) include a huge number of monsters that all use different and interesting mechanics to fight the players (you only fight 9 in any one game). This was my first play of this, but the balance between killing the monsters and messing with everyone else was quite well done. Sometimes the interaction of all the rules (monster powers + player powers + the cards that you use to inflict damage and screw up other players) can get a little tangled, but overall, my first play of Cutthroat Caverns left me eager to try it again.
Walter 14
Sean 12
Tom 9
Chris 7
Dave 4
Game Time: 90 minutes
Agricola
A game that simulates the breakneck excitement of running your own farm, this game is currently the #1 on BoardgameGeek.com, having wrested the spot from Puerto Rico, a game that simulates the breakneck excitement of running your own plantation.Snarkiness about the theme aside, this game does an excellent job of providing variety within its framework. Even though "good" farms all look pretty similar by the end of the game (since the scoring encourages getting a little of everything), the abilities provided by your hand of cards are varied enough that the road you take to get there will differ dramatically from game to game.
This game illustrates that point very well. Agricola requires that you feed your family every few turns. In order to generate enough food to do this, especially towards the end of the game, you nearly always need to to either get a fireplace/cooking hearth (to turn animals into food) or an oven (to turn grain into food). In this game, I managed to cobble together food from a variety of other sources and fed my family just fine without any of the typical sources, and I won the game pretty comfortably.
Chris 43
Walter 32
August 28
Sean 27
Game Time: 120 minutes
Chicago Express
A nearly identical remake of Wabash Cannonball, this game simulates the westward expansion of the railroads from the northeast to Chicago. Rather than each player taking charge of one railroad, players can buy shares of 4 different railroad companies via auction and are repaid through periodically paid dividends. From what I understand, the 18xx series of railroad games work in a similar fashion.The only luck in the entire game is in determining who starts the first auction for the first share. Other than that, everything is completely deterministic. They key to the game is in understanding how to value shares at auction, and this can be very tricky to do, particularly at the beginning of the game when the manner in which the companies will expand and develop is so unknown.
Either my poker experience gave me a leg up in these kinds of expected value decisions or I blundered into enough correct decisions that I was able to pull off a tie in my first game (2 of the other players were new to the game as well). Actually, I made a bad decision my final turn that probably cost me the solo victory, but I was pretty happy to do as well as I did in my first game of this.
Chris 64
John 64
Aliza 59
Sean 54
August 44
Game Time: 90 minutes
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