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Jun. 1st, 2012 @ 12:09 pm (no subject)
This week, we had five of the most frequent attendees. Chien (and R, who as usual left after dinner), myself, A, Candy, and K. A showed up after we were setting up "Lords of Waterdeep", so she wound up with the final unchosen color. (It seems that K and Chien both habitually use yellow, so there was a bit of conflict there initially; Chien then selected black and all was well again.)

Game description and play report behind the cut )
Candy won, K was second, Chien third, A fourth, and I came in DFL (Dead Last). Definitely a fun game, I would be quite willing to play it again.
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May. 12th, 2012 @ 01:51 pm Game report: Ricochet Robots and Smallworld Underground
This past Thursday saw six of us gathered for gaming. The bar wasn't quite as crowded as the past couple of weeks, which was nicer for us. Kevin was there again, and I found him slightly less irritating this time. Chien, R, and Candy were all there when I showed up. Aliza came in a bit later.

The first four there had just started a game of Ricochet Robots when I walked in. Kevin had brought it as a "Player Summoning game" (a short easy game to play while waiting for others to show up).

Long post behind the cut )
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May. 7th, 2012 @ 12:07 pm A late version of the Thursday Gaming Report
Last Thursday, we had Chien, Candy, meself, Chien's GF R, and (ooo!) Aliza joined us again!

We started out with a fairly short low-impact game, called "Piece o' Cake". The game is, as Aliza put it, "I divide, you choose, on steroids." There are five rounds, where a round consists of making a "cake" (they actually look like fruit tarts!) randomly from 11 "slices". There are 6-8 different kinds of cake, ranging from Pecan, through Gooseberry, to Chocolate Cream. Each slice also has from one to three dollops of whipped cream on it.

The dealer splits the cake into five (one per player) segments of one or more slices each. The player on the dealer's left chooses one segment, and then the next one around chooses one, and so on. The dealer gets last choice and must take the last segment left. You get the choice for each slice in your segment; you can turn it upside-down and score equal to the number of whipped-cream dollops, or you can leave it right side up in front of you. At the end of the game, whomever has the most (or is tied for the most) number of slices of a particular kind of cake scores points equal to the number of slices of that type in the game. That ranges from 3 (Pecan) through 11 (Chocolate Cream).

I started by concentrating on whipped cream for points that couldn't be lost. Later in the game, I started taking advantage of holes in the types of pie that the other players were keeping. I was able to tie on two or three, and have strictly the most on one. That put me over the top to win, my first time out.

R was feeling overwhelmed by the crowds again, and she had homework to do, so she left after that.

The remaining four of us decided to play "Smallworld Underground"] (which I have described before) again. Aliza was first, chose the Iron Dwarves, and used them well to chew up a lot of the world. I wound up starting with Reborn Liches, whose powers only manifested in decline. I don't remember Candy's choice, but Chien took Fishing Lizard-Men and declined them on his second turn. I wound up riding my Liches for too long (a mistake I often make is not declining a race quickly enough) because there were just too many tempting targets!

I was only able to use my Lich powers a couple of times against Candy--she paid me a total of three VPs to conquer three declined liches over the course of two turns. I used the Reborn power once, later on, to allow me to expand one of my later races across the river without having to pay to get across. I started to make reasonable points in the mid-game, but spent too many only pulling in 6-8 per turn. I picked Mudmen for one of my later races, who get an extra unit at the end of their turn for each Mud Pit they occupy (up to the maximum number of counters, which is either 11 or 13).

There was a space that made all Crystal Forests worth extra to anyone who held that space, which was (predictably) fought over many times. We had the Balrog on the board, who mostly gobbled up single units from Declined races. We also had the Flying Carpet (can attack anywhere, not just adjacent spaces) and a Ring that lets you steal 1 VP from each other player adjacent to the area it is in.

Aliza made very good use of her final race, the Flames, to take quite a bit of space quickly and cheaply. Between that, and her initial strong run with the Iron Dwarves (and some good mid-game play), she won. Candy managed to build up quite a few points without me being aware she was doing it, and she came in second. I was third, and Chien wound up in last place.

I enjoy this version of Small World quite a bit, I must say!

-soD
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Apr. 28th, 2012 @ 12:31 pm I think I know someonw who might like this
Yes, I'm talking about you, [info]merhawk.

Live web-cam with sound of an active Red Tailed Hawk nest. With two little baby hawlkets in it. Courtesy of Cornell University.
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Apr. 27th, 2012 @ 01:57 pm Weekly gaming update
Last night, I joined Chien and his GF R at our usual hangout. R, unfortunately, had homework to do and was a little uneasy at the sizeable crowd, so she left after dinner.

We started with a game of To Court The King. I had never played it before, though I had heard people playing it in the background on other occasions. For those who don't know the game, it is played with a bunch of six-sided dice. You start with three on your first turn. Your turn consists of rolling your dice, then setting at least one aside, and re-rolling all of the ones that are left, until you have no more dice you can roll. At the end of your turn, you tally up your set-aside dice and try to make a "hand" which is then used to purchase one card from the deck. Purchase costs are things like a single pair, two pair, three pair, three-of-a-kind, a straight, all evens, all odds, and so forth. There are also cards that cost a specific total or higher (e.g., 20+ total pips on your dice).

Each card you buy gives you some special power. Often, it is another die of a specific value which can be used as that value, or picked up and rolled with any regular roll of your turn. Sometimes it lets you add pips to dice, move pips around between dice, re-roll one or more dice, or change the value of a die or dice.

The goal is to get the "king", who requires seven of a kind to buy. At that point, each player gets one more turn and they try to beat the roll that gave the one player the king. If one player beats that roll, they get the king, but the turn only goes until the last player has had a try. The player with the best "hand" in that final set of rolls wins.

I had no real idea what I was doing, but that didn't seem to hurt much. Some hints from Chien early on helped me out, and other specific plays become obvious after a little thought. Much of my play was simply trying to adapt to the rolls I got, and then make the best of what I wound up with. I think Chien may have tried a little too hard for some specific cards, which cost him.

The game pretty quickly wound down once I bought the General, which gives you two extra dice to roll. At that point, I was rolling six dice (three initial, one from the Farmer, two from the General), and had three extra dice with specific numbers on them. With those, plus the ability to re-roll my whole hand of dice once per turn, plus the ability to change one die into another, I was able to put together seven threes and get the King. Chien rallied to come up with eight fours (I think?), but then I rolled well and managed ten sixes! So victory in my first game.

That went quickly, so we tried a two-player game of Smallworld Underground, which I described a couple of weeks ago. I started out with the Gnomes, who are immune to all special powers! They found a Place that was outright two extra VPs per turn, which wound up being battled for on almost every turn thereafter. Chien declined first, coming back onto the board overrunning my Gnomes with the Flames--who conquer territories that are next to them or their special space (the Volcano) as if there were no opponents there! He had a lot of declined pieces on the other side of the board (across the river), so I then declined my Gnomes and showed up as the Mummies. They attacked the Flames and did OK, but Chien still got lots of points from his declined race.

He only held onto them another couple of turns, while I continued to reduce the numbers of his active race (the Flames). He then gave up on them and declined them--which took all of his old race off the board! That turn was worth all of two points to him. He came back as Ogres, which get a +1 bonus to conquer any space, but don't start with huge numbers. They quickly took 8 spaces, while I finished off the Flames. He declined the Ogres after only one turn, at which point I also declined my Mummies. His last race (Will O Wisps, which get a bonus of from 0 to 3 when trying to conquer any space) got one turn, while my last (Shadow Mimes!!??!!) got two turns.

The end score was Chien 94 points, me 96.

I won both games, against someone I consider a very good player of just about anything!
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Apr. 25th, 2012 @ 09:20 am Old Bowie live footage
Evidently this was recently rediscovered, some old Top of the Pops footage of David Bowie in his "Aladdin Sane" period, with the other members of the "Spiders from Mars". I think [info]desdenova will be interested in it, as she's a Bowie-phile too, and possibly some others of you might as well.

Jean Genie
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Apr. 20th, 2012 @ 11:04 am Smallworld Underground: gaming report
Last night was Thursday night, so that means it's time for another game report!

Today, Chien and I showed up. We had heard that another person was going to show as well; the roommate of another person from the group. It turned out to be Kevin, whom I know through other people and have gamed with before. Unfortunately he is just as irritating as I remember.

Chien brought a fresh new copy of Smallworld Underground, which is a game in the Smallworld / Vinci family, but with different races/powers and different maps.

In Smallworld, you try to conquer territories with your current race. You get "money" (VPs) for each territory you own at the end of your turn, and often some bonuses for specific territory or other actions. You start with a given number of tokens, and you must leave at least one in each territory to hold it, but more tokens means the space is harder for another player to conquer. When a territory with a player's tokens is conquered, one of those tokens is removed from the game, while the others get redistributed among the other territories that player owns. So there is only so much expansion you can do. When you think your current race has done as well as it can, you can put it "in decline". That race can no longer move or expand, but each territory it occupies still gives you one VP at the end of the turn. The next turn, you select a new race and effectively start all over again.

Each race is a combination of a power token and a race token. Powers either give you VP bonuses for occupying specific territories (e.g., the "Stone" power gives you 1 extra VP for each mountain space you occupy at the end of the turn), or combat bonuses (it takes one fewer token to conquer a region of a specific type), or other bonuses. The races also do similar things for you.

Unique to "Underground" are "special places". These start with two "ancients" on them, and a player who conquers the region gets to turn over a special tile. The tile is either a Place which is stationary or an Artifact, which moves when used. Any player who holds a Place can use its power, while a player in a territory with an Artifact can use that Artifact's power on another territory, moving the Artifact there (and generally conquering that territory doing so).

Chien started the game out strong, with a good initial race. I went second, and was the Shroom race which gets extra points for owning the Mushroom Forest tiles. One of my first conquests was the mushroom forest special place, which turned out to be a Place that gave extra points to the owning player for every space of that type. So I got an extra VP for every mushroom forest from that, and another one for being the Shroom race. I couldn't expand far at first, but in the next couple of turns it came in very handy.

Kevin started slowly, and stayed slow for a little while. This led, as it does with Kevin, to lots of remarks about how poorly he was doing so Chien and I should spend our efforts on fighting each other. This continued through the whole game--one of the reasons Kevin irritates me.

My Place became a bone of contention (as they are supposed to!) and it was taken and retaken more than once. Chien's advances petered out quickly, and he declined his race. I kept going along with the Shrooms, getting a decent number of points with them. Kevin improved his position, and then declined his race. I was last to decline my initial race--one of my problems in these games is that I frequently hold on to a race for too long.

My second race had the "immortal" power, which is like the Elves in the regular Smallworld game--your pieces don't get removed when they are conquered, they just get redistributed. However, Chien had a power that let him replace one opponent's piece with one of his to conquer a territory. Which means the Immortals could indeed have their numbers reduced. In the meantime, Kevin had picked up a very powerful race (Mudmen, I forget what power) who get extra tokens for every mud pit space they own--every turn, subject to the number of Mudmen tokens in the box. He also wound up with a Place that would let him discard one single in-decline token he owned for 3 VPs, which is quite worthwhile. He started racking up big points, still maintaining that Chien and I were in the lead.

The immortals weren't going anywhere, so I declined them on the next-to-last turn. I wound up picking up Mummies, whose "special power" is that they are one worse in combat than everyone else--but they start with almost double the number of tokens of anyone else. (The Power associated with them this time had to do with decline, so it was useless.) I figured that would give me about two or three extra points over riding out my Immortals.

Kevin won with 111 points, I was second with 91, and Chien was third with something in the 60s or 70s.

-soD
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Apr. 13th, 2012 @ 11:22 am (no subject)
So, Candy was the only other person to show last night. We used the opportunity to try out a two-player game, Jambo.

This is a card-and-token game, where you use money tokens to purchase goods tokens when allowed to by the cards, and sell them for a profit when allowed to by the cards. The point is to wind up with the most money at the end of the game. Many of the cards allow you to do special things on a one-time basis, a few are placed in front of you and can be used once per turn. There is a limit of six to the number of goods tokens you can have at once; you can spend money to use a card to increase that (permanently) by three if you get the appropriate card. You get five "actions" per turn, which include drawing cards from the draw pile (but you can only keep a maximum of one of those cards you draw!), playing a card from your hand, or activating a persistent card in front of you.

To buy goods, you use an action to play a goods card. You must have enough money to pay for the goods, you must have enough capacity to keep the goods, and there must be enough of those specific goods tokens (there are six types) to match what is on the card. To sell goods, you use an action to play a goods card. You must have all of the goods shown on the card. You get the money listed on the card, and the goods go back to supply.

Most of the game seems to be spent in the "Oh crap I can't get enough cards of X type!" mode. In my case, it was goods cards. I was able to buy expanded capacity quickly and also sell my first goods quickly, but then I stalled. I wound up with a bunch of "other" cards which were not super useful at the time. Finally, I got a persistent card that would allow me to draw and discard cards form the draw pile until I found a goods card, which I could keep. Unfortunately, I got "royal sampler platter" cards with one of each type of good on them. And I didn't have enough empty space to be able to use one to buy all six goods, and I couldn't manage to buy the types of goods I was missing.

The last turn, Candy reached the 60-point threshold just as I was able to put together a way to use one of my "royal sampler platter" cards. It worked, but came up short of her total. So she won.

I'm not sure what's going to happen next week, as Candy will be elsewhere. I wonder if any of the other regulars will show?
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Apr. 6th, 2012 @ 04:11 pm Thursday gaming update for this week
The pub where we usually meet was PACKED last night. And the regulars weren't there; I had forgotten that both Chien and Candy had said they were going to miss it until I was almost there.

So I got a quick dinner at the bar and bailed. I called my friend Bird, who works late enough to miss most Thursdays any more. Her hubs was out of town, but she was amenable to hanging out and possibly some gaming. So I stopped by (she had an errand to run so she was out for a while) and took pics of the figgies I painted a few weeks ago.

She suggested Dominion, and I rarely turn down a game of that.

We almost always use a random selection of cards for our Dominion games, provided by an app on Bird's iPhone. (I don't know which one, but there are evidently a dozen or more to choose from.) We had a reasonable range of costs (from 2 through 6 for the action cards, plus the regular 0/3/6 for money and 2/5/8 for VPs) which included the Harem, which is the equivalent of a silver that comes with 2 VPs on it, and costs 6. I don't remember the rest of the cards, though. There was only one Alchemy card (I think it was Scrying Pool, cost 2 + potion) that we never bought because it wasn't worthwhile to us to get the potion and lose tempo that way.

We both started with the 3/4 split for initial money, and we both got a Village and a Bureaucrat. From there, our strategies started to diverge. Bird picked up quite a few of the Harems, while I bought Gold when I had 6 money. I bought the first Province with the Silvers from my Bureaucrat, but she came on stronger late and bought the last one to end the game. I figured that her Harems would be the margin, but when we counted our points we both tied at 40. She had mis-counted, though, and she actually had 46. Which was almost exactly the difference in our scores from Harem cards.

Dominion games go quickly, so we set up another game. This one featured the Treasure Map (cost 4 each, but if you have 2 in your hand you basically trash both for four Gold cards) and the Forge (cost 7, trash any number of cards from your hand and get a single card that costs equal to the total cost of those), as well as the Hoard (cost 6, worth a Silver, if you use it to buy a VP card you get a free Gold card) and some other stuff.

We started with the 3/4 split again, both buying the Treasure Map and something else. (I bought a Silver.) She bought another Map, and then the third time through her deck she got both of them in the same hand. That led to her first Province, early in the game. She pretty much ran away with it from there on out. It took one or two more times through my deck to get the two Maps together, and by then it was too late. That's why I don't like the Maps, they are an all-or-nothing strategy and if you get two of them early and make them work right away you instantly have a lead that's hard to beat. I was able to use the Forge a couple of times, but not to any great effect--never to get a Province, for instance. I also bought a Hoard, but never played it.

So, zero for two in Dominion. Too bad--but not atypical when I play against Bird.
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Mar. 29th, 2012 @ 10:17 pm This Thursday's report
Tonight, we were again four. Myself, Chien, Candy, and Chien's GF R. We played a newish game of Candy's, Vanished Planet.

This is a co-operative board game, in the spirit of Pandemic, where the object is to Save Everyone and Beat The Game. In this game, each player is an alien race. The Earth has vanished because some Space Blob (TM) has obscured it, or possibly eaten it. The blob grows every player turn.

The first thing in a player-turn is to draw an Event Card. These can be helpful or harmful; they will often give you extra resources (more below) or some temporary special power, but sometimes they will do Bad Things (TM) to you like making you lose a turn or destroying your resources. Then the player will move his/her space ship(s) and "tag" other planets so he/she can gain resources every turn from them. Multiple players can tag a given planet, but each only has ten tagging tokens so when you run out you must move one to your newly-tagged planet.

There is a definite Settlers-like mechanic in that you trade resources for more "stuff", and you can do one trade per turn. There are multiple "layers" of resource. Some (energy, colonists, etc.) you get directly from your tagged planets. You can use those to build trained personnel (Scientists, Engineers, Diplomats, Doctors, Soldiers), and you use those plus more resources to build Technology. Then you use the Technology cards, often with more Personnel and Raw Materials, to gain Equipment and Upgrades which give you extra powers like faster movement, or a new ship.

At the end of each player's turn, The Blob grows one space toward his/her homeworld. When The Blob grows into a space with your ship in it, the ship is destroyed. If it grows onto your homeworld, you are out of the game. All of the homeworlds are at the edge of the board, the same distance from The Blob.

One of the types of planet the players can visit allows them to draw a Goal card. Each player can only have one Goal at a time, so you pick if you keep your current one or the new one. When the Goal is completed, the players are awarded from 2 to 5 "goal points". For a "Family"-level four-player game, the object is to get 20 goal points.

Chien started out strong and continued strong throughout the game. He was the first to build a second ship, which allowed him to expand quickly. R was hit by multiple harmful Event cards, and her race's growth was significantly impacted. Candy and I did reasonably well--I was able to buy the "+1 movement" Upgrade at a crucial time to get me around one of The Blob's tentacles. Chien constructed a "get new goal cards" Equipment, which is important because the goal-card-giving planets get eaten about halfway through the game. He also completed a four-point goal right around when Candy did. He was able to use his new-goal power and his impressive production (and a couple of trades) to immediately fulfill a second four-point goal, which put us up to 12 points! I wound up going halfway around the board to satisfy my first Goal (tag seven Energy-producing spaces; don't get energy from them for one turn) for three points (fifteen!!) and get to Chien's homeworld to get a new goal, which I immediately fulfilled for 2 more points (17!!). Candy and Chien played cards to delay The Blob's growth toward R's and my homeworlds by one step, which allowed R to get around the tentacle next to my homeworld to fulfill her initial goal for three more points--TWENTY! So we saved the Galaxy.

It was a fun game, one I would be happy to play again.
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