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Category Archives: Board Games

Posts about our weekly game nights.

The Princes of Florence & Dice Town

Prince
It was another night of the Princes of Florence. This game went by pretty fast. We nearly made the normal playing time. This is unheard of at our table. As in our last game, Owen lagged behind the rest of us in prestige points up through the middle of the game. I got a good lead at one point, but unfortunately couldn’t hold it until the all important end of the game. When it came around to the last round, Ben zoomed into the lead, with me in second place. Lastly, everyone revealed their Prestige Cards. You get extra Prestige Points if you fulfilled the goal on the card. Mike’s constructing of one last building on the final turn cost me three ending Prestige Points. This was enough to swing my game end placement from second to third. Owen, using three Prestige Cards, garnered an amazing 18 points that placed him in second place right ahead of me. Ben also shot ahead with his prestige card getting the maximum of eight points . Ben won again. Mike, who I thought was playing very well, came in an inexplicable last place.

dicetown
Next up was a new game called Dice Town. During each round the players try to build a poker hand. The results of a player’s hand verses their opponents’ hands determines what parts of Dice Town you are able to take over and reap the benefits from.  For instance, if you have the most nines in your hand, you take over the gold mine and get a gold nugget for each nine you have. There is also a bank to rob, the salon girls to charm (allowing you to steal cards from other players), items you can take from the general store, and so on. If you happen to have the best hand you also get one or more land cards. Cards, money, and gold nuggets all earn you victory points.

In our game, one of most important aspects of the game was the Sheriff. If you have the most Kings in your hand, you become the Sheriff. Being the Sheriff allows you to settle ties. This may not seem like a big deal, but oh it is. If you are the sheriff and you have two nines and so do I. As sheriff you can rule that you win, taking the spoils from the town. This happens more often than you would think and I was on the losing end of that deal most of the night. Granted, when I was sheriff, I made out like a bandit.

Let’s talk about poor Owen. The poker dice rarely rolled well for him the entire game. And when they did, someone (many times me) would make an outlandish roll and steal his thunder. Owen was literally poor most of the game too–lacking in money. Money can be used to help keep or modify your poker dice rolls. This caused Owen no end of frustration.  Ben had a similar problem, but his money drought didn’t last as long as Owens. 

Let’s talk about Mike the Sheriff. He kind of reminded me of Brian Dennehy in Silverado.  And it was a sweet deal for him. His wealth of cards, money, and gold nuggets grew and grew. I believe he blew the rest of us away as far as victory points were concerned and easily won the game.

Chaos Steve

The Princes of Florence

Prince

Monday night we were all Princes of Florence. At least as far as the game we played. This game involves developing a player’s Palazzi in to an area that will attract various professions and artisans who will then complete great works. The greater the work, the more Prestige Points you get. At the end of seven rounds the player with the most Prestige Points wins and becomes the Prince of Florence. Each round is broken into two phases: the auction phase and the action phase. In the auction phase, the players bid for various “objects” which improve their Palazzi which in turn can improve the works created there.  In the action phase the player can take two actions that either improve his Palazzi or completes a great work. Completing a great work earns him money and/or Prestige Points.

In our game, Owen shot out to early lead in Prestige Points. He soon lost the lead and was never heard from again. In his place was Mike. Mike’s lead became more commanding as the game went on. I believe at one point he had 40 points while the rest of us were struggling around 20 points. But fate is a fickle mistress. As the game was coming to a close, we were all able shorten Mike’s lead somewhat. Some of us even had a plan. Why are you looking at me? No, it wasn’t me. It was Ben. Ben had been hording prestige cards that can earn you from 0 to 8 points each at the end of the game. He used these to good effect. While me and Owen languished in third and LAST place respectively, Ben hoovered up enough points to go two points ahead of Mike and win the game. 

It should be noted that during this game Ben and I switched brains. While Ben was making what appeared to be random, unpredictable, and insignificant decisions, I was trying to cheat. While not actually purposely cheating, I did inadvertently (and without conscious choice) try to cheat a few times—just like Ben.  So in essence, since Ben won the game using my brain, I claim victory!

Chaos Steve

Agricola & Ivanhoe

agricola
We played Agricola last week. Since Ben won and Ben was the only one to ever have played it—and he had played it a lot—we thought a rematch was in order.  So we began; all mindful of the strategies we had missed in the first game. Uh, actually, judging from this game, we didn’t learn squat from our first game.

All of our farms looked “better”.  As you will see, that does not necessarily translate into more points. Ben’s farm looked much as it did the first game, although he was scrambling to feed his ever growing family. Mike seemed to concentrate on sheep. And for this he received a lot of sheep related comments. Mike also concentrated on family members . Owen concentrated on Improvements. He had a card that would earn him big points at end game time. Me, I made the mistake of concentrating on two things and doing neither well. This, and a misunderstanding of a couple of cards (apparently I should have read the FAQ) cost me dearly.

So how did the game end? If you remember from last week Ben won with 43 points and I came in last with 28 points. This week, Ben won again, but with only 28 points. Mike was right on his butt–so to speak–with 27 points.  Owen got an acceptable 24 points and I was once again last with an unfathomable 10 points. (But at least I was positive.)

ivanhoe
We managed to finish this game in a lightening 2 hours, so we played Ivanhoe.  I took an early lead, but ran into some difficulties…mainly my strategy and logic. Soon Ben, Owen, and I and were all one color chip from winning. In the end, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I won the game.

Chaos Steve

Agricola

agricola

The game of Agricola rose to the top of the list for this week. Ben was able to borrow a copy from another friend of his. Ben explained the rules—leaving several things out—and we began to play. (I can’t give Ben too hard of time for leaving a few rules out. It’s a big game and I’m the worse person to explain rules.) Ben had played this game about 20 times in the past, while the rest of us had never played. This did not bode well for the rest of us.

Agricola is a farming game. And just like on a real farm you have a lot of options: How are you going to use your land? Are you planting or raising animals? Should you add family members to get more work done? How are you going to feed everyone? Each turn each of your family members can perform one action. This action might bring you more wood so you can build fences, or bring you a new sheep, or add another room on to your farm house. After several turns, which get shorter and shorter as the game progresses, you must harvest and feed your family. Woe to those who don’t have enough food. Also along the way you can add occupations and improvements to your farm so it runs more efficiently and you score more victory points. Essentially victory points are awarded based upon how big your farm grows by the end of the game. You get negative points if you don’t fulfill some basic requirements.

I’m not doing the game justice as far as trying to get across just how fun it is. (But hey, I’m trying to make running a farm look like fun.) If you like resource management games, you’ll love this one. If a resource game has many ways to score victory points and more options than you can possibly exercise in a turn, then I think it’s on the right track. This forces you to decide what you are going to major in as far as accumulating those all important victory points.

In our game, many things went horribly wrong…mostly on my farm. At the end of the game, my farm looked like a barren wasteland compared to everyone else’s. Unsurprisingly Ben’s farm did very well. He won with 43 points. Both Owen and Mike did well coming in at 35 and 30 points respectively. As you can suspect, I came in dead last with 28 points.

At the beginning of the game Ben mentioned just how important it was to have a food generation mechanism in place during the game so feeding your family is not a big issue. I must have dozed off just before Ben gave out that advice, because I struggled the entire game trying to keep my family feed. Only some good occupations and improvements kept me in the game at all. A major point about scoring (and losing) victory points also never struck home. At the end of the game I had a -18 points compared to Ben and Mike who only had a -1 and a -3 respectively. (Owen had no negatives.)

We liked the game and we’re going to play it again next week. Hopefully with a more favorable result! :)

Chaos Steve

Kachina!

kachina 

This week was all about Kachina. Yes, I know we’ve played this game a lot recently, but we like it! And Owen hadn’t gotten to play it yet. As we will see, it didn’t take Owen long to catch on—one of the great things about this game.

In our first game, Mike was on fire; great strategy, all the right tiles when he needed them, and he was playing against two blind guys and a newbie. At least that’s how it seemed to me. Only Owen, the newbie, showed any sign of being on Mike’s level.  So while those two titans battled it out, Ben and I struggled to stay in the game. Mike eventual won. Yeah. Go Mike.

In our second game, some things changed and some things remained the same. I was still blind, but Ben was beginning to see the light. Mike was still playing very well, but Owen was warming up to the game and teaching us some new tricks. (He taught us some new ones in the first game too.) In the end it was apparent that the game hated me. I was so far in last place I couldn’t even see the tail lights from the guy ahead of me. Owen on the other hand won the game from Mike. Mike can tell me if I have this wrong (and he will) but I think Ben did much better in this second game, even being a contender for first a few times.

A couple of things we noticed going from a 3-player game to a 4-player game. One is that you get a lot less turns. Sure, that should be obvious, but it changes the dynamics of the game so players (Mike, Ben, & Owen) spend hours contemplating their turns. (Seeing how poorly I did, maybe I should have done a little more contemplating.) Secondly, the tiles we laid out seemed more condensed than in previous games. This may also be because we are more astute at taking advantage of those places where the rows or columns are close to each other.  Yeah, that’s it—we’re more astute.

No matter how you slice it, we really like this game.

Chaos Steve

Tigris & Euphrates

tigrisOwen found his way back across the pond—with a long layover in Paris—and once again joined us for game night. Ben decided to bring Reiner Knizia’s Tigris & Euphrates game. This is just as well since I left all of the games I was going to bring sitting on the table at home. Many consider this game to be Knizia’s masterpiece game. While I’m not ready to say that, I do think it’s a thought provoking tile placement game that takes a few times playing it to get your head around just what strategies to use.  (Mike still needs another game or two.) Each player has four leaders representing farming, trading, religion, and government. Each leader has his own color too. You use the leaders to get victory points in the various colors. The tricky part is that your score at the end of the game is determined by the color that you have the lowest victory points in. This forces you to garner victory points evenly in all colors.

Since this game takes deep concentration, wily tactics, a firm grasp of the rules, and a little luck to win, I was doomed to failure from the start. As the game progressed, several things became apparent: Owen was having dreadful luck, Mike was struggling with all of the requirements above, and Ben was leaving me alone. That, coupled with some fantastic luck at drawing tiles, made me a contender for winning the game. I did try to unintentionally break the rules a few times. I quickly learned that you cannot “assassinate” another players’ leader with a catastrophe tile though try as I might.

I although I had done well the entire game beating back the hordes of the aggressors; I still wasn’t sure if my final tally was good enough to win. It turned out it was, and by a good margin at that. Ben promised we would play this game again soon, before we all forget the rules again.

Chaos Steve

Rheinlander & Kachina

rheinlander

We’ve given up on ever seeing Owen again. He says he’s coming back to the states soon, but I’m beginning to doubt it. Undaunted Ben, Mike and I played Rheinlander. Rheinlander is another great game by Reiner Knizia. In it, each player is trying to create duchies along the banks of the Rhine River. You do this by playing knights in the numbered plots along the river. As you take over the plots, you also take control of castles, cities, and cathedrals–these score you points in the game. During the game each player expands and strengthens their duchies, or else they may be taken over by a neighboring duchy.  You can score points during the game by losing control of your duchies—yes, losing control of them–but you score significantly more points at the end of the game by holding on to them. This is a point I neglected to remember early in the game and it cost me a few points at the then…not that it mattered. I came on strong at the beginning, but the middle and all important end of the game belonged squarely to Mike. Mike beat us easily. I sight two reasons for this, Ben and Ben. I also blame my disastrous last place finish on Ben. As you can see, Ben was pretty busy during the game—picking on me when he should have been picking on Mike! It was too late when he realized his folly; that Mike was the real enemy. Mike was and is the real enemy. How many times must I say it!

kachina 

There was a clamoring to play Kachina again, so we did. This has quickly become one of our favorite tile placement games. The rules are simple, but the play is quite strategic as you try to score as many points as you can while not opening up any big scoring opportunities to you opponents. Once again Mike came on strong in this game with Ben and me lagging behind. He was also able to actually score some big points from the Hummingbird card—our personally least favorite card. As the end of the game drew near, it was apparent that Mike was going to be difficult to beat. I was steadily closing on Mike, but right at the end he jumped ahead by 9 points! It’s hard to get nine points with just a couple of cards in your hand.  Lady luck was with me though and I had saved just the two cards I needed to not only earn 9 points, but to earn just a few more and win the game.

Poor Ben was 10 to 15 point behind Mike and me. Some might call this poetic justice for his crimes during the previous game. Some might also say that such a devastating lost was too good for him. That only a sound beating with lead-filled games boxes would do. Some might clamor for his head! Some might be plotting right now to…well, we’ll save that for next time.

Chaos Steve

Ghost Stories and Kachina

We had a moment of silence this week for Owen, who is still missing from our gaming table. Not to worry, he’s over in England visiting family, but we still miss him.

This week we learn why <most> gamers don’t carry guns. If we did, Ben would be dead and Mike would be in jail…later to be acquitted after he explained how Ben caused us to lose the game. But I get ahead of myself.

Ghost Stories

Our first game was Ghost Stories; our favorite cooperative game. Ghost Stories has several difficulty levels beginning at Initiate (or some word that means about the same thing) and going all the way to Nightmare. We play at the Hell level—one before Nightmare.  The game wasn’t going that well for us and soon we saw we would be in dire straits. Mike offered up a solution to forestall the inevitable. It was Ben’s turn, but Mike’s silver tongue could not persuade Ben to take his suggested course of action. Mike vowed, “If we lose this game it will be on your head Ben Hodgson!” We soon lost the game. It then became apparent that neither Ben (nor I) completely understood what Mike had earlier argued to do. Now that we were dead, and had time to further discuss it, we decided that Mike had been correct.

Undaunted, we tried again. This time the game was going pretty well for us. We had killed one of the four horrific phantoms we needed to kill to win the game, and two of the remaining were on the board.  Still, fate is a fickle mistress. The dice grew cold and Ben once again led us down the path of disaster. (Actually I don’t remember what exactly Ben did to lead us to disaster, but no matter. What’s important is that I had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.) Oh, and yes, we all died horribly.

kachina

We still had time for one more game, so I broke out a game I had won at Con on the Cob called Kachina. Our friend, Andy Hopp did the art work for the game and my copy is signed by him. Kachina is a tile placement game with a Hopi Indian theme. This game sort of reminded me of many of Reiner Knizia games where the mechanics of the game could easy be slapped with any ol’ theme and it would still work. I suggest they put out a more whimsical version of this game based upon condiments. But I digress… Each tile has a number and possibly a special power. The idea is to place a tile that is the highest number in either the row or column that it is in. That’s how you score points. The special powers of the tiles influence either the row or column or surrounding tiles.

We liked this game. Easy to learn, but a lot of strategy went into each placement. In the end, Ben whooped out butts good. Mike was one point ahead of me and came in second.

Stone Age

Our friend Owen is away (in jolly ol’ England) so that left Ben, Mike and me to fend for ourselves as far as game night was concerned. We all decided to play an old favorite, Stone Age.  We discovered that it’s a pretty good 3-player game too. Stone Age is a resource gathering game where there are lots of ways to score those all-important victory points. Many points can be scored during the game, but the majority are scored at the end of the game. So let’s skip to the end of the game or rather the very last turn just before the game ended… 

Ben was at least 20 points ahead of Mike and me. Mike and Ben also knew I was going to get a lot of points from Workers and Fields. As we placed our final workers looking for the best way to score points, Ben had a decision to make. Should he place to score a few points for himself? Or should he place to take a few points away from me? Mike tried and tried to convince him that he should steal points from me, but in the end Ben chose to garner a few points for himself. Mike commented that it would be great if he lost by only a few points. 

We totaled up the scores and low and behold, Ben and I were tied at 192 points each! In hindsight, had Ben chosen to take points from me, he would have won hands down. Now we had to go to the tie breaker: who had the most Workers, Fields, and Tools. Thanks to my huge amount of Workers and Fields, I was victorious. After the ticker tape parade through the city, we all left for home.

Deadlands Boardgame

Andy joined us this week and wanted to play Deadlands: the Battle for Slaughter Gulch again. So we did. Mike played the mad scientists, Andy played the shamans, Owen player the rangers, Ben played the hucksters, and I played the agency. I still think this game favors the gangs that have spells & gadgets (shamans, hucksters, and mad scientists), it seems this gives them an extra avenue to get victory points that the rangers and the agency doesn’t have. But then I don’t think I played the agency very and I know Owen was having the worse night ever with his rangers. Speaking of Owen, never in all my years of gaming have I seen such a run of incredible bad luck. (I hope he made it home ok.) If he needed a 2 or better on d6, he’d roll a 1. If he needed to perform a certain action, his ranger would get shot before he could act. It was painful to watch.

In the end, Mike and Andy blew the rest of us away, nearly doubling the points of the rest of us. Andy squeaked by Mike by a point or two to win.