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Category Archives: Board Games

Posts about our weekly game nights.

Age of Conan

This week we played Age of Conan. Mike was out saving the world at his work, but fortunately Andy was available so we still had four players.

In Age of Conan the players are in control one of the major kingdoms of the Hyborian age. The idea is to take over the neighboring provinces thus gaining gold and victory points. You can take over a province by either using the time tested method of marching your armies into it or by using intrigue.  The other element of the game is that Conan is running around completing adventures that may help or hinder you.

As Ben pointed out during the game, Age of Conan has several overlapping concepts going on all at the same time.

Frist, there is Conan. Before each Conan adventure the players bid for control of Conan. A Conan adventure lasts for several rounds, allowing Conan to possibly help you and possibly hinder your opponents. Through each round of Conan’s adventure, players can acquire Adventure Tokens that can gain them immediate sorcery and gold or can be saved for later victory points and special magic artifacts. It’s a little confusing just when a player gets these adventure tokens. We had to look that up several times.

On a player’s turn he chooses a fate dice (previously rolled) to determine what action he would like to take: a military action, an intrigue action, or a court action. The court action allows you to play or draw Strategy and Kingdom cards into your hand. These cards are very useful.

The rules for the actions are in two places in the rules. We found we had to page back and forth a lot during the game as one section only tells you part of the story. Conan does come with a reference “sheet” for each player that just happens to look like a booklet—with tiny text.

So what happened during our game? Well, Conan is played of three ages each with four Conan adventures. In the two plus hours we played, we finished the first age. I couldn’t tell that one person was doing better than any other, although judging from forts and towers on the board, I was losing.

I think Age of Conan is a game you need to play a few times to get a good sense of what strategy to use. Sadly, we probably won’t play it again for months.

Chaos Steve

Sid Meyer’s Civilization board game

Last night we played Sid Meyer’s Civilization board game. In it Players are tasked with guiding an entire civilization throughout the ages, taking ownership of their people’s technology, economy, culture, and military, as well as all the choices that go along with them. There are four different paths to victory (Mike), and each is riddled with opposition (Mike). Each player plays a particular culture. I was German and I believe Mike was Chinese. I don’t remember what cultures Owen or Ben played. The game also comes with hundreds of cards and tokens.

The game begins innocently enough with each player exploring the area around his home, taking over villages, and purging the area of any natives. Each turn you get to add buildings to you city, build a new city, or add more units to your army. You also get to research technology that improves your civilization and allows you to lord of your neighbors (Mike). You can also invest in arts. It turns out that investing in the arts gets you some great cards to play against the other, not-so-artsy, cultures.

While there were no winners in our game (Mike), we each still competed against one another for valuable resources, and in some cases the domination of our neighbors (Mike). It seems the most important strategy to remember is to play to the strength of your culture, as each culture has their own special abilities. Mike did a great job of this, and so did Owen. Ben and I took other paths…mostly leading to death (from Mike) or limited resources.

All-in-all we all enjoyed the game: lots of choices and lots of ways to win the game.

Chaos Steve

Galactic Emperor

For our holiday edition of gaming, our friend Andy dropped by to play Galactic Emperor with us. We’ve played this before and you can read all about that game here. Five players made for an interesting dynamic to the game as everyone’s home planet was pretty close to someone else’s home planet, while still being a galaxy away from someone else. Ben claimed first lost because he was seated between Mike and me. No one wants to get between Mike and me when galactic conquest is on the line. Ben, oddly enough, was also the first player to go offensive by trying to use his influence to rid Mike of one of his empires. Mike whined about it the rest of the game. Ben was aggressive throughout the entire game. He even bought the first Dreadnought. Also throughout the game, Ben was my main…uh, target.

One thing I enjoy about this game is that combat is inevitable. The galaxy is small, there are a limited number of point scoring planets, and everyone needs the resources those planets provide to build their space fleets. It wasn’t long before Owen was using his fleet to take planets from Mike. Owen also eyed Andy’s planets–Andy was situated on his other side from Mike—but Andy made some great defensive choices that caused his planets to be less desirable to taken by force. I should also mention that Owen’s dice rolling sucked the entire evening. Battles he should have easily won, met with disaster.

Mike played a steady game of non-aggression; mainly because Ben and Owen seemed to be gunning for him and he spent most of his resources defending his empire. As I mentioned before, Ben was my target of choice during the game. Fortunately for Ben, my dice rolling was worse than Owens. On two attempts with four dice, where I only needed a 3 or greater, I rolled 1’s and 2’s on three of the dice. My second attempt got me three 1’s! Oh the injustice of it all!

It was the unassuming Andy who really shown at the end of the game. His two neighbors (Owen and I) had left him alone the entire game and during our last round, he made us all pay for that mistake. He scarfed up a bunch of Planets (i.e. victory points) that basically got doubled because it was the end of the game. Andy ended the game with 20 points. His last point was because he has a single “space buck”. The rest of us had no money at all. Mike came in a close second with 19 points. Owen had a respectable 17 points, while I came in NOT LAST with 14 points. Last place was Ben, Just as he called it. He had some small number of points that I can’t find the number for on my keyboard.

Chaos Steve

Settlers of America: Trails to Rails

 

This week we played Settlers of America: Trails to Rails. This is the second or third time we’ve played it. As the name implies, this game takes place in America and has the familiar hex layout on the board. Players use settlers to build towns that then produce goods. To win the game, each player must ship all of his goods to towns belonging to other players using his trains and rails. The game dynamics are very similar to the original Settlers. You use resource cards to buy settlers, rails, trains, and development cards. And these resource cards are generated by a dice roll and the proximity of your towns. Another use for resource cards is to move you settlers to new areas and to move your trains along the rails. This game also adds the dynamic of gold to the mix. Gold can be used to buy resource cards and to allow you to pay to use the tracks of the other players. You can also use it when trading.

I, personally, like this version of Settlers much better than the original. I suck at the original. Even if I should win, I don’t. The resource gods hate me. That’s one of things I really like about Settlers of America. You are getting lots of resource cards–mostly because you need lots of them to do all the things you need to do in the game. So instead of languishing a few turns waiting for the right cards to come along, you get to buy something on almost every turn. This makes the game much more enjoyable for me. They also incorporated the extraordinary build phase, from the 5-6 player game of the original Settlers, in to the normal play. With this, you feel like you are building something all of the time!

For most of the game all of us were pretty close in the running; the leader only having delivered a cube (or two) more than everyone else. When it came down to the end, Ben was leading but anyone could have won during the next couple of turns. Ben did end up winning, with Owen and Mike being close seconds, and me being a close third.

Chaos Steve

Brass

Spoiler alert – Owen won! Steve couldn’t make it due to his regular
visit to the Clinic (lets just call it “The Itch”). Why he would schedule
it for a games night I don’t know, but I digress.
 
Tonight we played Brass, a board game set in 18th century England at the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It is played over two periods:
Canal and Rail. You have 10 turns (in a 3 player game) each period to build
various industries: cotton mill (produces cotton which you can sell to a
port), coal mine (to produce coal), ironworks (to produce iron), ports (to
sell cotton), ship builders (er, to build ships). These industries are
represented by tiles (in your color) that are placed in the various cities
on the board. Certain industries require access to coal or iron, so you
need to build canals or rails to the city before you can place the industry
tile.
 
You start the game with 8 location cards. These cards represent either a
city on the board, or an industry type (such as coal or a port). On your
turn you spend to cards to perform two actions. To build an industry you
can discard the appropriate city card, or the appropriate industry card if
you have a canal/rail connection to a valid city. Each city only allows
certain types of industry to be built there. You get to draw back up to 8
cards each turn until the supply deck runs out. A period ends when all
players have discarded all their cards. Other actions include: getting a
loan from the bank, building a link (canal/rail).
 
Industries give you 2 benefits: income and victory points. Income is
required as you need cash to buy new industries. Victory points win you the
game. An industry must be “flipped” before you get these benefits. A tile
is flipped when the conditions are met for the particular industry; for
example, a coal mine is flipped when its coal supply is exhausted. Income
is increase right away, but victory points are not tallied until the end of
each Period.
 
Despite Bens’ early attempt to mess Owen up, he won by a healthy margin –
also helped by the fact Steve wasn’t there to do his usual chaotic moves. A
shout out should also go to Mike for building a rail link to Birkenhead so
Owen could build his second Shipbuilders (these score a LOT of points).
 
Final standings: Owen First, Ben second, Mike last… I mean third.
 
As a side note, what would cause a man to buy two tubs of chocolate mint
cookies? It makes no sense.

Agricola

We had a guest player this week. Mike Byrd joined us for a 5-player game of Agricola. Agricola is a game all about farm management and development. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Well I’m not sure I’d call it exciting, but it is challenging. As noted by my stellar performance in this game and the two previous games we’ve played. (You can check out those two previous games here and here.)

Ben has played this game a few more times than we have…and still doesn’t have the rules right. But that’s ok. We happily gave him a ton of grief about it. As our game progressed we had another one of those “Steve” moments where “Steve” goes to make a play and Ben (and others) tell “Steve” it’s a bad play. But “Steve” wants to make the play. “Steve” has a plan. Ben (and others) warn “Steve” again. “Steve” still makes the play…and after it’s too late, realizes it’s a bad play. If only someone would have warned me.

None of us were too surprised when Ben won the game with 32 points. Owen came in a very strong second with 26 points. Owen got a ton of his points from his major and minor improvements; to the tune of around 14 points. The rest of us garnered mere 1-5 points from our improvements. Mike Byrd, who had never played before, got a very respectable 21 points. Mike’s 19 points were just enough so he would not be tied with me for last place. (I had 18 points.) In all three of the Agricola games we’ve played, I’ve been last. I’m not bitter though. I could see from the beginning of this game, that I did not have a good plan. Heck, I’m not even sure I had a plan at all. I’m not sure what Mike’s excuse was.

Chaos Steve

Settlers of America: Trails to Rails

This week we played Settlers of America: Trails to Rails, one of the latest releases in the Settlers series of seemingly never ending games. As the name implies, this game takes place in America and has the familiar hex layout on the board. Players use settlers to build towns that then produce goods. To win the game, each player must ship all of his goods to towns belonging to other players using his trains and rails. The game dynamics are very similar to the original Settlers. You use resource cards to buy settlers, rails, trains, and development cards. And these resource cards are generated by a dice roll and the proximity of your towns. Another use for resource cards is to move you settlers to new areas and to move your trains along the rails. This game also adds the dynamic of gold to the mix. Gold can be used to buy resource cards and to allow you to pay to use the tracks of the other players. You can also use it when trading.

I, personally, like this version of Settlers much better than the original. I suck at the original. Even if I should win, I don’t. The resource gods hate me. That’s one of things I really like about Settlers of America. You are getting lots of resource cards–mostly because you need lots of them to do all the things you need to do in the game. So instead of languishing a few turns waiting for the right cards to come along, you get to buy something on almost every turn. This makes the game much more enjoyable for me. They also incorporated the extraordinary build phase, from the 5-6 player game of the original Settlers, in to the normal play. With this, you feel like you are building something all of the time!

In our game, I started off strong–like I usually do. Then floundered at the end of the game–like I usually do. Both Mike and Owen had slow starts but were coming on strong there at the end. In the later rounds Ben overtook me to become the leader. I think this was mostly due to his investment in a second train and to me stupidly trading with him when I shouldn’t have. To which Owen and Mike, but mostly Owen, (rightfully) gave me a bunch of static about. I did have my moment though; see the “Play of the Game” at the end of this write-up. The ended with Ben winning. Mike had jumped into second place with Owen and I tied for third.

Play of the game: Steve using six coal cards to move his train along 18 tracks to deliver a good to a city that Ben was going to use to win the game. Note: This didn’t stop Ben from winning, but the look on his face was priceless!

(The guys said I should have a “Quote of the Game” too. Well I can’t remember a single thing we said, so here’s a quote from Henry Ford instead. Henry didn’t play in our game, but were he alive, he could take my spot.)

Quote of the Game: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” — Henry Ford

Chaos Steve

In the Year of the Dragon & Roll Through the Ages

This week we played another new game (for us) called Im Jahr des Drachen (In the Year of the Dragon). This is the second German game with an oriental theme that we’ve played in recent weeks. It’s an economy-type gamed where the players are Chinese rulers trying to manage their empires against a never ending onslaught of disasters–kind of like my real life. No, I’m not a Chinese ruler, but the never ending onslaught of disasters is right on. Unlike in my real life (thank God), the game disasters take the form of drought, deadly diseases, Mongol hordes, and more. The good news that you know what is coming and when, and you can prepare for it. The bad news is that your rival Chinese rulers–those pesky other players–also have this information. Your turns are spent executing actions (or if you are Ben, executing peasants), summoning people who can help you through the disasters, and garnering victory points. With the number of game components you get, you may think the game is complicated. It’s not. What is challenging is managing your people and resources to minimize or eliminate the various disasters each turn. So let’s see how we did…

There’s a little country ditty from the old TV show Hee Haw that starts with “Gloom, despair and agony on me…” I think that’s how all of us felt at one time or another during the game. Mike started out making some poor decisions because he misunderstood a few of the rules. He followed that up by listening to Wormtongue (Ben) on a couple of his turns. Even with these handicaps, he led for most the game. It was towards the end of the game that things feel apart for him. It’s not completely his fault though. We realized very late in the game that he had one less Person card than the rest of us. And worse yet, his missing card was one of his “wild” cards—a very useful card indeed. His empire ended up being completely destroyed at the end of the game.

I was completely inept throughout most of the game in making good use of my events and people. During a full quarter of the events, I could do nothing. Still I managed to stay at the front of the pack and eventually came in second. Owen, poor Owen, seemed doomed to never score many victory points. He was way behind for most of the game. But he steadily continued building his empire and by the end of the game scored a considerable amount of points, giving him a respectable third place finish. Ben, strangely, managed his empire well and steadily earned points. There was one point where he had to execute several of his people, but he deemed this as an acceptable loss. He uncharacteristically went on to win the game.

The big game of the night came next though, when Owen broke out his Roll Through the Ages. We all loved this game. It’s easy to play, challenging, yet takes only about 20 minutes to run through an entire game. Players roll dice to obtain commodities and workers to build up their civilizations. Now this may sound like a Yatzee variant, but it’s far from that. There are various ways to build your civilization. Will you build monuments to earn your points or buy developments which can also help you on future turns? Or maybe a clever combination of both? Whatever you do, you must beware of disasters, which reduce your victory point total. Knizia does it again with this seemly small game that’s packed to the brim with high quality components. Buy it. Buy it now. Oh, and in our game, I crushed my opponent’s puny civilizations beneath the weight of my civilization’s developments. Sure they had monuments, but I had currency*!

*You’ll just have to play the game to know what the heck I’m talking about.

Chaos Steve

Carson City

This week at game night we played Carson City. Carson City is a game of land grabbing, building money-generating properties, gun fights, and using the town’s “personalities” to your best advantage. The game has a lot going for it. The game only has four rounds and each round has the following phases. First each player chooses their personalities (or role) for the turn. Then, one by one, the players place their cowboys. They can use their cowboys to perform actions such as buying a building, or to grab a parcel of land, or to attack or defend a building. If cowboys from different owners end up on the same space, a duel ensues with the winner getting the spoils. After placement of the cowboys, the final phase is resolving each space on the board in a specific order as outlined on the board. It’s during this phase that victory points are earned, money is earned, and new buildings are constructed.

In our game I think Mike was a little distracted. He made a few starting blunders. He spent the rest of the rounds trying to gain back some momentum and cursing Owen for hog tying his mines so they produced less money for him. Ben on the other hand played well until the very last round when he made a fatal plunder of not playing all of his cowboys. Owen seemed to have problems throughout the game, not making any great gains and not scoring any victory points until round three. Mike, instead of being the mine owner he thought he was going to be, became the banker earning money hand over fist. Ben also earned tons of cash with his hotel and drugstores. He also warded off my attack on his money train by cleverly reading the rules and playing a church before I could take his money. (A church protects your nearby properties from being attacked.) In the end it was guns and firepower that won the game…for me that is. Using brute force I was able to win multiple duels allowing me to control most of the point scoring spaces. The others resorted to earning vast amounts of cash in order to buy their way to a win. Which points out something I like about Carson City—there are multiple strategies you can use to gain victory points.

As I mentioned, in our game guns won over cash, but it was close. Had Ben played all of his cowboys on the last round, things might have ended differently. Ben did come in a very respectable second. Mike was third and poor Owen was last.

Chaos Steve

Infinite City & Asteroyds

Last night at game night we played an unprecedented three (3) games! First we played Infinite City. Infinite city is a tile placement game where you build an ever sprawling city and then do your best to take control of it. Each tile has a set of instructions that you follow once you play the tile. Each player has colored tokens that they place on the tile to show they have some ownership in the tile. Multiple players can have their token on the same tile. There are three ways to score points. Groups of three tiles or more with your token scores you a point for each tile. Controlling the most “silver” tiles gain you a point for each. (We called the silver tiles ”barbed wired” tiles due the silver swirls at the bottom of each tile.) Lastly, some of the tiles actually have numeric values on them. Own the tile, gain the bonus.

In our first game, I was a strong contender for first place and had the game ended about 15 minutes earlier, I might have won. As it was, both Mike and Owen began building empires. At the end Mike had 20 points and Owen had 19. I was a close third and poor Ben, still suffering from last-place-itis, came in a distant last (7 points.)  In the second game we were all pretty evenly matched (except for Ben.)  Mike had a stellar first turn, but not long after Owen converted half the city to be under his control. The game continued this to and fro momentum until the very end. Owen ended up winning. Mike and I tied for second, and Ben (once again) was a distant forth.

The third game we played was Asteroyds. A space racing game where we are all piloting through an ever shifting field of asteroids and space gates. The winner is the first one to go through all four gates. You can hit the gates in any order. The game is pretty straight forward. You roll three dice, one for each color of asteroid, to see which direction each will shift. Then you hit the timer…yes, this game comes with a timer. For beginners, you get 50 seconds to figure out your six moves. Experts get 20 seconds. I can’t image anyone who can plan their turn in just 20 seconds. Ben was the first to make a major error, plowing through asteroid after asteroid when his planning went terribly wrong. It was a little while after that when we realized that hitting an obstacle stopped your progress. But the rules do say that you can make up your own rules, so we played the rest of the game as if you could plow through obstacles–still taking the damage of course.

I ended up winning the game. I had several very easy turns where the asteroids opened a path for me. Mike was looking to be number two except that to get to his final gate before Ben, he had to transfer the energy from his shields to his engines. This meant he took more damage when hitting obstacles. Mike needed to move through two asteroids on the way to the gate. Since they now did more damage to his ship, his ship was destroyed. Mike overlooked this during his 50 second planning session. Ben was an easy second, followed by Owen. We had mixed reviews on this game. I think Mike didn’t like it much. It reminded him too much of Roborally. Ben on the other hand wants to play it again to see how playing by the correct obstacle rules changes the game. I liked the game and will bring it every week to Mike’s house to play–unless of course he wants to play Roborally instead.

Chaos Steve