Review - Through The Ages

27th of January 2012 (Friday)

Game(s) Played:
Through The Ages












Review – Through The Ages
This Game Is… …:
Essentially a civilization building game but for the sake of conformity, let’s call it a Euro boardgame since it involves workers, resources and an economic engine that needs to be more finely tuned than my acoustic Yamaha with a crack down its neck.

It’s a downright nightmare to tune and goes out of sync every 10-15 minutes, just like Through The Ages

The objective of the game is to have the most Culture Points at the end of the game. This can be achieved by building cultural stuff that ranges from Temples (Ancient Era) to Fast Food Chains (Modern Era) whilst all the while dodging enemy bullets, minimizing corruption, tackling unhappiness and researching to build the Death Star (Alright, alright, ICBMs just doesn’t sound as cool).

You’re the one man government in this game

Through The Ages caters for between 2-4 Players and typically takes approximately 180 minutes (with minimal AP) to navigate through the full game. There is no Player elimination but surprisingly, the rulebook does include a clause for Players to “honourably surrender” and retire from the game. I suppose there are occurrences of half played games due to mutual Player consensus or emergencies but its specific inclusion in the rulebook is a preliminary indication that you can & probably will get so royally screwed that you want to wave your white breeches on a stick and call it a day.

What Do You Get In The Box?
Through The Ages comes with the following items in a box not much bigger than the size of an A4 and about 2-3 inches high (that’s a really tiny box for a lot of gaming goodness):
– 1 Gaming Board
– 4 Player Boards & Player Summaries
– 8 Decks of Cards (to denote Technology, Wonders, Leaders etc. from various eras)
– Tonnes of cubes & mini cylinders (to represent resources, workers, actions etc.)

Yes, when I say mini cylinders, they are really, really mini

How Is It Played?
Each turn Players push off cards from the Card Row and add new cards to it, very much like the conveyer belt at the sushi bar except the unwanted dishes are dumped, never to return again. The cards are each civilization’s gateway to the future comprising of technologies, wonders, leaders, military units & entertainment centres from the ancient to modern era.

Just imagine a black hole at the end of the line

The Player then proceeds to the external policies phase by consulting Mr Left Brain & Mr Right Brain on whether to explore new territories, wage war against another Player, send Ethan Hunt on a covert mission impossible or forge a pact with the table bully. There is also always the option to just twiddle your thumbs.

Sometimes I just want to twiddle my thumbs

Then comes the blissfully torturous part of Through The Ages – fine tuning the economic engine of your civilization (internal management). The following is an excerpt of the typical Through The Ages Player’s thought bubble:

"I need to build another temple to boost my culture per turn, let’s see, I have sufficient resources *check* Now I need to hire a worker to be the priest of the temple *Argh!* I have enough food to hire the worker but if I do I won’t have enough happiness and there will be riots in the streets and production at the mines will stop *Breathe* Okay, I need happiness then, but BLAST it, that’s exactly what I was going to build my temple for, hold on a second, is that a GLADIATOR ARENA I see there on the board? Maybe instead of another temple, I can build an arena which gives more happiness! Oh snap, it costs 7 science points to research and I am only generating 3 science a turn which means unless I recruit more scientists, I’m going to have wait another 3 turns before I can build the arena *Ding!* More scientists then! Wait, what’s that? My government policy only allows a maximum of 3 scientists in employment?! @#$!%^"

You’d wish you had eye implants

The above is typically what happens when parts of your economic engine were mistakenly forgotten, reminding you of the time you forgot to tune your guitar after your 6 year old brother tried playing Monkey Wrench on it the night before. The cool part about the whole thing is that for every obstacle thrown a Player’s way, a good Player can usually find a way out of the mess, either through a bonus from hiring a new leader, building a wonder, playing one time shot in the arm bonuses or demoting an ineffective swordsman to a gladiator. It is like navigating an asteroid belt, each hurdle may present another subsequent hurdle but each one you pass brings you closer to your objective.

Where’s that darn floating McD’s stop?

Once the Player’s worked out what he needs to do and in exactly what order, the Player proceeds to gain additional science & culture points, produce some food & resources, pay for upkeep with food & resources and passes his turn to the next Player.

What I Think About The Game?
Gameplay:
Through The Ages

Quality:
This is probably my biggest beef with this wonderful game and it is that the game should have been bigger, in every physical aspect. Each square on all manner of score tracks in the game is designed to accommodate 1 single cube when the game is meant to be played by up to 4 Players, the cards are possibly in the tiniest dimensions in the history of boardgaming and the mini cylinders are only half the size of the cubes! The board design is utilitarian at best but the card illustrations are actually pretty decent, so that pretty much is the only saving grace of Through The Ages in terms of component quality.

Affordability:
Price ÷ Recommended No. of Players ÷ [Game Length (hour) x No. Times Game is Played in a year]

I got mine at a discount for my birthday (thanks BGC!) but I’ll calculate this based on the average pricing of the local retailers as below:
RM210 ÷ 2 Players ÷ [3 (hours) x 2 times a year (2011)] = RM17.50 per game

Inflation’s making the price of everything go up but RM17.50 per game is pretty steep. That’s the equivalent of a movie ticket and 1 regular combo of popcorn & a drink here in Kuala Lumpur (even then I have my doubts) or roughly the equivalent of 12 movies with grub for the total package.

Hmm haven’t done any movie reviews lately

Is This Game For You?
My wife often comments to the buggles (non-boardgaming community) about the strangeness of bggs (boardgamegeeks) and why they find torturing their brains an enjoyable pastime when life as it is, is pretty taxing on the brain cells. Whilst her statement might be leaning on the side of over-generalization, it is particularly true for Through The Ages.

To truly appreciate the design of this game requires you to actually enjoy putting your mind through the Olympic 40,000m marathon with hurdles. Not to put you off, but you should know that you are investing into a heavy game for which there may not be as many gamers out there who enjoy this particular flavour of coffee.

Nevertheless, Through The Ages is thoroughly enjoyable even with only 2 Players, and in fact may be best played with only 2 Players. So if you can find someone who enjoys civilization building or games with similar brain burn as Troyes, you’re in for some really fun times. I only have two wishes after finally procuring a copy and completing a full game of Through The Ages, (1) they had better not publish a better looking 2nd edition or I’d be torn between loving/killing the publisher (2) won’t it be EPICLY AWESOME if someone (Sid Meier *hint hint*) includes some of the technologies in Through The Ages in the next instalment of the Civilization series?

The slang of today always includes epic and awesome

Session #21 - Through The Ages

24th of January 2012 (Tuesday)

Game(s) Played:
Through The Ages












Session #21 – Through The Ages

Player(s):
Mo (Grey)
Nitsuj (Orange)

With it being the holidays and all, Mo and I decided to try to play a full game of Through The Ages and this time we were determined to see it through to the finish.

The game is actually very enjoyable… really!

Mo picked Aristotle as his Leader (Errata: We played Technology Cards to include Wonders, Leaders & Tactics Cards) whilst I picked Julius Caesar which kind of made me go down the Military route. In a reverse of roles from our previous game, Mo was a lot more efficient by quickly upgrading to Age I Mines & Farms whilst I was stuck with quantity over quality for a long time. I managed to stay in the game through some Aggression, good Wonders and a peaceful revolution to Monarchy but Mo quickly laid down the groundwork and stole 2 Territories right out from under me whilst I was stuck trying to free my Workers, build more Mines to build more Temples to free more Workers (things tend to be a vicious cycle in this game).

This is just before Mo opened up a huge lead

This is me suffering from lack of Military Units

Mo never really changed Government until much later supplementing his Civil Actions with Wonders & Special Technologies

He quickly built a lead on me in terms of culture which I surprisingly clawed back with an Aggression Card (Winner gains Culture/Loser loses Culture), Territory Card (+Culture) and an Action Card (+Culture) to take advantage of his lack of Military at that point in time, enough to actually tie us at the 75 Point mark. I did manage to finally get my efficiency back up to scratch with Age II mines & farms but now got stuck with trying to build both more mines and better labs at the same time. It didn’t help matters that Mo’s lead was now obscene with him having picked up James Cook (Territories generate 2 Culture) and I didn’t really get to use Napoleon Bonaparte as nobody played any more Territory Cards and I didn’t get any good Aggression/War Cards either.

My only saving grace was the Fast Food Chains Wonder Card which gave me a whopping 28 Culture shot in the arm but alas even that was not enough at the end as Mo finished the game with a 30 Point lead ahead of me having successfully looped the Culture Track.

Fast Food Chains = Culture Points… Fast Food = Modern Culture?

Time Taken: 240 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (210 Points)
2nd – Nitsuj (180 Points)

Comments:
Nitsuj
"I think I’m ready to write the review for Through The Ages, but it is still a really great game and I’m looking forward to playing it again as does Mo. It feels like you’re always balancing on a tight rope and always trying to push an advantage over your opponent which feels great when you manage to pull it off."

Rating: 9/10

Session #20 - Dungeon Petz & Belfort

22nd of January 2012 (Sunday)

Game(s) Played:
Dungeon Petz
















Belfort
















Session #20 – Dungeon Petz

Player(s):
Da Panda (Blue)
Milo (Red)
Mo (Green)
Nitsuj (Yellow)

It is the night before the first day of the Chinese New Year and families gather in the homes of their parents to celebrate the Chinese New Year’s Eve. With none of us knowing how to cook any traditional Chinese New Year dishes and all of us being under 30, we decided to go with an Italian/Western style reunion dinner a.k.a. Pizza & Fries. Most places were either closed or too expensive anyway plus we were more interested in seeing who was the best at raising little Dungeon Petz (my latest acquisition) for the evening’s activities.

Dungeon Petz is a difficult game to keep track of without taking notes, especially when you are playing with the full complement of 4 Players. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to pick the inner recesses of my brain’s HDD and see if a coherent recollection of events can be transcribed to this post.

I was the more aggressive in picking up Petz at the initial start of the game and trying to ensure that I had the 3 Petz / 4 Cages ratio most of the time to enable efficient cleaning of poop from my Cages. Da Panda simply picked up the Long Handled Shovel (Imps can clean Cages without getting hurt) which I neglected out of sheer folly. Mo had troubles at the start as he was shut out from the Petz recruitment process at the start and I picked up the mature Pet in the next round, leaving him to start the process of raising Petz until Round 3. Milo had a pristine record of no Suffering/Mutation again but managed that through only handling 2 Petz at a time, although she now does have the record of oldest Stegobully sold (size 7) in our games.

A picture of the Dungeon Petz shelter where you can choose what pets you want to take home with you

There's a pic of Milo's super oldy Stegobully

I picked up the scoring early and pulled off an early lead in Round 3 when the Event (Magic Show) & Customer (Warlock) were both Magic related, enabling me to score big with my Ghosty. I managed to score some points selling my Fiery Fairy to the Lich Lord in the subsequent round but failed to score much in the final rounds as my Petz were not big enough to sell and instead focused on end game scoring. Da Panda suffered from some Suffering for not being able to play with her Petz but ended up losing a tonne of points because she had not “arranged” for her Imps’ relatives to be brought into her Burrow. Milo & Mo managed to catch up through well timed placements on the Platform although I felt Milo spent too much time on her Stegobully and should have sold more Petz to catch up on points.

In my opinion, I probably will not do as well in our subsequent rounds of Dungeon Petz as Da Panda & Mo are more aware on the significance of the Event & Customer Tiles’ symbols and will probably fight me more on the recruitment of Petz to match those symbols. I pretty much had quite an easy time getting the right Pet for the right time with the exception of me overlooking the size requirements for the last round’s 2 Customers.

Even so, grouping of Imps was still fairly competitive in that there was only 1 occasion where the spaces on the board were fully occupied. Dungeon Petz was an average length game for us this round at 90 minutes but I suspect would be longer with AP Players as there is no rule to say discarded Need Cards are not open information and Players may want to look at their odds, especially towards the late game rounds.

The traditional Imp conga line

Time Taken: 90 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Nitsuj (60 Points)
2nd – Mo (59 Points)
3rd – Milo (56 Points)
4th – Da Panda (Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away)

Can you see her? Far, far away?

Comments:
Nitsuj
"Dungeon Petz is a really cool game. It is intricately designed and extremely thematic and I look forward to playing this as many chances as I get."

Rating: 9/10

Session #20 – Belfort

Player(s):
Da Panda (White)
Milo (Yellow)
Mo (Red)
Nitsuj (Blue)

We spent a short time arguing about what game to play next with Da Panda favouring another round of Dungeon Petz (probably because she lost) whilst Milo & Mo were pretty much short-circuited (Dungeon Petz does tend to be a bit on the heavy side). Seeing as Mo has not joined us in Belfort, we decided to amend that little exclusion in his gaming experience.

My strategy was to have a healthy income of surplus 1 or 2 Coins each turn and to build Buildings that were actually useful over a couple of turns. I also spread myself to more sectors of the board and was content to hold dominance in only 1 measly sector and fight for 2nd or 3rd place in the others. The strategy worked fairly well, I was not disrupted quite as much once I settled in for Turn Order 3 but I think I should have deigned to construct a few more buildings. The logic behind this is simply as follows, I lost in the Elves/Dwarves majority by a fair margin because I felt with more Players the Guilds became fairly crowded & there was not much point in having so many Workers if you couldn’t use them plus I could only draw 1 Card a turn and was building 1/2 Buildings each turn already anyways so… yea, no real need for more Workers. So that was the shortcoming in my strategy and I was only 1 Point behind Milo but fell behind at the last turn.

We always got gross stuff on our playing table

Da Panda had tonnes of Coins as is her usual practice, typically mining or camping the Bankers’ Guild for Coins but her buildings were less strategically placed and she did spend a lot of time jostling for the Turn Order 1 Crest. Mo for his first time out only did marginally better than Da Panda, most due to better placement of buildings, particularly buildings like the Keep and the Gatehouse. However, I think he built just a tinge too many of these costly buildings resulting in him lagging behind a fair bit in the race.

I do notice that with more Players, it does become easier to manage your economy and found myself and the other Players never in situations where we did not have enough Coins for taxes/actions. However, it does cause a heck of a lot more AP (Analysis Paralysis) which Milo succumbed to in her last round of play. Her AP was so bad that on the instant when she finally put down her Workers and removed her hand from the board, we quickly resolved all the actions so that she could not change her mind (again) which she protested vehement that she wanted to (again) but we just didn’t really care at that point.

Only yellow and blue seemed to be everywhere on the board

Time Taken: 120 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Milo (40 Points)
2nd – Nitsuj (36 Points)
3rd – Mo (30 Points)
4th – Da Panda (28 Points)

Final scoring

Looks like this is gonna be the winner shot for Belfort each time we play

Comments:
Nitsuj
"I have to say that Belfort has surprisingly not worn out its welcome with me. It is still every bit as challenging and involved and continues to be a game I’d be willing to play if someone suggests it. The duration does make this game not as great as it should be but a lot of it comes down to Player AP which can be solved simply by bringing your Chess Clock to the next game. Be warned Milo, we may actually do it."

Rating: 8/10

Session #19 - Belfort

2nd of January 2012 (Monday)

Game(s) Played:
Belfort
















Player(s):
Da Panda
Milo
Nitsuj

Session #19 – Belfort

"Hey kor you can come over now!" - SMS by Milo

My tyres screeched on the asphalt and I arrived at the place where the showdown was going to take place within mere minutes of my departure, package in hand. It was meant to be a four-way deal but Mo backs out, saying someone made him an earlier offer and snubs us, the two-timing sonnofagun... Da Panda shows him the door after which the three of us who are left stare each other down. "Are you both still in?" I ask both of them. Milo seems too enthusiastic whilst Da Panda seems nonchalant either way, both reactions setting off alarm bells in my head, but the rewards are too great, the temptation too strong to overcome, and so we begin... a game of Belfort.

And CUT!

Actually that sort of intro would go better with a game like Cargo Noir but I haven't fooled around like that in a while so I thought I'd give it a try. By fooling around I mean, actually taking the time to indulge my writing hobby as opposed to hurriedly churning out reviews / session reports before I forget to do them. Sometimes I seem to forget that this is supposed to be a labour of love for me. Therefore I present to you, in all its humorous grandeur, Session #19 - Belfort.

As this was Da Panda's first play, I had to perform the traditional boardgaming ritual of rules explanation. (This is why I prefer for all four of us to sit down to a new game together once, just to get this out of the way. As it is, I'll have to do it again when Mo decides to join us.) Now, it is either that I am a terribly poor teacher or my siblings process all forms of elderly teachings as droning sounds (it could be both) because Da Panda made the exact same error as Milo in the previous session, which is to not understand exactly how the scoring round works! The unfortunate thing about this that I notice is that it is extremely punishing not to understand how it works in Belfort because you're not only halfway through the game when scoring starts, but scoring starts to happen every other round, and you're supposed to have set up your ... for the lack of a better word, "economy" such that you are pushing for scoring right up to the end, which if you're trying to do halfway through the game, pretty much leaves you eating the dust of your more enlightened opponents.

So note to self, "Demonstrate how scoring works and emphasize it very loudly for all to hear. Include disclaimer of no takesie-backsies if Players still refuse to listen."

Turn order began with me (Blue), Da Panda (Red) followed by Milo (Yellow). My simple strategy was to hoard the Hire Worker space as much as I can with the theory that more Workers = more Resources and an easier time handling my economy which was very similar to my previous attempt at Belfort, only this time I was also going to focus on getting buildings for their income first and their abilities second, instead of the other way around. Being first certainly helped and this time the available Guilds were actually more helpful. We had the Bandits' Guild (Steals Resources), Miners' Guild (+2 Metal), Masons' Guild (+4 Stone), Bankers' Guild (+3 Coins) & the Architects' Guild (Building Discount).

I was doing pretty well in the beginning, building a lead over Milo and Da Panda in terms of Workers but we matched each other building for building but since I spent most of my first turns hogging the Hire Workers space, I ended up missing out on most of the good Guild spaces which were quickly snapped up, especially the Resource Guilds. Da Panda as usual prefers to cause hurt and was no stranger to hiring "Professional Repossessors" to relieve us of our pointy-eared and long-bearded friends' hard earned Resources. Ultimately though the allure of repeated hold-ups at the Bank was too strong for even Da Panda to resist, which prompted me to initiate a hostile takeover of the Bank and cutting a deal with Da Panda to pay me 1 Coin to give her the codes to loot my Bank, insurance would cover the rest.

Argh! We’ve been exposed!

Da Panda’s ill-gotten treasures

In terms of district monopolies, it appeared things were quite even. Each of us had majority ownership of at least one district and shared leadership of one other district with another Player. Thinking that my edge in majority Workers would lead me to the finishing line seemed like a good plan at the time, but boy was I wrong. You see, I discounted the fact that even though Milo had only majority share of only one district, whether inadvertently or not, she had second majority for other districts, which also scores points in districts most Players (i.e. me) would choose to ignore because you can never beat the Chinese in Chinatown. Milo subverts this adage, by being the Vietnamese who set up Little Saigon Street right in the heart of Chinatown. And once Milo had her economy under control, she swaps for turn order and goes right on reducing my Worker advantage to nothing and steamrolls over me in the age of "1 Dwarf for 2".

Things started tamely enough

Then the great property boom of ’98 took place

An artistic angle

Once again, taxes catch up on me after the second Scoring Round so much so I actually take a loss of 1 Point for not being able to pay my tax. I quickly get it under control but Milo, with all her resources just goes right on building and building, shoring up her economy as inflation continues to rise in the double digits on a monthly basis. Da Panda who has her inflation more under control (due to her l-a-s-t position on the Score Track) also goes right on building and between the both of them, the Gnomes for hire are quickly snapped up resulting in a supply shock to the town of Belfort.

That’s my game ending Player Board, the three Property Cards facing away from me are actually the draw pool, we only got half the table to play on

This is Milo with her 8 building game end

This is Da Panda’s also 8 building game end, although I suspect she would’ve done better if she had placed her buildings more strategically on the main board

As you can guess, this doesn't end well for me... again. Despite being in the lead after the second Scoring Round, there is little I can do with bankrupt property developers and high inflation whilst my neighbours with their ample resources and turn advantage, buy up the remaining properties in my districts to hand me my bum bum on a platter.

Results Of Game
Winna – Milo (49 Points)
2nd – Nitsuj (45 Points)
3rd – Da Panda (34 Points)

The new owner of the key to Belfort!

Comments:
Da Panda
"Belfort is a little more easier to understand and cope with compared to Le Havre or Troyes. I felt there are more limited actions to be done each round and wish the game had designed more ways to earn resources / gold / build properties. Might get a bit boring after playing a lot of times as I felt there's not much ways to go about your strategies to win. A rather more straightforward game with cute stone / wood / iron thingys."
Rating: 6/10

Milo
Rating: 9/10

Nitsuj
"I have to concede to Da Panda that in comparison with games like Le Havre & Troyes, Belfort is more streamlined and restricted, it would be like comparing say Diablo against Elder Scrolls. I don’t think I will like Belfort more than those two games I mentioned but Belfort is a very good game in its own right. I honestly think of it as an upgrade from Monopoly. The buildings are all the same except for the introduction of Guilds, with a merging of Euro elements involving two types of Workers and four types of Resources. Like Citadels, the scalability of “cut-throatness” changes with the types of Players playing, providing a challenge to both hardcore and non-hardcore gamers alike."
Rating: 8/10

Session #18 - Eminent Domain & Belfort

29th of December 2011 (Thursday)

Game(s) Played:
Eminent Domain
















Belfort
















Player(s):
Milo
Nitsuj

Session #18 – Eminent Domain
I had recently picked up Eminent Domain & Belfort (like exactly one night before) and just couldn't wait to give it a go. The only person available was Milo who surprisingly had no plans for a Thursday night, whereas the usual suspects Da Panda had gone out for a movie and Mo was on a back to the jungle berbonding exercise with our father. She was more than game so I brought over both my latest acquisitions and we began with Eminent Domain.

I started with an Advanced Planet whilst Milo began with a Metallic Planet. I decided to favour a strategy prone more to Warfare before branching into Technology & Production/Trading. Milo preferred to Colonize & abuse the Improve Trade Technology (+1 Influence) which was to my surprise, not available to me because I ONLY had Advanced Planets for a long time.

Thankfully two of my Advanced Planets gave +1 to my hand limit, enabling me to hold 7 cards in hand and abuse my bulk of Warfare Cards. I was getting 6 Fighters a turn, attacking Planets every which way & then had enough Technology to pull in Improved Warfare (+2 Fighters / Conquer a Planet) then Specialization (Gain Influence per number of one type of resource traded) & Hyperefficiency (Discard any number of cards per turn). I set myself up for the big kill with Specialization by trading 3 similar purple resources & 1 blue resource for a 7 Influence Token swoop.

You can see my straight set of Advanced Planets in the far right corner

Apart from colonizing a different variety of Planets, Milo kept drawing Influence Tokens via Improve Trade & trading resources, although she didn't have an efficient enough hand to be able to produce and trade more than 1 resource a turn.

Our game slowed down a fair bit towards the end, I had far too many Warfare cards in my hand to be able to pull off trading 4 resources at one go. In hindsight, I had forgotten my Hyperefficiency power and should have gotten rid of more of my Warfare cards to pull ahead quicker. Still the Technologies are diverse enough that you can pursue multiple paths of victory although changing strategies midway becomes difficult if your deck is heavily skewed in favour of one particular type of role card.

Results Of Game
Winna – Nitsuj (36 Points)
2nd – Milo (28 Points)

Comments:
Milo
"This game takes a little getting used to; game play picks up once you get the flow of things.

Doesn't feel incredibly interactive as there are no inter-player battles or cause-effect chains amongst players. Shopping for tech cards proves fun. Cute resources meeples & various sized battleships contributes to fun factor."

Rating: 6/10

Nitsuj
"I think in a 2 Player game strategies need to be more forced and planned as opposed to a 3 or 4 Player game where you will be trying to take advantage of other Players' strategies to pull ahead of the pack. Think this game will shine with more Players. The art really is very, very good though. Big thumbs up from me."

Rating: 8/10

Session #18 – Belfort
We then moved on to Belfort and boy does the setup time take a while. To move things along accordingly we proceeded to play the game normally with 2 Players instead of using the special 2 Player rules (having to control a Non Player 3 & 4 seemed too much trouble).

Milo started as Player 1 and we had a bit of trouble moving forward in the first few turns as there were not many options for actions to be taken apart from getting more Workers or using Guilds. Milo utilised the Sawyers' & Miners' Guild (+4 Wood / +4 Stone) to good effect.

I worked on increasing my workforce & used the Blacksmith (Discount to building) to buy up the Sawyers' Guild because Milo was running riot with it. She quickly got up her Pub, Gardens & Bank and was using her newfound wealth to hire Gnomes each turn which I never caught up to.

Milo didn't actually understand scoring at first and was caught out in Round 1 where she was steadily fortifying the 1st District thinking 1st Scoring Round = 1st District Scoring only whilst I had spread myself out to the other pieces of the Pentagon to build a major lead in the 1st Scoring Round. (Although no 3 Player & 4 Player means a gap of only 2 points per District & Scoring Category)

I still had no buildings with income, having built the Inn next and with a stupendously high tax bracket, most of my workers were inefficiently spent mining gold each turn just to keep afloat. Having unlocked the Gardens & Pub, Milo had more leeway in allocating Workers, who knew that Master Elves & Dwarves were THAT powerful. We call them the Super Saiya Workers now.

In the end I had to snatch 1st Turn Order from Milo as she kept occupying the Hire Workers spot to steadily build her workforce and yet I couldn't block the spot from her due to tight financial constraints once we had passed the Second Scoring Round. I only had the Tower to supply income whereas Milo had 5 income buildings including the Bank. Towards the end I usually had only 1-2 Workers that weren't sitting in the gold mine to be placed around the board which was a rather big pain.

This was right before I got my ass handed to me

In the end, I lost right at the death. We were drawn at scoring for majority Elves and Milo beat me when we scored for Gnomes. Drat!

Results Of Game
Winna – Milo (78 Points)
2nd – Nitsuj (75 Points)

Comments:
Milo
"Great interactive design, the concept of the game isn't hard to grasp. Love the 3 season timeline. So many different things to do on each round that you don't get bored easy.

Down side of having only 2 players is not being able to fully utilize all functions on the board (switching houses with two of the same places etc.)"

Rating: 9/10

Nitsuj
"I think Belfort has great potential, particularly with 3 or 4 Players. I do foresee some downtime with 5 Players although I am to understand that the board of Belfort hosts a complete variety of easter eggs that you can spend time to look for during your downtime although this is understandably a stop-gap measure before going back to staring daggers at the sap who's taking forever to take his turn. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to a 3 or 4 Player game with much enthusiasm and hope to get some plays in the next week or so."

Rating: 8/10

Review - 2011

31st of December 2011 (Saturday)

Year In Review:
2011 Review












Review – 2011
This Year Was… …:
2011 has been a tremendously hectic year. A change in career, working part-time, settling in to family life and of course, boardgaming in 2011 which (unlike the other short term hobbies I used to have) has made me level up in the mastery of boardgame geekness.

Fluffy Level Up

Without further ado, the following is the summary for my gaming goodness of 2011:

The year that was... ...

There are some plays that went unrecorded such as the Hari Raya gaming at BGN Puchong but this is pretty much all of it. All in all it appears that I played 3.6 games a month or just shy of one a week which is a definite increase over my 9 games recorded for the entirety of 2010. However I don't expect to sustain this increase in the coming 2012, if anything boardgaming will have to be cutback a little due to life commitments in the coming year.

Some surprises to me in terms of number of plays I managed to squeeze in were games like Glory To Rome (until I realized that we had a six game marathon in a single day) as well as Hansa Teutonica considering that it is a somewhat older game but proving my point that the gameplay mechanics just does not get old despite the somewhat thin theme.

I am somewhat disappointed that I could not get in more plays for Troyes and Dungeon Lords during the year considering that I personally find both these games to be one of the gems of my collection. Unfortunately I will have trouble finding game time for Troyes because one of my gaming group members prefers to stay away from it.

He uses the same sign to protest against Troyes

Also I've finally figured out what the heck "Fives & Dimes" means, it basically translates to games you've played at least "five or ten times". I was a bit embarrassed that none of my games has hit the milestone of ten times and decided to exclude this segment from this year's review.

New Games I Bought:
I bought/received as gifts/threatened with violence (kidding) a total of 13 new boardgames in 2011. Compared to others I know 13 seems to be a pretty small number but it represents a 81% increase in my collection from 2010. And although my collection seems small at 29 games (6 of which are expansions), I have already encountered every boardgamer's space/time conundrum of not having enough shelf space for everything you own.

The following is a list of my acquisitions of 2011:
- 7 Wonders
- Agricola + Expansion: Agricola Gamer's Deck (Gift from siblings)
- Alien Frontiers
- Belfort
- Bohnanza (Gift from Cell Members)
- Chronicle (Gift from Cell Members)
- Citadels + Expansion: Dark City (Gift copy from BGC)
- Eminent Domain
- For Sale
- Glory To Rome
- Race For The Galaxy Expansions: The Brink Of War & The Gathering Storm
- Through The Ages: A Story Of Civilization
- Troyes

From my purchasing habits, I realize that my initial purchases tend to be well established games that are within the top 100 ranking on boardgamegeek. That's probably why you don't see any game reviews that I do with poor comments & ratings. I guess my disposable income is not at the level where I can afford to just splash out my hard earned Ringgits on games that I have not done any research on or are not tried and tested by the gaming community out there. However, towards the end of 2011, I have taken a leap of faith with games by Tasty Minstrel Games in particular such as Belfort (which is already proving to be a sound purchase), Eminent Domain and being part of the kickstarter for Kings Of Air And Steam.

New People I Played Games With This Year:
My regular gaming group hasn't changed, Da Panda, Milo & Mo are still the people who are most obliging towards entertaining their deranged older brother in his somewhat time consuming hobby. However 2011 has seen me get to know a whole lot of gamers through BGN Puchong as well as my occasional jaunt to OTK Cheras (okay twice in a year is probably not occasional) plus the one time I introduced simple boardgaming at my Cell Retreat.

It has been a great pleasure to actually get to sit down and play a game with people like JY, Kareem, Samson, Nicolas, Melchor, Jeanne, Joshua, Dwolve, John, Wai Yan, my cell guys & gals and not least of all, my wife. Those epic moments of boardgaming in my life are attributed to these great people and it has been great to be able to get to know you.

Preach it little baby!

Closing Thoughts On 2011:
2011 has been a great year, a blessed year and indeed a year of goodness. Here's one toast to the year that was, and another to the year that cometh, may 2012 be that year that makes your life different.

Session - Bohnanza, Dixit & For Sale

6th & 7th of November 2011 (Sunday – Monday)

Game(s) Played:
Bohnanza
















Dixit
















For Sale











Player(s):
Cae Me
Eastlyn
Jimmy
Joanne
Joyce
Justin
Kenny
Louanna
Meng Chern
Michael
Pearly
Wai Yin
Xiu Mei

My cell group had planned to take advantage of the Hari Raya Haji public holiday (which fell on a Monday) to head down south to Malacca and spend one night at the villas in A’ Famosa just to relax and get to know one another better. The villas could accommodate 16 people per villa so we combined together with another two cell groups from the Young Adults of FGT.

Before we left, I looked through my shelf of games to pick some games that would not be quite so scary to new-gamers and came up with the following list:
1. Alien Frontiers
2. Bohnanza
3. Citadels
4. Dixit (borrowed copy)
5. For Sale
6. Hansa Teutonica

I had high hopes for Dixit and Bohnanza but brought along the others as back-ups. Looks like I didn’t need to worry after all.

Session #17 – Bohnanza, Dixit & For Sale

Check-in time is at the strange hour of 4pm because most of the time the villas are empty and need to be thoroughly cleaned before the guest can check-in. We had already decided to head down to Batu Berendam to have dinner as a group at 7pm so we had some time to kill in between. JR, who is a big fan of Bohnanza (She calls it the “Beans Game”) pulled it out and introduced it to the girls with a little bit of rules explanation help from me. Wanting to give Dixit some mileage, I pulled it out and introduced it to Wai Yin, Michael and Louanna.

Bohnanza was a big hit but unfortunately ran overly long and they accidentally ended the game thinking that the game end condition was running through the deck once instead of three times. I suppose all things considered that was okay since we had to go out for dinner already anyways. Unfortunately there are no pics of this event on my camera as I was busy trying to teach two games at a go.

Dixit became very popular at our retreat this time. Most of them loved the art and particularly relished the challenge when there were many pictures that could match the Storyteller’s story or when no one could guess it and challenged the Storyteller to reveal the relevance of his story instead.

Coming back from dinner, I pulled out For Sale only to realize during the first play through that I am now missing a property card! Number 17 to be precise. I’ll have to spend some time trying to figure out when and where it could have gone to ground. Nevertheless, For Sale got continuous plays all the way until it was time for us to leave the next day! Which is somewhat surprising seeing as my own siblings didn’t think too much about the game. Nevertheless I’m glad it worked out as the game is short (we managed ten minute games towards the end) and highly replayable, if only I could find that durned Property No. 17, think it was the yatch property.

Here we find that women are big property tycoons, I forget who won but the big smile on JR’s face could probably means it was her

Xiu Mei was a pretty good dealer and here you can see Joanne upping the ante, she seemed game for almost anything most of the time

We substituted the missing No. 17 with a Money Card, that’s a terrible draw though, someone must not have shuffled properly :P

As I mentioned, Dixit was extremely popular and I think became a firm favourite of Wai Yin’s. So much so that when we were wondering why one particular breakfast table had gone back to the villa so early after breakfast, we found them playing Dixit at the Villa instead. Looks like I’ll have to think about investing in my own copy of it as well.

This is the guilty breakfast table that ran off to breakfast early and rushed back once they were done haha

I noticed Kenny spent a lot of time standing up, you know you got a winner when the Players don’t mind standing up to win the game

Another sure sign a game is a winner is when there are lots of smiles around the table

I couldn’t resist, here’s one of Kenny standing up again

Results Of Game
Bohnanza
I don’t know who won Bohnanza actually but let’s call everyone a winner since they technically didn’t play the game to its intended finish.

Dixit
Somehow I keep remembering that Wai Yin & Xiu Mei did exceptionally well in Dixit but I wasn’t playing in the last few games of the second day so can’t be sure who else won at it.

For Sale
For Sale saw many different winners throughout its many, many games but the most calculative award goes to Meng Chern, Cae Me and Xiu Mei I think haha. Congratulations guy and girls.

My biggest takeaway? Most of them knew that I am into boardgames as a hobby before this but actually thought I was playing stuff like this:

This board is very, very cool by the way

There are great Ameritrash games out there some of which I wouldn’t mind spending the necessary half a day to get through a single game but to be fair, these sorts of games aren’t exactly what we would call “light games” and probably wouldn’t appeal to your average non-gaming person. So I’m glad that at least, I could share some of the joys of my hobby and how easily accessible it is. Spread the love, boardgamers!