Session #22 - Agricola

18th of February 2012 (Saturday)

Game(s) Played:
Agricola
















Session #22 – Agricola

Player(s):
Da Panda (Neutral)
Milo (Purple)
Nitsuj (Blue)

Milo & Da Panda dropped by yesterday for a session of gaming and Agricola was suggested since Da Panda has not had the opportunity to try out this legend-wait for it-dary game yet. We picked our colours, whilst I made a quick look-up in the rulebook on how to incorporate occupations & minor improvements (don't play with these very often yet) then we yanked up our hoes to begin the first Best Farmer Of The Year competition in the Subang Jaya county.

This session of Agricola is commemorated as the first time I got the ploughing strategy correct although I must say that it is more because Milo & Da Panda are less familiar with the game than I am and kinda allowed me a bit more free reign than I should have had.

Doing farming the traditional way involves a fair bit of planning: Ploughing the fields, getting the grain / vegetables to sow, going mass production (at least 3 fields), waiting for harvests, having cooking / baking equipment, baking the surplus grain / cooking the surplus vegetables you don't need and making sure you have animals to sustain you until you reach the point of economies of scale. All it takes is a smart aleck to take the action you need just before the harvest which can reduce you to begging on the roadside to feed your hungry family. This game is b-r-u-t-a-l.

All ready for that third new member of the family

We call this the noob board since its one of the boards that has spaces for you to put your resources, as you can see Da Panda loves lamb

This is Milo just before she pulls off a two room extension to her Wooden Hut, she was particularly confused about the distinction between room & hut, future Agricola lawyers beware

I notice that people tend to pay a little too much attention to the occupations / minor improvements cards when they're available. Whilst it is a nice touch to add variety to games, it is more of a distraction strategy wise which I'm afraid Da Panda & Milo fell into. I managed to make sure I had 2 Fields and extra room to take advantage of an additional family member once the Family Growth action was available and had the Potter occupation (turn 1 Clay into 2 Food each harvest) to help things until I was able to achieve... this:

4 Fields and 1 harvest later... ...

The biggest sardine sandwich in Agricola with only 10% sardine content

I think you have to take advantage of the additional family members once its available which Milo & Da Panda didn't really do because the harvest just comes too fast towards end game and you're scrabbling to find food to feed your family if you're caught unprepared.

Time Taken: 100 minutes

Results Of Game
Winna – Nitsuj (43 Points)
2nd – Milo (20 Points)
3rd – Da Panda (17 Points)

My best result yet, in fact ever. Mo's highest score was 41 points (he's gonna be itching for another fight)

Milo did well except I think she focused more on renovating her home which doesn't give a whole lot of points really

Da Panda's damage control efforts were pretty decent, at least she sure got a lot of lamb for food

Comments:
Da Panda & Milo
"This is better than Le Havre as it is not as complicated."

Nitsuj
"I'm glad to have been able to pull off the long term strategy this once but I suspect it will not be as easy the next time once people wise up to it. I was a little disappointed that they thought it better than Le Havre. I personally feel that Agricola is just more screwy... oh, so that's why they prefer Agricola."

Rating: 8/10

Oh yes... and as usual Da Panda's parting comment is:
"Now I know how to play the game already. Next time we should play this because I'm sure to win it."

Challenge accepted.

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