2 Weeks of Tuesday Nights

Well, I've been a little lazy and haven't posted in some time...so let's correct that.  I have two weeks worth of gaming to talk about, from our regular Tuesday night game nights...

Two weeks ago we had one of our larger crowds, with eventually seven of us turning out.  Before everyone got there, Brian G., Paul O., Glenn W. and myself got in another game of The Great Heartland Hauling Co.  I've blogged about this game recently in two posts - here and here.  Not much more to say this time, other than I enjoyed my first 4-player game.  I was teaching two newbies, and Paul O. hadn't played since last WBC, so we just played the basic game.  Again, I'm itching to use the "inspansion" cards...

Next, Mike R., Stacy and Carson joined us for a 7-payer game of Pacific Typhoon.  This is an interesting card game, in the growing genre of "semi-cooperative games", in which players must work together during the game, but those alliances can fluctuate as the game goes on, with only one winner in the end.  Set in the Pacific theater of WWII (and the sequel to the earlier Atlantic Storm), Pacific Typhoon consists of two decks of cards - the battle deck, and the "force" deck.  On each turn, the starting player for that turn turns over two cards on the battle deck, and decides which of the historical battles represented he or she wishes to fight.  The other battle is discarded.  The starting player also determines some other info such as potentially the time of the battle (day or night) and whether it will be aerial, surface or undersea (or combined!)  Then each player needs to decide which cards from his hand of "force" cards he will play.  Note that each player will have a hand that consists of Japanese AND Allied cards, and on each turn he must decide which side to fight for.  This is the key element of the game, as it leads to a lot of table talk, and deals being brokered.  Cards are played, attack points totaled, and a winning side is declared.  The player who contributed the most to the winning side then gets to keep the battle card for points, and divvy up the spoils of war (i.e. the losers cards) as he sees fit.  There are more elaborate rules, such as which cards can be paired, and certain cards that cause automatic kills on other cards, cards that can only be played in certain years, etc.  The game continues until the entire battle deck has been emptied, and the winner is the player with most points from captured battle/force cards.

Now, I had a bad night.  I'm trying to not let that affect my opinion of the game.  In fact, it's a fun game, and the cards contain a wealth of historical information.  But it just wasn't my night, and I was stuck slogging through a 2+ hour game, in which I knew in the first 15-20 minutes that I had no chance of winning.  That's my big complaint this game - that it took too long.  I think this game is suitable for about 1 hour.  Now...we had a lot of newbies, and a few like me that hadn't played in a year or more.  So there was a learning curve at the beginning, and with more plays I'm sure we would be faster.  But I still might lessen the battle deck by about 10 cards (5 battles).

After Pacific Typhoon, Brian, Paul O., Carson and myself got in a game of Lords of Waterdeep.  Not much to say about this one - Brian won by completing 11(!) quests that were all relevant to his lord.  I'm beginning to believe more and more that concentrating on completing as many low to mid-level quests is the way to go.  Sure, those 25 point quests are nice...but they take a lot of work.  I still enjoy Lords of Waterdeep quite a bit, but I've played it a LOT in the last year or so, and I'm definitely looking forward to the expansion. 

OK, fast forward a week, and I managed to get in two more games.  I was running late, and missed a game of The Walking Dead between Brian, Carson and Mike R.  Once I got there, and they finished up, we settled on a game of Airlines Europe.  I first discovered this game at Prezcon 2012, and enjoyed it so much that I bought a copy.  Unfortunately, it hasn't made it to the table a lot, and I was glad to get a chance to play it again.  At first glance, it looks like a "Ticket to Ride with airplanes", but gameplay is radically different that TtR.  In this game, you are an investor, buying stocks in different airlines, and working to make those airlines more lucrative.  Since more than one player can own stock in an airline, multiple players can be working together to drive up the value of airlines, all while trying to become the majority stockholder.  It's a very interesting mechanic, and leads to some interesting player interaction.  In our game, I managed to pull out victory by being the majority stockholder in 3 of the highest valued airlines.  This one needs to get to the table more!

Lastly, we played a game of Kingsburg, which was new to me.  I've heard of Kingsburg before, and know that is has a relatively good reputation, so I was interested in trying it.  This is a "dice placement" game, in which you roll 3 dice, and place them on a board in order to take advantage of various "advisers".  Typically they enable you to collect resources, which then enable you to buy certain buildings...which then allow you to bend the rules in certain ways.  The game is played over 5 turns, with each turn consisting of 4 seasons...the winter season being where you have to fight off invading monsters.  This threat of the monsters at the end of each turn has you scrambling to build buildings that give you defense or use your precious dice rolls to hire guards.  The various tiers of buildings offer you different benefits, like any euro, you have too much you want to do, and not enough time to do it in.  I enjoyed the game, and the dice rolling mechanic was fairly novel, but I was not blown away by it.  I think Brian hit it on the head at the end when he stated that he never felt like he was building his town.  You marked your buildings on a grid-style board, and that was it.  This is another in the category of "I'll play it again, but I won't push for it". 

Great Heartland Hauling Co. revisited

In an earlier post I commented on my first play of The Great Heartland Hauling Company, by designer Jason Kotarski, published by Dice Hate Me Games.  In that post, I commented that I had been looking forward to the game, but was a little disappointed in the experience.  Specifically, I was a little unsettled by the mechanic where you HAVE to move at the beginning of your turn, and I felt it was a little out of theme.  I speculated that early prototypes had likely involved being able to pick up/deliver before meeting.

Well, Jason, the designer, replied to me on twitter.  "No prototypes involved being able to pick-up/deliver before moving. Forward motion creates tension."  Furthermore, on the theme, his comment was "Thematically, my thought has always been; truckers are on the go. Gotta keep in the road to make $$$."

Well, I had been thinking more on my early impressions, and I wanted to try it again, so I picked up a copy for myself (and let me just say again - I LOVE the "18wheeleeples").  After it came in, I got a chance to play a 2-player game with my wife, Becky.

Let me say right off the bat, that I 100% agree with Jason's first comment - the forward motion does create more tension.  In fact, I think if you were able to pick up right in the same spot where you had delivered, it would be a much duller game.  So, from a game design aspect, I completely understand the rationale behind the mechanic, and think it was a smart decision.  Theme-wise, I still think I disagree with Jason somewhat.  In order to maximize $$$, you wouldn't make half your trips with an empty spots on your truck.  However, this is really a minor nit to pick.  Hobby boardgaming has exploded in the last decade or so - with a million games with a million themes.  A lot of them are very pasted on, while others excel in tightly knitting the theme to the game.  I think Great Heartland Hauling Co. falls somewhere in the middle for me.  I don't think I quite get fully immersed in "simulating" a trucker out to maximize profits...but the 18wheeleeples and card-created map which resembles the maps I used to love looking at as a kid on long road trips - they do provide quite a bit of atmosphere and thematic elements.

So, in the end, I'm glad I picked a copy for myself.  I can see it being a good "filler game" (and I mean that in a good sense) between meatier games.  I also see this getting more play time with Becky.  I will say, that like Ticket to Ride, I think this game plays better with more players.  It makes the game that much more tense having to worry about 2 or even 3 other players blocking you out of certain spaces.  But it's still a fine 2 player game.  With Becky, we just played the base game, but based on my first play of the game, I'm also still of the opinion that I like including the truck stop "inspansion" cards over just playing the base game. 

10-4 Good Buddy!

(Did I already mention that I'd like to see an expansion that comes with a little black trans-am meeple so you can play as "Bandit"?)

Containing the Hive, trucking through the Heartland, and Innovating through history

After taking a break for a week (sometimes "real life" gets in the way....sigh) I was back at the Game Parlor this past Tuesday looking for some gaming action.  Actually, nearly all of our "regular" group passed on this week as well...with the exception of Carson, who was running late.  That left me looking to join in some games with other folks at the store.  Unfortunately, it seemed to be a low turnout in general...but just as I was considering leaving, a fellow named Darren with whom we've played in the past came in, and asked if I was looking for a game.

Tower o' beetles!

Since I knew Carson would be arriving at some point, we decided on a quick 2-player game.  Darren introduced me to Hive, a clever little tile laying game.  The idea in Hive is to completely surround your opponent's queen bee - with tiles from either side.  So, you have to be careful not so endanger your own queen with your own tiles.  At the start of the game, each player lays down one tile, and they must touch.  Your queen must be one of the first 4 tiles you place, and you cannot place where it touches an opponents tile.  However, once your queen is placed, your hive becomes active, and your already placed tiles can move - and they can move to touch the opponents tiles.  There are several different bugs, and they all have different movement rules...but the key rule to the game is that the hive can never split, i.e. you cannot perform a move such that a single tile, or group of tiles becomes separated from the main hive.  This leads to useful defensive strategies like hanging an ant off the end of a key tile of your opponent such that they can't move that tile.  Despite the kind of silly theme, this is an interesting and deep game, and very chess-like.

Breaker 1 - 9, anyone got leads on Smokey the Bear?

 Carson arrived after we'd played a few games of Hive, and I spotted something in Darren's collection that I've been wanting to try for some time now - Dice Hate Me Game's The Great Heartland Hauling Company.  In this game, you play the role of a trucker hauling various resources (pigs, cattle, corn, soy) to and fro across the "Heartland", trying to sell the goods and make a profit - game end is triggered when one player reaches a certain dollar amount (i.e. score) - which is dependent on the number of players.  The game "board" is going to be unique every time, as it is created by placing a number of cards around a central "anchor" card.  Each of the cards has a primary resource that you can pick up, and 2 resources which they will buy for an annotated price - some places pay more for certain goods than others.  In the basic game, you essentially just make a grid of these cards, but you can set them in any design you want, really (which can make it more difficult).  You navigate across the map, and manipulate the resources on your truck by means of a 2nd deck of cards, from which you are constantly drawing up to a hand of 5 (Ticket to Ride style, where you can draw from face up cards, or randomly from the top of the deck).

This map configuration was...challenging...

On your turn, you must do 3 things, in this order - move, take an action, and then draw up to a full hand for next turn.  In order to move, you either play fuel cards from your hand (in values of 1, 2 or 3 which allow you to move that many cards), or if you have no fuel cards, you can pay $1 per space you want to move, up to 3 spaces.  You can pass through a card with another player, but you may not stop there.  On your action phase you can do one of three things - pick up goods, deliver goods, or pay money to discard and redraw new cards.  In order to pick up or deliver goods, you must play a card of that good type - one card per good.  And you can not mix goods.  As the game goes on, goods will end up on cards where they are not the prime resource...you can pick those up, at a cost of 2 cards per good.  Now, I want to highlight what I think is the key mechanic in this game.  You MUST move BEFORE picking up or delivering.  What this means, in essence, is that you cannot deliver a good to a spot, and then on your next turn pick up the good that they are "selling" there, to then deliver to another location.  So, you have to plan several turns in advance as you collect cards in your had, and what route you may take.  To be honest, I don't know how I feel about this rule.  It sort of breaks the theme for me...in that in real life, you typically wouldn't offload in one city, and then drive your empty truck over to the next city to load up on goods there.  I suspect that in original playtests of the game, you could pick up where you had dropped off, but I suspect that made the game pretty easy...it's definitely more strategic this way.

We played a 2nd game of "TGHHC", in which we used some expansion cards - two cards were locations that only bought goods, and didn't provide any - but they bought at premium prices.  The other cards we used were "truck stops", which were essentially cards that you could buy if you landed on them, which would allow you to break the rules of the game if they were in your possession.  For example, I ended up with a card called "sleeper cab", which enabled me to spend $1 to NOT move on a turn.  Unfortunately, I was never able to put that to really good use.  There are some other alternate rules that we didn't play such as road closures.  In short...I don't think I liked this game as much as I wanted to.  The whole thing about not being able to pick up in the same place as you just delivered was a real irritant.  On the other hand, I would like to play some more, using those truck stop cards...I think those push the game up a level.  And I really really liked the little 18-wheeler meeples (18-wheeleeples?) - I might have to pick up a copy just for those!

Moving into Age 3....

 Lastly, we played a 3 player game of Innovation.  In this card game, you are trying to build your civilization on various technical advances through 10 different ages.  There are 10 decks of card that represent the different ages.  You start with a hand of 5 (I think) cards, and on your turn, you can do one of the 3 things - "Meld", which is playing a card from your hand face up in front of you, on top of any cards of the same color, "Draw" - drawing a new cards equal to or possibly exceeding the highest "age" card you've played, or "Dogma", which essentially allows you to use the text of any card you have face up in front of you.  The cards are used for multiple purposes - they are used for their dogma powers, they all have symbols on them, which may allow you use another player's dogma actions, and they are used as points...which are then used to "buy" achievements - first player to 5 achievements wins the game.  The "dogma" actions are what really drive the game, and allow you to alter your various face-up cards, score points, screw with your neighbors (and boy can that happen a lot), etc.  I was really enjoying this game for about the first 3/4...and then it (literally) blew up.  Carson had fallen far behind.  Darren and I had multiple achievements, and he had none so far.  With much apologies, he decided to play the "Fission" card, which wiped out the face-up decks, and the points of every player on the board - and removed those cards from the game.  Darren and I still had our achievements, but with only a handful of Age 1 and 2 cards, and then leaping up to Age 8+, it was a strange climb back into the game.  It quickly became obvious that we weren't going to win by getting to 5 achievements, and the alternate rule is that when the Age 10 deck runs out, the person with the most points win.  But those higher age dogma effects get to be pretty crazy - one of them changed the winning condition to the player with the *least* amount of points.  And the "screw your neighbor" aspect ratchets up with those higher age cards.  In the end, Darren won by running out the Age 10 deck.  So...I don't know how I feel about this game...I want to play it again.  I think that the "fission" card may be a game breaker...but it did allow Carson to get back in the game (he actually tied for the win, but lost on tie breaker).  And I think those higher age cards may be a little too much "screw your neighbor"...but after one play, I'm not sure I can judge that so well.  There are games - like Dominion - that I knew after one play, weren't for me.  That's not the case with Innovation - I'm  a little wary...but I'd like to try it a few more times.