Julie and I hosted an all-day gaming event/party at our home in Sherwood on Dec 13.  I invited all of my usual gaming buddies plus the folks over at Rip City Gamers, a local gaming group.  I also took the opportunity to invite a few folks from work that are into boardgames.  The result was about 20 people at our house from 1pm until the last straggler left around 11pm.  There were a ton of games played.  I'll provide a lot of pictures here along with links to the games, but I can only provide commentary on the games I played.  In the future I might adopt a system like Greg Schloesser's - he hands a slip of paper to each group of players playing a game and has them write a brief summary, final scores, and player ratings from 1-10 for the game.  This makes for much more complete session reports, and he has some great data to track game quality (and we love data, right?).

Liar's Dice

Dave and George showed up promptly at 1pm, so we started with a game of Liar's Dice until more folks arrived.  Of course as soon as we would start to play, new people would arrive and so we would stop, explain the rules, and start over.  By the time we actually started the real game, we had 10 people playing (I used both a Liar's Dice box and a Perudo set to give enough cups and dice).  To accelerate the game, we played the following variants:

• If you lose a challenge, you lose a number of dice equal to the delta between the bet and the actual.  So if I bet 10 5's but only 8 are on the board, I lose 2 dice.
• If the bet is exactly correct (e.g., I bet 10 5's and there are exactly 10), then all players beside the bettor lose a die.

Some people dropped out quickly due to bad luck (when there are 50 dice in the game, it isn't hard to miss by 5 die). The game wrapped up in about 30 minutes - I think it was down to me and George at the end, with George coming out on top.

Triple Crown

George brought out this vintage (1988) horse racing game - Dave, Jeremy, and I joined in.  Each player gets a horse and secretly writes down whether he hopes to win, place, or show in the race.  Three races are played in all (hence the name of the game).  Starting gate order is determined randomly for each race.

On each turn, the player with the horse in front (ties go to the horse on the outside) goes first.  The player can choose from any of three dice (slow, medium, or fast).   If you use the slow dice, you get a payoff coupon that pays a great return for win, place, and slow.  The fast die, of course, will get you farther but with a lower payoff.  So the basic idea of the game is to first decide how aggressive you want to be (your secret goal) then to move at an optimal speed where you maximize your position and payoff.

There is still the random element of the die roll, and it bit me twice.  In two of the three races, I was three or four spaces away from the finish line.  I made the decision to use a slower die that gave me a 5 in 6 chance of crossing the finish line but would of course provide a better payoff.  Both times I rolled the lowest number possible, didn't cross the line, and saw my opponents' horses cross in front of me.  I ended the triple crown with no money, and George won the overall crown.  I'm no Seabiscuit.

Carcassonne

Kevin and Mike played a game of Carcassonne while Jim watched.  Jim is very new to these sorts of boardgames and is quickly getting indoctrinated.  For some reason my kids don't enjoy this game so I rarely get to play it.  This game included a huge set of tiles, including Rivers, Inns & Cathedrals, and Builders & Traders.

Medina

Yes, yet another time where I get to watch someone else play this game without ever trying it myself.  Next time I game with Kevin I'm going to play it!

Bridges of Shangri-La

This new Uberplay game was brought out - very nice looking.  The game is not getting the best reviews - in fact, some folks on spielfrieks are saying it is one the bigger disappointments of the year.  I still would like to try it and judge for myself.  Jeremy won, followed by Kevin, Mike and Jim. Mike really likes this game. It is fairly easy to teach, yet some thought is required. “I find it in the same mold as Trias, another of my favorites, which also requires some thinking. I guess that is what 'dry' means!“

Piratenbucht

Aaarrrgh!  This favorite of Matthew's came out, and I quickly taught Brandon, Kara, and Kim how to play.  For such an apparently simple game, the rules are a bit complex and there is much to remember.  I haven't yet tried the newer English language Days of Wonder version.

Puerto Rico

This game started around 1:30pm and went on for at least two hours.  I can't remember who won, but Jacob told me he finished in last place, way behind the leader Doug.

Corsairs

I tried to teach this quickly to George, KC, and Kim, then realized I just hadn't played enough to have the rules locked down in my head.  Luckily KC is good with rules and quickly caught the rest of the group up.  This is an OK game - fairly simple to play, but it hasn't come out much since I bought it last spring.

Metro

Bill brought this transportation game - I'm dying to try it, but didn't get a chance this day even though it was played twice.

Settlers of Catan - Cities and Knights

Much of my time was spent playing the Cities and Knights expansion to Settlers of Catan.  I've been playing the online version quite a bit lately and when Bill suggested this I jumped at the chance.  So Julie, Bill, Wendy and I settled down for a game - this expansion can take quite a while to play - ours lasted around 2.5 hours.

This expansion adds a number of elements to the basic game of Settlers:

• Periodically the barbarians invade, so players must recruit knights to protect their cities
• Commodities (essentially finished goods derived from basic resources) are produced from some of the cities in addition to resources
• Walls can be built that allow players to hold more cards in hand without being robbed
• Players can use commodities to upgrade their economies, giving additional benefits and potentially granting victory points

Despite the longer playing time, I like this expansion very much.  The main reason is that there are usually more options on each turn.  One thing I don't like about the basic game is that very often a player has nothing to do on a turn - not the case in this expansion.

I managed to win the race to 12 victory points.  I was awarded a couple Defender of Catan victory point cards plus I managed to get a Metropolis.

Foppen

I don't know much about this trick taking game by Friedmann Friese.

For Sale

After Foppen, Jeremy taught For Sale to the same group.  Don't know who won.

Wyatt Earp

I refreshed a few folks on the rules to this great rummy variant (my favorite).

Metro

Metro came out again.

New England

I purchased this recently but hadn't yet played my version - my first and only play was with the Arizona Boardgamers back in September.  It didn't disappoint - I really like this game.  It is very easy to learn, but I look forward to exploring different strategies.  I initially started to go for a pilgrim advantage, thinking that the early income would help and if I can maintain the lead it would be worth some nice victory points.  But KC was able to race ahead so I focused my efforts elsewhere.  I got some nice card draws that let me build 3- and 4- tile configurations, and I jumped into the lead.  I thought I had plenty of breathing room on the last turn, but just in case I built a barn to pull into a tie for the most with KC and Jim, nullifying their advantage.  I was lucky I did - I only ended up winning by a single victory point over KC.

What the Kids Did Most of the Afternoon

Just had to include this photo.  Jacob, Matthew, Brandon, and Kara played some games early on, then retired to the playroom for some good old fashioned make believe. 

KC's Prototype: New Eden

This was the highlight of the day for me.  KC Humphry has designed a very good game that I am eager to play again.  I'm running out of time here so I won't describe it in full - I hope to play again on Dec 29th, and if I do I'll write up a more detailed review.

Players take the role of leaders that are settling and terra-forming a new planet, competing with each other for geography and agriculture.  Players have farmers and workers - farmers place and harvest farms (surprise), while workers carry out activities specified on action cards.  There are some very creative mechanics in this game, and the use of action cards as some interesting choices and great flavor.

KC is a great teacher and was very patient as we picked up the basics and started to move into strategy and tactics.  I managed to win the game, but I suspect KC was pulling some punches with us newbies.  I can't wait to play this again and I hope KC finds a means to publish this game.

Sticheln

Ken, KC, and I wrapped up the evening with this perplexing trick taking game.  The game is perplexing because trump is always whatever suit is not lead, and because each player is trying to avoid taking tricks in their own chosen poison suit.  I never quit managed to figure out some of the tactics for how to play my cards - you do want to take tricks (that's how you score points), but it can be a challenge to dump cards on your opponents and avoid taking your own poison suit.  I'd like to play this again, though my initial impression was not as strong as Die Sieben Siegel.

Jacob, Matthew, and I sat down over a week ago to play another round of this Risk variant.  This was our first attempt at a three player version and we made some tweaks that ended up being quite painful for me.  The rules specify that in a three player game, two should play the evil side and one the good side.  I took on the good side.  What the rules don't say is that the two evil players should unite against the good player (i.e., it is supposed to be a free-for-all).  Well, I let Matthew and Jacob team up against me and it wasn't pretty.

Risk has enough issues with runaway leaders (the more territories you control, the more troops you get, so it is very hard to catch up once you fall behind) in a regular free-for-all, but this was out of hand.  I was lucky to conquer any territories at all during my turns, and that only left me more exposed to their attacks on subsequent turns.  In short order Sauron's and Saruman's forces swept over Middle Earth, dooming mankind and the other good races to an eternity of servitude and just plain bad times.  And its all my fault.

Jacob has the opportunity at school to do some extra projects (reading assignments, math, and now science).  He designed an experiment around plant growth with different watering conditions.  The question he wanted to answer was “how does the temperature of the air and water affect the growth of pea and bean plants.”  His hypothesis was that the plants would only grow with warm air and cool (not hot) water.  So he planted four seeds outside and four inside (two each of bean and pea).

He did some great work on this project, taking digital photos and tracking progress along the way.  He also did most of the computer work for his final report poster, including some nice work in Microsoft Publisher.  Here he is finishing the final report.

This game sat on my shelf too long - in fact, it was the only "big box" game remaining in my game closet that I had yet to play. I know, compared to many that isn't a bad track record - I've seen a number of game collections with 10 or more games still in shrink wrap.  Still, I'm a gamer not a collector and I want to play what I have.  Ken Rude and I arranged a late evening during the week where we could get together to try this one out.  Brandon, Ken's son, joined us for a three player game.

Serenissima is not a new game - it was released in 1996.  I picked up because, well, I'm still a wargamer at heart and I find it hard to resist games that can be played in a single sitting but still harken back to the days of youth playing Avalon Hill war games.  That's why Wallenstein is at the top of my list of games right now.

This is not exactly a wargame though - economy is at least as important, and it is through the trading and shipping of goods that money and ultimately victory points are earned. Each player takes on the role of one of the great nation-states on the Mediterranean - Venice, Genoa, Turkey, or Spain.  In a three-player game, Turkey is not played.  Each player starts with 2000 ducats, 10 sailors, and two galleys.  Each turn starts with bids to determine player order.  This turn order is used within each of the turn phases, which are:

1. Buy trade goods, build ships and fortresses, hire sailors
2. Movement
3. Combat
4. Capture and control ports
5. Sell goods and generate income

The goal is to control shipping ports and to fully populate their warehouses with a diversity of trade goods (there are 7 in all).  There are three kinds of ports - large (6 goods in the warehouse), medium (4), and small (2).  Players score 10 points for each large town with a filled warehouse, 5 points for each medium town with a filled warehouse, and 2 points for each small town with a filled warehouse.  Towns with unfilled warehouses score 1 point each, and if you control your main city you score 10 points.

Combat between ships or from ship to port is a function of the number of sailors on each side.  In ship to ship combat, each player attacks simultaneously and rolls a d6, adding the number of sailors on the galley to the roll.  Divide the result by 3 and round down, and that is the number of sailors on the opposing galley that are sunk.  It is possible to capture opponents' galleys if you eliminate their sailors and have enough of your own to move over and capture (each galley must have at least 1 sailor).

Within each galley there are five holding slots, and these can be filled with any combination of sailors or trade goods as long as there is at least 1 sailor and no more than five total items on the galley.  A ship's movement range is equivalent to the number of sailors.  So it is clearly an advantage in both movement and combat to have more sailors on board; however, this will limit the number of trade goods that you can carry around.  You can check out the complete rules right here.

Ken played Genoa, Brandon was Spain, and I played Venice.  Things started off nice a peaceful - I expanded east into Turkey and was getting a decent diversity of goods.  Ken capitalized on some goods that Brandon had not yet traded yet in any of his ports by trading that good to his major town.  Twice he earned a 1000 ducat bonus for these trades!  While it helped brandon populate his major town with goods, this was clearly a good move for Ken since it allowed him to quickly get an advantage in both ships and sailors.

As so often happens in three player games, the first to get aggressive often pays dearly.  I decided to attack an ill-defended port of Ken's (I believe it was one of his gold ports) and successfully capture it.  Unfortunately it brought on his wrath and not only did I lose that port back to him the next turn, I also lost two ships in the vicinity.

Ken played very well - he intuitively figured out (I suspect now that this is a common game strategy) to diversify his fleet by keeping some trade ships around with few sailors (usually 2) while building a separate fleet of combat ships with 5 sailors each.  These ships, with their extensive range, were able to wreak havoc on my ships and ports.  We decided to cut the game a bit short (I think we played only 8 turns instead of 10), and though I did a pretty good job of holding off his final attack, he did manage to take a port away from me at the end.  It didn't matter much though - Ken had filled a good portion of his medium ports (because of the shortened game, nobody got a completed large port) and beat us handily.  I don't have the final scores in front of me, but Ken beat me by at least 10 points, with Brandon finishing behind me by about 10 points.

Fun game - I suspect it can be played in 2-3 hours and I look forward to playing it again.  One criticism of the game is that it often follows the same pattern - trade or the first 2/3 of the game, then just start hammering the opponents by attacking.  Ours certainly played out the same way.

Eric Arneson just published his Top 10 Games of 2003 list.  I agree with many of his choices, though I haven't played all of the games he mentioned.  I especially appreciate his nods to I'm the Boss, New England, Mystery of the Abbey, Balloon Cup, and Battle Ball.  I don't think Battle Ball would have made my top 10 list, but it is a fun game, especially for one that has a mass market presence.  I'll have to publish my top 10 list shortly...

If you know me or read this site very often, then you know that I travel quite a bit.  So much so that I have a hard time using all of my frequent flier miles, particularly those I accumulate on airlines I use less like Delta and Alaska.  Operation Hero Miles is a great way to support our troops with almost no bureaucracy standing in the way.  Here's some information from their website:

In September 2003, the Pentagon started giving soldiers stationed in Iraq two-week leaves in the largest R & R program since the Vietnam War. Soldiers on R & R or Emergency Leave are flown by the military to Germany or three airports in the United States, Baltimore/Washington, (BWI), Dallas/FortWorth, (DFW), or Atlanta, (ATL ) for free.

The soldiers have been responsible for flights the rest of the way in the U.S. to their destinations, until Congress provided funding for this purpose on November 3, 2003. However, this funding is not yet available and may not be sufficient for all the troops or troops on "Emergency Leave".

More than 470 soldiers a day are arriving in the U.S.

Many soldiers on R&R leave must purchase high-priced last minute airfares to connect to their hometowns once their military flights land at the airports in Baltimore, Dallas or Atlanta. Soldiers on "Emergency Leave" must still pay the full cost of their domestic travel when they are rushed home for the family death, birth, illness or other emergency. The military does not pay the cost of their travel in the United States, so your frequent flyer miles are a huge help.

Americans have donated their unused frequent flyer miles to the Department of Defense to help troops travel home and spend quality time with their loved ones, without worrying about how much it will cost.

I just found a place to use my Alaska and Delta miles!

As I've mentioned before, I recently purchased a new iPod and a used iBook.  I also enrolled in the iTunes service to see what all the hype is about.  The idea of paying about $1 for singles is appealing to me.  There are quite a few artists out there with songs I like but I'm tired of paying 15 bucks to get just 2 or 3 songs I like.

Unfortunately, my first experience with iTunes wasn't all that great.  First off, I don't find the interface to be as spectacular is many others have claimed.  I find myself staring at the screen quite a bit trying to figure out what to do (particularly when it comes to the online store and maintenance of my account).  I chose 3 songs to purchase and download.  Unfortunately, they wouldn't load into the iPod because iTunes claimed it wasn't authorized to play the songs.  I suspected that this was related to the fact that I originally used the iPod with Windows and not OSX.

Around that time I upgraded the iBook to Panther, wiping the box clean with the exception of a few documents I had stored on the iBook.  I didn't backup the downloaded music.

This weekend I wiped the iPod clean and rebuilt the music collection from my library.  I then went back into iTunes to download my music again. I just assumed that once I purchased the music, Apple would track the purchase and allow me to download again at a future date (like Audible).  Wrong!  When you purchase from iTunes, you are getting a one-time download.  This means you better protect the content or you'll have to buy it again.  This is clearly written in the iTunes terms & conditions, but who reads those?  Lesson learned, and I'll make sure I protect the content in the future.

I sent a support request into Apple explaining my problem, and begging to get those three downloads again.  Here was their response:

The Music Store Team has carefully considered your request for a new download. As a gesture of goodwill, we have re-granted your download access for your order history.

Please note that this is a one-time exception to the iTunes Music Store's Terms of Service, which clearly states that you will be responsible for backing up your own system. In the interest of fairness to all customers, the Music Store Team will be unable to make additional exceptions for you. To download again, open iTunes 4 and select Check for Purchased Music from the Advanced menu.  

Very cool.  And I got this response just 24 hours after my inquiry.

Jacob and I cruised over to Kevin's last weekend for some Sunday gaming. Normally a long haul for us, it was very convenient this time because Jacob and I were able to get in some Christmas shopping for Julie and Matthew at the nearby shopping malls.  Jacob spent his own money on his gift for Matthew and was a great helper while we found a few items for Julie.

Kevin always has such a friendly crowd at his place, and the group is usually a good, manageable size (6-9 people).  Onto the games...

Condottierie

As the 'geek likes to say, this is a “card game that's masquerading as a board game” - a fun opener that almost always seems to end too quickly for me.  I'm sure this is partly because each game has been played with 1 or 2 first timers.  Players play cards to participate in an auction for provinces with a goal of owning three contiguous.  Most of the cards have face values, while a some can be played to double a player's bid, force each of the facecards to be worth only 1, or force an auction to end early.  Jacob set up the winning play this game by contesting a province adjacent to his that would give Kevin enough contiguous provinces to win the game.

Unfortunately not enough strength stayed in the hand, and I wound up 1 or 2 points short of Kevin's total (he had few but sufficient cards) and he won the game.

Medina

Domaine

Ahhh, Domaine... this one I've been wanting to try for some time.  Jacob and I saw a large format version of this at GenCon last summer, and since that time it has been on our short list of games to try.  So when the opportunity to play it came up, Jacob and I snatched the box and Sabrina joined us.

Domaine is a very spatial game (you can read an online tutorial).  There is a random layout in each game with the 9 land tiles (a fixed center), and players alternate placing each of their four castles on the board with an adjacent knight.  There are some special squares on the board - some help produce victory points (villages and forests), others produce income (mines), and then there are the meadows which are essentially empty space.  The goal of the game is to segment off chunks of the game board with borders, creating domains around your castles.

If you try and get too greedy and build a huge domain, it will either take too long or your opponent will just disrupt your plans.  Economy enters the game as players must pay gold to perform actions, which include training knights, building borders, or expanding an existing domain into an opponent's.  The card deck composition is creative - cards are labeled A, B, C, and D, and all of the “A” cards are shuffled together, then the B's, etc.  The A's are placed on top of the B's, B's on the C's, and the C's on the D's.  This creates a changing economic environment in the game.  For example, action cards to build borders are more common early in the game and often cost less than later in the game. The easiest way of getting money is selling your action cards - they have a sale price as well as an action cost (the selling price is always less than the cost).  Cards that you sell back to the bank go face up in a pool of cards that your opponents can then purchase back.

We made a few serious rules blunders during play (I was teaching Sabrina and Jacob how to play while I taught myself), the most serious being how knights are handled.  Nobody was building knights early on because we missed the rule that said you can only expand into someone else's domain if you have more knights in the expanding domain than in the opponent's.  This is obviously a critical reason to recruit knights, and without this understanding it doesn't make much sense to ever hire a new one.  We pointed out to Kevin how worthless the knights seemed, and he quickly corrected us.  This came just as the domains were getting completed, so there ensued a rush to build knights.  We also missed the rule that you can't steal a knight adjacent to a castle (hence the configuration you'll see below in the end game).

I held a fairly healthy lead for a while, but Jacob and Sabrina came on strong as they began to complete their domains.  I pulled out the victory by expanding a domain and grabbing a resource monopoly at the end which pushed me slightly ahead in victory points (I was orange, Jacob blue, and Sabrina red).  This game is on my short to-buy list - after the holidays though (hey, it's Christmas - we shouldn't be buying stuff for ourselves!).

Clans

Kevin, Jim, Jeff, and Sabrina then played a game of Clans.  This is most definitely not on my to-buy list.  This is an abstract game with a fairly weak theme, and my one playing with Angela wasn't very enjoyable.  Maybe I should give it another try... but really, why, when there are some many games I like out there?

Aladdin's Dragons

A new guest arrived that I hadn't met before - welcome Greg!  Greg is an experienced gamer but hadn't tried Aladdin's Dragons yet, so I offered to teach it to Greg and Jacob.  I enjoy this game and will rarely turn down an opportunity to play it.  This game is an auction game with a few magical twists (artifacts and spell cards that can be used to disrupt auctions or alter the game mechanics).  Each player has a series of tokens numbered from 1 to 9 (minus the 3), and players take turns bidding face down with the tokens on a number of spaces (caverns where you can get gems, the town where you can get cards and other advantages, and the palace where you can get artifacts).  The player with the most artifacts wins the game.  The basic strategy is to acquire gems early on so that you can by artifacts as the game progresses.  This game is always pretty close when I play it, and this was no exception.  I managed to pull out the victory with one more tile than Greg, and two more than Jacob.

Time to flush the backlog of photos and other content.  As I mentioned before, Julie, Jacob, Matthew and I took the train to Seattle over Thanksgiving weekend.  We stayed at a hotel downtown and explored the area.  We did this 4 years ago and had a great time.  I was determined though to plan just a tiny bit more - we ended up having donuts for Thanksgiving dinner last time for want of an open restaurant.  This time we had a reservation at the Hunt Club restaurant and had a fine 5-course meal.  Julie and I opted out of the turkey for some finer offerings (prime rib and lamb).

On Friday we walked a couple of blocks over to watch the annual holiday parade.  The rain wasn't too bad and it was a fun diversion.  One interesting tidbit: I've been pretty critical of the Segway in the past, but I was proven wrong at the parade.  Look below for the perfect application of this amazing (?) technology.

Much of the time we just spent wandering around.  Seattle downtown is nicely sized.  We were able to roam from Pioneer Square to the piers to Pike Place to the shopping districts with no troubles.  Friday afternoon we did the Seattle Underground tour - highly recommded.

Saturday we played tourist and took a boat over to Tillicum Village.  We walked down to the piers from the hotel and hung out for a while until the boat left.

The village trip was a bit of a disappointment.  I should have expected as much, but for $65 for an adult, the food (salmon) should have been a bit better.  We did enjoy a short hike on the island, and the boat ride was a blast.  Matthew did like the somewhat hokey native American show after dinner.

One highlight of the weekend was a chance dinner at Fadó, an Irish pub.  A great menu, even for kids, and of course some tasty Guiness.  I had the fish and chips.

Thanks to my pack-rat friend Greg, I'm in the process of restoring most of my content.  Things will still be shakey for a while as my ISP stabilizes the environment.  I have a backlog of content to publish as well, including a glorious day of gaming yesterday where we had about 19 people at our home.