After a breakfast here in the hotel this morning, I went for a stroll to see what is near the hotel.  I wandered into the KLCC shopping complex, a very modern western-style mall with an interesting mix of local flavor and name-brand stores.  I managed to resist the Starbucks - who needs a hot latte when it is 90 deg outside?

My friend Trevor took some time out of his Sunday to get me acquainted with the area.  We talked for a while about our business plans for the week, then proceeded to visit some of the tourist spots near my hotel.

Trevor has a new office (he shares with our regional partner) in one of the Petronas towers, so we took the elevator up to the 50th floor for some fantastic views.

Trevor and I hopped in a taxi to go see the Menara Kuala Lumpur, a very impressive telecommunications tower.  At the top I listened to an audio tour that describes the skyline from various vantage points.

One of the interesting views was of Dataran Merdeka, named after the Malay word for independence.  You can see the very large flagpole to the left of the field - it was here at midnight on August 31, 1957 that the Union Jack was lowered for the last time and Malaysia (then Malaya) became an independent state.

The rains come like clockwork here each day around 3-4pm.  At 3:15pm today, a tropical thunderstorm rolled through.  As of 5:00pm, it is mostly clear again.

Yesterday (2 days ago?) I made the long journey from Portland to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I departed PDX about 9:45am on Friday morning, flying to SFO.  Thanks to United's much improved wireless access (thanks TMobile) I was able to catch up on quite a bit of work in the Red Carpet lounges in both PDX and SFO.  At about 1pm I boarded the 747-400 in SFO to fly to Shanghai, China.  It has been over three years since I did a flight of this length - over 14 hours.

The impressive Shanghai airport.

We arrived in Shanghai about 6pm local time (did you know that all of China has the same time zone?) - this is where some confusion set in.  The kind flight attendants on the United flight assured me that I wouldn't have to clear customs in China if I was simply transferring to another international flight (turns out I was the only one on this flight doing so!).  So I didn't bother to fill out the immigration and customs paperwork.  The agent that processed my check-in at PDX had been a bit ambiguous about what would happen to my luggage in Shanghai; I think it is unusual for people to connect to China Eastern.

Upon departing the plane, I was pretty worried about my luggage and I had a couple of hours, so I proceeded to baggage claim to see if it showed up there.  Of course it did, so I grabbed it and tried to follow the signs to international transfers.  The agent there insisted that I need to go through customs and check in upstairs at the desk.  I am heading to Beijing after my stay in KL, so I have a Chinese visa in my passport - this made clearing immigration and customs very straightforward.  But what if I didn't have a visa (which would have been the case if I had only been traveling to KL)?  I was able to check in for my flight, but before heading to the gate I had to come up with an airport tax of 90 Yuan RMB.  This seemed much more complicated than it needed to be, and I'm still wondering if there was a way to deal with this without passing through immigration.

Still, I made it to KL without a hitch, arriving at 2:15am local time, and finally arriving at my hotel around 4:00am.  I had managed to sleep for about 6 hours total on my two flights (over a 24 hour period), so I didn't need a ton of sleep.  This was good, as my rest was, well, restless but at least I managed 3 hours of sleep.

We are in the tropics here, so things are quite warm, and I woke up to a fairly hazy Sunday morning.  Today is a day of rest and, hopefully, some recreation with my colleague Trevor who is stationed here.

Julie's mom Jan was in town for most of the week, which is spring break for the kids.  Papa David also arrived in town today, and Jan/David headed for the coast for an overnight stay.  Tomorrow morning I head to Malaysia and China for about a week for some business travel.  I'm taking the new camera with me so needed to empty the pictures off the memory card.  Here are some of the results!

I recently picked up a copy of Union Pacific from my friend KC - a remake of the great game Airlines that I was able to play about a year ago with Doug and Mimi.  We are all very fond of these stock acquisition games (very reminiscent of Acquire), so this was a winner.  Jacob gives it a 9, Matthew an 8.

I gave the new version of Puerto Rico Online a try last night.  Overall I was very impressed.  The interface isn't great, but is still much better than the one at BSW.  What I like the most about it is how quickly I was able to get online and jump into a game.  This is because this version supports computer AI players.  Oddly enough, and I could be wrong here but I'm pretty sure I saw this happen, human players can join in after a game has started and replace a computer player.  The AI appears to be fairly weak, but I suspect it will improve over time.

This will be a rather long session report - there was a ton of gaming going on last Saturday at Mike's, mostly due to the unusually large crowd of 12 people.  Jacob joined me, but for the first time we didn't actually plan any games together.

Oasis

First up was Oasis.  Mike was interested in another play (I first taught him at Game Storm a while back), and KC and George were eager to learn.  This is a very easy game to teach so we were on our way quickly.

The key frustration I (and apparently others) have with this game is the potentially debilitating random card draw when making offers.  The next time we play this game we will try with open hands.  Perhaps this will lead to too much analysis, but it is certainly worth a try.  This would allow players to tailor their offers and better manage their hand size.  Of course it will certainly break the game in unforeseen ways.  In this game KC had a great showing, amassing a large quantity of steppes and the corresponding horse scoring tiles.  He finished around 190, and I was the closest to him with around 120.

Railroad Dice

I was a bit disappointed to see this come out at a time when I couldn't play it - this is one I've been wanting to try.  Feedback was mixed, but I think all players were interested in another try.  Patrick, Dave, and Chuck played; I believe Dave came out ahead.

Comments from Dave: A fun system that's right up my alley. Time will tell whether it's a *good* system. My fears about the "game arc" were reflected in Doug Adams' BGG comments, where he suggests that the game will usually end before folks start buying shares before companies change hands. In our game, the income was tilted heavily in the favor of Chuck and myself, and, with both of us receiving high income from two companies each, I was able to end the game by breaking the bank. Thumbs Up for now.

Attika

Ken, Brandon, and Jacob showed up a bit late and decided to dive into a game of Attika.  This was the first game I've seen where a player one by completing all of their buildings, a task accomplished by Ken.

During the Oasis game KC was mounting some cards for one of his prototypes, so he enlisted some help from Peter, Erik, and Mike.

Andromeda

Peter brought out his copy of this classic game and taught it to Ken, Brandon, Jacob, and Erik (his son - not sure if he had played before).

Northwest Trek

While waiting for Railroad Dice to complete, KC and I taught George how to play one his newest prototypes.  The theme of this Cairo-tile laying game (I first talked about it here) is pretty cool - players manipulate photography teams trying to collect snapshots of wildlife in a conservation park.  This game is simple to learn but has enough depth to keep it interesting.  After 3 plays I'm anxious to get my own copy.

As always, the quality of KC's prototypes are on par with many commercially produced games.  George clearly caught on quickly and managed to win this one.

Amun Re

This was the one larger game I was able to play on Saturday, and is one of my favorites.  This was my first play with five players since the first time I ever played the game about a year ago.  I played a reasonably strong game, staying close to the lead at the end of the old age and hanging in to contend in the final age.  I was flush with income in the old age, but ended up being on the wrong side of the sacrifices second time around and spent my time struggling to keep up.  Fortunately I managed to draw a few build-for-two-bricks power cards, allowing me to stay ahead in the pyramid race on one side of the Nile. Dave had the opportunity to surpass me, but didn't think I would be ahead of him at the end and took his chance on another card.  The card was worthless, and Dave and I ended up in a tie for second, one point behind Mike who won the game.  Tons of tension in this game as it came to a close - very enjoyable.

Comments from Dave: Argh, I could have won if I were less aggressive with my final bid, or the bid before that one. No one ever contended much in the bidding rounds, despite many low bids.  I still don't like this game. There's not enough interaction, and the purchasing of items is busy work. Thumbs Down.

Magic: the Gathering

Erik was happy to take on all comers in Magic, and I'm fairly certain he won every match he played.

Heimlich & Co.

This is a great Wolfgang Kramer, hidden information game. Peter, Ken and the boys all played. The green Spy was the first to 42 points, but was un-owned by any of the players, but Peter's blue spy was next, winning the game (now how did they know, no-one was green?)

Magdar

One of the FFG silver box line by Kevin Wilson (WarCraft). A light mining game, were the board slowly/(quickly) is destroyed. Peter added the Second Age Expansion which makes the 3 stone tile stronger and adds two new special tiles, and one additional row to the game, all of which lengthens the game (It needs it) . Ken, Brandon, Erik & Matthew dug away furiously but with four players this is very hard to control anything. In the end Brandon won going away.

Tipsy Tower

This was a new Goodwill find (Complete and unopened for $1.99) by Peter. This is a pretty good dexterity game, where you try to be the first to place all your men on the tower. This game has several chaotic elements, the men do not have flat bases, the tower has many levels and is top heavy (and adjustable) and the marble ballast moves. The result is can quickly spin out of control throwing men all over the place. Several games were played but the winners were not recorded.

Die Mauer

This was my final play of the day - Peter introduced this short game that has a key element that I'm learning to hate in some games.  Similar to Hoity Toity, this game is about guessing what your opponents will or won't choose to do.  In the words of Dave, my only strategy in games like this is "I'll play randomly."

Comments from Dave: Never played this one before. My manipulation of the group psychology was masterful. g:-P The design is a bit too bared-bones for my tastes, but I'd play it again if asked. Thumbs Up.

Linie 1

This game was getting started as I left - no word on the final results.

Comments from Dave: An old favorite of mine, but I've always played with the Streetcar ending rules. I much prefer the Linie 1 rule, as it gives you incentive to build long (and not necessarily direct) segments that don't pass by any stops. Top Shelf.

A while back I raised the quandry “should I get a Digital Rebel”.  Well, about a week ago Julie and I took the dive and we are starting to get some nice results.  I spent some time Sunday morning playing with the automatic and manual settings - this camera operates just like the old Eos Elan but much better.  Of course the amazing part is the instant feedback from settings to a viewable image - a much better way to learn and adapt.

This was taken with the zoom lens.

Patrick Korner does a nice job interviewing Martin Wallace of Age of Steam fame (and others).  My favorite quote:

Martin Wallace: This is by design. Warfrog cannot compete with the big German companies for the lighter end of the market - tried and failed with Stockers to do that. However, the big German companies cannot afford to do the heavier games, their overheads are far too high. The odd heavier games that do get released by German companies are almost vanity projects - they know they won't make much money but they help to maintain a reputation among the spielfrieks. I make a little money from Warfrog but there is much more to be made designing lighter games for the German companies.

Time to jump on the bandwagon.  I've seen a number of postings of where folks have been using the cool map service at World66.  So here's my story.  First, the places I've been:

Wow. I need to find some time to visit the last few remaining states I haven't visited. I've also lived in a lot of those states (lived == more than 2 months residency.  Don't miss the blip in Washington DC):

Here's my world map. Soon I'll be able to add Malaysia, Singapore, and China to the list:

Been a while since I posted some family photos, so here are a few I thought were more than worthy.

Last Sunday I ran the annual Pack 710 pinewood derby.  I once again demonstrated my mechanical proficiency, doing my best to help ensure that Jacob and Matthew's cars barely made it past the finish line.  I really need to hire some outside consultants next year.

A strange title for a post, but I've spent the last week reading (and re-reading) the rules for Europe Engulfed in anticipating of a trial short scenario play with Jacob.  One thing I love about “German” or “European” style board games is that they are very approachable - I can usually learn and teach the game to the family within an hour.

Wargames like EE take a real investment to learn - ideally you can be taught by someone who already knows the game, but I don't have that luxury.  So right now I'm in the process of reading the rules, checking the errata online, looking at the map (conveniently setup on my dining room table - Julie just loves that), and re-reading the rules.

Of course, reading Chris Farrell's recent post makes me believe it will all be worthwhile.