Civilization

Fantasy Flights Sid Meiers Civilization game has been on my wish list since it was released. I played the computer games and can remember many evening playing it and having "Just one more Turn".

The Board game version looked interesting, it was a distilled version of the game that took away a large part of the micro management and was getting favorable reviews. But I held off, I wasn't sure how often I would get to play the game and was unsure if Fantasy Flight had done a good job or just filled a box with as many cardboard bits as possible.

I picked up a copy as a Christmas present along with a copy of the expansion, Amazon had it for a good price and I was struggling to find gift ideas to suggest to family. I opened it up and looked through the masses of tokens, cards and boards. All produced to Fantasy Flights usual high standards. The bits looked lovely and the artwork worked really well.
I started on the rules and faltered, the rule book was well written but its quite big. Usually I start piecing the game together as I am reading the rules but as there were so many bits I hadn't started punching and bagging yet. Christmas celebrations came and went and I still hadn't finished reading the rules.

Then a night was set to play, I had 2 weeks to get my head around the game. I watched a couple of videos from the geek and started to bag the pieces. The rules were read and then reread again. I don't think I have read the rules to a game so many times in such a short period of time.

Last night the game hit the table, there were 4 of us and it was the first play for all of us. I had warned people in advance that it was going to be a long one and as the clock struck 8 the game started. I had spent the previous 20 Min's running through the rules and bits and anything we were unsure of or would need later we would deal with as and when the situation arised.

The game started smoothly enough, civilizations started developing and cities were being built. It really felt like you were playing a condensed version of the computer game. Analysis Paralysis did start to set in once we all got to 3 cities a piece but the pace of the game was still going well.

My Egyptians were doing well with there technology research and culture but I was starting to be harassed by two other players. I managed to research flight then built a stream of airplanes while researching as fast as I could. America was building up its culture and its cities were creating money and trade quite freely. Unfortunately China decided to nuke one of Americas cities which caused it to stall. Rome was doing well, its economy was moving along nicely and was getting to around 12 coins.
It soon became apparent that Egypt was going to win and two players decided to send there troops in to attack. I had luckily won a battle the previous round and take a much needed 3 points of trade to get my last level 4 technology. I just needed to hold my ground and not loose any trade this round.
China went first and made the mistake of dealing with an American battle first, he lost a few units but won the war. There were 2 battles against my cities but his depleted forces were no match to my air power and I won both battles. I then managed to research the final level 5 tech and win the game.

It was just passed midnight and we had been playing for 4 hours. It was a test of the game that we only went through one packet of crisps and 2 rounds of coffee. We were all hyped about the game that hunger and thirst were put to the back of our minds.
The story the game tells is brilliant, America will definitely not forget the nuclear attack from China, while its archers very tank battles would like to be forgotten.

Simply put I love this game, its going to get a 10/10 score and I cannot wait to play it again. Everything about it just works, the components are lovely. The rules are pretty straight forward once you have played a few turns and the varied victory paths make the game a good challenge.

Games of 2011

As the year is coming towards its end I thought I would post about the top 5 games that I have played this year. 2011 has been a cracking year for games, there have been so many good ones but these are my top 5.

1 A Few Acres of Snow - (My best 2 Player Game of the Year)
This has been my favorite game of 2011. I like most of Martin Wallace games and this one could be his best in my mind. Its a 2 player game that uses deck building mechanics and has a play time of about an hour. For me it fills the gap when there are 2 players who haven't got teh time for a game of Twilight Struggle.
I have played it quite a few times now and although its a little unbalanced for new players its definitely one that been asked for repeated plays.

2 Lord of the Rings the LCG - (Best Card Game of the Year)
Production and support on this one is great, which is understandable as its a Fantasy Flight Game. Its a solo or 2 player card game where you are trying to win an encounter by using a deck of cards. The game plays very well and you feel like you are actually controlling the characters from Middle Earth as you are trying to complete your chosen adventure.
Its been heavily expanded with monthly packs of cards. I don't have all of them but the ones I have picked up have added to the game.
I am now attempting to create some custom decks with the cards I have so there is still plenty of game here for me.

3 Quarriors - (Best light and Dice Game of the Year)
Mix up a deck building game with dice and you get Quarriors. Its a light game that plays very quickly. A 2 player game can take around 10 minutes. There is a high degree of luck in the game, but another game can be setup really quickly. It's probably the lightest game I have played this year but its short playing time has meant its been played the most.

4 Mansions of Madness - (Best production of the Year)
As far a box size goes this is the biggest I bought this year and for good reason. I love this game, its a Cthulu Mythos inspired game similar to descent. The boards and minis are brilliant and I have enjoyed every game of it. My biggest gripe with the game is the setup time. There are so many cards and counters this can take a while and you have to make sure you do it perfectly otherwise you will break the game. I haven't played this enough mainly for this reason. I like to set up the game ahead of time and I don't always get the time.
Expansions for this have started to appear and I expect to see a big box with more minis is in the pipeline.

5 Troyes - (Best Heavy Game of the Year)
I like dice games and this one get you rolling them quite a bit. But the luck factor is taken away as you can use other players dice for a cost. This is quite a heavy game and it takes a few plays for it to sink in. But once it does you will be playing a fantastic game.

Biggest disappointment of the year, generally I will play any game and see some good in it. The designer has put the time in to create the game and a publisher has invested in getting the final product to market. That said my biggest disappointment this year has been Barons. I liked Glory to Rome and expected something as good but the game just didn't work for me. It seemed a little too easy and would quickly end once players built churches. The cards and artwork seemed a bit too harsh and it came in once of CCG's trademark plastic boxes.

More Meeples for those Sea Monsters

I really like Survive as do most of the game groups I bring it to. The problem, it only plays with up to 4 players. So when a 5-6 player expansion hit the shelves it was a must buy, especially when its only a few quid.

The expansion comes in a little box and opening it up you get a whole host of little plastic meeples and some tiles. The meeples are nice, but they are not as good as the wooden ones in the base game. You also have to put numbered stickers on the base of all of them which takes a while. When playing with 5-6 players you use different combinations so as to even things out. Reading the numbers on these new meeples is much easier than the base games which is good. I just wish they had kept up with the wooden ones.

The tiles were a bit of a mystery, but reading the rules that came with it there was apparently a printing problem with the first run. One of the mountain tiles was left with white border so players could quickly figure out what tile it was. These replacements are used to resolve this. Not sure about this, were they free or am I actually paying to fix someone else problem?

Happily the game plays quite well with 6 players. It's always going to be a bit of a bun fight but with more players it does become a little more hectic. Meeples are very quickly dispatched by an assortment of monsters swimming the shores of a shrinking island. It's a fun game and one that you can't really take too seriously. In my last game I lost every single meeple under my control. I was doing well at the start, head down and happily being ignored by all the other players. Then things turned nasty when they all realized I had not lost a meeple. One by one they were eaten, drowned or sucked under by a whirlpool.

To spice things up we had also decided to play with the Giant Squid expansion. This adds a number of large white squid to the game. These can be particularly nasty as they can pluck poor meeples off of beaches and out of boats. Nowhere is safe! As an expansion goes its pretty small and cheap and a great accompaniment to the 5-6 player expansion. It just adds to the fun and chaos.

So Survive continues to be a popular game and its nice to see that the mini expansions that have been so far released have added just enough to the game. It's not changed drastically or made things more complicated. It's just given you the opportunity to kill off more players meeples in different ways.

Domain in space......

Gaming has been mental the last month, both face to face gaming and on the web. A lot of new games have hit the table but I wanted to chat about just one for now.

Eminent Domain has hit UK stores and after a demo I picked up a copy. Its been touted as a space version of Dominion, and although it does have deck building elements I feel that it is more than just a Dominion clone.

Game play is very simple, there are 6 different base cards in the game. With each having its own Action and Role ability. All players start with the same distribution of these cards as well as a home world. You then shuffle and draw 5 cards from your starting 10.

The first thing you have to do is decide which card you are playing and use its action section. This action only affects you and can range from warfare cards which give you fighters, to survey cards which add more cards to your hand.

You then pick another card to play, but this time instead of one from your hand you take one from the piles of cards in the center of the table. This acts as the timer mechanism, the game will end when a number of piles are empty. This card is now played for its role ability. Most of the time its the same as the action but usually the person picking the card gets a bonus or different effect. Every other player can now discard cards of the same type to also use that action. So for example if I chose the colonize card I can now tuck it under a planet to go towards its colonization cost. If I also had 2 more of these cards in my hand I can also put them down. Other players that also have colonize cards can also put them into play. If they don't or don't want to use them they take a card from there deck instead.

Finally you discard and draw back to 5. Pretty simple so far.

The only part of the game which can slow things down is the research action, if you have enough of these cards and choose the research role you can take a research card. These are limited in number and give you different actions or effects. Usually altering or improving the strategy your are playing. For example the improved warfare allows you to build more fighters. You can play without these cards if you want a more basic game, but if you have played any deck building game before there's no reason not to put them in.

Planet cards are discovered with survey cards and can be either settled using colonization cards or forcibly controlled using warfare. Once the requirements have been met the planet is yours to use. Planets will usually allow you to produce and trade resources for victory points. They will also be worth points at the end of the game. Finally you will need more matching planets to research the higher tech levels. So planets are what you are aiming to get in front of you throughout the game.

The game plays well, once players have got there heads around the action/role differences they should be getting to grips with the game. What I like is that you can always choose the role you want, so your never really stuck trying to work your strategy. If you don't have a colonize card in your hand but want to settle a planet, just pick one from the table as your role.

Component wise this game is lovely, good strong box, good looking artwork and loads of lovely plastic fighters. Tasty Minstrel have really put together a good game here.

I am hoping that there will be a future expansion, it's crying out for ways to trade with other players attack there planets and steal technologies. As well as more technology cards and different planets there is quite a bit of scope for the game.

Lego

I am happy to play any game. I might not be good at some of them but I am still happy to pull up a chair and give it a go. I also find it difficult to give a game a really low score on the geek. Generally I feel like there might be something in there and someone has spent the time on putting a game together and getting it published.

Every once and a while comes along a game that I really have problems with and last weekend it was Lego Creationary. My kids like Lego, they seem to get more and more every year and are happy to build whatever there imagination creates. A couple of years ago Lego came up with a range of games, we picked up a few of the cheaper games and they were pretty good. Usually roll and move or roll and pick type games. Nothing ground breaking but they are fun and the kids enjoy them.
Creationary on the other hand is just terrible, the concept is quite good. Mix up pictionary with a box of lego and you have a new build and guess game. Players roll a dice then pick a card from one of the 3 piles of cards. Each card has 4 different objects to build on it, one for each colour on teh dice. So if you rolled a yelloe you would build the yellow transport object, green the nature object. The piles are supposed to be in different ability levels so the objects should be harder to build.

All sounds good so far, rules are a bit light with players getting a "determined" amount of time to build. We went for 5 mins, not wanting to drag things out. The ability levels of cards don't score any more or less points. I decided to handicap myself by using the level 2 cards while the kids went for level 1. I quickly changed to level 1 for the reasons below.

There are 2 major problems with this game, the amount of Lego you get just isn't enough. Not only are you limited with the amount of pieces but also the colours. My first object was a bee, easy I thought until I realized there were no black pieces in the box. I had to substitute brown for black. This happened a couple of times, Flynn got a tiger and started building one. Quickly telling us the yellow was actually orange. He ran out of pieces after building 4 legs.

Teh second issue I have with teh game is the objects. The Arc de Triumph maybe a great site in Paris but its difficult for a 7 and 8 year old to know what it is. Model T Ford, its a car!. Well yes, i'll give you that. You see a Lego car looks like a Lego car. Especially when you only have 4 big wheels and 4 tiny wheels in the box. How are kids supposed to know the difference between a transporter plane and a passenger plane. It's tough and there were a few moments when they both yelled airplane.

So, Lego Creationary is a good idea but poorly implemented. I would love to see the design team make all of the models on the card using the Lego in the box. I know that you could argue about cost and such but I think they fell short here.
The card design needs a little help, adding the names of things would also help and teach them a little as well.

Will I play it again, probably. The kids seem to enjoy it and I like to get involved but I think there will be some tweaking along the way. The best thing about the game is that the cards have sparked there imagination with other things to build which is a bonus.

It's a bit chilly

This week is shaping up nicely on the gaming front. Monday saw Quarriors getting played along with A Few Acres of Snow, tonight should see more games being unboxed and hopefully Quarriors will get another outing.

I enjoy playing wargames, but as much as I enjoy playing combat Commander I usually prefer to play something that plays a bit quicker. Memoir 44 usually wins here, probably because its quick to play and with the overlord bits can take more than 2 players. If a wargame is on the cards its usually been booked up in advance, playing a 3 hour Twilight Struggle doesn't usually just happen.

This is where A Few Acres fits in nicely, its a 2 play war game that uses cards to perform actions. It should only take about an hour to play and it has enough depth and strategy to keep it going for a while. It's not going to replace Twilight Struggle as my favorite 2 player war game but I can definitely see it being played more often.

The game follows the war over modern day Canada, with players taking the roles of either the British or the French. They both start with a number of settlements and to win the game have to either take the opponents capital or use up there settlements. Scoring then happens and the one with the most points wins the game.
Each settlement is represented by a card, as you settle you add more cards to your deck. In addition you can buy other cards to help with your money, military and settlement actions. These cards have symbols on allowing you to use them to perform actions. For example, if you wanted to settle a location you would have to play a card that connected to that location. Then another card showing the correct travel symbol. Finally a third card with a settlers symbol on it. Cards played are then put on the discard pile and you draw back to 5. This is only one possible action of many available to the players. The first time I played I was slightly overwhelmed with the options available to me. Settle, raid, siege, fortify, generate income, put cards in reserve .... getting the right combination of cards to perform the actions is a different matter.
There is an element of deck building going on, as your deck increases with cards from new settlements and other cards you purchase, but only drawing back to 5 at the end of your turn can really hinder you.

Our first game was a bit of a learning one, I won but we realized that the game should have ended a fw turns earlier. We also realized that we were too busy trying to expand and siege each other to think about how we would score in the end. That said it was a really good game, we were left discussing it for a while afterwards. Thinking about what we had done right and wrong and how we always seemed to be limited in what we could do. There were times I was desperate to expand but just couldn't get the right cards in hand. Realizing now that I should have been using the reserve action a bit more often. But then I would have needed more money.......argh!

So, A Few Acres is a very good 2 player wargame. But I think labeling it as a wargame could put people off, is Twilight Struggle a wargame? Both games are set around a time of conflict but there are no combat tables and piles of dice being rolled.

I really think Martin Wallace has come up with a great game here and its one of my favorite games of the year so far.

It's all about the dice.

Dice, you either love them or hate them. They also seem to come and go into fashion in the gaming world, and at the moment it looks like they are definitely coming back.

Recent games such as the excellent Space Frontiers and Troyes have brought dice back into favor. Both games get you to roll a number of dice and place them on the board in various worker placement guises. Troyes also allows you to buy dice from your opponents which is a really nice way of getting around those really bad dice rolls.

With Quarriors being released I think we are going to see a new wave of dice games. This is because Quarriors is the first dice building game. When Dominion was released it created a big buzz. It was the first deck building game and has spawned a number of copies and games based on this mechanic. Thunderstone being one of my favorites.
Quarriors takes the cards out and replaces them with custom dice. You draw dice from your bag, roll them and then use then to summon monsters or buy other dice from the pool in the center of the table. It sounds simple and I am sure it is, but working out the dice combos and efficient dice management techniques is going to be the hard part.
Although my copy hasn't arrived yet I am really looking forward to trying this. It has gone down very well across the pond and I believe all of the copies sent to the UK were sold out by pre-orders.

I suspect like Dominion, Quarriors will spawn not only a number of expansions but also some other games that use a similar mechanic and I am sure that some of these will be just as good.