The Tao of Gaming

(Full disclosure -- I know the designer and principals of Hangman Games).

My comments on Dry Gulch include:

the event mechanism begs to be used to greater effect

and that the game is too long. And Alan Ernstein has heard my plea! Dry Gulch Junction takes about 45 minutes, and has the same core mechanism -- multiple actions are turned up, but only some resolve.

Not really a sequel, just a smaller game with the same theme, Dry Gulch Junction has players again erecting buildings in the eponymous town. Each player starts with a hand of 8 buildings, which have costs, names and suits. The core of the game (in my mind) sees four improvment cards flipped up. Improvements are 2nd (or 3rd) stories, which have a cost and suit as well. You can only build a 2nd story diamond card on a diamond building. But each improvement also features a claim.

Claims provide money. Each claim has two options -- a fixed amount that goes to a players hand, or a higher amount that goes towards a specific building. Some claims go to named buildings ($4 towards a boarding house), some go to buildings adjacent to named buildings ($7 next to the bordello) or to buildings adjacent to side streets (or starting buildings).

During each improvement phase, one more card is flipped up than players ... one of those will be the claim, and each player gets an improvement in hand. The player who selects the claim a) gets last pick of improvements and b) passes the start player to their left (becoming last player).

Each turn has two improvement phases, then all claims payoff. Finally, there are two building phases (done settler style ... first to last, last to first). During each building phase you can put down a new building, add an improvement to an existing building, or discard a card to get money equal to half it's value.

The game ends when there aren't enough improvements left to handle an investment phase. Then you total up the value of buildings and investments, get 1/2 VP for any money left over, and some bonus VP for building arrangements.

In theory, a lot to like:

• Tough, but not numerous, decisions -- Which card to take, which cards to pitch, When to make a claim. Any card pitched for money could become a claim, so you want to pitch cards that you wouldn't mind having as a claim, as well as keeping the right mix of suit cards. Also, the more cards pitched, the longer the game will last (although this is likely to only be a turn or so).
• Money (and scores) are usually tight.
• Its fast. 45 minutes or so.

That being said, there are several potential problems.

• Being start player to make a claim is great ... unless no claims come up that help you.
• Making the 2nd claim makes you last for the building phase ... which gives you two builds in a row. Since buildings score bonus VPs for adjacency, that means you can set up a good play (if you've got the money). Assuming a two (or four) player game, if the first player always takes a claim, then the same players will always get double builds.

But the big issue -- after each game, nobody knows why the winner won. I was paying attention after my 3rd game, and I think the winner got lucky with an extra claim, but I'm not sure. There's plenty of luck (you want a great claim to hit when you have first choice, etc), but nothing jumped out at me as "Oh, that's a winning play."

Now subtle is fine, and luck isn't bad, but combining them turns people off. I want to play this again (just to figure out what's going on, if nothing else), but the reception has been lukewarm. I'll try to get another play or two in, and report back.

I like Agricola. It’s fun. After playing, I don’t regret pre-ordering, I’ll play more when my copy arrives, and I may even try to upgrade my set ala David Fair (and others). I’d play it at the next game session (if I had a copy).

But I do not think it is a great game.

Agricola joins a long list of games that I enjoy despite obvious flaws. I’m thinking of Age of Renaissance, 7 Ages (although my mood on that swings around), and the like. Still, I’d play those instead of great designs I don’t enjoy (Diplomacy, abstracts, etc).

I’m not going to describe mechanisms or details. Dale Yu has written more than enough to enlighten. Just to make things worse, I’m assuming you know the basics. To recap – I like Agricola. I’d play it again at the next game session (if I could). It will likely hit the table another 5-10 times at a minimum. Having gotten that out of the way, I’m going to focus on the negatives.

I’ve played several times now. How many? Well, that depends on how you count. I’ve played four games by any definition. Another four ‘to my satisfaction’, but I suspect most readers will only count one or two of those. “To my satisfaction” means (in this case) that everyone agreed on who would win if the game was played out. Most of these were quickly adjudicated between the first and second harvest.

One was called after the opening deal.

There is a whole class of games where the opening setup determines the likely winner. Card games. They have a few other characteristics (at least for good ones): 1) they are short, 2) you play many hands to reduce the luck (or determine the better player). Good players will win more than their ‘fair’ share of games, but won’t win every hand.

Agricola is a single deal card game that takes 90+ minutes to resolve.

I’ve seen arguments that the cards are individually balanced, and I generally agree (with at least one glaring exception). Some are better, but the range isn’t bad. But cards aren’t just assessed individually. Take Bridge. The Space Ace is worth one trick. The King values usually takes a trick. With the ace, a full trick (assuming no trump). Without it, it depends on where the ace was dealt, how many suited cards each hand has, etc. The deuce of clubs may be a full trick in some hands … if they have enough clubs, but usually it’s not that important.

Each of Agricola’s 350-ish cards adds a new twist on a rule. That makes 60,000 two card combinations that are much more complicated than the relationship between the King of Spades and deuce of Clubs. When you confine things to the E deck, I suspect most two card combinations have been seen. Are there three card combinations? Undoubtedly. Assuming 100 cards (for E decks only) there are 160,000 3-card combinations. You start with seven cards and seven occupations. Five hundred (or a thousand) games is enough to smooth all single cards, but doesn’t begin to assess the combinations … (and how many of those games involved new players)?

I could argue which cards I think are problematic (and I will, but not now). A fair response is that I (or others) missed a counter to that card. I may well have. But we’re still playing a card game. Now, the question is – how many routine hands do we have? For now, call a routine hand one that “Given reasonable and competent players, the ‘better’ hand will win barring mistakes.” You can have routine good hands and routine bad hands, it may be exciting to take 13 tricks with thirteen of one suit, and it’s rare, but it doesn’t require skill. Likewise, it takes little skill to lose all 13 tricks with a flat yarborough.

Apart from routine hands you can have routine games. In card games like bridge, one side has a bad hand the other one often has a good one. These routine hands lead to routine deals. Games where you deal a subset of the cards may see multiple players have very good (or bad) hands.

Race for the Galaxy, which I love, has routine games. I estimate roughly 3%. If you picked a number from 1-10%, I’d be fine with that. I’d argue if you went much higher (or lower). From my (admittedly small) sample of Agricola, I’d put its “routine game” percentage at 50-75%. My estimate may be high since every game I’ve played had new players. I think everyone will agree that this number exists above 10%, and that’s problematic for a game thats 4-8 times as long as Race. (Even if you discount routine ‘good’ hands, you’ll occasionally see a routine ‘bad’ hand, such as one that has no useful early minor improvements, which makes several of the actions much worse).

Only once have I been unsure of the winner after the second harvest, and it that game I had picked two people (out of five), who came in 1st and 2nd. I publicly predicted the winner of my second game (which we finished) during turn 3. He botched the endgame (never building a single fence, so earning -1 for enclosures and something like -5 for unused spaces) and won handily.

[Tangentially, this is why I stopped playing Cosmic Encounter for years … everyone wanted to play with 2+ power combinations. I now prefer playing with single powers, they are reasonably well balanced].

I hope scores will tighten as players get better, but the cards have a huge impact.

Agricola has other issues, as well. These aren’t nearly as important, but exist.

1. The ‘family increase’ mechanic (which moves you from two actions to three) is very important, and provides a positive feedback mechanism. Feeding does produce a negative feedback as well, but not nearly at the same effect. Assuming no occupations (and no player manages to get a 4th action before anyone gets a 3rd) then the last player to grow his family will miss out on 4 actions (in a five player game). That’s effectively giving the first person an extra full turn. This effect is so important that ignoring everything to focus on family growth seems to be a dominant strategy. Worse yet, growing your family is a strong source of victory points. If growing your family cost you resources, and earned actions but no victory points, it would be a more interesting tradeoff.
2. [1a, really] – The extra action from family growth is so powerful that the ‘family game’ (without cards) is simply an exercise in getting your home ready for your first child. With two players, even one extra turn seems dominant. [The family game is still a card game, but now the deal is the ordering of the rounds.]
3. Because of the card interaction and family growth issue, I suspect every 4+ player game will have at least one player ‘eliminated’ early on, with a score of roughly half (or less) of the winning score..
4. Livestock seem a much superior form of food & victory points than farming. Like family growth, this makes the best “resource” path also the best “victory points” path (since there are four categories for livestock, vs three for agriculture … and stables makes a fifth, arguably). You can delay your plowing until the very late game and still get good agricultural points, but you can’t put off breeding.
5. Turn order effects. When the start player is passing back and forth between you and another player, it really matters if you are sitting besides each other. Also, some cards improve certain spaces, and again order matters. Caylus’ “Inn” mechanism works much better than Agricola’s blunt “Start Player.”

With all that, I think Agricola is worth trying and playing multiple times. And I enjoy it. But, from a critical standpoint (meaning “looking strictly at the design”), it’s not good. A good game should take as long as required to determine the winner, and no longer. Bridge (a great game) would be farcical if you spent 30 minutes playing a hand. Agricola is chess between even players where you may be randomly up a knight or down a queen, but don’t know until halfway through the game.

The good news? Often the game conceals this from you. Most hands have something, and monstrously good hands may be hidden (until the end). There’s enough going on that even a good hand can be misplayed.

Agricola took several great ideas (a Caylus-like placement system, a Cosmic-like special power system, a complex resource management system) and then shoved them together. It’s enjoyable but, like most cross-breeds, an odd beast. I suspect that, like Age of Renaissance in particular, I'll eventually get annoyed playing around with all those fiddly pieces to decide a card game. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

Update: I've also ported my review to BGG.

I got to try Lost Valley last night. This is a few years old, but was never distributed in the US (I suppose the on line stores may have it), so it didn't get a wide audience. I'd never seen it until recently, which is mildly surprising. Anyway, you and the other players are panning for gold.

The board starts off with just a big starting piece. Your pawns move along the 'edges' (except for the trading post on the starting piece), and whenever you come to unexplored area you flip up some rhomboids (?) to build the world. If you create a triangle-gap, there are triangle tiles as well ... these are 'better.' (This image explains it better than I can).

You can carry some resources (6 spaces worth). You start with tools, food and lumber, which you spend to do certain actions. On your turn you get to move 1 space (two if you follow the river) and an action, in either order. The most basic action is panning for gold, which costs food. Mining for gold (in the mountains) also costs lumber, but you have to build the mine.

The tricky thing is that in may spots, you have to spend an action (and equipment) to prepare. For example, to get gold out of the mountains you have to make a mine. To get gold out of the plains, you need to divert a stream. But once the mine is made (stream diverted, etc) then anyone can use it. So if you build a mine, any prospector nearby will run up and grab some gold.

The resource management works reasonably well. You need food to pan for gold (presumably you are out there for a long time), lumber to get gold out of mines, tools are useful for building fish traps (to get food faster), sawmills (to get lumber faster) and necessary to start a mine. You can buy plenty of great things in the trading post, which makes nice chrome. Since you basically get a single move and action, turns can fly by (once the world is explored a bit). In fact, I don't think our game lasted 70 minutes, like the geek claimed.

The fact that you don't own mines (etc) is interesting, in that it makes all the players reclusive and paranoid. The game ends when someone gets enough gold chits (each chit worth 1-2 from a river, or 3-4 from a mountain) or when you've explored enough of the world then via a timer. (Each turn having 1/3rd of a chance to advance the timer, which takes roughly a dozen advances to end).

We ended via the timer, and this felt unsatisfying. As the timer ticked down, the game dynamics shift. The earlier game dealt with jumping claims and running away from others. Later on the pressure means you don't have time to isolate yourself. This creates tension (get too far away from anyone, and you can't collude in the end game, get too close and you'll wind up losing some of the gold you worked for). I was glad to see the game end promptly, but it felt contrary to the earlier spirit.

I'd certainly try it again, though, but I'm not desperate.

Now that the second season of the San Antonio Board Gamers Strat-o-matic league is underway, I figured I'd explain the game a bit.

Strat-o-matic tries to simulate the prior season. So the '2007' regular season players and teams were just released about six weeks ago.

The core mechanism of Strat-o-matic is a simple 3d6. You have two colored dice, which are read as a pair. The single die determines the column. Three columns on the batter's card, three on the pitcher's. You roll the dice and look up the result.

Some results will direct you to make further rolls. Partially that's just to fine tune the cards, but some results send the ball towards a position player. For example, on each pitcher's card there are a two chances (out of 108 possible outcomes) for rolling a "Left Fielder" defensive check (an "X" chance). There are also 7 short stop checks. All told, about a quarter of the results on the pitchers card lead to defensive checks.

The players are mainly differentiated by how many good (and bad) results they have on their cards, and where they are located. A Homerun on a '7' is better than on a '2' or '12' obviously. But players also have ratings for bunting, hit and run, stealing, speed. Defensively, players have a range and an error rating (how many errors they would on pace to commit if they played a full season). Outfielders (and catchers) also have an arm rating for how hard they throw.

The offensive manager gets to decide when to bunt, steal, hit & run, stretch for an extra base (sometimes) or sub a player (pinch hit or pinch run). The defensive manager can hold a player on base (to decrease the chances of a steal), play the infield in (to stop the bunt) and sub pitchers. Really, that's it.

Strat comes has several levels of rules complexity. The basic game handles basic situations and teaches the rules. The advanced game adds more. The most important addition is that pitchers and batters have different charts depending on the handiness of the other side. These charts are usually identical, but one side is usually slightly better than another. The charts to handle defensive plays have a bit more variety. Pitcher fatigue is formalized a bit more, batters are given power ratings (weak batters some homeruns converted into deep singles).

The 'super-advanced' rules toss even more into the game. Park effects, wild pitches, playing just the corners in, bringing in the outfield to prevent a shallow sac fly, plays at the plate, robbing home runs (think ESPN highlight reels), 'clutch' hitting, good vs. bad leadoffs (for steals). But the biggest real change is that the defensive charts (The "X" chances mentioned above) have many more potential results, including rare plays.

In the opening series of the season, with runners on 1st and 3rd and one out, the home team sent a near-home run into left field. The runner on third tagged up and scored easily ... but the manager comes out on the field and argues, and the 3rd base umpire agrees that the runner left early! He's out!

Despite all of this, the rules aren't terribly complicated (although it helps to play some games before adding all the bells and whistles).

There are two downsides to strat. It is, as my wife calls it, Bunco for Boys. At the start of an inning there really isn't anything to do except roll the dice. Maybe someone will get on base, maybe not. The decisions start to come once there are baserunners (apart from pulling people). This leads to the second problem (for some people). Much like in real baseball, you'll likely lose 1/3rd of the games without ever really having a chance. You'll roll poorly, or your opponent will roll well, and that's that. On the other hand, you'll probably win a 1/3rd of your games too. Still, even if you play a game in 30 minutes (easily achievable, especially if you don't keep detailed statistics), that can be frustrating. After watching (Cy Young winning) C.C. Sabithia get chased before making his 10th out (after the exact same thing happened in the prior game), my opponent watched his potential comeback get smothered by the rare play described above.

The other frustration is that baseball is a game of percentages, and Strat-o-matic reflects that. If you are in a "hit and win, get an out and lose" situation and you have Nick Green (Batting .184 in 2006) at the plate and pull him for Barry Bonds (etc), that gives you a much better chance of getting a hit ... but sometimes Green would have hit and Bonds will miss. Such is baseball. A better manager will improve their odds, but these improvements aren't huge.

But, as an experience I find this amusing, and I've had good fun over the last two weeks preparing for the draft, drafting, hashing out potential trades (none of which have materialized) and playing the opening series. As I've said before, leagues can turn OK games into great fun. Now to take the Rock 'Orioles to the world series...

This week my son set a personal best record for "Most vomiting in a week." I think it's also a family record, and we'll apply to Guinness. His is not the only recent illnes, so it's entirely appropriate that I picked up Pandemic, the latest co-operative game. [Full Disclosure, I've met the designer several times and played a prototype].

The players are rushing to find the cure to four epidemics, while ensuring that casualties don't rush over the board. The players share a deck, which has one card for each city. The cities have four "suits" (which matches one of the four diseases). You take your turn (of four actions), then get some cards and flip up an infection card. Your actions include:

• Helping sick people (where you are),
• Building a research station (which requires having the matching card of the city you are in),
• Finding the cure requires playing five cards of the same suit at a research station,
• Handing a card to another player (in the same city, and you can only pass the card if it names the city you are both in),
• Moving (either slowly, one step at a time, or playing a card to go to a city, or flying directly between research stations).

There are also a few special action cards.

After that you flip the top card of the infection deck, and add a cube (representing more infected people) to the city. If a city already has three matching cubes (and the board starts seeded), then you have an outbreak ... place one cube in each adjacent city.

The players deck also has epidemic cards. You take the bottom card of the infection deck and add three cubes (which may cause an outbreak), then you shuffle that and the discards and put them all on top of the deck. This means that you have 'hot spots' — cards that will show up again and again.

You win if all four cures are found (no matter the state of the board). You lose if there are too many outbreaks, you run out of cubes of any color, or when you exhaust the player deck.

Finally, each player has a role — a special ability that breaks the rules. The medic can cure multiple cubes for an action, the dispatcher can spend his actions moving other people. The scientist only needs four cards to find the cure, the researcher can give cards away without restriction, and the Operations Guy can build research stations without a card. These roles will nudge each player to prefer certain actions, and ensure that each game will be slightly different (if you play with 4; 2-3 players have more combinations).

I've pushed around the pieces a bit, but I don't the game has changed significantly since I played it. So you get random thoughts:

• In theory you could play this with open hands (the rules suggest that for a first game), which pushes this dangerously close to solitaire. In fact, Rob Rossney suggests just that. (I did try a solo game like that at Normal settings, just to refresh myself on the rules, and I suspect that Rob is correct).
• The "not being able to discuss your exact cards" idea is mentioned, but that is a bit odd, because you can exchange cards if you are both in the city named by the card. Since knowing the name tells you everything else about the card, that doesn't quite work.
• As I've said before, I mildly smitten with co-operative games, and this is another example. J pushed for this purchase, which surprised me. I'm sure I'll play this soon.
• The game looks nice, but the (very large) pawns and houses are too big for the board. It's tough to tell where some pieces are, especially when 2-3 are in the same city. A mild complaint.
• Let me join in the admiration for the elegant epidemic mechanics. I remember thinking "that's clever" when I first saw it.

Update: I've played a few games of the solo hard variant. Yet to win.

Last night I played (and taught) a game of Through the Ages. Did it change my opinion of the game? Not really.

One troubling aspect when discussing this game — so many 'official' ways to play. We played the 3 epoch full game (so no wars, no removing population at the end of the age). And since it was a two player game, no pacts. And a few rules were of the "Oh, we should have done that" variety.

Still, I had a fun time. Despite being militarily ahead for the second half of the game (and twice playing the "Steal 7 VP" aggression), I managed to almost go coast-to-coast while losing. (I was ahead for one turn).

So anyway, there's a copy down here, which probably means my next 100 games of Race will take longer than the last hundred.

Update: Oh, may as well mention that the components a) an improvement and b) still annoying. The area for card drafting is too small (that may have been true in the original ... was I playing with a modified set?). The wooden discs are easier to manipulate, but the see=through beads made reading costs easier. And there should just be more player markers. The rules looked cleaned up a bit, too.

The ideal set would use a cribbage style board for scoring (actually a four-player cribbage board would work well) to avoid bumping VPs around.

Apart from being on the schneid at Race (I've lost something like 8 in a row), I got in a game of Rails of Europe. This is an expansion to "Eagle's very popular game about building Railroads." (I guess there was a trademark fight about Railroad Tycoon, because the expansion has Glenn Dover's name, and Eagle's logo ... but those words don't appear anywhere).

Anyway, I've already mentioned my thoughts about Railroad Tycoon, so just a few random thoughts.

• This is 'done right.' A small box with just the map and cards. Re-use all the components. (Not that I own RR Tycoon).
• There are something like a dozen baron cards, and you get to draw two and keep one. Hopefully they are more balanced. Hopefully an improvement.
• The major connections (points for linking two cities) are always available, unlike the original where they may show up or not. That seems like an improvement.
• I don't remember the original income track, but this seems the same.

Our game was fast. Maybe 100 minutes, with a few minutes of rules refreshers.

Having played another time or two, I do wish RR Tycoon was more unforgiving about cash. It seem taking out shares wily-nily to save actions always wins. Perhaps I'm just used to Age of Steam. Yesterday, If I guessed the ending turn correctly I would have lost by about 10 points, despite having taken out five shares to my opponent's twenty. (Each share subtracts a point at the end). One of those "Small rule changes has a big impact" -- how each game handles balancing the leader. AoS reduces income and VP; RR Tycoon has an income trace that stagnates, but costs no VPs.

In any case, I could see a number of variants that could easily shift the balance a bit (if so inclined). Make each share only earn $4,000 (instead of $5), or make each share cost 2 VPs at the end seem obvious.

I'd also consider going with an Age of Steam style auction for player order ... I don't particularly care for auctioning start player and then having everyone else go around the table.

In any case, Rails of Europe is a mild improvement and people who like RR Tycoon will probably like this. For me, it's something to play every now and then, and then remember that I should pack the original game ...

As promised, I tried four new games yesterday. All were "OK."

Aapep, the Cambridge Game Factories' entry in "First Game in BGG's Alphabetical Order List," is an abstract. For me, that's enough of a reason to dismiss it out of hand. But I gave it a try and it's good. Players place tiles on a 4x4 grid, and the edge of each tile shows a color (light or dark). One player is light, and the other is dark, and at the end of any turn if one player can trace from one side of the board to their color (only), then they win. (When tracing, you pass over empty spaces but stop at the first tile edge you hit).

There's a 'day' phase where each player places tiles, then moves one of two "Shadow" chip (which keeps that space open). After that comes night, where players take turns moving (and rotating) tiles, then placing the shadow chip in the just vacated space. A few beads mark recently moved tiles, which presumably prevents a Ko-like repetition of moves.

The theme is Ra vs Aapep (Sun god vs Night God). There are rules for 3-4 players (in teams), although I imagine that those who like abstracts will be happier with two players. (Disclaimer -- Aapep was given to me by the company, otherwise I probably would have never played it. I'll probably never suggest it again, even though it seems fine. I just don't care for those sort of games).

Knights is Michael Schacht's dice game from 2000. Like many dice games, this can be compared to Yahtzee (although now we have To Court the King in our vocabulary). I really liked one rule in this game -- Any sixes rolled are discarded. This means locking some dice and re-rolling the rest entails a bit of risk. You could roll a bunch of sixes. The rest of the is set collection: you win by getting four castles or two castles and three jousts or three castles and the King's Favor. To get a card you have to beat a certain roll. Two cards are face up in the middle of the table, and you can also take cards from opponents. Any opponent with two castles can be attacked, with restrictions. Once cards are in the game they never go away, so the game marches towards victory, but it's a slow march. Towards the end, almost every turn is "Try to steal the potential winner's card" instead of "Take the easier card from the table." Perhaps this would be better with 3, instead of the five we had. Enjoyable at 30 minutes, agonizing past the hour mark.

Nueroshima Hex feels like an abstract, but the randomness peaks my interest. This one, being a new Essen favorite, has plenty of coverage already, and I don't feel like describing it thoroughly. You place tiles on a small hex map. They shoot each other and the players HQ, which take 20 life. The HQ that has the most life left at the end wins. Sadly, we played with four. The game is ripe for Kingmaking, petty diplomacy, turtling and all the issues you'd expect in a four player rumble. Yet again we had the wrong number. Each army (30 tiles) is different, which is nice. I could see this as good with two players. Again, there's a rule I like. Each turn you draw up to three tiles and then must discard one. A forced choice. You can then play (or hold) the rest. I spent several turns of the game drawing three useless tiles like "Move a unit" when I had none on the board, or "Cause a battle" when it would be suicide to do that. Drawing "Battle/Battle/non-combatent unit" on your first turn is a waste. But I won because everyone else pounded on the hard positions, I was in second going into my last turn, and then I drew three great tiles to win.

That does not inspire confidence, but I'd play again. With two or maybe three.

Finally, I played a two-player game of Vanished Planet. I'm (slowly) going through the cooperative (or semi-cooperative) games that I've heard are good. Here's the story -- Those pesky Earthlings managed to teleport their homeworld (the "Vanished Planet") to another galaxy, but accidentally let in a giant space ameoba that's going to eat everyone left behind. However, the earhlings send back a bunch of "Hey, try doing this" ideas, and if you do enough of them, you'll beat the ameoba. Honestly people, this is why most Alien races are ignoring us or plotting our doom. Even when we're not trying to dominate the universe we just screw things up and then, instead of apologizing and cleaning up our messes, we just take a hands-off supervisory roll. If I were an Alien race I'd have fired the Space Modulator a few decades ago ...

Unlike Abstracts, I'm rather enchanted with cooperative games even when they have their flaws. Vanished Planet's main flaw is similar to Arkham Horror's fatal flaw -- there's no hidden information. Everyone's resources are public knowledge, so the smartest/bossiest player can just tell everyone what to do. The mechanics are basically Settlers. Move your ships around the map, 'tagging' resources (which produce every turn). There are five basic resources (Colonists, Money, Energy, Research and Ore), which you use to buy intermediate things (like Diplomats, Engineers) which yo use to buy bigger things (Harmonic Dohickeys, Meta-Babelfish) and then you use those to buy useful things. The fourth level stuff have in-game effects ... like granting your ships extra movement, or teleportation, or "pass through the space amoeba). Some of the lower things have useful effects.

Anyway, each turn you draw an event (which are mainly good, but some bad), then you get a freeform turn of moving, tagging, collecting resources, and trading (single card for single card, but the trades don't have to be fair). Finally, the ameoba grows. If you stop by a Satellite, then you can draw a "Goal" card. These are messages from those meddling humans, saying "Take a doohicky to this planet and then discard it for two points." You can draw one goal a turn, but can only hold one.

Anyway, we played two players on the not-quite easiest setting. (The difficulty is adjusted by tuning the event deck with some number of "Aww, the cute little baby ameoba i s having a growth spurt" events. New players should have zero, 'families' have two etc. We settled on one. If you don't do anything clever, each player has 9 or 10 turns before the ameobe devours their homeworld, and it will nail the Earth's relay satellites in 5 turns. After 8 turns of fumbling, we barely got into a holding position (using Mines to shrink the ameoba just before destruction each turn) and I managed to get a Communication relay, so that I could get more goals. After a few turns of fishing, we got a goal we could complete and won the game.

But even though I "like" Vanished Planet, I'm not sure I recommend it. When I play cooperative (or semi) cooperative games, I want games that play with 4+ players. But this is a fixed fun game. Yes, you have some trading, but the "everyone can see the single plan" makes this another fixed fun game in my book. And with 6 players (the full complement) that would mean tripling the number of turns, and this felt good at 90 minutes. As it was, once we figured out a defensive setup we basically spent the last 15 minutes just fishing for the right mix of goals and trades. At 270 I'd be screaming for that sweet ameoba kiss. Finally, this suffers a bit from the "Dry Gulch" syndrome. Building a Fusion Frumulator takes 4 intermediate items, which takes ... uh, 18 basic resources. And I've got these seven, so I need what? Too much bookkeeping, not enough reason for players to disagree.

That being said, this will probably make an excellent family game (if I can refrain from driving), and the fact that the difficulty is so easily tunable means that groups who don't mind the time investment can probably set it to have a tense game most times.

So overall I got in four new games -- All suffered from fixed fun, all got a 'six' rating on BGG. But Vanished Planet, having the mechanics that I'm most curious about, will probably hit the table a few more times.

Got to try Cutthroat Caverns today (thanks Carlos!).

The theme is the classic "Dungeon Crawl with Squabbling Party." The team has 10 encounters to get past, and the winner is whoever gets the most prestige ... which you earn by dealing the killing blow. Of course, you have to be alive to win.

So, you flip up a monster. It has stats, a special ability, and the like. Then you deal out initiative cards (randomly). You flip these up, then each player plays an attack card (face down). When it's your turn, you attack. Most of these do 0-50 points of damage, but some do 100. Some do zero.

Then you have the cards that let you help your friends. Like "Edge Out" where you step in front of someone right before their attack, so they just have to discard it. If, after everyone attacks, the monster isn't dead then it will attack some (or all) of the players, and you go again.

I didn't read the rules, but I did glance at them. They aren't too complicated, but they could be tighter. Given that this is really just a 'take that' game with some simultaneous selection, I'm not too worried. (The game completely hits my "Some cards are much better" pet peeve, but its not meant to be taken seriously, so its only mildly annoying). So we had a few rules questions, arguments, and at least one rule played completely wrong.

Clever idea #1 — There are 25 monsters, and you only have to face 10. They all seem quite unique. This leads to rules questions, but it is fun. Some monsters will just attack players based on initiative number, but others will attack whoever hit them hardest, or first. This leads to more interesting card play (because the first player may play a feint, so as to not draw the wrath).

Clever idea #2 — The monsters 'hit points' are determined by how many players started the game. It's completely possible to kill someone with a nasty card, but its not a good idea to do it early. Everyone could lose.

Annoying thing #2 — the initiative cards are dealt out randomly before each round. It would have been nice for there to some strategy ... like, whoever did the least damage goes first. Then even the monsters that attack certain positions in player order would become more interesting. More annoyingly, it just takes a lot of time to shuffle up and deal cards 1-6 each round. Perhaps making a few mini decks [1-6 in clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades] would help.

Annoying thing #3 — An RPG game where all the characters are identical (except for a few attack cards that double if a certain character plays them)? Boo. The expansion does take care of this.

Overall this is good if in the right mood. Its a 'take that' game, but the monster deck should give it reasonable replayability (for those who play these things often). The production values on the cards, monsters, and counters is quite good (for a small company), and the game isn't too expensive. Hardly a game I have to own since someone else has it, but I'd play it again.

On an unrelated note ... I notice that the designers name is Curt Covert. Meanwhile, my copy of Fifth Avenue has the suspicious name "Wilko Manz"). And I still don't completely believe that John Goodenough is a real name. Still, at a summer program I went to there was a Russel ("Rusty") Nail.

Update: Next on the list, Lutz Stepponat (although that's probably a reasonable German name).

Brass, a Warfrog economic game, stood high on my "must try" list; today I got the chance.

Given my preferences, no points awarded for guessing that I liked it. This had the typical Warfrog "what can I do now?" first game issues that so many of their titles suffer from. But once you get used to the system(s), then it isn't too bad. In general, you get two actions a turn, and spend a card for each action. Some actions (loans, research, delivering cotton, or building canals/railroads) don't care which card you use. but buildings require a card in the matching city or the matching industry card (with some restrictions). In addition, you have to be able to ship coal around (for buildings that require it). An "Era" lasts until the deck runs out and each player empties his hand, then you score buildings that were utilized. At the end of the first era, you sweep low-tech buildings (and canals) off the board, and start again.

What I liked — you have to manage money, actions, cards and resources (although you can use other peoples resources), and VPs. Competition in space and time. Things are tight, but not as precarious as Age of Steam. In short, Brass has what I like.

What I dislike — Understanding the 'technology tree' requires flipping lots of chits over. As usual, a player aid would help immensely. (Update — The player aid I wanted is on the back of the rulebook). Some icons on the chits (and map) are confusing. The rules are what you'd expect from Warfrog. Like Struggle of Empires, this suffers from the "You can do anything on the first turn, but don't have a feel for what's good." (That's a drawback the first time you play, but shouldn't be a killer). All minor peeves, really.

What worries me — All of the chrome may just hide the fact that one strategy dominates, or that the cards have a huge impact. I won by getting two of the cities that allow you to build Ships (worth Tons of VPs). If one of my opponents had one of those cards, I would have lost.

I'll hold out, until I get a few more plays (or a steal). But I'm cautiously optimistic.

I also played Wings of War. To my surprise, it's a Blue Max variant. Instead of having a hex chart for each play, you have a deck of cards and play three cards (in order). Then each player takes their first card, lines it up with the front of the plane, and moves the plane to where the arrow on the card ends up. (So you play on any flat surface). Then you use rulers to fire. So instead of having a "big move" then complicated fire, you plot three small moves and have a fire after each step. I think Blue Max's red/blue chits are slightly more elegant than the single card deck for Wings of War, but perhaps an advanced rules adjusts that. But overall the games are close enough to make them interchangeable, in my opinion. Which is pretty reasonable praise. Wings of War will probably be another game I play infrequently, but rather like.

And I finally played my copy of Race.

Update: (April '08) -- I had so many rules wrong on Brass that you should just ignore the above. I'll post a link to a new review later.

My copy of Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage arrived yesterday ... here are some thoughts about Valley Games, really, since I haven't played the game.

I'm mildly annoyed about the large lag between when I was charged for this and when it shipped. The interest generated on $50 for a few months isn't important, but it does make me slightly nervous. I didn't pre-order their newest for other reasons, but the delay did cross my mind.

However, that delay is my only complaint.

The 'puzzle board' works well. It assembled easily, fits perfectly in the box. The art seems subdued, the game looks legible. The counters (combat units, generals, and control markers) are nice thick cardboard that punched easily. The rules had one or two odd paragraphs, but seem clear enough (I'm probably biased, since I've played Sword of Rome, which borrowed several features from this).

Even the insert impressed me. I normally throw these away and bag the pieces, but this one seems to organize the pieces well, and is intuitive. (I may still get rid of the insert, since it will get odd if I sleeve the cards), but that's just a preference. The physical design is phenomenal.

Now to find out if the game lives up to the hype. (I'd settle for living in the same neighborhood).

Update: Better eyes than mine have found several typos in the rules (and the board!), most trivial but some serious.

Tried three new games (two from Essen).

Eight of us tried Coach Ride to Devil's Castle. I knew this was an interesting idea, and I think it worked, but it wasn't unanimous. Scott Tepper's review details the mechanics, suffice to say that there are two teams, and you are trying to identify your team-mates, and acquire the necessary objects to win. The game ends when one player takes their turn and says "Myself (and possibly two more players) have the necessary objects to win." Then you flip up the people, verify that they are on the same team, and verify that they have the necessary objects. Each named player must have at least one object, too. At least, that's my reading. If the announcement is correct, that team wins. If wrong, the team opposing the announcer wins.

The interesting part is ... no communication. (In theory). The play of the cards will often allow one player to see another's affiliation (or items). You can attack another player ... the winner can either steal an item, or see the loser's affiliation.

Not only can you build up a number of known facts, you can deduce items. The teams need different items to win. If someone offers you an item you need, chances are they are your team-mate. People keep supporting those you are attacking (or being attacked by)? Probably the other team.

You can bluff to deceive, but you'll be bluffing your team-mates as well.

Our game (with rules) took about an hour, and had a bit more communication than zero. Ah well. This is one of those games where your first play will have everyone confused. I enjoyed it after one game, but we need to play again to figure things out. You can get into a position where other people know a lot more and your starting item doesn't really help you. Unbalanced starting position ... you'll have to hope one of your team-mates did better. Also, each player gets a mild "modify the rules" power, and I don't think those are balanced. But at 1 hour for the first game (and possibly dropping 15-30 minutes with an experienced group) I enjoyed it. We'll have to see. [I do recommend trimming the deck as suggested for your first game].

Antler Island was ok. Much better than Shear Panic. (The sheep herd idea worked well, but all the scoring ideas felt random). Our game took ~45 minutes, with rules. A planning/simultaneous selection with some flexibility in how your reveal. This could possibly be played deeply, not that I did. Worth trying again, but no way would I shell out $80 (or even $50) for this. Not my type of game.

I can see why some people consider Galaxy Trucker the Hit of Essen. The game theme reminded me of the infamous "S.P.I.V.s," but it's somewhat friendlier. There are three "Trips." Each trip starts by building your space ship. You flip up tiles, one at a time, and add them to your ship (or reject them, or put them in a holding tank). You have to connect everything legally, Carcassone style (edges that have a connector must match with all other edges). Ships have various components, thrusters, lasers, crew components, shields, batteries, storage, and a few specials. You can also take time to scout the route, looking at some of the cards you'll encounter. But it's real time. When one player finishes, they start a timer on everyone. Once time is up, you order ships 1st to 4th, shuffle up the cards, and go. The cards could be bad, like pirates, smugglers, asteroids, or a combat zone. Those tend to blast parts of your ship away (which may cause other parts, no longer connected to the core, to fall away). You can also pick up goods at planets, etc. It's random. The 2nd and 3rd day have more cards, and also allow you to have bigger spaceships. You get money for finishing the haul first, and any spare goods you manage to acquire (or money earned from defeating pirates, etc).

I enjoyed it, and I'd play again. Short randomness is good. I'm not sure this has long term potential, but it's more to my tastes than Antler Island.

Speaking of Randomness, I also played the new edition of Talisman. Without all the expansions, it was relatively quick. Perhaps a touch under 2 hours (for 5 people). Again, as games get longer the randomness becomes more annoying, but four out of the five players had a reasonable shot at winning (ie ... got to the final space of the board or were one step away) and the fifth player had the strongest character! So I can't complain this time, as it was close. Not something I'd play often, but not as bad as I remembered.

Update: Here's the SABG discussion of Kutschfahrt (and the other games). Talisman took almost 2:30, but the rules took about 30 minutes (partially because people were in and out).

I got to play 7 Ages again today. I haven't ever done a full review, since there are plenty to choose from (I prefer Moritz Eggert's review). Still, a summary.

Each player controls 1-n empires at a time, with no more than 15 (or 16 with a variant) on the board at once. Apart from a large map (and counters for each empire, and all sorts of markers), the core of the game is in the 110 card deck. Each card has several parts of interest:

• A complete description of an empire (when it can start, where, how it earns VPs, special abilities, and the like),

• An artifact/technology/government/religion/disaster (from a list of 20-30).

• An event, often of the "Take that!" type

• A number 0-7

As is typical, each time you use a card, you can only use one of the four parts.

Each player has a set of action chits, and can play one for each empire (plus an extra, if he's under the maximum allowed). These chits let you:

1. Start a new empire

2. Generate income and buy new units

3. Trade a card with another player (and advance along the technology track if you give a better card than you recieve).

4. Move (and fight)

5. Draw new cards

6. Play artifacts and events (and do some infrastructure growth)

7. Throw an empire away

The trick is that each empire gets it's own action. So if you want to have the Romans move around, you can't have your Japanese do the same. There is a 'Wild' chit, but using it to 'double up' actions imposes a cost.

After all those phases, you score victory points. A typical condition will be something like "Most spaces in Asia:3." If an empire has that and has the most spaces in Asia (either counting land only, or land and sea areas bordering Asia, depending on the exact icon) you earn 3 points. If you are in 2nd, you earn 2, third gives you 1. A great empire may earn 5-7 points a turn, a mediocre empire may only earn 3 or so. A terrible empire can cost you a point a turn. (Those tend to get disbanded quickly).

So you assign your actions, then you go around resolving them. In general, the rules are fairly easy, but there's a ton of chrome. We don't have cheat sheets, we have cheat pamphlets. Lots of modifiers to combat, a terrain chart, all the artifacts and religions. What do the leaders do? Not to mention all the events. But we taught a new player today ... he read the rules, we went over it for 15 minutes, and we're off. A nice part is that 7 Ages unfolds. Your first turn will show you how to start an empire. Your next turn will show you how to maneuver. The artifacts start coming out. Even with much more chrome than Struggle of Empires, it feels manageable since it starts small.

For today's game, we again did our typical "Start in the morning and play until roughly dinner." Roughly seven hours, although an hour break in the middle. This let is get from the start of Age 2 until a bit into Age 4. A full 'historical' game starting at Age 1 and going until Age 7 or 8 could take a while.

As you may guess, I enjoy the game. I even won today, which doesn't happen often but didn't add to my enjoyment. Still, the game has flaws:

• The cards (and particularly empires) aren't balanced at all. To be fair, there are Empires that dominated history and those that are footnotes. If you get a bad card draw you'll probably lose. Ironically, if you really hate that you are better off playing the full game, which gives it more time to balance out.

• Balance is achieved (if it is, in fact) by ganging up on the leader. There's every incentive to do so. But that means not only recognizing who is ahead on the VP track, but also who has a good position. And if you are playing "until dinner" then you can get some very big "last turn" effects.

• For a board game, (and there's a honking board with tons of cardboard chits), too often a card will wipe you out. For a 'sweep of history' game that's reasonable ... it means that even a dominating power can be quickly wiped out, but that can be annoying. In general, when I play a 7 hour board game I'd prefer that it not be decided by 1 minute of card play. I don't mind the events like the "Volcano" (or "Flood") that destroy an empire. I like combos. On the other hand, there are some cards that (in the future) I'd like to defang, because they mainly deal with 'the game' instead of 'the pieces on the game.'

• The combat system is controversial. There are some times when it's quite interesting (particularly when you have two moderate-to-large armies fighting). However, it's a bit tedious when you have many "3 units versus 1" fights. Perhaps we should just concede those battles, but there are often a chance to get a lucky draw (and mutual).

Overall, Seven Ages strikes me as a great experience game, and I'm looking forward to the expansion (although I fear that the game may crumble under the weight of even more chrome). Given it's size I only play once a year or so, but I do enjoy the sessions.

Variants I'm thinking about:

A few cards alter Victory Points. This last game had 9 turns (I think) but one turn didn't score any VPs, and two turns had the "cancel all VPs except for one empire." Given that a turn takes half an hour (or more), it does annoy me to see it 'wasted.' There is also a 'double the VPs this turn,' and 'Give one player 1/2 the VPs necessary to move him up a spot in VP order', which don't bother me as much.

Empires are also exceptionally fragile until they've maneuvered. Before they spread out, any card that can nail one space can (effectively) destroy them. This usually happens in every game, and it short games it's particularly devastating. I would be tempted to add a house rule that states "No event can be aimed at an new empire." (Empires would cease being new once VPs were counted, even if it didn't score any). (I would still allow Empires to get nailed before that point by play of an disaster, board play, or the like). This would weaken a few events, and completely remove the "Shooting Star" event. (I'd be willing to make these events minor counterspells, although too many of them would weaken the game, alternately, I'd be willing to errata them into event like "Take a free maneuver with a new empire" which would also make the game more dynamic).

I can appreciate the "Limited Chaos" variant, where you have to be 'near' an empire to hit it with an event, but I'm OK with chaos.

As mentioned above, I'd like to see some variant rule that gives people room to quickly negotiate/resolve small battles.

And I do want to try this with 6 or 7. I think it would be much more dynamic; undoubtedly there's some 'fixed fun' issues, but I suspect the game would go by a bit faster, as some compensation.

We just did the SABG Top 50 List (Geeklist) and History of the World made #21. At today's game day, we pulled it out and played a five player game.

There's plenty of luck (plenty) in History of the World, but some strategy and tactics, too. It's a game that I'll play "twice a decade" or so, and I'm happy with that.

Luck in a long game is always a touchy subject, although I think there are enough dice rolls to balance out. The real issue is how nations are assigned. The player in last picks a card, then keeps it or gives it away. Players then go in order, drawing a card and keeping it (if they don't have one) or giving it to someone without a card. So the leader probably gets a poor country, and deep trailers will likely wind up with good things.

But this encourages sandbagging. To be fair, other games have this issue. Power Grid being the most notorious. Much like Power Grid, History has a problem in that "Whose winning" is scored by strict VPs (cities in Power Grid), but other factors may be more important. I've no doubt that one of the key skills in HotW is playing your nation correctly to set up long term scoring, while just sneaking under other players on the VP track (at least in the early/mid game).

The new Hasbro/AH version actually tries to fix this, in that the scoring leader for each round gets a 3-7 VP point chip that stays hidden until the end of the game. Good for them.

So you have a long game (30-40 minutes per player) and quite a bit of the final score is decided by the simple nation drafting. If HotW shortened to half the current time, but kept that issue, I'd think it was pretty good.

You could remove players (always a good idea in a fixed-fun game), but then as countries disappear so does the skill. If I've heavily invested in China and the next Chinese empire comes out, my score will suffer. If it doesn't, my score won't. In a full game, 6 out of the 7 nations for each epoch show up, so while there's the random nation missing, once you start skipping 3-4 nations a turn I suspect you get some odd swings.

Still, I should give this a try with 3 or 4 players. But I'm in no hurry.

For the last three years, I've played the prototype version of Race for the Galaxy at the Gathering. In '05, I played almost as many times as all other games combined that week. We'd start, and a few hours later I'd keep saying — "One more." It's a mantra, every 20-30 minutes "Another."

I've had access to Race for 25 days, and it's already pushing 75 plays. This year I held back, because I "knew" it would be out in July. (Cough cough). I have the most plays logged on BGG, but others have thousands of games. It's not just me.

As you can guess from the title, the theme is Science Fiction empire building. Players colonize (or capture) worlds, develop technologies, and conduct commerce. The mechanics are similar to San Juan, one of the rare titles I rate a '10.' As a player, you hold a hand of cards. To build you play a card face up in front of you ("In your tableau" according to the rules) and discard cards from hand to pay for it.

Until a card is in your tableau, it's just currency. Once down, you get the card's abilities & victory points.

Like San Juan, each player selects one role a turn. Unlike San Juan, this choice is simultaneous. Each player has a small deck of roles and selects the one they want (along with the privilege, if there are multiple choices). Only the selected roles are activated, and in a set order. All player(s) who select the role get the privilege.

So everyone picks a role, then you conduct the selected phases (only) in order.

Explorer — All players get two cards from the deck, and keep one. There are two privileges. One lets you draw and keep an extra card. The other lets you draw five extra cards.

Develop — Roughly half the cards are developments, and during the develop phase you can build one. Anyone who choose Developer pays one card less.

Settle — The other half are worlds. Most worlds are purchased like developments ... you pay their cost during the settle phase. Anyone who Settled gets a one-card rebate (after settling) as the privilege. A few worlds are Military Worlds. You don't pay anything for them, but must have a military rating equal to the worlds to conquer it. [You build developments or settle/conquer certain worlds to raise your military rating].

Worlds typically allow you to produce (and consume) goods. A few worlds ("Windfall worlds") don't produce goods, but start with one when they are settled. You use goods when you

Consume — Consumption works like shipping in Puerto Rico. Most worlds can have a good (represented by placing a card from the deck under the world). During the consume phase, these goods are spent for victory points (or cards from the deck). Consumption requires demand: a world (or development) with a 'consume' power. It isn't automatic. But if you do have consume power(s), you must use them all. A typical consume power might be "Consume a Genes good for 1 VP and draw 1 Card" or "Consume any good for a 1 VP."

There are two privileges associated with consumption. One is "Trade," which lets you consume a good for 2-5 cards (depending on type). The other doubles any victory points you earn that phase.

Produce — During production you replace all goods on (non-windfall) worlds. The privilege lets you produce one good on a windfall world.

The game ends at the end of the turn when the bank runs out of VP tokens, or one player builds a 12th card. If not, then you just repeat — Select roles, reveal, resolve phases in order.

Simple rules, complex decisions. There's a lot going on. That's why I love it.

Almost every card is unique. 95 (or so) different cards in the base set. That's plenty of variety and combinations. You agonize over which cards to let go as payment. Spend it and you aren't likely to see it again. Sometimes the best decision is to spend it all for the big income production, but other times you want to keep a great combination.

The abilities vary. Practically every power from San Juan exists, and tons more. Most abilities are represented by icons, but a few tricky ones have a line or two of english (or whichever language your set is in). Expensive (6 cost) cards provide a chunk of victory points at the end, but these also provide benefits earlier. Building a City Hall (or Guild Hall) early in San Juan is suicide. Forming the Galactic Federation as your first card is reasonable.

So you not only have more cards, they have a wider range when they can hit the table. Additionally, each player starts with a "homeworld." This differentiates the players from turn 1. New Sparta plays differently from Alpha Centauri.

All told, Race for the Galaxy's replay value dwarfs its predecessors.

The simultaneous selection of roles completely changes the nature of the game. Often you'll choose between a safe play to guarantee a necessary role, or gamble that someone else picks it.

A typical example — playing Consume/Trade when you don't have goods available. If someone settles, you can colonize a windfall world (which starts with a good). You are swinging for the fences ... either a home-run or a strike out. [Note that production won't help you, since it occurs after settling]. This turns role selection from a "what's my best move" tactical analysis to a "what are they going to do?" guessing game.

Honestly, I don't always like that. But I don't mind here. First of all, Race is a fast game. Guess wrong and fall behind, you only need wait a bit (if you absolutely can't recover). The simultaneous selection also allows the nature of each game to change quickly. [This wouldn't be true of a blind-bidding system ... which just changes who gets what]. Other games with role selection have one phase per player ... here the number varies. This means leads aren't as safe ... you may build up a big hand between getting new cards, or have to race. Given two distinct 'builder' phases, Zero, One or Two cards may be built each turn.

I've played hundreds of games of San Juan and Puerto Rico, but they don't feel that different than the first fifty. I still enjoy the optimizing, but I'm nowhere near that with Race.

That's also due to the complex economics. There's ramping production, but its acceptable to miss builds for a good combination (or a great card). Alien goods trade for more cards, but with the right consumption powers you'd prefer "cheaper" goods. This makes combinations more important. I've (probably) played every card in the game ... but I doubt I've played every two card combination. If I've done the math right, it takes 67 games just to accomplish that feat, assumeing you build to 12 cards each game, and were optimal. (And assuming build order doesn't matter).

You can see how people who like this sort of thing play a handful of times at a sitting, and wind up with hundreds, or thousands, of plays. Some people are wondering if Race is "Good value for the money." If I buy a copy and never play again, I'm around $1/hour. I suspect I'll be dropping that number considerably.

By now you know that I love this game. Will you love it? I hope so, but who knows?. Who doesn't like it? People who dislike simultaneous action selection. People who prefer abstracts and games with simple rules and little-to-no chrome.

Regarding art and component quality. For me, this is an afterthought ... literally. I learned the game on playing cards with labels stuck to them. If they sold that, I'd be happy. As it is, the cards sport excellent art. It's superior to several CCGs I liked (Netrunner and INWO). Race also boasts first-rate graphic design. Most cards only have simple icons. That should minimize rules questions (always an issue in games with items that modify/break rules).

Race for the Galaxy is one of my few '10s'. Its in the 99th percentile of games, and possibly my favorite game ever (ask again in a year). My long wait has almost ended.

Update: I posted this review on BGG, and answered questions there.

In the Aubrey-Maturin series, they play a two-player card game called Piquet. The rules are on Pagat, and it turns out it's a two-player trick taking game with a cribbage like scoring. The interesting thing is that you score the hand before the play, but scoring reveals details about your hand.

You play with a deck missing 2-6, dealing out 12 cards per player. That leaves 8 cards, and the non-dealer (elder) can exchange 1-5 cards (must exchange at least one). The dealer (younger) can then exchange 1-5, but can't exchange more than the deck (Talon) has left, so usually exchanges three. So each player will see about half the deck. That, combined with the scoring mechanism, means that you can often tell almost exactly what your opponent has ... if you aren't lazy.

The trick-taking part isn't as interesting as could be, because often one (or both) players can run a suit for most of the tricks, but there's a big score (10 points) for most tricks, and a minor score (1point) for last trick, which often requires an endplay.

I found a nice software version, with one month free demo. I'm not sure how strong the computer is ... I think the Expert version has some weaknesses in card play (or I'm misreading the hands).

Anyway, worth checking out.

I got in another play of On the Underground today. Another "pick up and deliver" rail game, but fast and fresh.

Players get a few lines on the London Tube. One line has 20 connections, the others have 15 each. On your turn, you get four actions. The most basic action is laying a rail link. Fairly standard rules, there are 1-5 connections between each adjacent station, each color of your rail line must be contiguous (although your colors don't have to touch). Apart from laying a track, you can also get a 'branch token.' You spend two branch tokens (when laying track) to branch, instead of place at an endpoint. Branching is unlimited, apart from the time.

There are several ways to score. Some stations are worth one point when you connect. The 'end of line' stations are worth two points (and a branch token). Some stations get a 'district' token (the electronics district, dining district, etc). If a single line connects them, that's three points. Finally, if you make a loop around 1 or more stations, then you get one point for each station you enclose.

And then there is the passenger.

After each player moves, the passenger (or mob) will move. There are four destinations shown at the start of the term. (The destination deck includes all the stations that aren't dead ends or 1 point connectors). The passenger will go to the 'nearest' main station (gold), and then go from there to the 'nearest' substation (white).

Nearest is defined lazy passenger style -- The least walking. Why walk a block when you can take a 15 minute ride? Anyway, if there's a tie on walking, then the passenger will choose by "least number of lines used." If it's still tied, the active player decides. Each line used (whether for one link, or a dozen) gets a point for the owner.

That's basically it.

Right now the big sell of "On the Underground" is speed. This seems to be a 45 minute game, maybe 60 minutes. You balance short and long term scoring ... getting an extra point on the passenger now versus trying to close a loop, make a connection, or grab a link that will get used to run back and forth. The 'fewest links' rules mean that lines that were initially cooperating (so that the passenger won't have to walk) naturally compete to cut each other out.

As I mentioned before, I'm not quite ready to buy, but it's nice. So far the winner has always made a big central loop, but I suspect that will change as competition for the loop grows and people get the hang of this.

I'd avoid this with anyone who tended towards slow play. There's plenty to ponder, but lots of randomness in the destination deck. I'm sure good play helps, maybe quite a bit, but I'd rather not spend 90 minutes or two hours on this.

I finally broke Why did the Chicken out for our game night (which often has party or trivia games). This is basically "Balderdash" with jokes. You have a question "What happened when the BLANK dated the BLANK?" and two nouns to fill in the blanks. Everyone gets two minutes to write up punchlines (as many as they want), and a single player judges (ala Apples to Apples). Two jokes win, each winner getting a card (to score). Play with each player judging once (or more, I suppose).

Bruce Vilanch we are not.

After two "jokes" I was ready to punt, but we got better. The last joke ("Why did the pirate want to become a rabbit?") got several credible entries ... feel free to leave yours in the comment.

Anyway, you now know enough to decide to buy it or avoid it.

I suspect I'll play it a few more times, but I think I prefer Beyond Balderdash.

I managed to get in a few games on Monday. I tried a copy of Control Nut!

I'll need to try it again, but it seems quite interesting. Opinions are mixed, but this is worth another few outings, and I should have played it earlier. After Mu und Mehr (and a wave of card games), I really cut back on my card games. Really, they all seem alike. And, really, Control Nut is "just" a partnership trick-taking game with special cards auctioned off. But the mechanisms are novel.

Control nut is interesting in that a hand takes 10-15 minutes, because of the auctions. Apart from a 'standard' deck of cards (with AKQ changed into numbers, and the suits renamed as nuts) you have 8 special cards. You deal out hands, then reveal 4 special cards. Then those four are shuffled and auctioned off (one at a time).

Each bid is exactly three cards, and no two bids can match (a bids value is equal to the total). The winner gets the special card, and gives one card to each other player. The player who wins the most cards (or the last card in ties) gets to name trump.

Because hands will often run out of cards at different times, when one player/team has cards left, they claim the rest of the cards (divided into an appropriate number of tricks). Scoring is number of tricks times number of stars (with 1s and 7s having a star, and the 3s having two). The special cards are worth a bit of points, too.

And they really are special. Most of them automatically lose (although one wins any trick its played on) but do things like let you draw random cards from your opponents, name trump, sit out one or more tricks, add stars (or points) to its trick, played with another card to increase its value, and the like.

Apart from deciding which cards to win, the real question is -- "How to communicate via bids and build a winning hand?" Especially given that you are also showing cards to your opponents ... who may name trump.

Naming trump is a big deal, but then again, that's true of most games.

I play lots of games, and for years when I went to conventions I played prototypes. This frustrated me. First of all, I'd dislike some titles (just like I'd dislike some games). Worse, there are the games I like.

Several years ago, I instituted a "No prototypes at conventions" rule. [I'll play prototypes at home, because time isn't so constrained]. Right now the only exception I've allowed is for my occasional co-blogger Tom Lehmann.

I went through a summer where I played Outpost a few times a week (and I've played my fair share of it's recent offspring, Scptor of Zavandor). When Tom said that he had a 'streamlined' version five-ish years ago, I tried it.

I could go over the rules, but they are online. (You can play online, too).

Phoenicia, like its predecessor, is an economic game. You have people, who can work at hunting or farming (or other occupations). You have money, and you can store a certain amount from turn to turn. (In ancient days, money meant food or other perishables). Each occupied worker gives you income and victory points. And each turn, there are items up for auction. More workers, new technologies (mining and clothmaking) or improvements to old ones, items that earn you VPs or give you discounts on future items.

In this way, Phoenicia follows a path. What impressed me years ago, and continues to impress me now, is:

1. how much has been stripped away,
2. how it solves the problem of compound interest.

Outpost had 8 (?) types currency. Scepter has five, and each of them have a range of values. Phoenicia has cards ranging from 4 through 6, with the bulk (60%, I believe) as '5s'. Final auctions in the other two games range above one hundred. The biggest item now costs 30. This makes the auctions more tense, a single dollar matters. And adding change solves the pause while people optimize payment. That saves 30 minutes or more.

Both other games have a turn or two of build up, where you really want to increase your production before auctioning. (Winning an auction in the either game on turn one, or even turn two, may be fatal). Winning an auction on turn one in Phoenicia may be great (if you get a good price). Or you can increase your production (a bit).

Whereas the prior games allowed you to have five workers (or gem slots), Phoenicia starts you with three, and two are already working (one hunter, one farmer).

The same basic options exist in all three games, but Phoenicia trims away the 'false choices' (or 'no-brainers') as much as possible. Every limit tightened.

The other issue that games have is compound interest. You build income early, then switch to the point track. Look at St. Petersburg (by no stretch a bad game). The first turn "Mistress of Ceremonies" just destroys the game. She gives income and vp, with a too great return on investment. It's not impossible to catchup, but it's tough.

But I've played games of Phoenicia where in the mid game I have less income, less VPs and less 'saved money' and won (and was happy with my position). The game constrains in several ways. First of all, storage. At the beginning (and end) of each turn, you have a limit on cards and change. Like everything else, its been tightened. Two cards. A player who races up the income track will find it useless, unless they spend to grow storage. Also, technologies and workers combine to limit income. If I have an extra farmer right now, my income is above someone who has mining technology. But he has more room for expansion. And with only three workers at the beginning, it's a tight limit.

The extra dimensions (storage, workers, technologies and discounts) mean that you can fall behind, as long as you have compensations and exploit them. You can win with only three workers, or without a better technology, or with only minimal storage improvements, or without the best income.

In fact, the JKLM version has a 'balanced' start scenario (where everyone gets a '5' card as their opening deal). One of the most impressive games we played was where Tom voluntarily started with a '4' card against everyone else's five, and won. I don't recommend new players try that, but its possible.

While accomplishing this, the game takes about half as long (a bit more than half as long with 2-3 players, and less than half with 4-5).

This game has everything that the predecessors have, in So after my first few games of Phoenicia, I played once or twice a year, when I got the chance. And despaired of ever owning a copy. [That happened with Race for the Galaxy, too]. Now I have the luxury of playing 10 games the last week online, and having a copy arrive in a month or two.

Will you like this? If you loathed Outpost or Scepter, I don't see any reason you'll be interested. But plenty of people thought the prior games had promise but were too long, too convoluted, too fiddly. In that case, give it a try. There's plenty of meat, but little fat.