that's a good one. I first played it when I was like 6 or 8 or something, so I have fond memories of it. I remember there was a cool mac version back in the day...
that's a good one. I first played it when I was like 6 or 8
or something, so I have fond memories of it. I remember there
was a cool mac version back in the day...
My wife still plays that Mac version once in a while.
[/quote] If you like Mille Bornes that much, might I suggest you check out "Express" from Mayfair Games. I find Express to have similar elements as Mille Bornes in a slightly more strategic form, that also draws from Rummy. I like it best as a four player, partners game (which I also like about Mille Bornes)
In Express, you collect sets of trains (as in Rummy, this would be a meld). One card (any face down card) has to be used as a Locomotive, while many like cards are played face up to create sets of trains. Cards (depicting train cars) range in value from 1 to 5. The lower valued cards are more abundant, so while high value cars are worth more, they are are also more difficult to complete.
To end a round, you must have a train with at least 5 cars, one with at least 4 cars, and any other train set a minimum of 3 cars in length. In going out, you must have no cards left and as with a normal turn, your last card is discarded.
If there is a failing in the rules, it's in the scoring explainations. For each train, check the value of the cars (they should all match save for one instance) The first three cars count for the value of a single car, any additional cars are worth their own value. For example, a four car train with Commuter cars (value 4) would score 8 points. The first three count as one of the value 4, plus a fourth card that is of the value 4 for a total of 8 points. If there was a fifth car, the total would be 12. The other players/team adds up their points and subtracts the points from cards left in their hands.
Where is it that it matches Mille Bornes you might ask? In addition to the regular cars, there are "way" cars that prevent an opponet from playing Disaster cards. The play is similar in some respects to the "Safety" cards in Mille Bornes. The Way cars can be played during your turn, or they may be played from your hand in resonse to a disaster card. However, unlike Mille Bornes, a Disaster card can still be played on a player with the matching Way card, but all it does, is remove the Way card from play. Since Way cars are worth 5 points, this makes for interesting play, do I get the points out of my hand, or do I chance having negative points left in my hand.
Partner play is really fun, as the Locomotive cards (you have to use one card face down as the Loco for each train in play) can be picked up by either player at the start of their turn, and the same or new ones placed down by the end of their turn. In this way, team players can pass cards and information. This is one of the best features of Express in partner play.
I've left out a lot of other interesting bits to Express, and wish I could cover them all, but time does not permit right now.
It's hard to say what these games have in common other than
their association with trains. Most involve building a rail
system and then running train cargo from one place to another,
using the rail system you built earlier in the game. We play a
few of these every Bakkenalia. Examples: British Rails, Rail
Baron, Dampfrosse, Empire Builder, Freight Train, 1850.
Try "through the desert"
newish game, seems more complex then it actually is. its a nice quick play once you've gone through it a few times
[quote] that's a good one. I first played it when I was like 6 or 8 or something, so I have fond memories of it. I remember there was a cool mac version back in the day...
~Blackbeard "H A R !"
[/quote] at work on a PC, so I can't check the archive for sure, but ... but this page seems to have a link to the old mac game...
Besides the Silicon Valley Boardgamers group, I also play games
with a couple of small groups of friends. These are mostly RPGs
(GURPS and ADD&D) but we take the occasional break and play
boardgames from time to time. SVB also hosts a GamesDay event
every 2 to 3 months (Saturdays from 10 AM to 11 PM) that I try
to attend. (the next one is scheduled for August 11th at the Los
Altos City Library)
ADD&D. Is that "attention deficit dungeons and dragons?"
:
::ducks::
Thanks for all the responses. I've since started a twice-a-month boardgaming get-together as a spinoff of an existing twice-a-month moviegoing group, alternating weekends. We have a regular core of 5, sometimes as many as 8 (or more depending on how many Significant Others tag along). So far so good! Lots of fun for everyone involved... usually. :-) Also I really enjoy trawling the Web and Usenet for opinions, shopping, breaking open and learning a new game, and teaching it to the group.
Got some initial impressions. Game names linked to Funagain (where possible) as before, but BoardgameGeek is at least as informative (although their advanced-search options are comprehesively broken).
--
Among us we've got two copies of Settlers, the 5-6 player expansion, and the Seafarers expansion. One or another variety of Settlers undoubtedly accounts for most of our gaming so far. The dependence on dice rolls is indeed pretty awful at times, although it's possible to try to cover enough different numbers to mitigate that. Along with the frustration tho the dice also occasionally bestow manna from heaven on some of the players who aren't regular winners, which helps keep the group happy.
So far I dislike the 5-6 player expansion (of the non-Seafarers variety) as being very crowded and stringing out the endgame. On the other hand, Seafarers seems promising; only played it once so far (with four people) but I do like the additional options and the extra elbow room. The larger map lets you play to a higher victory point total, evening out the dice-luck effects just a tad, without getting claustrophobic... makes for a longer game of course, but seemed to have more of a sense of open possibilities and "stuff happening" than our couple of long 5-6 player games of basic Settlers. Seafarers might even work pretty well with the 5-6 player expansion, tho I'm hesitant to get burned again on that.
Haven't tried the Cities & Knights expansion yet. That looks like it makes the game mechanics fundamentally different and more complex, as opposed to Seafarers which just made minor mechanics changes and opened up the playing surface. Dunno if I want to pay for the privilege of trying that expansion out, but one of our regulars says that she'll bring it for us to try as soon as she can extract it from her ex-boyfriend's residence. (Not holding my breath. :-) )
--
Carcassonne was a fun, modestly competitive experience the couple of times I've played it, but it seems best with 2-3 players and our group really resists breaking into small subgroups if at all possible. Also often there's been a new "big game" that I'm breaking in, so I'm not available to shepherd a Carcassonne introduction. Hopefully I'll manage to wedge another Carcassonne session into the itinerary some day. Seems to be enjoyable and a bit of a break from the more cutthroat games (although there is still definite potential for screw-the-other-guy actions).
--
Couple of games of Lord of the Rings so far, both starting from the "wimp position" with Sauron on 15. First time we lost the ringbearer midway through Mordor, although we overlooked a certain rule and were handicapped; second time we finished with a fairly strong win and would have won even if Sauron had been on 12 or 11, although we didn't save many shields for scoring.
Interesting game. Shows the difficulty of making a cooperative game; the stuff that happens to the players is necessarily luck-driven (otherwise this would just be a "puzzle") but having massively bad things happen to your party from the luck of the draw can be hard to swallow. Certainly makes it suspenseful though. :-) We probably won't play this one again real soon, but I'm sure it will get broken out again sooner or later.
The Friends & Foes expansion sounds cool but I don't think I'm going to pony up for it. On the other hand, if the upcoming Sauron expansion lets one of the players be the bad guy (as is rumored), I'll be taking a close look at that for sure.
--
One play of El Grande, quite good and a little more intense than most of the other games. I'm sure we'll have a replay soon since on our first run-through, me and another guy tied -- landing exactly on the last square of the scoring track, curiously enough. It's not a game that I have the impulse to dive back into, but when I actually think about our first run, I don't know why... because it was certainly fun. Maybe has to do with the theme (or lack thereof), or the fact that everyone will need to re-learn the rules when we break it out again. :-)
--
Had one play of Illuminati; more rules than I think I like, and confusing enough so that those of us who were newbies unintentionally threw the game to another newbie, to the great frustration I think of the experienced player. (And call me shallow, but I also like more substantial and colorful bits-and-pieces than this game sports... although this was a very old set, could be things have changed.) Dunno if this one will make a return; however the construction of the conspiracy networks is definitely a snazzy mechanism.
Also one play of Survive!, an older "family boardgame" that has a fun light-strategy feel; may be a bit long for a game that light, but I wouldn't be averse to trying it again.
--
We tried Give me the Brain in one of our very first meetings and were tickled but less than impressed at some of the gameplay; in particular I recall there being one card that if you had it, you could win the game at any time past a certain point in the game... don't remember the details of all that. We muttered about maybe omitting that card and changing some rules, but with so many other games to try we haven't been back.
We usually run a card game of some sort for an icebreaker... Apples to Apples is popular, although the last couple of times the "last one out" mechanism has led to really ultra-fast card playing that makes the word choices not as interesting. We've also played Guillotine, Shipwrecked, and even Uno.
I haven't played Shipwrecked yet, but I've been in on a few games of Guillotine (undefeated!). Quick, luck-driven, and not much mystery about what the right thing to do is when your turn comes around. Fine for an opener, especially since it's got a funny theme and artwork -- although I can imagine some people being less than amused by a "decapitation game".
--
Games on my current list to buy or try (to some extent with the size and tastes of the group in mind as well):
Capitol: Targets my weakness for "building games".
Citadels: English version coming soon. Not as big on card games generally, even (or especially) card games that try to mix in other mechanics, but this one seems to be widely admired. And we need more large-group games.
Entdecker: Cf. Capitol and "weaknesses", except an exploring game this time; also a favorable pedigree (the Settlers designer). There's a newer edition out, which will have an English version soon, but curiously almost everyone agrees that the old edition is better, although some of the new edition changes are applauded. You can find instructions on "how to play the old edition with some of the new rules" and "how to play the new edition using most of the old rules" (which is fairly convoluted). Not sure what to do about this one.
Medina: Another building game (!), straightforward mechanics with conflicting goals, cool bits, should be fun.
The Princes of Florence: Sort of a building game, sort of an auction game. Apparently not very cutthroat, which will appeal to some folks in our group. Looks to be "between publishings" though. :-/
Tigris & Euphrates: A more intense game to go along with El Grande for those times when we have a group of people really in the mood to match bare brains.
Tikal: Maybe. Or maybe Java. Everyone seems to agree that a) Tikal and Java are fairly similar and b) one is much better than the other. But opinion is about evenly split on which one is the better one. :-) I can't get a great read yet on how my opinion and the group's opinion would likely fall; if I had to bet, probably Tikal... but it's not likely to be a blind purchase.
Valley of the Mammoths: Not really on my to-get list yet, but a good buzz on this one and I'd like to know more.
Vinci: Described as "Civilization lite", which could be just right for our group. (The upcoming "Mare Nostrum" also sounds intriguing in that way.)
So many games, so little time/money. Some games are in categories that just don't ring my bell when I hear about them, but they might end up being enjoyed by our group (including me), you never know... pure auction games, train games, racing games, stocks-shares-business-whatever games. I may leave exploring those categories up to other people. So far I've provided the bulk of the games, especially new ones, although the other folks in the group have brought Guillotine, Shipwrecked, Uno, Survive!, Illuminati, and one of the Settlers basic sets. If another person in the group caught the new-game bug too, I wouldn't complain. :-)
Have you checked out BrettspielWelt? It's a German site (with English translations available for most pages) and board game portal -- with extremely functional Java versions of many of the most popular German table games: Carcassone (and the expansion version not yet available in the U.S.), Web of Power (Kardinal und Koenig), Princes of Florence, Settlers of Catan, Lost Cities, and probably 12-15 others. The boards are faithful reproductions and the gameplay and scoring are automated -- and very well, I might add.
There is a pretty sizable English-speaking contingent on most nights, and some Germans who don't seem to mind staying up all night to play. Click the link below to go exploring.
Man that sounds like fun. Wish I had a local group of guys to play some with.
We usually run a card game of some sort for an icebreaker...
Apples to Apples is popular, although the last couple of times
the "last one out" mechanism has led to really
ultra-fast card playing that makes the word choices not as
interesting. We've also played Guillotine , Shipwrecked , and
even Uno.
I havn't played many board/card/etc games. But I got introduced to 'Phase 10' about 9 months ago, and ever since then every camp-in I volunteer at (at my local science museum) we stay up all night and play it.
It uses some basic strategy, and it's reletively simple to learn. You play multiple but connected hands, and it takes about two hours to complete a game. Pretty cool game to try out.
Oh, this is good. I will point out a couple of quirks that others may find if they try to go to BSW.
1. The lockups (which prompt people to type "t" to test their connections) are apparently a Windows Java problem. I have had only one lock-up through IE5 for OS X, and that appears to have been a BSW server belch, not my system.
2. Using IE for OS X, however, I do have to enter BSW in a non-standard manner. If I click into the world from the front page, the Java window that opens is just black. Nothing but black. I know (from my modem lights and occasionally the BSW sounds) that I am connecting to the server, but the graphics just do not load or run properly. The only way I can get into the Welt is by clicking through to the Games page, picking a game (usually Carcassone) and picking one of the game's rooms from the pull-down. The Java window opens and I'm in the game room, from which I can exit to the "town" and go from there without a problem. It's odd, but not really even annoying.
3. The toolbar that Mark Johnson shows on his guide site is very different in the Mac world (or there is a newer version). The icons are different and not as recognizable. It takes a little fiddling to figure out what they all do.
All in all, the guide is helpful. More English rules and information are being added all the time, as I understand it. (Fortunately, Princes of Florence, which uses German-language cards, has English translations available -- which leads to longer turn times on occasion as people flip to the browser to figure out what they want to do.)
Carcassone (and the expansion version not yet available in the U.S.)
You mean The River? I think it's made its way over here... I bought Carcassonne for my uncle's family for Christmas, and the box and contents were just like my set except that the box had something stamped on it about the expansion, and the contents included the expansion tilesheet and a slightly changed rules booklet that mentions how to use it.
The store was also handing out free expansion tilesheets to anyone who had bought the game before, so I grabbed one. Haven't tried it yet. Looks like it will make the resulting "landscape" more attractive, and maybe add a small twist to the game, but no major change.
Not real flashy visually but all the necessary info is presented well and the interface is nicely functional; overall the best Settlers program I've seen (looked at most of them today), especially because it has some AI. The computer players aren't bad either; nothing to strike fear into you but I've played a couple of games against them and it's a nice puzzle-like activity. Kudos to the author for making bots that can play a game that has several different (and "fuzzy") mechanisms. Only thing that bugs me is that sometimes they take amazingly long to decide to accept or reject a trade. I wonder if the AI is running all on my system or if the bots are communicating with or being operated by the central server for some reason... probably the latter, if he wants to fiddle with the AI without making people re-download new applets.
Oh, also, it's nice to have them fill empty seats, but it seems like there should be a way to disable that if you only wanted to play a 2- or 3-person game; maybe there is and I overlooked it.
Pretty nifty anyway, although it feel a little constricted after playing Seafarers. (Heh, from the FAQ: "Right now I don't have plans to add any expansions to the game, but I may after I finish my dissertation." Riiiiight. :-) )
You mean The River? I think it's made its way over here... I
bought Carcassonne for my uncle's family for Christmas, and the
box and contents were just like my set except that the box had
something stamped on it about the expansion, and the contents
included the expansion tilesheet and a slightly changed rules
booklet that mentions how to use it.
Not the river (though BSW has that as an option as well). There is an expansion set of new tiles and slightly different rules. The biggest change (aside from the new tiles, which can throw you off if you've learned the distribution of the original set) is the addition of an additional meeple -- a double-strength meeple (counts as two), which complicates the strategy a bit. It's pretty much still the same game.
Oh, also, it's nice to have them fill empty seats, but it seems
like there should be a way to disable that if you only wanted to
play a 2- or 3-person game; maybe there is and I overlooked it.
I think you can "lock" a seat so that nobody can take it, but I don't know if that keeps the bots out.
Well how about that. Learn something new every day.
Apparently it has the dazzling name of Carcassonne: The Expansion. No mention of it at Funagain or in rec.games.board. Some some mysterious Germanic discussion in de.rec.spiele.brett+karten that doesn't reveal much either when beaten with a Babelfish.
BSW doesn't have English instructions for it, but they do have German instructions, which basically seem to say:
A pub (6 cards) on a road makes that road worth double to thieves if completed. However, pub-roads get zero points if uncompleted at game end.
One or both cathedrals (2 cards) in a completed city makes each tile and pennant worth 3 instead of 2. Like the roads with pubs though, an uncompleted city is worth nothing if it includes a cathedral.
Looks like there are two tiles (or types of tiles? there's supposed to be 18 new tiles total) that are treated as 2 tiles each for road scoring.
And the giant meeple of course!
Looks sorta neat, hope it isn't an arm and a leg though (unless there's more to it).
"Pub?" Are you sure? We just refer to them as lakes.
Apparently it's a pub (Wirtshaus) next to a pond or small lake... I guess a recreational spot like that must boost the road traffic so the thieves can really clean up. :-)
I saw the recent Rio Grande newsletter and noticed that:
- The Carcassonne expansion will be available in April for $12, and it also includes markers to be placed on the scoring track when you exceed 50 points, and another set of pieces so you can have 6 players. The thought of 6 players seems odd... I dunno, seems like more than 3 or so players would make for lots of downtime. You ever played it with a larger group?
- Princes of Florence will be reprinted in April. Good to know that I didn't miss the boat on that one. They also had a list of games going out-of-print for some open-ended amount of time: The Black Rose, Katzenjammer Blues, Medieval Merchant, Samarkand, El Caballero, Ricochet Robot, Union Pacific, Money, Big City, Ta Yu, and Stephenson's Rocket, 4 or 5 of which I've looked at with some interest. Annoying really to see how fragile the toehold in the American market is for these types of games. Kinda makes it seem like if I waffle too much over which $50 games to blow my budget on, they'll vanish and I'll only be able to get them on eBay for obscene prices.
Comments
that's a good one.
~Blackbeard "H A R !"
My wife still plays that Mac version once in a while.
[quote]
Mille Bornes.
[/quote]
If you like Mille Bornes that much, might I suggest you check out "Express" from Mayfair Games. I find Express to have similar elements as Mille Bornes in a slightly more strategic form, that also draws from Rummy. I like it best as a four player, partners game (which I also like about Mille Bornes)
In Express, you collect sets of trains (as in Rummy, this would be a meld). One card (any face down card) has to be used as a Locomotive, while many like cards are played face up to create sets of trains. Cards (depicting train cars) range in value from 1 to 5. The lower valued cards are more abundant, so while high value cars are worth more, they are are also more difficult to complete.
To end a round, you must have a train with at least 5 cars, one with at least 4 cars, and any other train set a minimum of 3 cars in length. In going out, you must have no cards left and as with a normal turn, your last card is discarded.
If there is a failing in the rules, it's in the scoring explainations. For each train, check the value of the cars (they should all match save for one instance) The first three cars count for the value of a single car, any additional cars are worth their own value. For example, a four car train with Commuter cars (value 4) would score 8 points. The first three count as one of the value 4, plus a fourth card that is of the value 4 for a total of 8 points. If there was a fifth car, the total would be 12. The other players/team adds up their points and subtracts the points from cards left in their hands.
Where is it that it matches Mille Bornes you might ask? In addition to the regular cars, there are "way" cars that prevent an opponet from playing Disaster cards. The play is similar in some respects to the "Safety" cards in Mille Bornes. The Way cars can be played during your turn, or they may be played from your hand in resonse to a disaster card. However, unlike Mille Bornes, a Disaster card can still be played on a player with the matching Way card, but all it does, is remove the Way card from play. Since Way cars are worth 5 points, this makes for interesting play, do I get the points out of my hand, or do I chance having negative points left in my hand.
Partner play is really fun, as the Locomotive cards (you have to use one card face down as the Loco for each train in play) can be picked up by either player at the start of their turn, and the same or new ones placed down by the end of their turn. In this way, team players can pass cards and information. This is one of the best features of Express in partner play.
I've left out a lot of other interesting bits to Express, and wish I could cover them all, but time does not permit right now.
Here is Funagain's page on Express: http://kumquat.com/cgi-kumquat/funagain/00465?QvQRJa97;;9
Train Games Try "through the desert"
newish game, seems more complex then it actually is. its a nice quick play once you've gone through it a few times
[quote]
that's a good one.
or something, so I have fond memories of it.
was a cool mac version back in the day...
~Blackbeard "H A R !"
[/quote]
at work on a PC, so I can't check the archive for sure, but ...
but this page seems to have a link to the old mac game...
http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/recreation/classic-mac-games.html
doing a search on download.com brought back several versions for PC.
Conner
Been there, played that. It's fun, but not a train game. 8-)
ADD&D. Is that "attention deficit dungeons and dragons?"
:
::ducks::
There are no ducks involved.
Been a long time since my original post...
Thanks for all the responses. I've since started a twice-a-month boardgaming get-together as a spinoff of an existing twice-a-month moviegoing group, alternating weekends. We have a regular core of 5, sometimes as many as 8 (or more depending on how many Significant Others tag along). So far so good! Lots of fun for everyone involved... usually. :-) Also I really enjoy trawling the Web and Usenet for opinions, shopping, breaking open and learning a new game, and teaching it to the group.
Got some initial impressions. Game names linked to Funagain (where possible) as before, but BoardgameGeek is at least as informative (although their advanced-search options are comprehesively broken).
--
Among us we've got two copies of Settlers, the 5-6 player expansion, and the Seafarers expansion. One or another variety of Settlers undoubtedly accounts for most of our gaming so far. The dependence on dice rolls is indeed pretty awful at times, although it's possible to try to cover enough different numbers to mitigate that. Along with the frustration tho the dice also occasionally bestow manna from heaven on some of the players who aren't regular winners, which helps keep the group happy.
So far I dislike the 5-6 player expansion (of the non-Seafarers variety) as being very crowded and stringing out the endgame. On the other hand, Seafarers seems promising; only played it once so far (with four people) but I do like the additional options and the extra elbow room. The larger map lets you play to a higher victory point total, evening out the dice-luck effects just a tad, without getting claustrophobic... makes for a longer game of course, but seemed to have more of a sense of open possibilities and "stuff happening" than our couple of long 5-6 player games of basic Settlers. Seafarers might even work pretty well with the 5-6 player expansion, tho I'm hesitant to get burned again on that.
Haven't tried the Cities & Knights expansion yet. That looks like it makes the game mechanics fundamentally different and more complex, as opposed to Seafarers which just made minor mechanics changes and opened up the playing surface. Dunno if I want to pay for the privilege of trying that expansion out, but one of our regulars says that she'll bring it for us to try as soon as she can extract it from her ex-boyfriend's residence. (Not holding my breath. :-) )
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Carcassonne was a fun, modestly competitive experience the couple of times I've played it, but it seems best with 2-3 players and our group really resists breaking into small subgroups if at all possible. Also often there's been a new "big game" that I'm breaking in, so I'm not available to shepherd a Carcassonne introduction. Hopefully I'll manage to wedge another Carcassonne session into the itinerary some day. Seems to be enjoyable and a bit of a break from the more cutthroat games (although there is still definite potential for screw-the-other-guy actions).
--
Couple of games of Lord of the Rings so far, both starting from the "wimp position" with Sauron on 15. First time we lost the ringbearer midway through Mordor, although we overlooked a certain rule and were handicapped; second time we finished with a fairly strong win and would have won even if Sauron had been on 12 or 11, although we didn't save many shields for scoring.
Interesting game. Shows the difficulty of making a cooperative game; the stuff that happens to the players is necessarily luck-driven (otherwise this would just be a "puzzle") but having massively bad things happen to your party from the luck of the draw can be hard to swallow. Certainly makes it suspenseful though. :-) We probably won't play this one again real soon, but I'm sure it will get broken out again sooner or later.
The Friends & Foes expansion sounds cool but I don't think I'm going to pony up for it. On the other hand, if the upcoming Sauron expansion lets one of the players be the bad guy (as is rumored), I'll be taking a close look at that for sure.
--
One play of El Grande, quite good and a little more intense than most of the other games. I'm sure we'll have a replay soon since on our first run-through, me and another guy tied -- landing exactly on the last square of the scoring track, curiously enough. It's not a game that I have the impulse to dive back into, but when I actually think about our first run, I don't know why... because it was certainly fun. Maybe has to do with the theme (or lack thereof), or the fact that everyone will need to re-learn the rules when we break it out again. :-)
--
Had one play of Illuminati; more rules than I think I like, and confusing enough so that those of us who were newbies unintentionally threw the game to another newbie, to the great frustration I think of the experienced player. (And call me shallow, but I also like more substantial and colorful bits-and-pieces than this game sports... although this was a very old set, could be things have changed.) Dunno if this one will make a return; however the construction of the conspiracy networks is definitely a snazzy mechanism.
Also one play of Survive!, an older "family boardgame" that has a fun light-strategy feel; may be a bit long for a game that light, but I wouldn't be averse to trying it again.
--
We tried Give me the Brain in one of our very first meetings and were tickled but less than impressed at some of the gameplay; in particular I recall there being one card that if you had it, you could win the game at any time past a certain point in the game... don't remember the details of all that. We muttered about maybe omitting that card and changing some rules, but with so many other games to try we haven't been back.
I have Kill Doctor Lucky but it hasn't made an appearance yet.
--
We usually run a card game of some sort for an icebreaker... Apples to Apples is popular, although the last couple of times the "last one out" mechanism has led to really ultra-fast card playing that makes the word choices not as interesting. We've also played Guillotine, Shipwrecked, and even Uno.
I haven't played Shipwrecked yet, but I've been in on a few games of Guillotine (undefeated!). Quick, luck-driven, and not much mystery about what the right thing to do is when your turn comes around. Fine for an opener, especially since it's got a funny theme and artwork -- although I can imagine some people being less than amused by a "decapitation game".
--
Games on my current list to buy or try (to some extent with the size and tastes of the group in mind as well):
- Capitol: Targets my weakness for "building games".
- Citadels: English version coming soon. Not as big on card games generally, even (or especially) card games that try to mix in other mechanics, but this one seems to be widely admired. And we need more large-group games.
- Entdecker: Cf. Capitol and "weaknesses", except an exploring game this time; also a favorable pedigree (the Settlers designer). There's a newer edition out, which will have an English version soon, but curiously almost everyone agrees that the old edition is better, although some of the new edition changes are applauded. You can find instructions on "how to play the old edition with some of the new rules" and "how to play the new edition using most of the old rules" (which is fairly convoluted). Not sure what to do about this one.
- Medina: Another building game (!), straightforward mechanics with conflicting goals, cool bits, should be fun.
- The Princes of Florence: Sort of a building game, sort of an auction game. Apparently not very cutthroat, which will appeal to some folks in our group. Looks to be "between publishings" though. :-/
- Tigris & Euphrates: A more intense game to go along with El Grande for those times when we have a group of people really in the mood to match bare brains.
- Tikal: Maybe. Or maybe Java. Everyone seems to agree that a) Tikal and Java are fairly similar and b) one is much better than the other. But opinion is about evenly split on which one is the better one. :-) I can't get a great read yet on how my opinion and the group's opinion would likely fall; if I had to bet, probably Tikal... but it's not likely to be a blind purchase.
- Valley of the Mammoths: Not really on my to-get list yet, but a good buzz on this one and I'd like to know more.
- Vinci: Described as "Civilization lite", which could be just right for our group. (The upcoming "Mare Nostrum" also sounds intriguing in that way.)
- One of the "genetics games"... Ursuppe, Urland, Evo?
So many games, so little time/money. Some games are in categories that just don't ring my bell when I hear about them, but they might end up being enjoyed by our group (including me), you never know... pure auction games, train games, racing games, stocks-shares-business-whatever games. I may leave exploring those categories up to other people. So far I've provided the bulk of the games, especially new ones, although the other folks in the group have brought Guillotine, Shipwrecked, Uno, Survive!, Illuminati, and one of the Settlers basic sets. If another person in the group caught the new-game bug too, I wouldn't complain. :-)Have you checked out BrettspielWelt? It's a German site (with English translations available for most pages) and board game portal -- with extremely functional Java versions of many of the most popular German table games: Carcassone (and the expansion version not yet available in the U.S.), Web of Power (Kardinal und Koenig), Princes of Florence, Settlers of Catan, Lost Cities, and probably 12-15 others. The boards are faithful reproductions and the gameplay and scoring are automated -- and very well, I might add.
There is a pretty sizable English-speaking contingent on most nights, and some Germans who don't seem to mind staying up all night to play. Click the link below to go exploring.
BrettspielWelt
Interesting! Nope, I hadn't seen that yet.
Man that sounds like fun. Wish I had a local group of guys to play some with.
I havn't played many board/card/etc games. But I got introduced to 'Phase 10' about 9 months ago, and ever since then every camp-in I volunteer at (at my local science museum) we stay up all night and play it.
It uses some basic strategy, and it's reletively simple to learn. You play multiple but connected hands, and it takes about two hours to complete a game. Pretty cool game to try out.
Here's a link to an on-line version of Settlers developed by someone on this side of the Atlantic:
http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/
Bots fill in any seats not taken by human players. They are pretty functional and know how to trade, etc. Good for a mid-day fix when work is slow
[img]http://www.clanplaid.net/~charon/charon.gif[/img]
Quick & Dirty Guide to BSW
Oh, this is good. I will point out a couple of quirks that others may find if they try to go to BSW.
1. The lockups (which prompt people to type "t" to test their connections) are apparently a Windows Java problem. I have had only one lock-up through IE5 for OS X, and that appears to have been a BSW server belch, not my system.
2. Using IE for OS X, however, I do have to enter BSW in a non-standard manner. If I click into the world from the front page, the Java window that opens is just black. Nothing but black. I know (from my modem lights and occasionally the BSW sounds) that I am connecting to the server, but the graphics just do not load or run properly. The only way I can get into the Welt is by clicking through to the Games page, picking a game (usually Carcassone) and picking one of the game's rooms from the pull-down. The Java window opens and I'm in the game room, from which I can exit to the "town" and go from there without a problem. It's odd, but not really even annoying.
3. The toolbar that Mark Johnson shows on his guide site is very different in the Mac world (or there is a newer version). The icons are different and not as recognizable. It takes a little fiddling to figure out what they all do.
All in all, the guide is helpful. More English rules and information are being added all the time, as I understand it. (Fortunately, Princes of Florence, which uses German-language cards, has English translations available -- which leads to longer turn times on occasion as people flip to the browser to figure out what they want to do.)
Newer version. The general world graphics are also different than on Mark's page, but close enough to give the idea.
Funnily enough, the help/tutorials images on the brettspielwelt Web site are showing the same outdated stuff.
Quick & Dirty Guide to BSW
You mean The River? I think it's made its way over here... I bought Carcassonne for my uncle's family for Christmas, and the box and contents were just like my set except that the box had something stamped on it about the expansion, and the contents included the expansion tilesheet and a slightly changed rules booklet that mentions how to use it.
The store was also handing out free expansion tilesheets to anyone who had bought the game before, so I grabbed one. Haven't tried it yet. Looks like it will make the resulting "landscape" more attractive, and maybe add a small twist to the game, but no major change.
Quick & Dirty Guide to BSW
[quote]
Finally, once you buy/play Settlers, check out the great Java
version at: http://sunlab-01.cs.nwu.edu/~thomas/java/soc/ .
[/quote]
I finally tried that today. (That URL still works BTW but apparently the site has moved... http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/ or http://catan.cs.nwu.edu/ )
Not real flashy visually but all the necessary info is presented well and the interface is nicely functional; overall the best Settlers program I've seen (looked at most of them today), especially because it has some AI. The computer players aren't bad either; nothing to strike fear into you but I've played a couple of games against them and it's a nice puzzle-like activity. Kudos to the author for making bots that can play a game that has several different (and "fuzzy") mechanisms. Only thing that bugs me is that sometimes they take amazingly long to decide to accept or reject a trade. I wonder if the AI is running all on my system or if the bots are communicating with or being operated by the central server for some reason... probably the latter, if he wants to fiddle with the AI without making people re-download new applets.
Oh, also, it's nice to have them fill empty seats, but it seems like there should be a way to disable that if you only wanted to play a 2- or 3-person game; maybe there is and I overlooked it.
Pretty nifty anyway, although it feel a little constricted after playing Seafarers. (Heh, from the FAQ: "Right now I don't have plans to add any expansions to the game, but I may after I finish my dissertation." Riiiiight. :-) )
[img]http://www.clanplaid.net/~johnny/settlers_screenshot.gif[/img]
Not the river (though BSW has that as an option as well). There is an expansion set of new tiles and slightly different rules. The biggest change (aside from the new tiles, which can throw you off if you've learned the distribution of the original set) is the addition of an additional meeple -- a double-strength meeple (counts as two), which complicates the strategy a bit. It's pretty much still the same game.
BrettspielWelt
I think you can "lock" a seat so that nobody can take it, but I don't know if that keeps the bots out.
BrettspielWelt
Well how about that. Learn something new every day.
Apparently it has the dazzling name of Carcassonne: The Expansion. No mention of it at Funagain or in rec.games.board. Some some mysterious Germanic discussion in de.rec.spiele.brett+karten that doesn't reveal much either when beaten with a Babelfish.
Looks like I may need to go try it out at bsw...
BSW doesn't have English instructions for it, but they do have German instructions, which basically seem to say:
Looks sorta neat, hope it isn't an arm and a leg though (unless there's more to it).
"Pub?" Are you sure? We just refer to them as lakes.
Yes, both those tiles "break" roads.
And I think the new piece should be called a "megameeple," but I haven't tried to get people on BSW to call it that yet. 8-)
Apparently it's a pub (Wirtshaus) next to a pond or small lake... I guess a recreational spot like that must boost the road traffic so the thieves can really clean up. :-)
I saw the recent Rio Grande newsletter and noticed that:
- The Carcassonne expansion will be available in April for $12, and it also includes markers to be placed on the scoring track when you exceed 50 points, and another set of pieces so you can have 6 players. The thought of 6 players seems odd... I dunno, seems like more than 3 or so players would make for lots of downtime. You ever played it with a larger group?
- Princes of Florence will be reprinted in April. Good to know that I didn't miss the boat on that one. They also had a list of games going out-of-print for some open-ended amount of time: The Black Rose, Katzenjammer Blues, Medieval Merchant, Samarkand, El Caballero, Ricochet Robot, Union Pacific, Money, Big City, Ta Yu, and Stephenson's Rocket, 4 or 5 of which I've looked at with some interest. Annoying really to see how fragile the toehold in the American market is for these types of games. Kinda makes it seem like if I waffle too much over which $50 games to blow my budget on, they'll vanish and I'll only be able to get them on eBay for obscene prices.