Considering that a large number of our regulars are on vacation, we had a pretty decent turnout last night. We even had a couple of newcomers! Glad to meet you. Hope you come back next week!
Some of us opened up the night with a nice quick game of Liar's Dice. I think I probably used up all of my luck for the next century because I quite simply could do no wrong in this game. I knocked out all challengers without losing a single die. I'm still not quite sure how I pulled that off but repeatedly rolling four out of five matching dice might have had something to do with it. Nice way to start the night!
 Meanwhile several of our group played a game of Martin Wallace's new game, Perikles. I have yet to play this game myself. I hear it's pretty good though. It's not all that common to find a game that's about both warfare and electioneering. It seems to run just a little long for my taste but I'll have to play it before I form any meaningful opinion. |
 Next up for me was a five player game of Vinci. Vinci is one of those classic games that everyone should play at least once. It's a game about the rise and fall of civilizations in Europe. Each player controls a civilization which expands from turn to turn until it eventually grows too large to maintain and falls into decline. The player then assumes control of a new emerging civilization and the process repeats itself. With each player controlling a different civilization, players must struggle for territories which grant victory points at the end of each turn. This game is not without its flaws. With five players there can be a fair amount of down time and this tends to lead to a fair amount of kibitzing and colluding as other players try to help the current player find the best move (read: find the move that benefits them the most). The public running total of victory points also tends to result in a bit of meta-gaming. In this game, being the leader can be a serious liability because it paints a great big target on you. But if you don't mind a little downtime and meta-gaming (which could actually be considered one of its charms), I think you'll find that its flaws are more than offset by its virtues: deep strategy, high replayability, and total lack of luck in the combat system. This is a very elegant game that I really can't recommend too highly. I managed to win last night but just barely. I hung back in second place, put my last civ in decline at just the right time and sprinted over the finish line one point ahead of my next closest competitor. I think that may be my first win at this game, at least against seasoned gamers. |
The final game for me was Doppelkopf. I'm still trying to get a handle on the rather complex rules but I think I'm slowly getting better. Of course you'd never know it from looking at my score. For most of the game I was firmly in the cellar and it was only by virtue of a couple of very lucky hands that I managed to scrap back up to second place before we quit for the night.
Meanwhile others in our group played
Tichu a few times and another group played
Bohnanza: everybody's favorite game about bean farming.
Come join us next week!
2 Comments:
Have you tried the Bohnanza expansions? My wife got High Bohn for XMas. There are a couple variations that can be played with that one expansion. We tried the one where you can use specific bean coins to buy specific buildings. What I mean is, coins gained from selling blue beans can buy special blue bean buildings. Each building gives you a special ability and scores some bonus points at the end of the game depending on how expensive of a building you bought. We only tried it once but it really brought new life to the Bean Game for me. I've always thought it was OK but really more of a casual party game. The expansion really took it to the next level (to make a sports analogy). I liked it a lot.
I've played High Bohn (the one you mention) but I have yet to play Bohnaparte. I thought High Bohn was a great addition to the game.
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