Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Monday Gaming at Borders - 07/03/2006
The most recent gaming session went well, despite poor turnout. It was just me and Sridhar. No one else showed up. I hope that we get more participants next time. If anyone has any suggestions for improving turnout, please leave a comment.
The games we played were:
Ticket to Ride
The Gardens of the Alhambra
Mama Mia!
Vino
Cribbage
The Gardens of the Alhambra
Gardens is a tile-laying game, not totally unlike Carcassonne, but different enough that it was very interesting. Tiles are in two shapes, one for designating values on the board, and one for placing garden paths and flowers. Players gain points for surrounding value tiles and having the most flowers surrounding it. The trick is that points are multiplied by the number of different colored flowers in the garden. This makes strategy quite interesting at times, since each tile has a varying number of flowers for each color, but all colors upon it. I was also annoyed by the
need to flip the value tiles over after gardens were completed. The tiles are snugly placed and this makes for a very disruptive shifting of the entire board once the game is well underway.
Late in the game, multiple gardens are often completed at once, though mostly including edge gardens which only use two tiles to surround the value tile, rather than four. Each of the garden tiles has paths on it, which I initially thought might be another facet of gameplay, but this turned out not to be the case, for the most part. The paths merely serve to delineate which section of flowers is contained in the garden. This always ends up being the nearest corder, which was a tad disappointing.
The strategies in the game are fairly straightforward. When you get a tile with a large number of flowers on it, do your best to place the side with your color next to a large value tile. When your opponent has already done so, try to outnumber him or her with either your color or another player's, or at the very least match him or her so that points are nullified. We only played with two players, so non-player colors were a good tool in nullifying points without sacrificing opportunities.
I rate The Gardens of the Alhambra 3.5 out of 5 pawns
Mama Mia!
Mama Mia! is a cute card game that is more a memory exercise than a strategy game. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The basic premise of the game is that each player has a set of pizza orders and access to a stack of ingredients. The object is to try to place the order cards on the "oven" stack when there are sufficient ingredients in it to complete the pizza being ordered. Each player places ingredients in the "oven" either singly or in groups, depending on the number possessed, and declares what and how many are being placed. The rest of the players
have to remember what has been placed and what orders have been sent in as well. A player with an excellent memory may be able to recall well enough what ingredients are in the oven, whether they have already been claimed by a successful order, and what an unsuccessful order has left behind as well.
Once all the ingredients have been drawn, the player who drew the Mama Mia! card (there's only one) gets to resolve the orders in the "oven". When orders lack ingredients, the ordering player has the opportunity to fill any gaps from his or her hand. Keeping a fairly round supply of ingredients is, therefore, advisable, if possible. Certain order cards are important to note. The Any 15 items card not only requires at least 15 items be present in the "oven", it also clears any surplus items as well, so players need to be watchful for one of these orders and cognizant of its success, since it effectively cleans everything out when successful, but leaves a fairly large stock of ingredients when it fails.
I give Mama Mia! a rating of 3.5 out of 5 pawns. It was a fun game, but seems a bit limited in audience and replay potential.
Vino
Vino was a new game for both players, and as such, it took us a while to get the hang of things. Essentially, Vino is a develop and harvest sort of strategy game, where the market price for harvest changes based upon how many items are harvested as well as how many harvests of other items have occurred. Players are given random vineyards to start the game and some starting cash with which to buy more vineyards. Each vineyard purchased produces an amount of wine of a single type (chosen by the player for that territory - one type per territory). Each territory has varying prices for purchasing vineyards, plus a few "government-owned"
vineyards that are given away once the private ones have all been purchased. Government-owned vineyards not given away are then made available for private purchase. Once all government owned vineyards have been given away, the game ends.
Each player has to declare where the round's purchases are to be made before the round begins. This is accomplished through the placing of chips on the relevant territories on the player's scorecard. A screen is given to each player to conceal where these choices are made, because each player may only choose two territories in which to make purchases, and the player with the most vineyards already owned in a territory buys first.
After purchases are made, then harvest/sales are performed. Players can sell their stock of a particular wine and receive funds based upon the number sold as well as the market. The more sold, the more the market is affected. The type being sold goes down, and all the rest go up the same amount. This is one reason that Vino seems much better suited to at least three or four players. The market is quite easy to manipulate with only two people. Another reason is that the number of vineyard chips available per color is no sufficient for only two. We both ended up running out of our color and having to draw upon another to continue playing.
I'd like to play Vino again with four or more players, but my initial rating is 3 out of 5 pawns
Cribbage is an old standard - see the above-linked Wikipedia article for more info, and Ticket to Ride was reviewed in an earlier session.
The games we played were:
Ticket to Ride
The Gardens of the Alhambra
Mama Mia!
Vino
Cribbage
The Gardens of the Alhambra
Gardens is a tile-laying game, not totally unlike Carcassonne, but different enough that it was very interesting. Tiles are in two shapes, one for designating values on the board, and one for placing garden paths and flowers. Players gain points for surrounding value tiles and having the most flowers surrounding it. The trick is that points are multiplied by the number of different colored flowers in the garden. This makes strategy quite interesting at times, since each tile has a varying number of flowers for each color, but all colors upon it. I was also annoyed by the
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need to flip the value tiles over after gardens were completed. The tiles are snugly placed and this makes for a very disruptive shifting of the entire board once the game is well underway.Late in the game, multiple gardens are often completed at once, though mostly including edge gardens which only use two tiles to surround the value tile, rather than four. Each of the garden tiles has paths on it, which I initially thought might be another facet of gameplay, but this turned out not to be the case, for the most part. The paths merely serve to delineate which section of flowers is contained in the garden. This always ends up being the nearest corder, which was a tad disappointing.
The strategies in the game are fairly straightforward. When you get a tile with a large number of flowers on it, do your best to place the side with your color next to a large value tile. When your opponent has already done so, try to outnumber him or her with either your color or another player's, or at the very least match him or her so that points are nullified. We only played with two players, so non-player colors were a good tool in nullifying points without sacrificing opportunities.
I rate The Gardens of the Alhambra 3.5 out of 5 pawns
Mama Mia!
Mama Mia! is a cute card game that is more a memory exercise than a strategy game. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The basic premise of the game is that each player has a set of pizza orders and access to a stack of ingredients. The object is to try to place the order cards on the "oven" stack when there are sufficient ingredients in it to complete the pizza being ordered. Each player places ingredients in the "oven" either singly or in groups, depending on the number possessed, and declares what and how many are being placed. The rest of the players
have to remember what has been placed and what orders have been sent in as well. A player with an excellent memory may be able to recall well enough what ingredients are in the oven, whether they have already been claimed by a successful order, and what an unsuccessful order has left behind as well.Once all the ingredients have been drawn, the player who drew the Mama Mia! card (there's only one) gets to resolve the orders in the "oven". When orders lack ingredients, the ordering player has the opportunity to fill any gaps from his or her hand. Keeping a fairly round supply of ingredients is, therefore, advisable, if possible. Certain order cards are important to note. The Any 15 items card not only requires at least 15 items be present in the "oven", it also clears any surplus items as well, so players need to be watchful for one of these orders and cognizant of its success, since it effectively cleans everything out when successful, but leaves a fairly large stock of ingredients when it fails.
I give Mama Mia! a rating of 3.5 out of 5 pawns. It was a fun game, but seems a bit limited in audience and replay potential.
Vino
Vino was a new game for both players, and as such, it took us a while to get the hang of things. Essentially, Vino is a develop and harvest sort of strategy game, where the market price for harvest changes based upon how many items are harvested as well as how many harvests of other items have occurred. Players are given random vineyards to start the game and some starting cash with which to buy more vineyards. Each vineyard purchased produces an amount of wine of a single type (chosen by the player for that territory - one type per territory). Each territory has varying prices for purchasing vineyards, plus a few "government-owned"
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vineyards that are given away once the private ones have all been purchased. Government-owned vineyards not given away are then made available for private purchase. Once all government owned vineyards have been given away, the game ends.Each player has to declare where the round's purchases are to be made before the round begins. This is accomplished through the placing of chips on the relevant territories on the player's scorecard. A screen is given to each player to conceal where these choices are made, because each player may only choose two territories in which to make purchases, and the player with the most vineyards already owned in a territory buys first.
After purchases are made, then harvest/sales are performed. Players can sell their stock of a particular wine and receive funds based upon the number sold as well as the market. The more sold, the more the market is affected. The type being sold goes down, and all the rest go up the same amount. This is one reason that Vino seems much better suited to at least three or four players. The market is quite easy to manipulate with only two people. Another reason is that the number of vineyard chips available per color is no sufficient for only two. We both ended up running out of our color and having to draw upon another to continue playing.
I'd like to play Vino again with four or more players, but my initial rating is 3 out of 5 pawns
Cribbage is an old standard - see the above-linked Wikipedia article for more info, and Ticket to Ride was reviewed in an earlier session.
