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August 22nd, 2oo6
A very wide array of confusion surrounded this meeting, which very well may have lent to the fact that only four club members ended up coming. That doesn't mean we didn't have a mess of fun, though! There are plenty of games for four players, and Chris had just recently bought five new games, most of which made their club debut at this meeting. You could call this the game-test meeting, as the majority of it was spent explaining, giving feedback on and of course, playing new games.
Buccaneer
A game of piracy on the high seas! What could go wrong? Actually, nothing. This game was one of Chris' new ones, and since only three of us were present, it was the first one played. Your turn consists of exactly one thing: Moving one of your five pieces. End of turn. It's remarkably simple, and as such the game can move pretty quickly once all the players are familiar with it.
Each player receives a "hand" of five tokens. These tokens are valued 2, 3, 4, 5, and "?". Each token represents a pirate, and the number value on it is the cost of that pirate during raids (we'll cover that in a moment). The cost of the "?" token depends on the ship that is raided. So, as explained before, one turn consists of moving one of your tokens. Where do you move them? You move them on top of another token for some hot token-on-token action. Well...actually you do so to form a crew. The player on top is considered the captain of that crew, and as such can move the entire stack anywhere he wishes- either on top of other players' pirates, or onto a ship in order to raid it. There is, however, nothing to stop another player from placing his token on top of a ready-made stack, and assuming control of the ship.
Play continues as such until someone decides to raid a ship, during which time play stops. The captain of the ship receives a particular treasure (of four different kinds; there are generally one or two different kinds on each ship) and money from the vessel. However, he does have to pay his crewmen. So a stack consisting of a red 2, a blue 3, and a black 5 will earn the red player 2 gold, the blue player 3 gold and the black player 5.
The game's explanation is rather complicated due to the scoring effects, but the game itself is immensely simple. New gamers need not fear the longevity of the above description- it's easy.
| TJ | 126 |
|---|---|
| Chris | 108 |
| Sean | 101 |
Intrigue
Old friend and gamer Erick arrived, and we switched to the classic game of screwage, Intrigue. A description was posted in the last blog, so I won't bore you with the details. In this particular game, the President and Vice President forged an Unholy Alliance in order to dominate the match. Sean could have easily trounced TJ at the end, but instead allowed him to take the win by letting his entire castle be populated by TJ's minions. In the end, this alliance brought great wealth to both of them. Chris and Erick teamed up too late, however,
| TJ | $128,ooo |
|---|---|
| Sean | $120,ooo |
| Chris | $119,ooo |
| Erick | $108,ooo |
Cleopatra
and the Society of Architects
Guest-starring www.wikipedia.org! :)
This game, simply put, is incredible. Words really are insufficient to describe it, but I'll give it a shot. The game mechanic is so similar and yet so unlike to so many games that it throws so many curves. And yet, at the same time, it's remarkably simple.
The goal of the game is to have the most talents of silver. A talent is the unit of measurement they're referring to. Basically...it means one unit of silver. In laymen's terms: Five talents = $5.
You gain these talents by building certain structures up towards and into Cleopatra's Temple, including two massive Obelisks and six Sphinxes. These structures are built, and you earn money based on their value, among other factors. For example, building many buildings in one turn will yeild more points. However, it becomes difficult to do so because of hand limits.
On to that hand of yours! It will contain resources of five types. Stone, Marble, Lapis Lazuli, Wood and Artisans. Yes, artisans are resources (slaves=property, I suppose). These resources, in various combinations will allow you to build certain buildings. Seems straightforward enough. Your hand is replenished in a very strange manner however. First of all, the deck is cut in half, and one half of the cards is flipped upside down. Only then is it shuffled back into the deck, leaving about half the deck visible, and half the deck invisible. Then, three cards are laid out onto the table. On your turn, you have the option to take cards or to build. If you take a card, you add a card from the draw pile to each stack; as such, the stacks will grow, and more cards will be picked up by each successive draw.
Another added element is Corruption. Certain cards that will provide with advantages throughout the game (such as extra resources, certain building advantages) will corrupt your soul! This means you take a corruption token and put it into your pyramid-shaped bank, where you will not know how many of them there are (unless you can remember, which in all honesty is not that difficult). At the end of the game, corruption is the first thing looked at. The player with the most tokens automatically loses the game, or, in the terms of the manual, is fed to Cleopatra's crocodiles. Another event adds corruption that involves five dice that are rolled every time a structure is built. One side has an Egyptian Ankh. The rest are blank. Once all five show the Ankh, a blind auction happens with the talents you have. The player who bids the most removes three corruption tokens from their bank. The player who bids the second most gains a corruption token; the third-most gains two, and the fourth, three.
Corruption is a very big part of the game, and it reflects heavily in the scores. For example, Erick's focus was accumulating wealth with wanton disregard towards corruption. As such, his final score was 57 talents, well above the rest of the players. Unfortunately, he ended up with 15 corruption tokens, causing him to be eaten by crocs. Damn shame. TJ's approach was exactly the opposite- his goal was to remain pure, hoping that a modest income would let him win. He did have the least corruption by the end with 5, but a meager 34 talents. Sean and Chris both had 38 talents, but Chris had 9 corruption while Sean had 6. Sean for the most of the game had NO CORRUPTION, and it wasn't until the very end that he began to hit himself for the extra talents. It paid off, and he was declared victor by purity.
Senator
A very simple game based on blind bidding. All players are bidding for tokens with certain specific effects. Some remove tokens, some give you the power to stop your own tokens from being removed. All count for points. One token with a fasces (a bundle of sticks and an axe; A symbol of Ancient Rome before it became Mussolini's symbol for Italian Fascism. But enough of the History lesson...) on it will make all of your collected tokens permanent, so that nothing can happen to them.
Bidding happens by cards, numbered 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, and one with a bloody dagger. The dagger is the Assassin card, which kills everyone. Normally, if you do not win a bid, you take your cards back. When the assassin is played, all players cards bid that round go out of play. Unless the assassin is played, the highest bid wins.
A special effect also goes into play at the beginning of each round, which may disallow permanence of tokens, or limit your bid to only two, or other such effects.
Play goes very quickly.
The final scores were incredibly low, as the game is played through five hands, and that's it. Chris and Sean tied with 2, and Erick and TJ tied with 1. Chris had a special token, however, the Imperial Seal, which breaks ties. Because of that, he won.
Quiddler
Because this game is so popular amongst the gameclub, I really shouldn't have to explain it. A brief synopsis, though, for the benefit of newcomers:
Each hand consists of one more card than the last. The first, four example, is three cards. The next is four, the next five, and so on up to ten, the final round. Very rarely is a game of Quiddler finished, but we managed to in this meeting. Basically, players swap cards with the draw pile a la gin in order to form words. Once one player can use all his cards, s/he goes out, and all other players get one more turn to form words. Points are added or subtracted based on the rarity of the letters used ("vex", for example, is a huge point-earner, despite only being three letters long). 10-point bonuses are given for longest or most words. Most points after ten rounds wins!
Chris trounced the rest of the group with 275 points. TJ's 226, Sean's 215 and Erick's 207 cowered in the face of such adversity.
With that, the game club departed for another week; a very short day as compared with last time.
Until next time ladies and gents, play on!
~ TJ
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