I've been trying to write this report for almost a week now, but work and a toddler with severe diaper rash have conspired against me and my time.  So anyway, the coolest thing that happened last Tuesday is that Tales of the Arabian Nights finally arrived.  For once, I was pretty glad that everyone else was already involved in games, which gave me time to buy this 8 lb monster of a game, punch it out, and set it up.  I'd already read the rules 2 or 3 times (thank you Z-Man and your online rules!), so I was able to jump right into teaching and playing it as soon as people were available.

Tales of the Arabian Nights

As I have mentioned before, I've been looking forward to this game for a long time.  I've never had the chance to play the original version, and because of its relative rarity, I had pretty much resigned myself to this being a permanent predicament.  When I heard about the Z-Man reprint, however, it shot to the top of my wishlist (and led me to irritate the ever-living poo out of Denise at Hypermind, asking her about it over the last 2 months or so).  

So as I was finishing up with the punching and bagging, Chris and Brett came over with interest in playing the game.  We immediately set up, gave some opportunity for others to join us, and then got to the playing.  The rules about handling encounters and using the Book of Tales seem a little complicated when you read them, but it's really quite intuitive when you're actually doing it.  I played Sindbad, Chris was Ali Baba, and Brett played Ma'aruf. 

We each set our story/destiny goals for victory (which all actually turned out to be the exact same, 9 destiny and 11 story) and drew our initial Quest card.  My quest moved me directly to another city and gave me the Lost status, and my quest was to return to Baghdad.  Lost limits your movement to one space per turn, which really sucks when you're trying to get somewhere specific.  On top of that, however, in my very first encounter I became Ensorcelled as well, which lets another player determine how you move each turn.  After a few turns of wandering aimlessly due to these two statuses, I decided to try and get found by having a Badly Lost encounter (which is indicated on the Lost card).  As it turned out, I got tangled up with a powerful prince that gave me a Robe of Honor, which also made me Respected and cancelled my Lost status (as I'd hoped).  A turn later, I also lost the Ensorcelled status (which is done by a winning a random die roll against the person that controlled your movement for the turn).  So finally, I was able to get on track.

Meanwhile, Chris... I mean, Ali Baba, was facing as many or more bad troubles.  Despite stubling into the Valley of Diamonds, he had temporarily picked up the Scorned status that prevented him from getting any Destiny points or increasing his Wealth level on that turn.  So while he did come out of it with a diamond that was big enough to live in, he was still poor and apparently had no destiny.  Through a strange series of events, this was a theme in Ali Baba's journey, as he was continually prevented from getting destiny points and ended the game with only a small handfull.

Ma'aruf (handled by Brett, of course) was apparently doing a lot better.  He got his wealth up to Rich within a few turns, and was moving around the board with ease trying to complete his initial quest.  He too stumbled into the Valley of Diamonds, but instead of hiding amongst the carrion waiting for the Rocs to save him (as Chris did), he instead whipped out his scimitar and tried to hack his way through the hordes of serpents.  It worked pretty well, at least until he encountered the snake demi-god-like crixture and was forced him to pray his way out of the mess he was in.  

I was still making my way down to Baghdad, ended up doing something inappropriately stupid, and got myself Scorned as well.  I immediately took the option to change it out for On Pilgrimage and was now headed both to Baghdad and Mecca.  I also picked up a treasure that let me get Married whenever I wanted to, so I held on to it and used it just before I entered Baghdad (which meant that my wife was there).  It was a little interesting, however, since I had also just acquired the Beast Form status and looked like an ape.  I dont know what my wife looked like, but she must have liked hairy men! 

It was pretty much a two-man race for the finish between me and Brett at this point, and completing my Quest did a lot to help nme towards my goals.  I had already reached my Destiny point goal, and had only a few Story points left.  In finishing my pilgrimage to Mecca and then returning to Baghdad to tell my wife about it, I picked up the last few points I needed and declared myself having finished.  Chris and Brett had one more turn, and Brett must have been close, but couldn't get himself all the way there.  So I won, not that winning is exactly the point of this game.

Time: 88 minutes
Score: Me - WIN; Brett and Chris - Not Win
Ratings: Me 8, Brett 8.5, Chris 8.5


My ending Statuses and Skills
Tales of the Arabian Nights is just as much fun as I though it would be.  It's fun, exciting, entertaining, and facinating.  There are always lots of choices in how to respond to each encounter, and the path that your character takes has a real effect on future choices both in the skills that you develop and in the statuses and treasure that you accumulate.  The only thing that felt a little ill-defined to me was the Quests, both in how you get them and how you might give up on or lose them.  But otherwise, the stories that our characters lived through seemed both interesting and very appropriate to the setting.  

We found it a bit odd that both Ali Baba (Chris) and Ma'aruf (Brett) ended up at the Valley of Diamonds considering how large both the map and the ginormous Book of Tales are, but I was very satisfied that because of their varied skills and choices, the results of their visits were very different.  

Of course, the biggest complaint about Tales of the Arabian Nights is that it really isn't a game.  And actually, I'd have to agree.  While there certainly are choices to be made and there is an illusion of control over your character, all of the choices made are totally thematic/story-based rather than being in any way strategic.  Once you know the game better, you might could make some choices that would have an impact on your success in the game (such as nearly maxing out your Story point goal and then trying to get and keep the Scorned status), but pulling some of this of would still be very much at the whim of the encounters that you experienced.  To me, however, I say "So freaking what!" to this complaint.  I don't care at all that I don't have total control over my success. Tales of the Arabian Nights is about the experience and the story; success is only gravy.  In some ways, you have a more interesting story and more fun in running your character if they are miserable and getting slapped around.  So chill out, get into the them, and have fun with me playing this great and beautiful game!

    
Ideology: The War of Ideas

I was then joined by Britt and Carol to play another new Z-Man reprint, Ideology: The War of Ideas.  I was vaguely aware of this game before it was slated for reprint, but its theme and non-wargamish conflict intrigued me more than a little bit.  Britt and Carol had played it four times just between the two of them, and I had read the rules a time or two (again, thanks to Z-Man's online rules policy).  Despite this, there were still some pretty major rules... um, shall we say "issues", with our first play.  I wondered about them as we were playing, but didn't make a big deal about it in the sake of getting through that game.  Now, after the fact, just let me make good on a promise.

Britt... I mock you!  I think of your rules readin' and splainin' ability and I laugh to myself with both amusement and pity at its incompetence.  Not only do you read the rules, but then also play the game four times incorrectly, and it still takes me playing with you to figure out why the game doesn't quite work right.  If you were trapped on a evil mastermind's experimentation table with a high-powered laser inching it's way up towards your tingly bits and all you had to do was explain a game to someone to get rescued... well, you'd certainly be talking at least one or two octavies higher when it was all said and done.  If you teach history like you explain rules, the youth of Raligh will end up thinking that Han Solo once headed a dynasty in China and that their city's namesake, Sir Walter Raleigh, was a historical figure because he invented cigarettes.  

Okay, with that out of the way, let's actually talk about Ideology: The War of Ideas.  Overall, I liked it a lot (especially the second time... when we got the rules right).  Carol won the first game because Britt was the front-runner and then she and I brutally attacked him, giving her a chance to slip and and steal the win.  In the second, I was about to score a decisive 14-point win until Britt nuked me into the stone age (which, by the way, I didn't get to play this week), thereby causing him to win the game on the strength of the tie-breaker with Carol.

Time: 65 and 50 minutes
Game 1: Carol 12, Britt 11, Me 11
Game 2: Britt 12 (+2 advancements), Carol 12 (+1 advancement), Britt 11, Me 11
Ratings: Me 8, Brett 8.5, Chris 8.5

I really liked how you have three different types of influence (military, economic, and cultural) that all work together to determine control of a country.  A very interesting tug-of-war over the independent countries developed in our second game, and the intricate use of powers and conflicts was pretty facinating.  Each Ideology's special powers were all pretty thematic, but I was also hoping for a little variety in the influcence deck for each one that would add a little more specialization.  Still, the game worked better than I really thought it would.

While I also liked that the diplomatic level (peace, neutral, or at war) determined which conflicts you could initiate against your opponents, I agree with Britt's thought that the actual process for setting those levels was way too unregulated. The game could be greatly improved by developing some way that you had to invest some of your influence to improve or decline relations (maybe playing a Culture card to switch between Peace and Neutral and then Economic to pull between Neutral and War). If the players disagreed about the level, they could even play cards back and forth to tug the level in the direction they chose.

I'm not going to run right out and buy Ideology: The War of Ideas quite yet, but I look forward to exploring it with maybe up to 4 players ('cause I think that 5 would probably be too chaotic and long) sometime in the near future.


Other Games Played

Atlanteon
Time: 25 minutes for 2 games
Score: Chris – 2 wins, Brett – 0 wins
Ratings: Chris 8, Brett 8

Big City
Time: 52 minutes
Score: Britt 87, Carol 79, Alton 70, James 54
Ratings: Britt 7, Carol 8, Alton 7.5, James 6

Elfenland
Time: 53 minutes
Score: Brett 17 (+1 card), Chip 17 (+0 cards), Chris 16, James 15
Ratings: Brett 7, Chip 8, Chris 8.5, James 7.5

Masons
Time: 45 minutes
Score: Chip 105, Brett 104, Chris 100, James 94
Ratings: Chip 8, Brett 6, Chris 8, James 8

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 30, 30, and 25 minutes
Game 1: Alton 43, James 27
Game 2: James 61, Alton 52
Game 3: Alton 58, Josh 29
Ratings: Alton 10, James 10, Josh 7

Settlers of Catan with the Fishermen of Catan expansion
Time: 71 minutes
Score: Josh 10, Adam 8, Alton 7, Ellen 5
Ratings: Josh 8.5, Adam 9, Alton 10, Ellen 9

Stone Age
Time: 94 and 87 minutes
Game 1: Alton 209, James 173, Carol 158, Britt 149
Game 2: Chip 209, Adam 199, Ellen 155
Ratings: Alton 9, chip 9, Adam 7, James 9, Carol 8, Ellen 7, Britt 5