After taking a few days off of pretty much anything electronic over the Easter weekend, I'll finally get around to the report from last week's game night!  I arrived at around my normal time, and missed a play of Macao, which Kenny (and his shiny new copy), Britt, Carol, and Beth were involved in.  We had another really great crowd this week, with nearly 20 people involved in games at some point throughout the night.  So it wasn't hard for me to find a game. 

The Princes of Florence

There was a lot of discussion about what to play, but when David mentioned that he'd like to try out The Princes of Florence, it was on like Donkey Kong! 

I definitely wanted to try something completely different from the "lots of Jesters and works" thing that I fall into as my default.  My initial thought was to do Builders and fill up my estate, but in the end I settled more on a "path of least resistance" kind of strategy (taking what came cheap in the auction and trying to do what other people weren't doing).  I drew a couple of Prestige cards throughout the game, both related to landscapes (the most total and one of each), which was derailed a bit when both Chris and Michelle ended up buying all three types as well to tie my total.  One of the other things I was hoping to do was to win a couple of "best work" bonuses throughout the game, but I only picked up one, and the loss of the points from those two areas opened up the door for Chris to build an insurmountable lead on me.

In retrospect, I wonder if using one more auction to buy a fourth landscape (which would have been worth a net of 7 extra points) would have been better than something else that I did.  But I know that I had to pick up a Jester in the last round to be able to complete my last two works (which were worth exactly 17 work value each), so it would have had to be earlier in the game.  But anyway, I love the game whether I win or lose.  

Time: 64 minutes
Score: Chris 62, Me 57, Charles* 52, Michelle 40, David* 40
Ratings: Chris 9, Me 10, Charles 9, Michelle 8, David 8

I was glad to see that everyone had a good time with the game.  It's definitely something that demands planning and rewards repeated play, so I'll keep bringing it from time to time to see if it can continue to hit the table.   If you're interested in my more detailed thoughts about Princes, check out my full review of it.

Shogun

I've been wanting to get this back to the table for a long time now (I last played it waaaay back in April 2007), and Tom's interest was enough to make it a priority for me this week.  I feel a little bad, actually, because I sort of guilted Tom into coming despite feeling pretty terrible from his allergies.  Not that bad, but you know, I felt a twinge.

Anyway, explaining the game (especially when it's been 3 years since I last played) is not all that easy, but I think I got through it pretty well.  I even tried (and tried and tried) to impress on everybody that it was not a game all about conquest.  In fact, I made it abundantly clear that buildings were at least as important (if not more so) than fighting battles.  But when people see little wooden cubes spread out all over a map, their brain apparently loses all ability to do anything other than attack each other.

I did pretty well militarily (winning some key battles against Brandon early in the game, which broke his position and secured mine), but I also built a ton of buildings.  And even after I jumped out to a big lead after the first year, most of the other players (Tom being the exception) continued to ignore buildings for the most part.  So in the end, I won by almost doubling the next player's score. 


The board at the end of the game (I was red)
Time: 148 minutes
Score: Me 62, Tom* 33, Charles* 33, Beth* 27, Brandon* 6 (yes, that is actually a "6", 'cause I totally owned him)
Ratings: Me 8, Tom 8, Charled 9, Beth 6, Brandon 7

Let me say this again one more time, Shogun is NOT just like Risk!!!  The 2-year time frame is a bit artificial, but I can easily rationalize it by thinking that the people of Japan will tire of the constant battling and choose a new leader after that time, based not only on their military power, but also how well they can build the intrastructure of the country.  And frankly, if you look at things clearly, you'll realize that at most (assuming that you have resources and a viable target each time they come up), you have 12 attacks in the entire game.  So conquering the whole nation is not a possibility.   

Instead, Shogun is a game of limited information, where you have to balance your money, your food, and your position; using your provinces well based on the uncertainty of the action card order and your best guess about what your opponents will do.  You want to condolidate your position, construct buindings, and make a few key strikes against juicy targets when you have the best chance of winning.     

I've played a lot of Wallenstein (the original implementation of the game) online, and probably agree that the German map (and theme) suits the game a little better.  But I like the added auction and turn-order powers in Shogun.  So in my little ideal world, I'd love for Queen to make an updated, English-language version of Wallenstein.  But until then, I'll still try to get Shogun to the table and maybe play a few games of Wallenstein on SpielByWeb again (as I'm trying to get going with some of the Hypermind Boardgamers, if they'll go ahead and sign up for it!). 

Chrononauts

I discovered Looney Lab games right when I was starting to get into more modern board and card games, and at the time, I liked Chrononauts a lot.  I realized that it wasn't the best game in the world even then, but had a lot of fun with it.  So I've been toting it along from time to time to game night recently, and had the chance to finally pull it out this week as well.

I was the inelligent cockroach (Squa Tront, maybe?), and at two points in the game I was able to bring about World War III to nearly reconstruct my "home" timeline.  But in the end, the uberparadox was corrected by someone else, and Charles managed to collect the artifacts he needed to complete his secret mission.  

Time: 27 minutes
Score: Charles* - Win; Beth* and Me - Lose 
Ratings: Charles 10, Beth 9, Me 6.5

So after this more recent play, I'd say that I still had some good fun with Chrononauts.  It's not in any way a deep and/or strategic game, but it's a lot of fun and has a fantastic theme.  There's a lot of the same kind of luck you find in Fluxx, but overall, there's still a lot more potential for meaningful actions and at least some sense of building towards something.  So especially with 3 or maybe 4 players, I think it's well worth the time investment.


One of the times when World War 3 was on, causing the "uber-paradox"
Other Games Played
Like I said, there were a ton of people around last week, and so there were a lot of games played.  Here's the ones I got report sheets for:

Army of Frogs
Time: 5 minutes
Score: Chip - Win; Chris and Carol - Lose
Ratings: Chip 7, Chris 8, Carol 7 

Cafe International
Time: 26 minutes
Score: David* 65, Chip 55, Chris 5, Michelle* 33
Ratings: David 7.5, Chip 7.5, Chris 7.5, Michelle 7.5

Carcassonne
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Graham 114, Ross 97, Tom 80
Ratings: Graham 9.5, Ross 9, Tom 7.5

Dominion
Time: 50 minutes
Score: Graham 37, Ross 32, David* 23, Michelle* 23
Ratings: Graham 8.5, Ross 10, David 8, Michelle 7.5

Fairy Tale
Time: 14 and 13 minutes
Game 1: Ken 40, James 39, Chip* 34, Chris 30
Game 2: Chris 54, Chip 44, James 43, Ken 37
Ratings: Ken 7.5, Chris 8.5, Chip 7.5, James 7.5

Hive
Time: 15, 13, 5, 12, and 12 minutes
Game 1: Ross - Win, Graham - Lose
Game 2: Britt - Win, Carol - Lose
Game 3: Britt - Win, Carol - Lose
Game 4: Britt - Win, Ken - Lose
Game 5: Britt & Ken - Draw
Ratings: Britt 7, Carol 7, Ross 6, Ken 7, Carol 7, Graham 8

Macao
Time: 123 minutes
Score: Carol* 73, Beth* 68, Ken 53, Britt* 43
Ratings: Carol 7, Beth 8.5, Ken 8, Britt 6

Pandemic
Time: 25 and 55 minutes
Game 1: Pandemic - Win; Humans (Chip, Keith, and Ken) - Lose
Game 2: Humand (Chip, Keith, and Ken) - WIN!; Pandemic - Lose
Ratings: Chip 9, Keith 9, Ken 9

Ra
Time: 60 minutes
Score: Alton 47, Jim 45, Keith* 39, Mark 29
Ratings: Alton 10, Jim 8, Keith 8, Mark 8.5

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 23 and 25 minutes
Game 1: Alton 47, Chris 41, Charles* 15
Game 2: Mark 48, Alton 43, Chris 32, Charles 21
Ratings: Alton 10, Mark 10, Chris 10, Charles 9

Roll Through the Ages
Time: 40 minutes
Score: Ross* 17 (+tiebreaker), James 17, Graham 14
Ratings: Ross 7, James 8, Graham 8

Unspeakable Words
Time: 30 minutes
Score: Ross 103, Carol 100, Britt 80, Graham 81 (& Nuts), James 76 (& Loony), Ken 58 (& friggin' cRraZy!) 
Ratings: Ross 8.5, Carol 8, Britt 7, Graham 7, James 9, Ken 9

Vegas Showdown
Time: 60 minutes
Score: Chip 44, Jim* 41, Alton 40, Keith 35, Mark 35
Ratings: Chip 8.5, Jim 8, Alton 8.5, Keith 8, Mark 8.5

Zombie Fluxx
Time: ?
Score: Keith - Win; Mark, Michelle, David & Alton - Lose
Ratings: Keith 4, Mark 7, Michelle 9, David 4, Alton 8

* First play for that Person