Woo-hoo!  I've been to game night two weeks in a row!!!  This time, Gwen even volunteered to give Samantha her bath, so I was able to make it to Hypermind before 7:00 despite working a little late because of a class I was teaching.  Unfortunately, I got there after everyone was already involved in a game, so I spent the first hour or so of my time just watching other people play and distracting them with my inane prattling.


Memoir made a good showing on its last week as GotM!
Eventually, most of the games seemed to all wrap up at about the same time, and I was able to shuffle myself into the group and carve out a little group to join me in a game of...

Peloponnes [BGG]

Obviously, I wrote a review of this recently, but it was all about playing it solo or just with one other player.  So this may have been the first time I've been able to get it to the table with its full complement of players.  First of all, though, I really need to figure out a better way to explain the game, because I went on waaaay too long and seemed to make it a lot more complicated than it really is.  But I'll try to work on that.

I did pretty well for most fo the game, but then back-to-back supply rounds and a drought in the last turn really screwed me over and reduced my population to 6.  Tom really got the crap beat out of him, though, mostly because he picked up a 3-food production land tile early on, and then could never seem to get another land tile that included food (and since you have to match at least one resource from land tile to land tile, he couldn't expand any more).  I don't know how many tiles he ended up losing over the course of the game, but it was just ridiculous, and I felt a little sorry every time I outbid him for something he needed (just a little though, and I got over it).

Charles won on the strength of picking up 2 or 3 of the buildings that gave him immunity to disasters.  But the real thing that he did well was to know when he should pass and stay out of the auction altogether.  It definitely seems like in the 5-player game, you're going to have to miss getting a tile on a turn or two of the game, and getting the 3-coin bonus for passing (rather than the 1-coin bonus for pulling out of the auction) is pretty big.  Charles always seemed to have the case he needed when it was most important, and had the best overall balance between his population and prestige (tile) points.    


Time: 60 minutes
Score: Charles* 24 (28), Me 18 (27), Keith* 15 (23), Shawn* 12 (18), Tom 9 (12)
Ratings: Charles 8, Me 8, Keith 7, Shawn 8, Tom 8

I likes the solo and 2-player game a lot, but I really like Peloponnes with 5 players.  The interesting little auction mechanism comes to life when you've got 5 tiles to bid on and 4 other people to compete with.  Turn order is huge, as is money.  And it just seems like there's so much potential in this quick little game, even though you've only got 8 decisions to make the whole time.

I hope to get it back to the table a few more times soon (especially with experienced players) both to test its replayability a little and to see if it gets even quicker (which it should) and more interesting.
 

The Princes of Florence [BGG]

I'm always up for a play of my second-favorite game, so I jumped when someone suggested it.  I went in to the game with a pretty open mind, and openly explained the power of the jester strategy, just so I wouldn't be able to use and abuse everyone with it without a big fight.  Jesters went for a very respectable 1000+ Florin almost every time, and the game was very close because of it.

I still sort of stuck with the Jester/Works strategy, but since Jesters were a little harder to come by, I picked up two Recruiter cards in the early round, along with 2 more Professions (giving me 7 profession cards total in my hand).  I did manage to get two Jesters into play before I completed too many of my works, and ended up getting all 7 played by the end of the game.  I picked up one Presige card later on as well to shore up my chances for the win, but was very frustrated when I found absolutely nothing that I could complete.  

Meanwhile, in his very first play, Keith put together a really awesome Builder strategy.  He sort of started off a little more balanced, completing 4 works or so, but then managed to pick up his second and third Builder later on and spent his last 3 or 4 actions just getting free buildings.  Add to that the two Presige cards that he was able to fulfill, and his score just kept going up and up.

As the last turn neared, I knew that I wanted to get the best work on one turn or the other, so I used one of my valuable actions on drawing a Bonus card.  Thankfully, I managed to find the 1WV per Jester card, and used it to pump my last work up to 25 work value.  Between the 12 points I got from it and the 3 bonus points I got from having the best work, I managed to stay ahead of Keith and win by exactly one freaking point! 

It was glorious. 

Time: 78 minutes
Score: Me 62, Keith* 61, Tom 48, Shawn* 34, Charles 34
Ratings: Me 10, Keith 8, Tom 9, Shawn 8, Charles 8

The Princes of Florence is an absolute work of genius, but I don't need to go on more about it when I've already said all that I need to say about it. 


Mission: Red Planet [BGG]

Other than Kenny taking Shawn's place when he headed home, we kept the same group and decided to go with Mission: Red Planet as our next game.  Most everyone was new to it, but it's really simple to explain, so we got started pretty quickly.  

I did pretty well in the first scoring, having used my Travel Agent early on and the the Explorer on turn 5 to move astronauts into the best positions just before we scored.  In fact, I may have done a little too well, because I attracted some attention from everyone else as they tried to rob me of my majorities in several areas.  I recovered pretty well by the last scoring turn, but Keith fulfilled two Bonus cards and collected a crap-ton of 2-point tokens to push way past me for the win.

Time: 50 minutes
Score: Keith* 47, Me 39, Ken 24, Tom* 21, Charles* 21
Ratings: Keith 7, Me 7.5, Ken 7, Tom 7.5, Charles 8


There is just so much that I love about Mission: Red Planet.  The theme is really cool (as is its artwork and graphic style), and I think that the simultaneous action/role selection mechanic marries very well with the area-majority scoring on the planet.  And unlike a lot of other similar games, there is just enough direct interaction between the players (with cards like the Soldier, Femme Fatale, and Saboteur) to keep it really interesting.

As I've mentioned before, however, there is one aspect to the game that lessens it significantly in my mind, and that's the Event cards.  They add in a huge element of swingy luck into this elegant and otherwise very tactical game, and I desperately want to find some variant that I can use to make it all better.  I actually started a thread at BGG about this some time ago, but I'll list the variants below that I suggested there:

1) Eliminate the Discovery cards altogether. Do not give players a Bonus card to start, but instead, have them draw three and keep one (similar to Prestige cards in The Princes of Florence) when they use the Scientist role.

This is an attempt to completely remove the randomness of the Discovery cards, while still making the Scientist a valuable role to choose.

2) Seperate Discovery and Bonus cards. Deal 2-3 Bonus cards to everyone at the start of the game and let them keep one (their only one for the whole game). Then randomly place one Discovery card into each exterior Mars location. The Scientist role would then allow a player to look at 2 or 3 of the Discovery cards.

This leaves the impact of the Discovery cards in place, but better gives players a way to discover this information if they choose to invest an action or two. It also elimiates the luck involved in some players drawing extra Bonus cards while others get Discovery cards (since my assumption is that it's always better to draw another Bonus card) throughout the game.

3) Remove the "Pretty Rock" Discovery cards (which do nothing) and the "Ice Block" Bonus card (which really sucks). Then play the game as normal, except that the Discovery cards are played face-up and visible to all players.

Again, the impact of the Discovery cards is still present, but players can at least make a choice about whether or not it will be worthwhile to compete in an area.

For those of you who have played before, how do these sound?  I'd love to play Mission: Red Planet again soon and try out one of these, if anyone's interested.  I rate it a 7.5 now, but it could easily get up to a 9 or more if I could find a way to fix this one little aspect...



Coloretto [BGG]

It was late, but I really wanted to get in a game of Coloretto, which I just picked up from my BGG Secret Santa.  While I had never really played Coloretto before, I had played it a few times against the AI on marquand.net's online implementation, and I've played Zooloretto several times of course.  

The game moved really quick, and I managed to win mostly through picking up all three of the wild cards.  I got the first one because it came out early and the two people in front of me were hesitant to take a pile with only one card in it.  But then Charles (sitting immediately to my right) was kind enough to draw the other two in later turns, setting me up to jump upon them with much haste.

Time: 15 minutes
Score: Me* 27, Ken* 23, Tom* 17, Charles* 12, Keith* 10
Ratings: Me 8, Ken 8, Tom 8, Charles 8, Keith 7

After just one play, I'd already put Coloretto right up there with my favorite filler games (such as No Thanks!).  And while I appreciate the extra stuff and added complexity in Zooloretto, I actually think that the focus, simplicity, and speed of Coloretto makes it a better all-around game.  And I can certainly see this getting a lot of play filling in spaces in our game nights for a long time to come. 


Other Games Played

Alhambra
Time: 67 minutes
Score: Graham 155, Beth* 119, Charles* 112
Ratings: Graham 8.5, Beth 8, Charles 7

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer
Time: 39 minutes
Score: James 71, Chris A* 54, Chris 54
Ratings: James 10, Chris A ??, Chris 10

Jump Gate
Time: 30 and 30 minutes
Game 1: Chris 54, Graham* 45, James 44
Game 2: Chris 64, Chip* 59, Ken 30
Ratings: CHris 8, Chip 7.5, Graham 8, James 8, Ken 7.5

Memoir '44
Time: 50, 30, 20, 15, 30 and 30 minutes
Game 1: Britt (USA) 6, Ken (Japan) 3 [Pacific, MIssion 49: Wake Island]
Game 2: Britt (Japan) 6, Ken (USA) 4 
Game 3: Adam (Allies) 6, Chip (Axis) 3 [Eastern Front, Mission 38: Suomussalmi]
Game 4: Chip (Allies) 6, Adam (Axis) 5
Game 5: David - Win, Michelle - Lose [First play with Aircraft expansion]
Game 6: David 5, Michelle 4
Ratings: Britt 8.5, Ken 8.5, Adam 8, Chip 9, David 8.5, Michelle ?

Mr. Jack
Time: ??
Score: Michelle* - Win, David* - Lose (Who was who?)
Ratings: Michelle 6.5, David 6

Ra
Time: 45 minutes
Score: Charles 53, Beth 52, Shawn 24, Tom* 15
Ratings: Charles 8, Beth 7, Shawn 10, Tom 7.5

Small World
Time: 29 minutes
Score: James 98, Chris 69
Ratings: James ??, Chris 9

Summoner Wars
Time: 75 minutes (??)
Score: Ken* - Win, Britt - Lose
Ratings: Ken 7, Britt 7.5

Yspahan
Time: 35 minutes
Score: James 90, Graham* 87, Chris 73
Ratings: James 8, Graham 7, Chris 8

* First play for that Person