Agricola

After playing this game a few times, I must announce that it's my new favourite !!!
I've always been a fan of games that present you with a lot of choices and strategies, and that let you "build up an economy". Take caylus for instance, who has some similarities with Agricola: you have the agonizing choice of where to place your "workers" every round, and in tight competition with the other players. "...if I take these resources now... will that other action that I need to do still be available when it's my turn to choose again?..."
Both of these games preset that agonizing and cruel dillemma. What is more important to choose now? (as you can't do it all... you have a limited number of "workers", and the other players will probably grab some/most of the actions you would really like to do.)
I think Agricola is even more cruel in this aspect, as you start out with only two "workers" from start, whereas in Caylus you have 6 throughout the game. So, in Agricola, one of your top priorities will be to get that 3rd worker on the farm as early as possible, as it allows you to do an extra action every single round for the rest of the game. This is in my eyes crucial !!!
The ever present nuiance of managing to have enough food to feed your family in Agricola, is an element you don't have in Caylus.
Choosing the right strategy in Agricola can be hard, and after a couple of games played, I realized that the 14 cards you get on hand from the start should play a significant role in your decision of strategy.

So, here are some random thoughts on what to do and not:

- From the start, have a really good look at your cards, and decide on a strategy: Will you do the Plow,get grain, sow and harvest routine, or will you go for wood,fence,livestock,cooking Fire/hearth strategy ? These are the two main focuses to get your food-production going. There might also be a more relaxed/mixed strategy available, depending on your cards. If you have a fair number of cards (occupations / Minor Improvements) that generate food in some way on a steady basis, yu should seriously consider this as the main focus for food, and let the fields/pastures come as they will, without a clear strategy on this.

- The family growth comes in phase 2 (in a 5-player game it IS awailable on turn 5 no matter what.) Be prepared for it !!! have your house expanded prior, and try to grab starting player on turn 4, so you get to grab the Family growth first on turn 5. (This ofcourse gives you 1 more worker in each of the following 9 rounds !!! invaluable !!!

- Your first house expansion should be wood. (I've seen players who renovate to clay first, but this is seldom wise. even if you have some good clay-cards, you will probably have one less action for a few rounds, and that is very costly.)

- Get a fireplace/hearth as soon as possible (when the major improvement action becomes available). This is especially important if you've choosen the livestock strategy, but get one no matter what, as it gives you greater flexibility in the harvest-phase. In a 5-player game, this becomes even more important.

- Try to have a bit of resouces "in hand" throughout the game, so that whenever you do the Starting player/renovate/family growth actions, you get to play an improvement also. I've see players miss out on this all the time, because they don't have the resouces needed to play the card.

- Always evaluate what actions can't (or very probably wouldn't) be taken by your opponents, as you can leave that action for your last worker. (It's not very bright to rush to take an action that no-one else can take this round.)

- As I talked about earlier, do a strict evaluation of your cards, and base your strategy on them. It is not "a must" to play a lot of cards. The occupations are a time-sink, and you should really consider what cards are worth the action in the long run. The minor Improvements are more likely to get played, as you can get them played in conjunction with other important actions, like I mentioned above. A lot of players don't pay enough attention to the prerequisites of many of the minor improvements, and miss out on getting to play the improvement they was planning on. I've won games with as few as 2 occupations and 1 each of major/minor improvent played, so don't over-focus on the cards.

-I would rather get 3 mediocre cards that all work well together than 7 great ones that pull you in different directions.

-If you have a travelling improvement (one that passes to the left), consider holding it for an extra turn or two before playing it. Try to "time" your play of the card, so the player to your left can't benefit too greatly from it right away.)

(as a note: I feel that maybe the card-mix the players get, often shifts the game in favour of a player who's been lucky with his cards. sometimes to such a degree that it imbalances the game. I will probably do a full readthrough of the available cards one day, and evaluate if some are to be removed from "our" deck when we play. this, in an effort to lessen the impact of luck with the dealt cards.)

Ok, enough for now. I'll probably update this later, when I've played the game a few more times. :-)

Chinatown

The boardgame club I belong to, got the boardgame Chinatown as a gift from SmarteGaver.no a while back. We sat down to test the game at one of our clubmeetings in late August.

This game is all about negotiations. The mechanics are simple, and the 8+ age-rating is normaly a bit lightweight for us, but the game was surprisingly good. Not many boardgames can have you prep'd and ready to play in 15 minutes !!! (including rules-reading)
The game has several phases in each of the 7 turns, but it is in the negotiations-phase the main focus of the game lies. Everything can be traded, in any mix: Money, businesses-tiles, city-blocks(construction-sites) and built businesses of any size.

The goal of the game is to make the most money. This is done through income from your businesses at the end of each round. Complete businesses (businesses consisting of the designated number of interconnecting blocks) pay a fair bit more than uncomplete businesses.
Thus, your goal each turn is to make profitable trades with the other players to improve your income. There is a bit of luck-element in the game with the drawing of the tiles and city-blocks each turn, but this does not make the game loose appeal.

When we played, the outcome in the end was a very close race, with the winner only a few money-notes ahead. I definitely want to play this game again. (even tho I'm not all that good at bargaining.)

Jeff Allers' "postcards from Berlin" series at BGN

Enjoyable reading...

http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/C71/P0/

Enjoyable reading on BGG

I bumped into this geeklist-thread by Gordon Yu on Boardgamegeek the other day.
It was most enjoyable to read...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/33161

-Hans-

Offtopic - A deep sigh about MMORPGs

I've been a MMORPG gamer for quite some years now, and have tried 10-15 different games. Some for just a few weeks before abandoning them, others for as much as 3 years.

So, what makes a MMORPG good and worth playing, and what is a recipe for termination a year after going live ?
I'll try to list a few do's and don'ts:

1. Don't try to compete with World of Warcraft.
2. Do try to involve the players in generating content and/or develop addons for the game.
3. If you want to reap the marketing/hype benefits of making a game in an established universe like J.R.R. Tolkiens Middle Earth or Robert E. Howards Hyboria, DO stay true to the world.
4. A game should contain several (more than one) "things" to make players want to continue playing. (Improving your character is an obvious "thing", but improve it for what need?)
5. Any decent MMO has a crafting-system. Do make the crafting-system as intriguing as the most demanding players wants, but with simpler options for those that "just don't care about it".
6. Do make gathering resources fun and interesting. (Vanguard was on to something...)
7. Do introduce some new concept/mechanics in the game, which sets it apart from most others.
8. Always promote teamplay in all aspects of the game. (It should be clearly profitable to team up with others.)
9. Try to have a "living" storyline in the game, with future patches incorporating what players have accomplished.
10. Try make the system in such a way that a rookie can play together with seasoned veterans.

...end rant...

-Hans-

.

Race for the Galaxy

This pure cardgame by Tom Lehmann has, since it's release last year, climbed all the way to a #10 spot on boargamegeek . After playing this game a few times with my friends lately, it has become a favourite. The game offers several strategy options, and paths to victory. It is not the kind of game you introduce to non-gamers tho', rather it is a nice fast-played game for regular gamers. There is a slight learning-barrier with all the different symbols, which can be a bit difficult to grasp in the beginning, but you'll get the hang of it after a few games.

Warm recommendations !

-Hans-

Die Macher

So, we finaly got around to trying this awsome game. We had a rules-readthrough and a 1,5 round test-run a few days ago, but yesterday we played the complete game with 4 players.
It took us approx 5 hours from start to finish, so one of my friends was moaning the last 2 hours.
And this is maybe the biggest drawback of the game... the long playingtime.
I enjoyed playing it very much, and didn't mind the long playtime at all.
Another thing about the game, is the need to have the rules handy all the time. We experienced this need, as we forgot some of the things we should perform during a turn if we didn't have a constant eye on the rules each and every turn.
I suppose this will change when tou've played the game several times, but it was a bigger problem than most games I've played. (and I've played quite a few...)

This game dates back to 1986. (original release for 4 players)
Then a new revision came in 1997, which allowed for 5 players. ( revised after Germany was united again.)
And finally, another revision of the game in 2006, with some rules updates and variants.
(One thing that's annoying with the 2006 version, is the errors on some of the political opinion cards. One type of the cards have the wrong symbol at the bottom. We didn't discover this until well into the game, and I confirmed my suspicion after the game was finished. This affects the type of card that has a building with a crane depicted. (not the nuclear one))

So, what makes this game so good ?
Well, the game is very well balanced, and there are several strategies that can lead to victory.
It is not necessarily the player with most regional election victories that wins the game.
If you have several good runner-up or even 3rd places in the elections (rounds), you might score just as much on the elections as the one with most wins. The results of these regional elections counts for approx 40-60% of your score. Other key areas is your party's membership, and your ability to match up yur party's political profile with the end resulting national political profile.
In our game, I scored 55 more points in matching my party's political profile with the nation's than the runner up. Another important thing, is to try to gain control of the media in at least one of the elections, and try to have at least one media-marker in the regions that you think you might win. If you win, you then get to place one of your media-markers on the score-board, and earn some nice VPs.
Money is in constant shortage throughout the game, and your ability to "make them count the most" is vital. Don't spend money on things that isn't vital.
An by vital, I mean really really important.
If you find yourself out of money before the round is done, you may end up in serious trouble, by not beeing able to bid on the polls as an example. This will most certainly result in your opponent(s) gaining it cheap, and may inflict serious setbacks on your position.
I learned this the hard way during our test-run a few days ago, and was not going to do the same mistake again.

My feelings for the game after playing it once, is very positive. I will definitely play it again, if I can convince my friends to play. Even tho it takes a bit too much time.
The first few rounds took approx 1 hour each, but we got it down to less than 40 mins a round later in the game.

Don't be scared of the long playtime. It is a good game !!!
It ranks as #16 at boardgamegeek, with a 8.0/10 score, wich is very very good.