F#¢& CoH Keyes Island Reactor Trial

If it sounds like I am unduly critical to the Keyes Island Reactor trial, it’s only because I despise it.  I am actually really hesitant to suggest ways to fix it, because when I try to pinpoint what’s wrong I come up with everything.

The biggest problem with Keyes is that the developers confused frustrating with challenging.  People die a lot on Keyes, but very rarely does that make a difference on the success of the trial.  There really is no skill required, just a morbid stubbornness that allows you to get kicked in the balls again and again.

The next biggest problem with Keyes is too many gadgets.  I have said in game that the people that like Keyes also like the Star Wars prequels, and to stretch the metaphor...the Star Wars prequels to me ran like every single brain storming idea that George Lucas had, needed to go into the films.  And the script then had to accommodate a bunch of “Neato!  Gee Whiz!” shots.  Keyes is exactly like that if you substitute game play for script.

~~~Original Trial~~~

The villain is Antimatter, and the trial starts with a long cut scene of megalomaniac ranting and pining for some arch-villainess.  That’s interesting maybe once.  Then the trial begins.

The opening phase of the trial has the team collecting glowie temp powers to use on the reactor.  The spots need to be cleared of mobs, and Antimatter needs to be close to them.  There are 10 of these f@*&ers on different elevations so you need a tank to drag Antimatter from spot to spot.   Oh yeah you have to do this 3 times.  More oh yeah, there’s  a “Antimatter Pulse” that damages the entire team periodically, and it gets worse if you damage Antimatter.

The final showdown with Antimatter is equally annoying.  The pulse is gone, but there’s a lot more you have to contend with.  AM can “Disintegrate” a target, which means that the victim simply dies unless he gets a heal power triggered on him within 10 seconds (or so).   There’s an “Obliteration ray” which is a devastating wide area AoE attack that also puts all sorts of status conditions and debuffs onto the team.  At 80%, 50% and 20% health AM regenerates.  You can limit his heal by destroying nearby objectives.  Now I have only done this trial twice, but at no times was I actually concerned that we wouldn’t defeat AM before the time limit expired.  So basically all the damage and death that happened wasn’t actually challenging, just painful.

~~~Current Trial~~~

A funny thing happened.  You put in a trial that’s not very fun to play and offer the same generic rewards as other trials, and NO ONE PLAYS IT.  NC-Soft’s reaction was awful, and I am embarrassed for them.  Look most of the time the player base squawks about a change, they are usually full of sh!t.   In CoX, a lot of players hated the global defense nerf, enhancement diversification, and the merit system.  All of those were necessary changes for play balance, and anyone who rage quit from these changes simply does not understand how a successful MMO actually works.   

The knee jerk solution NC-Soft came up with was to encourage Keyes play they would drastically reduce the rewards available from Lambda and BAF.

Ok, Lambda and BAF’s are farmed for the end game rewards.  That’s what happens when you make gear generic, everything becomes a grind.  So many trials unlock this, so many more unlock that.   And I don’t have a problem with this because currently in game, there are ONLY 4 incarnate trials available.  Given those restrictions, what would any sane player base do except grind the ones that are easier and at least a little entertaining?

After some pretty severe customer backlash, instead of removing Empyrean Merits from the Lambda and BAF, they added a bonus one to Keyes and the Underground trials.  They also nerfed the opening phase for Keyes.

The pulse has been scaled back, and the conditions for using glowies on the reactors were adjusted.   You still have to do all 3 reactors, but you have to drag AM from station to station a lot less.

Unfortunately, the final, frustrating showdown hasn’t really changed.  You still wind up face down in the dirt lots, and you still have plenty of time to defeat Antimatter.

I still hate this trial.

F#¢& Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC

I loves me some Games Workshop. Great flavor. It's from England (who we saved in Dubya Dubya 2). It's not Dungeons & Dragons. Pretty much has everything going for it.

The biggest complaint I've had, and have heard repeated Ad Nauseum (and I think that's a new Space Marine Chapter book for just $39.99) is that the next expansion for a game is always overpowered and is expensive, but if you don't get it you can't compete. I get it. They want to make more money. They know their core demo is hooked on completism and prone to collecting every scrap of something they can get their hands on.

The cool part is that this also leads to things like Blood Bowl. Blood Bowl has nothing to do with Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40,000 beyond the flavor of the thing. It'd be a great game if it was just based on NFL greats throughout history. But then you overlay Warhammer on top of a great game like that and you have pure magic.

Now take away all the annoyance of having to socialized face-to-face while wearing clothing, having to paint miniatures that actually have to represent what they are, having to burn precious calories that weren't hurting anyone sitting on your waistline moving pieces around the board and looking up rules and you have Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC. Just about the best French-made PC game in the world.

Somehow the English Games Workshop allowed a French company, Cyanide Studio, to make this game. Now, I have to state up front that the only reason I have a problem with Cyanide is because I so very much enjoy this game and am familiar with the intricacies of the rules. My expectation is that Cyanide Studio would understand they were licensing a game that has a cult-like following (most GW games do) that would be sticklers for everything being implemented correctly.

That being said, Cyanide failed. Don't get me completely wrong here, they made a game that is a lot of fun to play, but it isn't EXACTLY Blood Bowl. They didn't implement some things correctly, they couldn't roll out the Chaos Dwarves for example as their graphics couldn't handle four-legged models (although there are rumors they intend to fix this), some of the in-game skills don't work quite correctly, some of the league-level financial elements don't operate correctly or as intended...

In addition they've allowed some glaringly bad bugs to inhabit the game (they are well documented on their Forums) but they've cut their support down to a single person as there are no plans for them to make additional money off of this project and they wanted to get their best people working on their Game of Thrones game (which has had seriously mixed reviews).

All these horrible things are mitigated by the fact that everyone you meet to play Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC will feel the same way you do about Cyanide, and most of them will have a much more deeply held feeling that is invariably expressed in a comical way that allows for both of you simultaneously to feel superior to a group of people that spent a small amount of time in the greater scheme of things productively (unlike you) and were hugely compensated for it (unlike you) and also happen to be French (unlike you). And what's better than feeling smugly better than a group of well paid, productive, foreign people whilst wasting your time playing a computer game that doesn't even work quite right? Not much I'll tell you.

So, anyway, the key to making all of this work is to find a league to play in with someone you can talk to about it endlessly. You can't really care about a bunch of stupid Norsemen (or whatever YOU want to play; write your own Blog post) unless you can blather on about them to other people. I cannot stress this enough because the AI is absolutely HORRIBLE. You will not be challenged by it at all once you have the basics of Blood Bowl down. Also playing random people in the open leagues is like taking a crap, sometimes it goes smoothly and feels good, sometimes it is painful and feels like nothing you do will work to move things forward, and every single time at the end of it all you have is a bowl of water with poo in it.

League play is a lot of fun. I say that having been in a grand total of two leagues, one of which was run by someone who was generally absentee and the whole thing actually wasn't terribly fun, though going through the adversity with others who share your pain does form a bond! But the SECOND league, GOBBLN, is run by a fellow that calls himself Neverworking, and that league is freaking awesome. His nickname is a total misnomer, because he has worked incredibly hard to make this league a tremendous success.

Ok, onto the actual game... stream of consciousness mix.

Your team starts with 1,000,000 in cash. You have a 16 person max roster. Generally speaking unless you are a stunty race you are going to start with 11 players (the minimum amount). You pick a race. You buy your players, you decide if you want to buy an apothecary (where available) how many re-rolls you want to start with (the key here being that re-rolls cost double after your initial start). If you want to hire assistant coaches, cheer leaders, or fan factor (once the team starts you can no longer purchase fan factor, you have to earn it).

I could go on and on about the various differences among the races, their strengths and benefits, and perhaps, one day, I will, but not today. Suffice to say that good starting races for beginners are Dwarf and Orc. Play those first. Once you get the hang of it, consider branching out to Amazon or Wood Elf. After that you can get really creative and try something like Goblin, Halfling, Khemri or Vampire for a genuine challenge.

The object is to score more than your opponent. Pretty straightforward, ya? Well, when you factor in that your players can be permanently injured even killed, sometimes even when you win the battle you've lost the war.

Players gain Star Player Points which accumulate and once they break certain thresholds allow you to make your players better. You are able to select skills that give them new abilities or allow them to influence the game in some fashion. They gain the points by throwing a successful pass, scoring a TD, intercepting the ball, or injuring another player.

This is why getting into a league that has some long term playability is so key. You want to develop your squad over time, and see if you can build a dynastic team that grows around the results produced by the game all while everyone else in the league is trying to stop you and generally wishing ill will to befall you (thereby showing how much they care about what you are doing!) You level your players up in an effort to maximize your ability to win and your opponents try to beat you and/or kill your players to prevent you from building that championship caliber team.

There is a tremendous amount of luck in Blood Bowl. A lot of people don't like that about it, because you can flat out lose a game solely because you never get a lucky break, or because your opponent has everything they try go correctly despite massive odds against it. I relish this. It is part of what I find so enchanting about Blood Bowl. No matter how big the challenge you can get lucky enough (and your opponent unlucky enough) that you can overcome it. It's got that "any given Sunday" feel to it.

At the same time there is a considerable amount of skill involved. You have to be able to analyze the play on your turn and make choices that work to your best advantage. You have to be able to recognize and assign priorities to every chance you are going to take. This makes me feel like I impact the outcome in a big way, even though I'm sure it mostly boils down to the luck part, and I like to feel good about choices I make, so this is tremendously rewarding for me!

The game starts with a coin toss. Someone wins the toss and decides if they want to kick or receive first.

Every kick there is a random event generated, these events are influenced by FAME (generally how much more popular you are than the other team), Assistant Coaches, and Cheerleaders. Most of the events are low impact, however some of them are virtual game changers. This is part of the luck of Blood Bowl. Hone your skills to minimize the pain!

The game is turn based, so the team receiving the ball (barring a blitz on the kick off) will move first. When your players are adjacent to opposing players they are within their tackle zone, meaning they cannot move freely without first dodging away from them. Any player not adjacent to an opposing player may move freely unless and until they move into adjacency with an opposing player.

Any player that starts his turn adjacent to an opposing player may throw a block at that player. Once per turn a player may move and then throw a block at an opposing player, this is called the Blitz. When a block takes place the block dice are rolled. There are three total block dice. If you have the same strength value as another player you roll one block die. If you have more strength than the other player you roll two block dice. If you have double+1 strength of the opposing player you roll three block dice. This procession works in reverse as well, the difference being that when you have the higher strength you pick the die with the result you want, and if you have the lower strength your opponent picks the die they want.

The dice have five different results on them, Skull (this means you fall down, it is bad), Both Down (this means both players fall down unless they have skills that prevent it, if you cannot prevent it this is bad), Push x2 (this means you can push the opposing player one square unless he has a skill that prevents it), Defender Stumbles (this means you knock the defender down unless he can prevent it), Defender Down (this is good, they fall down and go boom!)

Knocking down opposition players has many, many advantages not least of which is that on the initial hit they have to make an armor roll for this player. If the result rolled is higher than their armor value they have to make an injury roll. Injuries range from being stunned (losing one turn for that player) to being dead (losing all remaining turns for that player) with being knocked out (out until there is a score or halftime, and then only 50/50 to recover) or badly hurt (out for the rest of this game) in the middle with some twists like Missing Next Game or a permanent injury impacting the players statistics thrown in for good measure.

You may also move the ball, this is good for scoring. First, assuming you didn't catch it, you will have to pick it up. This requires yet another roll! Whenever you fail a roll your turn will end, so it is very important to do anything that does not require a roll prior to doing anything that does require a roll. If you manage to get the ball into the hands of one of your players that player may advance the ball as much as his movement will allow, he may also hand the ball off to an adjacent team mate, or he may attempt to pass the ball to a team mate. You may hand off the ball and pass the ball once each on each turn if you wish.

Rather than comparing strengths as blocking does the ball handling skills use agility instead of strength. The higher your agility the more likely you are to succeed, however unlike with the strength skills you do not have an opportunity to roll additional dice. This is generally where re-rolls come in. If you fail a roll (dodging away from an opposing player, block, pass, pick up, hand off, etc) you may choose to re-roll it if you have re-rolls remaining. You may use one re-roll per turn, so make it count, and don't need another one!

Generally people have two objectives, winning on the scoreboard or winning on the body count. Many players try to do both. I prefer bashy teams, they suit my style, and I've found I'm not particularly good with teams that require finesse. Your mileage may vary.

I give Blood Bowl Legendary Edition for PC a 7 out of 10 for implementation as a stand-alone game by Cyanide Studio, but if you find a good league like GOBBLN I give the game a 9.95 out of 10 (I am saving my marks for future performances). You'll have some laughs, have a group of people that actually care about this silly little thing you are investing your time and energy into, and maybe even make some friends all while sitting comfortably in your underwear at home.

F#¢& Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Plot:  A 16^th century Russian Czarist theme that is completely stamped on.  Earn fame by purchasing workers, buildings and aristocrats.

Mechanics:  There are 4 phases, 3 of which score.  These rotate from player to player every turn so the first chance rotates.  In order buy workers, buy buildings, buy aristocrats, and buy upgrades.  The upgrade phase does not score.   When you score, you collect both money and VP’s which have a value for both.  In general workers (green cards) give mostly money, buildings (blue cards) give mostly victory points, and aristocrats (orange) give a combination.  Early on, aristocrats give more money than VPs but at game end you get bonus points for how many different aristocrats you have collected.  On your turn, you can buy a card which puts it into play, claim a card into your hand, pass or do a couple of special actions that required previous buys.  8 cards are shown at a time, and when a new phase begins you fill out to 8 once again.  In other words, if at the end of a phase, only 3 cards where bought/claimed, only 3 new cards arrive for the next phase.

One final note, duplicate cards cost 1 less for every duplicate.  So a market, usually costs $5, if you already own one in play it now costs $4.

Tactics:  There are two main tactics in this game, how to get a shot at another card and when to turn the emphasis from money to VPs.  

Getting a peak at another card usually entails claiming one into your hand to open up the spot.  There is a tradeoff  however, by opening up another spot you are giving the starting player a selection.

The cash to VP turn usually involves stop buying green cards and start buying blue ones.  It’s a straight forward math problem, a game lasts about 7 turns.  Occasionally you will shrink to 6 or stretch to 8, but 7 is the most likely game length.  The highest costing green is $7, so that takes 2+ turns to get return on.  At turn 5 this is risky and at 6 just plain bad.  

Early on, skip blue cards, spending on blue early takes away opportunities to buy orange cards. 

Updgrades aren’t named to fool you.  They match colors with the other phases and make them better, they cost the difference between the number associated with the upgrade and the original price of the card in play.

Commentary:  This game has several problems.  IF the table is all experienced at this game it plays ok.  If someone screws up a buy early it is nearly impossible for them to get back into the game.  Aristocrats ARE the game.  A lot of critics point to the Mistress of Ceremonies orange card as game breaking, and it is.  For $18 you get 6$ and 3 VP a turn, which is awesome, but the judge $16 for $5/turn and 2 VP/turn and the Magistrate is $14 for $4/turn and 1 VP/turn, while not as good still supplies one hell of an advantage for someone who gets them turn 1.  I also find that a first turn ghost village/bank combo really powerful too.  The ghost village costs 2 but counts as 6 for upgrade, and the bank costs 13 and gives $5 and 1 VP per turn.  So for $9 all total, you get $5 a turn in a phase that is usually cash poor.  Admittedly, this happens a lot less frequently than the MoC brokenness since it requires 2 cards to work.   An observatory’s value swings wildly.  An observatory lets you draw a card from any pile, I almost always choose an aristocrat.  If I get luck with a different, awesome!  If I miss and get a duplicate, less awesome, and possibly terrible!

So combine these broken, or at least potentially broken cards with a truck load of never buys, and this game devolves to two phases.  Green phase to get more money so you can buy more aristocrats in orange phase.

Darren’s rating : 2/10. 

Tips:

*Everyone should save money for a good turn 1 aristocrat buy, especially the first player selecting.

*Upgrades do not score.  Generally you should claim them into your hand and not buy them when they first come out.  Buying them here can short you cash for the important green phase.

*The pubs, which turn cash into VPs during blue phase, are a good buy, even if you use them only once.

F#¢& 163x

Changing tack once again, today a book review!  The 163x series by Eric Flint.

 

So here’s a quick statement on my entertainment medium philosophy.  If you get enjoyment from anything: music, TV, movies, or whatever, you are doing it right.  These preferences are a matter of taste; and even though the interwebs prove me wrong every day, you cannot argue matters of taste.   Unless it is to bash the Star Wars prequels.

First, what this series is not.  It is not good prose.  Eric Flint is a storyteller not a wordsmith.  He’s no William Faulkner that’s for sure.  I like compelling stories, and the artistic method in how they are told is secondary.  To the point that I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, and Dan Brown wishes he could write like Eric Flint.

Second, it’s an archetypical alternate history story.  A scrappy bunch of future people travel back in time and use their advanced technology to defeat a horde.  This was done previously in The Lost Regiment, and done since then with Destroyermen and Safehold.  I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories; they ask questions I really like, such as how does technology shape politics?

The original book was pretty standard fare for the genre.  Flint did pick an exceptional time to drop Grantville into; Germany during the 30 years war.  Not only do we put a 20^th century American town, complete with a couple hundred year tradition of religious tolerance right into the Counter Reformation, the setting includes fantastic historical characters:  Richelieu, Wallenstein, Gustav II Adolphus of Sweden, Cromwell and many, many others.  It’s a rich setting for supporting characters.

Third, the book took a turn along the lines of a rock and roll concept album with the sequels.  Everything turned collaborative.  This started with the very next book, Ring of Fire I, a short story anthology.  Flint recruited help from David Weber, Mercedes Lackey and others to help fill out the story.   Flint’s goal was to have other authors forge the story, instead of fitting snippets into a story line already completed.  This was followed up by co-author collaborations on nearly every follow up book.  Furthermore, all the fan fiction stories that typically get laughed at, were examined and the best stories put into an anthology series called Grantville Gazette.

 I found this fascinating, and I was hooked.  I really wanted to know how a communal writing project would work.

How it worked was…mixed.  'Ring of Fire I' was great, and I really enjoyed the first Grantville Gazette too.  The collaborations with David Weber were very, very good too.  The “Italian Arc” with Andrew Dennis while not as good as the core story was at least readable. 

The anthologies at this point started leaving a lot to be desired.  This is just speculation on my part, but I assume that the good authors got busy with their own projects so couldn’t contribute to RoF II.  The solution was to promote the best authors from the Gazette.  What ended up happening is both titles started being inadequate.  I found nothing compelling written in RoF II or any Gazette after #3 (in fact I have stopped reading the Gazettes altogether.)

Speaking of inadequate, the weakest author whose name is attached to 163x is Virginia DeMarce.  I find this pretty frustrating, because her books do have some story points that affect the world at large.  But getting to these profound changes usually involves reading 300 boring pages.  I really want a 163x Cliff notes.

To sum up, the core story is still pretty good.  The Italian tangent is readable, and I am looking forward to the English Tangent.  The anthologies are tertiary now.  They aren’t well written, they aren’t compelling, and there are too many being produced.  Read the Wiki for anything DeMarce has her name on.

F#¢& Lost Cities: The Board Game

Lost Cities: The Board Game

Plot:  You launch Indiana Jones type expeditions to 'recover' treasure.

Mechanics:  Each player gets 4 small doobers and one large doober.  There are 5 expeditions, each with a color matched suit of cards.  The cards are numbered 0-10, and there are two complete sets per suit.  You play a card and move a doober, the next card of that color must be either greater than or equal to the previous, or less than or equal to.  For example, a run of 2-3-4 or 4-3-2 are both legal, but 2-4-3 or 4-2-3 are against the rules.  Starting out an expedition costs you points, and going up the track earns you points back.  Finishing a track gets you 50, anything the large doober is on is doubled.   When you finish a track with a large doober you are allowed to dance around like you scored a touchdown.

Ok, extremely dumb game so far.  What makes it fun is the tiles which are randomly placed along the tracks waiting to be picked up.

You can get Idols, and your collection of idols gives you extra points at the end.

You can get bonus points valued at 5, 10 or 15

Or you can hit escalators which move any doober on a track up a spot.






Darren's Rating:  7/10.  I infrequently request this game, but I am always up for it when someone else suggests it.  Its lighter fare, which really works for us at times.

Tips:

*Getting the large doober to the finish is absolutely critical to do well.  You have to move him 10 times to get there, plan accordingly.
*The most important tiles are the escalators.  You normally will not get 10 cards in the same suit, but you definitely can get 5 down and manipulate the escalators.
*The more players there are the less expeditions you want to launch.  In 3 player, all 5 cities, also known as the Rainbow, is a decent risk.  In 5 player, one of those expeditions is going to lose points.
*Know when the round end is close.  It is determined when 5 doobers cross a bridge, or 7 spaces up a track.  Don't launch expeditions when this is close!

Freaking City of Hereos - Behavarial Adjustment Facility

The Behavioral Adjustment Facility Trial (BAF) along with the Lamda trial were the first incarnate trials to drop. 

The trial begins with a really long, really annoying cut scene which thankfully in later patches skipped if everyone participating had already seen it.  I usually spent the time catching up on email and checking hockey box scores.  It did spell out the plot though, the BAF is going to release hundreds of mindwashed inmates to cause mayhem.

The setting is the asylum courtyards.  Surrounding the courtyards are towers that shoot at you.  These can be disabled by clicking on computers, but I have never been on a BAF that does that.  Although the towers hurt, the attacks are single target, not AoE, so don't really threaten the team at large. 

So first you do a hunt which at least ends quickly.  Then the Nighstar archvillain (AV) spawns, and she is reinforced every two minutes by new mobs.  Additionally, there is delay activation AoE mez that occurs.  The game will give you two warnings that you're targetted then you, and bunch of people around you become unable move or shoot.  After NS the breakout occurs, at 5 points at the asylum the inmates spawn and flee.  The lieutenant types are resistant to all mezzes and slows.  If 20 escape the trial fails, if none escape everyone gets extra loot!  Then Siege spawns, along with the reinforcing mobs and the AoE mez.  Once Siege is defeated, Siege and NS rez, and you must defeat both of them now within 10 seconds of one another or the defeated one rezzes.  There is a time limit to beat them, usually you have enough time for a 2nd attempt but not a 3rd.

Game play when it dropped:  BAF is tougher than the Lambda trial, it requires actual coordination from the players.  The AV's spawn far away from each other, and a typical BAF pulls them to a central location for their individual defeats, planning ahead for their simultaneous ones.  The escape had the entire league spreading out on top of the spawn points, with a couple players tasked with looking out for runners.  As you levelled up the incarnate path the escape was actually really challenging.  The LT's were hard to hit and nothing slowed them down.  Teams still regularly got the bonus loot, but it was more work for sure.  Overall, it was somewhat challenging while you unlocked new incarnate powers and levels, a well coordinated guild team would have no problems but PuGs failed occasionally.

Game Play Now:  BAF is one of the easy trials players use to farm incarnate drops.  The towers are pretty much neutralized as people found the map spots that they can't reach.  The escape is foiled via choke points, all the spawns run past 2 centralized locations; with the lore pet powers unlocked this is much much easier.  AV's are still pulled so a little patience is required.  As a farm, its comparable to Lambda, takes about a half hour to complete and has the same rewards.

F#¢& Fresco

Fresco

Here at NF we decide on which games to buy in a variety of manners.  If Mike is spending the money, we are probably playing something ranked high on BBG.  If Warren is spending the money, it's probably a scratch and dent game that was radically discounted.  If I am spending the money, it's probably something I test drove at Gencon.  This game I bought because it was nominated for a bunch of awards and won one.  Nothing is fool proof, and we still blow it, like with Fresco.

Plot:  You are a Renaissance painter competing with other artists for fame and fortune.

Mechanics:  Several phases occur, the first of which is figuring out turn order, in game terms wake up time.  The earlier you wake up the sooner in the turn order you go, but the worse your mood is.  Being in a good mood gets you an extra action and being in a bad mood costs you an action.  Once you have your actions you plot your turn in secret, then reveal and go through some painting actions.  In order:  Buy paint, Paint the Church, Paint Portraits, Mix Paint, Go to the Theater.  Painting the church gets you victory points immediately and a small income at the end of the turn.  Painting portraits gets you money.  Choosing a wake up time happens in reverse VP order.

The Problem:  Cash at end of game is worth 1 VP for every 2$.  That's an incredibly generous ratio, which by itself might be broken.  What's absolutely broken is when you combine with reverse VP order choosing of  wake up times.  It is not terribly difficult to keep getting the extra doober when you trail everyone.  Furthermore, there are a lot of diminishing returns by spending multiple actions in the same phase, except for painting portraits.  That's worth the same amount per action no matter how many actions you spend there (maximum 3).  This makes the game totally uninteresting.  A winning strategy has over half your available actions for the entire game going to the same spot, earning 3$ per doober.

Darren's Rating: 1/10.  The original game did include some expansions and we played with those a couple of times, but the portrait action is still the most important.  And I find this flaw particularly frustrating.  How did this get through play testing?  Why when checking for game balance did this not come up?

Since it's Thanksgiving, let's discuss turkeys

Nippon Rails - The rail game in a tube. Stupid on several levels. The materials are terrible, the map in particular will never lie flat. It takes a few dozen plays to learn the city names and locations, but who would ever get that far because playing a game that was made for $1.27 is not fun. Turns out board gamers will buy products that are well made. What matters is the game play, not the price.

Race for the Galaxy: The Brink of War Expansion - Road the horse too long and made a great game into a horrible game. This could be said about some Carcasonne and Catan expansions too. At some point it becomes clear that you're just milking this for as much money as possible. I'm looking at you Mayfair.

Talisman - Ahh, we nicknamed this one "the argument starter". Rules that contradicted each other and FAQs that contradicted the rules. But it was fun, at least until the argument started. Why can't I put my mule in my cart?!? And right about the middle of hour three I was never really feeling Talisman anymore. Is there any strategy to this game? Maybe if we set up, played for an hour and then rock/paper/scissored for a victor. I might enjoy that.

Car Wars - I have such fond memories of putting together slick cars and matching them up against my buddies. And some cars from the day are infamous --- the Ice Pig laying down slippery stuff and screwing up the arena. The lux with dual front mounted anti-tank guns....stay out of Chris' front arc. But when the best strategy is to avoid doing anything that would cause you to roll the dice, this game makes a better memory than an evening.

Lego's Ramses Pyramid - I mention this game because Reiner Knizia put his name on it.

I know there aren't a lot of people who can say they design board games full time for a living, and I guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...but this is crap. And this from a guy who's spent a lot more on my kids Legos than my own board games. Just ask my wife, she'll be happy to vent.

So that's five random games from the top of my head. Please add your own!

Embrace the Suck

Mike brought up the point that playing not to suck hasn't worked for him, so excuse this stream of conscious babbling while I try and explain it better using examples from games I know this tactic works reasonably well in.

Ra:  Ra is about a pure of an auction game as you are likely ever to find.  Every bid is simply an opinion.  One of the factors when placing a bid is you know which token you are getting next round.  Too many times this paralyzes players.  It is much more important to get tiles you want than it is to have better bidding power next round.  Also, you really need to spend all your bid tokens every round.  This is strictly anecdotal, but I don't recall too many Ra winners who played 'guts' with the round end winning many games.

Alhambra:  Alhambra is a two pronged draft game.  You draft money cards and use those monies to buy tiles.  So playing not to suck means early on you don't care too much what type of tiles you get.  Yeah color types and wall length are not trivial, but the most important thing is to get your tableau started before the scoring card hits.  Round 2 it becomes at least a little important to keep track of your opponents tiles, but don't get paralyzed by that either.  Its not difficult to pass the color leader in round 2.  The point is that every tile is an asset, even if it just stopped an opponent from getting points.

I guess this game theory can also be written as:  Its better to do something constructive when you have the chance then missing out waiting for the best move.

F&*( Notre Dame Redux

I know Darren already reviewed this game in depth, but I feel I have to bring it back for a little more attention. We've played this game a handful of times now, and I'm still very much enjoying it.

Pros:

The mechanics are, while typically german/euro, refreshing and new to me.

1) Sure you're going for victory points again (oops, Prestige points), but this time instead of just cash, you have a number of resources you're trying to manage to get you there: your number influence markers, your coinage, and your rat/plague situation. And you can, to an extent, ignore any ONE of them if you so choose.

2) The deck of actions is beautiful. You can count on the fact that your going to get a chance at every action. And you influence what actions the player on your left will take.

Cons:

Deck of actions is the dominating mechanic. With so much impact, the mistress of chance may end up screwing the game as we play it more.

1) There are two cards that seem a cut below the others. It's great that some cards are popular early game, and some cards are popular in the later rounds. But the Park and the Hotel are never popular. Now it's possible there are strategies around those cards that I just haven't seen or don't get, and the fact that they are routinely passed means you can rely on getting multiples, but I don't know what those strategies could possibly be.

2) If your strategy ends up relying on getting and playing two of your actions during the course of a round (partiularly the last round), well, you just have to hope that you don't get those cards on the same turn. Hoping sucks.

Tips:

*You need to make some decisions within the first couple of turns of the first round about how you're going to earn a competitive sum of victory points. After all, it's a game about victory points.

*At some point you need to watch your neighbors, particularly your right hand neighbor because he's passing you three cards, of which you will keep two.

*You must pay attention to what you've drawn and what is yet to come.

*You should probably pay attention to what your right hand neighbor has drawn and what is yet to come (but this is deep strategery, I don't believe anyone in our group has evolved to this point).

*You probably shouldn't let what your left hand neighbor is doing influence what your passing him all that much. It's significantly more important that you take care of yourself rather than deny your neighbor.

*During the last round, keep tabs on which player's Notre Dame cards have been played.

8/10, for now. Time will tell, but it's a game that I will enjoy continuing to evaluate. If the draws tend to dictate the winner, and it devolves into a card counting exercise, that rating will go significantly down.

F&@% Ra.

Occasionally a game will come around that I very much enjoy, but have no skill at whatsoever. Ra is the epitomy of that game. I've played dozens of times, never won. I may never have finished better than third (this includes plenty of three player games). But I'm always up to play because like Charlie Brown, I really think this will be the time Lucy doesn't move the ball at the last second. I like board games, I'm good at board games, I suck at Ra.

Ra is a straightforward auction game centered around a pretty weak Egyption theme of "expanding your power and fame." Basically you are either randomly adding to the lot, or calling for an auction on the lot (although randomly adding to the lot may instead trigger an auction).

Plenty of other games revolve around a dominant auction/bidding mechanic: For Sale, Vegas Showdown, Modern Art, Santiago, and No Thanks! are some successful examples. While I do well at the card games, the board games befuddle me. And I can't tell you why that is.

One of the first things I do when I try to break down a game is figure out how many choices/turns a player takes through the course of a game and divide a winning score by that. It gives sort of an average point per choice/turn expectation. This is a very simplistic view, but it gives you some perspective. In Ra you start with 10 points because you have some basic requirements to meet each round or you will lose points. While it depends on the number of players, 5 points per auction win is very good. You can win a maximum of 9 auctions, split evenly over three epochs. So at 5 points per, 55 points is quite a good score. So how do I do finish some early epochs negative? Again, I can't quite say.

So what skills are necessary to do well at auction syle games? What am I watching for? It's a lot more difficult than it initially seems. How do you determine what is "good value" for your tiles? I know that I can honestly tell you that NEVER do I end up with a lot and say "now that was good value." I've tried calling for auctions on small lots hoping to buy them for cheap. I've tried monitoring the other players to try and predict what they are not interested in (and what I've found is other people's bidding strategies are difficult to predict :)). I've tried waiting for the other players to use all their tiles so I can play alone or with just one other player but that hasn't worked either. I've tried using the high tiles early, I've tried saving them til the end, no luck. Auction games seem to require a judgement and intuition that I just don't have. Something you can't break down, even into general points of strategy.

I can report that my lack of ability is not genetic, my dad is strangely the best Ra player in our extended group, and perhaps the best I know. He'll have to provide you tips because I'm sure I'll steer anyone looking for advice in the wrong direction.

Again, although I'm horrible, I really enjoy giving it yet another try. Most recently I employed a new strategy, and it was most successful! I call it play for third. I picked who I thought was the worst player at the table and I tried to screw them at every turn. It worked brilliantly, I met my expectations of third (in a four player game), but I had to take a shower afterwards.

8/10. It's among the best of the genre that use this mechanic. And to say that you enjoy a game that you have no ability at seems like a significant compliment. I'm sure one day I'll start to figure it out. Perhaps I'll start playing my 8 year old. The kid can always use some confidence.

F#¢& Race for the Galaxy

Today, Race for the Galaxy, aka RftG aka Space Card Game.  I am going to review the game with how it played after each expansion; there are 3 that we have played:  Gathering Storm, Rebel vs. Imperium, and The Brink of War.

Plot:

You are a faction within the galaxy trying to gain fame and influence by settling new planets and developing new technologies.

 

Goal:

It’s a game about victory points.  Nearly everything built (settled or developed in RftG speak) earns you VPs.    Many have powers that allow you to turn resources into VPs.  The game usually ends at the end or a round that the 12^th item (planet or development) is placed.  It is possible to have more than 12 items in the tableau, there is no cap.  The game can also end with the limited VPs becoming exhausted or in The Brink of War expansion when a player reaches 15 prestige.

Mechanics:

The currency of buying planets/developments is the cards in your hand.  Buying something that costs 3 means that it costs you 4 cards total.  The one you are putting into play and the three required to buy it.  Military worlds don’t require card forfeiture; instead your current military strength must be greater than the cost associated with it.  In other words, a 6 cost military planet requires the player to have +6 military previously acquired through other settlements and developments.  Most of these items grant an additional benefit during one of the play phases.  Along the lines of if you participate in this phase, draw a card.

The game starts with the player drawing 2 home worlds and 6 regular cards.  One of the 2 home worlds is selected and immediately placed in the tableau and 2 of the regular cards are discarded.

Once a turn you choose an action, everyone picks simultaneously and multiple people can choose the same action.   If an action is selected, all players may participate but the action selector gets an additional benefit.

Phase I – Explore.  Everyone chooses two cards and keeps one.  The selector gets to look at five additional cards then keep one OR look at one additional card and keep two.

Phase II – Develop.  Everyone may build a development.  The role selectors development costs one less.

Phase III – Settle.  Everyone may settle or conquer a new planet.  Settling is paying out of your hand, conquering is comparing military values.  The role selector gets to draw a card after he settles.   There are several types of planets.  Military and colonizing planets are mutually exclusive, and military worlds are highlighted by a red border around their cost.  Production and Windfall can be either military or colonized worlds, production worlds have solid color fill in their costs while windfall worlds have a colored halo.  When a windfall world comes into play, it starts with a resource.  Production worlds generate resources during the production phase.

Phase IV – Consumption. Everyone MUST consume all the goods that they can.  A consumption power may be utilized only once, and if you have excess goods they do remain in play.  The consuming may choose the order in which goods are consumed, and in this way it is possible to ‘save’ a good for later use by killing the powers that would use it first.  The selector gets to either ‘Trade’ a good for more cards or gets double victory points for goods consumed.

Phase V – Production.  Everyone who has a production world generates a corresponding good.  The selector may also produce on one windfall world.

Not every phase must happen during a turn; in fact it is a rare turn that every phase occurs.

Tactics:

RftG has something along the lines of 150-250 different cards, depending on which expansions are played.   There are quite a few powerful synergies to develop. 

The most common way to win is with special VP developments, generally referred to as 6 cost developments.  Getting a complimentary 6 cost to your tableau is a very powerful move.

Ratings:

Original game:  8/10.  The original game had some flaws; it was hard for military to win without perfect draws.  But the game was really elegantly designed and I could see the potential.

Gathering Strom:  8.5/10.  GS provided more cards and introduced goals.  Goals earn you VPs by being the first to do something or having the most of something.  Goals changed the game but in a fairly balanced way; the tableau is still important, if all you do is chase goals you will probably lose.

Rebel vs. Imperium:  9/10.  RvI provided more cards, more goals and introduced PvP planet takeovers.  Takeovers are lame, but the cards and goals introduced really helped make military strategies viable. 

The Brink of War:  7/10.  TBoW Introduced prestige, and prestige actions as well as more cards and goals.  These completely change the game and inflated scores.  It’s still a decent game, but unlike goals, prestige is way too powerful, and the people that draw cards the generate prestige have a significant advantage. 

NF played this game a lot, like a couple games a week for a year lots.   It is out of regular circulation now, because we really have explored all the nuances.  But something that kept our interest for a long long time.

Tips:

*Pay attention to what the table is doing.  You don’t need to select settle if your opponent decides to build something.  Likewise, if you have a good in play and a consume power 

available you are risking cards because any consume phase action is going to use the good.

*Military decks need to get to 12 spots on the tableau ASAP.  The longer the game goes, the more likely your opponents can afford high value cards. 

*VP grind tableaus are hard to win with.  You simultaneously need to empty the VP reserve quickly while still getting enough cards to participate in build  phases. 

F#¢& hockey talking heads

Sidney Crosby returned to the Penguins line up last night.  Analysts comments about this just infuriate me.

First let me get this out of the way.  Crosby is a hell of a player.  Right now, without playing a single game more I consider him a borderline hall of famer.  Give him just another 5 full seasons and he is a HoF lock.  In fact his half of a 2010-2011 campaign was Gretzky-like.

You see Gretzky didn't just win scoring titles.  He dominated the race, beating the next closest routinely by 50 points.  With the exception of 2010-2011 Sid has been very very good, but not a generational player.

Now I don't want to beat up Crosby too bad, so I restate he is a hell of a player.  His stat lines remind me of Joe Sakic, and Sakic is one of my all time favorites.  But neither of them are Hockey Jesus.

Tell that too the analysts.  There seems to be an assumption that Crosby and Ovechkin are single handedly responsible for the NHL's resurgance post lockout.  Now I am willing to give them some credit, but no more than any young dynamic player deserves.  Malkin, the Sedins, Toews, Kane, Datsyuk, Stamkos, Gaborik and many many others all deserve a pat on the back here.

Hockey declined in the late 90s because it was a boring product.  There was a perfect storm of factors here.

1) The Neutral Zone Trap - by itself NZT isn't awful.  The first year the Devil's implemented this, '93-94, they were 2nd in the league with scoring, tallying 306 goals.  No the NZT was not inherently evil, but the adoption of the trap by 2/3's of the NHL led to a bad product.

2) Expansion - 1991-2000 saw the league expand from 21 teams to 30.  Expansion is always hard on the team coming into the league, their rosters are filled with guys lucky to have jobs in the NHL.  That talent dilution, or better to say talent inequity, also directly led to a bad product.

3) Refereeing the game - this was absolutely the biggest problem in the NHL.  Not blown calls, but the lack of calls. Tackle Hockey.  To be fair, the NHL was aware of this and tried some crack downs, only to have them lapse especially in the playoffs.  The single most impressive thing that happened coming out of the lockout in 2005-2006, was that the obstruction penalties were called throughout the season AND the playoffs.  

So some teams still trap, but not the majority.  The league hasn't expanded in a decade.  And the obstruction rules are actually enforced.

I've been closely following hockey for 20 years now.  In that time the NHL has always tried to promote their stars.  First Gretzky and Lemieux.  It moved to Jagr and Lindros.  Now its onto Crosby and Ovechkin.  The popularity of the sport has nothing to do with that marketing strategy, it has everything to do with the product on display.

F#¢& Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Goal:

It's a game about victory points.  VPs can be gained in 3 main ways. 

1) Moving an influence marker onto certain spots on your board.
2) Moving an influence marker onto the communal/central Notre Dame location
3) Hiring towns people.

VPs can be lost by letting  a plague come to your borough (the rat track)

Mechanics:

Each player has a deck of 9 cards each corresponding to a location on the game board you can place an influence token on.  Some locations earn you money, influence or victory points.   One spot moves a carriage token which picks up a message; messages earn you VPs and some other bonus, like influence, money or rat control.  A couple locations do combinations of these things, like the park will help you earn more VP and help control rats.   The final card is the Notre Dame card, playing that lets you place a doober in ND to spend money for VP's immediately and get a share of VP later.

There are 2 actions for each player per turn, 3 turns per round and 3 rounds per game. 

A turn starts by drawing 3 cards from you personal deck.  You pick 1 then pass the other 2 to your left.  Upon receiving 2 new cards you keep 1 and pass the remainder to your left.   The first player, which rotates at the end or a turn, plays a card, allocates the influence token and gains the benefit on whatever spot he triggered.  Next player follows until it loops back around to the first player.  That player plays his 2nd card with the 3rd unplayed card underneath it (so you can't count cards) and triggers that action.  At the end of a turn, you may hire a townie that provides some kind of benefit: more influence doobers, VP's, cash, etc.  Townies have a rat upkeep associated with them, at the end of the round adjust your rat track accordingly (the hospital lowers this adjustment).  Check for plague, if the rat track exceeds 9, you must remove a doober from the board and lose 2 VPs.

Tactics

The boards spots progress differently. 

The doober, cash and VP spot are a 1-1 linear progression, in other words, 1 influence token gives 1 doober/vp/$ and 2 tokens give 2 doobers/vp/$. 

The carriage house is a 1-1 progression for moves the carriage can make; the more doobers in the house the farther it can go.   Practically speaking, as messages are claimed and become harder to get there are pretty severe diminishing returns.

The Hospital is a combo, a one shot rat reduction but a 1-1 linear progression that helps with rat upkeep.


The park is a one shot rat reduction and a 1-2 linear bonus VP adjustment.  Once you get 2 doobers in the park, anything that earns you a VP is now +1 VPs.

The hotel is a harsh progression but versatile.  You get 1$, 1 doober, or 1 rat reduction.  4 people in the hotel let you go twice.

Notre Dame removes a doober from the game but earns victory points twice.  When you place a doober in ND you can pay money and earn VPs, the more money the better the exchange rate.  At the end of a round (3 turns), each doober claims a share of victory points.  Theoretically this can be as much as 12 VP, but in practice its about 2-4 per doober.

Darren's Commentary and Rating:

There's a lot to like about this game.  Its got a limited influence mechanic that is great.  I like the card draft and the hidden 3rd card.   But it has a few problems, there are simply too many unavoidable bad moves.  For example, last week I passed David 2 spawn more doober cards in the same round, a round that he kept a spawn card himself.   David ended up with a pile of influence tokens and unable to spend them quickly enough.  Things like that happen all the time, especially with the hotel.  The hotel is a dead move most of the time, you only play the hotel because your other choice is worse.  Overall rating 8/10.   

Tips:

Managing the rat track is key.  Taking a plague is acceptable once in a while but any more than one or two times simply knee caps you.  You really can't take any plagues if your strategy involves placing tokens in Notre Dame.

Speaking of the Rat Track, don't fall for the fallacy that the hospital is worse on turn 1 than any other turn.  Yes you lose the one shot rat reduction, but the extra turn of rat upkeep makes a turn 1 hospital exactly the same as turn 2.

Getting more influence tokens is important, but its not critical to be playing from your supply.  Moving doobers from the areas you no longer care about works just fine.