14th Gathering of the Four Horsemen

Yesterday was the 14th Gathering of the Four Horsemen. It was a full day (9am-8pm) of gaming and we got in a record (?) number of games. Of the games played, my favorite was Martin Wallace's Railways of England and Wales. But, I will talk about that more in a minute. Below, are the games that we played and some brief comments for each:

The Kaiser's Pirates: GMT, so help me if you ever have a warehouse sale! Doug, in full blown war-gamer glee attacked the recent GMT warehouse clearance sale and ended up with a number of new games. Included in the booty was the Kaiser's Pirates, which we played yesterday. In this war game played with decks of cards, each player has 4 different German pirate raiders and 4 different civilian vessels. The point of the game is to sink opponent's ships to score victory points while protecting your own. A standard turn is composed of either attacking an opponent's commercial ship with one of your raiders or attacking one of their German raiders with an intercept card from your hand. These attacks will typically result in a damage cube, which lowers the die roll of that ship in the future, and thus makes it easier to destroy.

I have no major qualms with this game as we played it. The rules call for 3 rounds of game play, and a round ends when the deck of action cards runs out. Yesterday, it took us a good 90 minutes to play through the deck once and then we decided to end the game. That was fun, or at least it was manageable. If I had to play that game for two more rounds I would have slipped into a coma from boredom. It is an experience game, but that experience needs to know it's limits. In my opinion, PanzerZug is a much better game that accomplishes the same thing.

Tower of Babel: Next up was Tower of Babel, an older Knizia game. If I recall, Tom Vasel had given this game a very poor review, but I am on the fence. The game consists of player's attempting to complete the 8 wonders of the world. Each of the building sites has 3 different chits on them, showing one of the 4 building elements. The players also have hands of cards that similarly depict one of these elements. On your turn, you simply go to a building site and state that you are going to build that third of the site (by choosing one of the chits). Then, each player simultaneously makes an offering of some number of cards. Of the cards that match the symbol on the chit, the active player gets to choose the offerings that he/she wants. As long as enough elements are either chosen from other players, or added by the active player, that "third" of the building is completed. You want this to happen because if your offering is accepted you gain influence points on the building that you were working on. When that building is finally completed, you will gain victory points for majority control. If your offering is not accepted, you still gain victory points equal to the number of relevant cards you offered (matching the symbol). Finally, if you are the active player, you get to keep the chit which scores you points at the end of the game for duplicates of that type.

I have to disagree with some of the comments about this game. It is not terrible, but neither is it great. It plays quickly and is not difficult to teach, but it is very dependent on the other players. I can imagine gaming groups or simply games where one player, despite excellent play, loses because the others players want him or her to lose. Because of this, I would hesitant to outright recommend the game. I think that there are games out there that have this type of majority control scoring and rotating scoring that make the game attractive. China and Web of Power are examples, as is Knizia's Rome, an out of print but great game by GMT.

Railways of England and Wales: Alright! This is the latest Martin Wallace game (and probably last game) from FRED, in the Railroad Tycoon line of Age of Steam variants. What makes this game unique is that railroad control is share driven. I have not played any games in the 18XX series, but I have heard that this is akin to an 18XX lite game. Anyhow, at the start of the game, players are given the opportunity to purchase shares of one of the 6 different railroads. As soon as one player has the majority of a railroad's shares they become the president of that railroad and they will make the decisions concerning track building, mergers, and cube shipments. Money paid for the shares goes to the railroad for paying dividends and building track. Extra money can be acquired by the railroad by either issuing shares to the bank at the railroad's current share price or by issuing more shares to player's. Railroad income goes up or down during the dividends phase based on the amount of money that it pays out relative to it's base share/income price.

This is definitely an interesting game and one that I wouldn't mind playing again. I did find the linkage between railroad share price and payouts somewhat difficult to grasp at first, but I must have done something right (because I did win in the end). I think that the major reason for my victory was acquiring a large number of shares in one railroad and running it on a tight budget. I never had to issue shares to the bank, so dividend payouts were definitely undiluted. At the end of the game, I earned a great deal of money from the purple railroad. I was also able to acquire shares in other profitable railroads. I think that Doug especially made the mistake of purchasing share after share of his blue railroad which added money to the railroad that was not needed. Thus, he only succeeded in making each of his previously purchased shares less valuable. Sadly, I do not own Railroad Tycoon, nor do I plan on purchasing it. I like Age of Steam so much more, so I see no need to purchase a base system to play an expansion. The game is good, but I think that I get the same thing from other games such as Pampas Railroads or even Wabash Cannonball.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Yes! That's right, my pick of the day was this "classic" cooperative game from Milton Bradley. Buffy is a roll and move game where one player controls the forces of evil and the rest take on the roles of popular characters from the TV show. At the start of your turn you roll the movement dice and can move around the board collecting cards, trading cards, using cards, and attacking the evil vampires (or if you are evil, attacking the good players). It is a roll and move game, but I have a good time playing it. It is quick and the lone evil player still has a very active role in the game, because they have control of one main character and a number of minions. The game end conditions are set by the scenario that you play, and it does move along pretty quickly. Yesterday, for example, the game ended in about 20-30 minutes when Doug rolled TWO fangs and sired Buffy.

Space Alert: We played two games of Space Alert yesterday. So I have now played three games. My first game at BGG.Con was awful and I did not have a good time. My first game yesterday was awful, and I did not have a good time. But by the third game (second of the day), I finally began to gain an understanding of the game and it was a pleasant experience. In the game, players play down cards to program the actions of their characters in the spaceship. You run around pushing buttons which fire lasers, add energy to those lasers, activate robots, activate shields, add energy to the pool that the energy for the lasers is drawn out of, and, most importantly, "jiggle" the mouse so that the screen saver does not turn on. It is a cooperative game, and the negatives that you have to overcome are driven by a soundtrack provided with the game.

As I said before, I did not initially like this game. On my first two plays, I really didn't understand what the heck was going on and it makes for a ridiculous end game as your programmed moves are carried out. The most direct comparison here is Robo-Rally where your programmed moves can go astray, but at least you quickly get to re-program your robot (to some degree). Here, you are done and you have to sit there for some time knowing that you have screwed up and there is nothing you can do about it. Yet by the next go we all had a better idea of how to play the game and it was more fun. When things go right, it is a blast, or even if they go mostly right. It is only when the entire game/programming is a train wreck that I do not enjoy the game as much.

Snow Tails: The final game of the day was Snow Tails, and Ed wore his paper hockey helmet to celebrate the game (and boy did he look ridiculous). At the core, Snow Tails is a standard racing game. You start at the "start" line, race through a course, and finish at the "finish" line. But like most games, it is how you do that middle part that makes it unique. Each player has a dog sled that features three slots for cards. Two spots in the front of the sled represent your pulling power and one in the back for your brake level. Each player has their own deck of cards with values ranging from 1 to 5. The decks are shuffled differently, but each deck is the same. You also have a hand of 5 cards (minus any dent cards you have received by crashing into things). On your turn, you can play 1 to 3 cards, but played cards all have to have the same numerical value. Then, you add up the two front cards, subtract your brake level and move forward that number of spaces. The trick is that if your two front cards are not equal, then your sled will veer off to the left or to the right. For example, if your front cards are a 4 and a 1, and your brake is a 2, then you will go forward 3 spaces and also go 3 spaces to the left.

This was my second go at this game, my first taking place at PrezCon and I had a much better experience this time. In my first game, we used a harder course with trees and tighter turns, and it was not conducive for a learning game. We played an easier course, and it allowed us to really see how the cards interacted with the sled movement for neat results. And that is the key to my enjoyment of the game. I realized that there are certain games where "neat" results can happen. This game is one of them, where the interaction between the sled movement, the 2 front cards, and the brake card can make for some really cool maneuvering. Agricola is another. But sometimes, neatness doesn't happen, and I find that frustrating. I must be like a whiny child at the point, I see cool stuff happening around me, and I want to do it too!

As far as racing games go, I have to admit that I still like Robo-Rally more. But this game has a great theme and it is definitely worth a go.

After Snow Tails I headed home. Tomorrow, I may head out to the Central PA Games Club meeting, but I also have a good bit of work to take care of, so we will see.