Tidewater Area Gaming Society

Near record heat levels, frustrating tunnel traffic, and a surprising mid-morning rise of personal laziness, all failed to keep me from attending the July Bonus Game Day.

After arriving at our surprisingly temperate gaming refuge amongst the sweltering hotness of Norfolk, Kevin introduced me to a four player game of Innovations. This brand new card game attempts the civilization builder model taking players from the stone-age to the modern era. Though a big fan of card games I am not, Innovations was enjoyable despite never really grasping the key to implementation of the special functions, oddly named the "dogma" action. Perhaps I should study the cards more before any future play.

My first long-sought Endeavor win finally came to fruition after recording nearly half a dozen defeats since being presented with this new exciting worker placement game late last year. Apparently it does pay to use the crate action and max out one’s capacity for buying and holding cards, a technique I had never thought too much about in the past. It also seems to benefit the player who doesn’t have most of his colonies attacked by other players! Though I always enjoy this game, Endeavor plays extremely fast, about 90 minutes, ending before the board is fully explored and settled in three and four player competitions.

I found myself playing a rather large six player game of Citadels, another new experience for me. The game seemed to be very close at the end, with at least three of the players being one build from triggering the game’s end. I’m not sure that Citadels offers enough options or strategy for me to keep it interesting for future plays, but game one was decent.

I ended my bonus day experience with my second play of El Grande. Having been crushed the first time around, I learned the lesson about the importance of earning points early and often. Through all of the game's rather tedious scoring time-out sessions, I managing to stay very close to the leader, finishing in a respectable second place to Ken, the true Grande.

Just moments ago, a rather humorless deliveryman appeared at my door with my first shipment of new colored wooden playing pieces! Shipped from Spiel Material (http://www.spielmaterial.de/) in Germany about 12 days ago, these new toys should contribute greatly to my floundering initial attempt to make a Euro-game of my very own. As recommended to me on Saturday, next time I will offer up on these great forums the opportunity to everyone else to join in on the purchase to split the shipping costs—thanks for the idea Jake!

July Bonus Game day, during which the air conditioner put in a valiant eight-hour work day. Those of us who stayed beyond the eleventh hour couldn’t complain. Couldn’t barely stand. And remember, the next time you have to go outside in 108-degree heat, that it’s only about 16 of them that are causing all the trouble. Anybody can deal with 92.

Innovation
Kind of a single-planet variation on Race for the Galaxy, with more player interaction and more reading. A lot more reading. First play served only to gain a general sense of what’s on the cards. Certainly more chaotic than RftG, as a player can lay down a card and use it to irritate opposing players in a single turn. How much irritation depends on what icons are showing on other players’ face-up cards. What card do I have to play to invent non-glare sleeves? At the next Resolved: Dogma Is a Verb debate, Josh and I will gang up on the designer.

Endeavor
You know those high-falutin’ dart boards with chrome-plated wires separating all the scoring sections? Each time I play Endeavor, I feel like the designer has bounced his dart squarely off the meatiest part of one of the wires. Nothing wrong with the final result, but surely the designer intended to blend all these splendid ideas into something just slightly above or just slightly below that chrome plated wire.

Citadels
Big fun in a small box. This is one of those games where you occasionally have the chance to arbitrarily designate one of your opponents and take all their gold or swiftly (and temporarily) kill them. Why do designers assume such impatience on my part? I’m perfectly willing to wait quietly for about 80 or 90 seconds during which one of you is bound to do something which merits immediate separation from your stash of gold or this mortal coil.

Fresco
Matthan brought this one, which I had really been looking forward to trying. Before the game, I made up my mind that I was going to paint the 24-point pink and brown tile, and that I was going to maneuver my way into having an extended squad of six apprentices at my disposal. By about the fourth turn I had accomplished the former, bringing my total score for the game up to 24 points. Many turns later, long after establishing my utter inability to find anything useful for my fifth apprentice to do, number six (that one’s naked, you know) was mine. Free advice for anyone interested in winning this game: don’t bother going after the sixth apprentice, and don’t bother with the pink and brown tile. There must be a reason why no team with pink and brown uniforms has ever won a Super Bowl, or anything else.

El Grande
My first chance to play this classic, whose name translates to Something People Like to Bite. Another one where the first play served only to gain a general sense of what’s on the cards. It’s good to get your caballeros onto the board, until you discover that there are cards which allow other players to do rotten things to caballeros on the board. There are even some cards which allow other players to do rotten things to caballeros not on the board. Advice to caballeros: Whatever you’re doing, enjoy it while you can.

Small World
A classic battle on the 3-player board among evenly matched players. Evenly matched, as in Anything You Can Think I Can Think Slower, I Can Think Anything Slower Than You. In a perfect world, all games would be this evenly matched. Late in the game, the queue of races was packed with splendid early-game choices. By the way, does anyone know if we remembered to move the turn marker?

Time's Up Title Recall
This is a game with very few rules which is played mostly for fun. This is a game during which every time I try to have fun, someone pulls a freshly minted rule out of their ass and declares that I have broken it. This is a game before which the valiant air conditioner displayed the extreme good sense to call it a night. Perhaps someday I will have as much sense as the valiant air conditioner. But I doubt it.

Another fine session full of Fresco, Endeavor, Citadels, El Grande, and Small World.
Or perhaps it was just full of Innovation and Time‘s Up.
Looking forward to the next one.

-- Michael