Carcassonne End

Carcassonne End
Originally uploaded by coljen.

As we were playing with practically all the expansions the game took I think over 90 minutes to complete, not only because of the number of tiles, but because of the extra decisions needed when placing them. Towards the end of the game players concentrated on getting majorities in the farms and meeples in the market ready to influence the scoring at the end. Once again we had a disussion as to how the farms are actually scored, we decided that if a completed city is in more than one field it scores in both. I know there are different ways of intepreting this rule but that’s how we played it. One huge city (top centre of pic) garnered a lot of points for Richard and Steve I think it was. And Neil cleared up a lot of points scoring farms.

Final Scores (*denotes starting player)
Richard (grey) 139, Neil (black) 127, *Natalie (red) 91, Colin (yellow) 64, Garry (green) 56

Game Rating (0-10)
Colin 7.5

Tuesday 24th November - Carcassonne start with Count and River

Carcassonne start with Count and River
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Tonights game was Carcassonne with the new expansion ‘The Count’ plus all the previous expansions, except the King and Robber Knight. Nearly a full complement at Billygames tonight with Natalie, Neil, Garry, Richard and Colin (me). After a quick refresher on the rules as we had’nt played Carc for a while, we was off. The Count definitely adds a new strategic element and makes meeple management all the more important. The river soon snaked around the city walls and we was wondering if the playing table was going to be big enough! Cities were being finished pretty quickly by non-controlling players to get that extra meeple in the castle, abbey, market or blacksmith. Also for the wine, wheat and cloth chits. Steve was the only player to get a meeple in the Abbey and was then closed down by having the Count move in for some prayers. The blacksmith never got used at all during the whole game. It was mainly the castle and towards the end game the market became more valuable to control those farms.

TTR Belgium Board Game 2

TTR Belgium Board Game 2
Originally uploaded by coljen.

As the first game only took about an hour, we decided to play a second game. I think everyone took more tickets in this game. The scores were closer as the routes were a bit more familiar. Richard managed to complete the Knokke to Bertrix route for 18 pts and consequently got the longest train card as well (length of 29). I took some tickets mid game and had one already completed (Liege to Arlon) for 10pts and one I thought I could complete fairly easily. As it was I was one link short. Doh! In the picture their has’nt a been a major train disaster I forgot to take the photo before we checked the scores so the carriages are all on their side. As I said the scores were a lot closer and Garry pushed Richard all the way being only 2pts behind.

Final Scores (*denotes starting player)
Neil 69 (Black), *Steve 66 (Blue), Richard 88 (Red), Colin 72 (Yellow), Garry 86 (Green)

TTR Belgium Late Game

TTR Belgium Late Game
Originally uploaded by coljen.

This shows the board at the end of the game. As you can see if you had played with the full 45 carriages the board would have been totally clogged up. With 35 it was just about right.

Tuesday 17th - TTR Belgium Board

TTR Belgium Board Early Game
Originally uploaded by coljen.

So, after my previous post showing my artistic skill constructing the board and tickets tonight we get to give a whirl and see how it plays. The participants were Neil, Steve, Garry, Richard and myself. As I said previously the board only has about 80% of the routes of the American board so the designers advised that you start with only 35 carriages for a 5 player game. There were no routes that spanned right across the board in the original tickets so I made a couple. La Panne to Arlon for 22pts and Knokke to Bertrix for 18pts. I thought they would be very difficult to complete. Anyway the board played really well, and the game lasted about an hour. That 22pt route clobbered Garry as he failed to complete it and Richard completed all his routes. Steve on the other hand didn’t complete I think 3 of his routes, one of them a only 2 stations apart. The general consensus was that he was trying to use his carriages to spell out a rude word. He said the word was ‘Belgium’.

Final Scores (*denotes starting player)
*Neil 68 (Black), Steve 12 (Blue), Richard 95 (Red), Colin 67 (Yellow), Garry 43 (Green)

Doge End Position

Doge-End-Position
Originally uploaded by coljen.

The final board position. Richard wins (I said so), with 6 palaces, one in each province. Neil is a very close second, only one house short of building his sixth palace. I am on 4 palaces and close to my fifth and Steve is on three with houses in two provinces. All in all a very enjoyable game, closely fought and liked by all.

Final Scores
Richard - Red 6, Neil - Green 5, Colin - Yellow 4, Steve - Blue 3
Game Rating (0-10)
Colin 7.5

Doge - The early board position

Doge-Early-Position
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Even at this early stage you can see that Neil(green), Richard(red) and myself(yellow) have built two palaces each, and Steve(blue) has a few houses on the board. Richard has control of two advisors already. Perhaps he did listen to the rules after all.

Tuesday 9th November - Doge

Doge-Richard-Building
Originally uploaded by coljen.

The first tuesday games evening for a couple of weeks and the selection is Doge. A game of political shannigans in Venice. Neil and I had not played before, Steve had, not sure about Richard. Steve gave a run through the rules while Richard tried to build the Empire State Building out of his palaces. As usual here is a quick description from BGG.

Three or four players try to gain the most influence by building palazzos in Venice. Influence is placed face-down into city sections. When all is placed, they are revealed in a predetermined order. Having the most influence in a section allows a player to build the most houses and also give control over the advisor for that section. The advisor can be placed somewhere else in the city and adds influence in a later vote. Houses can be traded for Palazzos, and the player with a Palazzo in every section wins the game.

As I said before we started, Richard didn’t pay any attention at all to the rules so he obviously was going to win. This game from 2000, designed by Leo Colovini, is a nice blend of strataties. Do you take the advisor? Or do you neutralise him and move houses around? If you have the most influence in the province of course. The game flowed fairly well with everyone having a clear idea of what they were doing (Even Richard), I was just winging it :)

Rules clarifications for the Belgium Board

I have just read on the belgian website that published this expansion that this variation is best with 2-3 players! Trust me to read this after I have made the board. Anyway the designer says that there are about 80% of the routes that there are on the original American board so if you play with more than 3 to restrict the number of carriages. i.e. 4 players = 40 carriages and 5 players = 35 carriages. Consequently the game will be shorter, but the number of opportunities for blocking seem to be rather greater. If the Babel-fish translation is anything like accurate it says that there are more coloured routes than the grey generic routes that are on the American board. I have given it a dry run, couldn’t get the wife to play, she did have a horrible cold to be fair, and it plays completely different to the original.

The finished board!

Board-WEB
Originally uploaded by coljen.

After allowing the acrylic spray to dry it is all finished. Time to do the whole thing was only about an hour and a half. I think the acrylic brings out the colours nicely. The sheets for the tickets came with a couple of blanks, so I made a couple of routes of my own using photoshop. There seem to be quite a lot of 8/9 point routes so I made 2 longer routes which will be harder to complete but the points gained are obviously higher. All that remains now is to persuade the wife to try it out.

Ticket to Ride - Belgium Board

Materials-WEB
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Here are all the materials necessary to make your own Belgium board for Ticket to Ride. First I downloaded the 8 A4 sections of the board from the net and the 4 A4 sheets that comprise the tickets (2 fronts and 2 backs). I obtained a piece of polyboard to the appropriate size (72cm x 52cm). This is ideal being strong and light. Then I trimmed all the sheets and laid them on the polyboard to get the initial position. Using Spraymount I stuck the sheets onto the polyboard, taking great care to match up the graphics. It's quite difficult to get it right across the whole board and I think I am out fractionally in one bit, but it doesn't show too much.
Then I spraymounted the backs and fronts of the tickets together. I had purchased some A4 laminate film from Rymans and laminated the tickets front and back, sort of a film sandwich! This produces quite a decent thickness for the tickets that should wear quite well. Finally I used a scalpel and steel rule to cut out the tickets.
Now the board has had a chance for the spraymount to dry a bit so I finished the board by spraying it with about 5 light coats of clear acrylic spray. This produces a hard, clear semi sheen finish.