Richards's Post Essen Games Day - 28th October

Richard had invited us over to his place for a Post Essen Games Day. Attending were Richard!, Steve, Jo, myself and Tony who was coming along around teatime. Steve picked me up from Billingshurst and we arrived at Richard’s house in Haywards Heath just after 10. Richard, Jo and Steve were keen to give Through the Ages a go, so that hit the table.

Through The Ages



This game by CzechBoardGames was advertised for Essen as Civ-lite or Civilisation the card game. Richard started to set-up while Jo, who had read the rules, started to give us the run down, we decided to play the basic game just to give us a feel for the mechanics and play, actualy winning the game wasn’t so important. Going through the rules took about an hour. The game doesn’t have a board as such just a place to lay out cards and keep track of various points. I won’t go into the rules in any depth here, it would take too long, suffice to say once you have played a couple of turns it easily falls into place, certain aspects of the game weren’t relevant in the basic game, mainly military activity and territories. The components for the game aren’t what I would call absolutely of the highest quality, the cards are a bit on the thin side and the small glass beads that you use are a bit fiddly for large fingers.



The basic game only plays through Age I and that took us about 150 minutes. I know that I said that winning wasn’t a priority, but you know how us gamers are and I think winning the game did figure in some of the moves :) (basically that means I didn’t win). The game ends when you have gone through the Age I deck of cards and that came upon quite quickly at the end. Meaning I hadn’t noticed I wouldn’t get another turn. I could have improved my score if I had noticed.....really!! but winning wasn’t the priority, remember errr hem!! Anyway I quite liked it, although we couldn’t play it on a Tuesday evening it would take too long, have to wait for another day long session, and the advanced version is obviously going to take much longer I would think.

Final Scores
Steve 61, Richard 45, Jo 44, Colin 35

Blue Moon City



Jo had purchased Blue Moon City, another Renier Knizia game, and was keen to give it a go. It had been a getting a good buzz at Essen and on the Geek. Richard put some pizzas on and Jo gave a run down on the rules. After fuelling up on pepperoni pizza and sausage rolls we started the game. Basically you are trying to rebuild the devestated Blue Moon City by moving your dobber around the tilhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gifes that make up the board and attempt to build on one by playing cards from your hand. Each tile has different requirements to build it and provides various rewards when it is completed, dragon scales, crystals and extra cards basically. Each other completed tile that is orthoganal to the tile that is being scored provides extra benefits (more crystals, dragon scales or cards). If there is a dragon on the tile when you build you get a dragon scale straight away. As you collect crystals you can get to the central tile and make an offer to rebuild the obelisk, this involves paying crystals to the bank and you put a marker on said obelisk. As more markers are put on the cost to build increases, when a player has 4 markers on it they win the game. The cards are values 1-3 in different colours, each colour has a different special ability, enabling you to move the dragons around the board, or using cards of a different colour to pay for a build, they are all pretty well depicted on the cards and you get used to quite quickly.



The components for the game are very good, nice thick tiles and the cards have very appealing artwork on them. You are reliant to a certain extent on what cards you draw, but you can discard 1 or 2 cards at the end of your turn so you can then draw 4 (you draw 2 anyway). I like the game, it’s easy to understand and sets up quickly, good for non-gamers and has a bit of strategy in it and plays in about 60 minutes. Steve complained about the cards he kept drawing until he realised that 2 brown cards could be used as a 3 of any colour, which obviously made his cards a lot better. I got 2 offers on the obelisk pretty quickly and then concentrated on getting a presence on a few tiles to benefit when they were completed. I managed to get enough crystals for 2 more offers but couldn’t get the card that enabled you to make 2 offers in one turn, so I had to wait a turn and hope that nobody else had enough crystals and the right card to make 2 offers, nobody did so I got my fourth offer on the obelisk and won.

Final Scores
Colin 4 offers

Richard was very pleased with a game he got from Toys R Us and that was next on the table, albeit only briefly.

Loopin’ Loiue
I won’t go into too much detail because this game is obviously in every hardcore gamers collection. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, the excitement was too much. Steve rated this game very highly and tried to win as quickly as possible to get it off the table, and he did.

Winner
Steve

Null & Nichtig
We weren’t sure what time Tony was going to join us so we had a couple of hands of Null & Nichtig. We had played this trick-taking cardgame last tuesday and found it good fun. Lots of opportunity for stuffing someone’s score, also for getting your own stuffed too. Richard had obviously been thinking about it because he went from coming last on tuesday to winning.

Final Scores after 2 hands
Richard 67, Colin 48, Steve 35, Jo 18

On The Underground



Jo had decided to call it a day and Tony finally arrived, we gave him the choice of the next game and he chose the JKLM game On the Underground. Yet another game about building/laying track/tunnels/canals yada, yada, yada. I must admit my hands are getting quite calloused with all the track laying and tunnel/canal building, and some of them just don’t appeal that much to me. This variant has you digging tunnels for the London Underground and moving the passenger around to various destinations as designated by a deck of cards. The map depicts the stations with 1 or multiple connections between them, you place your track (looked very like roads from Settlers to me) and then move the passenger. As an aside I don’t think the underground companies are going to make much money with 1 passenger....anyway. There are multiple ways to score points, joining track to national railway lines, connecting to a terminus, joining 2 tourist spots etc.


After you have built your track the passenger moves and for each line he moves over the owner gets 1 point. There are two types of station, gold and silver, he will always move to a gold station if he can, then onto a silver station. If there are only silver stations he just moves to one of them. I found it OK, not one I would choose or wish to own a copy of, but will play it if someone else chooses it.

Final Scores
Richard 40, Steve 40, Tony 39, Colin 33

Taluva



Lastly on the table was a game that had got rave reviews for the bits and the very pleasing look, but was it a good game? I hadn’t managed to get a copy of the english rules, but had managed to piece together the gameplay from several very good reviews and some input into Google Translator. Basically it is a very simple game, on your turn you play a tile and then build one of your buildings. Each player has 20 huts, 3 temples and 2 towers. You can either add a tile adjacent to the tiles in play, or cause a volcanic eruption, which means laying a tile on a higher level. You must place the volcano on the tile on another volcano with the lava flow going in a different direction, this means you can’t just place your tile directly over just one other tile. You can destroy buildings, but cannot wipe out a complete settlement i.e. there must be at least one building of a settlement left in play.
When you place a building you can either, place a hut on level 1, build a temple on an existing settlement of at least 3 hex size that doesn’t already contain a temple, build a tower on an existing settlement at level 3 or higher that doesn’t already contain a tower. There is one other move and that is expand your settlement by choosing a terrain type and putting huts on all the hexes of that terrain type adjacent to a settlement, 1 hut on a level 1 hex, 2 huts on a level 2 etc, and that’s it really. Placing the tiles is tricky, trying to protect your settlements by not giving any opportunities for your opponents to erupt all over them and gaining height to build those towers.



The winning conditions are when any player has built all buildings of two types, or if the tiles have run out, the player who has built the most temples, if tied, the most towers and if still tied the most huts. Tony had expanded one settlement and placed lots of huts in it, leaving him with only 1 hut left. This gave him a dilemma as he couldn’t get a 3 hex settlement to place his temples. It looked as if the rule where if you cannot build in your turn you are eliminated from the game may trigger. He placed the hut anyway. We were down to 1 or 2 tiles and Richard was looking to place his last tower, we realised that if he did that he would have built all of two types of building, oh, realises Tony I did that last turn. So in the end from the possibility of being eliminated Tony claimed the win. I liked the game a lot, simple but with quite a depth to it, and it does look great!!

Final Scores
Tony winner (built 2 types of bulding)

It was about 9.45 now and we decided to call it a day. A good day of playing the Essen releases, and we still have loads to go!!!

Haywards Heath to Essen - There and back in a day

As I mentioned before I went to Essen in 2003 with Richard in his TVR, we did it in a day. Very tiring but quite a buzz, well it was for me anyway, I wasn't driving! Well, this year he did it again, this time taking his sensible car and a couple of friends. You can read all about his trip here.

Richards Essen Trip 2006

Well worth a read, even if it's for the curry :)

Tuesday 24th October - Gheos

Here we are and the first session post Essen, Garry couldn't make it courtesy of a cold he picked up in Germany. So it was just Steve, Richard and I. Steve had chosen Gheos, one of the games I purchased at the show. This is basically a tile laying game with a bit of Euphrates and Tigris thrown in. The tiles form continents and islands on which you establish civilisations.


A close up of the tiles with civ counters

The components are very good, nice chunky tiles with good graphics representing land and water, with clear symbols in bright colours. All the blocks and discs are wood. The manual is clear with good examples of play. The gameplay is fairly simple but has a lot of possibilities. You either add a tile or replace a tile that is already laid. You can then start a civ on an unoccupied continent, or take a block of an existing civ. If you replace a tile this could either lead to a war or a civilisation migrating. There are 6 civilisations (colours) and when you establish a civilisation you gain followers (coloured blocks) of that civ, these can then earn you VPs in various ways. When you have sorted that out you could play one of 3 scoring discs each player has. You get points for each follower you have for civs in play and each follower is worth the number of cups depicted in that civ. Only the player that played the scoring disc actually scores. You then draw a tile from the supply to make your hand back up to two. If you draw an epoch tile then there is another scoring, in an epoch scoring each follower a player has is worth points equal to the number of pyramids on that civs continent, all the players score all their followers.


The overall gameboard

The interesting bit is when you replace a tile and cause a war or migration because the losing civ loses all its followers, and the players with any followers have to discard them. On several occasions in our game 4 or 5 followers were lost at a time. The game ends when all players have played all of their scoring tokens or when a certain number of epoch tiles have been drawn, in a 3 player game that was 7.
At game end all players score again just as if they had played a scoring token. Steve managed to end the game by making a move and then playing the last scoring token he had which ended the game, he scored 20 points for that, then there was the final scoring and he scored another 20 points....ouch, that effectively won him the game.

Final Scores
Steve 78, Richard 73, Colin 53

I think we all enjoyed Gheos, there are a lot of possible moves and plenty of opportunities to screw your opponents. It also plays fairly quickly, which left us enough time to end the session with a short cardgame.

Null und Nichtig (Null and Void)
This is a simple trick-taking game with a twist....well they all have haven't they. Basically there are cards 0-11 in five colours, with 2 zeros in each colour. Each player is dealt 13 cards and chooses 3 cards to place face up in front of him. The player to the left of the dealer leads to the first trick, you don't have to follow suit (colour) and the highest card wins the trick. This is the clever bit, the winner of the trick then picks up the cards in order, starting with his own, and adds them to the cards in front of him by colour, so each colour is in a single stack. You play the 13 tricks and at the end you score points for the top card of each colour stack you have in front of you. Easy uh!! well, it makes you think a bit, I found it easiest to play 3 high cards in front of me at the start and then try not to win any tricks. Never lead with a zero, every one dumps zeros of different colours on you...oh, I forgot if there is a tie for the highest card, it's the one who played it first that wins the trick. I admit I do like trick taking games and this one is very good, I'd like to play it with 5, the maximum number of players, should be a laugh.

Final Scores
Colin 88, Steve 79, Richard 69

Essen 2006 - Day 3/20.10.06

At breakfast our games lists were updated, final purchases noted and last things to check out. We arrived at the halls at 10.15, Jo had stayed at the hotel to catch up on a bit of work, and we arranged to meet him later. The halls were definitely more crowded today, I would hate to be here tomorrow, I should think it will be packed. I wanted to have a look at Ave Caesar, the Pro Ludo reprint was selling for around 20/21 euros. I think that will fill the remaining space in my case nicely thank you so I purchased a copy. We met up with Jo and he wanted to check out the Japanese games on the Japon Brand stand, they had a small stand in hall 4, with very polite assistants bowing every time they give out a leaflet. I didn’t know too much about their games but Jo was ecstatic to find them selling Q-Jet 21XX, a space-themed version of Ave Caesar, and immediately bought 2 copies, one for himself and one for Richard. I purchased Phantom Rummy, a cross between Maj Jong and Rummy, mainly I admit for the artwork, which was really nice.
Fiske had a marvellous colour-coded checklist to work from and he diligently tracked down the best price for each game he wished to purchase, saving one or two euro’s on each one but wearing out a lot of shoe leather.
Time was getting on and we decided to go back to the centre of Essen for some coffee and a snack, so we bade our farewells to the Messe around 3.45. The hotel had let us leave our cases there so we went back to pick them up and fit the final games in. Our train was leaving at 5.36, and we arrived in plenty of time, we saw it on the display then it disappeared, after some enquiries we found out it had been cancelled. I thought the german railway system was perfect, ah well. Not to worry, we eventually arrived at the airport for our short flight to Gatwick. Our adventure to Essen was over, we all had a great time and came back with enough games to keep us playing for quite a while.



Battlelore from Days of Wonder


Watching a dexterity game manipulating cups


Fragor Games new offering Hameln


Playing Imperial


Jo and Friend


Taking a break


Waiting in vain for our cancelled train


My game purchases


Fiske's Essen purchases


And Garry's

Essen 2006 - Day 2/19.10.06

We met up this morning and had a leisurely breakfast, discussing what games we wanted to buy and things especially wanted to do. We had all printed out lists off of the web, Spielbox had a really good one, and noted all the possible purchases. Fiske, a friend of Jo’s was meeting up with us at the Messe later. We set off for the short metro ride to the halls arriving about 9.45, we soon had our tickets and Jo departed to stock up from the cash machine. We arranged to meet at the Winsome Games stand, Garry wanted to go there first as he had pre-ordered some AoS maps. The crowds were surging into the fair and we plunged in, there was quite a crowd at Winsome because pre-ordered items had to be picked up between 10-12 and the free player mats went in 20 minutes. Jo arrived to claim his copies and we decided to split meeting at the steps by the restaurant, a favourite gathering point, later.


Garry and AoS maps at Winsome Games

It was great just wandering around taking in all the atmosphere, I had only been once before in 2003, doing the round trip from the UK and back in a day. This time we could take more time and take it all in, it really is a paradise for gamers. A lot of english and americans visit the fair, we got talking to a guy from Southampton at the Allgamesfor you stand.
Some of the fantasy role-playing costumes and equipment are something else. Whole suits of armour and chainmail, swords, axes and some great characters in costume selling it all. I tried the weight of the chainmail and boy was it heavy, just imagine wearing that all day!


Garry feeling the weight of chainmail

We started checking out the prices on various stalls, and it was surprising how much some of them varied. Soon it was approaching 12 noon the time we were due to meet Fiske.....and sure enough there he was, he had missed the 9.12am ICE train by minutes and had to wait for the 10.12. It was the first time we had met and Fiske was kind enough to say he enjoyed reading the Billygames blog.


The AllGames4You stand


Garry lost in the AllGames4You

The rest of the day was spent checking out possibles and picking up games we had pre-ordered, I had to get Hameln, the latest Fragor Bro offering, and Metromania. The figures in Hameln are really cute, my wife loves the rats. Zoch Games, who are reprinting Shear Panic, had a giant-sized version on display attracting a lot of people. Garry and I were taught Kabale und Hiebe, a card game from Hans Im Gluck, it wasn’t bad but the cards had special abilities on them so you really needed an english version to play. Jo was really pleased when Garry found a copy of Busen Memo for him, in this game you have to match the left and right breasts of 48 women.


The giant-sized Shear Panic from Zoch


The Kosmos Stand

We managed to grap a table to have a look at Eggert-Spiele’s, Imperial. Fiske reckoned it had a bit of Diplomacy in it, there are loads of bits in the game and the board gets really busy. None of us were that impressed and decided not to buy. We all were lugging around our purchases and as we were flying the baggage allowance comes into play. So we were constantly hefting games to see how much they weighed or discounting them because the box was too big. Ah, and I really fancied Shogun too. The time was getting on to 6pm now and frankly I was knackered. We decided to call it a day and make our way back to the hotel. After a quick shower we were meeting up for dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was when I was going to see how my purchases fitted into the suitcase the crisis arose. Before we had left in the morning I had put my passport and some cash into the case and locked it with one of those combination locks. I put in the combination and pulled.....nothing. I tried again, and again, and again. Doh!! No passort or cash and I had visions of running around Essen on our last day trying to buy a hacksaw. Anyway we had a very nice dinner, during which I explained my problem. Fiske and Garry decided to come and have a look, and after some fiddling and deduction managed to release it......phew, was I relieved!!!
So I was able to retrieve the passport and cash and then try and fit all my game purchases in and see how much space I had left. No problem, room for 1 or 2 more I think. I might have a look at Khronos tomorrow.


Dinner at the Hotel Korn

Essen 2006 - Day 1/18.10.06

3.55am pouring with rain and Garry arrives to pick my up for the short drive to Gatwick. No problems checking in although we se our 6.20am flight to Cologne is listed at 5.55am. No panic we have arrived with plenty of time. We soon link up with Jo and the flight goes smoothly arriving in Cologne around 8.40. Grab our cases and proceed to the train ticket office, Jo is in charge of train tickets recommending that we reserve our seats for the return journey on friday. It’s now 9.08 and the ICE train for Essen is leaving at 9.12 on platform 2, we manage to board in time and arrive in Essen around 10.20. A short walk brings us to Hotel Korn our base for the next couple of days.


Garry and Jo departing the ICE train at Essen

We check in and dump the cases as the rooms are not ready yet and ajourn to a local Starbucks for some coffee. We sit outside in the morning sunshine and just chill out for a while. Jo had told us about a games shop he has visited before but can’t quite remember the location, so off we go for a pleasant strong around Essen. We look round for a while but no luck, we ask a couple of people who direct us but we still can’t find it. We do however find a nice department store called Mullers which has a games department that puts english games shops to shame. Quit a range of ‘proper’ games including Null & Nichtig and Relic both of which I was planning to buy to I pick them up.


Coffee outside Starbucks at Essen


We were all pretty whacked so made our way back to the hotel and had a shower and rested for a couple of hours. Meeting up again at 3pm we had another destination, Garry had found out where Toys R Us was and we visited for a while, again a very good selection of games. Jo did manage to locate his games shop.......it had ben turned into a 1 euro store!!!


Cold beer and hot coffee

It was a lovely sunny afternoon and all the open air cafes and bars where buzzing. Time to relax with a beer (or coffee for Jo) and just watch the people pass by. After a nice meal of pasta we decided to call it a day and some serious sleep time in to be ready for a long day at the Messe tomorrow.

Essen and New Message Board

The message board developed some problems so I have replaced it with another one, hopefully this will work better. Please feel free to comment or post your thoughts.

Essen is nearly upon us now and the excitement is building, I have got to pack this weekend, well I say pack I shall be taking minimul stuff in a big case to leave room for all the games I hope to get. Garry is picking me up at 4.00am Wednesday morning for a 6.20am flight from Gatwick airport to Cologne. Jo is meeting us at Gatwick, then from Cologne we take the ICE train into Essen, should arrive there about midday. So a nice leisurely afternoon and evening before we hit the Messe first thing on Thursday, ready for the 10.00am opening. I have been following the Essen preview on Boardgame News and have printed out the checklist of games from Spielbox online which will be a big help. I will be taking lots of photos throughout our trip and will have, hopefully, a full report after we get back.

Richard on the other hand is going to do Essen in a day, leaving from his home in Haywards Heath at around 1.30am on Saturday morning, going through the channel tunnel and driving through europe to arrive at Essen around 9.00am. Then blitzing the Messe and leaving about 4.00pm for the drive back. I did this a couple of years ago, and while fun, is really tiring. Anyway I have badgered Richard to write about his trip so we should have a report from him too.

Next report will be post Essen, see you all then.

Tuesday 10th October - Big City/Cronberg

This is the last session before Essen, and unfortunately because of work commitments, Garry couldn't make it. Richard had chosen Canal Mania for his choice this week and because that was a game of Garry's he had to make another choice. He chose Big City, a game dating from 1999, my one playing was over 2 year's ago. So Steve, Richard and myself sat down to refresh ourselves with the rules. Basically there are 8 gameboards, each board divided into squares with a number, each representing a neighbourhood of a city. There are 8 corresponding decks of cards with 1-8 on the backs and the numbers of the squares on the front. So on you turn you can either add a new neighbourhood (only after City Hall has been built), build a building using cards from your hand, add trams (only after City Hall has been built), exchange as many cards as you like from your hand or pass. There are also 2 parks that can be build and 2 factories. The buildings score points depending on there type and the location in which they are built. One interesting feature is City Hall, the game can't fully develop until it is built, but the player who actually builds it gets zero points and everybody else can benefit from the new position first. Steve had no qualms and built it fairly early. After City Hall the trams become a nice feature enabling double points to be scored if a building is adjacent in a lot of cases.



Steve built the tram line out on a new neigbourhood and Richard immediately built a factory there, diminishing the value of any buildings in the vicinity. The church (there are 2) can only be built on a square with a double number (33, 55, 88 etc.) and only if it is the last square left in a neighbourhood, this scores a nice 15 points. I managed to build both, tempting someone to build on the penultimate square of a hood by placing a tram nearby. All the bits in this game are first class, the buildings are really good. Our game took just over the hour.

Final Scores
Colin 126, Richard 108, Steve 80



We had a bit of time left so we finished off the evening with a game of Cronberg. This game was web published by the designer before getting professionally produced. Basically an easy, fast tile laying game. In your turn you either lay a rhombus-shaped tile or place one of your pawns on an intersection between tiles. If the pawn gets surrounded by tiles it gets scored, or if there is a space that can't be filled it gets scored at the end of the game. A good filler with a bit of thought required, obviously from my score you can see this bit passed me by.

Final Scores
Richard 24, Steve 14, Colin -4 (Yes you can get minus scores!)

Tuesday October 3rd - Masons

masons_2
Originally uploaded by coljen.

After our Saturday session, which was excellent, Richard has already chosen Canal Mania for next week's game. So tonight on the table was Leo Colovini's latest offering, Masons. Author of such games as Carolus Magnus, Clans and Cartagena, this latest game is about building walls to form cities with houses and palaces in the mix somewhere. But in reality the theme is pretty thin, building walls (wooden sticks) and then houses and palaces (small dobbers and big dobbers), an almost abstract placement game then, with some dice and cards. But having said that it played pretty well, and in just under the hour so we managed to get two games in.



The board is made up of triangular areas, which are divided up into 3 larger areas. Two edges of board are coastal and two are not. There is a deck of guild cards which depict the various method of scoring points, e.g. 2 points for every white tower not in a city or 1 point for tower in a just completed city and so on. There are also 3 dice, one of which is colour of the towers, white, black and grey, and 2 depict the colour of the houses. Each player starts the game with a hand of 6 guild cards. So on your turn you first place a wall on one side of one of the triangular areas, you then roll the dice. This will tell you which colour one of the towers must be on the end of the wall, the tower on the other end is a free choice. Sometimes though there will a time when there are no spaces for towers or only one. You then place a house on each side of the wall, the colours you rolled with the other 2 dice, if you roll a ? you have a free choice of colour. If after your turn there is a completed city this initiates a scoring. Each player can then play 1 or 2 guild cards from his hand and score as they indicate and draw 1 replacement from the draw deck, or you can discard 1 card and draw 2 replacements.
Be aware when you initiate a scoring, everybody scores, and they may score more points than you if they have the right cards. The game progresses until there are either no more towers, houses, palaces or walls left, then there is one more scoring and the player with most points is the winner. So, how did our games go, as Steve was the only one to have played before, Garry, Richard and I just plunged in. Some cities were quite quickly formed and scored, with some larger ones appearing later in the game. You have to have the right cards in the right situation, no good having city cards if there are no cities likely to be formed and no good having non-city cards if cities are being formed all over the place. The scores in the two games reflecting our grasp of this concept. :)

Final Score (game 1)
Steve 143, Richard 120, Colin 118, Garry 117



In the second game the scores were much lower, showing how different this game was from the first. A lot of isolated walls and towers to start with and Garry capitalised by playing the card which scored each wall not in a city. I had all the white towers not in a city which is why I kept playing walls separately. This game was so different from the first, yet just as enjoyable. All in all a good game, not rich in atmosphere, a bit dry but makes you think, plays quickly and looks pretty good.

Final Score (game 2)
Richard 89, Garry 83, Steve 75, Colin 68

Garry's Games Day - 30th September (pt 2)

Canal Mania is another game about laying track, oops sorry, building canals across England. Although there are elements of TTR (fixed routes and card collecting) and AoS (moving goods cubes), the game does stand on it's own merits. Garry ran through the rules, and after a few questions and clarifications off we went. Basically there is a deck of cards representing straights, locks, aquaducts, tunnels and surveyors (wild). This deck has 5 cards turned face up. Each player has his own set of canal tiles, with limited numbers of each , so you have watch what you build in case you run out of the kind of tile you need to complete a contract (route) There is a deck of contract cards of which 5 are turned face up, these display 2 towns or cities with maybe a third (via) and a number which is the maximum number of links it must be completed in. You can only have 2 contracts at a time. There are 2 types of terrain, clear and difficult. You can build stretches and locks on clear and tunnels and aquaducts on difficult. It takes 1 card to build a lock or stretch and 2 cards to build an aquaduct and 3 for a tunnel. In addition each player is dealt an engineers card, these have special abilities that can be used in your turn. Things like draw 4 build cards instead of 3, build a tunnel with 2 instead of 3. Each players turn is in 3 phases. Phase one take a contract, or exchange your engineer with someone elses, or discard the 5 face up build cards. Phase 2, take 3 build cards or build on the board. Phase three, move a goods cube. You can also take a face down build card instead of any of these phases.
Certain build cards have coloured symbols on them and if they are chosen the player immediately puts 2 goods cubes onto the board on whichever colour the symbol is. There are limitations where they can go, connected cities first, then connected towns, unconnected cities and unconnected town.
The victory condition for a five player game is the first to 40 points, the round is then finished and 2 more rounds take place, finally moving any goods left on the board. Our game was very close again with Richard and Jo tied for first place yet again. This time the tie break, having the youngest engineer card, went in Richard's favour.
In spite of the obvious comparisons to train building games I think Canal Mania has enough going for it to make an enjoyable experience in it's own right. The production quality is right up there with the big boys and it's a very pleasing game to look at.

Final Scores (Richard wins on tiebreak)
Richard 61, Jo 61, Colin 53, Steve 51, Garry 40

Here are a few pics as promised: First Railroad Tycoon





This is the end position



And Canal Mania - this first one is the end position

Garry's Games Day - 30th September (pt 1)

P9300030
Originally uploaded by coljen.

All the Billygamers including Jo gathered round Garry's for a day of gaming. On the table first was Railroad Tycoon, a game that Richard brought back for me from last year's Essen. I had played it once before, Richard and Jo I think had played once, Steve 3 times and Garry not at all. The board was all set up when Steve and I arrived, Richard and Jo had misread the time and arrived at 10 instead of 10.30. Anyway after a run through the rules, obviously for Garry and I think we all needed a refresher, we started around 11.15. For those that have played this game before you will know there are some optimum places to start on the map. Northeast around New York there are plentiful opportunities depending on cube distribution, the Bluegrass triangle of Lexington, Louiseville and Cincinatti and Charleston and the Southeast are all nice. Obviously cube distribution will dictate to a certain extent, but the auction for first player was hotly contested, I won it for 5K, and chose the card that lets you build open rail links for free. Garry(green) started just north of the bluegrass triangle, Richard(red) in the BT, Jo(yellow) wasted no time in building out of New York to Philly and Baltimore and Steve(purple) built from Baltimore to Washington. I (black) built from Washington to Richmond next turn effectively boxing Steve in. Jo started building down the east coast not leaving me much room so looked at Mobile and saw a nice line of black cubes on Jackson, Memphis and St. Loius. With a 4pt bounty for 1st delivery to Mobile that's where I built next. Steve moved his attention to the BT and muscled in on Richard's area. As the game progressed Jo had tied up the East coast, Richard and Steve where vying for the area in the centre and Garry, was beavering away around the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Wheeling area.
I did manage to get the 10pt bonus for the New Orleans to Minneapolis link, but was falling behind. Garry, Jo and Richard were pulling away with Steve and myself chugging along behind. Garry reached a 6 level train and revealed his RT card to claim 6pts. Richard had the Chicago hotel and was gaining points from that, he had pretty well tied up Chicago! The game end trigger was 16 empty city markers, Steve urbanised one to try to extend the game further but in the end we had 16 and had to try get as many points as possible in the last round. As I said Garry had attained his RT card, Richard had the 2pt per link into Chicago card (6pts), Jo had built the Wester Link, which he didn't do, Steve had largest railroad (most links) for 6pts, and I had most money which I was nowhere near. The shares issued told a story too, I had 8, Garry had 13, Richard 6, Jo 3 and Steve 13. The scores were very close in the end with 2 tiebreakers to separate Jo and Richard needed. So the game lasted a very enjoyable 3 hours and 20 minutes and these were the final scores.

Final Score
Jo 65 (11 links, 38,000), Richard 65 (11 links, 9,000), Garry 51, Steve 46, Colin 45

After a short break for some very nice lunch courtesy of Garry, Canal Mania , the new Ragnor Bro. game was lined up. See part 2 when I get round to it. There will be a page of pics with a link in part 2 as well. See you all then. :)

Tuesday 26th September - Heart of Africa

P9260020
Originally uploaded by coljen.

All present this session and Steve chose to go exploring in the Heart of Africa. I think he was the only one to have played before and that was only once I think. Knowing we were going to be playing this game I looked it up on the Geek. There seemed to be a difference in playing time, 60 minutes on the Geek and 120 on West Bank Gamers. Also there was quite a discussion about rules queries. As it was the rules explanation took about 20 minutes and in the end the game lasted around 150 minutes. Well, what is the game about? Predictably it's about placing your traders in areas of Africa and trying to secure the areas with the richest resources in them. Neutral traders are seeded on the board at the start and they can be fought to drive them out, as can other players. Four pairs of tiles are revealed at the start and the first pair are auctioned. Each tile has a action point value and most times a special action symbol on it. Each player starts with 12 influence blocks, these can also be used to purchase actions. The winning bidder puts his blocks into a common pool and then either uses the tiles he just won or keeps the special action on them for later. The tiles let you do various things, moving neutral traders around, adding traders of your own etc. After that you add up the points you have from your traders on the board and move your dobber on the scoring track. The influence blocks in the common pool are then divided up among the other players, rounded down, any left remain until next turn.
Personally I found the game a little dry, and some reviewers on the Geek commented the game could lead to analysis paralysis, we didn't find this but I could see it happening. Steve stormed into an impressive early lead with the the rest of us lanquishing well behind. I must say that Steve said the victory condition was the first to 42 points, which he thought the game would end too soon and suggested we play to 50 points, which we did. As the game progressed the scores closed up and Garry then Richard took the lead for a while, in the end Steve was only 12 points away from winning and was able to amass 14 points in his turn to take him over the 50.

Final Scores
Steve 54, Richard 47, Garry 41, Colin 34