Destin, Florida
October 21 – 24, 1999
Pool Position: Ben Baldanza, Sheldon Smith, Greg Schloesser, Lenny Leo and me
Fairly simple game of piece placement that has high potential for analysis paralysis. At any given moment someone with a talent for adding numbers quickly in his head (a.k.a., not me) could know who’s winning this game simply by adding up the scores on the board. And while it’s an interesting concept, there’s not a whole lot here that appeals to me.
Torres: Joe Pessano, Rich McKiernan, Craig Berg and me
Good game made even better by the take three cards and discard two to either the top or the bottom of the deck. Plus a clarification on the rule for the king’s bonus, in that you need to be on the first level or second level exactly (not higher). I think that I’ve gotten past my initial feeling that replayability might be an issue, so I’ll go buy this one shortly. I love the comparison to Tikal, saying that this packs all the greatness of that game in a quarter of the time, which just torques me off that I bought the practically unplayable (due to time constraints) Tikal.
Never wrote down the scores, but I’m fairly sure Rich won after pulling out to a considerable lead in the second scoring round.
Durch die Wueste: George Michaels, Magnus Lundgren, Lenny Leo, Tim Watson and me
I got kicked around something fierce in the early goings (primarily due to Magnus). And the trend continued into the rest of the game. I thought perhaps Tim’s “no waves” strategy would take the day, but George’s majorities eeked it out. Great game still.
George: 63, Tim: 62, Magnus: 60, Derk: 52, Lenny: 41
Vinci: Tim Watson, George Michaels, Ken Girton, Magnus Lundgren and me
We had some initial issues with the rules not being perfectly clear in some areas, but we worked them out fine. I ended up cheating with my messenger power which when combined with my harbor bonus sent me out to a huge lead at first. But beating on the leader is something that this game excels at, so I was quickly dragged back into the pack. However, George, Ken and I seemed to be leading through most of the game. In the end, the game could go to any one of us three, depending on how Magnus and Tim played. Tim took the moral high ground by not trying to play kingmaker, and instead tried to square away enough points to not be last.
I love the mechanics of the game, especially the civ tiles. But I hate the tendency to beat on the apparent leader, which makes this a game of how loud you can claim you’re not winning. I’ve thought through some of the options of changing the game (random ending, secret points, limited civ entry points), but none really appeal to me. I’m thinking that Eurogames probably thought of a lot of these options and disregarded them thinking there’s not a good way to fix the game.
Derk: 101, Ken: 96, George: 95, Tim: 86, Magnus: 85
Loewenherz: Greg Schloesser, Jon Pessano, Rich McKiernan and me
This was actually the first time that I’ve played this classic. We started out slow, but my one good plan turned out to be a patently bad idea as Jon and Rich each took apart the kingdom I put between theirs. After that, the game looked pretty grim for me. I thought that I’d be consigned to gaming hell, but it wasn’t that bad. Greg finally decided to make his move, but the end game card didn’t come up like he wanted. Also because of the lingering game, Jon and I were able to section off some big areas left on the board, which leveraged us back into the game. I’m still not one-hundred percent sure if this is a great game (due to the fairly hefty learning curve), but I liked what little I saw.
Joe: 51, Derk: 48, Greg: 43, Rich: 34
Rigatoni Intriganti: Ben Baldanza, Peter McCarthy, Lenny Leo and me
This game has an interesting little niche: light business game. Each turn you’re bidding your money to determine turn order, and that’s perhaps the worst part. Because once turn order is established, you’re going first to last and last to first a couple times, so often times all four of us had no idea who’s turn it was and what to do next. But turn maladies aside, it was an entertaining little game, if perhaps a little random. We did have some problems with the one of the winning constraints (the collect a bunch of noodles one), but upon some post-game analysis, I think we decided it wasn’t broken. Lenny had just made a hell of a play (and maybe his Italian heritage was helping him out!)
David & Goliath: Vicki Watson, Michael Bland, Ken Girton and me
Not much to say about this game, ‘cept that perhaps I’m not quite as excited about it as I used to be. Ken just kicked us around for most of the game, but still found the time to complain about us trying to ruin his score!
Ken: 149, Michael: 136, Vicki: 116, Derk: 112
Wettstreit der Baumeister: Vicki Watson, Lenny Leo, Magnus Lundgren and me
After ironing out the rules differences that we each had played this game with, we began the game. And Fate was on my side as I seemed to roll a four or a five each time I rolled the income die. I was able to take an early apparent lead with a nice income, but when building my city, I got a little greedy which prevented a perfect city. And Lenny was able to edge past me. I have to agree with Magnus: this was the best game of Wettstreit that I’ve ever played.
Lenny: 44, Derk: 43, Magnus: 42, Vicki: 34
Spades: Ty Douds and Ben Baldanza, Vickie Watson and me
After my game of David and Goliath, Vickie and I were commenting on how great the game of Spades was. We both remarked how we’d love to play a game this weekend. It was just crazy enough to work. After we tracked down the requisite four players and a standard deck of cards (no easy feat in a room full of imported games), we began the rules discussion. There are tons of variants for this game, we just needed to decide which one to play. The initial couple of hands were interesting, with each of the players trying to understand their partner’s bidding habits (that is, me learning to add one or two tricks to my bid because I knew Vickie had the Ace of Spades in her hand and hadn’t counted it). Anyway, eventually Vickie and I gelled and shot out to a decent lead. We eventually took the game. Great game and great people. I’d probably have to say this was my favorite gaming experience for the weekend!
Die Erbraffer: Ken Girton, Mark Jackson, George Michaels, Cassie Berg, Kim Berg, and me
This is a game of distributing wealth to heirs. It’s completely light with wacky card play. And the experience was made that much more enjoyable by the group’s insistence that each character on the board should have a name, such as “pencil neck” or “bumpy head guy” (hmm… those sound really lame, but they were much funnier at the time). Completely random game with really great bits.
Ken: 71, Kim: 66, Cassie: 57, George: 55, Mark: 42, Derk: 41
Dog Eat Dog: Tim Watson, Michael Bland, Mark Jackson, Lenny Leo, Ken Girton and me
This would be the last game of the weekend. It’s a light little game that has just enough substance and cynicism to be entertaining. My only complaint would be that I wish there was a neat little box type thingie to store the money that you’ve embezzled. I got some incredibly lucky rolls at the beginning of the game, and it paid off in the long run (especially since we were playing to a fairly low embezzle amount). I have one other concern: what’s the downside to being dkMart, which is the division that I was. It’s just like the rest of the divisions, only better. Anyway, might have to pick this game up, if for no other reason than the singularly cynical theme!
Derk: 103, Mark: 70, Tim: 66, Ken: 63, Michael: 50, Lenny: 50
Other games:
Carabande: I finally played this entertaining game. This is fun in certain situations, but takes a vast amount of table space.
Loopin’ Louie: Again, entertaining little filler. George Michaels got a copy of this from Magnus, so I’ll undoubtedly be seeing more of this!
Liar’s Dice: I got smoked in the tournament because of bids that were right on the money!
Gulf Games was a great experience. I’ve actually never really attended a convention before, because I’ve never felt that I could get past the personalities that tend to dominate those types of things. But the people were just awesome. And it was especially nice to finally put a three-dimensional face behind the ‘net personalities that I’ve known for a while now. I’m definitely looking forward to the next experience event.