Fun and games
Wow, two posts in one day. Now all I need is for someone to actually read the damn thing, and my life will be complete. So, if you do happen to stumble upon this here little corner of my world, say hi!
I wanted to share the amazing fun I had yesterday in one of my favorite online locations, Brettspielwelt (BSW). To the uninitiated, BSW is a site where boardgame geeks - such as myself - congergate to play online versions of their favorite boardgames. I won't go much into the discussion of the type of games these are. They are called Eurogames, they are finally becoming a trend in America (after many years of being popular on the other side of the Atlantic), and they are absolutely nothing like the tripe that the american consumer is continually exposed to, namely so-called games such as Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. If you want to learn about the hobby, I urge you to visit boardgamegeek.
Anyhow, yesterday I had a serious itch to scratch - I needed my gaming fix, and I couldn't find people on short notice to play. Wife didn't feel like gaming at all, and so I turned to BSW. Logged in and within 10 minutes was playing one of my favorite games, Funkenschlag (or Power Grid in its US iteration). This is a really phenomenal game, very easy to get into (especially if you've ever played Monopoly, as the theme becomes somewhat similar) and tons of fun. It's about running an energy company and trying to enter as many possible energy markets as possible while turning as much of a profit as possible.
So we were playing a 3-player game, and it ended up as a nailbiter right up to the end. The game ends when a player connects 17 or more cities to his grid, and then the winner is the one who connects and provides power to as many cities as possible simultaneously. Usually games end with a clear winner - one person who can power up more than anyone else. Normally the difference between first and last place is a few cities. In cases of ties, the person who has the most money wins. Well, this game ended with a tie; third place connected and powered up 17 cities, and first and second got 18. So the tie was resolved. The difference? a single money unit. That's 1 gold, 1 dollar, 1 whathave you; the game is generally assumed to be played on the scale of millions, so the smallest unit available is 1 million. That was the margin for the winner. Err, that is, me.
That was exciting enough. Then I went and played a game of Puerto Rico (PR). PR is literally considered the best boardgame in the world by consensus (again I refer you to boardgamegeek), and for good reason. It really is a terrific game, although I do recommend trying something a bit lighter like the aforementioned Power Grid before taking on Puerto Rico, mostly because some of the game mechanics in PR would seem quite foreign otherwise.
I haven't played PR for a year or so. I was very very rusty. Even worse, I couldn't remember a lot of how the BSW interface worked. So in the first few rounds I made some critical mechanical errors (for those in the know, they were as stupid as choosing the trader and failing to trade because I forgot that you had to drag the resource to the trading house). Now, Puerto Rico is a game where such errors generally get punished severely. Knowing that, I went on an extreme "builder strategy", just optimizing my building choices and not caring much about other VP sources, taking them as they come. The game ended with me expecting to be dead last. Instead I won - by 1 point again.
Crazy.
I played a couple games of Can't Stop - won them also, for no other reason than getting insanely lucky. Then I asked someone to teach me Lost Cities, a game I've been wanting to learn for ages.
So they did, and we played 3 games. Now, this was an experienced player, with over 700 games of Lost Cities logged. I won every single time...
And to prove how crazy the night was, then I got introduced to another player of lost Cities, and we ended up playing 8 games. We started just after midnight - and I lost those games 6 to 2. It was as if once the day ended my streak was over.
But it was great fun. And oh, by the way, Lost Cities is an absolutely tremendous game. I am totally addicted to it now, and will be buying it on my next trip to the game store. One of the best 2-player games I've ever experienced. Can't recommend it enough. Good job, herr Knizia (the game's german designer).
I wanted to share the amazing fun I had yesterday in one of my favorite online locations, Brettspielwelt (BSW). To the uninitiated, BSW is a site where boardgame geeks - such as myself - congergate to play online versions of their favorite boardgames. I won't go much into the discussion of the type of games these are. They are called Eurogames, they are finally becoming a trend in America (after many years of being popular on the other side of the Atlantic), and they are absolutely nothing like the tripe that the american consumer is continually exposed to, namely so-called games such as Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. If you want to learn about the hobby, I urge you to visit boardgamegeek.
Anyhow, yesterday I had a serious itch to scratch - I needed my gaming fix, and I couldn't find people on short notice to play. Wife didn't feel like gaming at all, and so I turned to BSW. Logged in and within 10 minutes was playing one of my favorite games, Funkenschlag (or Power Grid in its US iteration). This is a really phenomenal game, very easy to get into (especially if you've ever played Monopoly, as the theme becomes somewhat similar) and tons of fun. It's about running an energy company and trying to enter as many possible energy markets as possible while turning as much of a profit as possible.
So we were playing a 3-player game, and it ended up as a nailbiter right up to the end. The game ends when a player connects 17 or more cities to his grid, and then the winner is the one who connects and provides power to as many cities as possible simultaneously. Usually games end with a clear winner - one person who can power up more than anyone else. Normally the difference between first and last place is a few cities. In cases of ties, the person who has the most money wins. Well, this game ended with a tie; third place connected and powered up 17 cities, and first and second got 18. So the tie was resolved. The difference? a single money unit. That's 1 gold, 1 dollar, 1 whathave you; the game is generally assumed to be played on the scale of millions, so the smallest unit available is 1 million. That was the margin for the winner. Err, that is, me.
That was exciting enough. Then I went and played a game of Puerto Rico (PR). PR is literally considered the best boardgame in the world by consensus (again I refer you to boardgamegeek), and for good reason. It really is a terrific game, although I do recommend trying something a bit lighter like the aforementioned Power Grid before taking on Puerto Rico, mostly because some of the game mechanics in PR would seem quite foreign otherwise.
I haven't played PR for a year or so. I was very very rusty. Even worse, I couldn't remember a lot of how the BSW interface worked. So in the first few rounds I made some critical mechanical errors (for those in the know, they were as stupid as choosing the trader and failing to trade because I forgot that you had to drag the resource to the trading house). Now, Puerto Rico is a game where such errors generally get punished severely. Knowing that, I went on an extreme "builder strategy", just optimizing my building choices and not caring much about other VP sources, taking them as they come. The game ended with me expecting to be dead last. Instead I won - by 1 point again.
Crazy.
I played a couple games of Can't Stop - won them also, for no other reason than getting insanely lucky. Then I asked someone to teach me Lost Cities, a game I've been wanting to learn for ages.
So they did, and we played 3 games. Now, this was an experienced player, with over 700 games of Lost Cities logged. I won every single time...
And to prove how crazy the night was, then I got introduced to another player of lost Cities, and we ended up playing 8 games. We started just after midnight - and I lost those games 6 to 2. It was as if once the day ended my streak was over.
But it was great fun. And oh, by the way, Lost Cities is an absolutely tremendous game. I am totally addicted to it now, and will be buying it on my next trip to the game store. One of the best 2-player games I've ever experienced. Can't recommend it enough. Good job, herr Knizia (the game's german designer).
posted by Blinkered at 1:03 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home