A board games blog by Stephan Wessels

Ad Astra

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:09:12 -0600

I don’t think I’ve published an actual board game review so far in all of 2009. Hopefully, this one will be worth your time to read. There have been many excellent games introduced in the past year. I selected this one for review right now because we’ve been playing it at home recently and I really enjoy exploring and playing this game. It deserves more attention.

This is a review of the board game Ad Astra. It is published in the US by Fantasy Flight Games. Here is the introductory flavor text about the game from the publisher:

In Ad Astra ("To the Stars"), you will guide one of the five factions of future humanity in its exploration of the galaxy. Wield powerful technology; reshape newly discovered planets to give a new home to man; and explore the mysterious relics of a long-lost alien civilization...
Who will be able to create the greatest star-spanning civilization?
The game is designed by Bruno Faidutti and Serge Laget. It’s rated for players aged 10 and up, supports 3 to 5 players and takes about 90 minutes. The game retails for around $60 and is available on-line for about $45. As of late November 2009, many on-line stores were out of stock but expecting new game inventory soon. I purchased my copy at a Friendly Local Game Store for full retail. I have also successfully played an unofficial 2-person variant for this game that worked quite well.

Before I discuss how the game plays, let’s begin by looking at what comes in the box.

What’s in the box?

Image made from a photograph by “Wedge1126” on Board Game Geek.

The first thing that will surprise you is that there really is no game board. Well, there is a Scoring / Planning board, we’ll get to that in a bit. Instead, the board is randomly created at the start of the game by placing stars and planets on the table. It will look something like this when it is setup.

Actually, a few turns have already taken place in the picture above, but you can see how the game “board” is intended to work. The stars are placed on the table, and the planets are distributed around them. The number of planets will be between 3 and 7 per star. There are always 9 stars, one of which is “Sol”, or “The Sun”. Here are the different star types.

The players begin at “The Sun” and then explore out to the other stars. At the beginning of the game all the planet tiles are placed face down, except for the planets around the home star system. There are 7 planet types.

There are several stacks of cards with the game, including resource cards, player action cards, and alien artifact cards. The resource cards match the planet types.

The three Ore types have official names in the game, “Xanthium”, “Yoyodium”, and “Zozodium”. We often get the names confused and have resorted to calling them “Graynium”, “Rednium” and “Gold” in the order shown above. The game does a wonderful job of using icons for everything so the actual names have no bearing on game play.

There are 5 sets of Player Action Cards, each with a unique race drawing and color scheme.

There is the Score / Planning board. More about how this works, later.

Each player gets a set of these cool looking plastic components.

The plastic components come in 5 colors: Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, and Gray. These are very “stiff” plastic pieces and feel a bit brittle, especially the starships. We were worried we might break one easily. However twice we have had a piece bumped off the kitchen table and hit the linoleum floor without any damage. Fortunately, the game manufacturer included an extra piece of each type in each color with the game. I’m not sure if they did this in case the owner loses a piece or breaks a piece, but that’s comforting to know.

That’s most the contents. There’s a First Player marker and the Alien Artifacts cards. More on those later.

What’s the game about?

Ad Astra is a game of space exploration and light civilization building. There is no direct conflict, this is not a wargame. As each player advances their race by building Starships, Colonies, Factories and Terraformers on planets they can score points. Since the undiscovered planets are face down, their resource output is unknown until a starship arrives in that planet’s system. Ultimately as each player accumulates victory points, as in many games, it’s really a race to score the most points before the game ends. The game ends when the first player reaches 50 points.

What is interesting about the game is how you have to remain flexible about your winning strategy. Your starting world’s resources are determined randomly and you don’t know where the resources you will need are located amongst the stars. And even though there is no direct conflict between players, what another player does can impact you. Sometimes you even count on it.

With each turn there are varied and sometimes agonizing decisions to make. Makes for a fun game.

Game Setup

Each player chooses one of the 5 colors and collects all their plastic pieces, race Action Cards, and corresponding scoring token. All scoring tokens are placed on the 0 position. There’s also a color coded player aid available for each player. It’s 2 sided. On on side there are useful diagrams explaining the resources needed to build everything and on the other side are detailed texts explaining each of the possible Alien Artifact Cards that a player may discover.

Next the nine stars are placed around the table. It doesn’t matter how they are distributed. The planets need to be distributed after the stars are placed. For the home system, “Sol”, there needs to be one planet for each player. Each player randomly selects a resource planet and places it face up around “Sol”. They place one of their Factories on it. If an Alien Planet is pulled as a starting planet it is discarded back to the random stack and the player chooses again. It is possible for more than one player to have the same starting planet type.

Now the rest of the planets are distributed amongst the other stars. They are placed face down and are placed with 3 to 7 planets to each star. Every planet must be placed.

The game comes with 2 “optional” Alien Artifact cards: “Omnibus Rebus Responsum” (The Answer to Everything - a salute to “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) and “Magnum et Antiquum Arcanum” (Great Old Secret). These 2 cards can sometimes change the game ending conditions a little wildly, so the developers included a note that they were optional. I have yet to include them in a game so I cannot speak about their impact or value. The Alien Artifact cards are shuffled. The Resource Cards are organized into stacks and one of each kind is given to every player. Every player begins the game with 1 each of all 6 resource types.

Finally, each player places one of their starships out in deep space (anywhere on the table that’s not a planet or star). The players choose a starting player and give that person the First Player token.

Since this is a review, I want to point out that the First Player token is a cardboard chit about the size of a penny. In the picture of the box contents shown earlier, it’s that tiny little red chit sitting by itself in one of the box insert compartments. It looks so out of place compared to the rest of the components. Needing to rectify this situation, I purchased a small plastic space ship figure that could be used as a First Player token instead. Here’s a picture.

It’s a piece from a Star Wars miniatures game. This particular one is Palpatine’s Shuttle. I purchased it from a Friendly Local Game Shop and selected it because of the sharp angles on the piece - they look consistent with the rest of the designs in Ad Astra. I believe I paid around $3 for this piece, so you may not choose to do something similar.

Anyway, it’s just “feels right” to pass this token to a player when they are going to be First Player next round.

Image by “lordzogat” on Board Game Geek.

While I’m commenting on game components, I need to say that I think the artwork and pieces are great. Even the rule book is first rate - quite typical for Fantasy Flight Games. It’s full of examples and diagrams and it continues with the space exploration, galactic civilization theme with it’s artwork. I do believe the player aid could be improved upon. There’s not quite enough information on each once to make playing quick for beginners. Fortunately there are several fan-made player aids available on the Board Game Geek web site. My current favorite player aid to use is by Sterling Babcock (nick: Solamar) and can be found here.

There is one other very interesting quality about the rule book that deserves attention. Included along the left side column of pages in the rule book are a series of notes about the game designers. They are calling this the “Nexus Design Series”. Within these notes, the game’s designers are introduced, including a game ludography for each one. If you’re a fan of these designers, or maybe new to them, it’s wonderful to read something about the designers who created the game you are playing. It’s also amazing to me that the notes includes descriptions of other games by the same designers. What’s amazing about that to me was that several of the referenced game titles are produced by competing game publishers. For example, Mystery of the Abbey, a wonderful game also designed by Bruno Faidutti and Serge Laget , is published by Days of Wonder. As a fan of these “Euro” board games, I was happy to have this additional background information about these designers. Well done.

Playing the Game

Okay, we’re all setup. How does the game play?

Ad Astra is played in rounds, with each round divided into 2 phases: Planning and Action. At the end of the round a check is made to see if someone has won, and if not another round resumes. Players also need to ensure they do not have an excess of 10 Resource Cards at the end of the round. The player having the First Player token is always the start player in each round. That token can change hands between the players multiple times within a round.

Planning Phase
Each player will secretly review his own Action Cards and decide which ones he will use this round. The cards are placed face down, by player turn order, on the Score / Planning board. If there are 3 or 4 players, the slots numbered 1 through 12 are used. With 5 players, all 15 slots are used. Here’s an interesting game mechanic, the players can place their card on any open slot on the Score / Planning board. This does not have to be the earlier slots. In fact, as we will see soon, sometimes it’s advantageous that your Action Card goes on the last or later open slots. Once all the players have placed their Action Cards the planning phase ends and the action phase begins.

When the Action Phase commences, each card on the Planning Board is revealed and resolved one at a time. Everyone in the game gets to participate in the action the card defines. Also, the player who played the card, identified by the race color of the card, gets a special “benefit” from the card.

To understand what’s going on here we obviously need to review the Action Cards. Here’s a typical set.

Image by Scott Everts (“ScottE”) on Board Game Geek.

Note, every player has the same kinds of Action Cards, but the details on some of the cards are different by design. Let’s look over a few cards carefully first.

This is a Production Card. During the Action Phase this card will cause resources to be produced. There are 2 resources identified on this card: “Water” and “Yoyodium” (aka “Rednium”). The person who owns the card can choose which one of these two will actually be produced. There’s a faint grey line between the two resources, indicating the player must choose one. Players having production units on planets producing the selected resource type will receive resources.

You can see one strategy here is to ensure the resource you choose benefits you the most. The other resource types are found on the remaining Production Cards the player has. Here’s the interesting twist. While everyone will have a Production Card that has Water and Yoyodium, they will not likely appear together on anyone else’s card.

This is a Movement Card. It specifies which star systems are available for entry. Note that there are icons for 2 star systems on the card. In this case there is no grey line. Both system are active. However, as with the Production Card, the mix of which two star systems is not the same for all players’ Movement Cards. In fact the interesting twist here is that for any given player they will have movement cards for only 6 of the 8 other star systems in the game. That is, they can only choose 6 systems with their card. They are dependent on another player choosing the “missing” systems for them to have access.

We’ll go over other details about these Action Cards when we review the Action Phase. The important concept here is that everyone has the same set of Action Cards for planning, but the mix between them is different.

Action Phase
One by one each Action Card is revealed and resolved with the person owning the card gaining an added benefit. Let’s briefly review each Action Card.

Production
We’ve touched on this one already. For the card shown, the player can decide between Water or Xanthium. If a player has a unit that produces on a planet of this type, that resource is added to the player’s hand.

If a Starship or Colony is present, 1 resource is produced (for each). If a Factory is present, 2 resources are produced. Because of building rules it is not possible to have both a Factory and Colony on the same planet. However it is possible for a planet to contain both a Starship and a Factory. In this case, 3 resources of the selected kind are produced.

MOVEMENT
This card was also described previously. For the card shown, both the small red star and yellow spiral star are activated and can be visited by the players. The player that owns the card moves 1 Starship to either star system first. Note, a player can choose to simply move out to deep space instead with any Movement Card action. After the owning player moves their Starship, the other players in clockwise order around the table may also move 1 Starship to either star system.

The benefit the owner of the card gets comes in last. The owner may then move all other Starships they may have on the board to these selected systems.

There is one aspect to movement that’s a little tricky to get right for new players. Movement costs Energy Resources. It breaks down line this. When moving a Starship from deep space to any star system, there is no Energy cost. To move from a planet out to deep space costs 1 Energy. If your starship is already on a planet and wants to move to another planet within the same star system, it costs 1 Energy. However, if you want to leave the planet you are on to go to a planet on another star system, it costs 2 energy.

If the player does not have sufficient Energy Resources they may not be able to move.

No two players can ever be on the same planet. When a Starship first enters a given star system, the player secretly examines each face down planet to decide where they may want to land. Once chosen, that planet is flipped face up so everyone can see it.

If it is an Alien Planet, the player immediately receives an Alien Artifact Card. The planet is turned face up. If the player visits an already face-up Alien Planet they do not receive an Alien Artifact Card. A player can build a colony or factory on an Alien Planet but it does not produce resources. There are some scoring benefits for building there however. Alien Artifacts Cards details follow below.

Build
This is how a player adds items to planets and creates new Starships. When this card comes up, the owning player begins by building one item. It can be anything that can be paid for. Each of the different items have a schedule describing the resources required on the player aid.

After the owning player builds one unit, each other player in clockwise order around the table may build one item. After the other players complete their portion of the Build Action, the owning player is permitted to build any additional units desired, provided enough resources exist.

The Starships, when built are placed in deep space. This has the benefit of being able to land on a planet in a later Movement Action without spending any Energy Resources.

A Colony can only be built where you have a Starship. Colonies produce goods on the planet.

A Factory can only be built where a Colony already exists. Once built, the Colony is returned to the player’s supplies and can be used again.

Terraformers have restrictions on where they can be built. They can only be built on either a water or food planet. When Terraformers are built they score immediate points as a bonus.

Trade
Resources are kept secret in a player’s hand unless this card is played. The owner of the card is the only one permitted to perform a trade action. However, the first step is that all players must reveal their resource cards on the table face-up. The owner of the trade card can then negotiate a deal with any of the other players. The other players are not required to agree to the trade. The owning player can also trade with the bank at a 2 to 1 ratio. That is, for example, the player can trade 2 Water Resources for 1 Energy Resource. Trading between the other players is not permitted.

Scoring Action Cards
Each player has 3 different Scoring Action Cards.

When these are played, the owner of the card gets to decide what gets scored.

The first card shows having a Terraformer icon on one side and a stars icon on the other. If the player chooses Terraformer, then all Terraformers are scored for all players, giving 3 points for each one in the game. The player having the most Terraformers gets an added 3 point bonus. If the player chooses Star Systems (the other icon), the players score 1 point for each system they have a presence in. The player having the most systems also gets a 3 point bonus.

The second card shows a choice between Colonies / Factories, and Starships. If the Colonies / Factories is selected, players score 1 point for each Colony and 2 points for each Factory. The player scoring the most gets a 3 point bonus. If the Starships are scored, players get 2 points for each Starship in play. The player scoring the most for Starships also scores a 3 point bonus.

The third card shows two choices again. The first choice has an X / X, and the second choice shows an X / Y. The scoring proceeds a little different for this Score Action Card. Ordinarily, when a Scoring Action Card is played, the owning player scores first, then in turn going around the table, the other players score. For this card, the player to the left of the owner scores first, rotating around the table with the owner scoring last. The reason this is done is do that the owner has an opportunity to score an advantage. Here’s how the X / X and X / Y scores are calculated. If X / X is chosen by the owning player, the first player to the left looks at the resource cards they are holding and decides how many identical resource cards they are willing to discard. 1 point is awarded for each resource discarded. This continues to the next player who then decides which identical resources they would like to discard, 1 point per card. Eventually it comes back around to the owning player and that player makes the same decision. And just like for the other Scoring Action Cards, whichever player scored the most points gets a 3 point bonus. Now it becomes clear why going last is an advantage. When it comes back around to the owning player to discard they can evaluate the highest count of identical resources witnessed discarded by the other players. If they are able to they can discard just 1 more to get the 3 point bonus.

The X / Y Scoring Action Card gives points for each different resource that a player discards. Again, the owning player goes last and whomever scored the most gets a 3 point bonus.

When a Scoring Action Card is played, the owner of the card immediately gets the First Player token. They will be the first person to place an Action Card on the Planning Board in the next round. It is possible for another player to also play a Scoring Action Card later in the round. In this way the First Player token can move between players within a round. This is one of the reasons a player may choose to place a face down Action Card on the last available planning slot during the Planning Phase.

One other rule about Scoring Action Cards. At the end of a round, the players gets back all the cards they placed. The exception is Scoring Cards. A player’s Scoring Action Cards are set aside until all three of that players’ cards have been played. Only then will the player get the Scoring Action Cards back into their hand.

Alien Artifact Cards
These cards can be very valuable. The player aid contains a nice summary about each card. In some cases there are multiple copies of specific Alien Artifacts in the deck.

These are the standard Alien Artifact Cards. I think of these guys as “rules breakers”, giving the player a specific advantage. In some cases the card is played immediately, in other cases the player holds the card until the proper moment.

These are the “optional” Alien Artifact Cards.

Variants
There are a few things we do when we play that may fall under house rules. One of the rules we use, and it’s not stated explicitly in the official rules, is that a player is permitted to peek at the face-down planets in any system where they already have a presence. I don’t prefer to make this a game about memorization. Since the player has presumably already examined all the planets in a star system when they first arrived there, and if they placed a Colony, Factory, or Terraformer on a planet there, or if they still have a Starship parked on a planet, we allow the player to peek again to help remember what other planet types are present.

Related to the assistance with memory, we’ve even taken to allowing a player to peek at his face down Action Cards on the Planning Board after they are placed. Sometimes you just forget. The only thing your not permitted to do is change a card once placed.

The last variant to discuss here is how we accomplish a 2-player game. It’s surprisingly fun. We reduce the number of places on the Planning Board to 8, giving each player 4 cards to place. The next tweak is to allow better trading options when there are only 2 players. We build a small deck of resource cards, seeding with 4 of each resource, shuffled. This small Trade deck is placed face down and the player may do a 1 for 1 trade against this blind deck as an additional option. Lastly, there is a special consideration when working with only 2 players that impacts setup. Since not all player colors can “reach” all 8 external star systems, we need to be sure that the 2 races used cover all 8 between them. I found that using the Red and Yellow races covers this nicely.

Conclusion
Obviously, I quite enjoy this game. It’s a nice blend of several modern Euros. The game reminds me of Starfarers of Catan, Race for the Galaxy, and a bit of Warrior Knights. It’s not difficult to learn, but I would rate this in difficulty as being a little steeper than a gateway game like Ticket To Ride. It usually takes a full round for things to sink in. And I also believe that the game offers a lot of potential for trying out different strategies. In fact, I think that new players will not often discover what it takes to play with whatever you were given at the start of the game. Experience helps enjoying the game.

I recently once played a game, for example, without ever having a single planet that produces Energy. Yet it’s easy to believe that unless you find Energy Resources early in the game you will lose. Not true.

Another strategy that is often not obvious upon initial plays, is how to anticipate what the other players are doing and playing successful Scoring Action Cards early and often.

Although the game is rated to play in around 90 minutes, it’s been my experience that you should plan on 2 hours per game until enough experience develops with the gaming group.

High points for me are theme, replay ability and the wonderful opportunities for indirect player interaction that is quite subtle and sometimes abrupt. The components are first rate. The rule book is well written and, considering the higher prices of many newer board games nowadays, I think it’s another good value.

For me the downsides are that there can be some analysis paralysis. When players are in the planning phase this can sometimes happen. I’ve also seen AP during the Trade Action, while a player evaluates exactly what best to do.

Another downside for me is kinda silly, but I think that First Player Token is out of whack. Obviously, I resolved my frustration by purchasing a fancy miniature to use instead.

And lastly, out of the box, the game is designed for only 3 to 5 players. I would like to have seen rules making it possible to play with only 2 persons without any special variants.

I also think it would be possible to have expansions for this game in the future. Here’s hoping that happens.

Ultimately, “Ad Astra” gets a nice thumbs up from me.

TI-3 Storage

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 18:38:48 -0500

Twilight Imperium III is a favorite board game with our family. Readers of this site have probably already figured that out. We play with the Shattered Empire expansion as an integral part of the game. And we have “tweaked” our components a little bit by adding extra colored dice sets.

Recently there was some discussion about how gamers store their copies of TI-3 and if they put the expansion pieces in the same box. We do, and I realized that it would probably be helpful to provide some photographs of how I organize everything. I also want to explain some of what I think are helpful ideas that we have incorporated into the storage strategy. This helps with ease in setup. Some hobbyists organize everything when a game ends to better prepare setup for the next game. I’m one of those individuals.

Here we go. Everything is inside the original box.
A look inside. Obviously the original box insert has to be discarded to make this work.
The first thing you will notice is that there are Plano-style plastic organizers. Notice that all the System Tiles, the large hexes, are stored on-edge alongside the larger storage organizers in front. The instruction manuals for the base game and expansion fit easily off to one side. I also store some self-printed materials, such as rules for a 2-player game variant, underneath the instructions.
With the instructions removed you can see that all the smaller cards are stored in the original holder from the base game. Now you might reasonably be asking how that is possible since the expansion adds a substantial number of cards. Where are all the extra cards? More on that in a moment.

When the player Race Sheets, Wormhole Nexus tile, cards box and scoring track are removed, another storage box is revealed.
The storage box is obviously a smaller one and rotated crosswise in the box. You might ask what the plastic bags are doing in there.
These are wooden cubes. They are not part of the base game, of course. When we play the 2-player variant (instructions can be found here), the pink and black wooden cubes are used to count “votes”. These cubes came from an original Risk board game.

Here the box with just the 3 storage organizers and System Tiles is shown.
There are actually 2 of the larger storage organizers stacked on top of each other, on the left. Here’s how I use the first one.
There are some interesting details here to learn about. In this box there are 4 of the plastics color sets (green, orange, blue and red). With each color set we added 4 sets of D10 dice. We had some fun picking out cool dice colors that match the 8 fleet colors. You can’t see the dice too well in the picture. Here they are.
There are 4 of each color. 32 dice in total. The black dice are from the original board game and we store those with the black plastic ship pieces. The next set are a kind-of blueish-violet, for the blue fleet. The red dice are for the red fleet. The silver and brown marbled dice are for the gray fleet. Green dice for the green fleet, yellow for yellow. The marbleized purple is for the purple fleet, and the orange dice are for the orange plastic fleet. Obviously you don’t need any extra dice, and certainly not so many colors. But we love this game and having these cool dice just adds to the fun of playing the game.

Some of the extra cardboard chits are stored in 2 extra bins in this first tray. Let’s look at the second large organizer and then discuss a little bit about how and why we have the game organized this way.
Four more plastic fleet sets are stored in here. Grey, black, purple and yellow.

Remember that when playing TI-3 the player color is unrelated to the chosen Race colors and flags. However, there is a technology deck for each of the 8 fleet colors. For this reason we just store the technology decks within the same compartment as the related plastic fleet pieces. There’s plenty of room for the fleet, dice and cards within each bin. In some cases the cards are underneath the plastic, so not always easily visible.

There are 14 races available for play in TI-3, if you include the Shattered Empire expansion. We use the remaining 14 smaller compartments to store these. For each of the 14 smaller compartments we store the specialized chits, Home World Planet card(s), Trade Agreements and (if you have the expansion) the Race Specific Technology card.

Using this storage technique allows each player to easily find the pieces and cards they need for whatever color they have chosen, as well as all the Race specific components. At least for this part of game setup, it’s relatively quicker.

Here is the third organizer.
The Trade Goods and extra Fighter and Land Force counters are stored in compartments as shown. We put the Space Mines and Shock Troop chits in the same bin. The Strategy tiles are stored in another bin. Lastly, the Bonus Markers, Speaker Token, and 1 clear Glass Bead are stored in a bin. We use the Glass Bead to count off game turns when playing the Age of Empires official variant from the rules. Age of Empires variant is a house favorite and I think lends to more strategic planning by the players. I recommend you give it a try if you are not familiar with this optional rule.

Everything fits in the original box. It sits just a little bit higher when the lid is on.
Okay, if you’re a fan of the game, I hope this article gives you some good ideas if you are considering storage options for your own copy of Twilight Imperium III.

Have fun playing.

Imported All Older Entries

Sun, 10 May 2009 22:25:49 -0500

I decided to dig up all of the older game reviews and BLOG entries and import them into this site from the old site. I kept the original posting dates and made the entries consistent with this site’s theme.

I intend to delete the older web site’s files soon, so if you have direct links to any of those older articles, now would be a good time to update the links to the articles as found within this BLOG.

The entries all the way back to April of 2005 are included here.

Haven’t played board games in a while

Sat, 9 May 2009 09:18:56 -0500

It has been a while since I’ve posted a board game review here. The truth is it’s also been a while since I’ve played any board games. With family activities and work, and a trip to Cincinnati, Ohio to visit family, it’s been difficult to find time.

I did teach someone how to play Twilight Imperium III a few months ago, and managed to get a few other games played back in March and April.

However I did purchase a few games to add to the backlog, and I would like to take a moment and mention some of the great board game titles I’ve recently purchased, read about, or heard about in Podcasts.

Queen Games published “Chicago Express” in 2008 and I really enjoy playing this game. Chicago Express is an update to the old board game “Wabash Cannonball”. This version is produced with the usual high quality components and board that lives up to the Queen Games name. The board is beautiful and has 3 little built-in dials you rotate as player actions are “consumed”. The trains are painted wood and look great. The railroad stock boards are thick cardboard. The money is paper so if you end up playing this game a lot you may want to switch to poker chips.

This is a no-luck driven stocks and economics strategy game for 2 to 6 players. You need to plan carefully and pay close attention to what every one else is doing. Players don’t own a specific railroad company, instead they purchase shares in the 4 primary railroad companies (B&O, C&O, Pennsylvania and New York Central). A fifth company, “Wabash” appears as the game develops. As the players grow the railroad companies they invest in, adding connections while the trains head west towards Chicago, they compete to make the most profit by collecting dividends from the company stock. There’s an auction component to the game because each player decides how much they want to pay for shares in companies as they become available. Overall, I’m impressed with how much fun and interest this game generates in only about an hour playing time. I’ve played it once or twice as a “practice or learning” game and then once in a four player game. The rules are easy to learn and everyone had a blast. This is one of the first games I want to see hit the table again soon.

This is a board game version of the family favorite card game Lost Cities, also designed by Reiner Knizia. the board permits up to 4 players, which is a nice improvement over the card game. Colors and artwork are similar to the original card game. The game mechanics will be very familiar to fans of the card game. There are a couple of interesting twists. A player may optionally choose to begin an expedition counting down numbers instead of up, as in the card game. Once a player chooses a direction, ascending or descending, for a given expedition, it cannot be changed. That’s a nice change. Players get wooden pieces that look a little like Indiana Jones characters. There’s one large wooden character included per player too. This is how the “double” investment concept gets applied in the board game. Other new ideas in the game are artifacts and bonuses that are visible and can be seen along the expedition paths.

Lost Cities: The Board Game supports 2 to 4 players and finishes in about 30 minutes to an hour. The board game runs longer that the original card game version. If you enjoy the card game Lost Cities you’ll enjoy playing this board game version.

There’s an interesting back-story to the name of this game. Essentially, Reiner Knizia designed this board game as a follow-on to his highly successful Lost Cities card game. When the game was produced early last year in Europe, the publisher re-themed the game and called it “Keltis”. The US publisher, Rio Grande Games, decided to stay with the name as designed. In the mean time, before production completed on the USA version (Lost Cities: The Board Game), the re-themed version called Keltis won the prestigious German board game of the year award “Spiel des Jahres”. So there was some controversy over whether the name should now be changed back to “Keltis”. The SdJ award is a pretty big deal for board game manufacturers. I’ve seen pictures of the game Keltis and admire it’s simpler board layout and shamrock green theme. But I’m also quite happy with Lost Cities: The Board Game and how well it matches the theme of the original card game.

We’ve played the game a few times and have enjoyed it. It’s easy to learn and lightweight, so it makes for a good opening game before the deeper stuff gets pulled out on a game day.

Okay, this game is fun, but silly. It’s a lightweight “beer & pretzels” card game. It’s based upon the card game “Fluxx”, so if you are familiar with it you know what to expect. The game is chaotic and seems very luck based for whomever wins. The game is for 2 to 6 players and takes only 30 minutes, although it can end much sooner.

I’m not a fan of Fluxx, but how can you resist the Monty Python theme? The text on the cards and artwork is all very funny. If you’re a fan of “Monty Python and The Quest for the Holy Grail”, you’ll have a blast as each card gets played. In some cases there are cards where you have to recite lines of dialog from any Monty Python movie or skit. Chances are that’s really easy to do. I don’t play the game much, it’s owned mostly for the novelty. And I purchased an extra copy for a friend of mine who’s a true Monty Python fan.

Awesome TV show, awesome board game. Fantasy Flight Games, one of my favorite game publishers, produced this board game in 2008. It’s a science fiction themed (obviously) cooperative game based upon the re-imagined television show. You don’t have to know anything about the show to enjoy the game, but this game is dripping with theme. If you loved the show you will enjoy how it feels to be playing this game. Out of the box, it’s for 3 to 6 players aged 10+. However, Fantasy Flight Games produced a free official rules variant, by the designer, that supports new cooperative modes as well as 2-player and solo play.

What makes this cooperative game interesting is that there can be more than one secret traitor amongst the players, similar to “Shadows Over Camelot”. However, in keeping with the theme of the game, a human player can “switch on” and become a Cylon during game play, undetected by the other players. This air of mistrust, intrigue and just overall feeling of dread and doom as the humans try to survive long enough before making it to Kobol is amazing. What other game can you play where you get to say things like “Frakkin’ Toasters”? Each player gets to be one of the key figures from the series: Tom Zerak, “Chief” Galen Tyrol, Karl “Helo” Agathon, Lee “Apollo” Adama, William Adama, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, Saul Tigh, Laura Roslin, Sharon “Boomer” Valerii, and Gaius Baltar.

Love this game. It does take about 2 to 3 hours to play, so keep that in mind. The quality of the components and game board are first class. The rule book is well written with many illustrations. Overall this is a well done design and an excellent game to add to your collection.

“So Say We All”

You can’t discuss really hot recent games without mentioning Dominion. This game came out last year and sold out in a hurry. It’s a card game. There is no board. The game comes with about 500 cards. It plays with 2 to 4 players and it plays really fast. The rules are easy to learn. Here’s the thing about this game: It’s addicting.

Every player begins with an identical deck of cards that they alone use. The only randomness is which cards from that deck they see in their first hand drawn. As the game progresses each player buys other cards of varying power and capabilities and adds them to their own deck. Different cards multiply and impact each other as the player tries to get a little “engine” going to generate money at first and then eventually victory points. What makes the game so addicting is that after you complete a game you want to try again and experiment with other card building combinations and strategies. The game comes with a lot of cards and provides enough variability to make this game fun even with multiple plays. That’s a good thing too because when we play the game we’re always running several times through. The game is only recently back in stock at the game stores and on-line. It’s popular like Pandemic was last year.

I wouldn’t call this anything more than a lightweight and fast card game, but it is fun and plays very quickly. And like I was saying, it’s addictive.

Another newer game that I have really been enjoying is “Race for the Galaxy”. This is another card game. It’s science fiction themed with great artwork on the cards. Play is a little like “San Juan”, the card game version of “Puerto Rico”. That’s not surprising when you consider the history of how this game was developed. The designer, Tom Lehmann, was asked to design a card game version of “Puerto Rico” years ago, but before he was completed the publisher decided to go with the game that became “San Juan” instead.

This game is remarkably refined, having gone through thousands of play tests over the years. It’s for 2 to 4 players, and there’s already one expansion available that extends the player range from 1 to 5. Another expansion is expected later this year that will increase the number of supported players to 6. This is a very elegant design with some real potential for strategic play. It’s a lot heavier than a game like Dominion, and takes about an hour to play. The rules take a little time to learn. The iconography on the cards takes some getting used to but once you “get it” you began to realize how clever the game mechanisms and mechanics really are. It’s a well designed game. My wife enjoyed it even after the first initial play. I already own the first expansion, have the 2nd expansion on order, and will be purchasing the 3rd announced expansion when it comes out next year. This is a fun game to learn and play and it plays great with even 2 players.

Board games I have purchased but not yet played

Genji is a game I ordered as soon as I learned about the theme and that it was to be pulished by Z-Man Games. It’s for 2 to 6 players. Genji is a game about Japanese poetry. How incredible is that? The players place upper and lower halves of Japanese poems laid out in a circle around some princesses you are trying to impress. Players win points by matching poem designs to the specific interests of the princess they are trying to woo.

The cards in this game and components look great. And I did a practice/learning game and am quite encouraged that this will be fun. The theme alone is unique and compelling.

Ghost Stories is a new cooperative game. Like “Pandemic”, it’s difficult to beat. It’s for 1 to 4 players and again has excellent cards and components. In this game the players are trying to defeat the spirit of Wu-Feng and his legions of ghosts as they haunt a Chinese town. Game play is about an hour. I have run through a practice / learning game of this and am eager to give it a go. Game play takes about an hour.

Supernova is a board game I’ve had on pre-order for quite a while. I love science fiction themed games with economics, empire building and space battles and this one looks like it has all those bases covered. The game arrived a few months ago, and I’ve got it out to pour over the beautiful components and artwork designed by Mike Doyle. It’s for 3 to 5 players and looks very cool to me. I’ve only skimmed over the rules, so this one is still in the “queue” to be played.

When I read about this card game I knew I had to own my own copy. This is an atheist-themed game based upon the world of philosophy. We ordered it on-line from a company in Denmark and it just showed up today. The cards have descriptive text and artwork about famous philosophers and religious leaders (referred to as “fools”) as well as philosophy concepts. When I read the description of the game to my wife she said, “Let’s order a copy.” She studied philosophy in college and I studied philosophy of religions while in college. Here’s the description about the game from the back of the box:

Opus Dei: Existance After Religion
This intellectual, entertaining and irreverent card game takes place in a universe without religion. Players represent rival “Zeitgeists” (German, Time-Spirits) competing in a meta-battle of rational ideas to maintain ethics, morals and meaningful lives for all! It takes no prior knowledge of philosophy to enjoy, as the gameplay is 100% strategic.

Each round a queue of potentially existing philosophers and scientists are lined up. These hums are worth varying amounts of points, according to their intellectual status and magnitude. It is then up to each Zeitgeist, in their turn, to create the best of them into their particular World by playing cards that can alter the order of the line. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!

It’s for 2 to 6 players and is supposed to take about 45 minutes to play. There’s an interesting story going on about the title of this game. Apparently the publishers of the game are in a legal battle with the catholic organization “Prelatura del Opus Dei” over the right to use the name. The designers of the game selected the name based upon the book “The DaVinci Code”, thinking that this was a fictional organization. Since then they realized they didn’t do quite enough research to realize they would be offending a very real powerful group. It’s quite possible the publishers will have to change the name of the game if they lose the legal battle.

We haven’t played the game yet, nor even read the rules. But from browsing over the cards it looks like it will be an interesting experience.

Snow Tails is an Essen 2008 release from The Lamont Brothers. These guys that did the cute little over-produced game “Shear Panic” in 2005. It’s for 2 to 5 players and is a game about dog sled racing in the Arctic Circle. I read a lot of good things about this game and even heard several really positive reviews in gaming podcasts, so I ordered the game a few months ago. I’ve got one of the original release editions. Since then I believe the publisher is making an updated version that should be available soon. I did pull all of the components out and look it over. The game comes with a number of cardboard track sections that you assemble for each of the dog sled teams will race. From what I saw it looked like all of the tracks had some difficult sections to traverse, so I’m very interested in seeing how this game plays out.

There are a few games I am looking forward to owning

Two games I have on my “radar” are “Tulip Mania” and “Big City”.

“Tulip Mania” is a new design by video board game reviewer Scott Nicholson. It’s supposed to be about the world’s first economic bubble market over December 1636 and January 1637, when the speculation and investment over tulips were hot. Sounds like an interesting theme.

“Big City” is a Valley Games reprint of a classic game that’s been out of print for a while. The art work will be by Mike Doyle, so that alone will garner some of my attention. I don’t have either game on pre-order (yet) but am keeping a close eye out for when these titles will become available.

So there it is, an update to my games web site. I haven’t been playing many games and hope that problem will be resolved in the month of May. I have been purchasing games, and quite a few (some of which were described above) look very cool. Once I get some plays in on some of these games I’m sure I’ll be posting a real game review or two.

Custom animeeples for agricola

Sun, 8 Feb 2009 20:52:44 -0600

One of the new board games that we like quite a bit is Agricola. It’s not just popular with our family. Agricola is currently number 1 at Board Game Geek. That’s pretty amazing.

Something that a lot of fans of the game started doing is making custom farm animals from hobby clay. They’re referred to as “animeeples”. We’ve made some too. It takes a lot of time, but when they are added to the game it just adds so much laughter and fun to the game play. I’ve created a little web page with photographs of some of our custom made Sheep, Pigs and Cattle. Check them out here.