Michigan Mini Slap&Tickle Thread

Today we played:

Eminent Domain - First game was Jow and I, and Jow won in his first game by a single point with his produce/trade focus. I did some tech and planet research, but pulled up just short. The second game added BK and it was another super close game with Jow coming out ahead again with a tech/trade play.

Alien Frontiers - BK jumped out to a huge lead, but then I focused him down and came back for the win. Jow was the special power man, but didn't switch over to colony production quickly enough.

7 Wonders - BK edged me out with a solid blue strat, while I went blue and some other things my first time playing Stonehenge. Stonehenge's A side is kind of weak, with the points per stone (two cards of which I couldn't build since they were taken before I saw them). Jow went super science, but his masks failed to copy any science from BK and I because...we didn't build any!

Let's shoot for the 22nd or 23rd?

My Uncle has an engagement party that weekend.

Okay, now you're not even trying to make up real excuses!

Alien Frontiers: what really hosed me that game was the combo of losing four lunar resources to you that one turn followed by BK locking down the lunar resource area. I was only ever able to pick up one at a time from then on and I just couldn't afford to keep exchanging at the global market AND powering all my toys. Fun game though - ended up texting a friend of mine afterward about it as I think he'd really enjoy it.

So what's up next on our gaming bucket list?

Do you have El Grande? I've been wanting to play that one.

Amusingly, I do. Sort of. The story: a friend of mine bought El Grande as his first game purchase probably 5 or 6 years ago. He/we have still not played it to date but we keep talking about it breaking it out "one day". Sounds like fate.

I'd also like to try Chaos in the Old World at some point, but we need four or five for that one for sure.

If you could go over the rules/play a demo game by yourself (or your friend does it) that would be best, I think. I'll check it out on yucata and try to learn as well. This might be helpful: video explanation.

carrotpanic wrote:

Okay, now you're not even trying to make up real excuses!

A man only gets married for the second time, once.

Okay Sunday the 23rd it is!

Another Cosmic Encounter expansion coming. Good times. Image of one of the new aliens:

IMAGE(http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Cosmic%20Encounter/Cosmic%20Storm/CE05_PlayerSheet-Bulwark.png)

I can think of a number of our own games I could have really used that.

Surprised that power didn't already exist. Seems like every permutation of limiting/exploiting things has been covered but I guess not!

Good games yesterday - was fun sneaking in an impromptu session even though I didn't end up getting into bed until 5 am the night before.

Been thinking about Alien Frontiers a bit and decided to do some reading on it on BGG. Found a review by some dude who pretty much mirrors my views that gameplay is super cool but much of what makes it cool (specifically the ability to place AND collect rewards concurrently) creates a LOT of downtime. I'm not an AP type at all so when Chris told me of my turns took ten minutes I was pretty horrified.

The kingmaker/bash the leader elements feel pretty strong with this one too. This is definitely NOT the game in which you want to seem like you're winning.

Nevertheless, I didn't realize after our first play how big of a "dick" game this is but did it jump into sharp focus last game. That was some tense sh*t, fueled by a willingness to burn tech cards for their secondary effects which really shakes up the gameboard. I wanna play again soon.

I'm thinking of bringing a clock or egg timer so we can all move along quicker. I can fall into it as well.

Let's do 12:30 instead of noon for this upcoming Sunday. Apparently they're a little shaky about opening EXACTLY on time.

You know, I kind of like that shop because they don't seem very professional. It gives it a bit of charm, I suppose. Of course, I say this because we have never been on the shop owner's bad side, but still...

Pencil me in. I have a BBQ to get to on Friday, and another on Saturday(this one in Howell). At some point in the weekend, groceries must be bought and clothes washed.

But what about the uncle's engagement party?

carrotpanic wrote:

But what about the uncle's engagement party?

That is the Saturday one.

Things have been kinda weird there since they opened the additional room. Not sure if people have been trying to take advantage of them or the owner just stopped taking her daily Pamprin altogether but she has gotten really witchy in general lately.

Anyway, I'm in like Flynn.

If we have 4 or less players, I might be inclined to buy City of Remnants on the spot so that we can play it. Any other suggestions? (Cpt mentioned that he wanted to play Race, if you could bring that.)

Good outing today with Jon, Jow, Cpt and myself.

Race for the Galaxy - The first game we played (sans Jon) I edged out Jow with my sick all genetics all the time strat, replete with the 6 point development to boot. Jow almost caught me with a good alien strat. Cpt lagged way behind, but it was his first game. He must have learned something because when we played our second game later on (now with Jon), he crushed us all with his ability to settle two planets at once.

in between the games of Race, we picked up our Risk: Legacy game...

Risk Legacy - With my stupid placement in Siberia, it was Jon's Australia (he gets Australia every game it seems like) vs. Cpt's South America vs. Jow's North America. Cpt and Jow fought each other while Jon reaped the reward of the super OP faction that gets one troop per round on its own HQ. So OP is that faction that it's won all three games so far, from a variety of starting positions. Just ridiculous. Anyway, Jon crushed many skulls and renamed Australia to something or other.

Guildhall - Instead of playing the game shop's Quarriors, I went and bought a $30 game! Guildhall is a fun game of set building, hand management, and a bunch of trading and other manipulation powers that let you steal your opponents' cards and generally mess them over quite hard. We had quite a nailbiter with Cpt pulling it out by two points over me after the game was given second life when the one vp card he needed to go out on the nose was snatched by Jon. You can be really diabolical and pile on people in this game if you want to

It looks like there is a stand alone, integrate-able expansion I'm going to have to pick up...

carrotpanic wrote:

Guildhall - Instead of playing the game shop's Quarriors, I went and bought a $30 game! Guildhall is a fun game of set building, hand management, and a bunch of trading and other manipulation powers that let you steal your opponents' cards and generally mess them over quite hard. We had quite a nailbiter with Cpt pulling it out by two points over me after the game was given second life when the one vp card he needed to go out on the nose was snatched by Jon. You can be really diabolical and pile on people in this game if you want to

It looks like there is a stand alone, integrate-able expansion I'm going to have to pick up...

That expansion does look pretty cool, even if it doesn't have the happiest pig ever on the cover.

We'll see, because I already ordered it!

It was just Cpt and me today. We played Manhattan Project and then Tzolkien. Manhattan project wasn't bad with two but it did lose a bit of the competition over the worker placement spots. We did some fierce air combat, though, and I ended up winning by a good margin with some big uranium bombs. Tzolkien was quite good, and although it compensated for having less than four with dummy workers eating up some of the spots, it was still tense, intricate, and had a lot of the "I can't do everything I want" worker placement tension. A couple last turn Chichen Itza removals rocketed me ahead and I won by a slight margin. I went up to 5 workers and didn't build a single building or monument. The monuments are so damn expensive! I'm intrigued to see how this plays with 3-4.

Yeah, I think between the two games I enjoyed Tzolkien a lot more. There was a lot to take in and I could see it becoming much more tense and competitive when you add in more than two players. In the game that we played, I think it was more of just anticipating where you are going to be three or four turns later and how that will affect things like resources, food, etc.

I didn't quite get the draw of snagging tech, since it seems that resources were kind of hard to come by that you'd basically be spending most of your game collecting the resources to move up in tech. However if you go that route, then you're probably forgetting about the precious corn you need to feed your workers....

...Bah, I'll stop rambling. Needless to say I enjoyed both games, but Tzolkien definitely was the better of the two.

I will say, my tech helped me out quite a bit. I think I got an additional 6-8 corn over the course of the game from the bonuses, not to mention the two times when I used the second level tech to get corn when I wouldn't have been able to. My Itza tech ended up getting me one extra point, I think. If I had gotten the second level it would have been worth 6 points (one for each skull on Itza).

Is anyone coming on the 28th?

carrotpanic wrote:

Is anyone coming on the 28th?

Maybe? I just took my summer final.

Okay I'm cancelling due to lack of anyone being able to make it.

i am definitely available next weekend.