I just want to say that MySpace blows. I got more done in Facebook in a day and a half than I ever got done waiting for MySpace page to load. Suckit!
Recent Web 2.0 acquisitions
plaxo.com
facebook.com
twitter.com/bruboo
linkedin.com
Blogger, the hosting service for this blog, has been rolling out a beta upgrade of their service over the past several months. I only recently was able to upgrade to the new version, but it offers a lot of features that have been widely available on other services like labels and I can more easily control the content on the sidebar to the left.
Now that I've got labels maybe I'll write about something other than just games here. I've also added a new boardgamegeek widget which should display images of my most recently played games linked to BGG.
I broke my cherry on Brettspielwelt the other night. It was Carcassonne. Generally a game I try to avoid. However, it's a simple filler especially good with two. It was even better online because it played so fast. I got slaughtered because I was out of practice, out of my element, and playing against deejflat one of the BSW elite.
Going on BSW for me is a lot like how it must be for my non-gamer friends to come over to my house and see my comparatively paltry collection of 30 or so games. They probably think I'm a little crazy and/or obsessed when i buy and buy games that I just don't have time to play. Here people like deejflat have played Puerto Rico 1220 times; Caylus, 230+ times. I was seriously out-gunned. The speed of play was the most intimidating thing. I just felt like I was dragging everyone down.
This all started because the interface of BSW makes about as much sense as Enron's accounting. It's a combination of some bizarre graphics with an old style MUD/chat interface. I has accidentally joined a game of Caylus with deejflat and it started before I even had a chance to explain I was there accidentally. I warned them, they seemed willing at first, and I tried to keep up, but it was like I was flapping around in the deep end of a pool of jello. We had to abandon the game because they couldn't stand me basically. I wasn't insulted, and deejflat subsequently gave me a great deal of help in navigating BSW and played the game of Carcassonne.
I have to say it's an exciting experience thinking I can get online anytime and play some games that I rarely ever get on to the table face-to-face. But I worry that the speed at which the gurus online play can be extremely intimidating, and finding people who would be willing to slow down... way down for me could be difficult. That and the fact that my time online is extremely limited due to fatherhood. From what I've read it seems BSW users run in two flavors super-friendly and super-impatient. I need to find the casual gamers into heavier games.
A big crew of seven players met at Archie and Elizabeth's on Saturday, including newcomer Katie and the all too infrequently Dan & Kristin, along with Matt and myself. We started off with the western themed card game Bang! largely because all seven of us could play it. I've had this game for a long time just to accommodate a large group but I had never played it until last night.
I thought it was a blast, and despite there being player elimination, I think everyone enjoyed it. Even having to sit around as corpse card shufflers. Of course, I had a hard time reading Matt's interpretation of the game... something like "too long, random, bullshit". El Gringo Matt was the last Outlaw to eat Sheriff Killer Katie and Deputy Barrel-hidder Elizabeth's lead. He survived quite a long time despite only having three bullet/life-points and clearly announcing his identity as Outlaw early on in the game. So I don't know what he's griping about. Well that's Matt.
In order of survival
Sheriff - Katie (winner)
Deputy - Elizabeth (winner)
RIP Outlaw - El Gringo Matt
RIP Outlaw - Kristin
RIP Outlaw - Dan
RIP Renegade - Brian
RIP Deputy - Archie
Santiago was a bit more of a brain burner, but everyone seemed to pick up the rules much faster as it's a bit more streamlined without so many variable power cards and rules exceptions to deal with. A great deal of analysis paralysis and negotiation was going on perhaps exacerbated by the fact that some players had to act as teams so we could fit our seven players into a five player game. I had read online that this game was a killer in the final turn which boils down to being a giant math equation. I was wondering if some of that might not be mitigated by creating a running score card. Might help players who would otherwise be recalculating their own and other players score ad-infinitum. Matt, Archie, and hopefully Dan and I are going to get a game started at spielbyweb.com very shortly. We could use a fifth, so look for the game called "PWG Santiago 1" password is "sheriff". The AP issues should be much better in a play-by-email/web format.
Brian
Matt
Dan & Kristin
Arch & Elizabeth
Katie
Just curious if anybody I don't know is reading this blog, so I'll put this invite here before I beg on the forums. We're looking for 3 players to join a game of Amun-Re on Spielbyweb.com . The game is called PWG Amun-Re 3 and the password is petworth.
Archie, Elizabeth, Matt, Kieca, and Brian
Amun-Re
This was a session I threw together to get Matt and Arch up to speed on some online games. We've been having a virtual non-stop online matches of Samurai and Hansa at Mabiweb.com. All are welcome.
Amun-Re is actually hosted at spielbyweb.com another excellent site bringing german/euro gaming online. I've actually gotten this on the table twice before, but it had been a while and, with the exception of Archie, everyone was new to this. Being a middle- to heavy-weight game it took some time for people to process everything that was going on. Multiple rounds and numerous power cards all seem very daunting at the beginning, but I think everyone got up to speed fairly quickly.
Unfortunately, there were some rules gaffs on my part, one of which we discovered during the second half of the game, but a couple of others I didn't relize until the next day. To summarize for those familiar with the game:
1 Scoring for most pyramids in one province is done on both sides of the Nile
2 Tie-breaker for most pyramids is building stones after which points are shared
3 The 8 power card is applicable to a single province not all your provinces
Needless to say these would have drastically affected player's tactics.
I've been reading some articles online about province evaluation which are proving very informative as to how delicate and subtle this aspect of the game is. The given value of a province can be greatly affected by what other provinces are up for auction and which round of the game you're in. I'm pretty anxious to get another game started.
Archie - Winner
Kieca
Matt
Brian
Elizabeth
(I neglected to record the scores)
Hansa
A warm up for Matt to better inform his play online.
Brian
Archie
Matt
If anybody is interested in expanding their boardgame collection their is a new site the is running a month long contest building up to their launch.
Tanga.com presents a brain-teaser puzzle each day. Register and submit the correct answer before the end of the day and you are entered in a random drawing to win a boardgame. This happens every day for a month. Solving the puzzles also earns you Tanga points which will supposedly be of some value once the site launches and we know what it's really about.
Attendees: Archie, Jim, Kristin, and Matt.
Ticket to Ride Europe
Ticket to Ride, the European addition, adds some Euro-spice with stations, tunnels, and ferries to build in addition to the normal railways. Archie kept quiet early on amassing 8 white rail cards which he would later turn into a massive tunnel connecting Stockholm to Petrograde, or some such place in mother Russia. Needless to say this catapulted Archie into the lead (if I recall correctly it was a 21 point line). It also eventually gave Archie the longest route after he abused me by building stations on the backs of my hard working Ukrainian rail men. Jim, Kristin, and I made a good go of it completing a bunch of routes but Archie's strategy of tackling the longest lines worked out for him in the end. The European addition is worth a look if you are a fan of the U.S. version.
1st: Archie
2nd: Matt
3rd: Jim
4th: Kristin
Samurai
Archie and I went into this match confident of a result given that we've been playing Samurai non-stop online since the last game night at Archie's fine abode. I went for an aggressive strategy at the start taking advantage of newcomers Jim and Kristin who were still trying to decipher our befuddling explanation of the rules. Jim played at a disadvantage for most of the match when he didn't realize that he should always have 5 pieces overturned behind his screen. My strong early play gave me a sizable lead but over the course of one round I managed to lose 4 pieces to my opponents. Because I went out in force early I ended up having very weak pieces at the end and Kristin made a dramatic comeback. Jim played king maker at the end and gave Kristin the only majority keeping Archie and I out of the winner's tea room yet again.
1st: Kristin
2nd: Matt
3rd: Archie
4th: Jim
That ordering may actually be false. Archie and I may have ended up tied for the next possible majority. Basically, Kristin won and the dudes also ran.
As more and more satellite stations are opening up in the PWG empire, we now have new posters. I would welcome any and all regular PWG'ers to sign-up at blogger.com and I'll send you an invite to post here.
BRING THE NOISE!
