Madison Board Gamers

Madison Board Gamers

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Madison Board Gamers Session Report,
December 17th and 18th, 2002
written by Everett E. Proctor

**Session 22**
Date/Location	12/17/2002 Memorial Union
Session Length	270 min.
Attendees	Bill Palecek, Everett Proctor, Doug Jacobson, Chris Waak, Tim Achee, Rick , Mike O'Brien, Joe King, Cindy , Steve Mading
Games Played	LOTR: The Confrontation, Fluxx, Carcassonne, Funkenschlag, Cartagena, Cartagena
Summary	Another week with 2 gaming nights!! My Role-Playing Game group had one of their game session cancelled, so we decided to use it for boardgaming on Tuesday. Even though it was arranged on short notice, we did have a lot of people show up, many of them non-regulars. Some of these were people who would have normally attended the RPG game, and some were people who were wasting time waiting for the midnight showing of the LOTR movie. It was nice to get a chance to game with so many new faces. Everyone was already in a good mood as expectations for the LOTR were high. It made for a really fun evening.
LOTR: The Confrontation
Played By	Bill P. Everett P.
Summary	Bill and I arrived early, so a game of LOTR: The Confrontation was in order (after I refused to play Battle for France). We only played one time, with me playing the Light side, and Bill playing Dark. It was a fairly close bloody battle, with only Saruman and the Cave Troll left alive in the end. However, I could have won it, but I made a stupid move with Frodo at the very end which I realized was a mistake as soon as I made it.
Winner(s)	Bill P.
Finish	1-Bill P. (2) 2-Everett P. (0)
Ratings	Bill P. (6) Everett P. (8)
Fluxx
Played By	Bill P. Everett P. Doug J.
Summary	Doug, Steve, and Cindy all showed up while Bill and I were playing LOTR: The Confrontation, but Steve and Cindy went to get food while we finished the game. When Bill and I finished, this left three of us waiting for Bill and Cindy to return. Since the new version of Fluxx (3.0) had just come out, we decided to play this while waiting for them. I'm not going to say much about this, as you either hate Fluxx, or you love Fluxx. I hate Fluxx. I liked the concept, and when it first came out, I probably would have rated it a 7. But the more I play it, the more I realize that you have absolutely no control over anything in the game, and that you might as well have a monkey play your cards randomly. In the new version, they've changed some of the keepers and goals, and have tweaked some of the rules so that it plays slightly better than the previous versions, but it is still nothing but a mindless time waster, that has the disadvantage of being more frustrating than fun. Even Bill qualifies his rating by saying that it gets a 10 "based on what it tries to do."
Winner(s)	Doug J.
Finish	1-Doug J. 2-Bill P. 2-Everett P.
Ratings	Bill P. (10) Everett P. (1) Doug J. (2)
Carcassonne
Played By	Doug J. Chris W. Tim A.
Summary	With seven people, we broke into two groups. Between mine and Steve's games, we had two very impressive stacks of German games to choose from. Chris, Tim, and Doug chose Carcassonne. Besides the score, I only have one note from the game, which was from taking something that Doug said out of context: "Doug Hates Germans & their games!!!!"
Winner(s)	Chris W.
Finish	1-Chris W. (76) 2-Doug J. (73) 3-Tim A. (46)
Ratings	Doug J. (8) Chris W. (8) Tim A. (8.33)
Funkenschlag
Played By	Bill P. Everett P. Cindy Steve M.
Summary	While one group was playing Carcassonne, the other four of us played Funkenschlag. This was the second time that Steve and I had played it, and the first time for Bill and Cindy. I must admit that I had to get over an intial knee-jerk negative reaction to rail games when I first read the rules to this game, but I am very glad that I got past that. This is a neat game that involves several different mechanics, with relatively little down time between player's turns (especially compared to my previous experience with rail games). As someone in our group said, it's like a rail game, but it's fun. The game only has two drawbacks, one is that the components are cheap and the board doesn't even fit in the box without getting bent, and the other is that it takes 3+ hours, which isn't bad for a rail game, but a little long for the standard german game. However, even with the game being long, you are always doing something, so it doesn't drag. This game was closer than our first game, even though Bill missed a rule about the turn order changing after the first auction (which foiled his evil plot to power two cities on the first turn). I led most of the way, but that caused me to pay more every turn for my resources, with the others catching up quickly. In the end, I was able to connect to and power 20 turns with everybody else only 1 or 2 cities behind me (and if the game lasted longer, both Bill and Cindy probably would have been able to power more cities than me the following turn).
Winner(s)	Everett P.
Finish	1-Everett P. (20) 2-Bill P. (1921) 3-Cindy (194) 4-Steve M. (18)
Ratings	Bill P. (8) Everett P. (8) Cindy (8) Steve M. (9)
Cartagena
Played By	Doug J. Chris W. Tim A. Rick Mike O.
Summary	By the time the Carcassonne players had finished, a couple of more people had shown up, and they swtiched to Cartagena. The only note I have from this game is: "Doug would have given this game a 6, but there were no Germans."
Winner(s)	Doug J.
Finish	1-Doug J. (6) 2-Mike O. (5) 3-Chris W. (4) 3-Rick (4) 5-Tim A. (3)
Ratings	Doug J. (8) Chris W. (7) Tim A. (5) Rick (7) Mike O. (8)
Cartagena
Played By	Tim A. Rick Mike O. Joe K.
Summary	Joe King joined, and Chris and Doug dropped out, and they played a second game of Caragena. After that people were getting anxious for the LOTR movie, so we called it quits for the night.
Winner(s)	Mike O.
Finish	1-Mike O. (6) 2-Joe K. (5) 3-Tim A. (2) 4-Rick (1)
Ratings	Tim A. (4.5) Rick (7) Mike O. (8) Joe K. (7.5)

**Session 23**
Date/Location	12/18/2002 Memorial Union
Session Length	270 min.
Attendees	Bill Palecek, Todd Jensen, Matt Larson, Everett Proctor, Joel Uckelman, Mike Knop, Phil , Sara Friedemann, Joe Powers, Tim Achee, Mike O'Brien, Steve Mading
Games Played	Capitol, Gargon, Kohle, Kie$ und Knete, Das Amulett, Die Siedler von Catan, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, Kohle, Kie$ und Knete
Summary	I didn't know if we'd have many people show up during our regular Wednesday night meeting. It is finals week, a couple of people were ill, and I didn't know if people would be recovering from the midnight showing of the LOTR movie last night. However, it turned out to be one of our largest sessions in a while, with 12 people showing up. I had three new games I wanted to try out (Das Amulett, Capitol, and Gnadelos!), plus Todd had printed out the new Puerto Rico buildings. Also, Mike O. had never played Settlers before, and since his sister was getting it for Christmas, he wanted to give it a try before then. With so many people in attendence, we had three tables going, and got to play most of the games that we wanted to.
Capitol
Played By	Bill P. Todd J. Matt L. Everett P.
Summary	Bill, Todd, and I were there early, so we decided to try one of the new games I got. Matt arrived just in time to jump in. Capitol is a city building game. The game board represents a city divided into nine sections, each section being one of three colors. Each player starts with a set of roofs and a hand of cards. There are three types of cards: floor cards, roof cards, and district cards. The game consists of four rounds. Each card also has a number from 2 to 8. The first phase of each round is playing cards. When you play a floor card you get 2 floors (wooden blocks) from the supply to build buildings in front of yourself. When you play a roof card, you get to put one of your roofs on top of a building that you've built, completing the building. When you play a district card, you may put one of your completed buildings onto the gameboard in a section that matches the color of the card played. There are a few restrictions about what type of building can be placed in each section and how high the building must be. This phase continues until everyone passes. The next phase is the auction phase. Each auction phase you will auction off three things: two fountains, and one special building. The fountains give points to the districts they are in. There are two special buildings: the amphitheater gives extra cards during the end phase, and the Temple doubles the points you would normally earn. After these have been auctioned off comes the scoring phase. For each section, whoever has the most stories gets 2 points plus one point for each fountain. Whoever has the 2nd most stories just gets one point for each fountain. Everybody then draws six cards, and then you start the next round. The game requires quite a bit of watching what the other players are doing, and knowing when to commit to finishing your buildings and when to play your buildings to the board. Matt got stuck with a four story building and I got stuck with a three story building that we could not play.
Winner(s)	Todd J.
Finish	1-Todd J. (46) 2-Bill P. (44) 3-Matt L. (41) 4-Everett P. (37)
Ratings	Bill P. (7) Todd J. (8) Matt L. (7) Everett P. (7)
Gargon
Played By	Joel U. Mike K. Phil Sara F.
Summary	While we were playing Capitol, 4 more people showed up, so I tossed them Gargon, convincing them that they could learn and play it by the time we were finished. From the comments I overheard, they found some of the mean things you can do in this game to others. I don't think it went over very well, but Sara did mention that it had very pretty cards.
Winner(s)	Mike K.
Finish	1-Mike K. (75) 2-Joel U. (55) 3-Sara F. (48) 4-Phil (34)
Ratings	Joel U. (5) Mike K. (5) Phil (5) Sara F. (4)
Kohle, Kie$ und Knete
Played By	Bill P. Todd J. Matt L. Joe P. Tim A.
Summary	With ten of us now, we broke up into two groups of five. One group of us played K, K, & K. I wasn't in this game, and only have the results.
Winner(s)	Bill P.
Finish	1-Bill P. (61) 2-Todd J. (34) 3-Matt L. (21) 4-Joe P. (20) 5-Tim A. (18)
Ratings	Bill P. (6) Todd J. (8) Matt L. (2) Joe P. (7) Tim A. (5.75)
Das Amulett
Played By	Everett P. Joel U. Mike K. Phil Sara F.
Summary	This was what the other group played. This was another one of the new games I got, and I really wanted to try it out. The object is to collect 7 jewels of different colors, or 8 jewels of any colors. The jewels are radomly placed on the board, two in each region, three in each city. Players start with 10 powerstones, and use these to bid on spells and to power those spells. Spells do two things: the detemine how many and which types of metals you collect each turn, and hey also give you special actions (which do a wide variety of different things). Then players collect the metals that the spell cards give them. Then the players move a token on the board around. In each region there is an auction for the jewels in that region. Players pay for these auctins with there metals, but the catch is that in each region you can only use one type of metal. Whoever wins the auction gets a jewel, and then gets to choose the region for the next auction. After 3-6 auctions (chosen randomly), you spend your powerstones for your spells, and start over with a new auction for spells. This is a neat game that requires a lot of resource management: you need powerstones for spells, you need spells to get metals, you need metals to get jewels. But then you have to watch out for all the special effects of the spells. Mike had a nice combo near the begining of the game, where winning one auction gave him all three of the jewels in the city instead of the normal one. After he got this large lead, he didn't get much for a while, but was able to hold on for the win. The game has a lot of neat bits, but Sara said they weren't as pretty as the Gargon cards.
Winner(s)	Mike K.
Finish	1-Mike K. (8) 2-Everett P. (5) 2-Phil (5) 4-Joel U. (4) 4-Sara F. (4)
Ratings	Everett P. (7) Joel U. (6) Mike K. (8) Phil (7) Sara F. (2)
Die Siedler von Catan
Played By	Todd J. Tim A. Mike O. Steve M.
Summary	This was the game that Mike wanted to play. Steve commented that it had been a long time since he had to teach anyone this game. It is probably the classic German board game. It turned out to be a fairly long game, as all of the mountains had poor numbers on them, which hampered developement. Steve also got pinned in and caught in one of those positions where he just wasn't able to do anything.
Winner(s)	Mike O.
Finish	1-Mike O. (10) 2-Tim A. (9) 3-Todd J. (5) 3-Steve M. (5)
Ratings	Todd J. (8) Tim A. (10) Mike O. (9) Steve M. (7)
Puerto Rico
Played By	Bill P. Matt L. Joe P.
Summary	Puerto Rico was handy, and Bill, Matt, and Joe decided to play it. Since Joe hadn't played before, they decided not to use the new buildings.
Winner(s)	Bill P.
Finish	1-Bill P. (43) 2-Joe P. (37) 3-Matt L. (34)
Ratings	Bill P. (10) Matt L. (8) Joe P. (8)
Puerto Rico
Played By	Bill P. Matt L. Joe P.
Summary	This was Bill, Matt, and Joe's second game of Puerto Rico, and they forgot to try the new buildings.
Winner(s)	Matt L.
Finish	1-Matt L. (49) 2-Joe P. (32) 3-Bill P. (25)
Ratings	Bill P. (10) Matt L. (8) Joe P. (8)
Kohle, Kie$ und Knete
Played By	Everett P. Joel U. Mike K. Phil Sara F.
Summary	A second game of K, K, & K was played by those who didn't play it the first time. This is probably the game I'm most pleased to own (I had been looking for a copy for about a year, and finally found a copy for a reasonable price on the German e-bay site). I really enjoy this game. Mike suggested that there should be more of an incentive to try to make the deal rather than everyone waiting until they had 12 cards before starting a deal. Phil ended up being the big deal maker, and even though we knew he was in the lead, we couldn't stop ourselves from making deals with him because otherwise we feared someone else would make a deal with him anyway. This was my second playing of the game, and it is by far my favorite Sid Sackson game (but I'm not a huge Sid Sackson fan).
Winner(s)	Phil
Finish	1-Phil (53) 2-Everett P. (42) 3-Mike K. (30) 4-Joel U. (21) 5-Sara F. (5)
Ratings	Everett P. (9) Joel U. (7) Mike K. (7.5) Phil (9) Sara F. (4)

Maintained by John Richards and Everett Proctor.