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Madison Board Gamers Session Report,
April 30th, 2003
written by Everett E. Proctor
Session 37
| Date/Location | 4/30/2003 |
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| Attendees | Everett Proctor, John Richards, Todd Jensen, Justin , Ed McGlinn
, Joel Uckelman, Bill Palecek, Sara Friedemann, David Solie, Mike O'Brien, Tim Achee |
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| Games Played | Paris Paris, Wilderness War, Carcassonne, Carcassonne, Schnäppchen Jag, Corsairs, Gang of Four, Bohnanza, Queen's Necklace |
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| Summary | Hmmmm, what can I say? Another good session, with a couple of new games to try out. OFFICIAL NOTICE: Joel did not stand up Ed last week. Joel had sent an e-mail to Ed saying that he wouldn't be able to make it that night, but Ed didn't receive it before the game. We had figured that that was probably the case, but I wanted to see if Joel would read this or not. |
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| Paris Paris |
| Played By | Everett P. John R. Todd J. Justin |
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| Summary | This is the new game that is supposed to fill Web of Power's niche. A fairly quick game, but with some good tactical and strategical decisions to be made. I mostly agree with this, but I don't think that there is very much to the strategical element in Paris Paris. However, since this was my first playing of the game, that opinion might change after I learn and understand the game better.
The board is a map of Paris, with 5 bus routes, each of which intersects each of the others exactly once. At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt a secret route, more on that later. Each round, a number of random bus stops are available for players to build their businesses. Once everyone has had a chance to place a business, there will be one spot left over. This is a small tour, and the player(s) that have the closest business to the stop score one point, and the marker fo the stop is set aside. Then, if this left over stop is of the same route of a left over stop from a previous round, a grand tour is scored. Your travel the bus down the appropriate route, and at each point that that route intersects with another route, whichever players have a business on that intersection scores 1 point for that business, and an additional point for every business they have adjacent to that intersection. You keep on repeating these rounds, until all of the bus stop tiles are used. Now it is time to reveal the secret routes. Every secret route that a player has will score another grand tour. (So in a four player game, all of the routes except for one will score during the final scoring round.)
John, despite not understanding the scoring (we had to keep on telling him "no, adjacency does not count during a small tour"), got some good synergy with his businesses, and ran away with the game. |
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| Winner(s) | John R. |
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| Finish | 1-John R. (42) 2-Justin (34) 3-Todd J. (29) 4-Everett P. (25) |
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| Ratings | Everett P. (7) John R. (7) Todd J. (7) Justin (7) |
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| Wilderness War |
| Played By | Ed M. Joel U. |
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| Summary | Joel is in seventh heaven now that he has found someone to play historical wargames with him on a regular basis. Their game for this week was Wilderness War. In the middle of the game, I heard Joel (playing the English) mention that he needed to hurry up and do some damage to the French (played by Ed). However, I didn't see later how the game was going. |
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| Winner(s) | |
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| Finish | Ed M. Joel U. |
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| Carcassonne |
| Played By | Bill P. Sara F. |
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| Summary | Todd had, of course, brought Carcassonne with all of the expansions, including the newest one, Traders and Builders. I REALLY like this addition to Carcassonne. It adds three basic features: Builders, Trade Goods, and Pigs. Each player gets one pig, that they can put into a field, and if they have any farmer scoring in cities adjacent to the field with the pig, the city scores 5 points instead of 4. Each player gets one Builder, that the can put on a road or city, and then during any later round that they place a tile that adds on to the road or city, the player can immediately play another tile. But the thing I really like about the expansion is the trade goods. The expansion adds a few city tiles that have pictures of one of three trade goods: wine, cloth, or grain. Whenever a player plays a tile that completes a city, whether or not they have a knight in that city, they get a trade token for each trade good in that city. At the end of the game, whoever has the most of each trade good scores a bonus of 10 points. This provides an incentive for players to complete cities that they don't control.
I think this was the first time for either Bill or Sara playing this expansion. Bill completely dominated this game, and won by an amazing amount. |
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| Winner(s) | Bill P. |
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| Finish | 1-Bill P. (264) 2-Sara F. (47) |
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| Ratings | Bill P. (10) Sara F. (8) |
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| Carcassonne |
| Played By | Everett P. David S. Mike O. Tim A. |
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| Summary | A group of us played another game of the Mega Carcassonne (Carcassonne with all the expansions) later in the night. I scored on a mega city (60+ points) that Mike and I were sharing, but when Tim and David tried to horn in on it, I was able to add another guy and score it solo. I also shared scoring on the two other major cities. These were enough to give me a huge lead and the win, without playing a single farmer. Which is fairly unusual as I usually go for a heavy farmer strategy. |
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| Winner(s) | Everett P. |
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| Finish | 1-Everett P. (181) 2-David S. (156) 3-Mike O. (148) 4-Tim A. (101) |
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| Ratings | Everett P. (8.71) David S. (8) Mike O. (9.5) Tim A. (8.73) |
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| Schnäppchen Jag |
| Played By | Everett P. Todd J. David S. |
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| Summary | This is a neat little trick taking/avoidance game, that some in our group have played before, but I had not had a chance to play it untill tonight. The interesting twist to this game, is that at any time, you have one card value in front of you, and cards of this value are the only ones that will score you positive points. All other cards you take in your tricks will score you negative points. However, after each round of 8 cards, you can convert one value of cards in your negative point pile into positive points, but only if you have at least 3 of those cards. This makes your valuation of each trick rather tricky when you are trying to decide to take it or not. |
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| Winner(s) | Everett P. |
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| Finish | 1-Everett P. (8) 2-David S. (1) 3-Todd J. (5) |
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| Ratings | Everett P. (7) Todd J. (8) David S. (7) |
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| Corsairs |
| Played By | Justin Bill P. Sara F. |
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| Summary | I didn't notice much about what was going on in this game, but they left me a note that they are completely sure of the final scores, but the rankings are correct. |
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| Winner(s) | Bill P. |
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| Finish | 1-Bill P. (22) 2-Justin (30) 3-Sara F. (17) |
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| Ratings | Justin (6) Bill P. (7) Sara F. (7.5) |
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| Gang of Four |
| Played By | Todd J. Justin Bill P. Sara F. |
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| Summary | Gang of Four is based on a very popular card game in China (which I don't remember how to spell, so I won't try). Tichu is the popular version of the game in Germany, and is a partnership game, whereas Gang of Four is an individual game. The main mechanic of the game is the same as the one in The Great Dalmuti or Frank's Zoo, whoever is on lead plays 1-4 cards of the same rank, and then the following players must play the same number of cards of a higher rank. There are a couple of special cards as well. The object is to get rid of all of your cards. Since I don't know how the scoring works (I haven't actually played the game yet), I don't know who won or who lost this game (which is my fault, as I keep forgetting to print up new session report sheets to record this information on.) |
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| Winner(s) | |
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| Finish | Todd J. (37) Justin (91) Bill P. (2) Sara F. (87) |
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| Ratings | Todd J. (7) Justin (8) Bill P. (9) Sara F. (8.5) |
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| Bohnanza |
| Played By | Todd J. Justin Bill P. Sara F. |
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| Summary | Bill's notes:"It would have been foolish for Bill to have bought a 3rd field. Not to be confused with Bonn-anza, the game about the capital of the FRG." I don't know if that means Bill bought a 3rd field and won proving someone wrong or not. |
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| Winner(s) | Bill P. |
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| Finish | 1-Bill P. (21) 2-Todd J. (20) 3-Justin (18) 4-Sara F. (15) |
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| Ratings | Todd J. (9) Justin (6) Bill P. (7) Sara F. (6) |
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| Queen's Necklace |
| Played By | Everett P. Todd J. Sara F. Mike O. |
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| Summary | I had played this last week, and liked it well enough to teach it to three new players this week. See last week's session report for more details on how the game is played. This week, I was able to pick up 3 rings, a banker, and 2 of the 3 amber that popped up between the 1st and 2nd sale. Since amber was the rarest and the 2nd most popular gem that turn, I scored a whopping 240 points for that sale. Now that the others know how valuable rings can be, I don't think that they'd allow me to do that again.
Both Todd and I agree that this is a much better game than Bruno's previous game, Fist of Dragonstones. |
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| Winner(s) | Everett P. |
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| Finish | 1-Everett P. (350) 2-Mike O. (180) 3-Todd J. (100) 4-Sara F. (50) |
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| Ratings | Everett P. (7.5) Todd J. (7) Sara F. (7) Mike O. (7) |
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