Settlers is the new Risk....

For a good laugh, check out this list of nasty things to do while playing Settlers.  Definitely gonna try #2 if I ever get dragged into playing the game again.

(Thanks for the tip, K-Stew....)

The "elephant" strategy rears its ugly head...

About 10 years ago, I could honestly say that Reiner Knizia's classic Euro Taj Mahal was my absolute favourite game.  It had everything I wanted - simple tough choices, fascinating and highly unique game play, and multiple paths to victory.  If you haven't tried it, you really should - it's a fascinating card/board game of chicken and bluff that rivals anything put out today.  Unfortunately, after an uncountable number of games, it became obvious that an experienced player could win over newbies every time by simply taking all the elephant cards and winning the elephant tile most rounds.  Frustratingly, this became something that always needed to be explained every time new people played and the game lost a little bit of its sheen.

Fast-forward to this summer and we've played a bunch of games of Hawaii, a fantastic Euro with a bit more depth than Taj Mahal.  Unfortunately, in the last couple games one player has decided to try the 'red price token' strategy.  If you aren't familiar with Hawaii, almost every turn you grab a price token and a whole bunch of them are red.  One can purchase tiles in the game which award bonus points every time a player takes a red price token and these bonuses are most certainly cumulative.  By the end of my last game, my parter was earning 7 points every time he grabbed a red price token and he ended up winning handily.  The gap in the previous game was even wider.  Sigh. 

Of course, this is manageable if all the players are onboard. Much like how everyone can't let one player grab the elephant tile every time in Taj, the players can't let one player grab red price token tiles every round in Hawaii.  I suppose it isn't broken, but the last thing I wanna do in a game like Hawaii (where turns are intentionally very limited) is waste a turn blocking an opponent's play.  It's like wasting trains in Ticket To Ride to block someone's route.  I hate that.

Having said all that, Hawaii is still quite an excellent game (as is Taj Mahal).  Now it just requires a discussion during the rules explanation about the "elephant" in the room...

Someone must have filmed us playing.....

My net- and game-savvy sister points me to this must-watch video which I think must have been made about MY gaming group.  Very slick and very, very funny.

You know these people, I know you know these people....



(But I still hate Settlers....)

Oh, Risk: Legacy, how I hate thee...

So my current favourite game has got to be Risk: Legacy.  Take a simple classic game system which suffers from some epic flaws and add a brilliant story arc, real emotional investment, and the options for players to choose how these flaws get fixed over a campaign of games.  It's brilliant and I can't seem to get the campaign we're playing out of my head.  This is the best Ameri-trash game to come out in years and a must-own for anyone who can handle all the aggression.  It is also a wholly new gaming experience that rivals the original excitement that Dominion brought a few years ago.

Having said this, despite the ongoing emergence of new rules in our campaign of games, there is still a wild amount of dice rolling.  The good thing is games don't usually last past 90 minutes so if you're losing the pain is over pretty quick.  And it turns out I'm not the best sport either.  Two games ago I threw a soldier piece at a dear friend of mine as she kept rolling 6's against all my attacks.  Last night I nearly ended my almost 5-year relationship when I called my partner a "disengenuous, manipulative pig". 

Um, yep, same old Risk.....

Oh Tichu, how I hate thee....

Two games of Tichu.  

One last night ended with a friend shouting at his girlfriend and me shouting at the friend and calling him a rather immature term for a man's bits and pieces.

A game tonight with more heated arguments between another friend criticizing his partner and me trying to tell him his tone was out of line.

Sigh.  I think we need to shelve this one for awhile and go back to Dominion.  Does anyone else get this angry and passionate about Tichu?  It's actually becoming for us more volatile than a drunken game of Risk....

Someone please pass me a Tichu...

I think we might need a little break from Tichu.  I'm starting to think it might not be so good for my relationship...

4 is the loneliest number...

I've been trying for the last 3 weeks to get a group of exactly 4 people together so we can play Tichu, the classic Chinese card game that is so damn popular on BGG. I've owned a Tichu deck for months but never seemed to have the right amount of people to actually try out the game. Someone always seems to bring a friend along ("oh great, a fifth!") or just not show up last minute (looking at you, Mr. Brown....)

I think I had the same issue a decade ago when Catan was popular. Never could get exactly 4 people. Sigh.