posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mylescorcoran at 09:23am on 21/11/2005
mylescorcoran at 09:23am on 21/11/2005For the first time in a long while we had boardgaming at our place on a Sunday night. Alex brought over two new players, Roman and Brian, expanding our circle for the first time since Ken left.
Alex had brought Funkenschlag but, much as I wanted play it, we decided that it was too late to tackle a new game that would certainly run to over 2.5 hours. Instead my copy of Vinci came out and after a quick re-read of the rules we got started.
Vinci is quite abstract for a wargame - it is essentially a wargame of expansion and territory capture - but the civilisation tiles give a nice feel and sufficient differences to each civilisation to keep things interesting from the theme perspective.
Roman took an early lead with a successful expansion of cattle-raising, sea-borne, pastoralists, who swept down from the icy north and colonised much of the Baltic region and Scandinavia. Alex's horde of specialised diplomats issued forth from the steppes and colonised the region north of the Black Sea. My fort-building fishermen came up from Asia Minor and grew across the Italian peninsula up towards France, while Brian's crazed dwarves (Mountaineering and Mining) poured out of northern Russia and began filling up the entire north-east of the board.
Alex and I took longer to get started than Roman and Brian, but I think we managed to score a good chunk of our points from civilisations in decline. The endgame was pretty tight. I benefited from being at the end of the play order so, when I took advantage of a miscalculation by the other three, I was able to grab the 100 VPs needed to win without the possibility of a reply from any other player. Final score was something like 101, 96, 95, 86. We turned over civilisations at a brisk pace, which I was glad to see as often beginners (and Alex :) ) hang on too long to a civilisation, trying to squeeze a last few points out of it before the dying of the light.
It was a pretty good game, I think. However it was past mid-night so I couldn't afford much in the way of post-game analysis. One of the prices paid of gaming after my daughter has gone to bed. Roll on the day when I can play German boardgames with her. I'm sure she'll make a good fist of barbarians plus a army commander and squash me flat.
Alex had brought Funkenschlag but, much as I wanted play it, we decided that it was too late to tackle a new game that would certainly run to over 2.5 hours. Instead my copy of Vinci came out and after a quick re-read of the rules we got started.
Vinci is quite abstract for a wargame - it is essentially a wargame of expansion and territory capture - but the civilisation tiles give a nice feel and sufficient differences to each civilisation to keep things interesting from the theme perspective.
Roman took an early lead with a successful expansion of cattle-raising, sea-borne, pastoralists, who swept down from the icy north and colonised much of the Baltic region and Scandinavia. Alex's horde of specialised diplomats issued forth from the steppes and colonised the region north of the Black Sea. My fort-building fishermen came up from Asia Minor and grew across the Italian peninsula up towards France, while Brian's crazed dwarves (Mountaineering and Mining) poured out of northern Russia and began filling up the entire north-east of the board.
Alex and I took longer to get started than Roman and Brian, but I think we managed to score a good chunk of our points from civilisations in decline. The endgame was pretty tight. I benefited from being at the end of the play order so, when I took advantage of a miscalculation by the other three, I was able to grab the 100 VPs needed to win without the possibility of a reply from any other player. Final score was something like 101, 96, 95, 86. We turned over civilisations at a brisk pace, which I was glad to see as often beginners (and Alex :) ) hang on too long to a civilisation, trying to squeeze a last few points out of it before the dying of the light.
It was a pretty good game, I think. However it was past mid-night so I couldn't afford much in the way of post-game analysis. One of the prices paid of gaming after my daughter has gone to bed. Roll on the day when I can play German boardgames with her. I'm sure she'll make a good fist of barbarians plus a army commander and squash me flat.
(no subject)
I've never played 'Vinci'; how many can play? And how heavy is it to play with board game newbies?
And wasn't the second edition of 'Funkenschlag' been transated into English as 'Powergrid'?
::B::
(no subject)
Funkenschlag is also known in English as Powergrid. It looks really interesting and I'm dying to play it. Unfortunately it also looks like a 2-3 hour game, which with our usual group would definitely play 3 hours. That sort of slot is hard to arrange; even our role-playing sessions are down to about 2 1/2 hours max now.
(no subject)
Of course, then there's the existing BSW problems, but...
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
Would you think that playing a shortened game (just Stage One) would be fun?
We lost our first game of Shadows Over Camelot because we included the traitor, against the recommendation of the game rules which suggest that you leave the traitor out for the first game. I felt that it would be too easy and lack the tension that the traitor provides. So sometimes the reduced starter game is a good idea but still doesn't appeal.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
Estimating that a first play of Funkenschlag will take more than 150 minutes is a good call -- experienced players can run to <30 minutes per player, but a first game will definately take a while.
I haven't played much in the genre of "civ games" that Vinci is part of -- I've seen a few games of that one and Age of Empires (I think that's more or less in the same genre, but may be mis-remembering).
(no subject)