The dawn of the civilization

Recently I have been listening to the 19th episode of the excellent podcast "Game's the Thing" devoted to Reiner Knizia's tile laying games. My attention have been drawn to one game in particular, the "Tigris and Euphrates". I have read about this game before, but the theme wasn't sounding very exciting so I didn't care too much. I was so wrong. Fortunately Ron and his buddies have changed my mind and after a short consultation with my wife, we have decided to invest our money in the game on the account of Easter Bunny present.
The box looked quite solid, so were the insides. I wasn't put off by the manual too much, having been read that the game is on the hard side of things. Now we needed only a chance to play.
Finally we got an opportunity on the Great Saturday. We played with our friend, Tomas. I was the most well read in the ways of T&E having read manual two times, and playing once against the computer in the java version of the game. I have to say that I was expecting to crush my opponents and scatter them to the wind under the wheels of my mighty chariots. I was wrong...

The game started surprisingly quickly, a picture above shows result after, I think, third round. I wanted to illustrate some rule, so I did some stupid move, when my wife, who were claiming she does not understand the game launched a sneak attack and won first war against me.
From here it was downhill and my ambitions were smashed in blood of my minions. Tomas and my evil wife divided the map among themselves and I was like a fifth wheel. I had my moments of glory, thats true. The incredible thing about the game was that, as we played the complexity and strategical possibilities were unraveling in front of us. T&E does not seem like an easy game. Rules are not that complicated, really but after playing I can say that there is plenty of meat to sink your teeth in.
At some point, when everyone was entrenched behaind a wall of temples we found out about catastrophe tiles. I am telling you that was a true nuclear exchange, within two turns there was a lot of gaps in the map.

All in all game was closing to the finish, becoming more and more tense. The devilish rule stating that winner is a person who has the most points in his weakest sphere (farming, settlements, farms and temples) was really getting my blood flowing.
Finally, in the last turn Tomas decided to join two gigantic kingdoms into one, initiating three external wars. He won two against my wife, who in turn took revenge on me, scoring 13 points in one engagement! As a result kingdom was broken into six small fiefdoms! I guess this nicely illustrates the pacifists' point of view.
Then it was a point to reveal who is the winner. I was out having only 13 points in my weakest sphere. We were convinced that Tomas will win, after scoring so many points in the war.
Of course Gosia was the winner. She just has this talent, you know.
All in all, that was a great game and I am really looking forward to repeat this experience.

Runebound massacre

Another weekend, another game. This week we have been playing "Runebound" - an adventure game form Fantasy flight games, in which players are taking upon themselves roles of brave heroes that try to stop the mighty Dragon Lords from destroying a land of Terrinoth.
As usual, Runebound took us enormous amount of time. We played it with three players, one new to the game, and it took us over 4 h. to finish it. Not your typical party game...
It was quite a fun - killing monsters, collecting money and buing stuff. Diablo of a bordgames, really.
We played with three female characters - an assassin, a runewitch and last, but not least, Red Scorpion, a character with equal skills in each attribute and five hit points, as opposed to four for other players. The only downside of the Red Scorpion, also known as Sister Tittie, was relatively low damage value. The fact that we had only female characters and my wife and our friend Ania have a frivolous sense of humor led to some shockingly bad jokes about methods of enemie distraction...

The game started bad for Ania, whose character was knocked-out three times during the game , due to the bad rolls, causing her to be relatively weaker than our characters.
Unfortunately I feel like a worst munchkin after the game. I have created a monster. I have seen this before, when playing with our other friend. He whipped our backsides terribly creating very powerful combination of magical artifacts.
So did I. Not only I had a really good rolls, but I had also collected some really nifty stuff. One I really liked was a Fetching Imp - a familiar allowing me to buy and sell things without visiting the cities. Few well aimed bombs were also quite useful. Funny thing is that I did not had any very strong weapon, except Soul Rune at the end of the game. I have advanced so quickly, that by the end of the game I had 12 in all skills, meaning that I was automatically hitting most of the yellow challenges. Truth, I had one attack per turn with only two attacks, and I did not posses any "Before Combat" artifacts, but allies filled gaps pretty nicely. I must stress that point - allies are critical. For example I had an Accolyte of the Flame - the useless ally worth one gold coin. But he could soak a damage, and near the end of the game he was able to survive two turns against some terribly powerful dragon and even hurt him a little! I admit that was a sheer luck, but still it is better than facing such a creature alone.
So I won. Not very sporty of me, but it happens. And I am rather glad.
Here are some pictures.

Puerto Rico

Wczoraj rozegraliśmy z naszymi znajomymi, Jenną i Tomasem, partyjkę "Puerto Rico". Panie rozgromiły nas bez trudu uzyskując 43 (Jenna) i 42 punkty (Gosia) Ja, pomimo, że jak zwykle miałem doskonały plan, skończyłem grę zajmując chlubne ostatnie miejsce. Do diaska!
Porażka nie stępiła mojego entuzjazmu do tej gry, wręcz przeciwnie. "Puerto Rico" jest najciekawszą grą planszową w jaką miałem okazję grać. Zasady sprawiają, że każda decyzja jest trudna. Wszystkie elementy są istotne. Cóż z tego, że masz budynki, jeśli nie ma w nich kto pracować? Co z tego, że masz dużo towarów, jeżeli konkurenci załadowali statki i nie ma miejsca na twój towar? Masz magazyn? Nie? To tracisz towar... Czy Hacjenda to przydatny budynek? A może lepiej zainwestować w Mały targ?

"Puerto Rico" bez wątpienia zasługuje na pierwsze miejsce na Boardgamegeek, dróg do zwycięstwa jest wiele, jest w co się wgryźć. Jak sądzę, "Puerto Rico" będzie jedną z tych gier do których będziemy wracać często. I tylko szkoda, że mamy tak mało okazji by w nią grać.

P.S. Wolf wprowadził sie do naszego mieszkania. Jeszcze się boi, ale powoli eksploruje kolejne pomieszczenia.

Scrabble

Dzisiaj rozegraliśmy ze znajomymi fantastyczną partię "Scrabbli". Z dumą przyznaję się do zwycięstwa, z wynikiem 173 punktów! Osobiście uważam jednak, że najlepsza była żona, która ułożyła słowo "SZARP" za potrójną premię słowną, a następnie przedłużyła je do słowa "SZARPANE" uzyskując kolejną potrójną premię. Chytre indywiduum...
Daleko nam do mistrzów Scrabbli, ale jak na niezobowiązującą grę całkiem nieźle. Na dodatek układ stworzony przez naszą czwórkę był niezwykle ładny, więc zrobiliśmy zdjęcie. A właściwie spróbowaliśmy zrobić, bo wyszło fatalnie. Trochę retuszu poprawiło sytuację, ale nieznacznie.
Tak czy inaczej - miły niedzielny wieczór.