The Tao of Gaming

The Tao of Gaming

May as well jump in on the Economist article. It shockingly accurate. Then again, I always thought the Economist had a much better standard for reporting facts than most outlets. (What was it, Volokh Law people recognize how much the media messes up areas they understand, but still trust it when reading about things they don admit that . Then again, I never seen anything involving Bruno Faidutti that didn

Based on a comment from Mikko, I looked at the vote on the Finnish Game of the Year award. That when I remembered that Finnish and Swedish aren nearly close enough to let me parse things out. Not that my Swedish is that good. But you can decipher the previous years results.

Mikko also played some Mahjongg, which I played from time to time. (For a few months a decade ago, we played several times with several scoring systems). It not bad at all I prefer the scoring system where only the discarder pays the winner, since it allows for offensive and defensive play. (I also don play with Flowers as wild or automatic doublers, since theres no skill to that, but if I were doing it for just gambling purposes A copy of Mhing works well, since you can just pull the wilds and flowers and have a very portable MahJongg set. (The simplified scoring rules make for a nice introduction). And I admit that the Wilds speed things up quite a bit. Jacqui and I taught another couple a year or two ago lots of Bridge recently, and poorly. But Jeff Goldsmith updated his page again this month. If you play Bridge his archives are a gold mine.

Well, now that the , some thoughts.

I agree that Agricola, Race and Pandemic belong. I consider Pandemic good, but it amusing and attracts a wide range of gamers. I think In the Year of the Dragon (which I like, a bit) Stone Age (ditto) and Kingsburg (don like, but only mildly) will all disappear without a trace in a year or so. No need to rehash my thoughts on Hamburgum and Brass. Haven tried Tribune or Tinner Trail.

What games would I have added? Well, Kutschfahrt is new to me, but the Geek says it was Galaxy Trucker seems an odd omission. Its in the middle of the pack, in terms of my enjoyment, but it novel. I can think of any other games, so I guess I not complaining about the list.

I haven played any of the 2 player games, so no comment there.

Looking at the , several of those games were flashes in the pan (at least locally). I can completely absolve myself of blame (Yspahan), but I guess this is just a yearly thing. If you nominate 5 10 games a year, you are bound to have some that just don stand up to scrutiny a few years (or even year) later. Which just reminds me that I should play Combat Commander again.

I think the IGA should put a bigger delay between games and nomination. Games released June 30th are eligible, and they got the nomination before the end of August? No doubt many of the voters are more hardcore than I am (see haven played that above), but that still a narrow window. The (also just announced) are published in 2007, which is better.

Still, lists are always good for arguing about, so have at it.

Dale Yu posted previews of the Dominion art and apparently the game is on schedule for an October ish release. The rules are also online. Dominion (like many CCGs) has vast chunks of the gameplay on the cards, which means that knowledge of the rules is necessary but not sufficient. I probably pick this one up, but I not 100%.

Incidentally, I almost called Dominion an game; its a shorthand I used to describe games where the rules form the seed of gameplay, but other aspects determine it (such as card text). I have no idea where I got that from, and I not sure its correct. Just thinking aloud to the party, but I just noticed The Dice Tower did their 2007 awards as always, awards provide a good way to bicker. I saw a new, and quite interesting, race. The points race. This version was 160 laps (250 m/lap, so 40 km). Every 10th lap is a sprint, with 5/3/2/1 points awarded.

Now for the kicker if you lap the group (if judges place that you are the pack then you get a 20 points award, but your extra lap ahead is erased and you are considered to be behind the new leader). [Anyone who falls a lap behind suffers 20 points and is effectively eliminated].

Obviously NBC didn show all the race (which took about 50 minutes) but they showed a good chunk of it. I wonder if there are other games that have interesting tactical rules (beyond just better I know yachting does (not that I understand them). Any others?

Another efficiency game to dominate my thoughts for a few weeks or months? Don mind if I do!

Random thoughts in no particular order. (Note to David Feel free to comment or just laugh maniacally, but stay away from my car).

As noted before, the early game focuses on family expansion. Get your house ready ASAP (especially in a 5 player game, when you know at least one family growth space will be ready on turn 5). If multiple people are ready, you have to fight for start player as well.

The other early game race is often to a fireplace/hearth. Particularly if sheep are the first card, getting one early can often mean a single action for 6 8 food, and flexibility throughout the game. (Also in a 5 player game where an extra livestock card is set. It doesn accumulate from turn to turn, but it always worth 3 food with a fireplace).

Much like Race, a few cards that combine well tops many random cards.

You don need five occupations down to win. They are (often) cool, but a time sink. I won with as few as two.

I Often have a fair number of improvements down, but that because many of the best spaces in the game (Family Growth, Renovate, and Start Player) let you drop an improvement. Since you are already spending the action, dropping the card (even for a resource or two) often pays off.

If you have an unblockable play, take the other play first. Common sense, but I see players rush for their great first play without realizing nobody else can (rarely, can but won or shouldn take it.

I now seen several people try to dominate clay, then renovate and build a huge clay house. Maybe you can do this purely (without expanding on wood), but I never seen it done. Get to 3 rooms with wood the cards have to be perfect to do it the other way.

If you have a travelling improvement (one that passes to the left), consider holding it for an extra turn or two. Other players may splurge to get it spent, then be done. On the other hand, if you are always going to have a problem obtaining whatever the card gives, you may want everyone to know it exists and hope that it gets back to you.