In a spectacular example of romantic gestures I've been introducing Gill to non-standard (ie not available in Woolworths) board and card games. She already has some geek crudentials (is a programmer, has completed a version of Final Fantasy, is member of a D&D group), so thought I may as well go about increasing her geek license.
I've started with the better, less violent games at my disposal, and I've been using Fluxx, Settlers of Catan and Carsonnone. Settlers has the added bonus that I'm completely shit at it. Shes taken to them extremely well... Fluxx was broekn out during a powercut, and once the concept was grasped it went down well. Settlers was pcked up even quicker, and has actively been asked for since then, and Carsonnone was played for a couple of hours today, again with a large degree of success.
Its some way from cracking out Starcraft and getting her to butcher the opposition, but its not completely out of the question :-D
Comments
I'm not sure Starcraft is a good idea if you have Aggro playing as he is unbeatable.
At the lighter end of gaming I'd also recommend
Hive (2 player only)
Hick Hack in Gagglewack
A worm based game by the makers of Hick Hack
Lunch Money
Notre Dame
Kingsburg
The last two are on a par with Settlers.
Surely you should be giving Bloodbowel a go? :D That way you can combine sport and violence into one handy package. Plus you suck at it so she won't have any issues winning.
That's great news. If you have a group of people about then you might consider blue max. Ok, it's war but it's the comedy end of 'OMG!' war, rather than the intense stuff.
I went into Ecclectic at lunchtime. I've picked up a copy of Agricola (the german version, which is probably a bad sign for me as far as I'm concerned), which is meant to be excellent.
I also had a quickly expansive discussion about a game called Pandemic, which I've identified as a good Settlers alt. It went something like;
Me "Any news on Pandemic?"
Owner "Yes! We have 12 copies coming in tomorrow... 1 is already spoken for, shall I make that 2?"
Me: "Yes please!"
Other staff member "err...make that 3"
Someone else in store "You have Pandemic in tomorrow? Can I reserve a copy?"
At that point other people started moving in, so I confirmed that I could pick it up tomorrow and moved out of the way. Apparently the second print (the one coming in) has already sold out to distributors...
Its good to see Ecclectic still there. I didn't have much hope for them, but the guy running it seems to be more savvy than the normal shop-geek, and beneath his boundless enthusiam there is a bit of common sense going on...
Eclectic is the bees knees.
Did you know Ecelectic is owned by Jeremy, as in Jeremy of the Wallace-Nev-Sarah social group? Wallace enlightened me to that.
Wasn't aware of that. I'm guessing hes a silent partner, as the guy with the little black beard seems to be the one doing all the running of the place.
They've been fortunate with their timing, with Friar Street Bookshop finally dying, and White Knight disappearing as well. I think their main competition in town is now Waterstones, who sell Settlers and Carsononne.
I wouldn't mind giving their games evening a go (if only for the fresh blood) but its Monday night and I'm fully booked.
I've played Agricola, it is very good. About 1 arbitrary level of difficulty up from Settlers but similar in theme. Unfortunately it is a tough play in German, there are a million cards all of which need translating, the pics arn't explanatory. On the upside you only need to familiarise yourself with the 12 cards you have in hand that game but I found myself leafing through pages of translation to remind myself quite regularly, I'd suggest making notes on your in hand cards on scrap paper to avoid it.
I spoke about that very thing with the guy in the shop. He directed me to a tool on Boardgamegeek that generates each players hand, and gives English explanations...
http://ellought.demon.co.uk/agricola/
I've also got all the cards translated into English on the card images from BGG as well, which I'll printout as a reference pack for players.
Apparently the english version is delayed, as they want to do a global release.
Agricola - quick review
edit - OK, not so quick...
Its very good. It uses a similar mechanism to "Puerto Rico", where actions may only be taken by a single player each turn, however as the game progresses more actions become available. You also get an action for each member of the family you have. The actions available are partially constrained by the round number, so certain actions only become available later on in the game. Very interestingly, it is playable by 1 player, with the goal of beating your score...
The aim of the game is to build "a nice farm", at at the end you are scored on various items (how nice/big is your farmhouse, how many animal pasture you have, how many fields, how many crops, how many types on animal). There is a set number of 14 rounds in total to achieve this.
There are various types of action, examples being;
Build room (costs wood/clay/stone and reed, depending on the type of farmhouse)
Collect wood/stone/clay
Collect animals (sheep, boars, cows)
Family Growth
Collect food (fishing/labourer)
Build fences (costs wood, creates pastures)
Plow field
Plant field (put one grain/vegetable in field, and get more back over time)
Bake Bread (convert grain to food)
At certain points in the game there are harvest rounds, and at this point you need to be able to feed every family member, can take crops from planted fields, and animals breed (so long as you have 2 of them...). Food can be collected, or grain/wheat can be eaten.
The Collect actions gain resources every turn, so if the collect wood is un-used for a turn it gains ad additional pile of wood, making it more tempting the next round.
There are 3 other actions;
Minor Improvement
Major Improvement
Occupation
And its here that you'll be rifling through translation sheets. At the start of the game you are dealt 7 random occupations and 7 random minor improvements. There are 10 global major improvements as well.
A minor improvement typically improves the efficiency of a given action (so may be able to collect more of a type of resource, or gain an additional one, or perhaps build something for less or different resources). Some also allow you to convert animals into food (various forms of cooking). The Major improvements are similar, but better. I discovered pretty quickly that as your family grows in size you really do need a way of converting goods/animals to food, or people will starve.
Many improvements also offer endgame victory points.
Occupations fulfil a similar role to improvements, either allowing actions and purchases for less, or allowing conversion of one resource to another.
Occupations and Improvements may give you earlier access to some resources (for example vegetables are not normally available until the halfway point, and the same with cows), giving you the opportunity to develop more advanced stuff for the farm.
Its all very well done, and they have put a lot of thought into the scaleability of the game with different player numbers. With 3+ players additional starting actions are available, and different occupations do into the deck as well.
There are also 4 levels of difficulty, to allow a better learning curve;
1) Family - no occupations and improvement cards are used
2) Entry - a basic occuaption and minor improvement deck is used
3) Interactive - additional cards are added to the occupation and minor improvement deck
4) Komplex - yet more cards are added to the 2 decks
I did a solo run using the Entry level rules. Initially you need to concentrate on getting basic structures complete (a field or 2, maybe some fences). I expanded my house too early, and as a result almost ran out of food at the halfway point, and ended up having to murder most of my animals. I did muck up and forgot to pile up stone and animlas onto various Collect actions, and as a result didn't really have the opportunity to build most of the improvements available to me. The latter phases end up with lots of building and production as the new family members muck in. I eneded up with loads of wood, and not much in the way of other stuff (but did manage to get all the animal types in the place).
There is a lot to think about, and lots of ways you can go. Growing crops seems a very slow way of getting resources until you realise that actually collecting wheat and veg is very _very_ slow, and with an oven its a very efficient way of feeding the family (1 grain -> 5 food, which feeds 2.5 people). There are definitely multiple ways of approaching the game, and I think it will take a couple of plays through to work out the rough order to progress. Adding in other people pinching various actions will only add to the confusion...