Winter War
Winter War was this weekend (well, it's still going on, but I won't be there tomorrow because I'll be at EFRC). I never got around to either submitting events or preregistering, but I played in 3 events. Dominion, which I should have been running (the person running it did not know the game well and arbitrarily said that he would be doing some things different from the rules). He was running with only Adventures cards, which isn't a good idea -- Adventures cards are a little broken, especially when they're all together. I won the first game despite my luck making the cards I had underperform. The second game had Port as the only path to extra actions, and my bad luck meant that I only got to buy one pair before they sold out. We played a third game which was remarkable because all of the actions game extra actions, so Port (which was there again) was only good, not great, and Coin of the Realm, which is huge in games where extra actions matter, was a dud.
The next event was a double, Suburbia and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. I hadn't actually played Suburbia before, and I was struggling a bit, because despite trying as hard as I could to boost my income, I didn't have any money for a long time. Turns out that even though they don't give income every turn, lakes are a better plan than they seemed, and Homeowner's Association (which I didn't get) is kinda broken. I finally got something rolling when I got a Stadium and started racking up my reputation, but I still didn't win. Then we played Castles, which I'd played once before, but we ran out of time, when they closed the room we had probably another half hour to go. I did all right but not awesome. I'd play either of these games again but I don't feel the urge to run out and buy them.
This afternoon, I played a game I had not heard of before, although I guess it's a couple of years old, called Keyflower. The name turns out to be a mashup of "key", because it's part of a series of Key games, and "Mayflower". The theme is that we're building settlements in the new world. It's a worker placement, resource management game, so familiar themes but a bit different from anything I'd seen before, and it definitely seems to have replay value, but I don't recall ever seeing it on my local game stores' shelves. I concentrated on having a lot of meeples, upgrading my tiles, and taking other points as they came along, and won the game, but I don't know if I actually played well.
The next event was a double, Suburbia and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. I hadn't actually played Suburbia before, and I was struggling a bit, because despite trying as hard as I could to boost my income, I didn't have any money for a long time. Turns out that even though they don't give income every turn, lakes are a better plan than they seemed, and Homeowner's Association (which I didn't get) is kinda broken. I finally got something rolling when I got a Stadium and started racking up my reputation, but I still didn't win. Then we played Castles, which I'd played once before, but we ran out of time, when they closed the room we had probably another half hour to go. I did all right but not awesome. I'd play either of these games again but I don't feel the urge to run out and buy them.
This afternoon, I played a game I had not heard of before, although I guess it's a couple of years old, called Keyflower. The name turns out to be a mashup of "key", because it's part of a series of Key games, and "Mayflower". The theme is that we're building settlements in the new world. It's a worker placement, resource management game, so familiar themes but a bit different from anything I'd seen before, and it definitely seems to have replay value, but I don't recall ever seeing it on my local game stores' shelves. I concentrated on having a lot of meeples, upgrading my tiles, and taking other points as they came along, and won the game, but I don't know if I actually played well.