Epic Glory to Rome is Epic

A Glory to Rome game for the ages — One player, ready to win on his turn (via a Patron/Forum victory) has the forum snatched away by a prison. That player is slowly churning towards victory as I can’t quite use all the foundations, but I do use a statue on the last rubble and then (one round later) finish my school and think 8 times, which gets us close …. but I think on the next turn for a card and when he calls the game winning patron (being able to patron from his hand) I think the last card off the deck to win by half a point against one of the other non-forum players (who scores half a point per card in stockpile).

Fauna — I like it. But praise the maker for Giraffes, because I whiffed on everything else.

You Must be an Idiot — In our circle, it’s all about bluffing. And when I get an idiot card and the question is “Define AM/FM” and the table knows I’m an electrical engineer? Playing in hard mode now. I need to decide my fake answer before looking at my idiot card.

Puzzle Strike — Has now gotten played 25+ times in a year.

Mars needs Women, and also robonautic ISRU

So I finally got a chance to experience High Frontier. (“Play” would be the typical word, but like many of Phil Eklund’s “games” I’m not sure it’s appropriate). We used some of the advanced rules (namely, all 6 component types, but not combat, slingshots, events, solar cycles or the extended map). We also used the fast start (each player has six patents) and, in general, didn’t bother making too many deliberate hosey maneuvers (like bidding up stuff we didn’t need). So the 2.5 to 3 hours were spent contstantly tearing apart my rocket to rebuild it, finally launching a martian mission (with a buggy robonaut, so I could take all three sites) and building the solar-lens energy generator technology and shipping it back to earth. Meanwhile, another player got Mercury and the other set up a factory on one of the larger asteroids. I built a lunar factory while the Venusian mission went belly up.

At that point, we pretty much called it. I probably needed 30 minutes to figure out my next mission, one player was out of it, and the other was going to use rockets with frikkin lasers to prospect about a zillion asteroids at once.

An interesting experience. Glad to have played. But High Frontier is more puzzle than game for my tastes. I think making it a game would mean a player (or two) sitting out for an hour or two after their risk fails.

Rating — Indifferent.

Games for Sale

You know you probably don’t want them, but once you look you can’t help yourself.

Edit — Link Fixed

Bridge Gloating

Since I don’t gloat enough, I’ll just point out that I had a decent week of bridge. Two seconds at the recent STAC (although both games conflicted with the local NBA playoff game, so small turnout) and a dominant win in yesterday’s “Every flight A must be counterbalanced by a flight C player” swiss teams.  Of course, in that last event I’m a ringer.

All the really interesting hands I messed up on, so in keeping with the general “let’s be positive” nature of gloating just know that I have magnanimously absolved myself of all blame or, like a batter walking back to the dugout, intend to forget my mistakes.

Also tried out Nightfall last night with The Boy. Interesting ideas, although I think that grasping the implication of LIFO is a bit beyond him. I’m working on a Stemwinding geeklist on deckbuilders, but it’s mainly been old games and bridge, so little new content…

Riding the intrawebz

The big news (as far as I’m concerned) is FFG’s re-release/updating of Netrunner. Truly a great game … I eventually sold my cards (to some guy in Brazil!) but I’ll get back into this. Assuming they don’t mutilate it. (Richard Garfield isn’t involved, but that’s mainly a time issue, according to himself).

Picked up my guitar again. And found a good site for video lessons. My fingers hurt …

On the gaming front, I’ve mainly been replaying games. Core Worlds is now a dime for the year, and I’ve been teaching Arena Roma II and playing Hansa Teutonica and Puzzle Strike. Me and the boy have also been playing Knizia’s LotR game.

Saw the Avengers movie. It could be big. Also, Margin Call is excellent.

On TV — Sherlock Series II is on PBS, and great. Watching Fringe Season II on netflix… it’s decent.