Billabong Boardgamers - October 19th, 1999
Present: Craig L., Roger, Doug, Craig Mac., Debbie, Tina, Alan, Donna
Debbie Pickett writes::
KRIEG UND FRIEDEN
Doug, Roger, Tina, Debbie
This was a new game for Tina and me, and I'd heard a lot about the game in Counter so I was keen to try it.
First off, the game is absolutely beautiful. The huge wooden pieces, the gorgeous round board, the stained-glass look of the cards . . it almost didn't matter if the game played badly.
Which it didn't, in my opinion. We played with the variant that each player was given a free token at the beginning that could be spent in the same way as the little scroll things. It didn't really help me, as it turned out, but then I had little idea what I was doing for most of the game.
I kept getting dealt shield cards, which was frustrating on account of the fact that I never got dealt a War card in the whole game. Oh well, at least it helped me to protect my little houses from the incessant attacks. In the end, experience won out.
Final scores:
Doug 10
Roger 8
Tina 7
Debbie 4
My rating: 7. This is quite a fun game that I definitely want to try again. It shows lots of promise.
TYCOON
Doug, Roger, Debbie, Tina
Another new one for Tina and me. Actually all the games we played tonight were new for us.
I got the hang of this one early on, and a couple of loans early in the game paid off nicely so that I barely needed to borrow again at all. The board was filling up a lot in Monaco and Tokyo, with the other centres staying pretty quiet until the end. I wasn't quite able to keep up with Doug, who powered home with plenty of factories and majorities in the cities that counted. Tina suffered from having a couple of bad loans not pay off, partly because we all seemed to gang up on her at the same moment; she was paying off interest for the rest of the game.
Final scores:
Doug 192
Debbie 167
Roger 120
Tina 45
My rating: 6. Entertaining game that I'd happily try again some time.
HIGH SOCIETY
Doug, Roger, Debbie, Tina
We had a little time to kill so we fit in a game of this Reiner Knizia oldie. Having played scads of other Knizia games there was really nothing particularly new to this one, so we got underway pretty quickly. Some negative cards came out early which left a few of us without a lot of money, so the rest of the game we were scrounging for anything we could get. I went bust going for a high score. In the end, Tina romped it in with a 9, a 2 and a x2.
Final scores:
Tina 22
Doug 19
Roger 6
Debbie disqualified
My rating: 5. Mildly entertaining fluff that - like many Knizia games - is both a joy and a right royal pain to play.
TUTANCHAMUN
Doug, Roger, Debbie, Tina
With only ten minutes before we had to leave (only three more Buffy episodes this season!) we snuck in a game of this. Doug and Roger managed to get ahead early and it stayed that way.
Final scores:
Doug
Roger -7
Tina -17
Debbie -17
My rating: 6. Possibly this game challenges Lost Cities for the title of Most Ridiculously Overengineered Bits.