Billabong Boardgamers - 21st November, 2000
Present: Alan, Andrew, Craig, David, Debbie, Julian W.
Julian Warner writes:
SPACEBEANS
Craig 30 points +3 for getting to 30 first
Julian 33 points the hard way
Debbie 29 points the no less hard way
Alan & Andrew 21 points - pathetic really.
Despite the superficial similarities to other games of the "bohne" family, this game plays quite differently. The mechanism of planting and harvesting beanfields is the same but there is no trading, which very much restricts what one can do and you must also match numbers printed on the cards with the number of cards which you are harvesting. ...and then you have to pass any cards you don't use to the player on your right (who has just played before you). Unsurprisingly, given the fairly large random element in not knowing what you are going to get from the player on your left (and they are going to avoid giving you good cards) and in picking two cards off the top of the deck (or not if you choose), there are very frequent fruitless harvests. You are allowed to plant as many cards as you have of the same colour at the same time but you must pass on all remaining cards in your hand. If the cards in your hand (either from being passed them or from picking them up off the deck) do not match either of your existing beanfields, then you have no choice but to harvest.
You have a small degree of control over the game - mostly over deciding what to pass on when you use cards but quite often, you have no control at all. Alan in particular went through long periods where he was neither picking up matching cards and wasn't being passed any either. I went through long periods of getting just one extra card each round which kept adding to one of my two beanfields and which allowed me to bank up the scores. At other times, it was beneficial to cash in one card beanfields just to creep up in the scoring.
This is an enjoyably light game with quite a different feel to the other bean games. Perhaps less player interaction because of the lack of trading. And it seemed to play on for a bit longer - probably because of the long non-scoring periods which seemed to occur for everyone at some stage. Not bad.
CHRONONAUTS
Players: Alan, Andrew, Craig, Julian, David
Winners: Julian once (thanks to Alan); Craig once (thanks to Alan
& David)
Alan figured that this had to be okay as it comes from the same people as Fluxx! For me this would normally indicate a game with a skill level comparable with One-Card Brag. However, this was playable if silly and had a large degree of unpredictability, hand-swapping, card stealing etc etc. Basically there is a time-line laid out on the table where pivotal events in history are represented by single cards. Each of the major points in history can be changed, with a "ripple effect" which causes changes to other cards. Each player has their own individual victory conditions, represented by two cards. Either they have to collect three specific artifacts or they have to engineer history so that three real or unlikely events are in play at the same time. You can also win by simply having 10 cards in your hand but this would seem to be the least likely way of winning.
Each player starts with three cards and picks one up from the deck at the start of their turn. They then play one card (or more when allowed by specific action cards). The card they play may reverse or alter history, or it may undo or re-do previous actions or they may simply "find" an unlikely artifact and proudly display it as their own (for a little while anyway...) or they may do something annoying like swapping hands around or re-shuffling everyone's hands or vetoing someone else's action (sounds familiar).
The first game ended when Alan unconsciously created the victory conditions for me. His play was quite logical for him as he was trying to get more cards into his hand. He just didn't know what my victory conditions were. This could equally have happened to anyone else.
The second game ended when Craig managed to collect and display the correct three artifacts to meet his victory condition. Alan could have nobbled him one turn earlier and David might have been able to veto the action that caused the win but we needed to pack up anyway so we conceded the win to Craig. It struck me that this game could end very quickly or take a long time (just like Fluxx really).
Fun and silly.
Debbie Pickett writes:
MEDIEVAL MERCHANT
A new game for Andrew, who bravely listened to my rushed and disorganized explanation of the rules - and did quite well, anyway. Andrew started out in the isolated southeast, David in the centre, Alan in the northeast, me in the south, and Julian near the eastern central edge. Craig, who afterwards said he'd been given a bad initial tile draw, went centrally, which immediately set him up for trouble competing with David.
Andrew quickly got a foothold in the southeast, but couldn't keep it to himself as Julian, a veteran of this game, made it his duty to get in there too. This was exacerbated by Andrew's lack of the necessary 2-tiles to open up the corner early enough for him to gain sole control. Alan was pretty much left alone in the northwest until David made himself at home in most of the cities there, which had the side effect of blocking off Craig from about half the board. Craig was also blocked to the west and south by my refusal to put my 8-tile out until I was close enough to score something from it (ironically, I didn't even enter the city in the end). I was making a tidy killing in the southwest of the board, with some key towns going my way, and little in the way of challenges from other players.
The double-action letters went pretty early in the game, used mostly to open two new branches to reach as wide a network of cities as possible. By the midgame, David had made an impressive foray into the north of the board, Andrew was looking like having a presence everywhere, and Craig was trying hard to catch up, having essentially lost a turn early on by being boxed in. There were few surprises with winning of the city markers: David snatched a 7-tile from Alan while everyone else was busy with other things, and Craig cut the 8 and a 7 in half for David and me, respectively, by denying us a full majority. Most of the upsets were caused by players having more important things to do than enter a city, or by the need for just a few extra guilders and thus being unable to expand in a city.
The game ended when Alan and Julian tied for the last tile on the board. David, Craig and I were somewhat restricted in our board occupation - usually with seven or fewer regions - and Andrew had impressively got himself into all ten regions! The victory came down to whoever had the most money - which I'd been saving for most of the game, allowing me to sneak two points ahead of David, who in my opinion had played better than I did.
Final scores:
Debbie 39
David 37
Andrew 31
Alan 30
Julian 25
Craig 20
My rating: I never get to play this game enough - it's not one of those high profile games that gets a lot of table time at Billabong, but I always enjoy playing it. The money comes a lot easier with six players than with the four or fewer that I normally play this game with, and that actually affects the strategy of the game as you are more likely to take some of the big expensive routes.
I give this game a rating of 8: something I'm likely to suggest playing and something I'll never turn down a game of.