2009 In Review

2009 was another very enjoyable year of gaming. I only began my journey into the world of "proper" board gaming in 2008, and two years in, I'm still going strong. And I have no intention of slowing down. Ever.

So, what happened in this little gaming world of mine that finds an outlet in this even littler blog I call Up the vacuum thingy? Well how about we start with the quest I set myself for 2009.

Here's what I wrote on January 1st 2009:

Part I of my Quest for 2009 is to play at least 15 games a minimum of 3 times each. Additionally, to qualify a game must either be on the 2008 New Games list, or be a game I am yet to play. Games I first played prior to 2008 will not count.

That goal, I am pleased to say, was successfully met. I finished the year having played 19 games at least 3 times. All of these were games I had never played prior to 2008.

These are the 19 games in question (and the number of times I played them):

Agricola (5), An Evening With Bram Stoker's Dracula (3), Ca$h 'n Gun$ (5), Carcassonne (4), Citadels (3), Democrazy (4), Die Macher (3), Dominion (24), Dominion: Intrigue (4), Fluxx (4), Loopin' Louie (3), Magic: The Gathering (7), Martian Fluxx (13), Munchkin (7), Pandemic (7), Set (7), Stone Age (6), Werewolf (34), Zombie Fluxx (57)

A quick note: while Dominion: Intrigue is an expansion for Dominion, it can be played as a stand alone game. I played it as a stand alone game 4 times, and mixed with Dominion 15 times.

For the complete record of all games played (and by complete I mean including every player's score) you can read my 2009 Games Record. Given it lists all 233 plays for 2009, it is quite lengthy. :-)

And 233 plays is pretty good I reckon. Nowhere near as hardcore as some other bloggers I read, but it's definitely in the "serious gamer" category.

Speaking of being a serious gamer, I did have a second part to my quest in 2009 that I wasn't so successful at achieving. Again, let's go back twelve months and recap:

Part II of my Quest was spawned from something I've been piecing together over the last year. To fulfil the Quest, I need to create my own board game, with a fully working game completed by the end of the year. It doesn't matter if it isn't of professional quality, as long as it is fully playable.

No game creation appeared in 2009 I'm afraid. I ended up abandoning this goal fairly early on, especially as there was the minor matter of a wedding in November to help organise. So I've deferred this goal to become my quest for 2010. I'll blog about that shortly.

Finally, a recap of the year would not be complete without a count down list. Last year I counted down my top ten games for 2008. This year, however, I've decided to take a slightly different tack:

My Top Five Gaming Experiences for 2009

#5 - Magic: the Gathering

This was a rather surreal moment in my gaming life, and occurred on Sunday, December 13. It is best explained in the post I made on the following day, and which I will summarise here:

The Giggling One and I were lying in bed. I was browsing the net on my iPhone as I am wont to do. I remembered hearing about the Magic: The Gathering game on the Xbox 360, and reminiscing about the games of Magic I used to play online led me to check out a review of the game out of curiosity.

I then decided to head on over to Wikipedia to check out the latest expansions. I had a chuckle reading the amusing code names each of the sets of three were given (eg. Control, Alt, and Delete; Live, Long, and Prosper).

The Giggling One asked me what I was laughing at, so I showed her. Then, just like that she said "We should get it."

I was a little taken aback. This was a game she had never seen before, but she had heard me mention it here and there. I've played plenty of games of Magic online, but I've never actually played the real, physical-cards-in-your-hand version of the game.

So, on a whim we went out that afternoon and bought two intro packs for the 2010 Core Set, as well as eight booster packs, and placed these under the Christmas tree as our presents to ourselves.

Needless to say, if you noticed the list of games earlier in this post, we've since played a few games. We also went back in to our FLGS and bought the remaining three intro packs so we now have a nice selection of cards in all colours.

I have to say I was just a little worried about buying the game, what with it being the (perceived) domain of the geekiest of geeks, and coming with the inherent must-keep-buying-more-cards risk. I like to think we're mature enough and smart enough not to fall into the just-one-more-booster-pack trap. We've spent more than the cost of a regular board game on it already.

Still, it's been worth it. Now that The Giggling One has got her head around the basics and understands how the cards interact, we've had some fun games, with plenty more to come.


#4 - Achieving the Quest

Well, achieving the first part of the quest at least. I've blogged about this more than once, but after playing as many new games as I could in 2008 (28, or 31 including expansions), it was time to concentrate on enjoying multiple plays of games.

While most plays of each game were in the single digits, I did get four games into double digits. Yes they were all light games, but 57 games of Zombie Fluxx is not only an achievement in itself, but a testament to just how darn fun the game is.

And interestingly, while I wasn't concentrating on playing new games, I still racked up an impressive 28 new games anyway. Which equalled 2008!

I'll still be logging all my plays for 2010, but won't have a specific play target. It will be interesting to see how my tally goes when I'm not aiming for a particular total.


#3 - Werewolf

When The Giggling One and I were first introduced to Werewolf, I wasn't too keen. It didn't sound like something I would be interested in.

And then, of course, we played it and loved it. It became a staple of HoGS games nights in '09, and as long as we had enough people we generally wrapped up the evening with a few games of Werewolf.

The highlight of the year as far as Werewolf is concerned was undoubtedly introducing it to, and moderating a game for, a group of fourteen (well thirteen plus The Giggling One) non gamers, nearly all of whom I hadn't even met before.

We played with three Werewolves, three Masons, a Seer, and a Bishop. After getting to grips with the first game, everyone was eager to play a second game now that they knew what they were doing and understood the nuances of the game. It was a nice way to end the dinner party, and not just for me.

And that's the great thing about Werewolf: it doesn't matter who you introduce it to - nearly everyone loves it. It's simple, requires just a deck of cards to play, and can be enjoyed with any moderate to large sized group.

It was rather fitting that Werewolf was the game that saw out 2009 for us, with three fun games played (again with Werewolf newbies) leading up to midnight. In actual fact, the third game was postponed part way through to bring in the new year, before The Giggling One began 2010 in style by successfully killing off the remaining villagers without being lynched.


#2 - HoGS

My gaming life would not be what it is without the Hobart Games Society. The group has remained fairly modest throughout the year, with anything from six to sixteen gamers attending the regular games nights.

The Giggling One and I tried to get along to as many as nights as we could, and attended the vast majority of them. Even with two nights a month (the first Friday of the month, and the second Saturday following the first Friday - ie. two weeks and one day later) I'm still feeling like I'm not getting enough gaming. :-)

I'm hoping things may change in 2010. Thanks to Bernd's drive, HoGS is on its way from being a casual meet up to becoming an official organisation. We now have a constitution and everything.

At December HoGS we had our first proper meeting where we began to formalise proceedings. A committee was formed with Bernd as President (and Public Officer), Mark R as Vice President, Christine as Treasurer, and myself as Secretary. Ian T and Ian B also joined the committee as regular members.

I've had my doubts over whether this would ever get off the ground, and we still have much work to do to grow HoGS into something bigger and better. One thing's for sure: we've got a great group of dedicated gamers to lead the way, and that's a promising start.


#1 - My Wedding

This was my number one moment for 2009, gaming or otherwise. Full stop.

The Giggling One and I tied the knot on November 14, 2009 in a beautiful ceremony at Fitzroy Gardens followed by an awesome reception at Barilla Bay. It will certainly be a day I will never, ever, forget.

There are two ties to gaming that this has for me, which is why this qualifies as my number one gaming experience for 2009.

Firstly: fudge. For the bonbonnières at the wedding reception we decided to give our guests small boxes containing fudge. But not just any fudge. Apart from being made using our good friend Brian's secret fudge recipe (he would not divulge the actual quantities of the ingredients even to us (though we got a good look as we helped him make it)), we gave the fudge a gaming theme.

As well as the hearts that The Giggling One insisted we have, we also cut the fudge into dice and meeples. The latter was achieved by finding a person-shaped cookie cutter and working it into the shape of a meeple using pliers. The dice were simple cubes to which we added icing for the dots.

Finally, let me reflect on the second tie my wedding had to gaming. That one is simple, and can be summarised in three words: The Giggling One.

Finding someone to love and spend the rest of my life with is amazing. To have that person share my love of games? I really can't find a word to describe just how majorly, wonderfully cool that is.

My gaming future is bright.
 

Christmas Hoard 2010

It's good to be a gamer at Christmas. You get what you want, and it makes it easier for people to find something for you. Unless of course, they know you are a gamer but not your game preferences and you end up with a bit of a dud. Of course, I cannot confirm or deny whether or not any games I received were duds. I'll let you be the judge, but I did pretty darn well.

We'll start with my wish list. Two months ago I posted about what was on my gaming radar as far as games I'd be happy to be the proud recipient of. I scored three out of the six games that were on that list, so that's a pretty impressive hit rate:

Martian Fluxx

Dice Town

Citadels

Additionally, my sisters chose to fuel my gaming habits with:

Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot plus the Perfectly Pink Booster (this was a gift for both myself and The Giggling One)

and Big Brother (this one doesn't have an entry on Geekdō, so I've now submitted one :-) ).

Finally, there was my and the Giggling One's gift to ourselves: Magic: The Gathering (Magic 2010 edition).

We've already played Martian Fluxx, Dice Town, and Magic. I'll do my best to post reviews in the near (read "distant") future. With any luck, the other games on my wish list may come my way by my birthday in February (hint hint).
 

He shoots, he scores!

Goaaaaaal! Achieved!

At the start of 2009 I set myself the goal of playing at least 15 games a minimum of 3 times each.

That goal was reached on October 2nd. So I can now relax cos I've attained my goal.

But wait just a die rollin' second there matey comes the call. What about Part II of your quest?

Oh. That.

Well, you see, it's like this. Other things got in the way, particularly the planning of a certain wedding to a certain Giggling One in November, and I've deferred the creation of my own game to 2010.

So that will be the quest for 2010. But let's forget about that for now, and reminisce about the 15 games that led me to this momentous(ish) achievement I'm celebrating today:

Agricola, An Evening with Bram Stoker's Dracula, Ca$h 'n Gun$, Carcassonne, Democrazy, Die Macher, Dominion, Dominion: Intrigue, Loopin' Louie, Munchkin, Pandemic, Set, Stone Age, Werewolf, and Zombie Fluxx

Happy days.
 

Pandemic

With the somewhat lengthy period of time since my last update, I'd like to say I've been laid low by H1N1, but I'd just be telling porkies. Instead, I'll offer this excuse: I'm just lazy. Anyway, let's forget that and get on with the latest Up the vacuum thingy review: Pandemic.


One wonders if, upon the worldwide spread of the H1N1 virus that the publishers of Pandemic just had a wee moment of guilty pleasure. I like to think so anyway.

So let's see. Just what exactly is Pandemic and how do you fight it? Well slow down there soldier...or doctor...because you're not going into this alone. You see, we've got your back.

Pandemic is one of what seems to be a growing trend of cooperative games. Sure, co-op games have been around for many years, but with big name titles like Ghost Stories and Pandemic, which was nominated for the 2009 Spiel des Jahres, co-op games are all the rage with the hip gamers.

And I'm nothing if not a hip gamer.

Or is that a geek gamer? Yes, definitely geek.

The object of Pandemic is for the players to run around a board...


...trying to stop four different diseases (in the form of ubiquitous cubes) from running rampant, and ultimately, hopefully cure them.

The problem is that at the end of every turn, more disease cubes are added to the board. Where the outbreaks occur is dependent upon which Infection Cards are drawn.


Each disease originates in a particular part of the world easily discernible by the colour coded board. For example, if the Tehran and Santiago cards, as seen in the picture above, were drawn from the deck then a black cube would be placed in Tehran and a yellow cube in Santiago.

This doesn't stop the colours from spreading to cities of another colour, as any time you would be required to add a cube to a city, and there are already three cubes of that colour in that city, the dreaded outbreak occurs [insert ominous music here].

During an outbreak, one cube of the outbreaking colour must be added to each adjoining city. If you're really unlucky, or just suck at the game, this can have a domino effect if an adjoining city also outbreaks because of this. If you ever hit your eighth outbreak, then it's game over, and not in a good way. You lose.

But wait, that's not all. For the special price of one Epidemic Card things can get a whole lot nastier.

Squirrelled away in the Player Deck (I'll get to that later) are a number of Epidemic Cards. The more you have, the harder the game becomes. Four Epidemics are for beginners or cowards, five cards are for a "normal" game, and six cards are for the "heroic" game. And if that's just not enough, the Pandemic expansion, subtitled On the Brink, actually let's you add a seventh Epidemic for a difficulty level they call "Legendary" and I call "Death Wish".


If you draw one of these bad boys, you have to draw an Infection Card from the bottom of the deck (representing a city that has not been diseased before) and place three cubes of the appropriate colour in that city. Then you shuffle all the Infection Cards in the discard pile (ie. the cities you've already had to put cubes in) and place them back on top of the Infection Card deck. Meaning that the next time you have to draw cards, you're going to be drawing cards you've previously drawn, thus increasing the rate of infection. Ooh, that's dastardly. And clever. I'll pay that one.

By now you're probably wondering how you actually stop the scourge from infecting every darn city in the world and turning everyone into little cubes. Either that, or you followed the link at the start of the review and found out for yourself. Shame on you if you even considered it.

As I mentioned earlier, you get to run around the board doing stuff. Like removing cubes, building research stations and discovering cures. But first, before all of that begins each player is given a special role.


Each role has special abilities. For instance the Dispatcher can move other players' pawns about, and the Medic can remove all cubes of a single colour in a city with just one action (for everyone else it's one action per cube removed).

The special abilities are really where it's at. Utilising these effectively is the key to doing well. In a recent game, I was the Medic, The Giggling One was the Dispatcher, and Mark was the Researcher. On successive turns, The Giggling One flew us all to the same city and used a Special Event card to build a research station there for free, Mark gave me all his cards of one colour, and I cured the disease and then removed all the cubes in that city for free. Sweet.

With each player having four actions available to them each turn, there is a lot of discussion on how to use them. For one action you can move to an adjoining city (or a non-adjoining city if you have the right Player Card in you hand or you're flying from one research station to another), remove one cube from the city you are in, build a research station in your current city (if you have that city's card in your hand), pass a card matching the city you are in to another player in the same city, or cure a disease.

Curing diseases is rather important, because that's the only way you can win the game. You first need to get yourself to a city with a research station, and then discard five cards of the same colour in order to cure the disease of that colour.

Cure all four diseases and you win the game. Hit eight outbreaks, run out of cubes of one colour, or run out of Player Cards and you lose.

Speaking of which, I haven't really explained Player Cards yet have I? I'd better to that now then I suppose.


Player Cards, like Infection Cards, simply depict a city on them. There is one card for each city on the board. Each player starts with some Player Cards and then draws more during each turn after they've taken their four actions.

Player Cards are used primarily to cure diseases, but also as a means of quickly travelling around the board and to build research stations. Once a Player Card is used, it is placed on the discard pile and is not used again. So you always need to think twice before using a card. You may desire to travel to a red city in one action, but if that leaves you short of red cards for a cure then you could be in trouble.

Mixed in with the Player Cards, along with the evil Epidemic Cards, you'll also come across Special Events that give you a free leg up.


Handy dandy.

Pandemic is a lot of fun to play, and I especially enjoy teaming up with people rather than pitting my wits against them. I've played the game three times so far for two wins and one defeat. Take that you insidious diseases!

The first game I played was a two player game with The Giggling One. We played with four Epidemic cards to ease ourselves into the game, and were almost beaten.


As you can see, we very nearly ran out of red cubes with all the infections in Asia. We also fought a losing battle to eradicate yellow and then blue, but we managed to find the fourth cure after hitting the third epidemic and only suffering six outbreaks.

The second game was a three player affair with The Giggling One and Mark, and was pretty much a non contest. We played with five epidemics, and the blue disease simply ran rife. We cured yellow early, but the rest of the game was spent in a futile effort to contain the spread of blue. We ran out of blue cubes just after the third epidemic and lost the game.

The third Epidemic Card didn't even get a chance to come out in the third game. Again with The Giggling One and Mark in a five epidemic game, we fought the diseases as best we could. And this time it was a walk in the park. Only one outbreak occurred by the time we cured the fourth disease.

Which brings me to my final comment. There is a large degree of luck involved with Pandemic. The order the cards come out in is a huge factor. To have played two three-player games with five epidemics, and get slaughtered in one and coast home in the other shows that perhaps the game is a little too luck heavy. Or we just played so much better the second time.

Regardless of the luck factor, Pandemic is still a very enjoyable game, and worthy of the accolades it has achieved. It's currently ranked at number 24 on Board Game Geek which is no small feat. Highly recommended if you'd like to join forces with other players and rid the world of little coloured cubes.
 

Amuse-bouche: A trio to whet the appetite

Three new games recently arrived in the Jeremy/Giggling One household, having winged their way from the US via GatePlay.com (which, freight included, cost less than the best deal I could find in Australia before freight costs!).

First on the list was an expansion I had been hanging out for for some time: Dominion: Intrigue.


I bought the original earlier this year based on reputation alone (and mainly because I couldn't find another game I wanted to purchase with my games shop voucher) even though I wasn't completely sold on the premise.

Having played eight games of Dominion to date (I knew the Games Record on the sidebar would come in handy one day) I'm still not completely taken by the game. Sure it won the 2009 Spiel des Jahres, but I've never really felt it was that good.

Enter Intrigue which completely shakes things up and makes the game so much more interesting. While the base game had only one real strategy (use Copper to buy Silver -> use Silver to buy Gold -> use Gold to buy Provinces), Intrigue adds a whole new set of ways to win.

In particular, the cards that double as Victory Cards and Action Cards add an intriguing (ho ho) level to the desirability of Kingdom card, and with cards like Duke making Duchies worth purchasing, I think I'm going to enjoy this game a whole lot more.

Second on my gotta get list was Pandemic.


Having heard and read a lot about this game, and having seen the accolades it has received, it was an easy decision to purchase Pandemic.

I was also keen to add a co-op game to my collection, and Pandemic fits the bill nicely. I've only played it once so far, in a two player game at the beginner level (four epidemics) with The Giggling One, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I can see that it's going to take some kick arse strategies to beat this game at harder difficulties as we barely won with just four epidemics. Playing with the Dispatcher and Scientist, we were very close to running out of red cubes (only three left).

We found that we were better off trading cards and curing diseases, as trying to eradicate diseases was just too damn frustrating: just when you only have a few cubes of one colour left, a whole new bunch come on to the board in cities you've already cleared.

I'm definitely taking Pandemic to the next HoGS night.

The final game in the trio was one I was not intending to buy, but I'm bloody glad I did. While I was browsing GatePlay's website waiting for Pandemic to come back in stock, I came across Stone Age.


I had read one or two things about Stone Age, and it looked interesting, so I read (and watched) some reviews which helped me make my mind up about it.

Stone Age falls in the "worker placement" genre, and being a big fan of The Pillars of the Earth and Agricola, I thought I would like it.

And I do. As does The Giggling One. We gave this a go in a two player game, and The Giggling One absolutely trounced me. I employed my usual Agricola strategy and concentrated too much on getting extra workers, leaving me with food shortages necessitating sending workers hunting for food instead of obtaining other resources or cards. Don't do that is my advice.

All three games need loving, and will certainly be vying for my attention at coming games nights.
 

Amuse-bouche: Why I'm not sold on Incan Gold

Perhaps my experience of Incan Gold was tainted by the first play when, with a runaway leader going in to the final round, there was no way anyone else was going to win.

With hindsight, I did go into this game expecting greater depth rather than treat it like the light piece of fun that it is designed to be.

The thing is, I do like light, fun, anyone-can-win style games (Zombie Fluxx being a prime example); I just don't like the uncertainty of the whole press your luck genre.

For the uninitiated, Incan Gold is an, erm, Incan themed treasure hunt card game where each turn every player must decide whether they wish to remain in the current round ("exploring the temple") or not. For those that stay in, a card is turned over. If that card contains treasure, those players still in the round share the treasure evenly amongst themselves, with any remainder placed on the card.

If the card turned over is a "danger" (ie. snake, spider, zombie, fire, rock fall), no one receives anything. However, there are three of each type of danger, and should one danger appear for the second time in the round, all players still exploring run screaming from the temple, dropping all their ill gotten gains in the process.

The crux of the game is, therefore, to decide at what point you wish to quit the round so as to safely stow your treasure. Obviously, until at least one danger card appears (they make up just under 50% of the deck) there is no benefit to departing the temple, but once a danger appears, you have to weigh up the risk of remaining in the round, as well as the likely decisions of the other players.

If you are the only player who quits the round on a particular turn, you get to take all the treasure still sitting on the cards that couldn't be divided between the players when it was discovered. Of course, your share diminishes if you depart at the same time as another player, so that's where factoring in the other players' decisions comes in to the equation.

The two games of Incan Gold we played were vastly different, and showed the two types of strategy that I think are likely to succeed. They also illustrated just what a random game this is.

We played with eight players in each game, which in itself makes a huge difference as to how much treasure you get, as more players are likely to leave the temple at the same time as you if the treasure is enticing enough.

One particular player proved to be more reckless, or foolhardy, than everyone else, and was always the last player remaining in each round. As a strategy, it's not the smartest thing to do, but it paid off handsomely in game one. With a massive haul all to himself, he finally left the temple in Round 4 with a total of 37 gems to his name.

This was significantly more than anyone else, and made the final round something of an anticlimax. No one was ever going to reach the same score, so it became a situation where you might as well stay in the round for as long as possible, risks be damned.

The same strategy was applied by this player in the second game, but failed dismally as he finished that game with no treasure what so ever. I found myself employing the same strategy as by that time I didn't really care how I went. I did, however, decide I'd rather not finish scoreless so I jumped out of Round 4 with 13 gems.

Round 5 was another anticlimax when the first four cards dealt were dangers, two of which were the same, so no one scored anything in that round.

Fortunes were reversed in game two as the winner of that game had lost the first. His 32 gems were amassed evenly across the first four rounds, and showed that playing it safe and not being too greedy is also a viable strategy. I'd tried that strategy myself in game one but, like everyone else, had lost out to the whale.

If I hadn't gone on tilt in the second game, I would almost certainly have improved my score. Ultimately, though, Incan Gold just seems a little too random. It's how you and the other players manage that randomness that decides the winner, but because of this it didn't have the fun factor for me.

Take Incan Gold for what it is, and it can be a fun game. The way the games panned out on the night just didn't make it as enjoyable as it otherwise could be. That's not to say I wouldn't play it again, because I would. I'd just lower my expectations a bit and get into the light hearted treasure grabbing romp that it is designed to be.
 

StarCraft: The Board Game

Year 1

Among the planets of the Bellerive sector were eight peaceful orbs, circling lazily around their respective suns, unbothered in their own quiet majesty.

Oh how war changes everything.

The feud that had ensnared much of the galaxy had now come to Bellerive, and things were never going to be the same again.

First to arrive was the Overmind, seeking further resources for its hungry legions. The Zerg Swarm descended upon the world of Tarsonis and began to breed.

With survival on his mind, Jim Raynor also led his Terran forces to the Bellerive sector and set up home on Antiga Prime. He knew the Zerg had already arrived, but beggars can't be choosers. Besides, wasn't there an adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?

With reports of Raynor's new colony reaching him, Arcturus Mengsk wasn't going to let a prime opportunity to lord it over Raynor once more go astray. He brought his own forces in to the sector, and planted the kernel of his new empire on Abaddon.

The picture would not have been complete without the third race in the galactic war. Joining his rivals in the sector was Tassadar, himself a fugitive from the Protoss Conclave, who was on his own personal mission to redeem himself and rid the galaxy of the insidious Zerg. Tassadar's choice of homeworld was the bountiful Torus. While producing the resources he would require to build Tassadar's empire, the planet also found itself bordering the home planets of the two Terran factions. Perhaps this could be turned to his advantage...

After initial allocation of forces, each faction sought to expand its territory immediately. The Overmind sent its Zerglings to the small, but strategically strong Vyctor V; Jim Raynor's new troops were dispatched to Halcyon; Arcturus Mengsk solidified his grip on his end of the sector by establishing a base on Bhckar Ro; while Tassadar sought to tap the resource rich planet of Pridewater.

At the end of Year 1, the Overmind's tactical placements saw the Zerg's yearning for conquest grow more quickly than its rivals, signalling its strength early. Still, the battle for supremacy in the sector had only just begun.

Year 2

An unspoken pact of sorts emerged in the second year of the Bellerive occupation. Each faction further established its two colonies without any conflict taking place.

The threat of conflict, however, was laid down, reminding all that battle was growing nearer.

With Arcturus Mengsk's only path to expansion via Tassadar's planet Torus, the Protoss leader was justifiably wary of an attack from the Terrans. Tassadar's order of troops to Abaddon was one he had no intention of carrying out. Leaving himself vulnerable to a counter attack this early in the war could very well be disastrous, and Tassadar had no desire to leave his existing colonies unprotected.

Tassadar's desire to both ruffle Mengsk and delay the Terran's own orders was successful, but Mengsk wasn't one to fool around, and he had the Protoss very firmly in his sights.

Year 3

Arcturus Mengsk wasn't the only rival eying off the bountiful resource deposits on Torus. Before Mengsk could launch his assault on Torus, he was beaten to the punch.

Seeking new resources, and conscious of the fact that control of just two more resource areas could well cement him victory in the sector, Jim Raynor dropped a force of Marines, Vultures and Wraiths on the two mineral fields on Torus that Tassadar had not protected.

For now, Raynor was content simply to deprive Tassadar of the mineral fields, but the other Terran force was not. With Tassadar's base on Torus unprotected by photon canons, Arcturus Mengsk launched an assault, keen to grab the planet's conquest advantage for himself.

Tassadar was no fool, however, and had a plan of his own. When the Marines and Firebats dropped in on the base, Tassadar withdrew his troops to the safety of the vespene geysers on the other side of the planet. While losing one unit of zealots in the process - the war's first casualty, albeit non-combat - the retreat forced Mengsk to return all bar two of his own units to Abbadon. Tassadar then capitalised with his final action of the year by counter-attacking in force and destroying the token force Mengsk had left behind.

While all the action had focussed on the Terran invasions of Torus during the third year of the war, the Overmind had quietly gone about its own business, as Zerg are wont to do, and had strengthened its bases and units numbers. It was only a matter of time before the Zerg sought further territory...

Year 4

...and that time had come.

With most of Jim Raynor's troops ensconced on Torus, this left Antiga Prime relatively undefended, and ripe for the picking by a gluttonous Zerg army.

The Overmind signalled its intentions early, and with the major threat of a Zerg invasion, Raynor had no choice but to order his own troops back to Antiga Prime from Torus.

While the reinforcements failed to arrive back in time to stop the Zerg force , including a unit of the formidable Ultralisks, from establishing a foothold at the Terran base, they were in sufficient number to launch a strong counter-attack.

It was a vicious battle, with casualties on both sides, but ultimately, Raynor's troops held their own. Just as the battle looked like it could go either way, the last of the Overmind's front line units, an Ultralisk, caught splash damage and was killed in a splatter of gore. With only a Queen remaining, the Overmind was forced to retreat to Vyctor V, lick its wounds, and seek another path to victory.

With Jim Raynor's forces all but removed from Torus, Tassadar seized the opportunity to take back one of the mineral fields. The Marine unit stationed there knew what was coming, but could do nothing to prevent it.

With four years of the war having elapsed, all factions knew the end was near. The time was coming to put one final plan into action that would see the glory of victory.

Year 5

It was not long into the final year of the war, that all sides knew what was at stake. The Terrans, unfortunately, would not be victorious.

Jim Raynor had severely miscalculated his ability to conquer and hold the extra resource areas he required to forge a victory, and it was now impossible for him to come out on top.

Similarly, Arcturus Mengsk, while controlling all areas of Abaddon and Bhckar Ro, had not done enough to secure victory for himself.

It was simplicity itself for Tassadar to move into the two remaining regions on Torus and Pridewater and secure more areas than any other faction. However, even Tassadar's run may have come too late.

Despite its failure to establish a base on a third planet, the Overmind's control of Tarsonis and Vyctor V had given it the conquest advantage it needed. All the Overmind had to do was hold on to its bases on the two planets until the end of the year, and victory would belong to the Zerg.

The Zerg victory was what Tassadar had to avoid. With no help coming from Jim Raynor, now wallowing in his own inability to succeed, the odds were stacked against the Protoss leader. Tassadar amassed his force of Reavers and Zealots on Pridewater and prepared to launch an all-out last-ditch attack on Vyctor V.

It was then that Tassadar realised his mistake.

The Overmind's base on Vyctor V was protected by spore colonies. An attack force could not be landed in the area of the base and had to be dropped on the other side of the planet. Even if Tassadar's troops could have conquered two separate groups of Zerg, he hadn't left himself enough time. He could make it to Vyctor V, but not to the all important Zerg base.

Realising the war was over, Tassadar reluctantly surrendered to the Overmind , watching helplessly as the Zerg swarm claimed the Bellerive sector for their own.

---

The Actual Game Summary

I've eschewed my usual how-to-play-the-game review and instead opted to write a session report because, well, it's more fun.

I was joined at my house in Bellerive (does the name of the sector make sense now?) by Mark, Tim and Christine. Instead of randomly choosing factions, they were chosen on personal preference.

Mark and Christine chose to play with their favourite colours (green and red respectively) meaning Mark was the Overmind and Christine was Arcturus Mengsk. Tim, as the only other player besides me who had played the Starcraft computer game, chose his favourite race, Terran, and so selected Jim Raynor. With a choice of three remaining, I chose to play Protoss and took the yellow forces of Tassadar.

After initial placement, we all expanded to a neighbouring planet, so had two planets each come the end of Round 1. It was at this point, that we realised Mark had the advantage. His two planets gave him 3 conquest points per round, while Tim and I had 2, and Christine had only 1 conquest point.

Round 2 was fairly uneventful, with all players improving bases and adding units to the board. I did place one move order on the top of the stack on Christine's planet of Abaddon, but that was really just to mess around with her and force her to take a couple of event cards when her actions were blocked.

Christine, whose two planets bordered only my planet of Torus, took action in Round 3, and placed orders on Torus. Later in the order placement phase, Tim placed a move order on Torus as well.

Tim, unfortunately, misunderstood the special victory conditions. He mistook "Round 3" for "Stage 3" and thought that if he captured the two empty mineral areas on Torus that he would have the six resource areas he needed to win.

Christine then attacked the conquest point area of Torus where my base was located. Fortunately, I had an event card that allowed me to retreat without engaging in battle. I moved my units to the gas area, and had to lose one Zealot due to the unit limit, but Christine had to return all except two units to Abbadon. I then executed a move order and succeeded in defeating Christine's remaining units.

Mark, whose special victory conditions required him to have bases on three planets, saw an opportunity and placed orders on Antiga Prime at the start of Round 4. Tim, who had moved most of his units from Antiga Prime to Torus in the previous round had to move them back again. Mark captured the conquest point oarea of Antiga Prime, and looked like he might hold on, especially with an Ultralisk assisted by a Queen.

Despite failing to defeat the Ultralisk, Tim had played a splash damage in the other skirmish won by his Vulture. The splash damage took out the Ultralisk, and the Queen was forced to retreat because it is an assist unit.

Mark didn't actually need the third base to win. He'd been receiving 3 conquest points each round and at the end of Round 4 was on 12 points. If he held on to his planets, he'd claim the 3 points again in Round 5 to reach the 15 needed to achieve a normal victory.

Both Christine and myself had a special victory in our grasp, but as Christine had fewer conquest points than me, she couldn't win. Tim just didn't have the forces to take the extra areas he needed.

The problem I had was that the check for a normal victory is made before a special victory at the end of a round. Therefore, I had to prevent Mark from getting his three conquest points. For my first order placement in Round 5, I placed my special move order on Vyctor V. My plan was to attack Mark's base there directly.

Unfortunately, as related in the story above, I didn't realise that Mark had the spore colony protecting his base, meaning I could only attack that area if I already had units on the same planet. That required two move orders: one to move to the second area on Vyctor V (and battle Mark's forces there), and the other to move to the base. As I'd only placed one move order on the planet I couldn't do that, so it was impossible for me to win even if I could defeat his forces.

So, Mark was the winner and he received congratulations from the losers.

I was left feeling somewhat underwhelmed by the game. I felt as if my choices were limited and that the grand scale on which a game like this ought to be played just wasn't there.Ultimately, it seemed that the game came down to the initial planet layout. Mark claimed planets that gave him 3 conquest points each round, and that is ultimatley what decided the game.

The game took a good four plus hours to play, and yet we only had five rounds. I felt like I wanted to do so much more. I only built three types of units, and was left thinking the game could have been so much more if only I had a chance to develop my base more, or build different units.

And yet, now that I've had time to digest the game, rethink my strategy, and work out what I could have done differently, the game is growing on me. A good game gives you an array of choices in a limited timeframe, and it's how you approach these choices that affect the game.

I imagine StarCraft would play out very differently with six players and twelve planets rather than the fours players and eight planets we played with. I think I'd like to try that one day. I don't think I've even scratched the surface of what a strong Protoss strategy can do. If the game can serve that up, then I'm willing to chow down on more StarCraft action. Bad metaphors aside, what I mean is that, while I'm not entirely convinced I like this game, I'm willing to give it another chance.

Caylus

"Caylus": not the most gripping of titles for a game. Despite this, Caylus has fought off plenty of more intriguing sounding games to hold on to the number 9 spot on the Board Game Geek rankings. And, you can even buy the t-shirt.


Caylus is one of those games for thinkers; one of those games where the term "analysis paralysis" is particularly apt. It presents you with choices - limited at first but increasing as the game goes on - that lead to a frustrating want-to-do-everything-but-can't-afford-to-and-if-I-don't-do-that-then-someone-else-will-and-it's-just-not-fair-damnit.

Ultimately, your goal is to earn more prestige points (effectively victory points) than anyone else. You do this by accumulating resources and then using those resources to build buildings and/or build part of a castle. Of course, everyone else is trying to do the same thing, and once that castle is built it's game over and you hope you've done enough to win.

Of course, to do all of this, we need a pretty board to play on. Here's one I prepared earlier:


What? That monster? Wait, no. That's the Essen ye-olde-gigantic-3D-rific version. Here's what we peasants play on:


As you can see we've got a kick-arse castle at the top, and a path that leads down through a village, and across a bridge, before winding gracefully down through lush green pastures.

As the game progresses, those empty squares will be filled with buildings. The first six after the bridge are filled at the start of the game, with the remaining empty spaces filled during the game when players decide to build.

The buildings themselves give various benefits from producing resources (food, wood, stone, cloth or gold), to trading resources for money or vice versa, to allowing new types of buildings to be placed on the board.


Each building generally has a cost, a reward for building, and some sort of output (what you get from that building), though there are exceptions (aren't there always?).

Say you wanted to build a farm. That's the wooden building in the middle of the bottom row in the picture above. It will cost you one wood and one food to build (as indicated by the cubes in the top left of the tile), reward you with 2 prestige points (per the top right of the tile), and will produce either two food (mmm...pork) or one cloth when it is utilised.

Which leads, in a nice little segue, to a quick explanation of how buildings are utilised.

Each player has six workers. Taking it in turns, players place one worker at a time on a building. Most buildings can only have one worker on them. Once everyone has placed all the workers they wish to (there may not be enough buildings or you might not have enough money (placing workers costs money) to place all of your workers) then each building with a worker is resolved from the castle downwards and whoever placed their worker on a building gets the benefit from it.

Just because you built a building (you get to place a little house on the tile to signify you own it) doesn't mean other players can't place their worker there. In fact, it can be handy if they do, because every time another player uses one of your buildings you earn a prestige point. Not only that, but some buildings also reward the owner with resources if another player's worker is placed there. Sweet.

So far it's looking relatively straight forward right? You place workers on buildings - those buildings give you resources or money, or the right to buy another building. Of course, it's not that simple.

Firstly, the buildings between the castle and the bridge are special and have some, er, special benefits. In particular, the Stables allow you to change the order of play, which doesn't change otherwise. The Inn lets you place all your workers for 1 denier (the game's currency), even if you would have to pay more.

The Merchant's Guild lets you move the provost up and down the road.

The what? Pronounced "prov-uhst", the provost is a sneaky little bugger that players can move along the road in order to prevent other players from activating buildings. When it comes time to get the benefit from a building on which you've placed a worker, and that building is further away from the castle than the provost is, then bad luck - you ain't gettin' a sausage from that building. Ouch.

Another of the special buildings is the Joust Field. Placing a worker here gives you - for the cost of 1 denier and 1 cloth - a royal favour (or "favor" if you want to be true to the Americanised rules).

Favours are pretty darn handy in this game, and are another way to gain stuff. Gaining favours allows you to move a marker of your colour along one of the four favour tracks (the grid in the top right of the game board). Here's a close-up:


There are multiple ways to gain favours in Caylus, and you'll want to utilise them as best as possible. Each time you gain a favour, you can advance a token further along one of the favour tracks for a bigger and better reward.

The top favour track gives you bonus prestige points; the second track gives you deniers; the third gives you resources; while the fourth lets you buy buildings at reduced cost. All nice things to have.

Now, that just leaves me with one last thing to address: the castle. When it comes to your turn to place a worker, instead of choosing a building space, you can elect to place a worker in the castle.

After all the other workers have collected their goodies during a round, anyone who placed a worker in the castle can now build part of the castle. You do this by spending three resources (one food and two other resources) and placing a house of your colour in one of the spaces beneath the castle.

Not only are you rewarded with prestige points for giving a batch of your hard earned resources to the castle, but the more you give, the more favours you get.

It's certainly rewarding to spend resources this way, but with a limited amount of resources at your disposal, you need to decide whether it is better to invest those resources elsewhere, particularly by paying to place a building that will reward you with more points down the track.

So it comes down to those aforementioned analysis paralysis decisions...

"I can place my worker there, which will give me that resource, and I can then afford to build that stone building, but that means I'll have to place a worker over there as well, and someone else might go there, so do I go there first and hope someone doesn't take the resource I want, or do I take the resource first, or do I spend the resources at the castle instead and hope it's enough to gain a favour? Oh, and do I want to save some money in case I need to move the provost, or will I hope no one moves it? Also, I'd really like to go first next round, but if I go in the stables now I might not be able to get the gold that I need if I'm going to have enough for the prestige building later on."

And so on.

If this is your thing, then go for it. Caylus is a lot of tactical fun, especially when you're playing with people of a similar disposition for this kind of game. I've played the game twice now: one 2-player and one 5-player game, and I'm starting to see the strategies involved and I'm most certainly intrigued to play again.

While I haven't covered every little nuance of the game (like scoring the castle sections and movement of the bailiff), I reckon you'd probably know whether this is your sort of game or not.

As for me, I definitely like it. It has a similar sort of feel to The Pillars of the Earth with worker placement choices, giving ample opportunity for experimentation with varying strategies.

The best laid plans can go awry with opponents' workers blocking or delaying your cunning plan, and it's the necessity to constantly adapt your strategy that I find so damn frustrating yet so enjoyable.

Get the right crowd, like this one, and it's a damn good game:


 

Dominion

Dominion is one of those games that falls squarely in the category of "I really want to love this game, but I'm not sure that I can".

Let me explain.


On the face of it, Dominion is a fairly simple card game with the appearance of containing a deeper game within, with potentially clever underlying strategic gameplay. It's ranked very highly on Board Game Geek (currently sitting at Number 6), and this, combined with its plaintive "Buy me! You know you want to!" cry when I saw it on the shelf at the game shop led me to obtain my own copy, despite knowing little else about it.

I had already read that Dominion was promoted as a card game with all the fun of a CCG (collectible card game) without all the hassle of, well, constant card collecting. While I've never played a physical CCG before, I have dabbled online with Magic: The Gathering in the past so I knew a thing or two about the game mechanics of a CCG.

Having said that, let me make one thing clear. Other than drawing and playing cards from your own stack, Dominion has nothing in common with Magic: The Gathering. The latter is quite complex and can lead to cunningly complicated strategies. Dominion is a wannabe, that doesn't get close to the same level.

OK, so it sounds bad right? Well as long as you don't try to compare it with Magic like I just did, then you should find the game enjoyable. Just don't look for anything deep.

And that's where Dominion has so far fallen a little short for me. I have, admittedly, only played the game three times (two 2-player games, and one 4-player game) and I'm yet to play with all the different sets. Yet I'm not convinced any particular combination of the game's Kingdom Cards will make this game as exiting as I'd like it to be.

A rundown of Dominion's gameplay seems appropriate at this point, so let's do that.

The object of this game is to collect cards. An array of cards are placed face-up on the table for all players to purchase during the game. As the game goes on, you'll buy these cards and place them in your deck (every player has their own deck) and use them to purchase more cards. Your deck will keep growing until the the end of the game.

At the end of the game, everyone adds the points on any Victory Cards they have in their deck and the person with the most points win.

I'll get to Victory Cards shortly, but before I do that it's worth noting how each turn works. It's quite simple really: you get to play one Action from your hand, then you get to buy any card from the table, then you discard your entire hand and draw five new cards. When you run out of cards to draw, you shuffle your discard pile into a new draw deck.

Actions are found on what are called Kingdom Cards. During the game you can purchase these on your turn during the Buy phase, place them in your discard pile, and after they get shuffled into your deck, you'll draw them into your hand on a later turn and can then play them during your Action phase.

There are a total of 25 Kingdom Cards (you'll need to click on the pictures to read the cards):



Looking at these, most cards give bonuses like letting you draw more cards into your hand, letting you play more actions, or giving you more coins to spend during the Buy phase.

The thing is, only ten of these 25 sets will be available in each game. Ten copies of each card are available for purchase during the game, so once a particular card has been bought ten times, the pile will run out and no one else can buy another copy of the card.

This seems to lend itself to a plethora of different options during games doesn't it? Unfortunately, in my limited experience that's not entirely true. There isn't a great deal of interaction between cards (and virtually none between players) and once you hit on an optimal strategy, there will probably be some cards you won't even bother with.

I mentioned earlier that you can buy Victory Cards as well. Victory Cards have both good and bad qualities. They are good because (obviously) they give you Victory Points which you need to win. They are bad, however, because once they are in your deck they are useless until the end of the game, and therefore take up valuable space in your hand that could otherwise be taken by a more useful card.

Victory Cards come in three types: Estates (worth 1 VP), Duchies (worth 3 VP), and Provinces (worth 6 VP):


By and large, you'll want Provinces and not want Estates. It seems a little counter-intuitive at first to avoid collecting Estates (because they're Victory Points right?), but if you're going to clog up your hand with cards that you can't use, you're far better purchasing a Province than an Estate.

A similar principle applies to Treasure Cards. In order to purchase cards, you'll need coins.


As you can see, Treasure Cards come in Copper, Silver, and Gold. Everyone starts with seven Copper cards in their deck, and if you're at all serious about winning you'll need to use these to purchase Silver and Gold cards as soon as possible.

Silver and Gold cards are much more valuable than Copper, because when you only have a hand of five cards during each turn, the more coins you have, the better the card you can purchase. You're not going to be able to buy a Province with a handful of Coppers.

And there you have it. Each turn you'll have five cards in your hand, and hope that you have either a slew of Silver and Gold coins to buy the good cards, or an Action Card or two to boost your buying power.

Buying power, you see, is really what this game comes down to. In order to win, most of the time you'll need more Province Cards than anyone else. Each Province costs 8 coins to buy, so your best bet is to manage your deck in order to maximise the number of times you'll draw a hand of five cards that will net you at least 8 coins.

That's why I don't think Dominion is quite as deep, or good, as it appears. Yes, you need to work out which Action cards can benefit you in your quest, but ultimately it comes down to getting as many coins into your hand each turn as possible. Purchasing low value cards (like Estates or Coppers) that don't do much is next to useless.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a greater depth to Dominion that I am yet to discover. Certainly cards like the Witch or Gardens change things up a bit (and the latter admittedly does encourage stacking your deck with as many cards as you can), and I'm hoping that playing this game more (and perhaps the upcoming expansion) will change my perception.

I certainly intend to find out.
 

Die Macher

Could you really blame me if, when asked to play a game about German politics, I was a little trepidatious? I didn't think so. Politics leaves me indifferent at the best of times, and I don't exactly jump for joy at the thought of an election.

So why is it then, that playing a game in which you represent a political party vying to outdo your opponents over the course of seven elections is actually quite enjoyable?

I'll tell you why. Strategy. If you ignore the political dressing, the game comes down to a series of interesting and clever strategic and tactical choices that you use to boost your score. Have the highest score at the end of the game, and you'll be the champion of Die Macher.


For the heads up on this five hour monster of a game, I suggest you do what I did: head over to Board Games with Scott and download Scott's excellent video review (it goes for about an hour). You can, of course, stay here instead and get the Up the vacuum thingy take on Die Macher.

One of the first things I asked myself when I was approached to play this game was "Five hours? Are you mad?". And after I realised that I was, I then wondered what "Die Macher" actually meant in English. So I typed "die macher" into Babel Fish, which translated it to "more macher". Not particularly helpful.

I then tried translating "Die Macher" on the chance that capital letters might help. What do you know, I was right. This time it spat out "The doers". Which is quite appropriate because I was about to play a game where I'd be doing a lot of stuff.

With that in mind let's take a quick (and I use the word "quick" advisedly) squiz at the stuff with which you'll be doing the, er, other stuff.


These are (most) of the bits and pieces that the green player starts with. The game can accomodate up to five players, each representing a political party in one of five colours: black, yellow, red, green and pink. Yes, pink. I do believe this is the first time I've ever seen a pink player in a board game.

There are various cubes and flattened cubes which you use to keep track of various things on the boards; there are cards representing your shadow cabinet, bribes and various denominations of Euros; and there are little tiles used to tell you what your party name is, and to indicate that you are up for a coalition during an election (that's the telephones - no face-to-face shenanigans here).

In addition to the stuff pictured above, you get five cards representing your party's policies. Essentially, these cards are used to show whether your party is either for...


...or against...


...five (of seven) particular issues (eg. nuclear power, genetic engineering, taxes, social security etc).

Now, if you're like me and party politics leave you cold, then don't worry. The issues represented on the cards aren't really the focus here. You see, this is really just a card matching game dressed up in political clothing.

You don't really care whether your party is for or against nuclear power. All you're trying to do is match your cards as best as possible with the four issue cards in each state.



Each of the seven elections during the game has four public opinion cards associated with it (though these can be changed during the game). As the idea is to get as many votes as you can in each election, matching your party's policies to each state's issues is the key to doing well.

Exact matches are good, while opposing cards are bad. For example, if one of your cards has the white square tomato card, and one of the public opinion cards in an election is the red square tomato card, then it means the public aren't digging your policies (or your tomatoes).

Don't fret though, because you have the power to change public opinion, and if you play your cards right (literally) those ignorant voters will soon come around to your way of thinking.

One way to do that is via media control. During the game you'll get the chance to become your media mogul/despot of choice by placing media markers (they're the big cubes you start with) on the various election boards.

Each election board can have up to five media markers on it, and if you have more than any other player, then you control the media in that state. And that means power (cue maniacal laugh). Once per turn any player with media control in a state may switch out one public opinion card, and replace it with another, preferably one matching their own.

You know what? I think it's time we looked at the board itself to see exactly what we're dealing with.

Each election board looks a little something like this:


You may notice the card hanging off the bottom of the board. That's a State card and determines what state the current election is for. What this really means is the card determines how many points the current election is worth.

Not all elections are created equal, and each state is worth a different number of points per seat you win. Here are some examples:


With a maximum of 50 seats available to win in each election, you have to pick and choose your battles. You won't be able to win the 50 seats in every election so it makes sense to save your resources for the elections that'll earn you the most points.

In the example cards above, winning 50 seats in Hessen will get you 48 points, whereas you'll get 60 points if you win the same number of seats in Freistat Bayern. Therefore, winning Freistat Bayern is more valuable than Hessen.

With the cards coming out randomly, and quite a few more than seven state cards in the deck, the points on offer varies from game to game.

OK, so concentrating on more valuable elections is generally a good thing (so expect your opponents to be doing it as well), but how exactly do you win seats in an election?

That, my friend, comes down to two things: meetings and multipliers.

Think of meetings as chances to meet and greet the public. The more you get out there kissing babies, the more people are going to vote for you. You have to fork out €1,000 for each meeting, but without them you're not going to get far.

Once per turn, you'll get a chance to plonk down up to four meeting markers (little cubes) on any of the four election boards, though you can't exceed ten in any one election.

Which leads us to the multipliers. When you count the seats won in an election, you multiply the number of meeting markers in that state by the magic multiplier number.

OK, so it's not really magic. The multiplier is calculated by taking your popularity level in a state, adding the number of your party's policies that match the opinion cards, and subtracting the number of your party's policies that are opposite to any opinion cards (you'll have one or more policy cards that don't match or oppose the opinion cards, and they are ignored).

But what is this popularity level of which I speak? Is it not the same as matching public opinion? No, it's not.

Let's have a gander at the election board again:


Notice those pretty coloured columns? They are used to keep track of each player's popularity in the state. You start of in the middle of each popularity scale (worth 0), and can either increase your popularity (to +2 or +3) or decrease your popularity (to -2 or -3).

Obviously, an increase in popularity is good as it increases your multiplier at vote counting time.

Let's have an example to clarify. Say you have placed the maximum ten meeting cubes on that board. Say that you have also increased your party's popularity to +2. Say, also that two of your policy cards match opinion cards on the board, but one of your policy cards is opposed to another of the opinion cards. In this case your multiplier will be + 2 + 2 - 1 = 3. The number of seats you will gain in the election is therefore 10 x 3 = 30.

If those 30 seats are more than anyone else, you win the election. Woohoo! Don't celebrate too early though as you'll find that the maximum 50 seats will be won by at least one player in almost every election.

Once everyone's counted their seats, these are then converted to points as per the state card. Everyone can get points regardless of whether they win the election or not. Which is not only nice, but an essential way to keep your score ticking over if you know you're not going to win an election.

And it's then rinse and repeat for seven elections (although the seventh election count is conducted immediately following the sixth, so you have less time to influence the result).

And that's how the game works. You play cards and cubes that let you affect opinions and popularity in each state in order to maximise the number of seats you gain in each election, and thus maximise your score.

At any one time, there are four elections (one current and three future) that can be affected/manipulated, so you'll actually have four election boards on the table like so:


Now for the sake of brevity and simplicity I have deliberately skipped over a few other elements of the game, such as the national opinion board (which tracks national opinions and party membership numbers), shadow cabinet cards, opinion polls and bribe cards, but you should get the idea.

What? You want to know about these things too? Well alright then, but only because I went to the trouble of finding these pictures and it would be a shame to waste them.


For the cost displayed on each shadow cabinet card, you may play that card to a particular state during the designated phase of each turn, and take one of the actions on the card. Actions can be things like extra seats in an election, or replacing someone else's media marker with your own, or increasing your popularity in that state. All quite handy, but these cards can only be used once each during the game.

Opinion polls are available for blind auction (you can't see what you're buying during the bidding) each turn and let you take one or two of the actions on the card:


If you win the auction you get to see the card, and if you're lucky one of the options will be to boost your own party's popularity. If not, you can always elect not to publish the poll, and instead roll two dice to increase your party membership.

And then there are bribes, or should I say "party contributions":


You can use these to get yourself some extra cash at the expense of party membership, or show what an upstanding party you are and ignore the money to increase your membership.

If you're still with me, then well done. As I said at the start, if you're not into politics and you can see through the politics to the strategy beneath, it's actually a good, challenging game.

Die Macher is not for the casual gamer. Don't try to jump your new gamer friend straight from Carcassonne to Die Macher - you may fry their brain. You have to have some gaming pedigree behind you, and the willingness to sit down for five hours (our first game actually took six) to see it through to the end.

If you like your games on the strategy heavy side of the spectrum, then you'll probably get a kick out of Die Macher. Just pretend it's about vying with evil aliens for control of the Galactic Council and it'll be a blast.