Brad Keen: Convention Report – Saturday at CABS

On March 28th, I returned to my boardgaming roots, if you will pardon the expression, and traveled back to Columbus Ohio to attend a CABS (Columbus Area Board Gaming Society) Saturday gaming session. These special gaming sessions are held on the last Saturday of most months. For more information, you can checkout the CABS 2008 Schedule.

CABS opens its doors at 10 a.m. and keeps them open until the last Board member decides that it’s time to close up for the night. If you are unfamiliar with the club, it may strike you as odd that I am calling a regularly schedule club meeting a convention, but CABS is one of the largest game clubs in America, and possibly the world. Its bi-weekly meetings on the first and third Fridays of every month typically draw around 100 attendees and last from 3 p.m. unil as late (or early) as 3 a.m.

The CABS gaming library – currently maintained by official librarian, Nathan Morse – includes every currently in print title by Rio Grande Games (plus many not in print), Days of Wonder, as well as hundreds of games by other publishers. The grand total, which can be seen in full on BoardGameGeek, is 756 games! Nathan, by the way, has done an excellent job updating the process of tracking games played, to the extent that he has incorporated a computer with a scanner. Now, whenever you want to play a game, you scan the barcode and the game is automatically checked out of the library!

While I could probably write a convention report for any CABS meeting, as they are just that much fun, the Saturday meetings are truly special. This one even included a small flea market and a math trade. Some intrepid gamers even sent out e-mails ahead of time to set up longer games. Many of the Saturday meetings also have an onsite games vendor. The cost of the Saturday meeting is free for members and $3 for non-members, with yearly membership dues costing $35. This is a bargain in itself, considering that this fee will provide you with an excellent location for bi-weekly gaming, a nice name badge, and the ability to borrow games from CABS’ extensive library. More gaming clubs should incorporate name tags into their meetings, as they are an excellent way to facilitate meeting new people. Membership also entitles you to a highly discounted registration at Origins. If you plan on attending Origins, the CABS membership is basically free. CABS also runs a yearly convention, the Buckeye Game Fest, and a membership will discount registration for this convention as well. I don’t live in Columbus Ohio anymore, yet I continue to pay my yearly dues largely for these reasons.

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If this introduction sounds like an ad for CABS, perhaps it is. I was introduced to board games at Origins two years ago while earning my MA in sociology at Ohio State University. Before that, I had been an avid Magic: the Gathering player. My interest in the game waxed and waned over the years, but grad school seemed to put that final damper on both my interest and my ability to stay current with the game. I had even skipped attending Origins in 2005, for the first time since 2001. In 2006, I made sure to attend, since I was practically living down the street from the convention center. My friend Chris Tandlmayer made the trip as well, and he started talking about this new type of board game that he was playing. We demoed some Mayfair titles and got our free copies of Conquest of Pangea from Immortal Eyes, and I thoroughly enjoyed a game of Aqua Romana at the Rio Grande Games booth. I was hooked, and after Origins I started looking for people to game with in Columbus, quickly stumbling upon CABS.

At my first CABS meeting, I was promptly greeted by Bud Sauer, who showed me around the meeting place and, more importantly, introduced me to some gamers in need of a fourth player. This personal interest in newcomers sets CABS apart from many other gaming clubs, and it made me feel 100% welcome. That night, I met most of the members of my quintessential Columbus gaming group: Nate, Pam, and Laura. Ironically, I had been taught Conquest of Pangea by Nate at the Immortal Eyes booth. I enjoyed over a year’s worth of wonderful gaming with CABS and my gaming group. After I finished my Masters in June 2007, I made the difficult decision to move back home to Harrisburg, and I have since hooked up with some great gamers and the Central PA Game Club. I have a gaming group that meets weekly at my house and I try to attend the CPAGC meetings as often as possible. I always have a great time, but I definitely miss my Ohio friends and CABS, and I eagerly anticipated this trip back to reunite with them, if only for a couple of days.

CABS is an excellent organization, and I’d recommend checking out one of its meetings if you have the chance.To find out more about its history, visit the club’s official and unofficial websites. I’d also suggest tuning in to Episode 71 of The Dice Tower, in which Tom Vasel interviews Bud Sauer. CABS was also featured recently on a morning news program, the segments of which can be seen on YouTube.

The Trip and the Games

I took Friday the 28th off, left in the morning for the six-hour drive, and arrived at Nate’s house around 3 or 4 – exhausted but also immediately greeted by Nate, Pam, and Lara, who were already delving into a learning game of La Citta. We ordered some dinner and then got back to the directions.

La Citta – Recently back in print, La Citta is a fun game of civilization building, in which each player works to expand their multiple territories while maintaining enough food to feed their villagers and keeping their population from wandering off to other player’s cities. As the cities expand, player conflict increases and you are forced to specialize in those cultural attributes that will keep your population from corssing the city limits while also balancing the building so that you can maximize points. I thoroughly enjoyed my first play of La Citta and look forward to playing it again.

Final Score: Laura (34), Brad (30), Pam (29), Nate (28)

Mall World – Next up was this game by Andrea Meyer, which I recently reviewed on BGN. Briefly, Mall World is a 3D game of tile laying with players trying to complete card-dictated patterns of colored tiles and chips that are placed on those tiles. A major portion of a player’s final score is gained through the completion of a secret goal randomly distributed to each player before the start of the game. Although I enjoy this game most with three people, our four-player game was a lot of fun, and Laura jumped off to an early lead. Nate, however, cashed in big at the end of the game by completing many multiples of his secret goal, giving him a well deserved victory.

Final Score: Nate (83), Laura (68), Pam (67), Brad (64)

Rosenkonig – Pam and Laura left after Mall World, so Nate and I decided to play one of my favorite of the Kosmos two-player games, Rosenkonig. This highly abstracted simulation of the War of the Roses features a 9x9 board onto which tokens with a red and white side are placed. The goal of the game is to create groups of tokens of your color that score points at the end of the game. You place your tokens onto the board using an exposed hand of cards. On your turn you can either play a card, allowing you to place a token onto the board, you can draw a card, or you can use one of your special action cards. The game usually ends when there are no tokens left to place onto the board.

Again, I highly enjoy this game. I think that the open hand mechanism is very interesting and I like to plan out my moves based on what I can visibly see are my opponent’s available moves. I won the first game by a very large margin, but it is a game that takes more than one play to get used to. The reported final scores were calculated after removing areas of the same size to save time.

Final Score: Brad (169), Nate (37)

The next morning, March 29th, Nate suggested that we play again, and he was almost able to maneuver his way to victory. I bet that if I had given him one more go, he would have gotten the victory.

Final Score: Brad (190), Nate (182)

Metropolys – In the latest Ystari game, designed by Sébastien Pauchon – also known for Animalia and Yspahan, players try to gain control of different territories on the board by placing their bid markers in the various sections. A player will start the bidding process by placing his marker in one of the cities, then each player can either place a larger marker in an adjacent territory or pass. When all players have either passed or no further placement options are available, the piece that was placed last stays on the board and the others are removed and returned to the players’ supplies. I have looked forward to playing this game for a long time and the implementation at Jeux Sur un Plateau was great. Thankfully Nate had two computers set up and he taught me the game while we played. I cannot wait for it to arrive in the states so that I can pick up my own copy.

Final Score: Nate (38), Brad (36)

After finishing the game, it was time to head to the CABS meeting. Not a bad start to a Saturday: we had already gotten in two great games and a full day of gaming was ahead of us.

Amyitis – Anyone who has heard my audio comments on the Garrett’s Games and Geekiness podcast knows that I am a huge fan of the Ystari line of games. Amyitis was not an exception and may be my favorite of the lot. It plays much quicker than Caylus, yet I believe that the depths of the two games are comparable.

In Amyitis, players compete to build the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. They employ workers, priests, and merchants to collect different trade goods, camel tokens, and coins, all essential parts of the building process. I have played the game a number of times now and I still enjoy trying out many different yet viable paths to victory. In this play, I didn’t feel like I got the “engine” running quick enough, and I was always a turn or two behind the other players. I decided to try to build up my palaces, after noticing that there were a number of tiles on the board that gave away upgrades, and I raced to an early lead by grabbing the highest banker card, but I did not plant enough in the garden and was punished by this in the end. Frustrating, but it was still a great time. Nate had played the game before, but Pam and Laura were playing for the first time. However, Laura took a lead and pulled out the victory.

Final Score: Laura (45), Nate (40), Brad (33), Pam (30)

Pam and Laura were famished and we disbanded to get some lunch following the game. Nate took me to a great restaurant for burritos and we returned to CABS ready for more gaming.

Perikles – I have played only two Martin Wallace games: Perikles and Tempus. Of the two, Perikles is my favorite, but the rules make the game quite complicated. I was the only person in our group of five (once we were joined by Pam’s husband, Jason) who had played before, but it had been some time since I had last played. After taking way too long to explain the game, and doing an awful job of it, we got down to business.

I realize now that we played with some rules wrong. Specifically, I did not enforce the rule that, in a round, you cannot take a tile of the same color more than once; I said only that you could not take a tile of the same color in back to back turns. This would have dramatically altered the game play, and I do look forward to playing with the correct rule. Anyhow, Athens was hit hard in the first turn, and harder in the second, ending the game early. Because of this, I actually ended up winning the game, which is interesting because I had hoped that it would go onto the third turn while Pam and Laura actually pushed to end it early thinking that they would pull out the lead. I think that everyone enjoyed the game, but again, rule difficulties made it somewhat hard to tell. I would like to play Perikles again soon.

Final Score: Brad (43), Pam (42), Laura (40), Jason (40), Nate (30)

After Perikles, it was time for the math trade, the third one that CABS has sponsored and the second that Nate has run largely by himself. He did an excellent job, and I ended up trading away Aquadukt, Relationship Tightrope, Alibi, Slide 5, and Slamwich in exchange for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ra, Saga, Buy Low Sell High, and Ceasar and Cleopatra. Outside of the math trade, I was able to trade another copy of Aquadukt for Dungeon Twister. Finally, in the flea market, I picked up an unsealed but un-punched copy of Submarine and Spy for $5. I have since played and enjoyed both games.

De Ontembare Stadt – After the trading and buying, our group got back together for a game of The Indomitable Citadel. The game is very reliant on cards and entirely in German. This isn’t too difficult as I’ve printed out some decent player aids and translations, but the initial teaching session would be easier if the game were in English.

The game focuses on players taking over plots of land on the circular board and building various buildings on those plots. These buildings earn prestige points as well as income, which is then used to buy more plots and build more buildings. Although the game is a bit lighter than most of the games I enjoy, and luck can produce some drastic swings in the game, I do enjoy it. It is definitely a game that I could recommend for family gaming, assuming that your family members can handle some of the direct conflict that can result from some of the overly harsh influence cards. I got off to an early lead in the game, but some vengeful card playing between myself and Laura ended up paving the way for Nate to finish off the game with the an impressive lead.

Final Score: Nate (27), Jason (22), Pam (20), Laura (17), Brad (15)

Schwarzarbeit – After grabbing dinner at a great Mediterranean/Indian restaurant, we sat back down for two games of Schwarzarbeit. Our first game was with five players, and although I enjoy this game tremendously with three or four, I did not like it with five. Schwarzarbeit is a quick deduction game where players take on the roll of gaming industry bigwigs, trying to hire as many legal workers as possible while simultaneously figuring out which workers the other players are illegally hiring. I can generally keep track of the deduction elements of the game with fewer players, but five players felt too chaotic. I think that I was also growing tired at this point, and I again did not do an excellent job with the rules.

Final Score: Laura (18), Pam (13), Nate (15), Brad (12), Trent (8)

Following the first game, Pam and Laura headed home, but I was able to talk Nate and Trent into a rematch. I had a much better time this game, and I was actually able to make some correct deductions – imagine that! Trent did much better as well, and I think that Nate started to understand the flow of the game. I sure hope he did, since he won!

Final Score: Nate (24), Trent (22), Brad (21)

It was now getting late, so Nate and I packed up our games and headed back to his place. I woke up early the next morning, said goodbye to Nate, and started the long journey back home. In sum, I had a great time. I want to say a special thanks to Nate for giving me a place to stay for the weekend and to Pam and Laura for showing up to the reunion. Also, I need to say thank you to CABS for running another great event, and I can’t wait to see everyone again at Origins!!

Final Attendance: 110 Gamers

More pics from this outing are available on the BuckeyeBoardgamers.org website.

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