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Convention Report: The Gathering of Friends 2007: April 2, 2007
By W. Eric Martin
April 9, 2007
Don’t take the date listed at the top of this report too seriously. Time flows in an odd way in the meeting rooms where the Gathering takes place because the rooms are on the lower level of the hotel, which shuts them off from natural light. As a result, you suffer the casino effect where you lose track of time and suddenly discover that it’s five in the morning and you forgot to eat dinner, yet you’re still completely wired for the next game. Luckily the sensation doesn’t happen only to me or else I wouldn’t have opponents for the next game waiting to be discovered.
In what has become a tradition, Days of Wonder is presenting its first-half-of-the-year release at the Gathering. Wolfgang Kramer and Markus Lübke’s Colosseum was set up on the table ready to go—a state it remained in all week—so I offered to teach, given that I had read the rules earlier that day.
At heart, Colosseum is a set collection game in which players need to collect certain assets in order to put on events and attract spectators; whoever has attracted the most spectators at a single event by the end of the game wins. Many people have compared the game to Princes of Florence, both because of the Kramer connection and the collection of assets to fuel the scoring of events/works.
The gameboard depicts a circular track with starting spaces for player arenas and six nobles: the Emperor, two Consuls and three Senators. Players start with some money, a number of asset tokens, and two randomly dealt, low-scoring events. Colosseum lasts five rounds, with five phases in each round. In the first phase, you can buy a new event, expand your arena (which lets you host larger events), buy a season ticket (which draws more spectators), or build an Emperor’s loge (which gives you more control over the nobles).
A series of auctions follows, with the active player choosing a set of three asset tokens (out of five possibilities) and starting with a minimum bid of at least 8. If he wins, he’s out for the round, another lot is drawn from the bag, and the next player goes; if not, he places another lot up for bid. Once the auctions end, players enter a trading phase during which each player can buy, sell or trade asset tokens to opponents.
Players roll a die or dice at the start of the fourth phase and move one or two nobles. If the noble lands on certain spaces, the player scores an emperor’s medal, which provides certain benefits. Players then put on events, scoring spectators for how well their assets match the requirements of the events, with modifications for star performers, season tickets, past performances, discarded emperor medals, and the presence of nobles within your arena. If the spectator score is higher than the player’s previous score, he advances his scoring marker to the new score. Whether or not he advances, he earns money equal to the current’s events score.
The player with the highest current score earns a podium, worth a few more spectators for future events, then players lose an asset of choice from the most recent event, and the player farthers back on the score track takes an asset from the front runner. After the fifth round, the high score wins.
While the comparison to Princes of Florence is apt, the feel of playing Colosseum was quite different, primarily because the events (along with money and everything else) are face-up on the table throughout the game. You see which events opponents purchase, so you have an idea of which assets they’ll want in auctions and through trades. Instead of trying to read people to determine whether they’ll compete with you for forests, lakes, favors, and so on in PoF, you have a good idea at the start of the auction that player A wants lot M or N, player B wants lot O, and player C wants lot N or P. In our four-player game, we had little competition during the auctions, which made the minimum bid of 8 feel like an artificial barrier added to remove money from the game.
Of more concern is the structure of the events. Everyone starts with two small events, which require 3-6 assets, and a number of randomly drawn assets. If you start with assets that match your events, you’re golden in the first round; if not, you need to scramble in the auction and trade rounds in order to score well. (Your spectator score is based on how well you match the demands of the audience; miss one asset and you score X fewer points, two assets and score Y fewer points, and so on.)
As the game progresses, players gravitate towards certain events given the assets they hold. To some degree your future course through the game might feel scripted because of your holdings. Again, this differs from Princes in which players start with identical assets aside from the works cards hidden in their hands. Your potential paths of development are open to all players, which means opponents know how valuable assets are to you, which negatively affects your ability to trade. It’s hard to put the squeeze on someone when he knows that an item is worthless to you.
Don’t take my comments above as a pan. Colosseum certainly worked and kept all of us involved in figuring out which events we could host, which investments brought the best return, and so on. The player who hung back all game swiping assets form the shifting leaders sprang ahead in the end to crush us by a margin of 14 points. Our game did run long for my tastes, stretching past two hours, but that length could easily be attributed to the late (early) hour, a first playing experience and players who wouldn’t give up on trying to make trades that were going nowhere. Instead take my 1,000 words of comment as the musings of someone thinking about the game for a few days, which is always a good sign.
Colosseum was followed by two more games of Escalation (BGN review), a teaching game of Animalia (in which Lorna Wong rang up the highest possible score: 30), and a five-player game of Notre Dame, which showed that the game works equally well with five as it does with two, three and four. Anthony Rubbo, in our fifth ND game together, ran away with the win, using a money and cathedral strategy. After a two-hour nap, I finally played something else new.
As you might be able to guess from the name, Zooloretto is a take-off of Coloretto, Michael Schacht’s ingeniously simple card game. That game’s central mechanism has been transported intact into this boardgame; on a turn, players either flip over an animal tile and add it to a collection in the center of the playing area or claim an animal collection. (A third choice is also possible: Players can spend coins to take special actions. More on that later.)
Instead of dealing solely in chameleons, players are running zoos and collecting various animals, which come in eight types. Each player has a zoo card with three pens, a barn, and space for vendors. Each player also receives a couple of coins and an extra pen, which starts the game face-down.
As mentioned above, on a turn you flip over a tile or claim a collection of tiles, adding those animals to pens or placing them in your barn. Each pen can hold only one type of animal, so the non-matching animals are bound for the barn. If you place a male and female animal in the same pen, a baby animal of the same type is born, taking up one more spot in the pen. (Note that only two males and females are included for each animal type. The remainder are presumably asexual or celibate.) When the final space in a pen is filled, you receive a bonus coin or two. In addition to collecting animals, players can also take tiles with coins or vendors on them.
Coins are used to (1) open a new pen—with eight animals in play and only three pens, you’ll almost certainly need it, (2) purchase an animal from someone’s else barn, (3) remove an animal from your barn, or (4) swap animal types between pens or between a pen and the barn.
Once each player has claimed a collection of tiles, the round ends and a new round begins. The game ends once you dip into a collection of tiles that you set aside at the start of the game. Players then score a certain number of points for a full pen, fewer points for a pen short one animal, two points for each different type of vendor, and no points for pens short two or more animals (unless a vendor is near the pen, in which case you score one point per animal). You then subtract points for each type of animal in your barn, and the high score wins.
I played once with five players, and the game play was reminiscent of Coloretto, but slightly more complex due to the added spatial element. The addition of coins is interesting because players gain the ability to pass during a round (albeit at the cost of a coin or two) when they’re torn between flipping another tile and taking a collection. Purchasing an opponent’s animal also gives an opponent more options since he keeps one of the two coins that you spend. As with Coloretto, when you’re the final player in a round, you can gamble on flipping more tiles and be either rewarded or punished. If you enjoy the original card game, you’ll probably like this as well.
Face 2 Face Games will publish this Leo Colovini design in 2008, and events like these allow publishers to show off forthcoming titles. Pampas is for 2-4 players, and the game starts with the creation of a 4x4 grid of land tiles and each player taking a number of pigs, sheep, steer and gauchos. On a turn, a player places a hedge (or some kind of barrier) on the intersection of two tiles, then places a gaucho on one side of the hedge and an animal of his choice on the other side. If you place the gaucho on the edge of the board, you reveal a land tile and place it next to this figure. You cannot place a hedge to enclose a space of fewer than three tiles, although you can box in tiles with an open edge since they can possibly be added to during the game.
Instead of placing a hedge for the turn, you can choose to score an area. The area must be enclosed and contain three to six tiles, along with some number of animals and gauchos of your color in numbers at least equal to everyone else in the area. You then remove all of your gauchos from this space along with all the animals of one type. Players continue taking turns until (1) all the hedges have been placed (which seems unlikely) or (2) all of the land tiles have been placed and players have scored all of the possible areas. Each type of animal scores a different number of points, and the player with the most points wins.
As with most Colovini games, Pampas feels abstract with only the veneer of a theme. The game felt luck-free to me and something of a brain-burner—only later did I recall that some land tiles do have special features on them that affect play, such as bonus scoring items that can be claimed and mountains that come with automatic hedges. Unlike most Colovini games, Pampas worked well with four players. I still imagine that it would work best with two, though, as you’d have more control over the division of the board.
After Pampas, Larry Whalen brought out Face 2 Face’s Cheeky Monkey, a push-your-luck game designed by Reiner Knizia that should be out in the summer of 2007. On a turn, a player draws an animal token from a bag and places it before him on the table. He can then draw another token or stop for the turn. If he draws and pulls out an animal identical to one in front of him, he busts and returns all tokens drawn this turn to the bag; otherwise he again faces the same choices: draw or stop. If he stops, he places all tokens drawn this turn on top of a stack in front of him in any order he chooses.
Why would you want to keep drawing? Two reasons: First, if you draw a zebra, for example, then you can take any zebra tokens on top of all opponents’ stacks. Each token is one point, so you want as many tokens as possible. Second, if you draw a monkey, instead of stealing monkeys from opponents, you can swap the monkey for any animal token on top of another player’s stack. (If you keep going and steal the monkey, you can naturally then swipe that monkey.)
Players keep going until all the animal tokens have been claimed. Each token is worth one point, and players earn a bonus if they hold the majority of a type of token. I’ve played this game several times previously, and it’s almost always fun. The only drawback is that the game can run long depending on how aggressive players are. You can steal multiple tokens from other players, for example, then bust for the turn, which forces you to return all of the tokens to the bag. I actually ended this five-player game with only two points because people kept swiping my walruses and zebras. Still, that was two points more than Bob Sumner had…
Cheeky Monkey was followed by another game of Animala (BGN review), then the Magic the Gathering tournament. This event was a first for the Gathering, and 26 people signed up for a 9th edition booster draft. I somehow gave the impression that I knew how to run a booster draft tournament, so Alan Moon put me in charge of it. Ideally, we would have had 24 people in order to divide people into groups of eight, but since that didn’t work, I split people into one group of 8 and three groups of six. The idea was that the best two people from each group would then draft cards again, and the winner of that table—the person with a 3-0 record—would win the entire tournament.
While this plan worked for the eight-person table, with the two people going 2-0 advancing to the second round, the plan failed for the six-person tables. You want to have people win at least two matches in order to prove that their victory was no fluke, but six people playing in three matches gives you three people with 1-0 records and figuring out how to pair them up properly within the group didn’t quite work. I hope no one feels I shortchanged them, as I was playing at the same time that I was trying to determine who should play whom next, but I hadn’t drafted in a couple of years and was eager to do so.
The plan was to draft card drawing, creature elimination, and dudes with some kind of evasion ability. This plan shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone because that’s a standard plan for booster draft with a basic edition of cards. Luckily, I opened Loxodon Warhammer, a rare piece of equipment that grants its user +3/+0, trample, and the Spirit Link ability of life gain equal to damage dealt—a huge card in matches like these. I was then passed a series of blue card drawing spells, a few blue fliers, and decent black creatures, particularly three Gravediggers, which return a creature in the graveyard to your hand when they enter play.
My first match was against Cedric Forgothislastname, who had drafted a bunch of small white and green creatures. Both games played out the same: Cedric took me down to a small life count—7 points in the first game, 4 in the second—before I stablized with Gravediggers (swapping one for another repeatedly when Cedric kept attacking) and the Warhammer and started gaining that life back. By the end of both games, I was almost back to 20 life.
The second match was against eventual tournament winner Stefan Büchtmann. Stefan had drafted more blue card drawing and flying creatures that I had, along with a few red spells (including Blaze) to wipe out the creatures that got in his way. Our first game saw me fall from 20, to 18, 14, 11, 6 before I could do anything against Stefan. In the second game, the Warhammer came out for me and Stefan’s life total dropped in chunks while mine rose ever higher. In the third game, I forgot to block Stefan’s sea serpent to keep me out of range of Blaze. Even worse, I had forgotten to add a Sea Serpent of my own to my deck after the first game. So rusty…
I tried my hand at Canasta Caliente, which seems like a fine old-style card game with luck of the draw that can be a random slap in the face. Perhaps that’s inexperience talking, though.
Despite enjoying puzzle games, I had yet to try Cwali’s Spiel 2006 release Factory Fun, so Tami Whitsett offered to teach me and two others. The goal of the game is to create efficient goo-processing systems, preferably ones that use little pipe and transport the goo output from one machine directly into the input of another machine. You’re thwarted in your efforts to do so by (1) random machine acquisition, (2) an inability to plan ahead, and (3) expenses in moving or changing material already on the factory floor.
Each turn, each player turns one machine face-up. A player can then grab any face-up machine and add it to his factory. Players each have four input vats of goo, unlimited amount of pipe, a central pillar to work around, and three storage vats to hold output until it’s needed elsewhere. You can choose not to grab a machine, and in some cases that will be the best move because you’d lose more money running pipe than you’d earn by adding the machine. Ideally you keep your supply vats near the center of the playing board and know what you’re outputting so that you can grab just the right machine each round.
Immediately after playing, Tami and I grabbed two new people and played again. Experience does you a world of good in this game.
Dave Chalker was at the Gathering, to represent both Robot Martini and his own non-robotic, non-martini-drinking self. We ran through four new and forthcoming Robot Martini titles:
- Inquisition, by John Cooper. Three to five players try to collect witches, heretics and blasphemers, preferably in that order. A few cards from a deck of witches, heretics, and blasphemers are removed from the game, then the remainder of the deck is dealt out among the players.
Each player places a card of his choice on the top of his personal deck, then players take turns either (1) claiming one of 12 claim cards (four W cards numbered 1-4, along with four Hs and four Bs) or (2) accusing someone of having a certain card on top of his deck. If you accuse someone correctly, you keep that card; if not, you discard your claim card, then all players reveal the card on top of their deck. If a player’s claim card most closely matches the number of cards of that type without going over (a la the Price is Right), that player claims those cards. Any cards not played remain in the center of the table for the next reveal. When the game ends, the player with the most witches wins, with the number of heretics (the blasphemers) breaking ties.
Inquisition has a Werewolf feel in that you’re accusing players of taking on some role, and you can use the information revealed by the claim card they’ve taken to guide your guess. Of course, players can take a claim card one round, then hand it in and take a completely different card next round, so bluffing also plays a role. You don’t have to guess, but how often do you get a chance of accusing someone of being a witch?
- Get Bit: The Shark Game, by Dave Chalker. The first of Robot Martini’s full-color, full-price games, Get Bit has players trying to be the last one eaten by a shark. Players, represented by small figures with removable limbs, are randomly lined up in front of a shark. Each player simultaneously reveals a card from 1-6. Starting from low number to high, players hop to the front of the line—a 1 moves first, then a 2, and so on. If you play the same number as someone else, though, you don’t move. Whichever player is at the back of the line loses a limb, but as compensation that player picks up all his cards and jets to the front of the line. (Fear gives you great power.) If you lose all four limbs, you’re out of the game, and the last player swimming wins the game.
Get Bit was ridiculously fun. Anyone who dislikes blind-bidding might dislike this game as well, but watching everyone disappear into the shark’s maw was great late night fun, especially when you match the card of someone behind you in line, thereby keeping you out of harm’s way.
- Criminals, by Kory Heath. Three to six players each commit a crime, ranging from arson to fraud to murder. Your job as a group is to identify which crime one player has committed. (Apparently you throw him to the cops and get away with your own illegal behavior.) Players look at the crime they receive, then discard an alibi card matching this crime. The crime cards are then shuffled and revealed one by one. Once a crime card is revealed, players debate, Werewolf-style, who might have committed the crime. If a player is accused by the majority of players, he either reveals that he’s guilty (resulting in a victory for everyone else) or he discards an alibi card matching the crime. He then keeps the crime card and can later accuse someone else of this crime if he is accused later in the game. If you correctly accuse someone in this way, you win the game on your own.
I have a hard time playing games like these because (1) I can’t read people as to whether or not they’re lying and (2) I’m an open book, laughing like a fool whenever I’m accused of anything. This isn’t necessarily bad as a mistaken accusation gives you the ability to tag someone else. Dave Chalker said that I’m mistaken when I say that you have nothing to go on in the first round, and while I’ve heard the same comments about Werewolf, I might lack the social skills to excel at this game. Werewolf fans might get a kick out of it, though.
- The Long Island Project, by Dave Chalker. Players each need ingredients to make drinks, but since the ingredients are divvied out randomly among other players, you’ll need to deal for them. Each player has five target cards, numbered 1-5 that depict an ingreident. On a turn, you offer one of your three bonus cards to opponents while revealing one of your target cards, then they bid ingredients for that bonus. At game’s end, you reveal your target cards, scoring points for each one completed, along with the bonuses nabbed during the game.
The game felt somewhat ho-hum, perhaps because the designer of the game ran away with it. Designers should always lose their own games, right? A second play might prove better as is often the case with bidding games. Now I have an idea what the bonus cards are worth relative to everything else, which gives a better appreciation for what everything else is worth as well.
Tichu
Despite the late/early hour, Tichu was calling, specifically in the form of BGN columnist David Fair. He and I teamed against Christine Simundson and Tom Lehmann, who were pairing up for the Tichu tournament on late Wednesday. We played twice, with David and me wrecking them both times, including a 1-2 finish in the first game followed by two 1-2 finishes at the start of game two. The secret to our success? Me being repeatedly dealt the dog and a high single, while David scooped up three Kings, the Dragon, the Phoenix and all sorts of other goodness round after round. Hard to top that.Tichu was followed by a breakfast buffet, then a couple of hours of sleep. Forgive me, I’m weak.
Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version 
Colosseum, in the early game 
Zooloretto, with Tom DeMarco, Frank Branham, Erik Arenson, and eventual winner James Miller 
Pampas prototype, with Kostas Nikolaidos, Face 2 Face owner Larry Whalen, and Bob Sumner 
Magic the Gathering tournament winner (and ringer for my brother) Stefan Büchtmann 
Inquisition
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Apr 9, 2007 at 12:00 PM in Special Features, Convention Reports, Convention Report: The Gathering of Friends 2007 / 3278
Comments:
You must register with BGN in order to comment. Registration is free!Hey! That can’t be Bob—he’s missing a finger. :)
Did you take any pictures with all of the BGN columnists?
Posted by Phil Alberg on Apr 9, 2007 at 03:44 PM | #
Bob was surprising G-rated this year, Phil.
Alas, no, I took no photos of all the BGN folk. I’m not much of a picture taker, so I don’t have a shot of Alan Moon and Richard Borg teaming up for BattleLore (which they did), of Ted Alspach leading the village in Werewolf (which he repeatedly did), or of Scott Alden and William Attia going down to defeat in Qwirkle (which they did).
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Apr 9, 2007 at 04:22 PM | #
Thanks much for teaching Animalia! It is a cute little filler and if I can find a copy I’ll be picking one up.
Posted by Lorna Wong on Apr 9, 2007 at 10:06 PM | #
Nice write up. Thanks.
Posted by Kevin Wood on Apr 10, 2007 at 08:25 AM | #
I really loved Colosseum, but I found one think which looked very scripted: The importance of using two dice seems so big, so if you’re not sure of being best in the first round, you better going to invest in this in the very first round. Has somebody else found this problem or have I misunderstood something?
Posted by Carl Samuelsson on Apr 12, 2007 at 03:46 AM | #
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