Dale Yu: Tales from Gulf Games

Well, I’m back from my trip to Huntsville, Alabama for the most recent Gulf Games.  It was a great time (as usual), and I had three days of friends, gaming and fairly decent food.  The theme was “Hauntsville” – I think it was a good excuse to use up old Halloween decorations and whatnot!  There weren’t too many new games there this time around mostly because many of the new releases haven’t made it here from Germany yet.  Despite that, I managed a good variety and quantity of games for the three days.  On an interesting note, I’m generally not a fan of cooperative games, but this week was full of them for me – I played Garibaldi twice, Pandemic twice and Descent once! 

Agricola x 4

Still my favorite game going.  Two teaching games, and two follow up games – as each time the newbies wanted to play again.  Having taught the game more than 20 times (and played more than 105 games now), I’m definitely in a pattern now when I teach the game.  As far as the method, you can pretty much read my huge review – as that is the format and organization that I use to teach new players.  Also, I really prefer teaching the Family Game first as an introduction to Agricola. I find that new players get too caught up with trying to understand the Minor Improvements and the Occupation cards and never figure out what they’re supposed to be doing in the game.  By taking these two things out of the mix, players have a better chance to learn the basic mechanisms of the game.  I know that there are some gamers out there who scoff at this approach, but I’ve seen a number of people have bad experiences with Agricola when they were overwhelmed by the Full Game right off the bat.

I think that this approach allows new players to get a good feel for the game.  They can learn how to build up their farm and feed their family with a minimum of distractions.  Furthermore, if they don’t like the Family Game, it’s unlikely that the cards will improve that feeling (since the Full Game is just a more complex version of the Family Game).  I have found that the scores of newbies with this method are also much improved – and I believe this is because the players better understand how the game works by the end of the second game.  Most of the new players were in the mid to high 20s by their second game (first game with cards); when I used to go straight into games with the cards, the scores were generally in the teens for the first two games.  As usual, after teaching the game, the newbies wanted to plunge right in and play another game with the cards.  I’m generally able to steer a group of four through Agricola in 80-90 minutes, so it’s an enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

One other note, I’m also a big fan of only using one deck at a time – even though Uwe recommends mixing all the cards together.  It may just be my imagination, but I definitely think that the cards in each deck work well together.  There is a higher chance of each player getting good combinations of cards when you limit the choices to only the E, I or K deck for a single game.  I’m not against mixing all the cards together, but in the few mixed games that I’ve played as well as having done some trial deals of cards at home – the luck of the draw seems to play a larger role when using all the cards at once because of the lack of good combinations.

Descent: The Well of Darkness

Though I keep saying that Descent isn’t my kind of game, I find that I do enjoy playing it each time that it comes to the table.  I was asked to join in a game run by Frank Branham.  Frank was really itching to play Descent as he had brought his home-made kit cast from all sorts of chemicals and resins.  It was truly a sight to be seen.  I’m happy to report that the heroes were victorious, mostly due to a sweet play where we used Sandy’s mage as a hero-suicide-bomber to take out a few ogres and skeletons in the final room due to one of her special abilities.

Dragon Parade

A cute filler by Herr Knizia.  In this game, you get dealt a hand of cards which you then play to move a dragon figure along a number line.  Each turn, you play a card, move the dragon, and then play one of your scoring markers on whatever space you think the Dragon will land on after all of its movement.  The idea is to get your pawns as close as possible to the final spot.  Each player only plays four cards per round, and there are only three rounds in the game.  The whole thing takes maybe 10-15 minutes.  It’s an enjoyable filler, and a game that I’ll be hopefully picking up the next time I place an order somewhere.

For Sale

A game that I thought I had played 100 times.  So did James Miller and Craig Berg.  Of course, we couldn’t figure out the rules to this one!  It was like a comedy of errors… We couldn’t figure out how to bid – are you allowed to match or not?  Who pays nothing, half or full?  In our defense, it doesn’t help that there are two sets of official rules now – so we were never sure which set we were playing with.  It also took us a few tries to remember whether you used chips to buy the houses first or the money cards.  After one aborted effort, we stuck our heads together and read the rules that came in the box and figured out how to play the game!  It may have been one of the most time-consuming games of For Sale that I’ve ever played, but it was certainly amongst the most hilarious!

Garibaldi x 2

A nice deduction game (which will soon be released domestically by Fantasy Flight) which I am liking more and more.  I played once in a 2-player game where Garibaldi managed to sneak right by my Austrian patrols and leave the board by turn 10.  The other game was a tight 6-player affair where we had Frank B. trapped by about turn 9, but it took us until turn 17 to finally bring him to justice. 

In many ways, this game is similar to Scotland Yard, but the event cards seem to give this a bit more oomph.  Furthermore, the game seems to scale fairly well based on the number of players as the hand size per human player never changes.  Thus, in a 2 player game, the Austrians are all hopefully more likely working with the same plan in mind, but there are fewer cards to choose from when determining their actions.

Glik

A neat Richochet-Robot-light-like abstract from this year’s Essen.  It’s a quick (15-20 minute) game that I really enjoy.  The biggest downside to it is that it really seems to only play well with four.

Kreta

I hadn’t played this one since the Gathering in the year when it originally came out.  There’s nothing wrong with this one, but there still isn’t anything that grabs me about it either.  The company was great and that made the game quite enjoyable.  I was able to use a couple of Castellans in succession to guarantee good scoring and keep the scoring in areas where I had a lot of pieces.

Liar’s Dice

This is one of the two games I’ll play at every Gulf Games because there is a tournament each time.  Strangely, my initial bid of 31 Stars proved to be bunk and I was out of the game and tournament quickly. 

Pandemic x 2

Pandemic was another game that seemed to be in constant play at Gulf Games.  It was surprising to see how often the game was winning – in the dozen or so games that I saw or heard about, I think the players may have won only once or twice.  In fact, in my first game, we managed to lose before the end of the first round!  Due to some unlucky initial placements and a really early Epidemic card, we were at our 8th outbreak after four player turns.  However, I will admit that I have not read the rules – so I don’t know if we were playing by the right rules – but it certainly seems that the game was winning more often than it should have!

I do like the game so far, and I’m interested in playing again.  Both of my games were with four players, so we had one special role out of the game each time.  Over the long haul, I’ll be interested in seeing if all five of the special roles have an equal effect on the game.  In the games that I saw, it seemed like the Information Specalist and the Medic were used more than the others.

Password x 3

A classic game – and one of my favorites.  We played a deathmatch with myself and Michael Weston going up against Tyler Putman and Chris Comeaux.  The first two games ended in a tie, and we went on to a tiebreaker devised by James Miller.  It played out like a tennis tiebreaker with a marker starting out in the middle of the teams.  Whichever team won the first word moved the marker to their side.  If they could win the next word, they would win the tiebreaker.  If not, the marker would move back into the center and the teams would be equal again.

Prototype x 9

More games of the prototype that I’m helping develop for Rio Grande.  It seemed to be well received, and a few interesting ideas came up from the testing.  Time to go back to the secret laboratory and tinker with it a bit…

Rome

Another game that I haven’t played in a long while, and I’m glad that this one was suggested.  I surely wouldn’t have asked for this one on my own, but we needed a quick 30 minute filler.  The race was a tight affair with all three players able to get their final chariot to the finish line on the last turn – so it all came down to positioning which determined the turn order.

Scripts and Scribes

A new game from Doctor Finn’s Game Company.  A full review to follow in the next week or so.  In the meantime, you’ll have to be content knowing that I enjoy this one for a filler.

Take It Easy

This is the other tournament at each Gulf Games.  I didn’t do quite as bad at this as Liar’s Dice, but my score of 155 was clearly not going to win it all.  I think Greg Schloesser managed a 207 which is a fine score indeed at this game.

Tichu x 2

Gee, me playing Tichu at a game convention?  Inconceivable!

Wurfel Bingo

Still my favorite filler from the most recent Essen.  It’s really just Take It Easy with dice, but I really do prefer this one as opposed to Take It Easy.  I think some of it is because you’re not limited to fixed tile distribution as you are in Take It Easy.

Prize Table

OK, not a game per se, but this year the Prize Table went fairly well for me.  Eventhough I was the very last person to pick from the table, I was able to bring home Oregon and Container with my two game picks.  Not bad indeed.

Well, that’s about it for the games.  Each time that I get to go to a Gulf Games or similar event, I wish I had twice the amount of time there so that I could play games and chat with everyone there! 

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

© 2008 Dale Yu

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I’ve played Pandemic 6 times now (all on Normal difficulty) with varying numbers of players from 2 to 4...and am still looking for my first player win.  It’s a tough game. Posted by David Goldfarb on Feb 27, 2008 at 03:45 AM | #

I’ve only played it once, with 2 other new players, and we also got an epidemic early on (the first card I drew, I was the first player!) but we managed to win. This was the beginner game though. Posted by Surya Van Lierde on Feb 27, 2008 at 05:43 AM | #

I consider Descent to be a team game, not a cooperative one as it is 1 vs many but I can concede that not everyone looks at it the same way. So, what version of For Sale did you end up playing?  Were you allowed to match bids or not? Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 27, 2008 at 09:48 AM | #

I see descent as a cooperative game as the heroes end up having to cooperate amongst themselves.  As i’m frankly not interested in being the Overlord, and will likely never be the Overlord, this is the only view of Descent that I’ll ever get As far as For Sale goes, we ended up playing that you couldn’t match bids. Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Feb 27, 2008 at 10:25 AM | #

Ah, while I am a big fan of cooperative (or even being on a team) games, I’m typically going to be the one who “has” to play the overlord. I have yet to play For Sale with the matching bid style of play, it just seems a bit “cheesy” to me… (oh, I’ll have what he’s having...) Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 27, 2008 at 10:32 AM | #

Matt, I’m used to the matching rule in For Sale, and I think it’s a bit better… In the new rules (where you can’t match) - the bids often work out so that the fourth person to make an initial bid is already pushed out of the running - especially if the start player chooses a high bid from the start. In the old rules (with matching), there is a bit more chance for each player to get a better chance to value what a particular building is worth to him.  The auctions seem to also be more tense as I find it more difficult to figure out where my opponent’s breaking point will be in a particular auction. I’d recommend trying it at least once.  It’s only a 10-15 minute game.  The different rules really make the game feel different. Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Feb 27, 2008 at 10:36 AM | #

I completely agree with Dale about For Sale.  The “Poker-style” bidding (i.e., matching bids) works far better than a standard auction, which, as he mentions, can really price out players before they even have a chance to bid.  I think the game needs to be played with the original, Ravensburger rules. Posted by Larry Levy on Feb 27, 2008 at 11:09 AM | #

Funny, since Pandemic has come out, I don’t think we’ve lost to the game yet, except when playing on Heroic (we were playtesters, so we probably have a couple dozen games under our belt at this point). You really need to squeeze the most out of your role cards, I think - especially the Dispatcher, if available. He can be tricky but extremely valuable. Also, look out for the opportunity to sunset diseases early ... this can give you significant breathing room if you can do it cheaply. The Medic helps a lot here, especially a Medic/Dispatcher combo. Once techniques are mastered, I think the game should be routinely beatable at normal level. Posted by Chris Farrell on Feb 27, 2008 at 01:32 PM | #

Chris, that’s why I made the comment that I haven’t read the rules… For all I know, the entire convention was playing the game wrong or we were all missing some nuance of the special roles making the game more difficult than it needed to be! Or… maybe as a group, the Gulf Gamers just aren’t good at the game! <g> I will look forward to trying it again (and hopefully have a chance to read the rules before playing!) D Posted by Dale Yu on Feb 27, 2008 at 03:05 PM | #

Matt: Descent is a cooperative game when I’m playing the Overlord. Trust me on that one. Posted by Frank Branham on Feb 27, 2008 at 05:49 PM | #

I’m confused (generally a constant state). I live in Huntzpatch, AL and have never heard of “Gulf Games”. When and where did it take place? Thx. Posted by David Knepper on Feb 27, 2008 at 06:00 PM | #

Frank, yes, I will agree that it was nice to have you, as Overlord, helping out the heroes from time to time! David - Gulf Games is an invitation-only gathering that moves around the Southeast (and I use the term Southeast incredibly loosely).  It was at the Bevill Center on the UAH campus this time around, and will move to other sites in the coming years. Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Feb 27, 2008 at 08:05 PM | #

I will have to give For Sale a try with the alternate rules.  I like how bidding first is a significant advantage in the Uberplay version, since one can force out other bidders very quickly and have the cards come back around with favorable choices. With matching bids I would think all player’s bids will be more consistent, or does matching bidding produce situations where no one wants to bow out because they’re all committed?  (ie. I’ve bid 4, but I’ll go up to 5 now since I don’t want to take the “3” card...) I suppose playing it a new way will be good, it will lessen my advantage since I typically have played it far more often than my opponents. Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 29, 2008 at 08:04 AM | #

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