Rick Thornquist: Stocking the Shelves / Indonesia

It’s that time of year again - time to clean up the piles of games I have sitting on the floor of my office.  This exercise makes me go through all my games and I always find a few interesting things…

I do have a system for the clean-up.  Whenever I get any new games, they go on the floor in piles on either side of my office.  Eventually the piles start to close in on me (think of the garbage masher in Star Wars) - I know that’s when it’s time for the clean-up.

I have my games on bookshelves sorted by publisher.  When I add the new games to the shelves, things invariably have to be moved around.  That’s the tough part of the job!  Fitting all of these boxes onto the shelves for maximum efficiency is like a puzzle - a big three dimensional Tetris game.

Some publishers do help by having standard sizes for their boxes that fit very well on the shelves.  The chunky boxes from Queen work great for me.  Phalanx games work nicely as well and have the added bonus of looking good on the shelves.  Of course, the Alea games look the sweetest.

However, there are some boxes that are just a pain.  Trying to find a good space for games like Tennis Masters or Kaivai is almost impossible (these games usually get relegated to on top of the bookcase).  Thank goodness I don’t have any real monstrosities like the big triangular box of Tal der Könige.

While adding the games to the shelves I also enter them games into my collection on BoardgameGeek.  BoardgameGeek works pretty well for this purpose, but it’s not perfect.  It can’t handle if I have multiple editions of the same game - for example, I have both the Mayfair and the Kosmos versions of Settlers but on the Geek there is only one entry for Settlers.  It works well enough, though.

Some interesting things that I found…

Behind a stack of games I found a copy of Floriado - a game I had completely forgotten about.  This was a freebie that was given away at an Essen by Cwali.  I remember playing it and thinking it was a cute little tile game.  Certainly the price was right - and I’ve had much worse games that I actually paid for.

I have copies of the two first Mind the Move games - Fantasy Pub and the original version of OltreMare.  All I can say is thank goodness they did their newest game, Il Principe, as a professional production - the cardboard box material on the first two games is about a molecule thick and even though I treat them with kid gloves, they are still worn.

There are a few games that I have had for a long time that I STILL haven’t played.  I haven’t yet played Ad Acta, Ursuppe, El Caballero, Tycoon or Stephenson’s Rocket, plus a few others.  And I call myself a gamer.  How embarrassing!  I do console myself with the fact that, as I understand it, Greg Schloesser still hasn’t played Die Macher!  Now THAT is embarrassing.

On the other hand, there are others that I just don’t play enough.  It seems I always play either new games or old standards.  There are lots of good ones that I need to play more, like Vinci, Clippers, Medina, Lord of the Rings, Capitol, plus many others.

While at the Gathering I did get rid of a few duds at the flea market to clear some shelf space.  I finally said adios to Yellowstone Park and was able to get rid of Crocodile Pool Party as well (though I was very, very tempted to send that one to Tom Vasel in an unmarked box).  The question is - why do I still have a copy of Clash of the Gladiators?

The process should be done by the end of this week at which point my floors will be clear.  That is, until I get more games…

Games Played
A variety of games were played this week.  I played Memoir ‘44, Tikal, Chairs, Augsburg 1520, Thurn und Taxis, Blokus Duo, Louis XIV, Caylus and Indonesia.

Indonesia
A few comments about Indonesia, which I played for the second time.  Firstly, the game needs an FAQ - badly.  The rules are just too hazy and while many questions have been answered on BoardgameGeek, it’s a pain to wade through them all.  A FAQ has been promised for a long time for this one - let’s get it done, Splotter!

Once you get through the rules, the game is pretty straightforward and plays wonderfully.  In the game, players are running companies that either produce or ship goods.  The idea is to ship good from your production companies to cities and you get money when you do so.  You need to use shipping companies to do the shipping, though and you will likely need to use other player’s shipping lines to do it (and they get a cut when you do). 

This is what happened in this game.  I took advantage of my experience in the game (the others were newbies) by quickly building a nice shipping line across the board.  It soon became apparent to the other players that every time they wanted to ship something, they were going to have to pay me to use my shipping line.  With some deliveries I got more for the shipping then they did for their goods!  This caused a small amount of animosity (okay, perhaps a large amount of animosity) and before long they were conspiring to put the Thornquist shipping monopoly out of business.  Eventually they did and even though I was hugely ahead by the middle of the game, the gap did close quite a bit by the end.

There really is a tremendous amount of strategy in the game.  Which companies should I take over?  Which ones should I merge?  Should I become a shipping baron and concentrate on shipping, forcing the others to pay me everytime they ship?  When and to which cities should I ship?  There are so many interesting decisions.

My only real complaint, aside from the rules, is that things tend to bog down towards the end.  In both of my games that last two turns were quite long as there were so many options to consider.  Nevertheless, everyone who played the game found it very good.  I’m very much looking forward to play it again (preferably with a FAQ!).

That’s it for this week!

Comments:

< Back Home