Valerie Putman:  Chipping away at the list at BGF

Back in July I made a list of games I wanted to get crossed off my to-play list before the new crop of Essen games completely wiped the older games off my radar.  I’ve made some progress on the list, including two games this weekend at Buckeye Game Fest.  Here’s a reminder of the list with some updates and my thoughts on Municipium and Supernova after initial plays.

Keltis I still haven’t gotten my hands on this SdJ winner.  But I have tried two other new Knizia games since July that I have really liked (Ilium and Municipium).

Blox Greg Schloesser got a copy in time for Gulf Games.  I like abstract games and this one was different and interesting.

Marrakech Still haven’t gotten to try this one.

1960:  The Making of the President Sigh.  I own this game.  There is no excuse for not getting hubby to teach me this.

Tribune This falls into the same category as Pillar’s of the Earth and Leonardo for me.  They are worker placement games, which I like, and there was nothing wrong with them, but I have other worker placement games I like better.

Ming Dynastie I taught this one quite a few times at Gen Con this summer and I played in 2 or 3 of the games.  It’s a cross between Elfenland and an area majority game.  It was a solid 6 ½ - 7.  I’d be happy to play it or teach it any time when someone requests it, but I’m not likely to ask for it.  I’m happy to have it in my collection for a few years, at least.

Chang Cheng Still haven’t tried it.

Nefertiti Who needs another Egyptian auction game?  I do!  This was certainly different enough from Ra or Amen Re and I think I’ll be keeping this game in my collection for a few years.  Solid 7.

Ice Flow I got to try this once, but we kept finding rules that we had wrong as we played.  I’ve gotten my hands on a copy and I plan to play this again before making up my mind about it.  I think there’s a lot to like here for a light, family game.

El Capitan Still haven’t tried it.

Horus I played this one at Gulf Games this summer and it was quite mediocre.  I never need to play it again.

Monastery I’ve gotten in half a game.  We didn’t have the starting set up correct and we had to quit before the game ended, but I liked it enough to want to try it again.

Mordred Still haven’t tried it.

Origins: How We Became Human Still haven’t tried it.

Perry Rhodan Still haven’t tried it.  Sigh.

Pick & Pack Still haven’t tried it.  This is very high on my still want to try list.

Robotics I still have the free expansion tiles from Spielbox, but I haven’t tried the game yet.

Quinamid Still haven’t tried.

Change Horses This one is interesting.  I played it at Gulf Games and thought it could be a fine family game, but the rest of the table completely panned it.  When I brought it out to Demo at the World Boardgaming Championships, I wasn’t sure how much play it would get.  In fact, it was the 2nd most played game of the week.  Whenever I put it away to bring out another demo game, it was inevitably requested that I put Change Horses back out.  So I would say that my initial impression was right—for the right group, this is a fun, light, horse racing game.

The Circle I’ve gotten a copy and this is next on my to-play list.  I’ll let you know!

This weekend I tried two games that weren’t available yet when I made my initial list in July—Municipium and Supernova. 

Municipium Let me be bluntly honest about my biases here.  First, I am a huge Knizia fan and this game has been on my radar for a long time.  In fact, I pre-ordered two copies of this game over a year ago.  Unfortunately, having my credit card charged with no game in sight for months and months pretty quickly flipped my positive bias and I convinced myself that I didn’t need the game and I cancelled my pre-order.  Then, I had such great customer service—absolutely no hassle about having the charge to my credit card reimbursed.  So I’d say that once the dust settled and I finally got my hands on a copy of the game, I was ready to judge it for what it was.

Municipium is an area majority game, but unlike most map-based area majority games, you were not as likely to dig your heels in to fight for the areas you controlled early in the game.  In fact, there may be several times in the game where you have the opportunity to rearrange all of your pieces on the board and it was easiest to remove them all and reevaluate each one as you deployed it back on the board.

The reason that areas of control might shift frequently is because each area has a different special ability that, when activated, gives a benefit to the player in control.  But at different times in the game you might be able to make better use of different abilities.  Also, the object of the game is to collect 5 sets of meeples (citizens) which come in 4 different colors.  Different areas offer different colors of meeples, so as you work to complete your sets, you may change your focus on the board to collect the right colors.

The game was easy to learn and only took about 60 minutes to play.  It was really different from other games I’ve played recently and so I’m happy to say that I was not disappointed by Knizia with this game design.  I did find that the components (in particular, the board and the cards) were inferior, but I think that we were playing with a “print sample” and I am hoping that the final production value is higher.

Supernova Speaking of poor production quality….  Perhaps it was a fluke for this particular copy, but when the shrink was removed from the game, the cardboard bits to be punched inside seemed, er, moist.  The game smelled kind of moldy and there was a fine brown powder coating some of the pieces that I can only guess might have actually been mold.  Also, the thinner cardboard used for the player aids curled quite a bit.

The game itself is about different races fleeing to escape a supernova and establishing themselves on safer habitats to live.  Players place hexes on the board to claim territory and cards are used in the battle system to resolve territory conflicts.  I should note that I’m not generally a fighting game kind of girl.  I don’t mind direct conflict.  (It was once suggested to me by a jerk that I don’t like war games because girls don’t handle direct conflict well.) I just don’t care for themes involving violence.  I’m happy to kick your butt on an economic battle field.  That said, the battles in this game are as abstractly violent as you get and I can easily assume that the losers simply retreat and no one dies.  For that reason, I would much prefer to play this attack oriented game over Nexus Ops or Twilight Imperium or Neuroshima Hex.  So while I would never request Supernova, I could be convinced to play a non-moldy copy.

I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman

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