Games Played: Ticket To Ride, Einfach, Genial, Schwarzarbeit
Gamers: Richard, Chip, Marianne, Rob, Mike, Vitas, Josh
Thanks to Rob for hosting!
TICKET TO RIDE (1:15)
Richard: 140
Mike: 125
Chip: 116
Marianne: 86
Rob: 75
Mike brought his copy of Ticket to Ride, which I had heard a lot about and was eager to try. Richard explained the rules (which were pretty straight-forward) and we were off.
I kept two of my initial destination tickets whose paths overlapped quite a bit. I didn't draw any additional tickets throughout the game, and I think that hurt my score. I found it difficult to resist building tracks right away, as my ideal path included a few single connections between cities. I felt that if I lost even one of them that I'd be at a huge disadvantage. Fortunately, I was able to connect all the routes that I wanted. The more experienced players did take additional tickets, and waited a few turns before building.
There was a fairly nice game. There were a few moments in the game when it became clear that a player needed one particular connection, and other players did not take advantage of this player's vulnerability. In particular, Rob once considered blocking off my long train path, but decided against it. He later rued his kindness as I blocked him from completing either of two tickets he drew during his penultimate turn.
While comparisons to TransAmerica and Union Pacific are inevitable, I believe that Ticket To Ride is significantly different from either. Of the three, this is my favorite so far. I'd like to play again, and take the first few turns drawing Destination Tickets. Once I had five or so that overlapped decently, I'd start trying to make my connections. I can't wait to play again.
EINFACH GENIAL (0:42)
Mike: 16
Josh: 12
Chip: 9
Vitas: 8
There's something a little worrying about a game that encourages players to declare, "I'm a genius". In most games, it's best for the leading player to keep a low profile, lest opponents conspire against him. Mike taught the rest of us how to play this abstract domino-like game.
Early on, I tried to hoard some of the double pieces (two of the same symbol), hoping that when I knew more about the game I could use them more to my advantage. I found that it was useful to sort of follow the crowd - if other players were building up a large blue field, that's a good time to pump up blue, rather than trying to start a new green field elsewhere.
I tried to follow Mike's example of "going out" in multiple colors during the same turn, but I found that I was always one or two points away. I should have taken those points at the time (to enable an easier declaration of supreme intelligence later), but I opted to try to boost my weaker colors instead.
I enjoyed this game, and I'd be happy to play again. Even if I don't win, it's an interesting and fun puzzle challenge. I'd even be willing to sit at Josh's right (:
SCHWARZARBEIT (0:28)
Mike: 18
Josh: 15
Marianne: 12
Vitas: 11
Chip: 7
Josh brought out Schwarzarbeit ("Moonlighting") and taught all of us the rules. We all reacted pretty negatively to the memory aspect of the game, but we played it (with varying degrees of effort) nonetheless.
I tried to put some effort into the game, and took some risks early in the game, but eventually settled into a pattern of either taking a worker that was known to be safe (e.g. the weekend version was face-up on the table), or accusing a working at random. In either case, I felt that my decisions were either obvious (in the safe example) or completely random. Mike and Josh seemed to have a better strategy, so whenever possible, I would follow their lead (:
In retrospect, it seems to me that if a player can remember which weekend cards are in the deck (and, after the first time through the deck, all this information is publicly available), that player should be able to accuse (and rack up more points) with impunity. Unfortunately, I didn't think of this until after the game was over.
I'm not really impressed with this game, and I'll try to avoid playing it again.
posted by FlyingSheep @ 11:42 AM
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