My game discussions tend to mostly happen over on BGG.  You can find me participating in the “Game Chat League: Eclipse Division.  The discussion wanders, but a good hub is probably this geeklist: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/71990?commentid=2843869#comment2843869

Otherwise, thanks to my handful of readers.  If you care to, I occasionally post a BGG blog here:  http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blog/98/the-game-bistro

Good gaming, and I hope to see you across the game table sometime!

I did a mini-purge of some of my more obscure games.  This has brought my collection down to below 300 games.  And it brought my PayPal balance up to above zero.  This entices me to do shopping.  So it would seem I seem to simply enjoy buying games.

Two projects have emerged lately:

1.  Columbia Block Games – I have written a small geeklist listing all of the Columbia block games.  I have the list sorted by BGG rank.  I doubt many will pay much attention to this list, as it is somewhat redundant to other lists of block games.  But it suits me, as a collector, to evaluate the output of Columbia Games specific to their blocks of war concept.

2.  GIPF – For some reason I am being drawn into trying to collect all of these 5 or 6 games.  Since these are 2p abstract games, I am a bit perplexed as to why I am drawn to them.  Part of it is my awareness that abstract games are gaining in allure to me.  Part is the high regard these games have garnered.  And part is the idea of having a linked system of games.  But I also wonder if they will actually be played.

My collection has once again crept over 300 games.  This isn’t a big problem, but it is the count I have imposed on myself for a signal that it is time to cull.

My penchant for trying older Euros continues to be a problem.  First of all, they are difficult to get to the table.  Secondly, they are difficult to be rid of.  I’m conducting a brief fire sale over on BGG to clear some space.

I made the mistake of viewing a friends trade list and have agreed to buy 4 more games.

All this adds up to some froth in the collection.  It got me thinking, and I realized tonight that even with some mad money from my game sale, I don’t have too many new games that I am itching to get.  So I thought it might be interesting to do a statistical study of the age of my games in my collection.

So here it is, in broad percentages:

19th Century or older: 1.7%

1900 – 1950: 2%

1950′s: 1.3%

1960′s: 2%

1970′s: 4.3%

1980′s: 16%

1990′s: 27.3%

2000 – 2009: 40%

2010 -2011: 5.3%

2012: 0%

I own 25 games from the year 2004, and while some are not secure in my collection the bulk of them are likely to remain.  Compare that to 2010 , where I have 12 games, and 2011 where I only have 4 games.  It is apparent my interest in new games is not burning as strong as it did a few years ago.

And when I consider future purchases, I seem to be splitting my interest between deluxe editions of known games, back list games I am still intrigued by, and some new games.  So the trend on my collection continuing to age seems likely.

This is not to say I am closed to new games.  I have played a number of new games recently, and enjoyed them all.  They just don’t seem to be hopping in my shopping cart as often.

Leader 1 – This is a clever bicycle racing game from a couple of years ago, which I was reminded of recently.  On a mailing list I hang out on, someone was advocating never buying any games from Ghenos Games.  I will admit that I do not currently own any of this publisher’s games, but that stance seemed a bit harsh.

Leader 1 is a fun game to play.  You have a team of bicyclists.  They each have different strengths.  One is good on the level ground, another is good on the mountain climb, while the leader is steady as he goes.  Further, you can designate whether a cyclist is either a downhill specialist or is a sprinter for the finish.

In the game the huge pack of bicyclists is represented by the Peloton marker.  Each turn players can take an opportunity to break out of the Peloton and blaze their own trail – but this must be carefully considered, as you only have so much energy, and a long route ahead.  All in all, Leader 1 is a good game.  There are several decisions to make, and they have a meaningful impact on how things go.  In fact there is only a modest amount of luck in the game.

The chief complaint I have with Leader 1 is merely that the rules are badly translated.  I can sort it out, but it is clear that a native speaker could have greatly improved the rules.  A shame, as I am sure many Americans (I am one) would have been happy to do a free clean-up for them.

1830 – Variant Scenario #2 (G) -

This was the strangest 1830 game I have played.  First of all, I made a stupid mistake right at the beginning and put myself in a powerless position, which another player quickly pounced upon and ruined my opening strategy.  This led to later reprisals, and generated a confrontational tone to the game.  In general a lot of stock trashing occurred.  Pretty much every stock took a beating.

The second thing was that the scenario we played seems to have issues.  It was designed to beef up the Canadian Pacific, but it was opened late and did not take a leading role in the game.  Then there was the coalfield tile, which no company ever built to.  In both scenarios I have played so far, the authors have injected extra trains.  My feeling that these extra trains take the bite out of the game, and worse, extend the duration.

Still, a flawed 1830 game is still a great deal of fun to play, even when I get crammed.

American Rails – I finally played this one, which had been played a couple other times at game night by others.  I quite liked it.  Somehow I had missed all the antecedents to this game.  I hear Wabash Cannonball is similar, but I cannot make a comparison.  I think another game was also compared, but its name escapes me.  I’m happy to play again, assuming another chance happens.

Saint Petersburg & Crokinole – It is interesting to see these games getting play time again.  Back in 2000 I bought my Crokinole board.  It was played to death for the first 3-4 years, and then it fell from favor.  Similarly, St. Pete was our most played game for 2004 and 2005, if I recall correctly, and then it also fell from favor.  Here we are in 2012, and both games are getting requested again.  Neat!

Peloponnes – I bought this while I was in Manhattan, at the Compleat Strategist.  We played once, and after reading the rules I learned we got a couple of rules wrong.  But even so, it was entertaining, and I am interested in getting back to it.  Our first game wasn’t all that quick, but we saw the likelihood that we could make this a game of just 1 hour or so.  Novelty factor remains high.

1889 – Played this for just the second time.  A very entertaining 18xx game.  This game is supposedly a quick 18xx game, but we still managed to spend 4.5 hours on it.  I don’t mind, I had fun and actually won for a change.  I ordered this game from Deep Thought Games after my first encounter with it.  This session showed me that the game can develop very differently.  With the small map there could be a limit to the variations possible, I suppose.  But so far I am still intrigued.

Rails of New England – I played this with my friend Joe during my visit to New England.  Joe, being a New Englander, was quite adroit at finding the various cities on the map.  I could see how my ignorance would add significant time to the play of the game.  The game itself was pretty good.  I enjoyed how the game uses different decks of cards to drive the three stages of the game.  But I don’t intend to buy this game, and suspect I may not play it again.

Rapa Nui – Another game Joe taught me.  This is a slightly older game by Reinhold Wittig.  Rapa Nui is a beautiful wooden board with wooden pieces.  Of course, highly abstract.  I rather liked it, and would love to get a copy someday.

Jati – This is a 3M game that is famous for its scarcity.  So it was fun to actually play it.  Nothing special, truth be told.  But I am still pleased to have had a chance to actually see and have played this game!

Rallyman – We just did a single heat at the end of game night.  But it reminded me that I like this system.  So when I saw the “Dirt” expansion for it at the Compleat Strategist, I went ahead and got it.  Now I am motivated to find a way to do a series…

Great Fire of London – To my surprise this game has received several requests.  The fact that it plays 6 has added to its utility.  I do like the theme, but am not so sure there is all that much strategy to apply.  But so far I have been enjoying it as an experience game.

1846 – We finally got back to this, and I remain a fan.  1846 is a game that can really develop wildly different each play.  Of all the 18xx games I’ve played, this one seems to have the most variety in its gameplay.

Lancaster – I played this again, for my third play.  I am comfortable with this game now.  I guess it grew on me.  I gave the expansion laws to a couple friends who own the game, and I will be happy to play it with them.  Its not a game I need to own, but I;m happy to play occasionally.  I still think going to war in France is overpowered though.

7 Wonders – I have not gotten back to this.  But I enjoyed my initial session.  While quite different, I can see how 7 Wonders and Peloponnes might compete for the same game time.

Formidable Foes – Not a game I was looking to play, nor one I expected to like.  But despite several concerns, when we actually played this, everyone had fun.  Even so, I am not really looking to play this again.

Now this was a computer I could actually do things with!  It had a great manual, and we got “Appleworks” an early office bundle of word processing, spreadsheet and database.  But perhaps best of all, I was able to buy games to play on it!

It wasn’t too long before I discovered strategy games.  And I quickly determined that complex wargames were an ideal use for a computer.  My history with various cardboard wargames had been I would buy them, study them, and then almost never play them.  On the Apple, I would actually play them!  And an added bonus was that I didn’t have to read the entire manual.  Instead the computer enforced the rules.

I don’t recall the sequence of events, and they don’t really matter.  But I discovered two lines of games for the Apple that I dearly loved.  One was a series of games written by David Landry – Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Sons of Liberty.  Good games, now lost to me due to changing operating systems.

Eventually people stopped writing for the Apple II, and it was time to either move to a Mac, or go the PC route.  Looking at the amount of software that was available, we opted to get a PC.  And I discovered my sort of games were also available.  One day, I found Panzer General…

Panzer General turned out to be a big hit with me.  I loved the game, and was delighted to realize it was part of a series of games.  The “5 Star General” series.  I bought them all.  Panzer General had been ported over to Windows 95 by the time I discovered it.  But all the other titles in the series were older DOS games.  There was Allied General, an obvious companion to Panzer General (but not quite as much fun), then there was Fantasy General, which was great!  Instead of Panzers you recruited trolls and other fantasy creatures.  I loved this one so much I still have the old DOS version around here somewhere.  There were others too.  I remember there was a Space Empire version, which somehow failed to catch my imagination.  Perhaps more, its been a long time now.

But I must not have been alone in liking Panzer General the most.  Because along came Panzer General II, and a damn good game that turned out to be!   And then People’s General brought the conflict up to near modern times, and life was good!  But then the folks at SSI seemed to lose the groove.  They issued a couple more Panzer General Games – a 3D version and one other I cannot clearly recall, other than I didn’t like it.  It’s worth noting that I was playing on Windows 95 and then Windows 98, unless DOS was called for.

SSI had one more gift to give.  They issued David Landry’s Age of Rifles.  This was a great game, and surpassed even Sons of Liberty as my favorite 17th/18th century-based wargame.  It was well enough received they even put out an expansion for it!

But then, sad news,  SSI closed its doors.  My favorite computer wargame company was no more.  Time marched on, Windows XP became the inevitable future, which I ultimately had to migrate to when I got a new computer.  But I was okay, because I could still play my old games on the new computer.  But then – disaster!  I still recall how angry I was when I discovered that a service patch to XP broke my PC’s ability to play the old DOS and Win 95 games.

Worse, the popularity of Warcraft and Starcraft had changed the way people made computer strategy games.  Instead of the classic UGOIGO format I had loved, everything coming out was now an RTS – real-time strategy game – which turned the strategy games into arcade like games.  Eventually I pretty much gave up on playing wargames on my PC.  I would play Warcraft II or Starcraft (they are good games), but part of me would pine for the older style games.

This situation persisted for quite a while.  But one day I heard about a game company that was releasing a game by Gary Grigsby.  Gary Grigsby was a game author I recognized from the old SSI days.  I had played some of his early games.  I never liked them as much as the David Landry games, but still – worth checking out!

This led me to Matrix Games, and I enjoyed Gary’s World War 2 game – the title which I cannot recall right now – but it was a bit too close to Axis and Allies.  Some fun to play, but not entirely satisfying.  I discovered that when I changed computers again, this time to Windows  Vista, that I could no longer play this game either.  So I decided to buy another game from Matrix Games, and I selected Operation Barbarossa, which was reputed to be similar to Panzer General.  Sadly I could not get it run, and after getting frustrated with Matrix Game’s tech support, I gave up.

Then, out of Russia, came a game called Fantasy Wars.  It was apparently inspired by Fantasy General, so I bought it, and liked it enough to buy the sequel Elven Legacy.  These were quite fun to play, and I still keep them nearby, and will play them occasionally.  And because I am a stubborn cuss, I still had the download file for Operation Barbarossa on my desktop.  Over a year (maybe 2) after I bought it, I decided to try again, and voila! Suddenly it loaded properly!  Much to my delight, now I was able to play Operation Barbarossa.  And a darn good game it is, too!  Which leads me to the current moment…

Matrix Games recently sent me a holiday sale flyer, announcing a sale on their library of games.  They called out a new game called Panzer Corps.  The successor to Panzer General?  Color me intrigued.  So I bought.

What a blast!  This is the game I’ve been wanting for years.  I am very glad.  It’s like finding an old lost friend again!

In case you are interested you can search for 1761 in Google Groups, and you can find it.  He posted the files for download.  So you can build your own set if you like!

I had my usual follies in trying to print out a map.  But I eventually learned that selecting “no scaling” and “tiling” would allow me to print the entire map and to get it at the right scale for regular 18xx tiles to fit properly.  I’m planning on borrowing my tokens for 1825 or 1829 Mainline, which means I can omit producing them, also I intend to borrow all the yellow track from other 18xx games.  But even so, I have been giving my new printer a workout.  (It is still feisty, but I seem to be able to get my work out of it.)

1761 has a variety of different types of companies.  There are stagecoach lines, which will immediately close once a railway connection between the two cities listed is created.  There are canal companies, which actively lay track (representing canals) at the start of the game, and build networks – operating much like a railway company in other 18xx games.  But after enough boats are sold the “Railway Age” begins, and then the game changes.  The tiles are removed from the board, and all of the canal companies are converted into annuities.  Now the players begin a more normal 18xx game.

I’m still absorbing what this early 17xx game may mean for the following 18xx game.  It’s an interesting idea.  I’m not entirely sure I like the idea of removing the canals off the board.  It seems like a missed opportunity.  Having different tiles for the canals might have been interesting.  They then could have posed as variable obstacles for the early railways that wanted to overbuild upon them.

But, that is not what is written, and I am sufficiently interested to try it as written.  The open question is whether anyone else will  be as intrigued?

I believe all four of us were experienced hands at the original 1830 – for sure three of us were.  So trying out the first variant scenario appealed to the group.  In this scenario, the expanded map is used.  In the south of the map a coalfields site is added, along with a few more cities.  In addition, all the off-board sites allow for passage through them.  (In original 1830 they can only be a terminus.)  One additional private company was added to the game, which gave access to the coalfields.  Two new public companies were also added to the game.

So while the game was going to be different, there were a lot of elements from the original game still present.  Oh sure, there were other changes, and I won’t try to list them all.  But one worth mentioning was the addition of several more trains than normal.

I managed to acquire the C&A for the minimum bid, which made me very happy.  I also got the M&H, which I was happy to milk for cash as well.  I decided to not float a company in the first Stock Round, as I saw the player to my left was planning on floating the B&O.  Since I wanted to float the PRR (I had a free share with my C&A company), I thought it would be neat to let him soak up the cheap 2′s.  Also, by investing in other players early companies, I would be able to drive their stock value down once I divested.

So I sat and watched the action until we got to the 3rd Stock Round, when I finally floated the PRR.  Even so, I was forced to buy two 2 trains, because so many were included in the scenario.  I floated the PRR at 90, and that proved to be enough for the entire game, I don’t believe I ever had to retain with them.  However, they topped out with a 5 train, which limited their income in the last portion of the game.  But their stock value was high, the second highest in the game.  Eventually I also launched the NYC, and managed to get them up to a diesel.  But it was painful having to withhold twice to allow that to come to pass.

I am not prepared to list what all the other players did.  But basically they were content to work more in the south, while I was running around the greater NY area.  Eventually the map all grew highly connected, and some HUGE diesel runs were being run by the end of the game.

Perhaps foolishly, I felt like I was doing well.  Even as the two who usually battle it out for the victory were agreeing between themselves that one of them had it won, I was thinking that I might still be in the hunt.

All of us were right.  I was close.  But I was still third.  The scores at the end of the game were:

11,800 – C

11,769 – A

11,550 – Kevin

9,135 – S

Aii, yai, yai!   So close and still the 3rd place guy!

Last Sunday I bought a new printer.  I opted for a different unit, one that requires less bending of the paper – it feeds from the back.  I was initially pleased with the printer, and excited that it was a wi-fi printer, allowing me to set it up in a different room (no printer cable!).  But just 5 days later I am now unable to print again.  Somehow the new printer has managed to break my “print spooler” on my lap top.  Grrr.

Last night I wasted much of my evening trying to re-enable my print spooler.  No dice.  I have an e-mail off to my printer manufacturer.  I’m hoping they know how to fix this issue.  I find this sort of junk very frustrating.

Sorry for the lack of gaming content!

Imagine my surprise when we were readying for our game tonight that I found a rule that I had muffed every other play!  Geesh.  I have never before noticed that the pre-printed spaces on the board are not to have cards played on to them!  So we played it correctly tonight.  I still like the game, even with the right rules!