Games: Tempus

This is the new civ-lite Martin Wallace game and I have to say it actually did feel kind of like Civilization, but with a bunch of stuff taken out that I think is what makes Civilization good. After the rules were explained, the entire game seemed pretty clear to me how it would go and it really did do just that - the only time I was at all surprised was when boats were introduced and the options they give for expansion particuarly to the first person to have them. There just didn't seem much of real interest to me in this game, however. In addition, if everyone were playing as fast as me I am sure the game could have been half the time. Many turns I knew exactly what I would do for the whole turn from the very start unless someone did something to change that plan which rarely happened. The other major problem I had with the game was the usual multi-player war game issue of "let you and him fight". I basically entirely tried to avoid combat except on the 2nd to last turn when my neighbor had no cards and I had a hand full of military leaders so could with impunity attack three different places of his on the same action phase, which really screwed him and helped me a bit but can't say I really liked doing it and would have hated to be on his end of it (although really by then it was a 2player game anyway between David and I which David ended up winning by 1 point [and he was readily able to calculate in advance that would be the result]). Just not enough going on or enough interesting decisions to want to play again. Rating 6/10.

Move Done

Well, the main move is done and now living on other side of Cambridge. Thanks so much to helpers Bill K., Bill S., Mark and Jeremy who all did a great job and were able to fit everything in one load (unexpectedly to me) and whole move start to finish was done in 2:40. Also really glad I switched to Budget for the truck rental as the truck was great and less than 5 minutes to pick up and drop off. Of course, I spent the rest of the day doing tons of unpacking but since we were done early enough actually managed to get most of the place into pretty livable shape. Going to have to get used to the new place and foibles it has which will probably take a while. Having overnight guests will be more of a problem but otherwise I think I'll be ok with the reduced space.

Anyway, new address is 40 Clifton St. #11; Cambridge, MA 02140 and for now my number is my cell which is (505) 574-7936 or can call my work number of (617) ELF-TALK.

Busy Weekend

Saturday was Unity Games XI and I went and played games for 13 hours. Played a bunch of differnt things, new and old. Think the 3 I learned were Blue Moon City (quite good), Elasund (good mechanics but too much take that) and Fab Fib (fun but not as good as Liar's Dice). Also played two games of Tichu with three people who I rarely play with - interestingly, in like the first 5 hands I went out first every hand but never called, or really even considered calling, Tichu. Anyway, good time all around.

Sunday I was busy doing early moving stuff with my mom's help for like 8-9 exhausting hours. Packed up a ton of stuff and moved two carloads of stuff over to the new place. Will see how things go with this place but have a feeling I am going to be looking to buy and move pretty much as quickly as I reasonably can due to the small space and too many near neighbors and all. Main move is this coming Sunday.

Visit from an old friend

Doug, who is one of my very oldest friends from high school and before, came through Boston yesterday on his way to the Mt Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb race. This is his first trip to New England and we had a nice time catching up a bit (haven't seen each other in 9 years!) and I showed him a bit of Boston and Cambridge. Really nice visit but way too short as he headed north this morning to get ready for the race.

World Boardgaming Championships

Took my usual vacation to the WBC in Lancaster, PA. Had better luck with the hotel room, partly because Rick came down early for the pre-con and was abel to grab us a better room. Michael and I did a horrible job navigating both ways, missing a total of 3 major turns, one of them by almost 2 hours. Probably didn't cost us a ton of time but felt pretty dumb.

I played fewer non-Titan tournament games than usual. A lot of the Euro games really feel so much the same and so luck dominated that even if I were to win the tournament, I'd barely feel much of an accomplishment so don't bother with too much of an effort to make or play in semis. Battle Line was the only one I played at all seriously and got to the semifinal, only to lose to an incredibly lucky player who I am pretty certain I was significantly better than. He got 6 straight flushes (5 of them natural) and I think the other 3 were Trips which was the best board I've ever seen. I with perfect play could only possibly have gotten 1 straight flush. Even so, it seemed I had a shot until the very end when he seemed to go on a run of "play perfect card, draw perfect card" to win 3-4 fights.

In the Titan tournament, I got to the semis in multiplayer pretty easily but then had no luck at all and basically just hung around to take 2nd but never with any real shot at winning. Was still a strange and interesting game, however, with Kyle probably leading initially until he caused a couple of really bad battles for him and then David P. leading for most of the game until Kevin also got 'port and had the better Titan stack and won the game (and went on to win the final). In the 2p tournament I got to the quarterfinals relatively easily and then had a game where I was totally dominant on the masterboard but had horrible luck in the two battles and lost my Titan and the game to two Cyclops swings (6 6s in 18 dice) but I could have avoided this 6% possibility and really should have, my only major mistake of the week.

Over the years, I have been training up a bunch of the Titan players in Tichu and this year it has really started to pay off. Didn't need to teach a single person from scratch and yet had 8 or so people happy to play a bunch and played at least 7 full games and a bunch of partial games and had a really fun time with it. I am thinking next year of making an announcment on Consim in advance of a semi-regular Tichu game in the nights as there are lots of other Tichu players at the convention who might like to have a regular place to congregate and play.