CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 21/04/2011

1.       Due to Easter Holidays we had 6 members attend this week, so we played on 1 table only. 5 of us started with “SAN FRANCISCO”, the game about rebuilding the city after the great earthquake of 1906. Tiles representing 3 different categories of building are placed randomly in a grid of the city and the players try to place their ‘building rods’ such that they surround a tile and claim the points for rebuilding that part of the city. On each players turn a contract card is turned over which dictates how many players will get to place a rod and the basis on which the contract is resolved. This will be one of 3 methods, either by the playing of Influence cards, by the playing of Cheques, or by the use of ‘auction chits’. The twist in the game is that when a bid in the Influence cards is revealed any ties means that the players are eliminated from that auction and the resolution passes to the next lower bid. So in a 5-player game the bids of 9, 9, 6, 5, and 3 will result in the player bidding 6 winning the auction. If the auction card indicated 2 players will get to place a rod then the bidder of 5 will also get to place. The cheques are resolved by players simply adding cheques to their bids until every one bar one has passed. The ‘Auction chits’ are chosen secretly and revealed and if one player is the only one to choose a particular category of tile they get to place a rod. If more than 1 player chooses the same category they resolve it by secretly bidding up to 5 cheque cards and the highest total wins. When a tile is built it is turned over and the relevant points on it are awarded to the builder as Prestige Points. Furthermore one of the ‘bonus cards’ is turned up. These enable players to gain more money or more influence points or to move building rods. They are resolved by bidding in the same way as above, or sometimes every player gets the chance to perform the action depicted. The bonus card is placed on a grid on the board, in which there are 12 spaces and this dictates the length of the game, which ends as soon as the last card is placed. Kevin started out with an early lead by building some low values tiles and Lucy soon caught him up by doing the same. Mike waited for his chance to build the more prestigious Town Hall tile for which he received 10 points and closed on the leaders. Some spirited bidding by Geoff and Roger meant that they soon closed the gap but the amounts being bid were rising all the time, so those who kept money back were able to win the later auctions. Despite a late effort Lucy couldn’t quite catch Kevin who held on for the win by 3 points by building a tile late on.

2.       Paul had joined us by this time so 6 of us played “7 WONDERS”, the card game that has been reviewed recently. Mike and Kevin were beaten up on the Military front, both scoring -6 points in that category. Mike never recovered but the others all scored well in different categories and the final scores were very close, these being Paul 50, Kevin 49, Lucy 48, Roger 44, Geoff 40, Mike 29.   

Games played and Winners were:

San Francisco Kevin Ward;

7 Wonders Paul Bulpin.

CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 07/04/2011

1.     Due to absences we had 8 members attend this week, so we played on 2 tables of 4 players each. Table 1 started with “ZOOLORETTO”, the boardgame version of the very popular card game Coloretto. The theme here is that players are trying to fill the compounds in ‘their’ zoo with animals of the same species, of which there are 8 in the game, or to add vendor stalls for the benefit of their customers. In turn order players have a choice of one of 3 actions, they can either add a tile to the lorries that deliver to the zoos, or they can perform a financial transaction such as disposing of unwanted animals, remodelling their zoo, buying animals from other players, building an extension to their zoo, or they can take delivery of the contents of one lorry and place them in their zoo. Taking the last-named action ends their participation in the current round. Each player’s zoo has 3 compounds of different size and players place their animals or vendor stalls as they wish. Once a compound is filled the player immediately receives 1 or 2 coins, useful for later on, and the compound will score victory points in the Game End scoring.  Sometimes if they have acquired a breeding pair the player can have babies of that species to help fill their compound. Any tiles gained that cannot be placed are placed in a player’s barn , from where they can be purchased by other players or used by the owning player to remodel their zoo to better advantage later on. The game ends once tiles are taken from the last pile and after completing the current round the players add up the VP’s of their compounds and their vendor stalls but they subtract any points for items still in their barn. Luke was undone by have several species in his barn at the game end and this is reflected in the scoring, the result being Jerry 28, Poppy 27, Mike 22, Luke 19.

2.       Table 2 played “RHEINLANDER”, a game where players match cards in their hand with tracts of land adjacent to the River Rhine to form duchies. They expand these territories so that they can subsequently build castles, cathedrals and cities to improve their score. Because the game is based around a river players can build along both banks and from several parts of the river so attacks often take place to either stop an opponent advancing or to take over control, from that opponent.  As players become more powerful they can build bastions to defend their areas, they can build churches which enable them to add bishops to the board and the players with the most bishops can become the Archbishop, which grants even more power! Of course the other players will no doubt launch a counter offensive to take this away from you. The game end scoring was very close, with Allister winning on 39 points, Kevin and Roger tied on 38 and Geoff came 4^th.

3.       Table 1 played the card game “BOHNSANZA”, in which they play cards to populate fields of beans which they eventually sell at market, the bigger the filed the higher the reward. The way to get a bigger market share is by trading with then other players for bean types that they require, and this is quite frantic and interactive. The game is played in 3 rounds, with fortunes fluctuating throughout. A very close game ended in a tie, the final scores being Luke 12, Mike 12, Poppy 11, Jerry 10.

4.       Purely by coincidence Table 2 decided to play the “BEAN TRADER”, which is the board game version of the card game played on table 1. Players acquire contracts to supply certain types of beans to the various German cities depicted on the colourful board, for which they will receive money. The problem is that they have acquire these beans in different cities, and the prices of the products tend to rise, and then they have to play a certain number of cards to move from one city to another along the various routes in order to sell the beans they have purchased and take the reward. If a player ends their move in a city in which another player is present they can trade beans with each other, adding to the commercial flavour of the game. There is a neat method of the way in which the cards that have been played are replaced back in your hand, which adds interest to the game. A good conversion of a card game but it does take longer to play than the card game, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The eventual winner was Allister, as he had the good fortune to deliver two high-value contracts early on, which meant he had the money to buy more products in subsequent turns and thereby deliver more contracts.   

Games played and Winners were:

Zooloretto Jerry Jabelman;

Bohnsanza tie between Luke Williams & Mike Oakes;

Rheinlander Allister Gittins;

Bean Trader Allister Gittins.