Imperial Instruction

I'm going to follow on from my previous blog post and tell you a bit about a game I played recently, and what I learned from it.

The game in question was Twilight Imperium 3. It was the first time I'd had the opportunity to play the game face to face and although it was an all day gaming event with plenty of time I was still anxious to keep playing time low so I could get to play some more games later on! Also I'd be teaching the game to new players and I didn't want it to overwhelm them with complexity. So I used my limited experience with the game to try and pick options to keep play time and learning curve to a minimum.

Well from the base game I picked the "Age of Empires" option which lays out all the objectives from the start. This helps play time by allowing players to focus on actions which allow them to get VPs every turn and helps the new players because they're not going to be at a disadvantage from never having seen the objective deck. I was using the conflict-oriented objectives from the expansion in the assumption that more conflict is a good thing but in retrospect I'm not so sure that's a good assumption. Firstly more combat means more dice and that means more randomness in the quest for VPs - you may or may not like this and I'm pretty on the fence about it myself. From a play time perspective though it actually slows things down as people keep on throwing in ships and then building more - plus combat is fairly slow to resolve. In the event the actual objectives dealt included virtually every non-conflict one from the conflict deck so it was kind of a moot point, but I might try mixing the two decks for another game.

Next choice was what strategy cards to use. I chose to use the "II" variants from the expansion for all the cards that had them and the original ones for all the rest. I did this for two reasons. Firstly to use the variant "Bureaucracy" card with Age of Empires requires a house rule, which would be further annoying things for new players to remember and contrary to the text printed on the card. Second using "Imperial II" gives the game another source of potential VPs to speed up play without having to resort to the dull original Imperial card.

What else? Well, artifacts were an obvious choice to put some more VP in the game although I declined to use the "voice of the council" option since no-one ever seems to bother with it. A pre-set board was used to speed up play, avoid having to teach the rules for laying out galaxy maps and to ensure balance since new players are notoriously bad at constructing a "sensible" galaxy when left to themselves. I also left out the Winnarian Guardians as that slows the conquest of Metacol Rex and thus the rate of VP gain. As a final shot I took three races out of the deck before we started - the Saar for complexity, the Xxcha because they clash with "Diplomacy II" and would have meant more differences in play from the text on the card and the Yssaril because the pass ability helps slow the game down.

In the event we had four players - Saardak N'orr, Letnev, Mentak and myself as the Winnu. The opening rounds went as one might expect with people expanding their empires and claiming the first couple of easy victory points, with two players getting a head start through artifact planets. One thing I didn't forsee was that with the low level of trade agreements on offer and the inability to use political cards as resources it took several rounds before people had enough resources to start building big ships and regularly claiming tech advances.

Anyway, after the initial stage I got dealt a "flank speed" card and from this I formed the basis of a plan. I took some newly-minted carriers and ground force from my home system and using the card and the XRD transporter tech I'd previously acquired, landed a bunch of troops on Metacol Rex. I saved my resources that round and built a space dock on my last move, allowing me to complete my secret objective which was to hold MR, have a space dock there and have two tech advances in three different colours. This put me up to 5VP. I was hopeful I'd get at least one from the Imperial II card next round and I'd bought red tech to put me in a position to gain another 2VP from a "five techs in one colour" objective without needing further prerequisites and for the other two I was confident I could keep the Rex for a few rounds and milk it for VPs.

Sorry for all the quotes.

I did get my VP from the imperial card the following turn but then odd things began to happen. The Mentak built a huge fleet ready to strike at Metacol while the Sardak, oddly, was obsessively building PDS units on the planet next door. The Letnev player seemed to be entirely out of it by this stage, being last in VP and not having any obvious ability to claim more. So I got my War Sun tech and built one of the big ships right there on Metacol with the aim of scaring off everyone else - it worked and I held it for another "Imperial II" VP the following round, although the Mentak had used some of their by now immense fleet to take away a couple of my planets, leaving me in something of a resources blight.

By this time I was well in the lead and the other players had started to gang up against me. My ground forces on the Rex went down to a plague card from the Letnev player and then the Mentak stormed in taking Metacol Rex and some more planets off me, leaving me 3VP short of my goal and virtually nothing to build new fleets with. I had the five tech objective pretty much in the bag - just one short and I'd got first pick of strategy cards the following round - so I needed another one. There was a 1VP objective out for "invade a planet containing at least one GF" and I had a far-flung carrier in a system with 2GF that had been there virtually since the start of the game. It was within reach of a Sardak planet with just 1GF defending - so in it went and my Winnu soldiers duly dispatched the enemy for the missing VP. Victory was within my grasp.

However, Letnev, who'd been quietly turtling away for the last few rounds, building forces and claiming virtually nothing and apparently out of the game had a plan as well. He took Imperial II as his first choice in the last round and suddenly pushed out, using the cards ability to claim multiple objectives and artifacts to gain VP at a most alarming rate. In the status phase he managed to creep up to 9VP while I just got in there with the ten, claiming the win even though I had virtually nothing by my home system left on the board to my name.

My plan worked fairly well - the 4 player game, with setup time and the inevitable learning curve for the new players - weighed in at 5 hours which isn't too bad. I can seem myself sticking with that set of speed options for future face to face games. The time passed like absolutely nothing - we'd got two hours in before anyone even bothered to look up from the board to check the time - which for me is always the sign of a really great game.

So what did I learn from this fantastic game session?

Firstly I'll chip in with the oft-repeated adage that it's better to play one brilliant five hour game than five one-hour rubbish ones. I managed to get in a game of Roborally afterward which took around 90 minutes. It was my first ever game and it wasn't bad but there's no way I'd have sacrificed that fantastic game of TI3 for three sessions of Roborally. Of course if you like short games for the mechanics and not just because they're short then good for you - but the moral is don't kid yourself that shorter games are better just because you can play more of them. Time spent having fun is time spent having fun whether the activities are varied or not. When we'd finished an onlooker asked how long the game had taken and, looking somewhat aghast at the answer, asked whether it was worth it. All four players gave him a resounding "YES"!

Secondly - and possibly controversially - I noticed a curious thing about two blokes at that game day who'd come to game with female friends or partners. Both had come with bags full of Eurogames and both had eyes popping out of their head when they saw the TI3 setup. Both asked their female acquaintances if they wouldn't mind stepping out of the Euros to spend the bulk of the day playing TI3 - one ended up joining in and the other didn't. This makes me wonder two things. Firstly it seems that AT games with their often violent themes and frequent backstabbing gameplay have a greater appeal to men than women. That in itself isn't surprising but the experience has made me wonder whether a number of guys who have game-philic partners aren't kept in the Euro fold by their women insisting that they play quick, low-conflict games and that given the chance they'd leap into the AT universe like a fish into water. I wonder also how much of the venom we get from some of the Euro crowd is caused by repressed envy from this sort of behaviour.

Thirdly it made me think long and hard about the diplomatic metagame. This is very much a feature of TI3 and can strongly influence the course of a game but I think my experience in this session showed that the TI3 design does an absolutely brilliant job of limiting it to just another set of strategic choices, thanks largely to the nature of objectives in the game. In other long, conflict orientated games this balancing mechanism isn't there and the metagame can completely dominate the play beyond and influence the dice or strategic choice can have. Paradoxically, having played a game which demonstrated how best to allow the metagame but limit it's influence I've finally decided that long games with dominant metagame themes aren't really for me. Except Diplomacy of course, but that's a special case in which the metagame basically is the game.

The fourth point is one of complexity. TI3 is supposedly a complex game yet my three neophyte players all knew what they were doing by the end of the first turn. This isn't a testament to my brilliance at explaining games but rather a testament to the fact that length and number of rules is only one aspect of complexity. TI3 has a system which is logically consistent both internally and with regard to the theme it attempts to portray - this is a hard concept to define but basically, when I read the TI3 rulebook by the time I was halfway through I was able to make good and accurate guesses about the way the remaining rules were going to work. Today I attempted to read two rulebooks - one for the wargame Paths of Glory and one for the euro Imperial - one was long and one was short but both left me utterly baffled about how to play the game. In the case of PoG this is because the rules are full of special cases and exceptions. In the case of Imperial it is - like many games slimmed to the merest essentials of rules - because the rules have little connection to the scenario they're trying to portray. So don't dismiss a game as being "too complex" just because of the length of the rules - read them first, or have someone teach you. Similarly don't go thinking you can jump right in and play a game just because it has short rules - they won't always reveal how the game plays and they may hide a dizzying depth of strategy.

So that'll do for the day. I just wanted to add a short note to the blog readers to say that I'm going to be moving jobs in a few weeks and my ability to make regular posts is going to dry up, at least for a while.

Twilight Teachings

I know I don't really use my blog space for what blog space is usually used for - rather than telling everyone about the games I've been playing and spewing forth amusing anecdotes from my game evenings I tend to prefer to get on my high horse and preach at everyone. I make no apologies for this - I thoroughly enjoy doing it, and if I sometimes come across like a lecturing professor then so what? But today I'm going to something different - I'm going to do the usual blog thing and tell you about a game I played.

And then I'm going to preach at you.

The game in question was Twilight Struggle, one of my absolute favourite games. It was played over the fantastic free facilities over at WarGameRoom. I, a moderately experienced player was playing the USSR against a considerably more experienced US player.

One of the reasons I wanted to flag up this particular session for public consumption is that is showcased everything that's brilliant about Twilight Struggle. Every hand was loaded with tense, agonising decisions about best plays and risk management. There was luck in the game that helped it swing one way and the other to groans and cheers from the players involved. It's possible that luck, in the end, decided the game and although I don't think it did, the bottom line is that TS is just so much fun to play that really, who gives a damn if it does?

The opening few rounds went pretty smoothly, with no great changes in either direction. Europe and the Middle East were balanced but I'd managed to get into a strong position in Asia, having gathered North Korea, Pakistan and India and when Asia scoring came out I took a small lead. I also absolutely raced up the space race track leaving my opponent standing in the dust.

Things started to get a bit wobbly for me in the mid-game. I made a textbook mistake in Europe, being suckered into participating in a race to get control of France and then being hit by the dreaded "Truman Doctrine". However, my opponents' play of "De-Stalinisation" gave me the chance to grab battlegrounds in South America and Africa - since I already had Cuba thanks to "Fidel" I was in a strong position in those countries. Having gained control of these important areas I made a decision to use the points from "Decolonisation" to usurp the US in SE Asia, gathering Thailand, Indonesia and Laos for my troubles. However I then got hit with "Voice of America" or whatever it is that cleared out my influence in Africa and South America, which put me in a real bind having only Asia and Central America to score from.

The real disaster came in turn seven. I had a hand full of scoring cards and I got hit with Pope John Paul, Ussuri River Skirmish and the China card all in one turn - I lost Poland, North Korea and Pakistan and there was nothing I could do about it. I spent the next two turns desperately fire fighting - the scores were pretty much equal and I managed to claw my way back into parity in South America and gain a slim domination of Africa. So now I had Africa and Central America ranged against Europe and Asia for my opponent - the big scores at the end of the game were his.

However, in turn nine I also managed to loose control of East Germany (I don't now recall how this happened) and I thought my number was up as my opposite number had complete control of Europe. My last few cards on turn nine were to hit the enemy with "Quagmire" which basically made him miss one turn and then in sequence cram in "Soviet Governments" to make him loose control of West Germany and "Willy Brandt" ( the first time I've ever played that card as an event) to give me a foothold.

Then the game crashed.

So we hooked up again in the WarGameRoom chat facility and I basically offered him the game but he talked me into playing out the last round. My headline was the dreaded "Red Scare" which reduced the points he could pour into Germany this turn. The first few cards we were just battling for control of West Germany. Then my opponent played "tear down this wall" to give him a free realignment attempt at West Germany. Muscles were tensed, breaths were held and ... it backfired spectacularly as he actually lost influence, giving me control of the country. He'd burned all his best cards and I used my last few cards to minimise US scoring opportunities in other regions and make sure he couldn't get his military ops for the turn. I thought I'd lost it.

When the final scores came in, I winged it by a measly two points, and rejoiced.

So, a great game. But it occurred to me afterwards that there were a few lessons that I ought to take away from the game.

First and foremost, never give up. Watching people in games whose world has collapsed around then get all sulky and throw in the towel has to be one of the most pathetic sights in the world. I've long since learned not to sulk when it happens to me, but to appreciate the fine play of my opponents and enjoy my spectacular demise for the fine gaming spectacle it often is - but I still frequently resort to giving up when it happens, as illustrated by the game above. But I played the last round and snatched victory from the iron jaws of defeat thanks to a combination of luck and poor play by my opponents. Keep going to the bitter end - you never know what might happen.

The second lesson is that this is a fantastic illustration of why random mechanics and thematic games have the ability to create more exciting and memorable gaming moments than more tightly scripted games. A level-headed analysis of the situation would run something like "we played a game for two hours, and a last minute dice roll was a significant factor in determining the final winner". But that's to miss so much - I only pulled out the last minute win because I'd played well enough over the preceding rounds to stay in touch, and in the end, random win or not, we'd both had a fantastic time and come away with a great gaming anecdote to bore our friends with.

And the third lesson is probably the most important lesson in gaming - however viciously, desperately, achingly you want and play for that all-important win what matters at the end of the day is that you had a laugh doing it. A big part of how I learned not to sulk when the players gang up on me or the dice go against me is to remember that my gaming experience is just part of a wider narrative, so if you're going to go down, don't go quietly no matter how pointless your situation is. It might just be that you swing the game in one direction or the other, even if it's not toward you, and it might just be that you pull off the mother of all spectacular collapses or even comebacks that everyone will be talking about for months to come.

This week Matt has been:
Drinking: Oyster Bay 2006 Sauvignon Blanc
Reading: D-Day by Stephen Ambrose
Watching: Black Books
Playing: Twilight Struggle (well duh!)

Session Report--Atlanta Debauchery

Ameritrash...alive and well in Atlanta, GA.


I had to travel to Atlanta on business so one of the first things I did was look up Robert Martin and Michael Barnes to see if I could hook up for a gaming night. They have a weekly gaming night every Thursday at Mercer College.


Here's what got played:

Alien Chariot Racing Game That I Don't Remember the Name Of: We started off with an old chariot racing game of some kind provided by Steve Avery. We had six players and the rules explanation was...uh....well, let's just say this game has a lot of weird stuff going on, 50 different ways to take damage, lousy components, but a hell of a lot of theme.

I managed to wipe out on the very first corner after my beasts frenzied, I got run over by both Robert and Michael, but I did manage to to at least stab the other players a few times. Steve won.

"HOLD THE CORNER!"

At least it was fast. Ameritrash? Uh...yeah. Except the naff components, this was lots of rules (I still am not sure what the heck was going on for most of the game) and tons of flavor.




Mission: Red Planet So I get to choose from a fat stack of games and I see this game. I'm a big fan of Citadels, so this should be awesome, right? The game played fast and was pretty much over before I knew it. It's all area control with Citadels roles tacked on.

Robert ran away with the win with 48 points, I had 30 for second place. With so few turns (only 10) you've pretty much got to play your turns like a machine, it's totally an efficiency exercise with a ton of randomness in it. It's not bad, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I'd hoped I would.

It's important to note that it took Michael about twenty mintues to get the box lid off.




The Gothic Game: Both Mike and Robert insisted that we were going to play this one. I'd never heard of it, it's a roll and move game with a macabre sense of humor. I mean, the Dracula figure is a penis-shaped pawn. You roll a dice every turn and that's how you move. Every room has random cards that make all kinds of crazy shit happen to you. You want to talk narrative? Here's how my game went:

1. Wander around the entrance
2. Taking damage by being in the same room as a guy who'd had crap dumped all over him...literally
3. Finding a spiked dog collar that never was useful, but was certainly fashionable
4. Getting bitten by a poisonous asp that I couldn't manage to dump on anyone...this paralyzed me long enough for a vampiric Barnes to slaughter my little guy.


There was even their variant where if you didn't use the little cup to roll the dice, you instantly died. Everyone kept trying to pass just the die to everybody so they would be killed by the mysterious "Must Use The Cup" Phantom.

This is a game all about just making a story...it's not about winning (I'm not sure you can even plan on trying to win this)...I was offed too quickly to see some of the cool stuff, apparently Barnes' vampire ended up taking a beating and an eventual bath in the Moat. My corpse laughed at him.




At this point, a cool guy named Will had set-up War of the Ring. Seems like my love for the game made me a big target for an opponent for him. I wanted to get in on the Dragon Dice but I love WOTR and I didn't want to let Will down after he'd setup the board. (Heh...yeah, like I was going to pass up a chance to play my favorite game.)

We used the expansion which was my first time trying that out. It was weird that it didn't make as big a splash as I thought, but just the addition of Galadriel is HUGE. I had an extra die pretty much right away. I played the Freeps because Will had played three times in a row as the Shadow. He had been teaching other players (the same as me, each time I've played it's involved teaching someone else) so he was glad to get a chance to play with someone who he didn't have to teach.

I'd been tangling with him some militarily because moving the Fellowship was risky (he'd have three-five eyes pretty much all the time) but I kept pushing them when I could. Like I said, Galadriel was huge because Lorien was never even attacked.

Once my defenses started crumbling I pushed the Fellowship pretty hard...Will was surprised because I burned Elven Rings early and often getting them moving. I hit Mordor with 3 corruption and in a good position militarily (most of my strongholds were reinforced). However, over the span of the next two turns Minas Tirith fell faster than expected thanks to Siege engines, and I hit TWO eyes in a row moving through Mordor...taking 8 corruption, all the way to 11. I moved again and drew a one, which Gollum nullified by revealing us.

It wasn't enough as one stronghold I hadn't defended well (The Gray Havens) came under assault via the Corsair ships. It was all "Hulk Smash" and the hopes of the Free Peoples were crushed. Didn't matter--the next tile I would've drawn would've killed me.




It was an awesome game night. I saw the website that Robert is working on, it looks awesome--you guys are going to be impressed.



Ameritrash is definitely alive and well in Hotlanta.