Rochester Gamers Community

Bob, Kath and Jeff posted about 2 weeks ago that they were going to host a social event with some gaming thrown in for good measure. It was a planned ‘all day’ affair, with food, drinks, and good times. Everyone pitched in a little with something to share and the three of them provided the brats and a lot of other food. If you had the time to come and share in the camaraderie and good times and choose not to, I’m going to quote a movie you probably know and say, “You have chosen……..poorly.”

When I arrived I think Justin was already there, and we and Bob and Kath were just chatting about a myriad of things. I honestly can’t remember all the different conversations, but I do know that we were talking about Watchmen a little and the Hulk for quite a time. I’d also say that through the course of the day there were several that I shouldn’t repeat in a family friendly forum such as this. Jeff was out picking up a couple things, and he arrived next. Jacquelene was getting ready at the same time. Nick arrived later, and Liz was later still, having to wait for some sort of tree maintenance. Mike was there, Micre, David, Blair (for a time), Joel, Rob, Dave, and I can’t remember who else, if anyone.

Like a super genius I tried to get Starcraft started first. I have gotten in several plays of this with the expansion, and I know that David and Micre liked the base game quite a bit, so I thought we’d get that started. Jacquelene, Nick and Rob hadn’t played before, so I explained the game and the changes with the expansion and then we set out the first turn. Then the food was ready. I can’t say thank you or stress enough how great it was of Bob, Kath and Jeff to provide everything they did for everyone. It was much appreciated.

Following some time out in the sun (with intermittent breaks to go inside and warm up), and some more great conversations, we got back to the game. Nick was first, playing Tassadar, followed by Micre (Arcturus Mengsk), me (Jim Raynor), David (The Overmind), Rob (Aldaris) and Jacquelene (Queen of Blades). We set up the galaxy and I was lucky enough to have no one directly next to me, and have an access point to a lot of victory points. Nick started out by building his forces on one planet and expanding to the next one, but not building a base at all. Micre really established a solid foundation on his starting planet but did not branch out. I went for a victory point grab as fast as I could, and managed to expand onto a planet which contained a strategic area as well. David built up, but had Rob both right behind him in turn order and right next to him on the board, typically a bad combination in this game. The placement of the order markers really is what makes the game as great as it is, although the theme has a lot to do with it for most people (not me, since I’ve never played the game). This means that the person who places after you has a significant influence on what you can do. If that person is the one who is also attacking you it takes a significant amount of preparation to be able to deflect that. David had chosen his leadership card that allowed him to collect extra victory points as long as one the token associated with it was in play. He was preparing for the inevitable invasion from Rob. Rob had chosen his alternate victory condition which allowed him to win at 15 points while the rest of us had to get to 20. Jacquelene chose the card that let her start with 2 bases and 2 transports, giving her a pretty good setup. Luckily for us her starting planets required her to have flying units to collect the victory points.

There was no actual combat for two turns, by the end of which I had 9 points, David had 7, Jacquelene had 5, and everyone else had 2 or less. I had to go first and played the mobilize order on my planet and waited for the onslaught, which did come. Micre and Nick both came for me, Nick getting me off the planet he had expanded to, but not off the victory point space in the air, so I was able to collect that one. Rob took out David’s space with the extra victory point token (the overmind token). Micre came for me next, then fired off a preemptive strike and took out a battlecruiser with his goliath. If only I had built the defensive module I would have been able to save it, but his preemptive strike did leave the victory point space ripe, and I took it back. This meant that Jacquelene and I each got 4 points, and I had Nick bearing down on me.
Next turn was even worse in terms of board position, as we had hit stage 2 in the interim and several people were playing their leaders, including Nick’s Carrier leader and Rob’s Dragoon leader who can use high templar cards, and Jacquelene’s infested terran leader. Micre chose his card that gave 2 extra victory point chips, David chose the extra action chip, and I chose the one that gave me free workers or transports, and doubled my research and supply modules.

The next turn Nick was about to destroy my base and take those 2 points, so I built the limited air defense module. This meant he wasn’t able to attack my base that turn and couldn’t take the points away, without building an offensive module. I was prepared for that as well, as I built a ghost and researched lockdown, which would have prevented his unit from attacking mine anyhow, but it was moot, since he didn’t build the module. This was probably due to it being his first time playing. Jacquelene and Micre went to battle this time, and David took back a space from Rob, earning him another point. At the end of this turn I was able to secure another 4 points, as did Jacquelene. Micre earned 3, and David did too. Rob was really trying to hold on until stage 3 for his special condition to trigger. A quick survey of the board and the event deck revealed that it would be almost impossible for someone to prevent me from getting the 2 points I’d need to claim victory next turn, and the deck wasn’t going to run out so we decided to pick it up and take a break, maybe play something else.

Some reflections on Starcraft, with the expansion
1. Don’t teach new players with a 6 player game. There isn’t enough stuff to do to keep 6 people interested for the time they’re investing, and a lot of what happens on the board doesn’t affect you enough to hold your attention.
2. Honestly, I’m not sure that 6 players is the best number. I’m thinking I like 4 best, because you really can move around and get to where you need pretty fast. It also means that you need to pay pretty close attention, as you know that your opponents that can do the same to you, so you stay more engaged than you might with a lot of downtime.
3. The game is based around victory points, so those have to become a priority quickly. You need to move for them faster than you’d like to, because if you don’t you’ll be in a big hole, and you might not be able to get out.
4. The leadership cards are awesome, and the expansion cards are a lot of fun.

I think everyone was a little tired of the game by the end, but we were able to chill out and rejoin the party, something that was a nice focus as well, since the interaction was a big part of it.

A quick Dominion game broke out while I was on the phone, so Bob, Nick, Jacquelene and I decided to play Race for the Galaxy. Bob had played once before, while Nick and Jacquelene were new. I explained the rules and we were off. Bob started with the planet that allowed him to discard a card to produce an alien good, Jacquelene had doomed world, I had separatist colony, and Nick had epsilon eridani. My initial hand had a lot of alien cards and the alien 6 point development, so I knew where my strategy would lie. Most of the cards I had were military, and I also had the new military tactics card. I managed to play that while everyone else chose explore, then a lot of us chose settle and then consume trade. I got up a pretty good engine going, and I actually went the entire game without playing a world with a consume power. That helped me, as I was able to save all my alien cards for trading rather than having to consume them for points or cards. I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out. We took our time through the game and I think everyone had a good time, but the crowd was gathering, as the plan next was for a big game of Descent. I wasn’t planning on getting into that one, but Bob was, so he told everyone to set it up while we finished. I managed to take this one as the only player with more than one games experience.

Bob, Joel, Mike and Rob played Descent, with Joel as the overlord. While that was going on, Justin, Jacquelene, Jeff and I took some time taking a break and deciding what to play next. We pretty much listed off every game we had there and settled on Power Grid. Justin was cool with it, and the last time Jeff played he won (at a Wednesday at my place). Jacquelene and I played in a 6 player game to end Con of the North, so I knew she liked it too. We chose Korea with the new plant deck, leaving out the pink and yellow regions. I ended up getting to place first and completely spaced on the purple region, instead focusing on the brown. Justin and Jeff went purple, while Jacquelene set herself up in the brown/green chokepoint. We played a few turns until Justin triggered stage 2. Naturally, that worked out perfect for me, as everyone had built to six except for him, but I had the lowest numbered plants. Going first on the next turn allowed me to get into Seoul and get the cheap cities with connections of 0. Jeff got to go next, then Jacquelene. Justin had to suffer for this of course and didn’t fare well for it. At the end of that turn, I had 13 cities, with the next closest being 10. Granted, I could only power 11, but the board position was worth it. Two turns later stage 3 started, and the game ended the next turn. I built to 17 with the second build and we packed it up. I like the Korea map, but I’m not all that convinced that the split resource market is a big deal unless either you’re trying to get uranium (in which case you can only get it from the south) or multiple players are buying a LOT of resources, meaning that someone might get shut out of what they need. I don’t think it’s generally a good idea to hoard resources in PG, so I don’t see it happen that often. Maybe I’m wrong there.

Next the 4 of us started BSG. I had given Jacquelene a lot of crap before about her first play and how she gave away being a cylon with her look. I really had to eat my words on this one, as she apparently got dealt a cylon card first this time too (playing Gaius helped, as she gets an extra card), so I guess I couldn’t read her as well as I thought. Or maybe it was because it was after midnight and several beers, or maybe because I thought Justin gave himself away, or maybe I’m just not as good at reading people as I think I am (probably a little bit of all of those). We played through the first stage of the game pretty well, and it honestly felt like the humans were doing well except for fuel, which was getting a little short.

Here is where I miscalculated. I actually had the choice to jump us 3 instead of 2, at the cost of extra fuel which would have put us in the red on fuel. That would have meant the sympathizer would have sided with the humans. Since I was a human already, I should have just done that, and left the one cylon (which I thought was Jeff at that point) alone against us. Of course, I actually wanted to be a cylon, so instead I took the one that left the fuel in blue, which meant the sympathizer would side with the cylons, hoping that I’d get that card. Jeff got it and I was convinced that he would have to spend his first turn giving someone else his other cylon card. When he didn’t, of course that meant that someone else had gotten it. Since I knew it wasn’t me, it was at this point that I knew we were in trouble. Jacquelene made some comments and let a ‘good’ slip out when something bad happened, so we determined it was her. Of course, on my turn I had to decide to jump the ship or try to throw her in the Brig. I decided that the jump was more important and moved us ahead, and then she revealed herself.

At this point, it was Justin (Apollo) and I (Helo) against Jacquelene the cylon and Jeff the sympathizer (Chief Tyrol). The board looked like we were going to be toast, but we managed to use about 6 executive orders in a row to at least manage to repel the centurions and get that total down. Jeff was raining crises down on us every turn and then the FTL spot got damaged. We had no one who could even draw blue cards to try to repair it, and finally, as the curtain closed, our morale just dropped and everyone gave up hope, two spaces from the auto jump point and in position to have tried the FTL if it hadn’t been damaged.

This was as close as I’ve ever seen the humans get to winning, as we already had 8 distance and were 2 away from the auto jump home. We had 2 of our resources at 2, one at 1 and 1 at 0 when we lost. There were 2 centurions on board still, and the FTL and viper control location were damaged. I am not a fan of the show (although I probably would be if I had ever watched an episode), but the game was a lot of fun to play as the humans. The first game I played I was a cylon and had a lot of fun with that, particularly since we were able to tag team the humans rapidly and blow up galactica. This is the most fun I’ve had being the humans, and I think Justin and I availed ourselves well, although we lost, because it was closer than I’ve ever seen. I also liked how stressful every turn became; wondering if this was going to be the turn we bought it. I think now that I have more of an appreciation for the humans and will probably play the game to try to help the humans get the sympathizer if I’m already a human instead of hoping to become a cylon, or maybe I’ll already be the cylon……..

When we cleaned up the Descent game was still going strong, although Bob had just picked up an item with pierce 10 that allowed him to kill something that had apparently been harassing them for the last 6 hours (at least, it seemed that way). I said my good byes and got home right around 4am, perfectly normal time for the end of another great day of gaming. Bob, Jeff and Kath were quite gracious hosts, and I’m glad I got one more chance to hang out with a lot of people that are worth investing time in. The best part of RGC is the relationships you’re able to forge with people who have a common interest, and that is what I’ll take away from today long after the scores are forgotten. The experiences are what you remember, and the people you share them with. Either way, I’m glad I came. “I chose……wisely.”