games day

[cellio]

We had a dozen or so people for gaming on Saturday. I played one new game this time, Pandemic, which I really enjoyed. Ralph, who brought it, wrote about the game here, but I'll share my impressions too.

This is a cooperative game for up to four players (all of our games had four so I can't speak to the experience with fewer players). Each player has a specialization; more about those in a bit. The team is trying to find cures for four diseases before they spread out of control. You win by finding the cures; you lose by having too many outbreaks, by having any disease run so rampant that you run out of its markers, or by exhausting the deck of cards without winning. The game starts with several infected cities; at the end of each player's turn two more cities will be drawn from the "infections" deck and infected as well. Every now and then an epidemic breaks out; a new city (from the bottom of the deck) gets a disease and then all the discarded infection cards get shuffled and put on top. That means that cities that have been infected once are more likely to be infected again, which has the right feel to it.

Players can spend actions (four per turn) to move, cure a single disease token (in the city they're in), build research centers (help with travel and required for finding a cure), or work on finding a cure. Finding a cure requires accumulating sets of cards, which are drawn each turn; there is a limited mechanism for passing cards, and one of the player roles (the researcher) can pass cards more freely (that's its special ability). The other roles are the scientist (requires fewer cards to cure), the dispatcher (can move other people on his turn and can bring people together without the normal constraints), the operations expert (can build research centers for free), and the medic (can heal cities more effectively). I played three games, playing researcher, the medic, and the dispatcher. I enjoyed all the games, and while it had appeared in the first two games that playing the dispatcher would be boring, it was not.

The calibration of the game (we played at the first two levels of difficulty) felt pretty good, neither too easy nor too hard. In the last game we were prepared to win on the very last turn, until the single card that would have caused us to lose came up in the infections deck. Oops.

Other games I played, all of which I think I've written about before, were Trans America (filler), Rum & Pirates, Puerto Rico (three players, four-point spread among scores), and Carcassonne. Other games that were played (this might not be a complete list) were Imperial, Dominion, El Grande, and Hermagore. Pandemic and Dominion got played multiple times by different groups. Belatedly I realized I could have given up a Pandemic slot to let a new person play; I jumped into Pandemic when the choices were that and Arkham Horror (decent game but too visually-challenging for me late in the day), but then the other group decided to play something else instead and I didn't think to move. Oh well; didn't mean to be greedy with the new game.

We had some cancellations and were down five people (from planned) for dinner. Non-sandwich suggestions for leftover lunch meats would be welcome. (No combining with cheese or milk, though, so pizza, lasagna, etc are out.) We'll eat sandwiches too, but I'd like some variety. I think scrambling the pastrami in eggs would be good; I don't have good instincts for the roast beef (would stir-frying it with veggies work?) and turkey breast.

Comments

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Pandemic is a fun game. Even though most of the time, the players lose... most of the losing games are still fun. It takes a particularly ugly combination to make it a not-fun game.

Pastrami scrambled into eggs, or in an omelet or frittata, works well. Yum. Deli roast beef slices *can* be stir-fried with veggies, but start the veggies *first*. The sliced meat will warm up *really* fast. I'd consider the same for the turkey, or combine the turkey with mashed potatoes or hash browns.

[dsrtao]

Roast beef: omelet with spinach and onion. Caramelize the onions, wilt the spinach; slice the roast beef into half-inch-wide strips and saute a little. Mix all together as an omelet filling; add a little salt and pepper, possibly garlic, before closing the omelet.

Turkey breast: in a green salad, with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, peppers, black olives, and a vinaigrette.

[alaricmacconnal.livejournal.com]

Roast beef also works well with pesto and some olive oil (we've made appetizers on bread with the above and it turned out well). Not sure how it scales. Put some olive oil on sliced bread (the heartier breads work better), add some roast beef and pesto on the top ... bake till the bread is crisp ... I think around 10 minutes or so.

[cellio]

I played in three games of Pandemic. We won the two on the easiest level, and (with different players) lost by one card the one on the second level of difficulty. More data points will be required, obviously. :-)

Stir-fry: yes, since the beef is already cooked and is sliced thin, I was assuming that this would mean a veggie stir-fry with the beef added at the very end. I hadn't thought to try that with turkey; thanks for the suggestion (also the others).

[cellio]

Ooh, beef/spinach/onion omelet sounds yummy. And yeah, I should have thought of salads. Thanks!

[cellio]

Thanks. All of the pesto recipes I'm familiar with use cheese; do you know of one that doesn't, or have ideas on what one can substitute (other than fake cheese)?

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

Pastrami eggs are a long-time favorite where I'm from. You can fry up pastrami like some folks fry up bacon.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fun time!

Pandemic was a neat game. Of course I only played it once, but we did manage to win on the VERY last card in the deck. (We were going to lose at the end of the turn guaranteed, but pulled out a 4th cure.)

Dominion I just played last week with the group at work; kinda fun. Seemed hit or miss based on the minigame selected. Seems like it'd make a good travel game, though, as it doesn't really need a board.

[alaricmacconnal.livejournal.com]

Here's a recipe for cheeseless pesto I found (I haven't actually tried it):

Pesto Without Cheese (http://www.recipezaar.com/Pesto-Sauce-Without-the-Cheese-132222)

Since I haven't actually made pesto before, I didn't realize that it contained cheese.

[cellio]

Ooh, fried pastrami sounds like it would be tasty. Thanks.

[cellio]

Thanks. I had been wondering if just dialing up the olive oil would work; at least one person thinks it does. Good to know.

[cellio]

Dominion doesn't need a board, but without a table you have to be able to keep the ten action cards currently in play, and what they do, swapped into memory. That's probably not too hard on the first game, but if you keep playing different variations it seems like it would get hard. Or are you thinking that you could put the stacks of cards in the box top? That might work (don't have the box handy to judge whether it would fit).

[byronhaverford.livejournal.com]

Loved Pandemic.

Don't feel like I really played Imperial (I didn't understand the rules).

I remain somewhat cool towards Dominion, for the same reasons I discussed before.

San Juan was great fun! I like it better than Puerto Rico -- faster moving, fewer things to keep track of.

[cellio]

Sorry to hear about Imperial. I hope you'll give it another try under better circumstances. (I've only played once but I liked it a lot.)

I've never played San Juan (and forgot that it had been played at this session). Sounds like something I should try. How many players does it support?

[byronhaverford.livejournal.com]

I don't know the answer to your question. Probably maxes at 4 or 5.