Monica

We invited some people over for gaming yesterday, specifically to play longer games like Age of Renaissance or Seven Ages. Most such games that we own are calibrated for five or six players. We ended up with eight, though, so we split into two groups of four. (I think the only candidate we own that works for eight is Arkham Horror, which garnered reations ranging from indifference to hostility.)

The other group played History of the World; ours played Seven Ages. This was only the fourth time I've played and the first time without Dani (who's played a little more). I found that while I know the game well enough to play, I didn't know it well enough to teach it efficiently. Sigh. It shouldn't have taken me an hour to explain it to the one new player, and I hope that didn't turn him off of the game. Once we got into it, everyone seemed to be having fun. (I would specifically like to play another four-player game including that new player.)

Most world-domination games don't work well with fewer players than their targets, because the same map is generally available (so you can spread out more and avoid conflict). Civilization and Age of Renaissance both restrict the map when that happens; History of the World doesn't (and I can't remember of Age of Imperialism does). Seven Ages doesn't, but it's different because you're still going to end up with 15 empires in play regardless of the number of players, and it's in players' interests to bring in more empires if they can.

The four-player game does have an advantage over larger ones, though: while there will be just as many empires in play, you have fewer players to conflict with and more chances to work your empires together. At one point I had Babylon in play and wanted to bring in the Persians; if those had been different players there probably would have been a lot of fighting, but since they were both mine I just sent my Persians east toward the fertile lands in India instead. With fewer players, negotiations about territory were a little easier.

On a completely practical note, four players can sit comfortably around the map (on our dining-room table) such that everyone can see; this is harder with five.

We randomly dealt two empires in ages one and two to everyone (and the rest of a hand, of course), to avoid sucky starting positions. Well, mostly -- my two empires from that deal started in the same space. :-) Fortunately I got another age-two empire in the deal, though all of my options were lower card values. (I started play with Babylon (3) and the Inuit (1), once the game had been determined to be in age two.) My Inuit were actually doing ok for me, winning world domination after a few turns of ramp-up; if we had played a few more turns they would have succeeded in trading for knowledge of horses and then their cavalry would have been all over the Americas and northern Europe. Which is, in a sense, wrong, but would have been fun.

We had very little conflict through much of the game; most of it was of the "my starting position is occupied" variety. The Mongols showed up in the last turn so there was a lot of conflict there, but through a combination of good luck (on my part) and suboptimal play (on the Mongols' part), my peace-loving Iliryans (called something else, but their starting land was there) defeated most of the invading Mongol army, including killing Chengis Khan. So there. :-)

No empires showed up in India, which was odd. I was holding a card for Australia (didn't expect them in age two), but it would have been another empire similar to the Inuit, occupying land no one else cared about with no knowledge of boats or horses, for mediocre point values. I passed. Most of Europe (except northern) and Asia were occupied, and all of northern Africa. (Subsaharan Africa doesn't show up until later, I think.) I was sharing the Americas with somebody who started in Mexico.

We started at the beginning of the second age, and when we finished (we had agreed to end when the other game did), the lead player was in the first or second phase of the third age. (Some empires were still trailing at the end of the first age.) In terms of where the game was, I wanted to play longer (maybe as much as another age). There were things happening on the board that seemed to be building toward something interesting, but we stopped to satisfy time constraints. Next time we should try for a longer game; we might also be able to reclaim some time by improving the management of game pieces.

( game pieces and how to manage them )

Big fluffy snow! I wonder how long that will last. (It also seems to be somewhat slippery, at least for cars. Maintaining traction is mostly fine; acquiring it while turning (e.g. making a turn from a stop) requires a bit more attention. Or did a few hours ago, anyway, and the multiple noisy near-misses at the intersection in front of our house seem to confirm.)

Dani's company's holiday party was this afternoon. They held it at the children's museum, which seemed an unusual venue for small gatherings (I don't think of museums as having party rooms), but on the way in we passed a sign directing people to a birthday party. Ok, that makes sense -- a child's birthday party at a children's museum makes sense, and they won't turn down adults. :-) (There are about a dozen people at the company, and we and one other couple are the only ones without children.) To clarify: it's a museum filled with stuff interesting to children, not a museum displaying children. I suppose the latter would be, properly speaking, the "child(ren) museum". :-)

Yesterday morning, alas, instead of enjoying Shabbat services, I was at the vet clinic with Erik. (Why yes, I do think health of a pet trumps Shabbat. For myself, for anything short of Major Injury or Impending Death, I'd wait.) Fortunately, the problem was only a pulled dressing and not, as I had feared, pulled stitches. They fixed him up with a bigger dressing with more adhesive, which seems to be holding up well so far. But not the most calming way to spend (part of) Shabbat.

Yesterday afternoon and evening we played another game of 7 Ages. This time we ran from the first age through the beginning of the fourth, but it took a long time. At 9:00, in the middle of the third age, it seemed reasonable to set that boundary. At midnight it was less obvious that it was correct. So, still some calibration to do, but it's a fun game (though I got thoroughly whumped this time).

Short takes:

Ah, that's why there were a bazillion messages waiting in the moderation queue for an SCA mailing list today. Someone posted a query about sewing machines. That's kind of like posting a query about editing tools to a software-developers' list. :-)

Interesting if true, but entertaining either way: legal complications of a bizarre death (link from Dani).

My sister has never read the Narnia books and would like a copy. Does anyone know if the ones currently in print have been altered (from the ones we read in childhood) other than to change the order? (I can solve the ordering problem if I buy individual volumes or a boxed set rather than one of the compedia that's out there.)