What I Played Today: June 24

Ora et Labora

Ora et Labora is a pretty good game. I play it just often enough that I don't see myself getting bored with the static playfield, and the level of choices is pretty solid. This time in France, in which I failed miserably at setting up either the bread engine or the wine engine. My opponent just kept sniping my actions; whenever there were a sufficient number of grapes available, he would just take them and eat them, or give me a wine to get seven casks of wine. Once he started abusing the trading company, which got him plenty of bread and wine, which he would then take the sacrisy for huge points...I lost again, is what I'm saying. I did manage to build an impressively large cloister though, which netted me some okay points.

What I Played Today: May 27

BattleCON, Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Ora et Labora

Early morning gaming! I’m going to miss this. First a game of BattleCON, which I won using my finishing attack (mostly), which was pretty cool. I played as Luc, the time traveler, and while I maintained advantage throughout, it was still great to activate that special action. Also, to be fair, my opponent was not very well balanced, so not a fair fight.

I had purchased Star Trek: Fleet Captains, because I hear it was great, and it is very thematic and I like it. I managed to lose quite badly, because the Federation had multiple missions that cared a lot about a killing a single spaceship, so he bum rushed me and took out my smallest scout, and got half the necessary victory points for it, it was ridiculous. I also didn’t know which decks were good for the goals I was attempting, so I ended up with a bunch of cards I didn’t need. So…not great, but very fun. I like how them combined four whole series into a single game.

A game of Ora et Labora, which I lost, even though my opponent was sure that he would lose. Again, having a ton of settlements is no much to a well-oiled machine. I once again leaned too heavily on whiskey making, which I always do, even though victory point wise it isn’t really worth that much. I managed to trade in my whiskey for some good buildings, but it just wasn’t enough. Should have build one more settlement with the castle.

What I Played Today: March 11

Ora et Labora

I played a solo game of Ora et Labora, because I wanted to. I cannot tell you what I did wrong or right, all I know is I ended up 50 points below the target, and that's too bad. I ran out of space to build things really quickly, and the problem with the mountain space is that there are literally only two things you can build there, and for one, you kinda have to buy the other. I also don't get why they make it exceptionally difficult to get the goods to make the high quality goods in this game. For the French board, which I was playing, the rules tell me to throw out both grapevines. So...I guess they don't want me to make wine. Because there are maybe four other buildings that will give me grapes. I still managed to make quite a bit, but I concentrated mainly on bread because all the other options were pretty closed off by the game's rules. A weird puzzle where they don't let you use the most obvious pieces.

What I Played Today: March 4

Ora et Labora, BattleCON

I woke up at God Knows Why and went to play board games! First was a two-player of Ora et Labora, which went pretty fast, considering. After a while, I realized I should focus on getting victory point goods, converting all the resources I was able to pull in into books and stuff. My opponent went for an aggressive settlement route, getting the castle and surrounding hugely important building with encampments. He made a mistake when he closed off his monastery, meaning there were four buildings remaining that only I could build, so I controlled the pace of the end game, and kept building up items until I easily swept him. But it was fun.

Then a few rounds of BattleCON, two of which I lost horribly, and a third where I managed to squeak out a slow victory. It’s weird, because while I totally understand all the different aspects of the game, I just kinda blow chunks during play. I just suck at mindgames, I suppose.

What I Played Today: January 28

Ticket to Ride: Nordic, Nottingham, Ora et Labora

Played a couple of games of Ticket to Ride: Nordic, which is vicious as hell. The game is designed for only 2 or 3 players, so the routes are lot more exclusive, and its very easy to get blocked and lose a lot of points because you can't achieve your destination. If that wasn't enough, the engines are no longer wild, and are in fact required for certain routes, so...that sucks. I don't think I'm a fan of this one.

Also played Nottingham, which is interesting set collection, where you can either take the card offered, or give up the card to use a special action to hopefully get the card you want. It's pretty alright, although I'm not a big fan of the weird mechanic in which after someone scores, anyone with less than a certain number of cards gets a card for free. Mainly, because the person who just played a set gets another leg up, and the person who is waiting for the card they need gets nothing. It only helps those who are already doing alright.

Then a long game of Ora et Labora, that actually wasn't that long, because myself and another player were quick decision makers. It went really well, although I got cornered by one of the players falling into a wicked combo, and maybe half a dozen times I played to take a particular action, only for someone else to do it first. But it was good playing it with people who seemed to get the game.

What I Played Today: January 9

7 Wonders, Ora et Labora

Game night! Even though certain elements are starting to get to be too much, I'm still going, because I've made quite a few friends there, and was invited to another gaming event, so that's great. But there, I played a game of 7 Wonders, which I had forgotten about, but still like. The new edition looks so much better than my copy, with individual slots for each deck. I lost, mainly because I didn't build up any military (or anything really), and so took 6 points to the chin from my neighbors. My attempt to get a lot of points from my wonder didn't counterbalance that well.

Then a short game of Ora et Labora, which still managed to take two plus hours. There was a lot of figuring out the mechanics, but people were figuring it out. I put a lot of energy into building a wonder, which worth a cool 30 points! Except you can't really build one without sacrificing at least 15 points, so I have no idea what the point is. They do look cool though. I won by a point, just barely ahead of the guy who invested greatly in settlements. If he had just placed one differently, it might have swung differently. But it was really interesting to see, and I'd like to take a crack at the full game, but only with an experienced crowd, because man this was a bit of a lengthy game.

What I Played Today: January 8

Ora et Labora, Skyrim

I finally got to sit down and try out this new Uwe Rosenburg game, Ora et Labora, and tried out the solo player, which is a bit different than other solo versions in that the player gets even more options than a three player game, but a lot of problems to overcome too. The solo game is long as hell, longer than all other versions of the game, and has a really high score total you have to build to. There are a lot of places to get points; from buildings, from building settlements near desirable locations, to certain resources. I built up to being able to get a lot of whisky in one go, 16 cases of whisky, and I thought that would be good enough, but I was still down 150 points at the end. Man, I don't know. I'm going to avoid looking up strategies for this, since the game doesn't have any random elements, so the game could be potentially solved. Still, at two hours a game, I doubt someone will figure that out any time soon.

Also played some Skyrim, because hey, it exists. I did some companion stuff, got pretty far in one dungeon and I got killed deep in it, only to discover it hadn't saved at all, so I had to start over. So...I stopped. Bah, I saw!