Struggle of Empires

Wow, what a struggle it is to get others to play this game. I always thought that the whole point of long game days was to play long and meaty games. At least I was able to find four other players to play this game with me.

This game has a number of interesting components to it. First, there are battles (either against neutral chips or against others). You make a risk assessment against the outcome of the battle. At even strength, you have a 40% chance of success. At plus one strength, it is 60%. Etc… Second, there is the disposition of players to one of the two sides in a war. Both the player order and which players are on what sides are determined by a series of bids. And third, there are all kinds of special power cards that are available. Do you go for allies in specific regions, general bonuses for battle, or extra money in specific regions? Many possibilities for strategy there…

I started out in the colonies (East Indies, India, Africa, and South America) and the German States. Luckily, no one fought me or even invaded in the East Indies and Africa. I tried to gain a greater presence in the German States but the dice were not with me. Finally one person (Susan) tried to come into India. However, I was lucky. She could have done a sneak attack against me, but she decided not to. On my next turn, I quickly moved a ship and army in (I should have instead put a ship and fort in). Later, she fought and won against my army, but didn’t have enough actions to kick my control markers out (which is all that count anyways). And she finally settled for a second place presence.

During the first two scorings, I was in the lead. But it was clear to me that I was slowly loosing ground. Carl was taking over some rich territories in Europe, but he was spending a lot of money trying to control who was on each side (I didn’t really understand his motivation to put John and me versus everyone else. He never fought me). After final scoring, I was in third place, but when 1st and 2nd places in unrest moved Mike and Carl back, I ended up in first place!

All told, it took us three hours to play this game after the rules were explained. Which is quite reasonable, I think.

Crystal Faire

Another playing of this game and this time we found that we got a rule slightly wrong. During the adjustment phase, each player is allowed to fill the crystals back up to three. And then they can take either 0, 1, or 2 and move however many crystals are left. I think that it would make the victory point levels for crystals much more chaotic. We’ll see…

I still am not completely likeing the trading phase. It doesn’t seem crystal clear to me what people will offer or what I should offer (pun intented).

Tichu

What is this? Mike volunteering to play Tichu? WTF?! Not much unusual to report apart from that. Well, Adam did play the rare straight which included an unused bomb in it. On the last hand, I called Grand-Tichu blind and was smacked down by Adam for that. He had all of the controls and I had nothing…