Downtime Habit

Today on Two-Player Tuesday we tackled Olympos again. We both like the game and its mechanisms but I have a problem with its inevitable "downtime". Since actions are paid for on a time track, and it is always the last player on the track who plays next, it is possible for someone who has, for example taken a "wonder" for seven time spaces, not to have a turn for a long time. Even in a two player game there could be two or three plays before he has another chance. If his opponent suffers from "AP" the wait can be huge and as it is more than likely that the other player's choices will affect his own, there is only a limited amount of advanced planning that can take place.

At one point I did the washing up and made a pot of tea while waiting for another turn. Still it was an enjoyable game and a very close one. My own cause was not helped by the Zeus card which compels one to discard all destiny cards. Although we were equal on Zeus points and this therefore affected both of us, Crabro only had only one card to my six. More importantly one of them was a star which I was about to to include in purchase of a wonder.

In the end I managed to obtain the wonder but didn't recover from the loss of the cards (six points in themselves, plus additional from their use). Only myself to blame for not using some earlier I suppose. The scores ended at 37-43.

As I declined another immediate return to Olympos we turned to a game I have been trying to get played for a couple of years: Dungeons and Dragons the Fantasy Adventure Board Game. This and two expansions were irresistible when they turned up very cheaply at a remainders book shop and a charity shop, because the components are so attractive. They have colourful specialist dice for example and most important of all have large and highly detailed "minis".

The game from Crabro's point of view had even more downtime than Olympos because as the "DM" he had only one turn in five at the best of times, and when the "heroes" were exploring a room without monsters or traps, he had nothing to do even when it was finally his turn. This game may have potential with higher level scenarios injecting more action and excitement and perhaps would become more interesting still with more people taking on playing the heroes but as it was the first two levels were very easy, and would have been even easier, I subsequently found out, if we had been playing it correctly.

If we never play it again I think it should still be possible to justify the low-cost purchase by using the lovely figurines in other games. It should also be possible to devise a way of playing it without a Dungeon Master, either solo or co-operatively.

Dances with Dragons - My thoughts from Goodreads

A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I was rather bullied into reading A Game of Thrones, the first in this Song of Ice and Fire series, by an old friend from Germany. I kept ducking the issue of whether I was going to follow up on her recommendation until she eventually she just sent me a copy. I was worried because, although under the circumstances I was bound to try it, I was sure I wouldn't like it. Despite my love of Lord of the Rings I have a bit of an aversion to most serious fantasy and all its overcooked melodrama and daft names. Usually a page or two is enough to make me wince and return it to the shelves. In this case a page or two was enough to make me wish I didn't have to finish the book I was reading so that I could immediately immerse myself in the harsh world of Westeros.

Four books (or five volumes) later I was a hopeless addict and, like a huge number of other fans, getting VERY exasperated with Mr Martin who did not seem to be getting on with the job. It was bad enough that he had decided to split this part of the saga geographically, not chronologically, so that it seemed that even the next volume would not resolve the cliff-hangers and answer the outstanding questions, but then the next volume did not come. Deadlines droned past and GRRM's website seemed to record any activity other than actual writing - watching baseball, going to book signings and conventions around the world, relaunches of his earlier works, merchandising, games, and then the casting and pre-production of the HBO mini-series understandably distracted him. While I was with all the complainers in wishing we could shackle him to his word processor, it seemed churlish to berate a chap who had given us so much pleasure...and eventually my patience was rewarded with a gigantic slab of a book of over 1000 pages, saying in effect "what do you mean lazy?".

One of the problems with the delay though was that I had forgotten huge amounts of detail. The plots and subplots in different regions of GRRM's universe involve hundreds of characters and for a good many chapters I was struggling to get back on board and remember who did what, where and to whom, even with a long dramatis personae appended to the book. Before long though I was once more totally immersed in this brutal but incredibly detailed world and didn't want to leave. I can't imagine that anyone is writing better swords and sorcery fantasy than this but I do have a couple of problems with it: One is the sheer number of names. On the one hand putting a name to even the humblest servant does give it a close-up detail which makes it live, on the other hand it becomes completely impossible to remember them all and can "drop you out of the narrative" as you struggle to recall what this name should mean to you.

Another problem for me is the occasional real-world intrusion, which has the same effect of ejecting me abruptly from my suspension of disbelief. I can't decide whether using quotes, near-quotes or other idioms and maxims from our own world is Martin thinking we won't be aware or whether they are deliberate nods that we are supposed to notice. One example was yet another string of names of knights, the final two of which were Ser(sic) Perkin and Ser Lambert. Putting these two names together (both pretenders to the throne of the very real Henry VII) had the immediate effect of dropping me out of the fantasy. Not a big problem but I wish he wouldn't do it.

The last issue I have is that every time I get to like a character he kills, maims or tortures them. With Martin it is no good expecting that there will be a knight in shining armour who is the clear hero and who will still be there triumphant at the end. As soon as you think you've found one you can be sure he will be forced to do something horrible or simply end up on the receiving end of a longsword or crossbow bolt or something much worse. Those that have survived this far are not the people they were, having been through all kinds of hell.

Actually, this is not a actually a complaint and reluctantly I'd have to say is one of the huge strengths of his writing: For all their fantasy setting, his characters are detailed and real...and unpredictable.

Sadly, the wait has now begun for Winds of Winter and I wish I had more confidence in it appearing on time.



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Είναι όλα τα ελληνικά σε μένα ...

Tonight there were only four for Thursday Games Night and we played Olympos followed by Alhambra with elements of the fifth expansion: The Power of the Sultan.




Olympos was an attractive looking new (2011) game from Ystari designed by Phillip Keyaerts who also designed the Vinci reboot, Small World which I really liked.

I found I liked Olympos too but I had some reservations. Primarily the problem for me was the huge amount of downtime if you took certain actions which meant you didn't get another turn for some time.

Actions are regulated by a time track and certain actions move you a considerable way. The two main actions are expansion and development.

Development moves you a massive 7 stages on the time track and expansion can also mount up, especially if it involves "combat". Combat works on the basis that the attacker always wins but can get expensive in time terms if your opponent has a lot of "swords"

There are some nice and original-feeling mechanics here and an attractive board. The fact that the last player always gets to play next and can move a short distance on the time-track making him STILL the last player and hence the next to play, can mean it is a long time before your next turn. That aside though I enjoyed it and for once also won it.

Alhambra is a simple colourful and pleasant game which I invariably lose. Tonight was no exception, but for a change we introduced a couple of the many mini-expansions. These were the caravan and the art gallery from expansion set 5: The Power of the Sultan.

Like all the expansions to Alhambra that I've played so far, these didn't make huge changes to the rules, although we did find this time that the game seemed to take quite a bit longer and it almost looked at one stage as if the game would end before the second scoring round card had appeared.

There was some confusion over the scoring of this one. I noticed that ProfMudlark had moved Crabro's scoring token on after scoring green buildings whereas it was me who had the most and Crabro should not have been entitled to anything for that colour.

In the confusion, as scores continued to be put on, it took a while for me to be able to register my doubts so it was difficult to satisfactorily resolve. Sadly it would not have affected my position anyway. I think it might have taken the win away from Crabro and given it to the Professor though

La Cheata

Tuesday games this week saw only one game played: La Citta - albeit once before and once after lunch.

An interesting game of card driven actions and tile placement, based on expanding your cities while feeding your little citizens and improving their cities with buildings that give points in education, culture and health.

They both resulted in very close scores, although they were learning games and we both made mistakes.  I narrowly won the first game and then after lunch lost by exactly the 5 points I was penalised for not being able to feed one of my citizens in the last round.

Unhappily this was deserved because I had inadvertently cheated earlier in the game through a misunderstanding or mis-hearing of a rule.

I was left with slightly mixed feelings about how long we had laboured to produce such marginal victories at the same time still feeling that it was a very well thought out and satisfying game.

As it had only cost us £7.99 between us, we were inclined to feel we had secured another bargain.

Twilight of the Old West(ern)

Ride the High Country (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)Once again a Western was the main feature of Not a Film Night and once more Randy Scott swung up into the saddle to accompany our beer and cheese. This time it was Ride the High Country aka Guns in the Afternoon. Beware: There may be spoilers heading you off at the pass yonder.

Ride the High Country was made in 1962 and directed by someone later to direct one of the classic Westerns of all time but who at this time had written and directed only for television: Sam Peckinpah.
Image via Wikipedia

For my money this is in itself a classic mythic western and it took its stars by surprise at the time by being lauded by the critics.

We don't always consider that the "Old West" didn't really last very long but there are indications in the opening shots that the cowboy and his horse had had its day as Joel McCrea (as ex-lawman Steve Judd) narrowly avoids being run down by a motor-car. The horseless carriage looks fairly well established and the horse is also being beaten in some dodgey races by a camel. The camel's rider is a young man teamed with Randolph Scott (aka Gil Westrum) who it quickly becomes clear has once been a man of action, taming frontier towns, but is now milking the somewhat exaggerated legend of his past as a carny with a slightly crooked target-shooting stall. The camel racing is also something of a scam as we later learn that no horse could beat a camel over the distance Gil and his young partner have set.

 Image via Wikipedia
Joel McCrea recognises Scott (they have been Marshal and deputy together several times in earlier days) and recruits his former partner for another proper job then blags himself into a gold bullion escort job from a nearby mining camp (reading the contract in the lavatory to avoid exposing the fact that he needs spectacles to read it).
Both the leads were somewhat playing themselves as they were reaching the end of their cinematic cowboy-playing trail (although McCrea was still a fine horseman and successful rancher in real life). As McCrea himself put it "Both Randy and I were washed-up actors playing washed-up lawmen"

They do a great job in this elegaic Western and Scott once more plays a character with some interesting light and shade unlike some of his more heroic roles. The two heroes rather steal the picture unsurprisingly but Heck Longtree, the young camel rider (Ron Starr) gives us the key conflict plot by falling in love with Elsa a young woman with a very sheltered upbringing and stirring up trouble from her father and her fiancé and his crazy family. Meanwhile he has fallen in with another no-good scheme of his partner Gil and looks likely to be double-crossing their employer and friend. The end is both poignant and satisfying and we thouroughly enjoyed our main feature.

The Hunters (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)The second feature was not quite so universally admired. Chosen because of our love of vintage warbirds (and in particular from my friend's love of early jets) we watched The Hunters.

This is a Robert Mitchum vehicle and is immediately interesting because it is set in that rather unpopular era for films, the Korean War.

While some of the flying (which after all is what we wanted to see) is fascinating, we became eleven year old boys again deriding the sloppy love subplot which interrupts the aeroplane action.

Mitchum (as Major Cleveland Sivelle) falls for the young wife of one of the pilots in his new posting (before he realises that is who she is) and this affects his future actions as he reluctantly keeps her husband in his flight and even takes him as his wingman despite knowing that he takes refuge in a bottle at every opportunity and has never shot down a MiG. Incidentally and not surprisingly MiGs were not available in 1958 and so were played by American F-84Fs. The love interest was played by the lovely Mrs Sammy Davis: May Britt

Mitchum eventually rescues his rival after he ejects over enemy territory after tangling with "Casey Jones" a hot-shot Chinese pilot (although we now know he would have been much more likely to be Russian).

Image via WikipediaIn the process we also have to contend with a brilliant but wayward pilot played by Robert Wagner. For some reason he has to talk a kind of fifties jive talk: Calling his officer "daddio" and replacing OK with "George". This is probably the third or fourth time I have seen this film and I'm not growing any fonder of "Ed Pell". In fact most of the flyboys featured are drunk, insubordinate and prone to lethal dereliction of duty. Personally I think the whole stinking lot should have been subject to courts-martial, from their commanding officer Richard Egan, aka Col. Dutch Imil, on down. Seemingly without conscience, albeit with some rather unfortunate notions of honour, they leave a trail of dead friends which must come close to exceeding their tally of dead "Chinese" in exploding "MiGs".

It's tosh but tosh with interesting aeroplanes and at least one fine actor. Of course we enjoyed it as well as being irritated by some aspects.

Raptorous Birding

Image via WikipediaA fairly bright and mild Autumn day tempered with a slightly chilly wind and we were off in search of a Rough-legged Buzzard and a Hen Harrier. To avoid disappointment later I will say straight away that our recent record of missing the target continued.

It was a marvellous day for views of other raptors though as we trampted the crest of the Downs overlooking Amberley with distant views of Arundel Castle across the valley. We had already seen a Kestrel or two when Mrs Birdguru spotted what she thought was another and four Red Kites wheeling and diving to the North above a distant farm.

Once the 'scope was brought to bear it transpired that there were five Kites and a Kestrel to be seen. This was a glorious sight but by the end of the afternoon we would be almost blase about Kites, Kestrels and Buzzards.

Stones perched all the way along a fence

Sudden huge smoke cloud from far copse

 A few minutes later on the other side of the hill facing South we came across another birding couple who were watching a Red Kite, one again the 'scope revealed another. One of the two Kites was sweeping the ground in the valley below and getting closer and closer. Even through the binoculars it was a thrilling sight.

After some further forays down the many intersecting bridlepaths in search of the Rough-legged and Hen Harrier, we retired to the car for lunch. Even sitting in the car at our startpoint we were treated to a cabaret of more Red Kites and a Buzzard.

After lunch we set off again and eventually encountered someone who had apparently just come from viewing the Rough-legged and gave us fairly explicit directions. Nevertheless when we got there we just had more stunning views of Kestrel, Kite and Common Buzzard.

We did notice that there was a group of birders in the distance apparently looking intently towards a group of trees to the left of us. Using the 'scope and moving around we eventually had good views of a pale-looking roosting Buzzard. A fine sight but, however much we wanted to make it the RLB my birding mentor was sure it was just another Common. I think at one point we remarked on how we were sounding disappointed as we said "another Kite" or "another Buzzard" but of course these are wonderful sights in their own right and contributed to the feeling that we had actually had a marvellous day's birding.


During the course of our rambles we had also seen many smaller species down to a perky Jenny Wren. As well as a few excitable Skylarks, there seemed to be a great number of Fieldfares about and also some Long-tailed Tits amonst the Bluetits and Great Tits.

Gaming at a distance

Image via WikipediaOh dear Crabro and I have finally dipped a successful toe into the wide waters of board gaming via the internet while chatting on Skype. It's not quite the experience that sitting around a table pushing cardboard is, but it's an interesting substitute.

We were due to be at a small, rather exclusive Con locally but for one reason or another couldn't get away until almost lunchtime at which point Crabro suggested that, rather than driving there (quite a few miles for him especially as he would be coming here in the evening too) we make another attempt at linking up on-line for a game or two.

Image via WikipediaWe rang off for lunch and some software set up and when we spoke again it was via Skype and for the first time via a sensible headset in my case rather than the speakers.  For the rest of the afternoon we were chatting almost as though we were playing face to face.

The Vassal set-up took a little longer but eventually it fell into place even though I was on my Windows games machine rather than the main Linux machine while he was using Linux as always. We first attempted Memoir '44 as we had played my real copy several times recently and thought we knew the rules. It worked and looked quite nice but we had a few problems understanding the interface especially as some expansions had been included which we had never encountered before. Decks of combat cards?

It having been a reasonably successful start, we had a look through the extensive list of modules but eventually decided to have a game of something we both know and own (one shouldn't of course play anything on Vassal that one doesn't own a physical copy of and in some cases this is ensured by missing card decks etc.). We therefore, had a couple of games of Carcassonne which I messed up as much on line as I do with the cardboard version. I can never get the hand of where and when to place farmers.

Grabbed from the Vassal session

Some things about the interface where nice (the ability to "lay down" a meeple for instance) but it felt rather glitchy and several times we accidently picked up all the tiles instead of just one and had placed tiles go missing. We got used to synchronising on the person with the undamaged copy to correct these things though and overall it was a successful start for on-line peer-to-peer board gaming.

Later on the group arrived for the usual Thursday evening session and I played Strozzi with ProfMudlark, MaOldie and Crabro and then a second game with the full group after Petra Pan and mrwendell arrived.

As soon as I opened and started punching it I realised that I had in fact played it before and quite liked it. A simple game of grabbing a ship or three and placing it at a port to gain points and bonuses by having the best ship in the port (highest number) and the highest position on the trade goods track of that port. There is a little more to it than that but not much. I won the first game convincingly but found a six-player version a little more difficult, coming second.

After that and another round of hot drinks we decided to play Fast Flowing Forest Fellers again as it is quick to learn and should be fast playing. Of course the Professor can suffer attacks of Analysis Paralysis in any game but he quickly accepted that this game needs to "flow" in keeping with the theme and on the whole it moved fairly fast.

I spent several minutes trying to be heard of assorted conversations as I pointed out the the boards were the wrong way round, it being no fun to push someone into a current that is going in the direction they want to go. In the end I gave up and relied on it dawning on the others eventually... Which it did after the initial few moves. Unfortunately mrwendell had negotiated his way through a sea of logs into a clear lead by that point so he was not overly pleased to have the game restarted.

Justice was served though as his lumbermeeple raced over the finish line in a clear lead from my second place chap (which he had unkindly bumped into a stream heading backwards when I was in the lead). The usual mayhem ensued at the mid-point as people repeatedly sent their opponents (and the odd log) back up-river. I'm not sure the others were as enthusiastic about the game as Crabro and me but then for me it loses something with too many players. I like the opportunity to choose between more than one meeple for example.

A good day's gaming anyway, despite shunning the Con and its free cakes.

Well, well, in the cradle of civilisation

...But not a "Civ" game. Assyria was quite different in play to the impression I got from reading through the rules. I thoroughly enjoyed our two games of it today, although I narrowly lost both (and equally narrowly lost the game of Notre Dame too).







Both today's games were new to us but were a pleasant surprise and we had a very satisfying day's gaming. Where did I go wrong? Hard to say. We were new to both and inevitably discovered that we missed a rule or two in both. I was certainly labouring under some misconceptions as far as scoring wells, carrying-over cards and one or two other scoring and placement nuances were concerned.

In the end it didn't matter too much. Honour was served by the closeness of the finishes (in one case a single point I think and never more than five) and more importantly we both had a very satisfying day's games with both of us talking in terms of 8s out of 10 as far as ratings were concerned.

The two games were quite different: Notre Dame being action card driven, whereas the cards in Assyria provide food types to support placement of huts. The placement of the huts then provides points or "camels", effectively this game's currency. With camels you can buy actions like placing parts of ziggurats which ultimately add to your score.

Both games  seemed nicely balanced and well thought-out and despite their differences I couldn't really choose between them as far as the pleasure of playing them was concerned. Of our recent purchases we still have La Citta and Strozzi to go but the recent games have more than justified their bargain prices so I look forward to the remainder.

Stop calling me Derrick

Saturday games are rarer these days but all the more welcome when they do occur. This week the featured games were Fast Flowing Forest Fellers and Black Gold.


The day began with an enormous breakfast and several teas and coffees with the LOML and another ex-colleague (ex-boss actually) newly returned from an adventurous visit to the our late colonies. I was transported to New England for an hour or two over some excellent bacon.

I then managed to watch a little of the F1 qualifying but very soon had to head off to the station as we had decided to try and cram in a two-player game or two before eating.

I introduced Paultro to Fast Flowing Forest Fellers and he took to it like a lumberjack to water beating me, with my own last "feller" a single move behind. As it had been played in the proper flowing spirit we had time for a rematch and this time it was my turn to win. Paultro was quite taken with the fun of forcing your opponent into streams flowing in the wrong direction and with the speed and simplicity of the game.

After an excellent and huge meal (Mrs Paultro is a terrific cook) we were now four and settled down to Black Gold. I immediately liked the little oil wells with their plumes of oil and the general look of the boards and bits. I proved not to be a great success at the game though as it ended with a win for Paultro but with everyone but me having amounts of money in the 80 thousand area while I ended up with 66 thousand. I had very much enjoyed the game and its mechanisms though and will probably add it to my huge wishlist.

We wanted a quick filler to finish on and it seemed a good idea, with it fresh in the minds of myself and Paultor at least, to play Forest Fellers again. It didn't take a lot of explaining (so we thought) and we were quickly up and running. Paultro's missus (who had come a close second in Black Gold) had somehow failed to grasp that there was a difference between the male and female logger's cards though. She quickly put on a big lead with her lady logger but her gentleman lumberjack was far behind. This began to look increasingly odd to me and I watched her next move carefully which confirmed that she was using male cards to move the female logger.

Unfortunately, when this was pointed out she held it against poor Friedman's game, insisting that the pictures and wooden piece did not look feminine. I tried in vain to make the point that as long as the symbol matched the wooden piece it was irrelevant whether Mr Friese had put a frock on his log-riding lady. All ended amicably but I fear that FF's FFFF will not be too welcome on this table again. A pity because the others liked its quick simplicity and chances to sabotage other players. I think it deserves to be in the ranks of available fillers. Perhaps our lumberjack hater can be persuaded.

Dormant Dominant

Work hours having taken their toll this week, the Thursday gamers were whittled down to three and Crabro saw a golden opportunity to put ProfMudlark through his paces on the Dominant Species board.






When we played it as a two player game recently, we had speculated that it would be a game that the Professor would like and be good at. We anticipated that he would probably trounce us and that prediction turned out to be accurate.

The early stages of the game saw us all close together and then the gaps began to appear. For quite a while I was clear of Crabro in second place but then he started scoring heavily in the survival stage by camping on all of the tundra areas.

As the game wore on, and midnight came and went, both Crabro and I began to tire and lose focus. For myself I began to make sloppy decisions and worse not to care about anything but getting it over with. Crabro had accelerated past me but the Professor, still fully caught up in the game was making huge strides, passing 100 points and continuing serenely on.

In the end, past caring, we wound the game up and did the final scoring rather than face another whole turn at least. This was a shame for the Professor who had his sights (probably realistically) on his double century. Another round would not have made the slightest difference to the placings though as the gaps were only widening.

Image by Sharon Drummond via Flickr

It's a shame that it went on so long (starting at eight, it was nearly one am when we called a halt) because I think we all agree that it is a fascinating and enjoyable game up until the point where bed seems a preferable option and you never want to see another species cube or dominance marker.

I doubt we will play it again because it would be far too long with the whole group, but it is a satisfying blend of worker placement and area control in small doses.