After Action Report - Thursday Night Gaming @ Paradise Perks, May 23, 2013

Thursday Night Gaming at Paradise Perks had 20 – 25 people attending the event.  There were up to five tables with games being played at any given time.

I was only able to play one game this time.  We managed to make it take a lot longer than it should have because everyone that was playing the game was either learning or relearning the rules as we went.

The game that we played was Cargo Noir.

In Cargo Noir, the players are leaders of smuggling operations that are trying to get goods that they sell for items that can improve their operation, like additional cargo ships and warehouse space, or luxury items like yachts and night clubs that give them points at the end of the game.

We had one false start because we did not understand the resolution of bidding for the good at the ports rules as well as when to change turn order.  Once we figured that out, we started the game over.  We then spent extra time referring to the rules a number of times during the game which slowed us down as well.  This somehow turned a game that should have taken around an hour into a two and a half hour odyssey.

We did have a major bidding war between two players for one set of cargo that went on for a third of the game that managed to wipe out the bank at one point.  Fortunately, I was not involved in that, but I still managed only to get second place.

We completed that game at a point in the evening that was too late for me to want to start a new game, but not late enough for me to want to leave.  At that point I started to chat with people about upcoming conventions.

It started when I noted to a person that I knew to be part of the staff at Gamex that I was surprised that he was at the event.  I had expected he would miss the event because he would need to get ready for Gamex because is started tomorrow.

The conversation then evolved into talking about San Diego Comic Con and our views on that event and which of us would be attending.  We ended the evening there.

Here are my results for Thursday Night Gaming.

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Cargo Noir	1	-	1	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	2.00

Game Review – City of Iron

City of Iron
Number of Players	2 - 4
Play Time	120 minutes
Ages	14 years and up

City of Iron is a 2 – 4 player game from Red Raven Games.

In City of Iron, the players take the role of factions in a city state that are trying to build it into a great nation.  They do this through developing buildings in the city, founding colonies, and conquering neighboring towns.

In order to do this, players need to develop two decks of experts that will allow them to do the things that will help them achieve their goals.  The two decks are divided into civilian and military experts.  The player will focus on getting experts for the deck that enhances their faction’s abilities.  They will then use the experts that they draw from their decks to build new buildings, explore new areas, set up colonies, and conquer neighboring towns.  All of these things can increase the income and victory points of a player.  The person with the most victory points at the end of the game wins.

One of the things I do like about the game is the way they handle the expert decks.  As I mentioned above the experts are split into two decks:  a civilian deck and a military deck.  You draw new experts from the deck each turn based on abilities given to you during play of the game.

As cards are played they go into a discard pile based on the type of cards they are, civilian experts into the civilian discard and the military expert into the military discard.   When a player uses all of their cards from one of the expert decks, they then flip the deck over and it becomes the new draw pile so that they fist card they played when the previous draw pile was created is the top card of the new draw deck.

This makes managing when you use which expert from your hand and makes each drafting new experts count.  Quite simply you do not want to fill your deck with experts you are not going to use.

The game has the standard problem of most economic games in that the rich get richer and after a certain point in the game can maintain a significant lead over the other players by just out spending them.

It also seems that the conquest road to victory almost always guarantees a player victory especially if you play the faction that focuses on conquest when using the advanced rules.  In order to remove this advantage all of the other players have to participate in conquest, which is a shame because it does not let the other players take full advantage of their own faction’s special abilities.

While I like City of Iron, it is not a game that truly excites me in that I look forward to playing it over and over.  I think it has mechanic or two, it feels like the game was built around these mechanics without much thought to the rest of the game.  Add to that the conquest strategy being unbalanced against the other strategic options presented in the game, I would give this game a C.

After Action Report - Thursday Night Gaming @ Paradise Perks, May 16, 2013

Thursday Night Gaming at Paradise Perks had 20 – 25 people attending the event.  There were up to six tables with games being played at once.

I only managed to play one game that night mostly because it was a long one but partly because I got annoyed with the actions of one of the players.

The game that I played was Yedo.  Yedo is a strategy game that uses auction and worker placement to be able to gain money and power so you can complete missions to be able to get more money and amass prestige (victory) points.

The players take the roles of clan leaders in the city of Edo during the Tokugawa Shogunate and try to gain the most prestige by the end of the game which is 11 turns or less if one of the players completes a specific mission earlier than turn 11.  It is important to continually find ways to complete missions in the game as it is the only way to get enough money to be able to go the things that you need to do to win the game.  If you do not do this, money will be very tight.

The game started alright for me.  I was able to complete three missions in the first four turns, which was able to generate me some cash, but I had to quickly spend it on things that I needed to complete those missions so by the fifth turn I was still broke and had not generated the victory points and I was in last place where I remained through the rest of the game.

From the fifth turn until the last turn I was not able to get the items to complete another mission because I did not have the cash needed to get the items to complete the missions.  I continued to fall behind had no chance of winning and only a slight chance of getting fourth place.  In other word I was not a factor in the game at that point.

Then it happened.  The first place player decided to be a jerk and hit me with an action card that took victory points from me because he had the card and I was the only person he could play it on.  It did not matter to him that it would not affect whether he would win or not he just wanted to play the card on someone before the end of the game.

It is that sort of unsportsmanlike conduct that makes me mad.  As far as I am concerned you do not hit a player in last place with something that will make a game harder for them just because you can.  The only place that you should even think of doing this is if you a playing with a group of good friends in the comfort of your own home.  It is not acceptable at an open gaming event when you are playing with players that you hardly know if at all.  For all you know you could be playing with a player who is at their first event and turn them off of going to another event ever again.

So I managed to come in last in that game and it turned me off of ever playing a game with that player again.  I ended up in such a foul mood that I did not play another game that night an after talking to a couple of people ended my night early.

Here are my results for the event.

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Yedo	1	-	-	-	-	1			5.00
Totals	1	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	5.00