After Action Report – Strategic & Adventure Game Association Game Day @ El Toro Public Library, June 14, 2014

I hosted the Strategic & Adventure Game Association game Day at the El Toro Public Library on Saturday.  There were 18 people in attendance and up to five games were being played at once.

I decided that starting with this month’s event that I would institute a score keeping protocol for the group where we would start keeping track of the results of the games that were being played at the event with the idea of providing prizes at the end of the year for the best players.  This used to be done as part of the Orange County Board Gamers group until the organizers did not have time for it so I decided to institute it on a smaller scale.  The plan is to do this across the So Cal Game Connection meetup group which I and another event organizer started.  Participation is voluntary so any information I get from it will most likely be incomplete but I still think the exercise will still be worthwhile.

Scorecard Review – May 2014

In May I changed up the regular events that I normally attend.  It has had an effect on the games that I have played.  There are more older games that are toward the lighter side on the list of games that I played.  Let us review what I played and how it fits into what I have been doing up to this point.

May

In April I was able to play 30 games at 9 events for an average of 3.33 games per event.  I was able to hit my goal of an average of 3 games per event again.

After Action Report – Strategic & Adventure Game Association Game Day @ El Toro Public Library, May 10, 2014

I hosted the Strategic & Adventure Game Association’s Game Day at the El Toro Public Library on Saturday.  The turnout was lower than I expected based on the RSVP’s that I had received at 14 people, but four games were being played at any one time.  It must have had something to do with Mother’s Day being the following day.

I played four games throughout the day.

The first game that I played was Lunar Rails from the Empire Builder family.  For those that are unfamiliar with the Empire Builder games here is a brief description of how they are played.

After Action Report – Board Game Night @ Comic Quest, May 1, 2014

I decided to go to Board Game Night at Comic Quest this week instead of Paradise Perks for a change of pace.  It had been a while since I had attended that event and I wanted to see if anything had changed.

There were 15 people in attendance at the event and four games were being played at any one time.  Unfortunately only one table actually had board games being played.  At the rest of the tables miniature games were being played.  That is not a problem to me because I feel that it is good to see any tabletop games being played but if the majority of games are not board games on a board game might maybe the name of the event should be changed.

I was able to play four games during the event.

The first game was Ingenious.  Ingenious is a tile laying game where the player score points based on the number of like colored spaces that they can connect to the tile they place.  If they maximize the score of one of the six colors they get an extra turn.  It is important not to concentrate on a single color or group of colors too much because the player’s final score is based on their lowest score in a color.

After Action Report – Strategic & Adventure Game Association @ El Toro Public Library, October 12, 2013

There was a good turnout for the Strategic and Adventure Game Association event at the El Toro Library There were 15 people at the event and four games were being played at any given time.  There were no new people at the event but a number of newer faces from recent events returned which is always good to see.

I was able to play three games at the event.

The first was Alhambra.  In Alhambra players are trying to build the best palace complex by acquiring buildings that enhance increase its value.  The more expensive the building the more versatility it has in the way of being able to build more additions to the complex.

At the beginning of the game the players start with a single fountain tile that all buildings that are build must have a path to or they may not be placed, and 20 – 28 coins to be able to purchase buildings with.  Coins come in denominations of 1 – 9 in one of four different currencies.  There are four different buildings that will be up for sale during each players turn, the currency that is used to purchase the building is dependent on where it is placed in the market. 

The player may perform one of three actions during their turn.  They can purchase a building, take more coins, or take a tile from their reserve / redesign their palace complex.  If they purchase a building for the exact amount during their turn they may take an additional action during their turn.

There are three scoring rounds during the game.  During each scoring round the player with the most of one of the types of building scores they points for that type of building.  In the first scoring round, only the player with the most buildings of a type gets the points.  In the second round the players that have the most and second most score points for the type of building.  In the third round the top three players get points.  In addition each player scores a point per segment for their longest wall.

This was a teaching game for me.  Those that have read my after action reports in the past know that in a teaching game, I focus more on if the other players are understanding the game and helping them make sound decisions whether it affects my position or not.

I started out with a decent amount of money but it was all in higher denominations so through most of the game, I was struggling to pay for things with exact change to be able to get extra actions.  Getting the extra actions is usually what helps people win the game because they are able to get more building or collect more cash during each turn.  I was also running into problems with not having a lot of diversity in types of buildings.  It was not a play on my part it was just that when I had enough money to buy a building it would be of a type I already had.  As a result during each scoring round, I was only getting top scores on one or two types of buildings which was not enough to give me a good score.  I ended the game in third place out of three players.

In the next two games I fared much better.

Next up was The Hanging Gardens.  The theme in the Hanging Gardens is that the players are architects in ancient Babylonia that are trying to design the best monument in the city.  As they complete areas of their monuments, they are given rewards that are worth victory points.  The more of any type of tile a player can get the more victory points the tile is worth. 

It is a game that has tile placement and set collection elements in it.  The players take turns adding tiles which are actually cards divided into six sections.  1 – 3 of the sections will have features on them that the player needs to combine in groups of 3 or more sections.  Once a player gets a large enough group of tiles together, he can then earn tiles that score points depending on the number of similar tiles he collects.  The larger the section the player can build before scoring it the more options the player will have in scoring tiles.  The player must then block one of the spaces in the section they scored with a temple.  This space is blocked and cannot be covered with a new card.

I started the game strong and was able to keep on going.  The most important thing in the game is to make sure that you are getting as many scoring tiles as possible.  The best way to do that is to be able to complete a six or greater area of a type before they score it, they can get two tiles when they do score it.  You also want to spread out your play area as much as possible so that when you start to reuse your temples, you leave open an area that can be scored again if you can get the right card the next turn.  If you can get this engine going you are almost guaranteed to win.  I was able to do just that and won the game.

The final game of the day was a new game for me called Pyramidion.   In Pyramidion the player are foremen that are trying to put together resources that need to be shipped to the construction sites at Cheops.  There are eight areas that the players need to compete over during each turn.  The players in turn order put an area up for auction.  Then the players use a set of nine cards that they have to compete in 3 different areas for dominance.  The player that has the most points over the minimum necessary to compete wins in that area and gets resources.  The first area you get any resources there outright, the second you are able to take a resource of your choice from the area in the following turn after production occurs.  In the third are you are able to take a resource from the bank that the area produces during the shipping phase.  The trick is that you have only the nine cards to use during the entire turn during which each player puts up two areas for auction so you need to be careful where you choose to fight for resources.  Players gain victory points by sending shipments to Cheops on a barge.  Each barge is worth 1 – 5 victory points.  The more complex the demand the higher the victory point reward is.  After the shipping phase, the player who has the most victory points once someone reaches 12 points wins the game.

During the first turn the road to victory was not clear to me so I was competing for as many spaces as possible and not really focused on what items were the most important to get to capture barges.   As a result all I had was a few of a variety of different resources that would not get me any barge and end the round with no victory points.

In the second turn the way to win the game clicked into place in my head.  I figured out that I really should focus on just getting the resources I needed to complete the shipping demands and only bid for them.  This limited me to only caring about three areas during the turn.  I was able to get what I needed out of each auction I participated in and passed on the rest.  Armed with a bunch of resources, I was able to get two barges and was tied for first place at the end of the round.

I did the same thing in the third round and was able to get three barges and win the game.

My results for this event are:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Alhambra	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	-		3.00
The Hanging Gardens	1	1	-	-	-					1.00
Pyramidion	1	1	-	-	-	-	-			1.00
Totals	3	2	-	1	-	-	-		-	1.67

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