The Flooded Gardens of Babylon

by on February 22, 2011 at 10:25 am
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had a day of Advanced Civ again this Saturday. Slightly different group, and the beginning of a problem (at least it’s one that’s generally good to have). I could have had seven people over. Advanced Civ can take seven people. My dining room table, however, cannot. I really need to start checking the local options for meeting spaces.

Anyway, we ended up with me, Dave, Mark, Jason, Patch and Bruce. Bruce is the new person, and I’m still working out his ‘fit’ with the group. I will say I have some worries. He’s a good guy, and while he picked up CC:A pretty fast a week ago, he definitely struggled all day with Civilization, which is no more complicated. Bruce has said he’s generally just interested in tactical games, but I wasn’t expecting anything that extreme. Also, at the moment the group game days are one big multiplayer game, which means higher level games.

At any rate, I managed to grab Babylon, despite being 4th in the order for picking which nation to play. This turned out to be a big blessing, as it put me on the opposite side of the board from Bruce’s Italy, which kept up a very aggressive territorial campaign all game. Jason had Egypt again, and built one city a bit early, giving him slowish start, but otherwise it was managed fine, and was slowly pushing me back in the Levant.

Jason was slow in going west into the rest of Africa there was no Africa player, and Italy was slow in getting there, so much of North Africa was empty for the first half of the game as Italy, Thrace (Dave) and Crete (Patch) got tangled up in a protracted struggle for space in the Balkans. Patch debated at one point, and went for Metalworking, but afterwards wished he’d taken Astronomy instead, to colonize Africa with.

Meanwhile, my major problem was Assyria (Mark), who I had a constant set border squabbles with. He had come after a border with me before moving towards Asia Minor. This kept me from being entirely comfortable, but I was generally keeping even with him, city-wise, or possibly one ahead. This meant we tended to be primary trading partners, since we were the only ones with matching high-level cards.

I was about the second one to break through to the Late Bronze Age, but did not make it to the Early Iron Age by the end of a slow day. Mark did make it into the EIA on the last turn, and I still had two advances to go, so he was in good shape. In general, I had been in great shape, and with two fewer advances, I still had a higher total value. I had gotten Architecture, and it was allowing me to be stable at a full nine cities, something I’ve never achieved before.

Of course, a lack of disasters all game did not hurt. I drew about three and traded them all away. I got hit by Superstition early, but recovered fairly well. I got an Earthquake pretty early. But I avoided the really harmful events, and was the one who last traded away Epidemic neatly avoiding taking that hit.

However, on the last turn of the day, I drew three calamities, two of which were non-tradable. I traded away Superstition, but thinking on it, I should have held it. You can only be the Primary Victim of two calamities per turn, and the two I had to swallow were Flood (which is especially bad for Babylon) and Civil War (which is especially bad for a large civilization). Getting two cities reduced by Superstition instead would have been a bargain, but I didn’t think about just how bad the other two were in the press of events. In the end, I dropped from nine cities to four, with minimal population, and therefore few possibilities for rebuilding on the next turn.

We had to call it there, and had a wide spread of scores:

Side Player AST Cities Civ Cards Commodity Treasury Total Place
Italy Bruce 800 250 175 0 0 1225 6
Thrace Dave 1000 300 255 0 5 1560 3
Crete Patch 1000 250 265 21 3 1539 4
Assyria Mark 1000 350 640 0 8 1998 1
Babylon Rindis 900 200 660 7 3 1770 2
Egypt Jason 900 200 345 16 4 1465 5

So, after my win last time, I’m right back to my normal second place. At least this is the first time that Mark has won.

Another note for the day is that Dave’s father is getting rid of part of game collection, and during lunch we looked over the list, and gave votes on what we’d like to get a hold of, if possible. Family members will get first pick of course (and Dave is requesting a fair number for himself), but a few of us may get some out-of-print classics.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

Watson Day 3

by on February 17, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Posted In: Technology

A few more problems for Watson on the second game. Mostly, I think the humans were realizing just how fast they needed to be on that buzzer. A smaller lead, but still a solid win. The switchoff between Ken and Brad for second was interesting.

I’d like to examine how Watson did across the various categories. That will take some work.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

Watson Day 2

by on February 16, 2011 at 8:32 am
Posted In: Technology

One of the things I figured about Watson was that when he knew the answer, he’d be right on the buzzer. Yep.

Did very well last night, building up a very solid lead against two people who are quite obviously capable. One very good “Watson moment” too.

└ Tags: ,
 Comment 

Barbarossa: Double Header

by on February 7, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Patch made it over Sunday, and we tried out my latest game acquisition, Barbarossa: Crimea. It’s the sixth game in a series slated to someday cover all the fighting on the East Front at an operational level. Let’s hope that promise fares better than Europa’s; at least they haven’t decided to up the scope from the East to the whole war.

I’ve been doing some solo work with it, so I was able to give Patch a fairly decent run-down of the system. I just hope there weren’t too many errors and bad assumptions mixed in.

We started with the first, tutorial, scenario, “The Tartar Ditch”, covering the German push from Perekop to Ishun in late September ’41. It’s four turns, with a tiny number of units, and an even tinyer front (even at this scale, the isthmus into the Crimea is only 2-3 hexes wide). Patch got the Germans, who have a lot more to do, as the Soviets are hamstrung, and have a pretty straightforward defense anyway.

In a few solo plays, I have yet to see a German win. Patch came closer than I ever have. I normally run into trouble on the first turn, with neither Soviet fortified position giving way. Without that, there is just no way to make up the lost time of having to attack the same line a second time in such a tiny scenario. Patch managed to replicate the example play’s breaking of the line in one hex, but not the other; though he didn’t replicate the tactics, making two 3-1 attacks instead of a 4-1 and 1-1.

He did inadvertently replicate one bit of performance that I had. The German Stukas only managed to make it in to support an attack once during the scenario, with AA usually aborting them out. At any rate, he did a nice job of attacking all down the line in the second turn, including an attack with the only mobile units in his force down at the end of the line. I got lucky and managed to bounce out the Stuka assigned to the combat, and held firm there while the rest of the line disappeared.

This left him with still clearing his way to the second defense line on the third turn, which was easy enough, even with three units withdrawn. The final turn saw the expected attacks without supply on the final defense line. He actually rolled well on one combat and got in, but the final victory hex held. This is the closest I’ve seen the Germans get yet in this scenario.

Anyway, that took less than three hours, including the full explanation of the main game functions. We set up the second scenario, and broke for lunch before starting it up. I took the Soviets again, while Patch struggled with the Romanian army assaulting Odessa. We only got through four turns, but saved the situation off on Vassal, and we’ll likely continue the game.

While it’s still early, he’s watching his force whittle away with some trepidation, while I’m alarmed at how fast the defensive perimeter is shrinking. Currently, pretty much everything has been happening on the west side of the city, and he’s nearly through all of the defenses out there, just as I gain the ability to start constructing new strongpoints. The good news is that means that he’s entering the range of the guns of the Soviet Navy, which could slow things down.

Also slowing things down has been two turns of Mud. This started just as two fresh divisions came on, and kept them from getting into the action for an extra turn. I’ve finally decided to shorten my defensive line on the east side, but the mud has also delayed the units I freed up.

Patch is still sorting out everything with Interdiction, but has generally managed at least one point in naval movement box. Right now nothing is damaged, but that’s after repairing minor damage on three different ships, and a large number of aborts. I’ve managed to deliver all the Zap units (minus the ones I’m starting to build with the I-points I’m now getting), but it has often taken 2-3 tries.

Both Patch and I like games with a lot more maneuver than what we’re seeing at the moment, but then these are simple, constrained, situations. Certainly, there’s a fair amount of thinking going into the Odessa scenario, and it probably does better than a fair number of magazine games out there. I’m still getting some of the feel for the system, and some of the interesting points won’t come up until the Soviets get a chance at an offensive. But I have to say, I do really like the air system in it, and I like what I’ve seen of the naval system; both are nicely abstracted, while giving decent detail.

└ Tags: , ,
2 Comments