Boardgamecafe Old Town Kopitiam Outing Report
Another year another gaming. This year, for the first 2007 gaming event, Boardgamecafe have an outing at a nearby newly opened Cafe called Old Town Kopitiam! What better way to kick off the year’s activities by yumcha-ing while gaming.
(Ipoh White Coffee!)
At 8.00pm the gamers start to assemble themselves at the cafe. Most of them start themselves on dinner while waiting for late comers.
(Heng eating)
(Alan - left and Marcus - right, eating)
After a lite dinner, the gamers continue to the next item on the menu: El Grande!
This medium weight Euro-strategy game is currently one of the top ten game on boardgamegeek.com. It has an impressive background, coming from renown designer Wolfgang Kramer, who along with Richard Ulrich created this game which won the German 1996 boardgaming awards: Spiel Des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis.
The game itself is an interesting Area-majority game. Players win points by having the most caballeros (knights) in the various regions of Spain circa medieval times. The main draw of the game comes from two interlocking mechanics:
(turn order bidding cards)
1. Players each have a limited set of 13 cards numbered 1 to 13 from which they use to bid each turn. The card determines turn order as well as the no. of caballeros they can bring from the reserve to the frontline that particular turn. Here, players have to balance between being first in turn and bringing enough caballeros out in readiness to control the regions. Being first in turn is important because:
(action cards)
2. Players, according to turn order, gets to pick from a set of 5 action cards. These action cards determine the no. of caballeros a player can send from their frontline onto the regions on the board. These action cards also have different special abilities, ranging from messing with your opponents’ pieces to scoring additional points. Here, players have to balance between choosing a powerful ability and sending enough caballeros out to control the regions.
The interplay between these two mechanics provide lots of choices and agonising decisions for the players each turn. The game plays out in nine turns, during which there is a scoring round after the 3rd, 6th and final turn. And here’s where the fun part begins. In addition to the regions of Spain, the players can opt to influence the King, by tossing their caballeros into this massive tower on one side of the board.
(ze castille to drop caballeros into)
In addition to scoring valuable points, these caballeros are then sent out by their players onto one of the regions on the board! There’ll be plenty of screwage happening as players secretly send their caballeros to usurp regions which their opponents thought was safe! Evil, evil moves galore…
<secret region selection wheel>
In this game, almost all are newbies as Jeff Au sat out. The players are Lai Wah, Marcus, Henry, Alan and myself (Heng). Marcus focused on bringing out lots of caballeros by using the lower turn order cards. However his strategy did him no avail as he can’t get enough caballeros out to gain majority control of the most regions on the board. Henry fared no better as he seemed to run into opposition everywhere he send his caballeros. Alan did a slow buildup and despite making a few mistakes, still managed a respectable second towards the end. Heng pulled out to an early lead only to suffer consecutive attacks which dropped him to 3rd place. Lai Wah, snagging the points heavy Castille region early, pulled away from the pack as she picked scoring cards one after the other to rack up huge points. Good choice of strategy for Lai Wah as she thumps the guys with an unassailable lead despite a late attempt to sabotage her regions.
(intense concentration!)
<no one bothers Marcus (yellow), it’s good to go for the low scoring regions sometimes!>
<aha! i have more caballeros in the castille than you, senor!>
By the time we finished El Grande, Old Town Kopitiam is packed to the brim! Sure is a hip and happening place!
<old town photo>
Some curious customers also came over and see what the bunch of people poring over boards and wooden bits is doing… By this time, Wai Yan has joined us and marcus brought out his game of Saboteur for a seven player extravaganza.
This is an interesting role game a-la Bang!. Players are secretly assigned the role of Dwarf miners or saboteurs and given a handful of cards. The interesting part of the game is that players play cards onto the table to build a mining shaft towards the gold card. Miners will try to reach the gold while the saboteurs have to ensure that the miners do not get there. The winning team gets a certain amount of gold and then the roles are assigned randomly again. The game is played to three rounds and it’s quick and easy. Players, depending on their cards, can help build shaft, sabotage another player’s equipment, destroy tunnet shafts, etc. A quick and dirty game!
<fun fun sabotage game! (from left - Lai Wah, Marcus, Henry, Alan, Heng)>
After that, we went back to Bang! for a quick fun game of sheriff and 2 deputies versus 3 outlaws and one renegade. The outlaws in this game tried very hard to disguise themselves as one of the deputies… so much so that they gunned each other down! Another easy job for the sheriff as Wai Yan mops up the last outlaw and renegade with lots of cards and ammos to spare (she even can afford to jail her own deputy twice!) Advice for the outlaws: next time, just gun hard and fast for the sheriff, take one for the team!
<bang! bang! a 7 player favourite!>
At 12pm midnite, the girls bid the guys goodnite as the guys continue gaming back in Boardgamecafe with Marcus’ favourite - 18GA. After a quick refresher for Alan and an explanation of the rules for Henry, the gamers are good to go. The private companies are bidded up separately by different players and Marcus triggered the purchase by going for the cheapest company. His strategy seems to be going for the public companies. The stock round sees four different companies startup by four different players while Heng opt to sit out and become an investor instead.
Marcus’ ACL and Jeff’s W&A got off to a flying start with a little boost from Heng’s investments. Alan’s Central and Henry’s Georgia however did not acquire enough market capitalisation to startup. With W&A in the North and ACL in the south, both companies operated freely and the earnings start to come in. However, both CEO Jeff and Marcus were quite prudent with their earnings, resulting in non declaration of dividends a few times in a row. Investor Heng got frustrated and started investing in Central.
Pretty Soon, Alan’s Central was up and running, playing with the big boys W&A and ACL. Investors this time were kept happy and CEO Alan declared dividends one after another. Henry’s Georgia was another story as investors declined to invest due to its dimming prospects from the gradual hemming in by ACL and W&A.
As the railroads expand, so did the towns and suddenly, Georgia was back in the game. Georgia was allowed to run unchecked through the upgraded towns as ACL and W&A assessed each other as the greatest threat and started sabotaging each other. Central started facing problems from its dividend declaring ways when it found that it hit an expansion block and needed to save money to upgrade its trains. Sensing the end is near, investors unanimously dumped its stocks in favour of stocks managed by more prudent CEOs.
ACL and W&A continued to expand their horizons as their CEOs took the plunge and invest in another company each. Jeff started GA while Marcus brought up SAL. Both companies, however, were to experience different fortunes as it becomes clear that SAL was a fake front for CEO Marcus to make money! SAL sold all its assets to its sister company ACL and the company became a dead company. Marcus tried to offload his president’s share certificate as part of his operation:hotsun campaign to bankrupt his rival CEOs. Unfortunately, the securities commission got wind of his dirty tactics and slapped him with a share selling restriction, much to the relief of Henry. Muttering about pansy securities commission, Marcus lost wind as he thought that his career was over.
Jeff’s GA was managed more prudently and he managed to work it up to a respectable position, much to the delight of its investors. By this time however, Henry’s Georgia was making loads of money, drawing attention from investor Heng, who snapped up half of the shares. Central stocks was plunging to a new low as CEO Alan again declared no dividends in a desperate attempt to keep up with the train upgrades. ACL, W&A and GA now focused on the new Georgia threat and attempted to shut out Georgia’s lucrative routes.
By now, the game was reaching a climax and one CEO after another started declaring dividends to buff up their own personal fortunes. CEO Henry has the last laugh as his company pushed him to the top as the richest person in 18GA, followed by Jeff with his twin investment machines W&A and GA. Heng narrowly missed second and had to settle for third with his investment strategies. Marcus got burned by his own hot sun, but still finished a respectable fourth. Alan did not recover from his early frivolous spending ways and finished last.
Overall, this was an interesting game in which the ‘vets’ (Henry) crushed the ‘noobs’ (Jeff and Marcus). However, it was a close race to the finish as the ‘noobs’ were close in overtaking the ‘vets’ as the money in the bank ran out, signalling the game end.
One thing which I learned in the game was to pick the proper investment but don’t let go until the company was sure to go bust. The last part of the game came down to a frenzied dividend declaring session where the stock prices experienced a long and continuous bull run, which unfortunately I was unable to take part fully due to some ill-advised disposal of ‘apparently’ non-performing stocks.
Marcus still lamented about his attempt to bankrupt another player foiled by the rulebook while winner Henry was still bewildered about how he won as he was still reeling from the myriad of options offered in the game.
<18GA madness with stocks dumping and route blockings!>
After the game, Jeff took out his copy of 7ages and Antiquity to wow us, which they do since both the games are stuffed chock full of bits… real gamers’ galore. And after a bit of chit-chatting, the gamers then headed home… at 4.30am in the morning. Phew, a real eventful nite for all! Next stop, Antiquity!
