Match Report 11th October 2010

Another good turn out saw the return of Matt, plus Daniella, Crispin, Malcolm, Alex and Ian.

Incan Gold
To get the evening going we started with Incan Gold, a light push your luck / exploration game that has something of the feel of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom about it. At the beginning of each turn each player decides if they want to push on into the temple or run off with the treasure they have found. In this game finding treasure is one thing but getting it out safely and back to your tent is a key part of the game. As it is only once the treasure is in your tent that it counts towards victory at the end of the game.

After five rounds (the game only lasted half an hour) Daniella emerged triumphant with a huge pile of treasure; the rest of us someway behind, and Ian very unusually
in last place (although he had also been absolutely trounced at the same game the previous day by his grandson and step-grandson, both only 6).

Citadels 

Moving on to the second game of the evening Ian and I have been testing out Citadels since our last meeting as a 7 player alternative to the trauma of RoboRally.

Citadels (like Incan Gold) is another card laying game, however in this game you take on the roles of the great and not so good in a medieval world and seek to build up your city with various districts being represented by the cards e.g. the market, the watch tower etc. Each district has a cost in gold and contributes to victory at the end of the game i.e. when a player or players reach 8 district cards laid out in front of them.

As it was the first time we have played this game as a large group, I had the impression that everybody picked up the rules pretty quickly and could see how selecting one of the various roles (something done at the beginning of each turn) would aid their particular approach to winning the game. The mechanism of the game provides players with the opportunity to select different character roles each turn. Each role has different strengths/abilities and so can be helpful at different points in the game. That said I believe in future games we will definitely introduce a house rule that prohibits a character from being both murdered and robbed – something Crispin, Alex and I seemed to encounter more than our fair share off – although at the point the Thief or Assassin strike they do not know who has the character they are attacking e.g. The Merchant, Architect, King, Warload etc.

I believe all enjoyed the game and would give it another go, however I think we have other games with a greater degree of interaction; with larger numbers of players this aspect of a game becomes particularly important if players are not too feel spectators whilst time passes and they have no direct involvement in the game.

Obviously there were munchies as well