- \n
- <\/a>Trias<\/a><\/b>
![\"Trias](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/trias_t.jpg\")
\n
\n38 hex-tiles form a large island of three different terrain types. Following the name of
\nthe game this large island will eventually break up into several smaller islands due to
\nplayer actions which cause the tiles to “drift” into an outwards direction.
\nPlayers start the game with a small group of four herds on the large island and their
\nobjective is to have a majority of herds on the soon to come smaller islands.<\/p>\nA player’s turn consists of a mandatory “drift” of a tile followed by up
\nto four actions of herd propagation, herd movement and optional tile drift.
\n“Drifting” is performed by taking a tile that forms the shore of an island and
\nplacing it further away from the central vulcano tile of the central island. Removing
\ntiles from the central islands shores eventually generated smaller islands. Whenever a
\nnew island is created by tile drifting scoring is triggered for the island where the
\ndrifted tiles has been placed. The player with the majority of herds on that island
\nreceives two victory points, the runner-up gets one VP.<\/p>\nIn the course of the main island breaking up players receive already some victory
\npoints. Since herds cannot move between islands players every now and then will try to
\njoin islands to gain majorities which otherwise would not be possible. Envisioning such
\nmoves, preventing other players to perform them while at the same time taking care that
\nthere are sufficient options open for oneself is the zest of Trias.<\/p>\nEventually the last round of the game starts when the “comet” card is drawn
\nfrom the stack and each player is left with just two more actions. Once that round is
\ncompleted the last, but decisive victory points are allocated: this time herd majorities
\non islands yield points depending on the number of tiles the island consists of. And just
\nas in any previous victory point allocations, the main island (or fragments thereof) does
\nnot yield any VPs.<\/p>\n![\"Moritz](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/triaswin.jpg\")
After my misfortune last week when I had the majority on the largest
\nisland but did not get any victory points because it was still connected to the central
\nvulcano tile I knew what to look out for this time. Although the optional tile drift
\naction costs three of the available four actions it is the one option that prevents
\nexactly this mishap. Some sort of diversification is also required in order to
\nparticipate from other player’s moves and to build alliances. Sometimes this can be a
\nbit of a problem as the number of possible good moves is fairly large and it is difficult
\nto decide which are the ones that need to be played now and which can be postponed to a
\nlater turn. In comparison to last week, when we played Trias with only four players we
\nfound that planning ahead in a five player game is much more difficult and sometimes even
\nimpossible – just too many things change while it’s not your turn.<\/p>\nMoritz managed to win the game by being present on nearly all of the islands present and
\nthereby collecting an enormous amount of victory points by being at least the runner up
\nin terms of herd majority. His diversification strategy definitely worked out.
\n\n<\/li>\n- <\/a>6 nimmt<\/a><\/b>
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/6nimmt_t.jpg\")
\n
\nSince Hans had to leave early tonight we decided to play a quick round of 6 nimmt<\/a>, a game which had not been on the table for quite a
\nwhile. Again we had a lot of “highest lowest” situations, a situation described
\nby Walter in his German review<\/a> of the game, and for
\nwhatever reason it was mostly I who had the “lowest highest” and consequently
\nhaving to take lots of negative points. This game has a wonderful mechanism which makes
\nyou believe that you have some means of control where in fact most of the time it’s
\nsheer luck which determines the result.<\/p>\nNot having had a single round without taking at least five cards it was all too certain
\nthat a will lose the game. My only satisfaction was that our usual sure winner Moritz
\nmanaged to only make second place.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n- <\/a>ZooSim<\/a><\/b>
![\"ZooSim](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/zoosim_t.jpg\")
\n
\nLike last year’s Essen release Titicaca, ZooSim also comes in a round box – the
\ntrademark of Cwali games. The objective of the two to four players is to create a zoo
\nwhich attracts many visitors, a theme which is already known from various computer games
\n(I guess that’s the reason for the game’s title). Unlike other Cwali games,
\nZooSim is a short game (less than 45 minutes) and is far more simpler to explain and
\nplay.<\/p>\nThe game consists of 25 tiles with zoo exhibits, paths and trees printed on them.
\nExhibits come in five color-coded categories (birds, apes, sea animals, reptiles and
\nother mammals) and have a point value for attractiveness (one to three stars) printed on
\nthem. The objective of the players is to get the most attractive exhibits of a category
\nas well as to boost attractiveness by having the most trees and circular pathways in
\ntheir zoo.<\/p>\nThe game is played in five rounds and in each round five zoo tiles are revealed and
\nauctioned one by one. Auctions are fast, with each player placing their bid in a closed
\nfist and all revealing their bid at the same time. A clever mechanism has been selected
\nto deal with ties: each player has a little flag marker next to a flag pole and the
\nplayer with the flag at the higher position receives the tile in case of a tie. Then the
\nflag marker is placed to the bottom of the markers.<\/p>\nWon tiles must be placed so that paths line up with paths on existing tiles. Players
\nwill try to place tiles in such a way that exhibit categories are next to each other
\nbecause only then the whole group counts as one exhibit for majority determination. As
\nsoon as the tile is properly placed the majority situation is re-evaluated. The player
\nholding the majority in an animal category or trees places two visitor tokens on that
\nexhibit and the runner up places one visitor on the some exhibit in his zoo. If a
\ncircular path has been created the player receives one visitor token for that as well.<\/p>\n![\"ZooSim\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/zoosim.jpg\")
Once a set of five tiles has been auctioned a round finishes and players
\nreceive victory points depending on the number of visitors in their zoo. Each visitor
\nequals one point multiplied with the round number, thus making round five, the final
\nround, counting five times as much as the first round. Players then receive new money
\ntokens equal to the number of tiles they have in their zoo and five new tiles are
\nrevealed before the next auctioning round commences. After five such rounds when all
\ntiles have been auctioned, the player with the most victory points wins the game.<\/p>\nZooSim has some nice mechanisms which leave players with constant decision making and
\ninvolving all players at anytime during the game. It’s important to decide which
\ntile(s) to go for in the auctions – not all tiles have favorable paths or animal
\ncategories. Money is scarce with players starting the game with only eight tokens and
\nreceiving new tokens depending on the size of their zoo. Their is also an important
\ntie-breaker on exhibit size: the player who equals the highest attraction value last
\ntakes the two visitors leaving the second place to the original leader. Together with the
\nsometimes complex path layout this can lead to extended pondering at the beginning of an
\nauction round. Latest after round three all animal categories are present in the zoos and
\nfrom now on visitors are shifted between the zoos and new visitors only arrive for
\ncircular paths. This is where some long-term strategy of securing majorities pays off.<\/p>\nHaving played the game once before Walter and I had a good start in the first two rounds
\nof the game, collecting most of the visitors for our exhibits. Round three turned out to
\nbe a disaster for Andrea when she lost most of her visitors to the other players. Walter
\nmanaged to take two important majorities from me in round four but Moritz quietly had
\ndesigned a clever path structure allowing him to build several circular paths in the last
\nround and making him the winner of the game.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n- <\/a>Anno Domini<\/a><\/b>
![\"Anno](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/anno_t.jpg\")
\n
\nAs often before, we decided to play this game as a quick closing game only to find out
\nthat it lasts a lot longer than one imagines. This time we found out that seeting order
\nis of some relevance in this game when we saw that Moritz sitting in front of Andrea was
\nvery often successfully challenged by Andrea, who herself was in the position that she
\nknew that Walter would challenge her if there are more than four cards on the table.<\/p>\nAndrea soon had only three cards left and even our joint effort to make her getting new
\ncards failed and she finally won the game.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Session Report 19.11.2002 Author: Aaron at the table: Andrea, Hans, Moritz, Walter, Aaron on the table: Trias, 6 nimmt, ZooSim, Anno Domini Trias 38 hex-tiles form a large island of three different terrain types. Following the name of the game this large island will eventually break up into several smaller islands due to player actions … Session Report 19.11.2002<\/span> weiterlesen
- <\/a>6 nimmt<\/a><\/b>