Wednesday 5 September 2012

Ain't nothing wrong… with a little Hab 'n' Gut

Another tuesday, another games night: and the first meeting at the Berger house for a while. Andrew and Sam arrived promptly at 7.30 - Sam had brought a cornucopia of games, mostly playing a maximum of four people. I had dug out a few four-player options, plus Hab & Gut in case we were five. However, we didn't yet have a clear idea of who else to expect; Anja certainly, but Steve had been unwell. Hannah was definitely out, but Adam was shilly-shallying. So while we waited for news, the three of us played Rattlesnake. In my experience the start player often wins this unique and quite silly game. However, we each had a go at starting, and Sam won all three games! Pity it wasn't leaderboard, but he wins the 'Snake-charmer' achievement this week.

While we were playing, Adam texted to say he wasn't going to make it - shock-horror - but Anja and Steve were on their way, so we knew we were catering for a total of five. We three took the executive decision to set up Hab & Gut, and once the others arrived, we jumped straight in.

H&G is a delightfully simple game, and though Steve professed bafflement at first (always a worry - he tends to win shortly after uttering these words), within a couple of rounds it had clicked. It was also Anja's first game, but as usual, after asking a couple of astute questions, she was exhibiting all the signs of quiet confidence and keeping her own counsel.

At the mid-way point, church donations were revealed, and Andrew and Sam had both left offerings in the 400s, leaving the other three of us trailing. As Andrew pointed out, you want to have donated second from least to the church by the end of the game - just enough to keep you from getting kicked out, but having saved most of your money for your score. It was wise advice, and I decided to heed it.
The second round was a tricky affair; Andrew and I had a rack of almost all minus amounts, and the rack between me and Steve wasn't much better. In the final turn, Andrew sold two reds for a 500 note, and his win looked assured - we could only hope that he may have under-donated. But then Sam took his last turn, and cashed in 750 worth of shares! Since they couldn't both lose to the church, one of them was clearly the winner.

The moment when the church donations are revealed the second time is most exciting, and there was an interesting spread; Anja, despite her atheism, had been generous to a fault, offering 765. Sam, Andrew and I had donated 660, 645 and 605 respectively, but Steve had offered only 420, and was out of the running entirely.

Over- and under-donating are mistakes that had cost me my first two games of Hab & Gut, but it does seem to get easier to judge. Anja had asked if there was a figure to aim for, and I can't say for sure that there is - it's all down to the prevailing group-think, perhaps. That said it's interesting that the three of us who had played a couple of times before all offered similar amounts.

Sam's big haul in the last round, coupled with some canny wheeling-and-dealing earlier on saw him into first place with a comfortable lead of 250 over second-placing Andrew. I came third, Anja fourth and Steve didn't bother to count up, having incurred the wrath of the church - he didn't think that he would have been in the running though.

Sam 785
Andrew 535
Joe 465
Anja 385
Steve OUT

Hab & Gut remains a firm favourite with me, despite the fact that I haven't ever won - it's simple, clever and intriguing, and doesn't eat up a whole games-evening. Once we'd packed away It was 9.40pm, and we wondered what to tee-up next.

Sam was keen to play new trade Arkadia with three, leaving two others in search of a game. We briefly considered other five-player options, but most were deemed to light and fluffy, and it was a little late to start on another 'proper' five-player game.

Having recently acquired Castles of Burgundy, I was itching to try it out, and it seemed to fit the bill with Anja too, so we left the other three setting up Arkadia and distributed the myriad bits of Burgen von Burgund across our side of the table. There's lots of set-up, but the rules are relatively easy to grasp, and we were probably under way by 10pm.

It's the kind of Euro that I feel as though we haven't played much of lately, where you're building up a little empire, rather than knocking other people down (don't get me wrong, I love knocking other people down too, probably more than most GNN-ers, but I like to do it in open confrontation rather than under the guise of trading in the Mediterranean. Oh okay, I probably like that too).

Unusually for a Stefan Feld game, there are no punishments - even Macao has minus points for having cards un-played at the end - you're really just trying to maximise your little estate, with no plague-rats, mongol hordes or other calamities to worry about (they're probably in an expansion). Your dice give you 2 actions per turn, and you can use them to acquire tiles of six different colours from the communal board, in the hopes of later adding them to your burgeoning estate. Blue ship tiles allow you to trade goods and jump up in turn order, grey mine tiles give you money at the beginning of each phase, and dark green castles give you a single extra action. Light green add livestock to your pastures, scoring you instant points, beige buildings offer an immediate one-off benefit, whilst yellow knowledge tiles give lasting, rule-breaking enhancements.

Points come in various ways; trading goods, adding animals and some buildings - but the big points are scored by completing sections of your estate. The earlier in the game you achieve this the better, and the points also rise exponentially depending on the number of tiles in the region you complete, from 1VP for a single hex region, to 36 VP for an eight hex region.

The box says 30-90 mins, but there is a very clear in-game indicator, and we were not quite half way through the game at 11pm. Arkadia was wrapping up, so Anja and I agreed to play to the end of the third of five phases. Going in to the last round of that third phase I had a comfortable lead, but Anja managed to complete a five hex region of her estate and swept past me for the win. This achievement was slightly mitigated by the discovery, several phases in, that she had been playing one of her knowledge tiles as far more powerful than it actually was. But that's fine with me - you know me and the leaderboard; there's little love lost between us.

Anja 70
Joe 64

If a goldfish had to play Castles of Burgundy...


Castles of Burgundy was a hit with both of us, and judging by the chat from across the table, Arkadia went down well too - Sam will doubtless fill us in on the details, but the final scores were:

Sam 120
Steve 95
Andrew 88

A good night; shame to leave that last game unfinished, but very chuffed to have given it a spin, and to play Hab & Gut again. Until next time - roll high!
(unless rolling low is, you know, better in the particular game you're playing . . .)

JB

Ersby, here. A little late, but here is the form table. Sam strides to the top, leaving Adam cursing his decision to make a bird costume instead of defending his lead. It's all to play for behind the two front runners, though. Also, it's worth noting that if our games of Rattle Snakes had been Leaderboard, then Sam would have a perfect five points, and also that Anja also has a perfect score of sorts: each of the five places (1st to 5th) are represented in the five spaces in the form table. Hoorah and Haroo!







Points
Sam1 1 2 1 2 7
Adam 1 3 1 1 1 7
Steve2 5 411 13
Andrew 3 2 3 2 3 13
Joe 2 3 243 14
Hannah 43 4 1 2 14
Anja 1 4 325 15
Dan 15 5 5 521

7 comments:

  1. I found it much harder to remember how many workers people had in a three-player game which lead to me making a fatal mistake very early on, giving Sam 40 points as her completed several buildings in one swoop. And an early fatal mistake leads to a long, lingering death. It seems that the main tactic for this game is to make sure no one can complete a building after your go, and wait for an opportunity to swoop in on someone else’s mistake.

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  2. Gah! My lengthy, eloquent piece on Arkadia seems to have vanished into the ether.

    In essence, then:

    Steve will be good at it.
    Three players is different to two (obviously, but also a little more)
    Four players will be different again.

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  3. Andrew I could be wrong but I think the answer to what you saw as your mistake (I just saw it as my opportunism!) might be to watch what seals an opponent is picking up and try and screw them in the castle... if I can say that without being misunderstood.

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  4. Not another game about screwing seals in a castle . . .

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  5. I liked Arkadia a lot and look forward to playing again. Not too many rules, not too many options - but plenty to keep you occupied and interested as you try to maximise your opportunities and capitalise on the mistakes of others. (That's not to say that there weren't too many rules and too many options for a Steve, but hey, no-one ever wants to play snakes and ladders with me at games night..!)

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  6. Nice leaderboard update Andrew. You and I are the only ones missing a win - poor show.

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  7. Man, I've been here since 7am printing out screengrabs...

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