Another monster day in at the WBC yesterday, and once again I am awake way too early for no reason! Apparently I've been an Uwe Rosenberg super-fan lately, as it seems like most of what I play at WBC is Agricola and Le Havre.

Thursday launched with the third and final heat of Power Grid, and to quote Randy, I was "playing the schedule game." Since I already have won a heat and came in second in another, I showed up early to play a fast-paced game. That would let me squeeze in a game of Stone Age if we could finish within two hours. I ended up with Jason (from Through the Ages heat 1) at my table and we were playing the USA map with the alternative power plant deck. I decided to play this map instead of the Japan map to get some experience with the new deck, which I haven't really played all that many times. We chose to not play with New England, and had a fascinating game where the player on the West Coast decided to let the game stall at 6 cities. After a few turns of saving up money, Jason bust out and built all the remaining open spaces in one turn. Unfortunately for him, Eric on my right as well as myself were able to get a plant to get more capacity, so I managed another 2nd place in a Power Grid game.

I ran over to Stone Age, where Steph and Patrick were ready to play a second heat. I didn't get to write about their arrival the day before, but Steph is a veteran WBCer like us (6 years running now!) and was able to bring her man with her this year. He's learning games the hard way by jumping into the deep end at WBC! They ended up playing a heat of Puerto Rico later in the day as well, so I'm glad he learned that excellent game as well. They are planning to play Steph's favorite event of the WBC tomorrow: Circus Maximus. I got paired against a very nice player named Cindy and two teenage boys who all played very well. Once again the starvation strategy paid off well for me, and I won with a reasonably large lead.

The second and final heat of Le Havre was next. I'm at the point now that I can play a good overall game, but I still keep seeing new combinations and lines of play just from the variance and seeing good players play the game. One of the players at my game was obviously an experienced Le Havre player, Rob, and I got to see him play the ship-a-ton-of-steel strategy perfectly. On the last turn of the game, I stupidly forgot that I was going to have to pay 2 food entry for the Shipping Line, so I sent some bread off the Bridge Over the Seine that I could have ended up shipping. Since those bread got me 2 points on the bridge, and I was able to ship one less good and one iron instead of a bread, I shipped for 3 less points. So I lost a point over that deal, and I realized it as soon as I had to pay the entry fee. Amazingly, the game ended in a 191-191 tie with me and Rob, and I was kicking myself! The tiebreaker is franc value of remaining goods, and we both had 1 franc worth of goods!! The second tiebreaker was reverse turn order, so Rob took it down. Ouch.

The good news was that often at WBC, in small tournaments you can get in with a second place finish. This turned out to be the case for Le Havre, so I was in the semis, as was Bronwen, who had somehow convinced the GM to let her table play their game on her iPad. The semis was going to be tough since I had two finalists from last year at my table, Daniel and Nick, and a hilarious 4th player who I hadn't met before named Rodney. Almost any sentence you uttered could send Rodney into a humming or singing interlude. I had a strong start with lots of good resource grabs early, then building the Joinery, selling a wood for 5, and buying the 6-cost Building Firm. I was able to build the Hardware Store and buy the Clay Mound, which gave me 3 hammer symbols, making the Clay Mound worth 5 clay for me. From there, I was able to build the Colliery and some other building, and start taking Coal over and over. I had a bit more food trouble compared to Daniel and Nick, because they both bought ships with money. In the end, I came in second to Nick by only two points, with Daniel 8 points behind me. I had accomplished my goal of playing well against the better players. It turns out they did three tables of 4 players, and the finals would be the three winners, and the best second placer: which should turn out to be me!

The bad news is that the Le Havre final is at the same time as the Power Grid semifinal, and Power Grid is my team game. I hope my teammates understand how badly I want to have a chance to win a tournament at the WBC, because I think I have to play Le Havre. I emailed one of my teammates, Eric, to see what he thinks, and hopefully he finds me before 9 am today.

The end of the night was Agricola's second heat, which was going to be interesting since I know the I deck a LOT less than I know the E deck. I drew Derek and two players I played with online only LAST WEEK, Merissa and John. I went for a pretty clay heavy strategy. I played the Clay Digger who adds the 1-accumulation clay space to the game with 3 clay on it to start, and if any other player wants to use it, they pay you 3 Food, which noone did over the course of the game. I took RSF again at some point and played Pottery in round 3. I also got the Church Warden for 4 food, the Juggler, who lets you double Traveling Players, where I got 6 food from twice, and the guy who makes clay stuff cost 1 less, and clay rooms 2 less. Even though I was the third person to add a room and a baby, I used the Improvement that comes with the baby to play the second Fireplace, and I made 4 stables along with my room. I got the Goose Pond out mid-game to enhance my food as well, a minor that gets me 2 wood when I take wood, and a minor that lets me get a breeding pair of sheep when I fenced in 4 or more spaces. So the mid-late game was saving up a huge amount of wood, taking 2 boar into the stables, saving up to do a huge fencing, and getting the 2 free sheep. I won comfortably with 49 points, with Derek on 42.

I was pretty exhausted but wound up after that, so hopefully my tiredness won't keep me from being able to focus today.

Coming up today:
   9 am Le Havre Final
  12 pm Agricola Heat 3: K deck
   3 pm Puerto Rico
   5 pm Agricola Semifinal
   8 pm Princes of Florence Semifinal

The sad news is that I'm going to miss the last heat of Brass, so I only got one game of that in. I guess you can't play everything!

Chris

Day of Improbable Victory!

I have a ton to report on today. I played five games yesterday, and they were all interesting and tense. I kicked it off with a 9 am heat of Brass, and ended up at the same table as the GM Ed, Elaine (who I had played Through the Ages with earlier in the week and was new to Brass), and at the last minute Eugene, who I had played some game with my first year at WBC but haven't seen him often here since. My impression of him in the past was that he was a bit mercurial, but he was in a good mood and our game was polite and good-spirited.

Eugene played really well: he developed cotton mills away for 18 on the second turn and never looked back from a pure cotton rush strategy. He got all of his level 3 mills out and one level 4 during the canal era, which is pretty much game ending. I tried to counter with a coal-iron strategy but I got beat to my first two iron locations! I did manage to get the level 4 out eventually, and use the income along with well timed loans to end up placing all of my rails on the board. Eugene took it down with a score in the 180s, while Ed and I were a few points apart in the 150s. Unfortunately noone else really fought Eugene for the mill spots, so I ended up with a second.

Power Grid heat 2 was up next, and the board was Central Europe. Last year I won my first game on this map in the semifinals, so I was curious to see how it felt this time. I don't remember a lot about last year's game, but I remember playing really well. One of the players from that game was once again at my table, a really nice player named Jen. This game was really interesting. I put my house out first after getting the 4 plant in what I thought was a pretty safe location, putting a few cheap cities in a pocket behind me. Surprisingly, one of the other players put two houses down behind me, which barricaded himself in... Jen put her red houses down a little bit south of ours, and on turn 2 I put down 2 more houses, and then Jen moved north and blockaded us completely. I figured I was going to be totally hosed by having only 3 cities entirely surrounded, but ended up bidding up the 22 plant a tiny bit, figuring that I would have to save as much money as I could to explode with houses once someone bust into step 2. Once I was freed, my strategy worked perfectly and I won another game of WBC Power Grid. I don't feel like I'm that great at the game and find all kinds of mistakes in my play, yet I am consistently winning or coming in second.

I always have an irrational fear that this year is going to be the year that I don't win a single tournament game, so it felt great to get a very tricky, well-played win in. Our friend Shane, who has just moved to Baltimore, made his first trip to the WBC and played two heats of Dominant Species and won one - he's going to come back on Saturday for that semifinal game. I had a nice, relaxing lunch with him, which was great.

I was really looking forward to Agricola, so I gladly set up a copy of my game. The GM forgot his deck of cards to randomize the seats, so he decided to say "just sit wherever you want". I know the WBC isn't that serious, but... really? So of course there aren't enough players, no one sits at my table, and I look over to see the last seat at another table has a former Agricola champion, Cary. Well, if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, right? I managed to do just that, winning a really close game 46-44-42-25 or so. Kerrin from Australia who I had already played Le Havre with was the 42!

The start of the game was interesting. In the draft I took Hut Builder first, then got Charcoal Burner and Wooden Hut Builder. After the other player on my right played an Occupation, I took Reed-Stone-Food, Kerrin took 2 clay, which was surprising, and Cary played Berry Picker (1 food when you take a wood). Because Kerrin had the clay, I took start player so I could drop Charcoal Burner in case she was thinking about taking the first Fireplace. It turns out she had some bread baking cards that she wanted to play. Since we were all playing cards, the resource piles got surprisingly big.

Somehow, I just couldn't get the timing down to build my house, as I was busy getting the Basketmaker's Workshop going and making sure my Hut Builder got played in Stage I. Cary used the Axe to build out to four, the guy on my right built a third room, and Kerrin got her third before me as well. So I just bided my time and saved up wood, then built two rooms at once. I was able to grow my family in rounds 9 and 10 with that, and then 11 with the Hut Builder. So even though I was the last to grow, I ended up as the second with four people after Cary and the first with 5. The Wooden Hut Builder meant I didn't need to waste actions getting clay or stone to renovate, so I was able to spend the rest of the game collecting animals and wood to finally make a big fence move. I also used Fruit Tree and Pottery to get the food I would need to feed everyone.

I should also mention that after the game Kerrin said I should be especially proud of my win, not just because I grew my family last, but because her and Cary took Start Player a lot of the game, so I was going third or fourth all the time.
 

I decided to play Stone Age and intentionally relax and have a nice milk stout beer. I had a fun game starving again, but the end result was pretty different because I was in the 4th seat instead of the 3rd, a lot of 6s came up on the "magic dice", and two of the other players knew how to react to my starvation. I ended up in fourth place with 99 points.

By that time, I was sobered up a bit, and ready for a late night Princes of Florence. It's one of my favorite WBC games (especially since I've made the finals twice), but it seems to slowly be slipping in popularity, so who knows how long it will last. Somehow, I ended up winning with 54 points by grabbing a Prestige Card at the second to last turn for 4 points (Most Landscapes) and bidding up John W., the old Puerto Rico GM on Forests, when it turned out he had the Most Forests Prestige Card! The guy on my right, who played a great game, had three failed Prestige Cards!

I will add more about other fun things about yesterday later, but for now I need to go play in Le Havre heat 2!

Chris

Day Two of Pre-Con Action!

Day two kicked off with the final heat of Through the Ages. Amazingly enough, I got paired with two of last year's finalists - Randy and Andrew who I had played Eclipse with the other day! Since it was almost certain that I couldn't qualify for the semifinals, this was the best thing that could have happened. I get a chance to play a game that feels just like being in the finals instead and hopefully play well while getting a feel for how the best players play this game.

I picked up Julius Caesar and St. Peter's Basilica in Age A. Julius didn't do much except get me to cycle through some military cards. I had what I thought was a pretty good Age I. I got Alchemy, Iron, and Irrigation, but missed out on Knights. Randy built a whole Legion while Andrew built some Knights, so I had to build a Legion as well to keep up in military. After that, I had a hard time keeping up in military. I was able to get Swordsmen to upgrade my Legion but never saw any tactics cards past that to switch to. Late in Age I, still with Caesar, I picked up Michaelangelo to go with St. Peter's. I believe he really isn't that good coming up late in the Age, but I don't think there was much else worth doing, so it was better than not doing it.

During Age II, I built up my infrastructure the best I could and felt like I was in good shape. I picked up the Eiffel Tower to give myself some culture points once Michaelangelo would die. Maybe it would have been better to save those rocks to build something like Multimedias or Movies?

In Age III, of course I got picked on. However, I did pick up Gandhi early which kept me a bit safe - however it also kept me from getting a leader that could generate a lot more points. Randy destroyed my two Alchemy, which I don't think actually hurt me that much - there wasn't much tech I needed to play but didn't. I was able to defend a 7 point steal aggression from Andrew on the second to last round. Amazingly, my lack of military didn't totally hose me. The Impact cards, however, gave Randy a convincing win, and Andrew a solid second over me. However, my score wasn't totally blown away relative to what I've seen happen to people at times.

My big takeaway seems to be that I really need to study the Impact cards. You need to really know them, and be aware of how many your opponents have put into the deck and what they might reasonably have put there. Randy was able to put my one seed as Impact of Agriculture, which got him something like 6 points extra by upgrading to Mechanized Agriculture on the last turn.

My two main possible errors: 1) not taking Warfare early. Randy said he thought it was the best Age I tech, but I'm not exactly sure why other than it giving you more military cards. The 1 strength pip rarely seems to matter. 2) Taking Eiffel Tower instead of waiting to build more infrastructure.

My main question: if you have a reasonable lead going into Age III and the lead in point generation (via Eiffel Tower in this case), do you take Gandhi? I had something like 8 military while the others had in the 30s.

A really fun game, and a good learning experience.

After that, I played a heat of Amun-Re, where I was faced off with Randy again! I don't really know Amun-Re and haven't thought too much about how to win it. My impression leaving it was that getting the most pyramids in a province is a huge deal. Obviously you also need to know how to value the provinces in the first place, which I am not 100% down with yet. My teammate Jeff, who I hadn't met yet (Eric added me to his team at the last minute) crushed the table pretty thoroughly.

I played a tight, fun game of Thurn & Taxis, but of course I went card dead at the end. Three turns of wiping the board to look for one of two or three cards each time and I couldn't find any of them so I missed out of getting the 7 carriage at the end. The score was something like 17-15-13-10, with me on a 13 that could easily have been a 17.

Believe it or not, I played two more games AFTER that.

Stone Age finally broke me into the win column. I had a great game against three super nice opponents. I was able to expand my family the first three turns and go for a pure starvation strategy. I rolled fairly well during the game as well, and on the last turn picked up the 3 x hut card. It turns out I didn't need it, and would have won anyway, but it would have been a lot closer. The end score was something like 204-175-160-111. Looking at the schedule, I might switch the second heat of Brass into the second heat of Stone Age and the first heat of Princes of Florence.

As a nightcap, I got to play Ra with Daniel, a regular WBC friend and opponent. Daniel is a really great guy and hilarious to boot. I told him I was coming for his Le Havre title, but obviously we are not Ra experts, as a very very young boy crushed us all. He was probably around 10, and said only the word "pass" during the whole game. He had everything: monuments, pharaohs, and a 3 long river. I think the final score was about 55-38-33-30-25. I had a terrible game and got the 25. I thought I was over being too conservative in bidding, but somehow the timing of this game threw me off and I couldn't get rolling before the end of each epoch.

A very fun day of gaming! I just woke up and did my Core Synergistic workout from P90X, which was part of my commitment for this year's WBC. I did Yoga yesterday and Kenpo Cardio the day before. I hope that keeping my body in gear will keep my mind focused! Tomorrow is another Kenpo day, but it is also a big gaming day, so I'll fit it in if I can, but I won't stress if I can't.

The rest of today is open gaming. I hope to try to get a game of either Troyes or Dungeon Lords in. They are two games I own that I haven't played much but would love to learn more. I would also be curious to get a game of Amun-Re in. The other thing I would be interested in was playing a game of Agricola with E draft or I draft to prepare for the tournament. I would welcome a 5 player Princes of Florence for the same reason. Later, the official tournaments start up again at 6 pm. Power Grid (my team game! also note the green font in honor of FF) at 6 and Le Havre at 9, what a night!

Chris

Stone Age Session

We got to play a game of Stone Age with two friends yesterday, Jasper and Alanna. Jasper has incredible intuition with games, even when his five year old daughter is distracting him, and he lost to my wife by a few points. Stone Age is definitely more of a game (i.e, there is more skill) than I thought, an opinion I've come to through my inability to win it. I had recently finally won a game online, which was nice, but I'm still awful at Stone Age. I actually don't find the dice feel like a huge factor to me in the outcome of the game, although a bad early food roll might be the biggest potential impact dice roll. Here's how the game started out:

Turn 1: Alanna takes a baby, Bronwen takes farm, I take tool.
Turn 2: Bronwen takes farm, I take baby.
Turn 3: I take farm.

Is this a mistake? Should I go to a starvation strategy right there and pass up the farm and instead take another baby? One thing I had wondered was whether the people in the first two seats have an advantage, but in this game Jasper did well from the fourth seat.

I got a few cards early - the 3 x hut card, a 2 x hut card, and a 2 x farm, but then had a hard time getting any more farms - so on turn 7 I decided to forgo the farm and start starving my people. I was having a hard time keeping up with food requirements, which seems to be difficult for me when I am in seats 3/4. It's possible that my strategy/style in this game has swung from overvaluing the cards to undervaluing them and rating huts too strongly. Overall, I really like Stone Age. I would play it at WBC but unfortunately it usually conflicts with other games that I like.

Chris