December 11th, 2004 |
My brother was in town, and after I got him to play my PS2 game "The Suffering", I finally got him to sit down and play a game. He really likes Carcassonne, so I brought out Attika, which has the benefit of being short, good for two players, and a tile laying game.
| Attika |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Matt | 30 tiles | 1 | * |
| Mike | 29 tiles | 2 | |
Notes: Nobody really liked this game, as they all only thought it was okay, and after a few early games, Dan didn't want to play it any more. This is because no one was playing it correctly. When people play this game to win, it's great.
What has happened in our countless other games is this: one person manages to get a quick lead and almost connects two temples. One person tries to stop him, but can't, or can stop him, but won't, because he doesn't want to spend the extra piece to form a new colony or "needs" the piece for something else.
That's not how you play. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the future for the immediate chance of keeping the game alive, and sometimes you have to sacrifice the immediate for the future. It's a delicate balance. If someone doesn't play this way, the game is a flop. In the above situation, someone will figure, "Ah, he's going to win anyway," or, "It's too hard to win if I stop him, so to hell with it." Nonsense. There's always a good possibility to win, especially if you wisely block people off.
Anyway, it took a visitor from Tahoe to finally play the game well. Matt was pretty good, trying to get free tile placements, and he started a second colony early in an attempt to use a lot of free resources. I tried to take my time and gather up cards, make a nice group of tiles, and then place them all on the board at discount. It worked pretty well, but Matt made a nice block of me as I went for the second temple. Then I had to panic and block Matt from getting at the temple I had guarded right after he placed a new piece.
I then placed a new map piece out there and was only two spaces away from victory. But Matt blocked me immediately, and I didn't have enough resources to make a quick detour around his pieces - plus the new map piece I drew was low on free resources. It then became a game of "get your buildings out there the fastest." At one point, Matt could have ended the game - he could have put a ship down for free, then leaving just his vintner, but he didn't see it and gave me one last possibility. Unfortunately, I had 4 tiles left, one to draw. I drew it, placed it, then drew a card, and managed to create a couple circuits (therefore getting amphorae, which give free turns), and fell just one building short of getting them all out there - a tower. Had I had one more card, or if I could have squeezed the building next to the fortress, I would have won.
At one point, I had a nice set up: I had the Well and the Fortress out there, and if I could have placed a map piece so that I could have put their extensions out for free, I would have won. But I couldn't get the piece to fit quite right and I lost by one piece. Damnation!
Anyway, it was wonderful to play the game correctly, and I will once again begin touting it as a good one.