First and foremost, I would like to send my love to everyone in France, Europe, and everywhere in the world. We need love and solidarity to survive as humanity.
Second, I would like to report that we had an excellent week of gaming, discovering some enjoyable games and some not-so-enjoyable games. Regardless, discovery is always a good time.
What's New?
Concordia: Salsa
Concordia: Salsa is a new expansion for my favorite Mac Gerdts game - Concordia! I loved last year's Britannia map, but that was just a map. Salsa is so much more than a mere map!
The Overview
Concordia: Salsa adds 3 new elements to Concordia. The first of these is two new maps. The Hispania map is tight and interesting for 2-3 players and the Byzantium map is full of cities and connections for use with higher player counts.
The second element added to Concordia by Salsa is salt. Salt is produced in salt-producing cities (new tiles are added to represent these) and can be used to replace any other resource. However, it can never be sold directly. It can be sold indirectly by being exchanged with another good. Salt can also be obtained through some Forum tiles.
The third element is the Forum. The Forum is a 4-tile array of amazing abilities that become available to players when they take the Tribune action. Each tile has a corresponding number of cards (in addition to the Tribune card) that must have been played prior to performing the Tribune action in order for the tile to be taken. The more cards a player has played prior to taking the Tribune action, the greater his options in selecting tiles from the forum. The Forum tiles come in two flavors - patricians (blue) and citizens (green). The patricians provide ongoing benefits throughout the game, while the citizens provide one-time benefits. Players begin the game with one patrician tile selected from 2 options. If players want a more expert option, an auction variant for starting forum tiles is also provided. We enjoy the challenge of working with the options we are given, so we won't be using the auction variant.
The Review
1. More options without too much more complexity
Concordia: Salsa increases the options in Concordia. Player must now manage a new resource, which is more flexible, but also quite pricey and limited in final-scoring usefulness.
Player must also now think even more carefully about when to use the Tribune action. This was already an important decision in the game, but now it takes on added significance as it determines which of the Forum tiles are available to be taken.
And the Forum tiles!? OH THE FORUM TILES! These add limitless choices and possibilities each turn. Some modify particular actions and some allow players to do crazy things like plop a building down wherever they like on the board! Additionally, with the abilities of the Forum tiles, choosing when to use a specific action card can take on new meanings and carry different consequences than before.
2. More variability
The Forum tiles also add more game-to-game variability. Concordia always came with a variable setup with respect to the layout of the board, but now players start the game with unique powers! VARIABLE POWERS! I LOVE VARIABLE POWERS! Each game will play out slightly differently depending on which power players select, which adds even more replayability to this already amazingly replayable game.
3. Stays true to the feel and soul of the game
Although Concordia: Salsa adds a couple of new elements to Concordia in addition to the new maps, these new elements don't make earth-shattering alterations to the game. They don't significantly increase the length, complexity, or fiddlyness of base Concordia. I've always loved the relative simplicity and elegance of Concordia, the ease of taking it out, and the speed at which it plays (and yes, it plays very quickly with 2 players). I would not have appreciated an expansion that marred those virtues of the game and Salsa does not.
Beyond that, the additions of salt and the forum feel like they belong in the game. They don't feel tacked on, nor do they feel like they deviate from the heart of the game. A wild resource could have been included in the base game and the Forum abilities
Nothing!
Final Word
Concordia: Salsa is a must-have expansion for any lover of Concordia. It adds more options, more variability, and endless replayability to the already amazingly fun and highly replayable game of Concordia.
MINA'S LOVE METER: LOTS OF LOVE 
The salt is GIGANTIC!
The Forum is awesome!
Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil was a game in which I was tentatively interested for an extended period of time. However, it was (and is) out of print and difficult to obtain and it just didn't seem THAT interesting, so I ignored it. And then Rhado video went up and I found the game at a French retailer, so I picked it up. Richard was right. It's not great with 2.
The Overview
Yggdrasil is a co-operative game in which each player represents a Norse God defending Yggdrasil (tree) from an onslaught or monsters who want to bring about Ragnarok (the end of the world). Yggdrasil is a quasi worker-placement game. Players take available actions on the board, but they don't do this using pawns. They just take the actions.
Each turn, a player reveals an enemy card. This enemy card determines how far the indicated enemy will move on the enemy track. Each enemy also has some special effects (such as moving another enemy forward, causing monster cards to be taken from the monster deck, removing vikings from island bags of helpers, etc.). In many cases, the extent of these effects is determined by how far along the enemy track the enemy has moved. The farther down the track, the worse the effect.
After the enemy card is revealed, a player has 3 actions to spend at 3 different action spaces. There are some modifications to these rules depending on the characters included in the game. For example, Freyja can use 2 identical actions and Frey gets 4 actions. The possible actions are:
1) Asgard (Fight an enemy) - The player rolls a die. He adds the enemy fighting bonus on his relics to the number of hammers on the die. To this, he may add any number of elves and vikings he has in his possession in order to reach a number that is at least equal to the enemy's power (dependent on the enemy's position on the progress track).
2) Midgard (Move Valkyries/look for vikings) - The player can move the Valkyries from one island to an adjacent island. Then, he may take 3 tokens out of the token bag corresponding to the color of the island on which the Valkyries are located. The contents of the bags are set at the beginning of the game, but they may be adjusted by players throughout the game. Any vikings drawn are taken by the player and any fire demons are returned to their bag.
3) Dwarven Forge (take/replace artifacts) - A player may either take a level 1 artifact or replace an existing level 1 artifact with a level 2 artifact and so on. These artifacts assist players in fighting enemies.
4) World of Elves - Take an elf
5) World of Darkness - Exchange elves and/or vikings with another player.
6) World of Dead - Take 5 vikings from here and add them to any of the island bags.
7) Kingdom of Fire- Choose a bag and remove 5 tokens. Place any fire demons drawn on the Kingdom of Fire.
8) Ice Fortress (fight monsters)- Fight an existing monster (drawn by the enemy, Loki) or fight a face-down monster. All monsters have an identical power level of 3.
9) Sacred Land - Move the Vanir token one space up on his action track or move him to the bottom of the track and taken any of the actions depicted on the spaces below his location at the start of the turn.
Players take turns drawing enemy cards and taking actions. Players lose the game if a certain number of enemies moves past certain points on the enemy progress track. They win if they get through the entire enemy deck.
The Review
1. It's pretty
Yggdrasil is a very pretty game. The illustrations are vibrant and inviting and the physical package just begs to be played. I'm sorry. That's the only nice thing I have to say. It's not a bad game, it's just not for me.
1. Too long
You have to go through the entire deck of monsters!!!! ENTIRE DECK!!! AND IT'S A BIG DECK!!! This means that if you're easily cruising through the game (as we were), you'll be sitting there on cruise control for 1.5 hours. Yuck.
2. Too repetitive
Yggdrasil has a limited number of useful actions (especially in a 2-player game). Some actions are clearly better than others. For example, the fighting the monster action provides such amazing payoffs for collecting like monsters that there's no reason NOT to take this action as much as possible. Collecting elves is another given. I just didn't feel like I had any real decisions to make in this game.
3. Too easy
With 2 players, Yggdrasil is just way too easy, even when all the advanced monsters are added. Easy co-ops are boring.
Final Word
We played Yggdrasil once and we played with all the angry monsters in the deck (but without Ragnarok cards). I didn't hate it, but I didn't feel challenged by the game in any way and I need to feel some challenge in a co-op. Yggdrasil might provide more of a challenge and more interest at a higher player count, but I have zero desire to re-visit it.
MINA'S LOVE METER: DISLIKE 
(It's probably a fine game and very enjoyable at a higher player count, but it's not a game for me)
Mottainai
I'm a big fan of Carl Chudyk's work, so I backed the Kickstarter project for Mottainai, convinced that I would LOVE the game, as I do all the other games of his that I've tried. I think I might need more time to accurately assess this one, but it just misses the "love" range of the scale for now.
The Overview
In Mottainai (I have the mini version, so I will refer to that), 2 to 3 players use a deck of cards to build up their own tableau of helpers, sales, works, and materials and thus score points.
Cards can be played as:
1. Tasks to execute the corresponding action
Each turn, a player must discard his previous "task" to the "floor" (the general collection of cards on display). He must then select a new task and execute it as an action. The action executed corresponds to the color of the card and the number of times that the action is executed is equal to 1 + number of helpers of that color (each of which is multiplied by 2 if all of them are covered by works of the same color in the "gallery" on the left side of the tableau). The possible actions are:
Clerk (pink) - move a card from the craft bench to the sales area
Monk (green) - move a card from the floor to helpers
Tailor (grey)- return to the bottom of the deck any number of cards from your hand and take from the deck a number of cards into your face-down "waiting area" to total 5 cards in your hand and waiting area
Potter (brown) - move a card from the floor to your craft bench
Smith (blue) - complete a work from hand using the same colored cards from your hands as support, showing 1 less cards than the number indicated in the bottom corner of the card. Support cards are not discarded. A completed work is placed either in the "gallery" on the left side of the tableau or the "gift shop" on the right side of the tableau.
Works in the gallery cover helpers. The number on the bottom corner of a work indicates how many like-colored helpers are covered by that work. If all helpers of a particular color are covered, the effects of those helpers is doubled when the player uses the corresponding task.
Works in the gift shop cover sales. The number on the bottom corner of a work in the gift shop indicates how many like-colored sales are covered by that work. At the end of the game, covered sales score points equivalent to their value in the bottom corner.
Instead of using the action that is tied to the specific card, a player may perform a "craft" action or a "pray" action.
The craft action allows a player to complete a work from hand using materials in his craft bench for support. The work that is being completed must be the SAME color as the color of the task card. As for the Smith action, these materials are not discarded. They remain in the player's craft bench. Again, 1 less material than the number in the bottom corner of the work being completed is required as support.
The pray action allows a player to take a card from the top of the deck and place it in his face-down "waiting area." He takes the cards from his waiting area into his hand at the end of his turn.
2. Helpers to boost future tasks, allowing a player to execute a similarly colored task card multiple times
3. Sales to the right side of the board to score points at the end of the game when they are "covered")
4. Materials to the bottom of the board to help a player build works using the craft action
5. Works to obtain their effects and associated points at the end of the game
The end of the game is triggered either when a player has built the 5th work on either side of his tableau or when the deck is exhausted. Either way, the game ends immediately. Players score points for each work. Each work is worth the number of points indicated in its bottom corner. Additionally, players score points for each covered sale in their gift shops. Certain works may provide additional bonus points.
The player aid actually provides an excellent overview of the procedure of the game, so I thought I'd include it here because I did not go into these details above.
The Review
1. Multi-use cards
The rules of Mottainai are actually quite simple. The complexity arises from the way in which these rules interact with the effects of the cards. The fact that the cards can be used to several different ends (i.e. used as tasks, works, materials, sales, and helpers) forces players to weigh the benefits of the cards effects against the need for certain actions and abilities. I always enjoy the tension that builds when I have to make when I have cards I really want to keep for their effects but I also want to play for as tasks. Mottainai is no exception in this regard. There are 5 different ways to use any single card (7 if you could the fact that each can also be used to craft and pray), so deciding where each card belongs in your tableau will take quite a bit of thought. I like thought. I like lots of thought. And Mottainai delivers!
2. Interactive
For those who enjoy interaction in games, Mottainai delivers in this regard as well. It's certainly no head-to-head war game or game of dueling mages, but it offers players plenty of opportunities to interact.
First, the fact that other players will carry out your actions means that you have to carefully consider which of the actions you can take would maximally benefit you and minimally benefit your opponent. There are cards that limit opponents' ability to take advantage of your actions, but there are only a couple of those, so it's impossible to rely on them. Carefully considering your actions in relation to your opponent(s) is always important.
Second, the fact that the end of the game is triggered either when a player places a 5th work on one side of his tableau or the deck is exhausted further reinforces the need for players to pay careful attention to what others are doing. If you see that your opponent is only completing works on one side, it might indicate that the game will be a over shortly and that you should respond accordingly. Alternatively, it might mean that your opponent is trying to psych you out or get you to do something you shouldn't be wasting your time doing. Either way, to play Mottainai effectively, you will be forced to try to get into your opponent's head. This type of "mind reading" interaction is my favorite. It's one of the reasons I love Broom Service and Glass Road as much as I do. Mottainai does not go quite as far into mind reading as those games do, but keeping close watch over your opponent's actions is vital to victory.
The interactions in this game are both obvious and subtle and surely become more significant and more prominent the more the game is played. I do hope to explore the full depth of this game in the coming months and years.
3. Combos
True to Chudyk style, Mottainai offers potential for building powerful combinations of actions that can lead to huge windfalls or huge downfalls. Building up helper cards of a single color and then covering them all can make their corresponding actions incredibly powerful! Knowing which helpers to select and cover and how to make the best use of them in combination with the rest of the cards is a huge challenge and an incredibly satisfying aspect of the game.
4. Small but variable
The deck of cards in Mottainai is small, but each card is unique. This means that every game of Mottainai will feel a little different depending on which cards appear at what point in the game.
Additionally, Mottainai is a highly tactical game, meaning that players constantly have to make and adjust plans based on the cards available to them and the actions their opponent(s) are taking. This adds additional variability between games and makes the game highly replayable.
5. Super compact
Mottainai takes up such a small chunk of real estate, which is always important. Whether you have limited space or you like to take your games on trips with you, Mottainai will fit anywhere and easily accompany you wherever you may be. For a game as interesting and filled with GAME as this one is, that is a great accomplishment.
6. Beautiful
Of course, not everyone will agree, but I love the art in Mottainai. It is colorful and yet subtle, minimalist and yet elaborate, and absolutely true to a traditional Japanese aesthetic. I appreciate these "little things" that went into the creation of the game.
1. A game so dense you can't even cut through it with a knife
I cannot make Peter understand this game and the only fathomable reason for that is that this game is completely unintuitive...even for someone who has played and loved Innovation, Glory to Rome, Uchronia, and Impulse. Chudyk games are challenging. They tend to be very abstract and require chains of actions to get things going. This works for me, but it doesn't work well for Peter. Don't misunderstand! He loves Chudyk games and I believe Uchronia may be on his top 10 games ever, but they take him a while to comprehend (except Innovation...he got that one way before I did). For some reason, Mottainai has proven to be the most challenging of Chudyk games for Peter. It has eluded and frustrated him time after time. He likens the action selection to the Stroop effect (in which you have to say the color of the words and the words are all color words that may or may not match the color in which they are written). The words on the card being played to select the action are meaningless when the action is being selected, but they are still there, so they confuse him. On top of that, there's the distinction between the Smith action (creating works using cards from hand) and the Craft action (creating works using cards in the Craftbench). The need to play a card of the same color as the work being created has led to great confusion in our games.
Personally, I find Mottainai to be a simple game rules-wise. The rules are relatively clear and the player aids fantastic, but seeing how everything works together takes time. Familiarity with card effects is key to making the right tactical choices in the game and it takes time for that familiarity to be built. If players don't give this game time, they will fail to fully appreciate it, but the frustration of having to go through the extended phase of initial confusion might turn people off the game entirely and too early. I'm almost at the point that I want to quit trying because I don't enjoy watching Peter's face contorted in unhappy ways, but I plan to keep the game in our collection because it is a good one. Perhaps he'll get over the Stroop effect one day...
2. Takes too long in the beginning
The duration of the game will not be a problem with repeated plays, but you have to get there first. We are not there yet. Our plays of Mottainai have gone on for at least 45 minutes, which is WAAAAAY too long for this game. Impossibly long! I know that I would love it if it was shorter and we could make more snappy decisions, but that's not the way it has worked so far.
Final Word
The design philosophy of Mottainai is true to the name of the game. Nothing is wasted here. The small deck of cards functions to great effect to create an interesting tactical puzzle, the strategic nature of which may emerge upon many plays. Although I'd like to get there, this may never happen because of the confusion generated by the unintuitive nature of the rules. If I could play games in a vacuum, independent of anyone else, I would probably love Mottainai. However, I do not play games in a vacuum. I play them with Peter and my enjoyment of them is highly dependent on his enjoyment of them. If I manage to find a way to explain Mottainai in a better way and our play time goes down, I'm sure my enjoyment of Mottainai will increase correspondingly.
MINA'S LOVE METER: LIKE (This is a VERY tentative rating because we have only played the game 3 times and this game demands more than that. I plan to update my rating (and post a proper review) if and when we become more proficient at the game)
Froggie!
Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries
I was sitting at the office one day, feeling the return of the spirit of winter (translation: I was FROZEN!), and for some reason (I can't imagine why...) I started thinking about wintry games. I realized that Peter and I have no winter-themed games in our house. We have lots of summery games (Hawaii, Bora Bora, Vanuatu, Helios, Citrus, Goa, Mangrovia, Taluva...), but no wintry ones! I strongly dislike winter, but I became obsessed with finding an appropriate wintry game that day. I decided Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries would be that game. Denmark is my favorite of the countries I've visited to this point and I've visited many, so I was happy to add a game that would let me re-visit Denmark at least in name and on a highly superficial level. Was Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries the right game or did the cold temperature so badly delay my synaptic communications that I made a grievous error in judgement?
The Overview
If you've ever played Ticket to Ride, you've played Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries...essentially. The rules are basically the same with a couple of exceptions. The most significant of these are as follows:
a) There are ferry and tunnel routes. Ferry routes require a minimum number of locomotives to be built. Tunnel routes are unpredictable; when building a tunnel route, a player must discard the number and color of train cars depicted on the route and then must draw 3 cards from the train car deck. The number of train cars matching the color of the route (including locomotives) that are drawn indicates the number of additional train cars of that color the player must discard. For tunnel routes, a player has the option of fulfilling the route using only locomotives. If he does this, only locomotives that are drawn count towards the additional number of cards that must be discarded. However, in this case, additional discards must be locomotives.
b) Locomotives are only used as wilds in ferry and tunnel routes.
c) Taking a locomotive does not end a player's turn.
d) The longest route allows 4 train cars to be discarded to replace a single train car any number of times (for example, 8 train cards of any colors could be used to replace 2 train card requirements, while blue could be used to complete the rest of the route).
e) Tickets are returned to the game box when discarded instead of the bottom of the deck.
If you've never played Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries is a 2-3-player version of Ticket to Ride in which players use cards to complete routes between cities on a map. Players begin the game with 40 train pieces of their own color, 4 train cards (these come in red, blue, purple, orange, yellow, white, and green flavors, as well as rainbow locomotives), and 5 ticket cards. The ticket cards indicate extended connections between cities on the map, as well as a point value that will either be added to a player's score (if the connections were completed by that player) or subtracted from a player's score (if the connections were not completed by that player) at the end of the game. Players may choose to keep between 2 and 5 of the cards.
Each turn, a player performs 1 action selected from the following.
1. Take 2 train cards - These may be taken from the display of 5 train cards or from the face-down deck in any combination.
2. Claim a route between two adjacent cities - Discard train cards matching the color of the route (or train cards of any one color for a grey route) and place your train pieces on the board to indicate your ownership of the route. Score points in accordance with the length of the route. Additional clarification can be found above in the points of difference from the regular Ticket to Ride game (i.e. ferry routes, tunnel routes, and the longest route).
3. Take 3 ticket cards and keep at least one
The game ends when a player has 2 train pieces or fewer remaining. At this point, each player (including himself) gets one final turn.
Players add to their scores the values of their completed ticket cards and subtract from their scores the values of their incomplete ticket cards. The player who completed the greatest number of ticket cards gets a bonus 10 points.
The review
1. SO PRETTY!!!
This is the most purple and most pretty of all the Ticket to Ride games I've seen! Yes, prettiness is a matter of taste, but to me, the combination of colors used in Nordic Countries is sublime.
With flourishes of mistletoe and sprinkles of snow, the artwork is also very evocative of the Christmas season, which I love because I love Christmas.
Finally, the train colors (purple, white, and black) fit perfectly into the board's landscape.
2. Excellent 2-player map
The map is very tense and highly competitive, even with just 2 players
Players will block each other, unintentionally and otherwise, and this significantly elevates the fun factor of a 2-player game of Ticket to Ride. It makes ticket selection a very stressful affair and it makes each other decision feel like a matter of life and death.
3. Light but tense and engaging
Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries is not a super strategic game. It comes with a decent dose of luck, especially when it comes to the locomotives limiting a player's ability to claim ferry routes. However, Nordic Countries is a very engaging and addictive game. Every decision feels incredibly important. Do you take that locomotive in the display or claim a route you need? Do you draw more tickets or claim more routes? Do you go for short ticket connections or long connections? The way in which the weight of these decisions sits on players' shoulders cannot be understated and the map is the key source of this weight. Despite this heavy, looming tension, Nordic Countries somehow remains light and fun. Knowing about and embracing the random factors of this game allows us to enjoy it.
4. Super quick
Our first play took about 30 minutes and our second slightly less time. I love a light game that brings fun to the table in a short amount of time. Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries does that. For us, it's a game filled with tension and laughter. There are strategic and tactical decisions to be made, with just a splash of randomness. However, we don't take this game very seriously, so getting hosed usually makes us laugh rather than cry out in anguish.
1. A bit more random?
The ferry and tunnel routes are fun, and while they increase the number of options and decisions to be made in the game, I feel like they make luck quite a prominent factor. All Ticket to Ride games come with a heavy dose of randomness. Between the cards that are available/drawn and the player-generated chaos on the board, there are plenty of opportunities for your plans to be thwarted through no fault of your own. However, the fact that a certain number of locomotives is required to complete a ferry route in Nordic Countries makes this game feel a little more restrictive in terms of the cards needed to claim certain routes, and thus more susceptible to luck. HOWEVER, this is counterbalanced by the fact that only 2 (or 3) players are playing, so there are fewer turn-to-turn changes in the face-up train cards and the fact that the locomotives cannot be used as wilds on any old route, as well as the fact that good playing = strategic ticket selection (i.e. don't pick a ticket you don't think you can complete). PLUS, a locomotive can be replaced by any 3 cards, which ensures that a player cannot be completely blocked from claiming ferry routes.
Ultimately, the augmented significance of the locomotives may or may not increase the randomness. I'm not sure. It feels like it might, but it might not and I'm not sure I really care either way. This game doesn't need heavy strategy to be fun.
Final Word
Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries is a tight and competitive route-building game that looks like a dream and plays like one too! With a flourish of tactics and a sprinkle of luck, it makes for a light, fun-filled treat at the end of a long day.
MINA'S LOVE METER: SOME LOVE
All roads lead to Kobenhavn
What's Not So New But Still Exciting?
Roll for the Galaxy +
We are Roll for the Galaxy fanatics! I cannot believe how frequently we play this game. It's really quite crazy. Peter really wants to improve and is really doing quite well.
After failing miserably to do so last week, I was determined to get the Rebel Stronghold onto my tableau this week. That 9-cost world kept taunting me! I could hear it in my sleep! I was fortunate enough to get a suitable combination of start tiles that helped me fulfill my Rebel Stronghold dreams this week! YAY! And not only that! I accomplished my goal in style, ending the game with 10 bonus points for my 10 red dice courtesy of my Galactic Imperium.
The second time we played this week, I lost the Rebel Stronghold to Peter. To be fair, I had no business going after red dice in the first place. That was his specialty. Given the fact that I had Consumer Markets/Space Mall, I really should have focused on producing and trading. However, the fact that the Galactic Imperium was one of my starting tiles and the fact that my starting world gave me 1 red die led me to believe that I could follow my usual develop/settle strategy. Nope. Peter was just way faster and more efficient. I should have kept all the novelty worlds I kept drawing, but I was so obsessed with the objective of having 7 different colored dice that I just kept throwing those back into the bag. I think I would have done a lot better had I kept some novelty worlds and used a more ship-centric strategy. I think Peter would have won either way, but at least I would not have lost by 27 points...maybe.
Fields of Arle
Every time I play an Uwe Rosenberg game, I decide it's my favorite one. That's what happened twice this week. First it was Ora et Labora, then it was Fields of Arle. I LOVE Fields of Arle! LOVE IT! It doesn't seem like it has much variability when you look at it, as only a small-ish subset of buildings change between games. However, the variety of strategies that is available to be explored even with this variety is tremendous.
This week, I went for a strategy that relied heavily on peat boats and the "Peat Boat Man" action space. I also maxed out my fish traps using a lovely combination of buildings on the board. I knew that I would be all over the fish traps as soon as I saw those buildings (Sluice Yard Inn and Smoke Shop). The flexibility of the peat boat and the easy food production with the fish traps helped me build a record number of buildings, which scored me many points on the board. However, I somewhat neglected the goods, so I failed to make a reasonable number of points there. In the end, I ended up with my highest score ever - 114.5! That's only 0.5 more than my previous high score but 5.5 LESS than Peter's high score . I must work harder!
The Voyages of Marco Polo + The Voyages of Marco Polo: The New Characters
We tried out two new characters again this week! Peter got Altan Ord and I took Khan Argun. Altan Ord provides an increasing number of benefits each time his player builds a temple, while Khan Argun comes with 6 city cards to be used exclusively by his player once per turn as though he had placed a 6-value die on it without placing a die at all! At first I thought that Khan would be incredibly powerful, but his value really depends on the city cards that are drawn and their potential to interact with each other and the board.
Both of the characters turned out to be incredibly powerful. I started off very strong because two of my city cards gave me lots of money (and one gave me lots of points too!) in exchange for camels and cloth, both of which are relatively easy to obtain because another card just gave me a bunch of cloth. I managed to reach the 3-point city tile in the second round, which meant I was collecting 3 points each round after that. Benefiting from some free resources through my city cards also allowed me to complete several movement-related contracts early in the game, which was quite important to me.
Peter took a while to get started, which made sense given that the benefit he received each time he built a temple increased as the game went on. However, by the end of the game, we were tied on contracts and he finished only about 5 points behind me.
These two characters were like black and white in terms of how they played. Khan started off strong and then fell back when all his cards were used, while Altan became increasingly powerful as the game went on.
I really love the challenges and advantages these new characters bring to Marco Polo! I look forward to playing with them again and again and I look forward to the inevitable full-sized expansion with a big stack of new characters.
Ora et Labora
YAY! This is a game with 100% Peter-Mina agreement. We both adore it.
This time, I got 352 points (LEGALLY, I might add, because I built the Hilltop Village in a legal location)!!! This is only 3 points short of my highest score. I knew I was doing well. Everything seemed to be going my way. I got the vineyard and the winery, I had a way to obtain all but one of the goods needed to create wonders and I had the sacristy. I basically had a way to make any good and make good use of any good. Also, Peter kept paying me to use my buildings because he needed my awesome stuff, which helped me retrieve my workers more frequently than I would have otherwise been entitled to do. It was great! I did only manage to squeeze two wonders out of my Sacristy, but that's life. I guess you can only have so many wonders...though I do wonder about many, many things in life...
Drunk monks
Our boards...
Imperial Settlers + Imperial Settlers: Atlanteans
Imperial Settlers is so much fun! We hadn't played with Atlanteans in a couple of weeks, so I suggested we go back to playing with them instead of with the Why Can't We Be Friends? expansion. Unfortunately, I cheated by using Atlanteans' tech tokens as doublers on common action cards rather than as +1s, which resulted in my winning by A LOT. Also, we played with the peaceful variant, which might not be a very good idea when the Atlanteans are in play. I really think that the Atlanteans' stuff needs to be razeable in order to bring them completely in line with everyone else. Otherwise, we had a great time with them! I look forward to playing with them more and more! I love their colors!
Nippon
I am REALLY loving Nippon. This game is chock full of potential for clever combos and clever interaction with opponents! IT IS SO MUCH FUN! I love how the game length varies each time depending on players' actions and how every game feels different and yet the same.
This week, our play of Nippon was VERY quick! Peter and I kept going for the same actions, which led to the game progressing through the first scoring with neither of us scoring anything. I was unable to score anything in the second scoring either, while Peter managed to get second place in 2 cities. I wasn't too worried. I had BIG plans for the final rounds and managed to basically take over the board at the time that the third scoring took place. I made a great move on my last turn, taking over Peter's train-filled region and denying him the opportunity to score anything there!
Mr. Jack in New York
I miss playing Mr. Jack in New York on a regular basis. At one time, it was our go-to filler-ish game. I still love it!
This was possibly the first time I ever managed to escape as Mr. Jack! Although Peter and I always alternate, I prefer to play as Mr. Jack. I don't know what it is about sneaking around and trying to escape that makes me so giddy, but it might have something to do with the fact that it is quite a bit more challenging to avoid getting caught than it is to do the catching. This time, I managed to avoid Peter's identifying me until mid game and then managed to run around the board by manipulating the police lines and funneling characters away from me until the final round. It was such a tense game and it was still filled with laughter.
Gold West
I had one of my first legitimate Gold West wins this week! I don't call our first couple of plays legitimate (which I won) because it usually takes Peter a game to fully understand the rules. I kept losing at Gold West because I wasn't making use of the shipping track or making full use of the points awarded for long-term planning (i.e. dropping resources in the lower points in the supply track). I finally managed to do both of these things well and WON! YAY! I did completely ignore Boom Town though...
Agricola + Agricola: France Deck
Agricola is on our 10x10 list this year and since getting Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, we haven't had the urge to play its older brother. This week, I really wanted to play the big game and with my favorite deck (France), so we played! And I won by 2 points! And I initially thought I had lost! It was SO CLOSE!!!
The France deck is super fun because it provides many opportunities to obtain bonus points. Indeed, many of my improvements were point-generating opportunities. The first thing I did in the game was to build the Barber Shop. This gave me 1 bonus point for each remaining harvest! Super! Then, I plowed a bunch of fields to take the most advantage of my Oceanographer, and hired the Country Doctor to help with early illegal reproduction...you know...the kind without room in your house. Also, Peter wasn't taking reed, so I went for the Basketmaker's Workshop. I literally had zero animals until the last few rounds of the game and was worried I would lose horribly because Peter's farm was filled with them. Happily, I won with a highly overcrowded home. Two adults, two children, AND a sheep in a 2-room house is just too much...FUN!
Seasons + Seasons: Enchanted Kingdom + Seasons: Path of Destiny
This is another game on our 10x10 that we haven't played nearly enough! We must play it more because we both love it a lot! This week's game was SUPER tense up to the last minute!
I started off with the Die of Malice, which is one of my favorite ways to start because of the slight bit of flexibility it adds. Sure, re-rolling can shoot you in the foot sometimes, but sometimes it can mean the difference between victory and defeat. I also took the Replicator card because I always take it when I see it. It wasn't a very good choice given the cards in the draft, but I did it anyway. I'm loyal to my favorite cards 
. I managed to score some crystals throughout the game, but the biggest deal was the Jewel of Ancients. That thing alone was worth 45 crystals at the end of the game! My big finisher was Io's Minion. I knew I had to manipulate the dice so that the end of the game happened when I was second in order for Peter to end up with the Minion in his hand at the end. I had the right crystals to do it too! Unfortunately, Peter hit me with Naria the Prophetess and the Ratty Nightshade on his last turn. He took my 1 air energy right out of my reserve!!!! That was all I needed! AND he made me draw a card! I drew Ragfield's Helm, which was incredibly lucky. Although I didn't have the right energy, I at least had enough energy to get both Ragfield and Io's Minion played! I did have to lose 12 crystals in the end to do it, but it was totally worth it to see the look on Peter's face. He thought he had me and then I got him! And this game is CHOCK FULL of moments like that! CHOCK FULL! SO FUN! SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO FUN!
Peter's downfall...sort of...He was actually highly instrumental in his own downfall 
Super Motherload
Super Motherload is still super fun. I do hope that an expansion is released at some point, but I'm sure it will continue to be fun for a while longer. In this session, both Peter and I were racing for the artifacts, which resulted in the game being over very quickly. Nevertheless, it was a very fun game, which I won handily because Peter didn't do very well on the major goals. These types of wins for me seem to be ubiquitous in games that have a variable scoring "bulletin board." Peter has some sort of selective blindness when it comes to variable scoring conditions. He just doesn't see them or take them into account, even when I take the time to spell them out for him. 
I think my favorite ability in Super Motherload has to be the gem multiplication ability! I love getting a HUGE gem onto one of my trainees and then multiplying it onto another one. SO FUN!
Terra Mystica
This week, we drew the Mermaids and the Fakirs. I had to bid first and didn't know which faction I wanted. They were both suitable for the goals and the Fakirs can be quite powerful in a 2-player game when distance is involved. The end-of-game bonus was furthest distance between Stronghold and Sanctuary, so the Fakirs seemed to have a slight advantage. However, I like the Mermaids, so I bid 4VP and Peter let me take them.
Peter was doing very well early in the game. He had a much larger number of structures early in the game. However, I caught up later in the game. Peter could have easily won the Stronghold-Sanctuary distance bonus, but he failed to build his Sanctuary, so he missed out on that one. He also missed out on many cult track points. I won!
Suburbia + Suburbia Inc + Suburbia 5★
This week, Peter really wanted to play Suburbia again. The star expansion basically killed my desire to play the game, so I wasn't eager to play, but I agreed to it. The goals were the Employer (fewest 2x), Aquaphobian (fewest lakes), and something less consequential. The first two goals were quite at odds with the way we've played the star game and I knew we would both have to create lakes in order to make money. Both Waterfront Realty tiles were available at the start of the game and I grabbed one as soon as I could. Peter didn't care. He was determined not to make any lakes. I ended up getting the second Waterfront Realty as well and totally destroyed him. I ended up with more than twice his score because he was really hurting for cash throughout the entire game and couldn't get any stars (or any other very good tiles, really). We both know that he shot himself in the foot by ignoring the Waterfront Reality, but the game was not fun for either of us.
Unfortunately, the winner of all our plays of Suburbia with the stars has been the player who was able to get a Waterfront Realty into his tableau. And the earlier that happened, the greater the disparity in scores has been. This is unfortunate and unfun. I think we will remove Waterfront Realty from the game if we plan to play with the stars (which I really don't want to do EVER again because our last experience was THAT bad). Otherwise, we will just leave the stars in their box. <- double shakes went from unintentional to intentional when I realized how ominous they looked as a pair
Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy + Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy – Extra Mansion Cards
This week, I physically removed Madame Pompadour from my game. I KEEP DRAWING HER! EVERY TIME!!!!! Anyway, she's gone. This week, I drew Madame Pompadour, threw her out, and then drew Cardinal De Fleury (politician). He gives +9 points for having 8 cards in hand at the end of the game, as well as potential points for marriages arranged with social females and every two couples in your family. I married my patriarch to the lady who gives you 1 extra friend every time you go out to make friends in her generation (I forget the lady's name, but I seem to ALWAYS marry my men to her) in order to get a jump start on the card collecting. I quite enjoyed the flexibility of Cardinal De Fleury, as I finally wasn't forced to focus on certain nationalities or professions of my friends. I was free to do whatever I pleased. I decided to make a lot of my points through contributions and titles because Peter kept getting the blue action bonus and I kept getting the yellow one. It was a very close game, but I ended up winning! I just don't seem to tire of this game. It's a bit random, but a lot of fun!
Eminent Domain + Eminent Domain: Escalation
More EmDo this week! Yay! I had so much fun with it last week, that I wanted to re-visit it again asap! Peter selected Streamlining AGAIN and I picked Mobilized. I knew we were going to be on different planet takeover paths as soon as I saw Peter remove his warfare card on his first turn. And I thought he'd try to deplete the point pool asap in order to limit my warfare, but he didn't. He did collect a Peace Treaty and a planet that gave him VP for dissenting warfare, but it was already too late. I already had enough action cards that allowed me to take over planets and didn't need to rely on warfare at all. He only got 1 point out of me.
We ended the game by depleting the research deck. My deck was basically 100% research by the end of the game and Peter's was close too. We went knowledge crazy!
La Granja + La Granja: 2nd Edition Promo Cards
This was a very unpleasant game for me. I really wanted to play Bora Bora, but Peter didn't, so we agreed on La Granja. However, I had a massive headache and was really tired and cranky, so ALL the little things that typically slightly bother me in La Granja just assaulted my brain. I was doing well in the game and yet I was hating it. The fact that I had a very nice combination of helpers in the Packer (+1 free delivery), Blacksmith (+1 advancement on siesta), and Trader (spend 1 trade commodity to get 3 harvest goods or 7 coins) could not overshadow the frustrating point tornado that is La Granja. I find it incredibly annoying to keep track of all the little ways in which points are obtained whenever players do anything and it frequently leads to points being forgotten or mistakenly taken.
Enough complaining! This isn't a horrible game. It was just a horrible session because of my headache and tiredness and the fact that the game does have certain features that irritate me at the best of times.
The Castles of Burgundy + PROMOS GALORE
After our horrible La Granja session, we decided to go for a nice friendly game of Burgundy. I knew that I would lose the game because Peter's castle was had many more surrounding 1-tile spaces than mine. Also, I was really tired and fighting a horrible headache, so I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. Sadly, I was right. As predicted, Peter completed no fewer then 3 of his 1-tile spaces in the first round, which resulted in a massive point windfall for him right at the start of the game. I was FAR behind. However, I did manage to nearly catch up and kept close to him throughout most of the game. He was just really clever at building combos, while I was just plopping tiles down. I really shouldn't play when I'm super tired. It never ends well. I still had fun, so maybe I should.
Fresh Cardboard
1. Le Havre: The Inland Port - The app version! I've never played the physical version of this game because it didn't seem all that replayable, but the app was $5, so I went for it. I played it a couple of times and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I ended up buying the physical version as well. I KNOW that Peter would love it because he loves Ora et Labora and Le Havre.
2. Shakespeare - I love Shakespeare! I also think I will at least like this game because it is gorgeous and I love card drafting!
3. Russian Railroads: German Railroads - I LOVE my Russian Railroads (despite not having played it in FOREVER!) and I knew I would have to add this as soon as it appeared. I ordered it from BoardGameBliss mere minutes after it was uploaded to the site!
4. Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries - See above.
5. Notre Dame: The New Persons - I don't know how or why this little expansion wormed its way into my brain, but it did. I couldn't get it out! So I bought it on ebay, despite the exorbitant ebay robbery shipping cost.
Top 10 of 2015
Finally, I'd like to ask everyone for advice about timing my top 10 of 2015 list. I have not played all the games of 2015 I would like to play and probably won't before January/February. However, I will have played a good chunk of those by around mid December. My question to you is, when would should I post a top 10 of 2015? Additionally, should this be a top 10 new-to-me games of 2015 or a top 10 games published in 2015 (I'm guessing the latter)? Whether you respond or not, thank you! Thank you for being a positive and supportive community of good human beings.
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