Players - Evonne, Wei Xun, Jason, Me (Jerry)
+ Cameo appearance - Jonathon and Sam.
Today's session started slightly later than expected between the bulk of the group, that was becoz i bought Old Chang Kee from bishan and tore my slippers while on the way to Wei Xun's place
. Despite the bumpy start, the dae was met with a pleasant gaming experience for 2 new games and a finale Old Chang Kee snackfest. In total, we had 6 players inside Wei Xun's room. Wat a crowd 
! However, Jonathon and Sam came later after lunch and were not able to join the group on most games, but i guessed their banana relationship saw a new climax in that few hours together 
. We were glad that Sam and Jon had the fullest of attention between each other while we worked through Amun- Re. The games we played todae are as follows:
1. Stone Age
2. Race for the Galaxy
3. Amun- Re
4. Once Upon a Time
+ Jonathon and Sam in their cosy corner:
1. Once Upon a Time
2. Race for the Galaxy
3. Saint Petersberg
4. Race for the Galaxy
Game of the Session
The game that gave me the strongest impression was Stone Age, it is a pity that Wei Xun, Jon and Sam were not able to join during the game. While there are dice rolls in the game, it is really as spoken by many players on BGG: lotsa dice but simply smart to play. It was our first game but it had a last impression, wat more can i say? I was still reading the manual at the end of the dae to see why i lost by a great margin
. Lol. Despite coming in last in a 3 player game, i am willing to play it again, and i see it will scale nicely between 2, 3, and 4 players.
In game, players play the leaders of their tribes at stone age. Facing hunting, building and feeding problems is a daily affair in Stone Age. By gathering appropriate resource at the forest; clay pit; quarry; and river, players can construct buildings and accquire civilisation cards that contributes to their overall victory points! Meanwhile, players can enhance their gathering abilities by 'breeding' at the hut, introducing yet another member for later turns. Lastly, players have to balance between gathering building resources and food resources, as failure to store enough food will result in starving your tribe and, hence severe materials lost and possibly even victory points. In short, it is an elaborated work-placement mechanism game inter-mixed with surprising game ending civilisation scoring. Think Pillars of the Earth + Saint Petersberg, but i really think its a unique and worthy game. Now onto the session rundown.
Early Game
Evonne decided to send her initial worker to the padi fields, and later to a civilisation card and also allows an immediate increase in agricultural output. Her next few workers went to cut wood at the forest, chop chop. Jason had a unexplainably festish with tools, but it was not apparant until the 2nd -4th gaming rounds when he decided to fanatically visit the tool maker every round to make tools. He also manage to score a few useful civilisation cards that gave him even more tools. These cute little tiles allow you to turn them sideways between your cute fingers so to add numbers to your dice rolls when you trying to gather resources the various locations. I went for the extra member by throwing my members to copulate at the hut and gathering a few simple resources. In contrast to the other 2 players, i am attempting a rush to end the game by mustering up a quick force and making ends meets by hunting occasionally to provide food for my group.
Mid game
By now, Evonne is still pumping her agriculture by sending workers to the padi fields given the opportunity. Other than an occasion visit to the forest, clay pit, her workers stayed within comfortable boundaries of dice rolls, chopping wood and digging clay. It works up slowly a healthy amount of building resource and food resources. On the other hand, Jason, is also working his tools dutifully and sweeping the board of most of the wood at the forest area. Seeing that both players are going to muster power engines later in the game, i work on gathering neccessary build resources to attempt to score some cheap scores with the building tiles, unfortunately for me, i had alot of unfortunate dice rolls at the clay pits. While i had 6 members, i sent 2 members to the clay pit twice, but gathered nothing! Wat a dissapointment! While Evonne laughed heartily at my disheartening dice rolls, i manage to snatched a few nice buildings.
Late Game
It came to me that the game will not end so soon, and probably i am going to suffer for the rushing strategy that i was so focusing on earlier. Evonne had such a good agricultural production that she no longer had to send her workers to hunt animals anymore. As such, workers went to the forest and chop away and these cheap resources. While she denied that she is leading, the amount of bonuses that she can muster from her civilisations is terrfiying, if not pants-dropping to say the least. Jason managed to complete a full set of 3 3-tier tools that ensue his successes at dice rolls no matter where he send his workers. Gayness. Unstoppable, watching him tapping away gives me the creeps. lol. Having almost all the wood resource u can find in the game, he is also pumping them into accquiring civilisation cards. I still had a chance, if i can deplete 1 of the building stacks in time to end the game, but most of the time i am still making ends meets by hunting every round to gather that temporal food resources to feed my tribe. OMG!!!! i jz cant bared to see them starve...
The game ended with me leading evonne, and jason as i had accuqired a fair amount of building tiles that gave those apparant points. However, the jaw dropping differences came after tellying our bonuses from our civilisation cards. Evonne had 14 cards!! There is a total of 36 cards in the civilisation deck mind u, and jason had 10, and i had 7 only. Evonne had a good amount of shaman cards that worked incredibly well with her large agriculture and 8 members, scoring a whopping 50 plus points and one go, zooming pass my position on the score track faster than i can finish this sentence. My only pathetic hope is to come in 2nd, but well...... I was like less than 5 points away from Jason. His collection of unique green civilisation cards managed to gave him a incredible health of 64 points!!!
My Personal Feel
The game is definitely strategic, while it does not provide a static experience. Dice rolls enhance my experience of gathering resource in an exciting sense; sometimes i curse over dumb rolls, but i am quite sure i had my lucky rolls too. There are always new civilisation cards and new building cards to look forward to, and snatching them before other players is a constant tension between players in similar worker placement games like Caylus and Pillars of the earth. While Stone Age can appear to replicate the tension in workers-placement games, it provided laughing moments when someone rolled well or badly, without affecting strategic planning greatly. Great game, will not turned it down if asked.
P.S: Another great game, Amun-Re
I was comtemplating between Amun-Re and Stone Age as the game of the session. While Stone Age was luckily selected, i have to say Amun-Re is also incredible, but had a shakier;chaotic feel. I guessed its uniqueness is obsured between a complex amount of bidding, closed-auctions and resource management and would not be readily accepted with a WOW feeling. Nevertheless, a great thinking game, and somewhat more AP than Stone Age.
+ Cameo appearance - Jonathon and Sam.
Today's session started slightly later than expected between the bulk of the group, that was becoz i bought Old Chang Kee from bishan and tore my slippers while on the way to Wei Xun's place
. Despite the bumpy start, the dae was met with a pleasant gaming experience for 2 new games and a finale Old Chang Kee snackfest. In total, we had 6 players inside Wei Xun's room. Wat a crowd ! However, Jonathon and Sam came later after lunch and were not able to join the group on most games, but i guessed their banana relationship saw a new climax in that few hours together . We were glad that Sam and Jon had the fullest of attention between each other while we worked through Amun- Re. The games we played todae are as follows:1. Stone Age
2. Race for the Galaxy
3. Amun- Re
4. Once Upon a Time
+ Jonathon and Sam in their cosy corner:
1. Once Upon a Time
2. Race for the Galaxy
3. Saint Petersberg
4. Race for the Galaxy
Game of the Session
The game that gave me the strongest impression was Stone Age, it is a pity that Wei Xun, Jon and Sam were not able to join during the game. While there are dice rolls in the game, it is really as spoken by many players on BGG: lotsa dice but simply smart to play. It was our first game but it had a last impression, wat more can i say? I was still reading the manual at the end of the dae to see why i lost by a great margin
. Lol. Despite coming in last in a 3 player game, i am willing to play it again, and i see it will scale nicely between 2, 3, and 4 players. In game, players play the leaders of their tribes at stone age. Facing hunting, building and feeding problems is a daily affair in Stone Age. By gathering appropriate resource at the forest; clay pit; quarry; and river, players can construct buildings and accquire civilisation cards that contributes to their overall victory points! Meanwhile, players can enhance their gathering abilities by 'breeding' at the hut, introducing yet another member for later turns. Lastly, players have to balance between gathering building resources and food resources, as failure to store enough food will result in starving your tribe and, hence severe materials lost and possibly even victory points. In short, it is an elaborated work-placement mechanism game inter-mixed with surprising game ending civilisation scoring. Think Pillars of the Earth + Saint Petersberg, but i really think its a unique and worthy game. Now onto the session rundown.
Early Game
Evonne decided to send her initial worker to the padi fields, and later to a civilisation card and also allows an immediate increase in agricultural output. Her next few workers went to cut wood at the forest, chop chop. Jason had a unexplainably festish with tools, but it was not apparant until the 2nd -4th gaming rounds when he decided to fanatically visit the tool maker every round to make tools. He also manage to score a few useful civilisation cards that gave him even more tools. These cute little tiles allow you to turn them sideways between your cute fingers so to add numbers to your dice rolls when you trying to gather resources the various locations. I went for the extra member by throwing my members to copulate at the hut and gathering a few simple resources. In contrast to the other 2 players, i am attempting a rush to end the game by mustering up a quick force and making ends meets by hunting occasionally to provide food for my group.
Mid game
By now, Evonne is still pumping her agriculture by sending workers to the padi fields given the opportunity. Other than an occasion visit to the forest, clay pit, her workers stayed within comfortable boundaries of dice rolls, chopping wood and digging clay. It works up slowly a healthy amount of building resource and food resources. On the other hand, Jason, is also working his tools dutifully and sweeping the board of most of the wood at the forest area. Seeing that both players are going to muster power engines later in the game, i work on gathering neccessary build resources to attempt to score some cheap scores with the building tiles, unfortunately for me, i had alot of unfortunate dice rolls at the clay pits. While i had 6 members, i sent 2 members to the clay pit twice, but gathered nothing! Wat a dissapointment! While Evonne laughed heartily at my disheartening dice rolls, i manage to snatched a few nice buildings.
Late Game
It came to me that the game will not end so soon, and probably i am going to suffer for the rushing strategy that i was so focusing on earlier. Evonne had such a good agricultural production that she no longer had to send her workers to hunt animals anymore. As such, workers went to the forest and chop away and these cheap resources. While she denied that she is leading, the amount of bonuses that she can muster from her civilisations is terrfiying, if not pants-dropping to say the least. Jason managed to complete a full set of 3 3-tier tools that ensue his successes at dice rolls no matter where he send his workers. Gayness. Unstoppable, watching him tapping away gives me the creeps. lol. Having almost all the wood resource u can find in the game, he is also pumping them into accquiring civilisation cards. I still had a chance, if i can deplete 1 of the building stacks in time to end the game, but most of the time i am still making ends meets by hunting every round to gather that temporal food resources to feed my tribe. OMG!!!! i jz cant bared to see them starve...
The game ended with me leading evonne, and jason as i had accuqired a fair amount of building tiles that gave those apparant points. However, the jaw dropping differences came after tellying our bonuses from our civilisation cards. Evonne had 14 cards!! There is a total of 36 cards in the civilisation deck mind u, and jason had 10, and i had 7 only. Evonne had a good amount of shaman cards that worked incredibly well with her large agriculture and 8 members, scoring a whopping 50 plus points and one go, zooming pass my position on the score track faster than i can finish this sentence. My only pathetic hope is to come in 2nd, but well...... I was like less than 5 points away from Jason. His collection of unique green civilisation cards managed to gave him a incredible health of 64 points!!!
My Personal Feel
The game is definitely strategic, while it does not provide a static experience. Dice rolls enhance my experience of gathering resource in an exciting sense; sometimes i curse over dumb rolls, but i am quite sure i had my lucky rolls too. There are always new civilisation cards and new building cards to look forward to, and snatching them before other players is a constant tension between players in similar worker placement games like Caylus and Pillars of the earth. While Stone Age can appear to replicate the tension in workers-placement games, it provided laughing moments when someone rolled well or badly, without affecting strategic planning greatly. Great game, will not turned it down if asked.
P.S: Another great game, Amun-Re
I was comtemplating between Amun-Re and Stone Age as the game of the session. While Stone Age was luckily selected, i have to say Amun-Re is also incredible, but had a shakier;chaotic feel. I guessed its uniqueness is obsured between a complex amount of bidding, closed-auctions and resource management and would not be readily accepted with a WOW feeling. Nevertheless, a great thinking game, and somewhat more AP than Stone Age.
