My collectible dilemma: Pirates CSG

A few years ago, when Wizkids' Pirates CSG was new, and the Crimson Coast set had just been released, I happened to discover the game while walking out of Target. My love of the pirate theme instantly had me giddy over the game. I looked the game up online, viewed the flash tutorial, and before 2 days had passed, I had stopped by Toys R Us to pick up my first two booster packs. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

Up to this point in my life, I had never invested in a collectible game before. My only experience with collectible games had been from playing Magic: The Gathering with my friends who had collections. One thing I know now that I didn't know then is that there is a certain type of person who should invest in collectible games, and there is a certain type of person who should not. Here are some features of a person who should invest in collectible games:

1. Being a kid or teenager
   
2. Being single
3. Having expendable income
4. Having friends who want to play the game with you
5. Having friends who also collect the game
6. Having time to play
7. Having time to keep up on the news and events surrounding the game

The more features that apply to you, the better suited you are for collectible games, in my opinion. Herein lies the first problem: when I became interested in Pirates CSG, the only items that applied to me were 4, 6, and 7. This would have been a warning sign, had I known what I know now.

I lacked everything but time and friends. When I bought my first packs, my friend Jack bought a couple packs as well. We were both fascinated by this new "constructible" idea that Wizkids had introduced. The character art was interesting and somewhat spooky; the little ships looked amazingly cool; there were stats and abilities and 4 factions to choose from - everything about the game was a draw for me.

Back then, my wife was also willing to play with me, while the game was as simple as two packs. At the time, I only had one very small child and much more time for following the Pirates community forums. I was up on every hot topic and found lots of answers to rules questions. I was not yet into much board gaming beyond Settlers of Catan, so Pirates was my main game.

Jack and I continued to buy packs and receive them as gifts, growing our collections. Jack, a maximizer of value, decided to focus on just one faction (Pirates) to keep things simple, while I was intent on collecting everything in the game. We bought batches of singles online and searched ebay regularly for decently priced "money" rares. Jack, already being an avid collector of Magic: The Gathering, soon decided to quit collecting Pirates. He felt he could only comfortably and reasonably manage one collectible game. But he assured me that he'd still play with me. By this time, my wife had also begun to turn down my requests to play Pirates. The Pirates game had become too big for everyone but me.

And yet I continued collecting. Looking down the road, I saw my familial posterity benefiting from my full-bodied collection - surely my children would play with me when they were older. We would have a blast carrying out pirate battles! Wizkids released new set after new set, rapidly throwing new factions and mechanics into the Pirates game. Soon, I found myself overwhelmed. I was playing with no one, and had no money to invest in keeping up with each new season.

Then, when I finally did have some money to blow, I bought a booster box for Pirates of the Barbary Coast, hoping to sell them on ebay, as I had made a habit of doing with my extra Pirates cards. My goal was to flesh out my Corsair faction before selling off the doubles. Unfortunately, I seemed to be one of the only people actively collecting Barbary Coast. I couldn't get much to sell and ended up with a load of unused Barbary Coast cards (which I still have).

At this time, the reality of my wasted time, money, and effort was becoming heavy upon my conscience. How was there any wisdom in amassing a dust-collecting lot of game pieces? When was the last time I had actually played the game? Who was I kidding? Pirates had become nothing more than a collectible item, like bottle caps or shells. I had designed my own custom islands, and put together sizable collections for every faction up through the Barbary Corsairs, and was working on my stash for the Cursed faction. It was like anything else: if you don't have anyone to share it with, it quickly becomes worthless.

So where am I today? I still have my collection, boxed up in official Pirates tins, each item sleeved, organized by faction. I have all my custom homemade islands stashed in a closet, and a length of fabric that my wife cut and sewed for me to use with Pirates as a table cloth that looks like an ocean. Most of my efforts in the last year have been to keep my collection of trade items up to date on MiniatureTrading.com. Every once in a while people have contacted me about trades. Even those are rare now. I'm just a chump with a sweet, barely-used Pirates collection.

Some of you who experienced similar or dissimilar adverse experiences with collectible games such as MTG are probably chuckling at me now, and with good reason. Back when I got started, you are certain, had you been there, you could have tried to steer me clear of the fascination that led me to my current predicament.

What am I going to do? First of all, I will keep waiting for people to contact me about trades and buys. I need to get rid of my excess Pirates stuff. Then I'll eventually need to decide what to do with my personal collection. Do I keep it to play with my kids - even in light of the huge board game collection I have to keep us occupied? Do I sell it for far less than I spent on it? It's a collectible game after all - it doesn't hold its value. And when you don't have friends investing in their own collections, that just takes away from some of the fun of the game. Collectible games are designed so that each player can piece together their own competitive collections. As it is, anyone I play with with just be using my collection.

I really don't know the best answers yet. I still like browsing the collection. I somewhat enjoy building fleets. I like playing, as long as we don't build big fleets - then the game just takes too long. Over the years, my interests have shifted, I have more kids to invest time and energy in, and I have an adequate supply of interesting board games to keep my family engaged. I just don't know what to do about the Pirates stash.

Feel free to comment and advise. I'm interested to hear what readers have to say.

All pictures are pictures I've taken and posted on BGG. They all include items from Jack's and my collections. The dark tablecloth is his, the light-colored one is mine. The 3D islands are the ones I constructed and painted myself.

Brief Overview series Ep. 5: Fairy Tale

Here is the 5th entry in my Brief Overview series. Thanks to everyone on BGG who has commented and added requests.


Brief Overview series Ep. 5: Fairy Tale

In the player's seat: my first SotC pulp adventure

I never thought I'd want to play any setting other than fantasy. The fantasy theme is what first made roleplaying attractive to me. I'm a huge fan of fantasy and I thought I'd never want to try any other option. But alas, I play with a group who wanted to test the waters of pulp. Pulp is still a somewhat nebulous genre in my brain. The SotC book highlights many examples, and I've kind of got the idea now, but I'm certainly not comfortable with the genre yet. Having recently finished GMing our first attempt at Fate 3.0 rules, AC volunteered to GM something before we continue the campaign I am running. He suggested trying something into which he can incorporate Spirit of the Season. So this is it - my first attempt at something other than fantasy. Fortunately, while learning the Fate 3.0 rules from the SotC book, I learned a lot about playing vanilla SotC and the using the pulp genre.

This time, AC is GMing, and Llama, J, and I are playing. AC is starting off with a small adventure he has memorized from past experience, and then he'll take us on new adventures if we like it when we're done. All of us players have been getting our characters pieced together over the last couple weeks. Today, I will share with you my SotC character. We did not strictly follow the character creation rules from the book, especially when it got to giving our characters novels and co-starring in each other's novels. That isn't happening. We just created our characters with all of our stats ahead of time. So here he is, my SotC character.

Name: Grey Five
Age: 40
Height / Weight: 6 ft, 170 lbs.

Background Summary: Grey Five grew up in Dartford, England, born in 1882. His given name was Anders Tanworth, son of a public transportation systems specialist. William, his father, offered Anders almost any experience he desired, hoping to open up many doors through which Anders could walk into life. Included among his interests during his youth were hunting, fencing, reading, etiquette, and art.

When he was in his teens, his life changed without him knowing it. A scout from the Century Club happened to be in attendance at a fencing championship, which Anders had won with apparent ease. Impressed with Anders' stunning reflexes and speed, the scout made note and thereafter, the life and goings-on of Anders Tanworth were tracked and observed covertly by the Century Club. They never lost interest.

Anders continued as usual for the next couple years, thriving in all of his interests. The Great War was now a reality. One Saturday, while heading home from an errand, a man pulled him aside into an alley. The man was the scout who had been tracking Anders' progress. He explained to Ander's that the Great War was drawing into itself more people and more resources. "It's only a matter of time before you find yourself registering for the draft like other chaps your age," he said. "But I know you, Mr. Tanworth, and I have an alternate path to offer you." Anders didn't say a word, but continued listening. "My name is Oswald. I've been observing your for the last few years on behalf of the Century Club. We are prepared to offer you a position as a Centurion."

Life was a big rush following this event. Anders accepted the proposition, unable to turn down what sounded like a fascinating adventure. It might be dangerous, but certainly more interesting to him than the soldier's life. Soon after joining, he was placed in Oswald's division, the Grey Division. This division specialized in spy / assassin / operative training. Anders was trained for a short time in England, then transferred to the USA. There are only a handful of Centurions in each Color Division (this is not in the book - I made it up). The Color Divisions strip them of their true identity and instead give them a new name consisting of their Color and a number. So, Anders Tanworth ceased to roam the earth when the Grey Division adopted its new member, Grey Five.

Grey Five stuck with his upbringing. He is a proper gentleman, always wearing a suit, preferring high-buttoning jackets. He wears a bowler hat, black gloves, and glasses. Years down the road found him stationed in Hawaii for a time. While here, he befriended a young man who had adopted a hobby Grey Five had never witnessed - surfing. This young man taught Grey how to surf and it soon became one of his favorite ways to spend time off duty. He approached the engineers serving the Grey Division and asked them to design a small board which would strap on his feet and allow him to slide on various surfaces. It would need to be lightweight, bulletproof, and small enough to fit under his suit coat. The engineers said they could try anything. The final product came out just as Grey had imagined. He named it the Stuntboard and soon began training with it at the Centurion facilities. This and his modified Luger, "Claire," are his main equipment. Here is the sketch I did of Grey Five, scanned from my character sheet.

Grey Five

I think my idea for the Stuntboard goes back to the late 1980s when I had a favorite G.I. Joe character by the name of Muskrat. He came in a 2-pack and got much use. He came with a long blue machete-style blade, a rifle, and a small "swampboard" which could fit on his back or plug into his boot. I also usually gave him a whip, which I think was an accessory belonging to Croc Master. I went looking and tracked down some pictures. Below is a picture of Muskrat, totally decked out. Below that is a picture of his swampboard. This had to be the subconscious inspiration for the Stuntboard. Ah, childhood.

Now, let's get onto the stats. For those of you who are familiar with the Fate system, the following will make sense. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, I will explain briefly what all of these things are.

Aspects are some attribute belonging to your character, usually central to their life or history. Aspects are created by the player and may take any form. For instance, you could give your character the aspect Always Hungry. But aspects are usually more fun, and easier for the GM to use if you add a bit more flavor to them. So, Always Hungry might be more interesting if, instead, you named it "Does anyone else smell food?" Now the GM really has some flavor to work with.

Aspects can be used to benefit you. If you roll poorly and want to add 2 to the result, or just reroll all dice, you can pay a Fate point to the GM to gain that benefit. But, your aspects can also be compelled by the GM. This means that he can use them against you, forcing you to make a decision. So, let's say your character is trying to focus on an important task, but someone walks by with a plate of food. The GM could compel your "Does anyone else smell food?" aspect and say, "What are you going to do? You need to finish this task, but someone just walked by with rich-smelling foods. You're having a hard time resisting the urge to follow the man and ask for a bite." Now you have to either go with your hungry nature, or you can fight it. If you goes with it, the GM gives you a Fate point. If you fight it, you have to pay the GM a Fate point.

Skills are 15 things you're best at. You will have 5 levels of skills, from Average to Superb. You have more skills on each lower level, and only one thing you're Superb at. You can make this skills up, or use those listed in the book. SotC has a very thorough set of skills which meet any need for the pulp game.

Stunts are a guaranteed way of doing something well. You can make them up, or use those listed in the book. Stunts are usually related to one of your skills. For instance, if you have a character who is good at the Guns skill, he can choose from several Guns stunts which will give him a guaranteed benefit. For example, the Quick Draw stunt allows a player to draw his gun as a free action. Usually, drawing a weapon counts as a supplemental action, which gives you a -1 to your roll for a skill.

So, here are Grey Five's stats.

Aspects

1. “This will have to do.” (Quick to come up with alternatives, use anything as a weapon)
2. Fine English Gentleman (Proper and gentlemanly upbringing and behavior)
3. “I’ll be in the library.” (Loves to read and study)
4. “Leave me out of it.” (Prefers to avoid unnecessary conflicts and stay out of trifling matters)
5. “Does he ever miss?” (Accurate with guns)
6. Think Fast (Able to process matters very quickly under pressure for reasonably good outcomes)
7. “I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth.” (convincing speaker, good at deceit)
8. Face to Face (Has a preference for doing things at face value, avoids sneaking and underhandedness if possible)
9. Stuntboard (Qualified to use his Stuntboard)
10. The Grey Division (covert spy / assassin training / athletics skill)

Skills

Superb (+5)	Athletics
Great (+4)	Guns	Rapport
Good (+3)	Academics	Alertness	Resolve
Fair (+2)	Burglary	Endurance	Stealth	Weapons
Average (+1)	Art	Deceit	Fists	Investigation	Sleight of Hand

Stunts

Stuntboard (using gadget as a stunt)
Improvements:

1. Bulletproof
2. Lightweight
3. Shoelocks

Quick Draw (Guns): Draw gun as a free action.

Acrobat (Athletics): Perform complex athletic maneuvers, like shooting while swinging on a rope. The difficulty of the task is decreased by 2 points. Rolls for falling get a +2.

Five Minute Friends (Rapport): Pay a Fate point to increase the chances of gaining good standing with a stranger in a few minutes.

Walking Library (Academics): I have knowledge equal to a library of my Academics skill level.

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To close this post, I have the first session report for our SotC adventure!

We all sat down in the conference room after several weeks off. This time AC was in the GM seat, easily the most experienced of us all. We introduced our characters: Llama is playing as a young pyro-maniac demolitions expert named Nigel Wickston. J is playing as a big Russian special ops guy by the name of Igor Steel. One of Igor's arms is a gattling gun. J's Russian voice is fun, and a good compliment to Grey Five's British accent.

I'm going to try describing the session in present tense this time, for a change.

It's Christmas Eve. The scene begins with the three of us driving a Centurion car, receiving a radio communication from one of our commanding officers, a man who goes by "Father." He instructs us to go to the scene of a recent crime involving dynamite. The backstory is that our characters are in the middle of a larger mission to track a huge amount of missing dynamite. This recent crime could be a lead in our search. So, we head over to the scene of the crime, which happens to be the front of a pizza restaurant. In front of the building are the remains of a police car, partly blown to pieces by dynamite.

We meet up with an officer on the scene by the name of O'Malley, who happens to be an acquaintance of Nigel's. He gives us a rundown of the scene: some people with guns and dynamite are inside and there are possibly hostages. Looking through the windows we see a few figures. One shaky fellow is near the front door. He opens the door quickly, shows us a lit stick of dynamite and warns the police to stay back.

Grey Five walks up to the door carefully and prepares to talk to the shaky guy, but instead asks for a little help from Nigel - after all, dynamite fans are better at talking with dynamite fans. So Nigel pulls out a stick of dynamite and shows the guy in the doorway: "Look, I have one too!" Achieving a lucky roll on Rapport, Nigel draws the guy out the door and engages him in conversation about dynamite. While the crazy guy is standing there holding his dynamite, Grey ever so carefully reaches over and pulls the lit fuse from the stick of dynamite, rolling it up and stashing it in his coat pocket. He then slips quietly behind the guy and into the pizza parlor.

Inside there is a really big guy who points a gun at Grey. On Grey's heels, Igor also enters the parlor, gattling arm hidden from view within the sleeve of his big military coat. There is also a commanding lady behind the counter, yelling and holding the pizza parlor employee by his shirt. The big guy threatens Grey and Igor, telling them he'll shoot if they try anything.

Igor says something to the big guy. At the sound of Igor's Russian accent, the big guy stiffens up and yells: "She has agents everywhere!" Then fires a shot at Igor, which misses by a good margin. Igor then raises his gattling arm and fires a single shot at the big guy's arm, knocking him down behind the pizza counter and disarming him.

Grey runs at the counter and uses his Acrobat stunt to vault over the counter while drawing his gun, landing safely on the other side, gun pointed at the demanding lady, ready to grab the big guy's gun. The lady swings the pizza guy around and pushes him toward Grey, keeping herself hidden safely behind the pizza guy's body for a moment.

This is where the session ended. Igor and Grey are in parlor trying to deal with the criminals, and Nigel is out in the front talking shop with jittery dynamite guy. A couple guys will be out for some of the upcoming sessions. I'm not sure how we'll deal with that. We're also adding one more buddy of ours to the group. We also decided as a group to sit down when we're all available and figure out ways to tie our backstories together. J was pushing for this because it is built into the 5-phase character development as presented in the SotC book. We all agreed this would be fun, so that's coming up before too long. Who knows - maybe I'll change some of my aspects.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Brief Overview Series Ep. 4: Taluva

This is episode 4 in my brief overview series. Thanks to everyone who has sent me comments on BGG and YouTube. You wanted more, so here you go. This time I look at Taluva. Someone recommended I post my videos on Vimeo instead of YouTube, so I'm trying that this time around. Enjoy!


Brief Overview Series Ep. 4: Taluva

At last, a visit to the Copper Kettle Company!

My good friend Jack recently blessed me with his kindness. For Christmas, he went the extra mile and acquired for me a copy of a game I've been eying for a long, long time: Copper Kettle Company, commonly known as Kupferkessel Co. Kupferkessel Co is a game which has no English version, so it is hard to find in the US. Only one or two online sellers ever carry this game, one of them being Fair Play Games. I had made it known to friends and family via wishlist that Kupferkessel was available at Fair Play Games. Why had I not acquired it for myself? First of all, the game was rarely in stock, and had a tendency to sell out pretty quickly. Second of all, I never buy games at Fair Play Games. All of our game group orders have been through Thought Hammer or Boards & Bits. I didn't want to take the step of ordering a single game and paying full shipping fees.

Jack, knowing all of this, worked behind the scenes to acquire a copy of Kupferkessel Co. for me, running a game order without my knowledge. Before I go on, I'll share the interesting story Jack shared with me. He happened to order the game when it was in stock at Fair Play Games. To Jack's dismay, the game order never arrived at his house - UPS had lost it. So, for Christmas, he handed me an image of Kupferkessel Co. and told me the tale of the shipping mishap. Fair Play Games had courteously sent him replacements for every game except for . . . Kupferkessel, which was now out of stock. Then, in mid January, Jack showed up at my house with Kupferkessel in hand. Fair Play had finally obtained and shipped out a new copy.

For what it's worth, Jack assured me that Fair Play did everything they could to make the situation satisfactory for him, offering discounts, free shipping, price matching, etc - everything they could do to rectify the situation. Go, Fair Play Games!

The box, with a size reference.

My First Impression

By the next day, my wife and I had played Kupferkessel 4 times. It turned out to meet all of my hopes and expectations. The experience was improved by the efforts of two helpful BGG users:

Nick Pitman (MonkeyMagic): He designed an English rulebook downloadable as a PDF. It has the exact same format and size as the actual manual. When you print it out on your printer, it pieces together to form a booklet. There would have been NO WAY for us to learn this game without this wonderful contribution from MonkeyMagic.

Michael Weston (delta1119): He designed a quick reference page that explains everything briefly on a single page, front and back, which fits in the game box. This page was invaluable for our first few plays.

These helpful fellows made this German game easy to learn and play. So, on with the review.

Things my wife and I liked right away:

• The game is quick: about 20 minutes
• The components are great: big, easy to move pawns; wonderful art by Franz Vohwinkel
• The rules are easy to understand
• The mechanics are original, reminiscent of Mamma Mia

How the Game Works

The game board is made up of a 6-by-6 grid. The grid is created by placing square-shaped cards from a shuffled deck, so the board is different every time. Each card depicts a wooden cubby hole containing ingredients. What kind of ingredients, you ask? Why, the ingredients necessary for witches and wizards to complete magical potions. There are 14 types of ingredients, with 4 of each type, valued 1 to 4 points each. The ingredients include (as far as I can tell):

1. Roots
2. Mosses
3. Pumpkins
4. Raven Feathers
5. Bats
6. Whiskers
7. Mushrooms
8. A Chest Full of Snake Scales(?)
9. Eyes of Newt
10. Vines
11. Frog Slime (?)
    
12. Cobwebs
13. Ostrich Egg Inscribed With Arcane Symbols (?)
    
14. Dragon Blood (or maybe it's just steaming red wine?)

The cards, loaded with quality art.

One player uses a white pawn, the other player uses a black pawn. The pawns are about 3 inches tall, made of wood, and shaped somewhat like a figure wearing a witch or wizard hat. The mechanics are simple: you move your pawn around the board a number of spaces (determined by the top card of your cauldron) and then take a card from the row your pawn is next to. Refill the now-empty slot from the draw pile and it's the next player's turn.

What you get in the box.

As you accumulate cards, you put them on top of your "cauldron", which is just a stack of cards. If you have played Mamma Mia, this is much like the oven. You are not allowed to look back in your cauldron. Instead, you are required to remember what you've placed in your cauldron, which is actually quite easy to do, so don't run away just yet.

There is a scoring reference card for each player than reminds you of how to score your cauldron at the end. This is the interesting part of the game. The designer has devised an interesting scoring method. Knowing how scoring works is what empowers you to make good decisions as you pick up cards.

Scoring reference, front and back.

The game also comes with a small stack of recipe cards. These are an additional way to gain points. Again, these behave like the recipe cards from Mamma Mia. When you are going through your cauldron stack at the end of the game, if you meet the conditions on your recipe cards, you get the points for them. These are part of the variant game, included in the rule book. We played with recipes from the beginning. They are simple enough that you need not leave them out. They help to give you something to work for, so I recommend using them.

Commentary

My wife and I have played this game a handful of times since acquiring it, and I have only won one time. I thought my wife would like this game, and she does. And she's good at it. I have lost too many times to blame it on luck. For some reason, playing this reminds me of playing Lost Cities with my wife. It's something about having cards with points on them, and making useful combos out of those cards. My wife is talented at this particular type of thinking.

Despite my losses, I keep coming back for more, inviting another play. The process of play is enjoyable enough to offset any losses. First of all, the game is short. In about 20 minutes, we're done. It's kind of fun to imagine walking around the magic shop, browsing the shelves for ingredients. Second of all, the game is easy. You move your pawn, you take a card. This decision is typically quite simple because you have in mind a specific set of things you want to collect. The only difficult decisions will be deciding between two or more cards you need from a single row. I realize that this makes the game sound like it's very luck based. Yes, there is certainly some luck and randomness, but you always have the sense that you are deciding the best course of action. For instance, the card you draw determines how many spaces you will move on your next turn. So, you can theoretically try to arrange your number selections in a way that maximizes your efficiency in moving and taking cards.

Let me leave you with a couple more observations.

1. When in doubt, collect your own color. Each card has a number and a color on it. There are a few different colors to choose from. Included among these are black cards and white cards. Black cards count as double points for the black player, and the reverse for the white player. The only caveat is that if you only get 1 of a card type, it counts negatively. If it is a card of your own color, the negative points are doubled.

2. Not all recipes are equal. More complicated recipes don't necessarily earn you more points. There is a recipe which requires you to collect a whole bunch of plant ingredients. This one is only worth 10 points, while the 15-point recipes are actually easier to complete. You will need to keep your recipes in mind as you play, making decisions about how much effort you want to apply to the recipes. There is no penalty for failing to complete a recipe, so don't be afraid to just bail on a recipe that isn't working out. Go for sets of 4 of an ingredient instead - especially in your own color.

I recommend this game to anyone who frequently plays 2-player games. This seems like a great wife game to me - partly because it has been successful in my case, but also because it just has the makings of a wife game. Sure, that's a subjective claim, but that's my vibe - do with it what you will.

Unfortunately, the game is not easy to obtain, at least not for US residents. This game is an import for us. The components have no language on them, so the English rules are all you'll need to download from BGG. Keep your eye on the online sellers like Fair Play Games. Then, when they get their stock in, nab a copy before they're all bought up!

Designer: Günter Burkhardt
Publisher: Goldsieber
Players: 2 (with a 3-player variant)
Playing time: 15-30 minutes

My rating at the time of writing: 8 (rated after 6 plays)

New Year's Alphabetical Playthrough

My primary gaming partner is my wife - she loves playing games. So, just before the new year, she had a clever idea:

"In January, we should try to play through our whole collection of board games alphabetically."

This sounded great to me because I like the idea of every game in the collection getting played. Our standard system of choosing a game is to allow the loser to choose the next game. But we decided it would be fun to follow her proposed system for as long as it took.

We cheated just a little by starting our Alphabetical Playthrough on New Year's eve. We wanted to play something, and my wife was in the mood for Alhambra, which happens to be the first game in our collection, alphabetically. Our goal was to play each game that was playable and fun with just 2 players. We skipped run-of-the-mill American games like Rook and Clue because we don't ever really play those. We also skipped games with listed player ranges of 3 or more, with the exception of Lost Valley which we enjoy with 2 players.

One other benefit of playing through the entire collection was to see if there was anything we could decide to trade or sell. My goal is always to trim down the collection to our tastiest selections so that we always enjoy any game we choose to play. If a game has become somewhat uninteresting to us, we get rid of it.

You'll notice that near the end we stepped out of the alphabetical cycle. This was because we received a new game order in the mail and decided to incorporate those games immediately. This meant that, before moving on, we had to first play the new games which would have been played earlier in the cycle.

So, here you go: the list of what we played for the 12 days it took us to tackle our current board game collection.

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Day 1 - Dec 31, New Year's Eve

1. Alhambra
2. Arkadia

Day 2 - Jan 1, New Year's Day

3. We stepped out of the alphabet system this day to play Coloretto with family who was visiting. Otherwise, this game wouldn't have gotten played.

Day 3 - Jan 2

4. Balloon Cup

5. Bohnanza
6. Castle Keep
7. Citadels

Day 4 - Jan 3

8. The Downfall of Pompeii

9. Fairy Tale
10. Hansa
11. Hey! That's My Fish!

Day 5 - Jan 4

12. Jambo
13. Kingdoms
14. Lost Cities

Day 6 - Jan 5

15. Lost Valley
16. Mamma Mia
17. Masons
18. Mykerinos

Day 7 - Jan 6

19. Oltre Mare

Day 8 - Jan 7

20. Pick Picknic
21. Plunder

Day 9 - Jan 8

22. Quicksand
23. San Juan
24. Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation: Deluxe Edition (we received this in a game order that day)

25. R-ECO (this was also in the game order)

Day 10 - Jan 9

26. Pillars of the Earth (part of the new game order)

27. Taluva (the last game from our new game order)
28. Through the Desert
29. Thurn and Taxis

Day 11 - Jan 10

30. Ticket to Ride
31. Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition

32. Treasures & Traps

Day 12 - Jan 11

33. Winner's Circle

34. Wyatt Earp

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During these 12 days, I also played a few games of Orchard with my son. It was a nice experience going through the collection in this way. It was a chance to give everything a play. The experience was confirmation for me that, if my wife wasn't such a fan of both, I would trade away Lost Cities and Kingdoms. Everything else is worth keeping around for a while. My wife sounded ready to trade away Balloon Cup, but decided we can keep it since I like it.

Of the new games we acquired during this period, my wife won our first plays in 3 of the 4 games. In fact, I'm pretty sure she won the majority of the games we played. She's a strong strategist, especially in the games her brain clicks with. We didn't play any of the games that were already put on the shelf as trade material. We may try running through this exercise more often because of the benefits already stated: A chance to test each game to see if we still like it, and an opportunity to enjoy all the unique facets of our collection.

I hope your Christmas and New Year's gaming was as abundant and enjoyable as ours! Thanks for reading Games on the Table in 2007 and for your continued visits and comments! Keep on playing for the fun of it, not just to win it!

Caylus Magna Carta vs. Pillars of the Earth - who wins?

If you've been following board gaming for the last year or two, you have certainly heard the word "Caylus" from time to time. And if you were paying attention during last year's Essen fair, you could not have missed all the talk about Pillars of the Earth. And, if you listened carefully enough, you would have heard one or more comparisons between Caylus and Pillars of the Earth. Then, in 2007, Caylus Magna Carta came onto the scene. It was rumored to be a shorter, simpler, card-based version of Caylus.

Before I go on, let me mention that I have never played the original Caylus. I have avoided it because I have heard that it tends to take hours to play. I've heard it said that it can take 3 hours. This kind of game would never get played at home or in my gaming group at work. That said, I have played both Caylus Magna Carta (which I own), and Pillars of the Earth (which my friend owns). My purpose here is to compare the two games, sharing with you why I think one of them is a better game overall.

I'll start with a brief summary of each game.

Caylus Magna Carta (CMC)

As master builders, each player will construct buildings on the road winding up to the king's castle. Each player will also have a chance to contribute work to the castle itself, gaining prestige for doing so. A provost will travel up and down the road examining your work. If he doesn't come by your buildings, you don't gain any benefit from those buildings. Once the castle is completely built, players tally up their victory points to see who wins.

Pillars of the Earth

Pillars is based on a fiction novel of the same name. Players are essentially project managers overseeing the building of a cathedral. You will have to manage the gathering of resources, trading resources for money and victory points, and utilizing various abilities to be the most successful project manager.

So, why compare the two games? Here are the similar features found in each game:

- community building project
- workers you control
- utilization of raw materials such as wood and stone
- careful management of limited resources
- game rounds are played out in a number of phases
- the use of abilities which are available for any player to take

While I haven't played it, I understand that the original Caylus is similar as well.

First off, let me describe what I think are the strong points in CMC:

1. Players decide what abilities are available by the buildings they place. Each building has an ability, and this ability is available to every player. There is also a benefit for the building's owner if someone else uses their building.

2. There is a pretty good variety of building types. I would I have liked to have even more choices, but as it is, there is a reasonable selection to choose from.

3. The game is card based and so the cards serve multiple functions, which is always a cool feature. The cards contain buildings, they contain abilities, they contain victory points, they can be flipped to at as a prestige building, and they make up your game "board" as you play.

4. The game has a relatively short play time at 60 minutes or less, which typically earns high points in my book.

Now, I'm going to look at Pillars of the Earth in terms of what it does better than CMC.

1. Art and production: CMC is published by Rio Grande Games, who typically has some of the highest quality productions out there. In this case, they seem to have used Ystari's original design. The tokens, wooden bits, card stock are high quality. I would say the artwork is good. The color choices may not have been the best, but the building on the cards look pretty cool.

2. Pillars of the Earth is published by Mayfair Games and has art by my favorite game artist, Michael Menzel. I can say with confidence, Pillars has the most beautiful board I've ever seen in a game, in real life or in pictures. The game is almost worth playing just to look at the board. The art is actually the primary reason my friend Jack purchased this game. Menzel is a master of using light and shadows, as well as painting all the tiny goings-on of the people all over the region depicted on the board. The weakest components are the cards. The stock is not great, but it's good. The wooden bits are nice, and the worker meeples have a very cool shape, as opposed to the plain cylinders used in CMC.

3. While theme is pretty dry and unexciting in CMC, the theme is rich in Pillars. As I mentioned before, Pillars is based on a book, and you see characters and events from that book throughout the game. In CMC, you have to imagine that you are a builder - the only visuals are the buildings on the cards. In CMC, you have a card depicting the castle you are building. In Pillars, you have carved wooden pieces which, through the game, actual build a 3D cathedral in the center of the board. Your cards depict craftsmen working hard at their trade. You can also gain character cards depicting some unique figure from the story. The 13 different stations on the board offer a way to interact with the world, as you place workers in the quarry or the forest, or as you buy and sell at the market, or hire workers from the castle.

4. CMC rounds are played out in 6 short phases, while Pillars rounds are played out in 3 long phases. The result of CMC's method is that the game ends up feeling "fiddly". What I mean is, you begin to feel like you're constantly moving bits here, taking them from there, and all for little gain. In Pillars, the timing seems more smoothly paced, and the moving around of bits doesn't feel quite so awkward.

5. While I like the short length of CMC, it is the rare case in which I actually wish I had more time. This game feels like it ends too quickly. If no one buys a castle token, two castle tokens automatically go back into the box. Before you know it, the game is done and you've hardly accomplished anything. Resources are difficult to acquire and without resources you can't build much. So, you'll build a few buildings, always struggling to gain more resources, and WHAM! - the game is ended - count up your few meager points.

Pillars is a game that is likely to always go over an hour. My guess is that two experienced players could finish in an hour. 3 experienced players could probably finish in an hour and 20 minutes. Usually, I don't like game to go over an hour - I just don't have many large time chunks in my schedule to allow for that. But, Pillars is a game that wants to be played until the end. It wants a full 6 rounds. When we play at work, we always have to cut the game short after 3 or 4 rounds, which leaves us really wanting to play to the end. So, just as CMC is an exception to my normal game length rules, so is Pillars, in a positive way. It doesn't drag on like some games (as is my unfortunate experience with Settlers of Catan).

6. As I mentioned above, everything you do in CMC involves gaining or spending resources - food, wood, stone, and gold. It takes a long time to accumulate very many resources. Then, when you have a few, you must choose to spend them on adding another building to the road, or to contribute to the building of the castle (which earns you victory points). Sometimes I like tough decisions in games, when they feel meaningful. In the case of CMC, this isn't an enjoyably tough decision. Good game designs allow you to feel like you are accomplishing something, always progressing. CMC makes it feel like an upward climb on a hot day - "Am I ever going to feel like my work is paying off?" The tough decisions don't feel enjoyable or stimulating to me. Add in the Provost, who can rob you of your benefits, and the game becomes even more restricting.

Pillars, on the other hand, guarantees that every player can gain an adequate number of resources each round. Rather than forcing you to agonize over where and how to place your workers, you get to choose how to distribute 10 or more worker meeples. Where you gather your resources is determined by a card draft. You might not get exactly what you want, but you will always get something. Any unused workers can even be utilized to gain you more money! Neither game allows you to easily stockpile resources, but Pillars sure takes away the pointless headache of resource collection found in CMC.

7. I am always a fan of abilities in games. These can be offered in any number of ways. In CMC, they are offered as the benefit of a certain type of building, as in games like San Juan. In Pillars, you gain abilities from your craftsmen (which can change during the game), through various character cards, and through the 13 stations on the board. In CMC, the abilities are utilitarian and somewhat limited, but work fine with the game's mechanics. In Pillars, you have so many useful options to choose from, and they present a wide variety of advantages. In terms of abilities, Pillars is much more intriguing and varied, often based on some aspect of the story.

As you can see, having played both CMC and Pillars of the Earth a few times, I prefer Pillars by a long shot. Pillars seems to do everything better. The two potential downsides of playing Pillars are that it will take a bit longer, and it is likely to feel heavier for new players. There are a lot of options and things to track in Pillars. But, once you have played 2 or 3 times, you should feel comfortable with the workings of the game.

I finally ordered a copy of Pillars for myself. With Mayfair's new restrictions on pricing, I was very hesitant to buy it. Also, I was wary of ordering since my wife hasn't yet played the game. As I thought about Pillars more and more, in relation to CMC, I realized how much I enjoyed the game. Because some sellers were still offering deals beyond Mayfair's 20% restriction, I faced a gamer's dilemma: if I didn't buy now, and decided to grab this great game later, I'd have to pay too high a price, which I wasn't willing to do. So, there it is. Pillars is on the way, and I'm looking forward to teaching my wife.

On the other hand, my wife and I both decided early on that we were ready to trade away CMC. There are too many more enjoyable games in our collection to waste time playing CMC as a 2-player game.

Now, certainly CMC will have many fans, and I must admit that I have only played the 2-player version of CMC. I imagine that the game would improve with every added player. This way you would have more options of abilities to use, but you would also be more threatened by the provost. I I do much of my gaming with my wife, so I prefer all of our games to work well in 2-player format. I might have a great time with 4-player CMC, but the likelihood of that happening is not high enough to hang onto the game. As much as some players love CMC, I just can't get into it. As a test, I'm playing in a 4-player game of CMC on Des Jeux Sur un Plateau. We'll see how that affects my perspective.

If you haven't played Pillars, and you're willing to learn a slightly heavier game, I must recommend you give it a try. If you buy it and don't like it after a few plays, just frame the game board and hang it on your wall!