Archipelago: Long Island Iced Sea

Archipelago is a complex game of exploring a chain of islands, producing and selling goods on the islands, ... and a bunch of other stuff like boats and buildings and babies.

And keeping the natives from revolting!

The box:

The natives are welcoming the colonists?  The game is a lie!

Archipelago is interesting, in that it is a game of hidden information.  The various ways to get points change every game, and are determined by cards dealt face-down to each player at the beginning of the game, along with two cards that are face-up for everybody to see.  These cards tell you what things are worth points at the end of the game, as well as a particular condition that, when met, ends the game. 

Like this card...

I want a trophy. And some medals.

...which says that the game will end if the stockpile (bank) runs out of 3 different colored cubes, and that you get points by controlling the most (or second most, or third most) ports on the islands.  Just an example.  I'm not taking pictures of all the cards.  My phone doesn't have that kind of battery life.

You can choose to play a short, medium, or long length version of the game, each with different cards that bring the game to a close more or less quickly.  This is nice, because sometimes you want a game you can play all afternoon, and sometimes you really need the game to be over in time to watch The Voice.

Players don't just hide these cards.  They hide everything!  Money, cubes, tokens, snacks, everything.  Behind these cardboard screens:

The secrets within the bowels of this ship are mine and mine alone.

You only know a couple of things that will be worth points at the end, so if you want to cover all your bases, you have to do a little bit of everything.
"Everything" consists of...well lots of things.

Each of the spaces on this amazing wheel of many colors corresponds to some action you can take.

Pretty sure this is what LSD makes you see.

For instance, you can move your people around the islands, or build various buildings on the islands, or explore the islands, or tax the people of the islands (which makes them cranky).  Basically, you do stuff with the islands.  Look up the definition of an archipelago.  Spoiler: it involves islands.  It makes sense.

Oh, these are the islands.

We're surrounded by fish and sharks and whales!  We must find land quickly!

That was a lie.  That's the ocean, obviously.  Your ships have to explore a bit and find the islands.

Dry land at last!

More and more of the islands get explored as the game goes on.  You work the land for resources with your little meeples.  These resources interact with the two markets.

The islands produce fish and rocks and pineapples and wood and cows and...lava.

There is both a foreign market (i.e. Europe) and a domestic market (i.e. that guy down the street) that you can sell to for money, or buy from to get the goods. The initial goods that you buy or sell are worth more money and their value decreases as more and more of them are sold and available in the markets.  It's like supply and demand curves, or something.  Take an economics class.

You get more meeples by either hiring the native population or making meeple babies.

I bet it's full of pineapple juice.

You can also use money to buy various cards at the end of every round.  These cards give you special abilities, or extra actions, or sometimes just points.

Nice chin strap beard, Minister.

The numbers represent the card cost.  During the card-buying phase, these cards may get rotated by you or other players, which changes the number shown at the bottom of the card, and thus it's cost.

At various points during a round, a crisis might occur.  This means that the players need to discard certain resources in order to keep the natives from getting angry.
Sometimes, you just have to pay resources.  The natives want fish, you give them fish.  And so on and so forth.
Other times, your workers decide to take a nap and will only wake up and do work for you if you meet their demands.

Sleeping in the pineapple fields is probably pokey and uncomfortable.

When you don't give the people what they want, they get angry and start to rebel.  Apparently they look like this.

Gene Simmons?

 If at any point there are more angry natives than there are non-rebellious workers, there is a rebellion on the islands and EVERYBODY LOSES!  This little twist drops this game into the category of "semi-cooperative" in that everyone is competing against each other, but at the same time everyone has to make sure they aren't too selfish that the rebel count gets out of hand.  

So, this game has lots of rules.  They all fall into place once you've played a bit, but it's a lot to take in.  I'd suggest playing the short game version first to get it down.

But this day, we played the long version.  And it was long.  Many hours.  Much fun.  Such game.

The start of the game:

My favorite part of this game is the bright colors of...everything.  I also like that you start with such a small part of the archipelago explored, but by the end of the game...

Lots of island!

End of game.

 It's great when you want the gameboard itself grow and develop over the course of the game.

By pure accident, I seemed to be building some kind of church with my people cards...

 The Pope provides points for piety.  The Bishop becalms the betrayers.  The Missionary musters more meeples.

 

But my church brethren did me no good here.  When the game ended and the secret point conditions were revealed...I met basically none of the conditions.  I had 7 points.  Bichlien 11.  Jake 12.  I was more than just a bit behind.

Maybe I'm just bitter about losing so badly, but I really don't like the hidden win conditions in this game.  I love the actual act of playing the game and all that entails, but I feel like it falls flat at the end where it can be almost random who wins and loses based on the hidden cards...

Nah, I'm just bitter.  You know your own secret condition, plus the two communal common knowledge cards. And I'm sure there's some bit of watching the other players and what they are doing in order to guess what kinds of conditions they are trying to meet.  It's probably less random than I make it out to be.

I still don't like that, though.

Neither do the pandas!  Rebellion!!

"You can take our bamboo, but you can't take our freedom!"

Through The Ages: A Game for the Civilized

Through The Ages: A Story of Civilization is a civilization building boardgame, where the goal is to build up your own personal civilization from its humble beginnings to a giant cultural force, with an awesome economy and fancy technologies and artsy stuff and a military that can beat up the other guys.

Our group tried this one out recently (and we loved it).

Very busy box art. On the left is the distant past.  On the right is closer to the modern age.  In the middle is a spaceship clearly taking off from a train smokestack.  That must be the future!

Through the Ages basically plays very much like the Sid Meier's Civilization series of computer games.  If you aren't familiar with them, I highly recommend you check them out.  It's a nice way to sacrifice an entire weekend to sitting in front of your computer.

For those who are familiar with the Civ computer games, there is also a licensed boardgame version, not surprisingly called Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game.  It really does look very much like the computer version shoved into a cardboard box, though the game itself is not nearly as fun.  Kinda like from a distance Spam looks a lot like a chunk of ham, but it only tastes vaguely like it's parent cured meat.

Basically, this:

Looks kinda tasty, but requires heavy frying.  Not as 'glorious' as advertised.

That little detour could have been summarized briefly, as such:  I like Through The Ages much better than the licensed Civilization board game.  That is my opinion, and I will agree to disagree with those who think otherwise.  Because some people really enjoy Spam.

See also, Spam Totoros.  Just because.

But back to the game at hand.  This is what Through the Ages looks like at setup time for the most part.

Pre-game setup.

The Giant Meeple Man is not part of the game (sadly).  The board wouldn't lay flat and we needed an enforcer to make it stay down.

Colossal Meeple.  He is awesome.  Say no more.

Intermission:  I bought Jake this Colossal Meeple because I found it and it needed to be bought and I had no practical use for it.  Clearly it does have uses, though.  (I found it at MeepleSource, the same place I bought all the meeples for my marvelous meeple lamp). This red giant meeple's name is Stanley.  Jake didn't name him.  I did.  Just now.  Jake will find out when he reads this that its name is now Stanley.  And once something gets named, you can't change it.  My brother has a teddy bear who's name is Cheeseball, because I decided it was.  People have tried to change it, but it's too late.  The best the poor bear can ever hope for is to be called "the bear formerly known as Cheeseball." 

True Story.

Each player starts out with their own newly formed civilization.

"Yes... yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land."

You start out with some pretty simple things.  Some simple farms, some bronze mines, a warrior, a bit of philosophy to stimulate the mind, and the possibility for religion (although it hasn't really been started quite yet.)  Your player board has the yellow guys, which can be hired up to your buildings and the little blue guys, which will represent food and ore which are used for getting more population and building things.
Watch out though.  As your population grows, you have to feed them more and more.  And if hoard too much ore without spending it, it...rots or something.  It's called "corruption."  I don't get it but it happens and it is a pain.

Each turn, you have a limited number of actions you can take, based on your current government or other upgrades you've made along the way.
White thingies correspond to civil actions, which include building things or buying new cards.  Red thingies correspond to military actions, which include buying and upgrading military units.  The more thingies you can accumulate, the better, because it lets you do more stuff on a turn.

Every good government has to keep a balance between its white and red thingies.

Each player gets their own complete list of "Things you can do during a turn."  There are a lot of things.  There is a simple/beginning version of the game which has less actions available and takes much less time.  I actually highly recommend it for your first play, just to get the hang of things.  This seems like a lot to learn, but I promise you'll get the hang of it.  I have faith in you.

So much to do.  So few thingies.

Sorry you can't read everything in the picture above.  The glare from the alien mothership is obscuring some of it, and their signal jammers messed up the focus on my camera.  I swear. I accept no responsibility for any blurry photos from here on out.

You win the game by amassing culture, which is this game's version of points.

To get culture, you need to develop your civilization in various ways.  And to advance your civilization, you need to build stuff. You can build things with ore and research. Build what, you ask?

Build things like...

Upgraded mines and farms.

Upgraded farm.  Also known as "Take a biology class and learn about plants."

 Upgraded military units.

Swordsmen were the best I got.  At the end of the game, there were tanks available.  But I stuck with swordsmen.

Upgraded sciences and religions.  And entertainment buildings.

"Bread and Circuses" was the ancient equivalent of "Dinner and a movie"

Wonders.  These are very powerful, special buildings that are purple.

My civilization likes to mix up its architectural styles.

And you can follow some great leaders.

Smart people are cool.  Albert is a bro.

To top it all off, people can be mean and declare war on you.  Having a decent military in this game lets you bully people around, if you choose to be a meanie.  And while an awesome military won't win you the game, having a terrible military is just asking for everyone to steal your lunch money.

There are plenty of details and nuances to this game which aren't worth going into detail here.  Mostly because, again, there are so many things you can do to develop your civilization.

The game progresses through 3 different ages of time, with the upgrades and leaders getting progressively more awesome with each age.  After a few hours, the game table really shows you just how much stuff happens over those ages.

The blurriest picture ever.  Enlarged to emphasize the blurriness. 

My score cube is the yellow cube.  The yellow cube has the most culture on the culture track.  That means I am the winner.  Because I am very cultured.  A classy, classy fellow.

We played this game several weeks ago, and I forgot that I had actually won this one.  But there is photographic evidence!  Pics, therefore it happened.

I have played several civilization building-type games, and Through the Ages is by far my favorite.  The only problem I can come up with is that it runs a bit long.  I usually can't handle games that last several hours.  I also usually can't handle black beans.
But every once in a while a little extra fiber is a good thing.

Caverna, The Cave Farmers: Hi-Ho Hi-Ho It's Off to Farm We Go

Uwe Rosenberg is a game designer.  And my homeboy.  In our gaming group, he is probably our favorite game designer.  Every game he makes is gold.  I've mentioned his game Agricola in a previous post, which is basically a board game about farming.

Today's game, another one from my buddy Uwe, is the recently released big brother to Agricola, Caverna: The Cave Farmers.  It is also about farming.  But by dwarf farmers.  Next to a cave.  A cave where you live and also mine shiny things and also make dwarf babies.
And like his other games, Caverna is also gold.  Dwarf gold...

I like to say it "Caverrrrrrrrna" where I roll the "r" all predator-cat-like. It sounds sexy that way.

Speaking of sexy, hello game box...

That donkey wants that soup.  So bad.  You can see it in his eyes.

Actually, the box art is just a giant domestic cave stereotype.  I mean, the cave-wife is cooped up in the cave cooking dinner soup and caring for crazy uncle donkey while cave-husband is probably out drinking cave-mead with his cave-buddies.  Or taking a secret nap out back in his cave-hammock.  Typical cave-man...

But aside from the art, the box is awesome, because inside is SO MUCH STUFF!!!

THERE'S CARDBOARD AND WOOD STUFF ALL OVER THE TABLE AND I LOVE IT!

Isn't Jake's new gaming tabletop nice?  Nice felted surface.  Beautiful chocolate color.  And enough space to fit this monstrous game.

There was a lot of punching.  It was the best of times.

The punch-out session aftermath.

I've said before that punching out cardboard bits is the greatest part of a new game.  And this was so much better than normal.  I've never seen so much cardboard in one box before!  The leftovers above show this pretty clearly.  I'm sure we made the people at the recycling center very happy.

I would've been happier if I got to punch all of it myself.  But Jake came in and stole half of them from me.  He likes punching cardboard bits too.  It's not just me.  I'm not that weird.
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell.  Me and Rob Thomas.

So the concept of Caverna is that you have a family of dwarves, who are farmers/miners.  You have your little homestead area, which starts out pretty bleak.

Personal player board at the start of the game.  It's sad.

Throughout the game, you place your dwarves on the board to take various actions that let you develop your homestead.  You can plow and plant fields to grow grain and vegetables.  You can build pastures and get animals.  You can dig tunnels and caverns.  You can build ore mines and ruby mines.  You can build new rooms for your house.  And you can make new dwarf babies to put to work.

These dwarves are very busy cave folk.

In his free time, Gimli mines salt and raises pigs.

But like Gimli, your dwarves, too, have a thirst for adventure.  Once you craft them a weapon, they can go out on expeditions and come back with various stuff.  Like some rocks, or some wood, or some gold.  Or a puppy.

I can just imagine what that conversation is like...

Dwarf-man (thick Scottish accent, if you wish): "What a rough expedition that was!"
Dwarf-wife: "What is that?!"
Dwarf-man: "Why, it's a wee pup I imagine."
Dwarf-wife: "I sent you out for milk and eggs!  And you come back with that puppy?!  It's almost feeding time and we can't eat a dog!"
Dwarf-man: "Now just you wait a minute.  Firstly, there are no chickens in this game, so where's a dwarf supposed to find eggs, eh?  Donkeys don't lay 'em.  But more importantly, I go on the expeditions, I come back with whatever I please."
Dwarf-wife: "And where are we supposed to put the little mongrel?"
Dwarf-man: "I'll dig 'im a new cavern."
Dwarf-wife: "With your bad back?"
Dwarf-man: "Fine, we'll stick him out back.  He can watch over the sheep.  That'll let us keep a few more of 'em with his keen eye watchin'.  It'll be great for the farm."
Dwarf-wife: "I suppose..."
Dwarf-man: "You won't regret it.  Look, I also brought you back this shiny ruby I mined this mornin'."
Dwarf-wife: "Rubys are a girl's best friend..."
Dwarf-man: "I knew you would like it."
Dwarf-wife: "I'm pregnant."

That right there pretty much sums up most of the game.

Oh, and throughout the game you have to make sure you can feed your dwarf family.  More dwarves require more food, but they let you do more things during a round.  You get food from what you grow in your garden or by slaughtering animals.  Or eating rubies, apparently.  Dwarves have tough teeth, apparently.

Feeding the dwarf family holds you back from doing everything you want.  It keeps the pressure on you to be as efficient as possible with your dwarf actions, so you have to try to cultivate and build as much as possible without having to sacrifice it all just to feed your always hungry dwarf kids.  Bottomless stomachs and hollow legs, I tell ya.

Here's the full game setup at the beginning.  It takes up basically the whole table.  

My initial strategy was to be a puppy farmer.  Just have tons and tons of puppies running around.  But apparently the dogs have all been neutered. So it's very hard to get a horde of puppies when they can't reproduce.  Also, you can't use dogs to feed your family like other animals.  The puppy farmer strategy had too many flaws.  I had to take a more conventional, diversified approach with less puppies.

About halfway through the game I don't have much going for me.  I expanded my house by a room and dug a few tunnels, but no mines yet.

I also had a bit of grain and a small flock of sheep being watched by the puppy.  The puppy's name is Mr. Sniffles.
 

Mr. Sniffles guards the sheep and the entrance to the sadly unfurnished cave house.

I ramped up a bit in productivity towards the end.  I had myself 5 dwarves out working hard.

Out in the farm I had some veggies, some grain, some donkeys, the same size flock of sheep as earlier (they would reproduce, then I'd kill one to eat, then they'd reproduce, then I'd kill one to eat...), a piggy (I killed a lot of them.  I like bacon), and Mr. Sniffles.
Inside, I had four bedrooms, an ore mine and ruby mine, a couple of donkeys slaving away in those mines, a quiet writing chamber, a weapon storage room, and a small stash of gold and rubies. 

Looks pretty nice.

Here's the final full gameboard at game's end:

I won't tell you who won.  Winning and losing doesn't matter.  It's about having fun.  I mean, I'm very happy with how my farm-cave turned out.  It looks nice.  This is a game of aesthetics, not points.  That's what I say. 
That's what people say when they don't have the most points.

I probably should have taken more close-up pictures of all the components in this game.  They are fantastic, really, they are.  But I was too busy taking pictures of salad.  I'm easily distracted.  And salad is a decent in-game snack, it turns out.

Salad in a pasta bowl ?! Such artistic vision!

Anyway, Caverna is a fantastic game. There's a lot to do towards getting to an awesome looking farm-cave and barely enough turns to do it, which makes every move count.  You have lots of choices in how you want to develop your farm, which keeps things interesting from game to game.  It's just fun.

And like I said, win or lose, you end up with a sweet looking player board at the end of the game.  Unless you are terrible at this game.  But then you can just admire everyone else's game board. 

On a scale of 0 to 5, Caverna, I give you 5/5 rubies!  You have my approval.