Board games, the next level.

My cousin in LA recently bought the game Ticket to Ride and then subsequently got introduced to Settlers of Catan.  When he bought Ticket to Ride, I asked him why he hadn’t checked with me.  I told him I could have guided him otherwise. He said that he was advised to buy Ticket to Ride and somewhere I started thinking about board games and the board game revolution and when to introduce who to what game.  What would I have told him to buy if he would have asked me? And then the answer slapped me in the face.  Whenever I host game nights at my place, and we have a new player, we almost always, invariably start with Ticket to Ride.  OK.  Maybe I would have told him the same thing.  I don’t know.
And then I think about my own game revolution.  When did I become so knowledgeable about board games?  And then time to dig deep and think about all the board games and why I enjoy playing them.  If you are a serious gamer, then this blog may not be for you.  Heck, at that point, I should be reading your blog.  But anyway, if you want to be a gamer or want to expand your horizons about board games, stay put.  If you want to know about the different types of games out there, hang tight.  We are going to take the next step from the Monopoly and Scrabble.  We are taking the next step from the games we grew up with.

When I discuss the board games in this blog, and no I will not discuss all the games I have played, and yes, there will be another blog about board games, but I want to break it down to a few categories.  Fun. Competition/cooperation.  Aggression.  Number of players.  Card building.  Strategy and luck.  If you are a type B personality, I’ll tell you right now – you won’t enjoy the games that I do.  The games I enjoy are not low key.  Actually, all the games I prefer to play are aggressive, involve strategy and the more convoluted the strategy, the better.  I love a good brain workout.  How to make this board work for me?  And how to make it not work for my opponents?  And when to do so?

I’m going to start off with a cooperative game.  These are games where players play against the board.  So, you all win together or you all lose together.  You talk to each other and strategize to figure out the best way to defeat the board while every turn the board tries to defeat you all. The game I’m talking about is Pandemic. It’s fun, but it’s not aggressive and competitive.  Heck, you are all friends playing together beating a board.  For me, that’s OK.  Kinda. I would rather play against each other to the death, but the good point of this game is the strategic element.  You all still have to flex your brain muscle to defeat the board.  It’s a 2-4 player game and I think a type B personality may enjoy it, especially one trying to transition into becoming an A type personality.  Haha.  Sorry. Couldn’t resist that comment.  I’m big on winning.  I know it’s better to have a win-win philosophy in life, blah, blah, blah.  Moving on.

Ticket to Ride is a standard. Why else would they have so many expansions of this game?  It’s a lot of fun.  The competition/aggression in this game is mild to moderate.  Basically you are building tracks to get from one city to another and if your tracks block someone else’s, then the real fun begins. It’s super easy to learn.  It’s super family friendly and it’s really the first game to introduce people into the genre of the strategic games.  There is some luck depending on the shuffle of the cards, but it’s not bad.  Also, upto 5 players can play it and that’s great because most games stop with the 2-4 player range.  The friends I have introduced this game to, went home and purchased their own copy.  I wish I had this blog up way back when so they could have used my Amazon Associates link but anyway.  Great game to start off with.

Next up.  Settlers of Catan.   When I first started this game it was a full blown fight at my home.  Anger.  Loud arguments.  Well, what can I say?  My family is hugely competitive.  The aggression in this game is because you can help someone but then they can end up double crossing you.  Basically the strategy in this game is to build roads, settlements and cities.
 Points are scored for longest roads, largest army and for the settlements and cities you own.  The strategy elements in this game are plentiful. Yes, there are dice so there is the luck of the draw, but I have won this game by buying strategic locations and having certain resources.  If you are past Ticket to Ride, this is the next best thing.  And the board is variable so every time is a different board and a different strategy so it will take a while to get tired of this game.  The game is for upto 4 players after which you’ll need an extension to make it 4-6 players.  The game is 25 years old and is still one of the gold standards of the modern gamer.  If you don’t own this game, then stop now and click on the link(s) above because this is the next best thing since sliced bread.  Please note, I will be posting my top strategies for Catan in a future blog.

The last game I want to mention for this blog, for now, is Dominion.  It’s a card building game.  It involves strategy and some luck (based on the shuffle of the cards).  Up to 4 players can play it.  Lately, my group has been playing it a lot.  The manufacturer has over 10 expansions of this game and the variability is extremely high.  Depending on the cards you play with, a game can last for 30 minutes or even an hour.  And repeating the same game?
 Hmmm. Well, there’s a randomizer app. It’s going to take a while.  So, just enjoy the variability that this game comes with.  To start, I would just buy Dominion and then if you enjoy it a lot, move on to Intrigue and after that, you should qualify to write this blog.

There are so many other games to mention.  But I will say this.  Yesterday I went to a board game meet up.  This is with gamers, so yes I lost, but I played a game called Hadara.  It was my first time playing it although it’s a variant of 7 Wonders.  Let’s save talking about these games for a later post.   As I said, I will be blogging more about games.  This is a way for me to process what I like and why.

Before I go, a few years back, I even went to Geekway to the West, the gaming convention in St. Louis.  OMG.  What a rush.  I loved it.  But I digress.  I was introduced to Viticulture and Scythe.  At that time, Scythe was not released to the market yet.  I was lucky to play it then.  It was so much fun, but back to yesterday’s board game meet up.  There were a couple of tables playing Tapestry.  That game looks involved.  I looked it up on Amazon.  Yes, it’s $99.  Holy Kamoli. Yes, it’s for the serious gamer. So, no, there won’t be a review of that game here for a while, but I just thought I would mention the two games that caught my eye yesterday.

While I plan more game posts, do you have any questions for me about games that you play, extensions, expansions.  I will try my best to steer you in the right direction.  For now, please use my links to purchase any of the games, if you are interested.  I may get a few pennies for it, so I thank you in advance.

Stay tuned for more.  

Real quick:  I am moving this blog over to shahnazahmed.com.  That site is a work in progress, but please save the link.  At some point, when I have a way for you all to subscribe to my blogs there, I will eventually move this blog over.  Of course, I will keep you all posted.  Thank you for hanging in there with me.

PS.  I’m posting this blog on shahnazahmed.com also!

Geekway to the West

Hi all,

I haven't been MIA.  I have been busy.  It's been a week since I returned from Seattle and there's things I can blog about that, but here's a post that has been long overdue.  The weekend before I left for Seattle, I attended my first "Geekway to the West".  It's a board game convention!

The story really started early this year when I was in casual conversation with a patient's parent about board games and how much I enjoyed it.  She talked about being a gamer, but she liked video games. As we talked, she told me that there was, however, a board game convention in St. Louis.  She wasn't sure about it.  "A friend of mine went and she liked it!  That's all I know."  The other piece of information I got was the possible name.  She asked me to google "geekway to the west" but she wasn't sure if that's what it was called.  She said it would be close enough.  The joke in the office switched to myself not showing up for work or calling in sick with some lame excuse when I really was playing games at this conference.  We all laughed at my craziness and I walked away.  The next thing I did in my office, before checking on patients was to stop by my computer.  Ah!  Google!  Thou art a true friend.

Geekway to the West showed up and I was looking at the website.  Pre-registration was open for $35.  I didn't want to go alone.  I loved board games, but did I love it enough to go to a conference?  I wasn't sure.  This looked serious.  I called my friends.  "Hey!  So, there's this conference for board games.  Uhm.  What do you think?"  Of course, they were all busy and had other things to do than go and play games.  One of my friends wanted me to go as a guinea pig.  If I liked it, she would join next year.  Others checked their schedule and said they would think about it.  The thing is that pre-registration was going to close in a couple of weeks and registration would be $45.  Walk-ins was $50 and everyone pretty much decided that they couldn't make a decision for pre-registration or even registration.  "We'll do the walk-ins if we have to," is what I got.

I told my husband that he's going with me.  LOL.  No.  He's not a big fan of board games, but he is a big fan of me, so he obliged.  I pre-registered for 2.  As luck would have it, registration got sold out.  They capped at 1300 people and so walk ins were not allowed either.  My brother was going to come into town for the conference.  I told him that the walk-ins were sold out, but he could use my husband's badge and come.  After all, my husband wasn't too interested.

The conference opened on Thursday.  I was at work and was supposed to get off by 1pm.  Long story short, it was a horrible day at work and I got off at 3pm.  I was exhausted.  I was going to throw in the hat.  Who cares about some stupid board game convention, I thought.  I'll go later.  As I thought about it, I changed my mind.  I was not going to let a bad day ruin the rest of my evening.  So, as tired and frustrated as I was, I went.  I got confused about the location.  I knew it was at the Sheraton Chalet, but at the last minute I talked myself into believing it was at the Sheraton which was walking distance from the Chalet.  So, that took a while and I finally ended up at the conference and registered.  I told the person at registration that I had a rough day at work and I had no idea what I was doing there.  This was my first time at a game conference and I was alone.  He looked at me and said, "Well!  You forget about your bad day now and you just play games."  "Games?  But what do I do?"  I really didn't know how it all worked.  He suggested I go to the "play and win" room and just find someone to play with.  I look back at that and it's funny.  A simple task - find someone to play with, seemed gigantic to me until I walked in there.  I found someone to play with immediately.  We picked a game neither of us had played - Viticulture.  We found a teacher to help us learn the game and I had a lot of fun.

The next day, Friday, I got there at 9:30am and stayed until I had to leave at 7pm to go pick my brother up from the airport.  By then I had played Viticulture, again.  I played 5 Tribes.  I played an army game I can't recall, Resistance, and The Game of 49.  Saturday, I went with my husband in the morning and I took my brother in the afternoon.  Sunday, I left for Seattle with my brother taking our badges and waiting to see if I won any of the games we played in the "Play and Win".  My brother texted me that we did not win anything.

It's funny.  It's a world of board games I would not have discovered.  So many.  I was told by a friend before I went that people may be aggressive.  I didn't encounter any of that.  I encountered like minded people who just loved to play board games for the fun of playing.  Of course, we all wanted to win, but we weren't going to be aggressive and yell.  We just played a fair game and it was a fair fight to win.

I got a text from my brother when I was in Seattle.  "Forget medical conferences.  Let's just go to board game conferences from now on!"  Hahaha!  Yes, I would say he loved it too.