Per our usual, we got a couple games worked in while I kept a keen eye on one of the craziest weekends in college football, ever. First, the boys and I played Small World. This is really a true gem. It is light-weight and light-hearted. It involves spite and conflict without player elimination and providing plenty of opportunity for pay-back at the same time. It scales perfectly from 2-5 players. The artwork is a delight. It is simple to learn and play. The replayability factor is high with the random mixing of races and powers each game. And it's quick with little downtime. It's just about perfect to play with kids. The only main drawback is that it's really very light. Some people prefer games with more meat and strategy. Even my kids. Not all the time, though. Cory was able to nab the Spirit Amazons and then the Ghouls. I forgot who his third race was, but it didn't matter. With the Spirit power, he was able to have two races in decline and with his second race being Ghouls, he was able to attack even in decline. That led to lots of points and he ran away with the game!
Lilly hit me up later for a session of her favorite game: Dominion. I still enjoy this game, but am starting to get a little bit of a "samey" feeling. Of course, we just have the base game, so the Intrigue expansion may be the ticket, despite my general distaste for expansions. The other tactic we may have to employ is the card randomizer; but it's just not always extremely convenient to jump online to crank that out quickly. Lilly tends to pick many of the same action card piles. The Woodcutter + Village + Market tends to be the strategy as the best option of drawing extra cards while laying down lots of actions and nabbing additional buys. I won this time, exacting my revenge from the last game in which she successfully went after me heavy with the Thief!
Do you have the blue-bordered cards from Dominion? They should have come with your copy. Those are an analogue randomizer. (Those are what I typically use because I don't have a smart phone.)
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, now that you mention it, we've always wondered why some cards were blue? Is that in the rules?! How does this randomizer work?! Wow! I'm excited to check it out more, now!
ReplyDeleteThere should be one copy of every kingdom card that has a different back. You can shuffle whichever ones you want to use together and deal a new, random board of ten cards for each game. (There was an error in that first set, though, so they also printed different-backed versions of the basic cards, too, which you can ignore.) I hope this improves the longevity of the game...at least until you get your hands on Intrigue. :-)
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, that explains why there are 11 copies of each kingdom card, too! LOL! I figured it was just an extra one in case a card got eaten by the baby - which I appreciate since I have 7 kids!
ReplyDeleteThough come to think of it, we could have always done something like that even without the blue borders - though this lets you keep them together separately without having to re-sort back every time you do it.
Thanks! Old dogs CAN learn new tricks! :-)
A card getting eaten by the baby sounds like a possibility in your household, and that eleventh card can be a backup in that eventuality, but for now, enjoy the analogue randomizer. :-)
ReplyDelete