Memorial Day Gaming

Over the years, it's become a little bit of a group tradition to play games over Memorial Day Weekend. By far, the biggest Memorial Day Weekend game-fest was 2004, when (in addition to several smaller games) we played Napoleon in Europe on Saturday, Mare Nostrum on Sunday and Joan of Arc on Monday. (St. Joan's feast day is May 30th, so we often try to fit a Hundred Years War game into the mix.) We've already fit two sessions into this weekend, and there's a chance we'll work in one more.

Saturday afternoon and evening we played Here I Stand. Andrew's Hapsburgs scored an autovictory in Turn 3. The Hapsburgs started the game by launching two major attacks into Drew's France. Steve's English also piled on, while Jeff's Ottomans made the usual push into Hungary. Meanwhile my Protestants got off to a good start in the religious struggles in Germany, as Al's Papacy struggled. The Hapsburgs also arranged a marriage that brought the Venetians in as their allies.

In Turn 2, the Ottomans made it to the gates of Vienna, but were stalled as a Janissary revolt near Istanbul cut their supply lines. The Hapsburgs and English worked a truce with the French that yielded Bordeaux to the Hapsburgs. This allowed the Hapsburgs to focus their energies in the New World, where they conquered several native peoples and founded several colonies. They also gained the Genoans as allies. Meanwhile the Reformation largely stalled, despite the Papacy being forced to devote resources to defending against a French army in Florence. Meanwhile Henry VIII moved through three wives before Edward was finally born.

In Turn 3, the Ottomans reached an official peace accord with the Hapsburgs, but Barbarossa's pirates continued to harrass Hapsburg and Papal shipping. As the Reformation came to grinding halt, the Hapsburgs and English launched expeditions to the New World. The Hapsburg victory came when they arranged yet another marriage, bringing the Scotts in as their allies. This gave Andrew enough keys to score the autovictory.

Today (Sunday) Andrew, Al, Drew, Steven and I played Power Grid. The gameboard is a map of the US. Players buy power stations (using an auction mechanic), the resources to power them and connections to US cities. Powering cities provides income that allows the players to buy more and expand. The game is very popular (currently ranked #5) at BoardGameGeek, so I was happy to give it a try. The components are nice (although the map is a little ugly). I was pleasantly surprised that the bookkeeping is fairly easy. And the mechanics introduce a lot of factors without a lot of fiddliness. So I did enjoy the game. I do think that the game would be far less interesting with three or four people, however. I also managed to win, which indicates a serious flaw somewhere in the game design.