All the news that's fit to "print"

A few odds and ends to report:

1. With the World Cup announcements, Patrick and I were in the mood for some World Cup soccer. So, we pulled out the World Cup Card Game last week. As much as it pained me, I managed to lead France to a victory over Patrick's Brazil in the finals. England topped Italy in the 3rd place game.

2. The night after Thanksgiving, Dennis made it to Mom's house for dinner. And, now that Patrick's golf and soccer seasons are over, we were able to play a game of Long Shot. Dennis bought Slow Jenn, who won the race and gave Dennis the victory with $180. Andrew purchased Six Gun, who came in second -- as did Andrew, with $170. Last Chance finished third, giving Patrick a total of $115, and I came in last with $100.

3. I continue to play a number of games online at GamesByEmail. I'm 0-4 in History of the World games, but I'm winning one of the two that I'm playing now. With Epoch V almost over, I'm 15 points ahead of Tom (who has won more than his fair share of these games). I managed to win the one game of Risk we played -- defeating Al, Jeff and Drew. I (playing the UK)also teamed up with Steve (playing the Soviets) and Tom (playing the US) to win a game of Axis and Allies against Al (playing Japan) and Drew (playing Germany).

4. Labyrinth (which I pre-ordered back in February) arrived last week. GMT had a mixup on my credit card, so I didn't get it when everyone else did in early November. But, as usual, the office folks were apologetic and kind, and got it to me two days later. I've skimmed the rules, and I'm eager to give it a shot.

5. Speaking of which, it took a lot of willpower not to order GMT's new game Commands and Colors: Napoleonics. It's Richard Borg's new game using the Commands and Colors system that started with his game Battlecry in 2000. I have to admit that I hated Battlecry the first time I played it with Al, but I enjoyed subsequent games of Battelcry, as well as Memoir '44 and Commands and Colors: Ancients. What stopped me was thinking about the fact that I haven't played any of these games in over a year. So, I pulled out the Commands and Colors: Ancients rulebook last night; Patrick and I plan to play today.

6. Al (taking England and the Protestants), Andrew (taking the French and the Ottomans) and I (taking the Hapsburgs and the Papacy) played three rounds of Here I Stand using Wargameroom the night before Thanksgiving. It only took about two hours -- including the time we spent working out the computer kinks. Compare that to the six hours it normally takes six of us playing in person. The Ottomans were unstoppable, and Vienna fell in the second turn.

7. Finally, there will be a few games under the tree on Christmas, but I need to keep those a secret.

Not Bad in the Abstract

Patrick beat me at Hive this afternoon. He's getting very good at the game, and I'm surprised how much I like it, given that it's an abstract strategy game.

In game theory, an abstract strategy game is a game with no chance and perfect information. No chance eliminates any games with suffled cards or dice. Perfect information means that nothing is hidden -- both (all) players know where all of the pieces are. Examples of games with no chance but hidden information would be Battleship and Stratego. Chess, checkers and Go would be good examples of abstract strategy games -- having no chance and perfect information.

Why don't I like abstract strategy games? I think that the main reason is that I have a really bad memory, which seems to be a requirement for being a strong player. First, good players need to memorize standard openings and defenses. I probably could do this, but that wouldn't solve the mid-game problem. At some point in the middle of any abstract strategy game, players need to start analyzing potential moves. Anyone who's played chess knows the process: "If I move my knight here, he could move his queen there, in which case I could move my pawn forward. Or if he moves his bishop over there, I could counter with my bishop taking his knight." I suppose that I could "train" my brain to be better, but I'm generally lost after three levels of recursion, and can rarely remember which move I started the analysis with. The Wikipedia entry on Abstract Strategy Games suggests that chess has 10^123 possible board situations. Checkers is much easier, only having on the order of 10^31 possibilities. I am proud of the fact that at least I'm willing to admit that it's my mental shortcomings that sour me on these games, unlike many who want to write off the games themselves as being uninteresting. Since Hive only has 20 pieces (10 on each side), the mid game seems more managable to me. I still lose, but at least I don't have a headache at the end of the game.

A secondary reason is that most abstract strategy games lack a theme. (As a side note, Steve Krebs argues at BoardGameGeek that when gamers use the term "theme," what they really mean is "setting." I think he's right.) I enjoy learning something about a topic I'm interested in when I play a game. If I'm playing something from the Ticket to Ride series, I won't really learn anything about running a train network, but I do learn some geography from the mapboard. On the opposite end, I've learned a lot of history from the GMT card driven games, such as The Napoleonic Wars and Here I Stand. I remember that I wasn't through my very first turn playing Japan in a game of Axis and Allies (in 1985) when I understood the strategic importance of the Solomon Islands (and thus Guadalcanal). Checkers and Go have no pretense of a theme, and it would be a real stretch to argue that chess in any way teaches about military tactics. As it is, Hive has no real theme; that is players learn nothing about insects.

So, who is Hive good for? It's good if you want an abstract strategy game with fairly nice pieces, a short playing time and few enough pieces that someone with a bad memory can enjoy it.