Due to prior commitment Greg and Grant were not avail on the second day, so I made plan to game with Phil since we haven’t done this for a long time.  Phil was imitating my disappearance act when I got married and skipped gaming for a good two years.  I and Aaron arrived around 10:30am even though I was planning for earlier start time; we just got too exhausted by the previous day.  The only thing I brought with me was Rail Baron which was not suitable for head to head.  I decided to head over to the game library to check out something more suitable.  I was leaning heavily on railroad game which Phil always loved to play.  I saw Euro Rail initially but they also have a copy of good old Empire Builder, so I opted for this.  While we were setting up, the gamer at the next table spotted our game and decided to join us.  This is wonderful as 3-players Empire Builder is much more competitive and fun than 2-palyers.  At the same time, I set up WoW for Aaron to play on the side since EB has down time between players round.  Aaron wanted a rematch due to my victory the previous day and I’m up for playing both games side by side.

 

            For EB, Phil had a good start running a line east to west via the NYC-Chicago-KC corridor while I and the other player had to contend with a SW to NW run up the Atlantic coast.  I was looking at the prospect of an early 3 cards dump while the other two seemed to be going along at a good clip.  By mid game I was totally in trouble with yet a couple more 3 cards dump and falling way behind in delivery.  At this point, Phil had built up a good lead and start to push through the Rocky to get at the West Coast.  Toward the end of the 3^rd hour, it was obvious that Phil is going to win unless something drastically happened.  I was at least $100k behind while the other player was $50k behind Phil.  I made some short runs hopping to get a triple delivery going but it was all for naught as Phil cruised to a win.  The other player had narrowed the gap a bit but was still $30K behind.  Overall this was a great EB game since all three of us had not played it for quite a while but still managed to finish within a reasonable time frame.

 

            On WoW game, I was playing the Hunter while Aaron was playing his Warrior.  I had a decent start but was not able to really keep up with Aaron’s luck since he had an event card that level him for free.  Since we finished EB, Phil decided to give WoW a try as I quickly explained the rules.  Phil caught on easily and was able to level up his Warlock to catch up to me.  By this time, Aaron was within 2 VP of winning and his warrior was almost ready to level up to Red the final level.  Phil and I were desperately trying to finish our quests to catch up but Aaron managed to gain enough items to head off to Booty Bay and trade them in for the victory.

 

            Since Phil was planning to leave around 6:30pm, we decided to try for a filler game.  I headed over to the library and saw a couple of good filler game but GMT Manoeuvre caught my eye since Greg has played this back in Kublacon.  I have been curious about this game which seemed to be a light CDG game.  There were only around 8 pages of rules and we caught on fairly easily.  Phil and I tried using the opened deck, France vs. Britain using random terrain.  The board layout was classic, a town in the middle with some hill and forest which looked like key terrain for both sides to fight over.  We both set up the classic linear formation and clashed in the middle.  I was able to get lot of movement card early and took up resident in the town but Phil was able to build a redoubt on my left flank.  Unfortunately he seemed to have more attack cards up his sleeves and depleted my troops severely.  I was not able to pull the rally cards and my troops disintegrated all around me.  Phil won after killing off my Old Guards with a timely cavalry charge from the hill on the right.  Overall a very satisfying filler game that lasted for about 1 hour, I’m looking forward to playing more of this and may be teach Aaron how to play it.

 

            I went back to return the game while Phil went for one more look around at the Merchants Quarter.  Unfortunately by the time I got back, Merchant Quarter was closed down and I had no chance to do any last minute shopping.  Phil headed home to cook for Denise (how nice!); I and Aaron decided to head to dinner before the Sunday flea market.  We couldn’t decide where to go and finally settle on Characters Bar & Grill.  I ordered the Fish & Chips along with the Chop-Chop Salad (chicken salad) which turned out to be really good.  We relaxed and watch AFV (America’s Funniest Video) while we dined.  By the time we were done, it was almost flea market time and we did one round around all the tables but there were really nothing that caught my eye.  Since it was early, I asked Aaron to see if he wanted to game or head home.  We decided to give 10 Days in Africa a try and were joined by another gamer at the Open Gaming room.  We ended up playing 10 days couple of times and finally figured it out.  At this point, we heard some booming sound and it was the firework going off at Great America.  So we packed up our gears and handed home, Aaron was totally exhausted and dozed off in the backseat.  I asked Aaron afterward and he had enjoyed his first convention, so it looked like he will join me at the next Conquest\Avaloncon\Pacificon or even Kublacon once I figured out the logistic.

 

            My impression of Conquest\Avaloncon\Pacificon Santa Clara 2008

 

            Pacificon is well run due to the experience of the staffs since they are largely the same as Kublacon.   I was unable to gauge the success\failure of the move to Santa Clara since the convention layout is so bad, I couldn’t tell if there were anyone outside of the Board game and Miniature Game area.  The price of gas (around $4) might have been a factor since this move resulted in longer trip for anyone outside of Santa Clara County.  For myself, Santa Clara was a big plus since I’m now within 15 min. of the convention site.

 

The inclusion of a Gaming Library where you can check out games is a big plus since I no longer need to lug my games with me; but having Open Gaming located away from Board Game event is just sheer stupidity.  From the map, there was suppose to be additional gaming area set aside for Open Gaming near the Starbucks, but I didn’t know if there were any gamer in that area since Open Gaming room itself was never full.  I was unable to attend to any of the seminars and didn’t even wander by the new RPG rooms.  Having WCBC hosted is a bonus since the tournaments did draw quit a number of players but the overall convention listing seemed bare.

 

            Auction is now a non-event for Pacificon due to some of the strange rules (10 % commission by the convention, seller paid by check for any sales $250 or more) that were listed in the program guide, however I am not sure if these were ever enforced due to a lack of games to auction.  This may be in part due to having Flea Market on each day of the convention, most gamers preferred to sell there.  The layout for the Flea Market was moronic, there were not that many sellers and the staff should have moved some of the tables to make the isles wider.  Packing everyone into half of the area when they had the whole room available was just idiotic.

 

I liked the idea of a Guest of Honor but I was unable to attend any of John Hill’s seminars.  I wished they had set up a time and place in the Merchant Quarter to meet John Hill liked they did for Dave Arneson.  Perhaps I will have better luck next time as this convention was just pure gaming heaven for me due the large number of games I played.  The food was kind of pricey considered the offerings but this was to be expected.  There is a small mall across the street if you don’t mind hoofing it.  There were a number of other restaurants just across the freeway but we didn’t explore far enough.  I did like the fact that they didn’t charge parking, whether it was by design or an accident since the exit gate was left opened.  The food in Characters Bar & Grill was actually more reasonable but they were kind of limited in size and staff, we only dined there because we had plenty of time.

 

Inevitable I have to draw comparison between Pacificon and Kublacon.  Even though both were largely run by the same folks, there seemed to be a better sense of organization at Kublacon.  The Kublacon events are well advertised and the layout was more centralized that you were always around gamers.  I can’t tell if this was the case when I attended Pacificon since everything was so far apart that I felt like I was travelling from oasis to oasis in a desert, you only happened to run into other gamers.  If I was going to rate the two conventions like I rated games on BGG, I would only give Pacificon a 6 (OK) whereas Kublacon will get a full 9.5 (Highly Recommended).  Now if they would only move Kublacon down to Santa Clara\San Jose and I would give it a full 10 due to the reduced travel time.  I will continue to attend both conventions but clearly Kublacon is now my preferred choice.

            This is the first year of Conquest SF at the Santa Clara Marriot and it reverted back to its original name of Pacificon.  I was fairly excited by the fact that it’s located so close to my house and also the prospect of bringing Aaron to his first convention.  I took advantage of the Super Early Bird offer and pre-reg for the convention. Since I was sure if Aaron wanted to go both days, I decided to wait until arrival to add him in.  Fortunately the staffs were very accommodating and charged me only 10 dollars to add Aaron in for the weekend.  Unfortunately my name tag went AWOL and they have to create a temp weekend badge for me with the usual misspelling.

 

            We arrived around 10:15 am and found a spot on the 2^nd floor of the parking structure which was not very full at this point.  I have to wonder if this is a sign that more gamers are carpooling due to the high gas price or just didn’t attend now that Pacificon has moved away from the more central location by SFO.  We were heading toward the main building when Greg called announcing his arrival, so headed back to the parking structure to meet up with him and Grant.  I decided to bring along World of Warcraft:  The Adventure Game since Aaron had enjoyed playing with it so much.  I wasn’t sure if Aaron is going to stay at the Young Player room or hang around good old dad.

 

            We headed to the Board Game area since this is also near where the Flea Market is located for the evening, Greg have brought along quite a number of games to sell as always.  The layout of the convention at Marriot SC is not optimal, once again the gaming areas are scattered all over the map.   In fact I’m not sure why they picked Marriot unless may be they submitted the lowest bid (?).  The Board games, Miniatures and Flea Market/Sci-Fi Miniatures(mislabeled as Games Workshop) are all packed away at the California Ballroom which is quite a sizeable area.  However, the Open Gaming is lumped together with RPGA HQ , Auction\B-17 event, Young Players room and Merchants Quarters into the Grand Ballroom/Hall of Cities area.  The RPG rooms are located in the North Tower, but I never visited that area and also the Seminar rooms were in yet another section.  Another hotel with a better grouped conference area may be more preferable for this type of convention, this layout made the convention looked very sparsely attended.

 

            The Board Game area was well attended due to inclusion of WCBC events and putting it next to the miniatures area meant that there was lots of traffic in this area.  We ran into Lyman and Phil in there and decided to do some wargaming playing one of GMT CDG.  Open Gaming was kind of isolated over the RPGA HQ and across from the Merchant Quarter.  This probably didn’t fill up even at the busiest time during the Convention.

 

I took a brief look into the Live Auction and realized that it was going to be a waste of time since there were only about two dozen games on the table.  In fact there were only a dozen gamers in there and the major dealer like Mark Kramer was no where in sight, so I punted and headed to Young Players Room with Aaron.  When I entered, it was not run by Steve and Becky but some unknown staffer with may be 6-8 young kids.    The only thing I saw was a Star War RPG being set up by one of the parents and some kids playing a plug-in version of Guitar Hero.  I was not too impressed by the games avail and the lack of players of Aaron’s age.  Aaron quickly decided to hang around with me instead of staying there.  We head back to Open Gaming where Greg, Grant, Lyman and Phil have decided on 4-players Kutuzov (Greg & Grant vs. Phil & Lyman).  I open up WoW and start to set it up, at least couple of players wandered by looking at it but no one wanted to join in with me and Aaron.  We (or at least I) had a blast playing WoW again since I finally won instead of Aaron.

 

Once Greg’s group have wrapped up, we decided to try Agricola since Lyman was willing to teach us.  We set up as per instruction but somehow we missed the set up for the resource cards and we did several rounds without realizing our mistakes and everyone was stuck due to resource limitation.  We decided to call it quit and head for dinner before setting up for the Flea Market while Lyman went back to Board Gaming to enter an event.  The five of us head over to Round Table Pizza and I was really amazed to see Grant finished off a medium pizza by himself.  We headed back and helped Greg lugged his collections to the Flea Market area.  We met up Lyman and I picked up the ATO and Panzerfaust magazines that I have on my want list and also browse through Greg’s for sale goodies.  The only one interesting was 10 Days in Africa which was a good entry game for Aaron and Greg was extremely kind and gave it to Aaron as a gift.

 

We decided to check out the Game Library at the Board Game area to borrow a game to pass the time while we wait for the Flea Market Setup.  This was a great convention feature carried over from Kublacon; you are allowed to check out a game from the huge library which included both Euros and some wargames provided you left your Driver License there.  This sort of reduced the need to bring some of the more bulky games plus provided additional copies for any convention tournament.  The only complaint I have is that it is not located in the Open Gaming or perhaps Open Gaming should have be located with Board Game section.  The one game that I had wanted to try again was Stone Age and we decided to give it a try while we waited.  We were able to play about 2 rounds of this and the rest of group caught on to the rules fairly quickly.  Unfortunately it was almost flea market set up time, we decided to return it and get ready.

 

Well since I was not part of the set up crew (Greg, Grant & Phil), we were ushered out of the set up area by the flea market staffers.  We waited on the side and saw this big crowd built up on the right entrance while only a few of us waited on the on area by the hallway.  There was a big surge when they finally allowed everyone to enter and the first isle was so packed that no one can get through.  This was an oversight since there was lot of space if they had just spread out instead of all lining up on the first isle.  Greg was wisely located at the end isle and his games were flying off the shelf fast and furious.  I think by the first hour almost 75% of his games were gone.  One reason was that he started at half price or less which attracted quit a lot of buyers.  He also has the best selection as far as I can tell.  I went around the third isle and spotted someone selling some Europa games.  I went through and decided on Fall of France, one of the fairly hard to get expansion for Europa on Ebay.  He was also selling Their Finest Hours and Merita Merkur, I had both of these already and didn’t want to commit.  So I picked up Fall of France for $50, a very good price for punched copy.

 

I was window shopping when I noticed one of the reseller talking to one of the old timer gamer and appeared to be buying up his inventory of RPG at very low price.  I checked out his table and saw a box of MTG cards with a Limited Edition Ancestral Recall on the top.  When I went through the box that card was probably the only good card in his collection.  I offered $120 for the whole thing but he wanted $200 which was way too much.  So the only thing I ended up picking up was a Player Guide book ($2) for MTG which was the first of such reference book.  I was window shopping and saw that one seller had several boxes of magazines and books under his table.  With the luck I had before, I decided to see if I can find some low price goodies.  The only thing that caught my eye was Alien Space Battle Manual published by Gamescience; I was able to buy this for a measly $5.  At this point I think there was really not much more that interested me and I head back to Greg’s table.  Greg has sold out of most of his games (at least $300 in sales) and was ready to pack up, so I offer to watch the table while Phil did his round but he returned empty handed.   Aaron kept looking at the Star War miniatures at the table across the way, but none of the figures caught his fancy.

 

At this point, Greg was packing up and ready to head out.  We went around the Miniature and Board Game Area checking out all the in process tournaments but can’t decide on anything.  He did end up teaching both I and Aaron how to play HIVE, one of the abstract game I picked up from Kublacon.  After that, we decided to call it a day and headed home.  Since Greg and Grant have other commitment, I and Phil made plan to meet up on Sunday morning.  Aaron was exhausted and fell asleep in the car and I was very happy to have survived the first convention with him.  The only thing that didn’t workout was the downtime for Aaron while we were playing Agricola and Stone Age, I decided to remedy this the next day by bringing his PSP.

    Well, I and Chaz and his daughter Paris finished off a learning game of Agricola on Sat.  I think we finally played the game as it was intended and didn't do too many mistakes.  It tooks us about 3 hours since neither Chaz & Paris have played before and it's a bit overwhelming for Paris (who is 9) since this is much more complex than Catan or Carcassone.

    We played using only E deck and I got mostly late game occupations, so the only thing I ended playing was Plough Maker and only used it once.  In retrospect I probably should have used one of the other occupation instead.  The resources were much better since there is now an additional 2 wood, 1 clay, 2 any resources and 1 any resource. 

    Chaz & Paris caught on fairly quick (it's not a real hard game) and they were mostly concentrated on raising livestock while I went for raising grains & vegetables.  The wood resources were building up faster than we can used them, so I took advantage by getting the reeds first and building up 1 more room & then the family growth.

     They both have the fireplace and were able to feed by killing sheep, I had to save up for the Stone oven.  I finally build up the grain and start to expend my fields while they played improvements.

    Chaz upgraded to clay building and then finally built one more room and expend.  At this point I think Paris was kind of lost since she didn't really know what choice to make, plus Chaz jumped ahead and grabbed the wild boar before she can.  I started to build my first pasture and grab the remaining sheep.   I have a card that allow me to convert 1 sheep to 1 cattle but I was not able to capitalize on it.  We were close to endgame (stage 12) and I decide to start saving up for the final renovate/fence plus I need to bake one more time to feed the family.

    I ended up with 37 and Chaz had 17 and Paris 16.  The main thing was they have a lot of unused farm space which they didn't know were penalty.  However for a learning game, they did quite well since they were always able to feed during harvest and have 2 or more pastures.  I miscalculated in mid game and didn't have enough grain and too much vegetables, I also should have build a cooking health (all the cheap one were gone) to convert the vegetables to food instead of my grain.  I need to grow my family at least one more times since I was at least a couple actions short toward the end.

    The main difference between solitaire and multiplayers: action is more important than resource.  Someone else may have just taken the action you needed and hence you have to plan ahead at least one stage or more. 

    You also need to expend the family quickly to get more done, probably around 2nd harvest but depending on how much food you build up.  Grain is efficient (3:1) but you have to use bake & a fire place or oven.  Livestock repro rate is fairly slow since you only get 1 per harvest once you have 2+ of same type.  I usually wait until there is 2 or more before taking them into my pasture.  Chaz has the berry picker which he used very effectively in early stages to get at least 1 free food from taking wood at the same time.

    Agricola is very challenging in multiplayers mode since your action can affect the other players.  There are a great many of choices but only so many action(base on family size) to do them.  Agricola reminds me of a more fine tuned Puerto Rico but with more interactions and MtG where the cards break the rule to give it a distinct variety.  You are constantly seeking to improve your position with the need to generate the food to feed the family.  You constantly have to modify your strategy since you may not be able to do what you wanted unless you spend the precious action to be First Player.  Your cards (Occupation & Minor Improvement) can influence your actions but you can choose to ignore them if they don't fit.  There will be lots of trial and error since there is no perfect strategy.  The path to victory depends on your decisions and a bit of luck.  I can see why it's the number one rated replacing PR.

    I finally got my copy of Agricola (from Game Kastle) and it came with the Z-Deck!!!   Now I just need to find the time to analysis the decks.  I have only open the E Deck to play with Chaz & Paris.  They have another copy there which probably also have the Z-Deck from the pre-order promo.

    Game Kastle is a new FLGS located on 1350 Coleman Ave. in Santa Clara, just across the street from the Costco on the back side of San Jose Airport.  The place have been there for at least since last year since I remember their attendance at Kublacon last year.  They are next to a trophy shop and an auto body shop.  They are located fairly close to Santa Clara University, which may be their source of clients.  They have their website and even a forum plus they answer their email fairly quickly.  I sent them a query about avail of Agricola and got a reply within couple of hours.  Their weekend events seem to be well attended, so may be there is a regular group there.  I even recognize some of their 40K attendees as grognards who attend Pacificon regularly.  I think they are some of the old core group for Raid over Dunfrey.

Their website, check out their photo gallery

http://www.gamekastle.com/

    Game Kastle reminded me of Game Table(Campbell, Larry Duffield) from the 80's, you have the main store and then next to it a game room (plus a garage converted into miniature gaming area).  The store is fairly large and have a very good selection of games (board, miniatures, rpg & others).  Parking is not much problem since you can use the area from the other two stores on off-hours and weekend.  The game room is fairly large, hold at least 5 rows of tables.  They are located next to Costco, McDonald & Starbuck, everything you need to feed and caffinate you gamers.  I'm guessing that Miniatures is their main source of income but they have a surprisingly large selection of board games.  With the demise of most mall based FLGS and the competition from online sources, I was kind of surprise to find a retail store that offer space for gaming and have a good selection of games.  This is a good alternative place to game if Greg's wonderful game room is not avail, it's located fairly close to the freeway (101) and only about 15 min. from my house using city streets.

I have started to play with the I (interactive) and K (complex) decks and scoring have average to about 48 so far.

Some of the newer cards do modify end game or have higher requirement (like having 3 occupation).  So it does force you to decide if it's worthwhile to play them or just max out for standard scoring.

E deck -- look like mostly early game --  resource adds, reduce cost, bonus resources, bonus actions

I deck -- early/mid games -- TBD (looks the same as E)

K deck -- mid/late games -- bonus score, other players actions

I wish I have the decks to do a more detail analysis.

My occupation favorites:  Master Brewer, Baker, Meat Seller, Hedge Keeper, Wood Cutter, Clay Mixer, Mushroom Collector, Renovator, Seasonal Worker, Stable Hand, Field Watchman

My minor improvement favorites:  Fishing Rod, Baker's Oven, Baking Tray, Simple Fireplace (and then upgrade to the Cooking Health), Raft, Wooden Oven, Ceramic, Basket, Builder's Trowel, Quarry (this one is tough, 4 occupations), Stone Tongs, Drinking Troug

All these are from E deck which is the one I'm most familiar with.

Baking is very efficient use of grain for conversion, unfortunately there is only 1 bake bread option (during sow/bake) unless you end up with the Baker.

I also like the cross action cards, like get food while cutting wood or something similar.

As the action phases get less and less for each stage, you have to expand your family size or you will simply run out of actions.  Plus increase family size affect final score, but then you have to feed them.

This game is certainly more complex then Puerto Rico.  It may seems like you are playing solitaire, but adding in l and K deck create more interaction between players.  You can still screw each other depending on the action you take since only 1 person can do that per action phase.

At the final scoring, you have to watch out for missing out on category (having no cattle or vegetables)  which generates -1 pt each or even worse the begging cards -3 each.

        After learning Agricola at Conquest 2008, I find myself wondering how the full game would have worked if we were playing it correctly.  I downloaded the rules from Zman site and also a wonderful solitaire play aide from BGG.  I spent the last 3 nights learning the rules and playing the game.  So far I have only played with the E-deck but I will adding the more advanced stuff shortly.

        I now understand why this game is ranked as the new #1 on BGG and Spiel of Jahr winner.  Agricola reminded me of Settler of Catan, Magic and a number of other great games.  There is enough variations that no two plays are the same.

        Your opening hands of Occupation cards and Minor Improvement cards can help shaped your moves.  The  top issues are how best to feed your folks and spend your precious actions to expand/improve your farm.  The Occupation cards and minor improvement cards are rule breakers that let you do additional things that can benefit your household.  I am starting to figure out which one to play first and which is for endgame, most of the one that generate extra resources are useful in the beginning, any that mod vp is an endgame.  There are risk in using them since you are using your action and resource that may be better off on something else.

 

         In solitaire, there is no competition for resource but this is not going to be the case when you play multiplayers.  Major resources are the wood, clay, stone, and reeds which are needed to do just about anything.  The secondary resources are free food, grain/vegetables, and sheep/wild boar/cattle.  Most of these accumulates during replenishment at beginning of each round except for free food (2 at day labor, fishing is +1 per turn) and free grain/vegetable.

        There are only 6 harvest stages and the number of rounds go like this 4-3-2-2-2-1, you score at then end of the 6th harvest.  You are limited in action per round base on the number of person in your house hold, you started with 2 but can expand as an action after 2nd stage when the Expend Family became avail.  Here's the real beauty, the actions for each stage came out in random until they are placed on the board.  Plus depending on turn order, your opponents may just have picked that one critical action you needed.  You can sacrifice a move in multiplayers and choose to be the 1st player for next round (with the additional action of playing a minor improvement).

        You can get more by expending your family (more muchikins) but they have to be feed, putting more strain on your food producing process and you eventually have to get a major improvement (cooking fire\health\oven) to process all those wonderful grain\vegetables and livestocks.

        Ultimately the score is determined by how well you managed everything(ie size of family, livestock herd, grain\vegetables, type of house & size of fields & pastures).  You can tweak the vp via improvements and you learn to appreciate how hard Farming really is.

        I am looking forward to playing Agricola in multiplayer but I'm going to lose more sleep playing solo for a while.  Currently Agricola seems to be out of print but a new print run (English) is suppose to be done in Oct.  It's pricey at $70 but it's a Euro with lots of bits.  I hope the reprint have symbols on the bits or at least provided stickers since we had a hard time figuring out which is which for resource.  Lookout Games is suppose to sell the new animalmeeples but I think the Z-Deck (additional cards, 1st edition pre-order promo) is no more unless you buy the 1st Ed (English) off Ebay.

        So far I have managed to move my score up from 32 to 52 & 62 just playing mainly with E-deck.