Hive on the go

Just in time for my vacation last weekend, I received a new shipment from Amazon.  Inside that box, was my new copy of Hive Carbon.  Hive is a tile placing game for two players, which plays much like a game of chess.  I have been looking to add a couple of two player games to my collection for a while, and Hive was the first one to hit the table.  I chose hive, because it looked easy to teach, but also had a degree of strategy involved.  The durable Bakelite (think dominoes, or rummy cube) tiles travel easily, and can be played on about any reasonably flat surface.

So, there I was, sitting in an airport food court, waiting for my delayed flight.  I pulled out Hive, and looked around the table for any sign of interest.  My dad is not a game player, so that was hopeless, and my mom was just starting a movie, so that just left my wife Ashli.  At this point, my chances of playing my new game were not looking good.  Although Ashli plays a lot of games with groups, for some reason we don't play much alone.  She is also not too fond of head to head thinking games, so I figured there would be little interest in chess with bugs.

To my surprise she agreed to give it a try, probably mostly out of pity for me, and my shameless game begging.  Also to my surprise, I think she liked it.  We ended up playing three games before it was time to get felt up by security.  Ashli ended up winning all three games, which doesn't hurt, to convince her to play again some time.

Hive Carbon is an alternate addition to the original game of Hive.  I chose Hive Carbon, because it comes with the Mosquito and the Ladybug expansions. Each of the expansions come with just two tiles, one for each player, at a cost of around ten or eleven dollars.  Personally I find a price tag of over five dollars a tile to be a bit hard to swallow.  I went with Hive Carbon, because the price difference was less that ten dollars, and made the expansions a little more affordable.  The original version of the game has each bug painted in a different color, while Carbon has all the bugs in black or white depending on the team.

Over all, I am quite happy with the purchase of Hive Carbon.  I expect Hive to be a regular travel companion, and hopefully this will lead to future opportunities to play with my wife.  I just recieved a copy of Campaign Manager, and can't wait to try something with a little more depth with Ashli.  You can bet that when I do, I'll let you know.

Absence makes the Heart Grow Fonder... I hope

It certainly has been a while since I posted last, but I'm back.  Since you heard from me last I have been on vacation, and while I had hoped to post from New Mexico, I just never had the chance.  The last week, saw a trip to New Mexico, a few days at work, and a whole weekend in Lincoln to celebrate several family birthdays, with Ashli's family.

I promise there will be plenty of new posts this week, so please stay tuned.

Cattan Cities and Knights, Finally.

Let me start by saying sorry. It has been almost a week since my last post, and that is not acceptable. I started this project with the goal of regular posting, and gaining at least some sort of regular following. I knew coming in that this would require some degree of dedication to start a new habit, and I have dropped the ball this week. To anyone who is reading this, I'm sorry and I will do better I promise.

Now on to the actual topic at hand, Settlers of Cattan, and the Cities and Knights expansion (C&K). I have owned the entire collection for Cattan for over four years now, and last night was the first time I have used the Cities and Knights expansion. Ashli and I went to our friends house last night and took along C&K. Emily and Jason are the indirect begining to my board gaming hobby. They introduced Settlers of Cattan to a mutual friend, who in turn introduced it to me. Within a week I had my own copy, and within a week of that I had both the expansions, and all the 5-6 player expansions. From that point on, it was all down hill.


Key Differences: 
C&K adds some significant change to the play of settlers, however, you still develop you property in much the same way, as before. Resources are still gained by rolling dice and paying out to the owners of settlements and cities located near that number.  Settlements, roads and cities still cost the same, and are used for much the same thing. That is where C&K takes over and changes things up.  C&K adds comodies along side the resources, when you have a city built on Forest, Pastures, and Mountains those spaces pay a comodie in place of a second resource.  the compdies, which are Paper, Fabric, and Coins, are used to build upgrades to your kingdom.  These upgrades allow you to gain progress cards, which have replaced the development cards of the base game.

C&K also sees the addition of barbarians, and knights which are used to fend off the barbarians.  The expansion comes with a barbarian track which has a wooden ship moving along it.  When the ship reaches the end of the track the barbarians attack.  When the barbarians attack bad things happen... Unless the players have built enough knights to repel the invading barbarians.  If the barbarians are successfully repelled, there is much rejoicing, and good stuff happens.

As you can see C&K adds a lot of extra elements to the game.  These extra elements, can add depth to the play of Settlers of Cattan, but also create a lot of new things that need to be watched during the game.  The expansion was not received the same throughout the group, and as i discus the enjoyment of the game, that least me into my next segment.

First Impressions:
 As I stated before C&K adds several new elements to the game.  These changes were not enjoyed as much by all.  As a general rule it seemed that the male half of the group enjoyed the game much more than the females.  My friend Jason and myself tend to be more cutthroat when it comes to board games in general.  The addition of the barbarians was one sore subject among the females.  They would prefer to just move through the game, and see who makes it to the end fastest, when elements enter the game that can potentialy move them backwards they do not like it.

In addition to the Barbarian, the C&K expansion has a much wider selection of progress cards, than the original game had development cards.  About half of these cards provide a benefit to the person who played the card, without effecting any other players.  However, many of the cards act almost as attacks against the other players.  The greater variety of cards adds a greater element of mystery to the game, while ramping up the tension and hostility toward others.

The one issue that I truly saw while playing was the prominence of a runaway leader.  Since the improvements you buy increase your chance of getting progress cards,  if one player takes an early lead in the improvements, they have a huge starting advantage.  I also found that at the beginning of the game it was harder to gain momentum, because in addition to building settlements, the looming barbarian attack couldn't be forgotten.  Because of this slow start mechanism, a player who gets some lucky breaks at the beginning of the game can really build quite a lead quickly.

Final Thoughts:
While the expansion adds depth and new elements to an old reliable, I don't think it is for everyone.  The barbarians and the new progress cards, add an extra element of ruthlessness that was lacking in the original.  The new elements also include a lot of other things that need to be watched, so I would only play C&K with more experienced Settlers of Cattan players.  While I am glad I own this game for the completeness of my collection, I don't think it will see an increase in table time as a result of this trial.  If I want to fend on barbarians on the island of Cattan, I might just have to stick to online play.