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.

Which Game Would You Teach A Stranger?

This weekend I might have the opportunity to do just what the title suggests.  If everything goes according to plans I will have two strangers in my home Saturday evening.  Ashli has been trying to get together with a friend from work, for a while, and Saturday is culmination of these attempts.  Ashli's friend Kim has confirmed that her, and her boyfriend enjoy playing boardgames, so they have invited to come over for a game night.

I have never met Kim, and don't even know her boyfriend's name.  In fact they may be engaged or even married I'm not sure, but until I know otherwise, he will just be the boyfriend.  having never met either of them, and not even knowing much about their interests, makes the idea of game night complicated. Based on my limited knowledge of the "average" American, I'm going to guess that they have never heard of most if not all of the games in my closet.  This brings me full circle, back to the question proposed in the title, what game should I unleash on them.  If I'm lucky I can blow their minds, and show them a whole new world that then never knew existed.  Otherwise, their just going to think I'm a weird guy with weird games. 

I'll let you know this weekend how the event went.  In the meantime throw out any ideas you have for teaching games to strangers.  Below is the short list, please let me know in the comments your thoughts on my list, it's OK I can take the criticism.  If you want to know what I have to work with, you can see my game collection HERE.



The Settlers of Cattan:  The Settlers of Cattan is an interesting game with a dynamic game board composed of hexagons representing different terrain types.  Through the roll of dice players gain resources, based on the locations of their cities and settlements.  the resources are used to expand their territories and but victory points.  first player to reach ten points wins.  I am partial to this game because it is that game that got me hooked.  Not only was this the first euro game I played, but also the first one in my collection.


Pros:

• Hex pieces create a new game each time.
• Many strategies can lead to victory.
• Keeps players engaged between turns, with trades, and acquiring resources on any roll.
• Rules are not very complex.

Cons:

• Modular board can intimidate people who are not used to euro games.
• Competitive building can lead to blocked players, and discourage new players.

Ticket to Ride:  Ticket to Ride is another good beginner game.  the rules are pretty easy to learn, and since there are a limited amount of actions possible, new players don't have to do too much during the turn.  This game was an early addition to my collection, and I have yet to have anyone tell me they didn't like it.


Pros:

• Fewer actions per turn keep the game moving quickly.
• Setup is quick with a single board.
• Rules are easy to explain, and by looking at the board, even a beginner can visualize the game play, and begin to develop a strategy.

Cons:

• Games can be rather long.
• If a key rout gets blocked it can make your goals near impossible to complete.

 

Carcassonne:  Carcassonne is a tile laying game where the board is built as you play.  The basic rules are quite simple.  First you lay a tile, that tile must match any adjacent tiles, and then you may place a meeple on that tile.  depending on where on your tile you place the meeple, you claim an area of the board (road, city, field).  When that area is completed, the person with the most meeples on the area gets the points.  It is easy fun and fairly fast.  The exception is the farmer, which many people fin difficult to use at first, since he doesn't score until the game is over.

Pros:

• Since the board is built as you go, an early mistake doesn't have to haunt you all game.

Cons: 

• Scoring and meeple placement rules can be confusing, and contain a lot of stipulations.
• Successful strategy almost always involves stealing points from opponents. 

Dominion: Dominion is the only card based game I have added to this list.  Dominion is a game that has almost a limitless replay possibility.  The game comes with 25 sets of cards, of which only 10 are used at one time.  Each game can be played with a random selection of cards, giving you over 3 million combination in the base game alone.  Many expansions have been released, each one adding an additional 10-25 sets of cards, which makes that number sky rocket.

Pros:

• Base rules are easy as 1,2,3 (Action, Buy, Clean up).
• Endless playability.
• Different strategies depending on cards in play.
• A game tends to be rather short, when playing with experienced players.

Cons:

• Deck building games have a stereotype of being nerdy.
• New players have to read all the cards to understand what they do, resulting in a slower pace.
• "Analysis Paralysis" this is when a player holds up the game because they are spending too much time evaluating their next move.