7/18 Featured Games

Greetings friends!!

This upcoming Friday, July 18th, marks the first Friday Night Dice under the new schedule.  Again, we are now meeting on the 1st and 3rd Friday of every month, so after this our next meetings will be on August 1st and August 15.

Anyways, as I've been saying we as a leadership for this group have been ecstatic about the consistency of our meeting group.  Over the past few months our lowest attendance has been 16 and every other has been 18 or 19.  We're more than ready break into the 20's so invite all the friends you can!  Should be a beautiful evening of gaming.

With all of that in mind, let's get to our featured games!

Featured Games:  Civilization Building

Civ-Building games are generally diverse and are a pretty popular genre of game.  They take their roots in computer games that focus on building your civilization from meager means to flowing, technological empires.  Some focus more on warfare, some on economics, some on trade and development, and some encompass them all.  This genre very much lends itself to long, complex games, but there are plenty of shorter, easier ones to get into as well.

Light Game:  7 Wonders

7 Wonders is a very rudimentary Civilization building game.  The theme is based around building a civ through ages of ancient times while at the same time trying to build one of the wonders of the ancient world.  The theme is somewhat pasted on, but it is still a very fun game based around a card drafting mechanic.  Its pretty simple and is a good game for novices.  It also plays as many as 8 with the expansion.

Light Game:  Smallworld

This is one of the simplest games we own.  If you've played Risk and enjoyed it then this is a good step into more modern games.  Each player is a different fantasy race (hobbits, giants, zombies, etc.) and also gets a special attribute (flying, tunneling, etc.).  You're trying to earn your race the most points by taking over the most land in the realm on your turn.  Eventually, though, your race will probably extend too far and further conquest will not be viable.  At that point you can go into decline, choose a new race, and start the conquest again!  Its a light game and is pretty enjoyable.

Medium Game:  Suburbia

Technically Suburbia is a city-building game which is really slightly different from civ-building but its a great game so we'll get over it.  If you've ever played and enjoyed Sim City then you have to play Suburbia.  Its very similar - you're mayor of a town and you're managing your reputation and economy in order to attract the most people to your town.  The theme is VERY strong and it is one of my personal favorites.  I also have the Suburbia, Inc. expansion if we get a game of veterans playing.

Medium:  T'Zolkin:  The Mayan Calendar

This game was the bees-knees back in 2012 - easily one of the most popular games of that year.  It also fit well with the whole doomsday business.  This game has little to do with that and much more to do with building an economic and technological structure as the leader of a tribe of Mayans.  While doing this you are trying to please one of their three gods and end the game with the most points.  On the board are multiple gears that all spin each other, causing different actions to become available to your workers and advancing the game clock.  I recently played this for the first time and its very enjoyable.  The basic rules are pretty straightforward, but there are a lot of options which adds some complexity. 

Advanced:  Through the Ages: The Story of Civilization

I'm not going to lie, I'm extremely excited to hopefully get a game of this going.  Through the Ages has been in the top 3 of Boardgamegeek for as long as I've been into board games.  At various times in held the #1 spot.  Designed by Vlaada Chvatil, who has made many games in the top 100, it is quite simply Sid Meier's Civ 3 put into board game form.  It's a pretty heavy game but moves fluidly once you get all of the rules down. It can get bogged down big time if people are distracted or taking longer than necessary on their turn but we should easily be able to get a game in if we start early enough - in theory it should take 2-3 hours.  It only fits 2-4 players so if you're interested shoot me an email or post in the comments to save a seat!

Of course other games will be available including our usual slew of party games so regardless of whether these peek your interest, come on out and play some games with us!!!