A Game of Thrones board game: first play

Last weekend, I finally got to give the Game of Thrones board game a try. (I’m only just now getting to write about it because it’s been a darn busy week of utterly un-fun work.)

I played with my wife and another couple, so we had to play a four-player game. The game is specifically designed for five players, so this meant turning House Greyjoy (one of the competing sides) into a set of neutral forces. I suspect that the game is still not perfectly balanced, but with a game like this, that can be part of the fun. How well you do as a losing house can, for the right player, be even more interesting than winning as a house with an advantageous starting position.

Once we figured out the rules, the game ran very smoothly. Because (as is always the case) I was the only person who read the rules, we had at least one or two major rules questions every turn.

Because of these rules questions, everyone made major flubs every turn. For instance, one player gave support orders to her units thinking, for some reason, that they would let her move the units.

Most confusion centered around how controlling areas of water allowed a player to treat different land regions as adjacent. When I read the rules, I found I understood this feature quite easily, but either I explained it poorly or it isn’t as intuitive as I thought. I said, paraphrasing from the rulebook, “If you control an area of water, you can treat two landmasses as if they’re touching, as long as they border that area of water. And you can extend it, in theory, as far as you can control water areas.” Or something close.

But it didn’t stick. One player, twice, gave a ship marching orders because he wanted to move units to The Arbor, when it was his units on the mainland that needed the marching order.

I think part of the confusion is that the physical shape of the regions makes for some surprising connections by water. The connection between Widows Watch and Crackclaw Point via The Harrow Sea may be one of the most strategically important things for the Starks, but the Stark player in our game didn’t realize the connection existed until everything was almost over.

Despite the inequalities, the game played fairly well. Lannister didn’t do too well, but even she might have made a comeback if we’d finished the game. We only got to the end of turn Six, though, when my two-year-old daughter decided to wake up from her nap. The game does allow for comebacks, I think.

The random element—the order in which cards come up—is just heavy enough that a player could conceivably be victimized by a series of bad draws. But it’s light enough that this is very, very improbable. I wouldn’t consider removing the random element. I very much like the feel of uncertainty it brings, and if I want to play a pure strategy game, I’ll opt for chess, go, or dvonn.

We played without any alliances, backstabbing, or vendettas, because we were busy getting a feel for the rules. I wonder what it will be like once everyone really knows the rules . . .

In any case, the others weren’t too gung-ho to revisit the game when my daughter went to bed, so I didn’t get to try it again. I’ll be bringing it on my two-week vacation in August, though, and I have a feeling there are enough geeky adults that I’ll get to try it a bunch more times.

Add comment July 16th, 2007

Potion Miscibility: The Old Fashioned

A classic drink, and possibly the first to be called a “cocktail,” the Old Fashioned is quite simply my favorite mixed drink. Heck, this drink has a whole category of glassware named after it, so it’s decidedly seminal. A touch of sweet, a touch of bitter, and a splash of water to ease everything down.

Whisky drinks seem, to me, to belong next to a finely polished wooden game board with alabaster and onyx chess pieces arrayed and ready for battle. But chess has never been geeky enough for me. Instead, I prefer to layer strategy games with fantastical—or at least narrative—elements. So I recommend an Old Fashioned (my favorite version is below) in a nice, heavy Old Fashioned glass, with a leisurely Game of Thrones.

As Cersei tells Ned, when you play the game of thrones, you either win . . . or you die. And either way, you’ll want a stiff drink.

Old Fashioned

Ingredients

• 50 ml bourbon
• Angostura bitters
• 1 cube of sugar (or a light teaspoonful if you don’t have cubes)
• water
• 1 maraschino cherry

I like this best with Maker’s Mark bourbon, although I think it’s probably quite good with other good-quality whiskies. If you opt for cheaper whisky, you’ll probably want to garnish it more heavily, perhaps with two thin slices of orange. For the water, I just use the filtered stuff that comes out of my refrigerator.

Instructions

Put the sugar cube in the bottom of an Old Fashioned glass and put one or two dashes of bitters on top. Muddle with a spoon, then add a splash of water to further dissolve the sugar. Add a few cubes of ice (I like to fill the glass), then pour the whisky over the ice. Garnish with the cherry and enjoy.

I note that some people top this off with soda water. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to take a perfectly nice drink and turn it into a bizarre, whisky-flavored soda.

Add comment July 13th, 2007

Fair dice

I love me some Catan, so this little application strikes a chord with me. Especially since I’m convinced the dice that came with my copy of the game are far from fair and roll fives far more often than any pair of dice should.

Of course, the frustration of true but unfair randomness in games like Settlers of Catan is also part of the fun. And, in fact, essential. Because if you find yourself in a slight losing position, you have a reasonable expectation that quirky dice rolls may turn the game around for you. If the dice were purely fair and all probabilities exactly as expected, players in a losing position after turn four or five might find that the game becomes, basically, a hopeless chore.

Still, a very fun thought. If anyone ever does play Catan with “fair dice,” I’d love to hear how it goes.

4 comments July 9th, 2007