I'm sitting on a couch next to the
pool in the Doubletree Hotel Charlottesville. It is early morning on
Day 2 of Prezcon (early morning being just after 8:00). I actually
slept in, more or less, not getting out of bed until just after 7:00.
That is important to do at my week of Prezcon because I will be
playing evening and late night games.
Last night, in fact, I crashed while
playing Power Grid. Power Grid requires some concentration in order
to make good decisions. After 10:30, I no longer seemed capable of
making such good decisions. Perhaps it was the psychological effect
of having heard my phone's bedtime tone sound off at 9:45, but I am
pretty sure that having been up since 5:45 AM (my normal wake up
time) had just caught up to me. I had fun playing Power Grid, I just
need to be more alert throughout the entire game.
Yesterday, I learned how to play The
Voyages of Marco Polo. It has a little bit of Lords of Waterdeep and
a little bit of Castles of Burgundy to it. It also has the them of
travel (it's in the name) so it has a lot of appeal to me. As a
member of the Polo merchant network, you have a set of dice that
represent the actions you can potentially take. The numbers on your
dice determine how powerful an action you can take and, potentially,
how expensive that action might be. The board is less dynamic
throughout the game than Castles of Burgundy, so developing a solid
plan at the beginning can be very helpful (having a plan in Burgundy
is good, too, but the changes in the board, require more of a series
of tactical decisions). I finished fourth of four on the board, but
had a respectable score, and I plan to play again today. It's
complexity is on par with another of my favorite games, Lewis &
Clark, so it isn't something I can get on the table with family. It
is something I could see playing at my company's monthly game day or
with board gaming friends.
This is my first year arriving on the
Monday of Prezcon. There were more people and more games going on
than I had anticipated. My friend Matt is here, and I have already
run into several people I know from Prezcon, and even some people
from my old Harrisonburg days. When I started coming back to Prezcon
several years ago, arriving on Wednesday seemed a bit of a stretch.
While I was having fun playing tournament games like History of the
World, finding players in the open gaming room was difficult. This
year, finding open gaming players was easy. I found a pick up game
of Alhambra in 30 seconds, and the Power Grid game Matt and I were
starting grew to five players in as many minutes. The open gaming
room is definitely growing. The convention is experimenting with an
expanded sign up board for open gaming, but I still believe it
requires just going up to people looking at games on the shelf and
asking if they want to play.
Games on tap for today include Texas
Glory, Castles of Burgundy, and The Voyages of Marco Polo. I will
see if I am up to a 9:00 PM start for a Power Grid game, or if I opt
for pick up games in the open gaming room. There are also some new
games some of my friends have including Sagrada and Terraforming Mars
that I hope to try this week.
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