2024 Session Reports

05/01/2024 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #24-18

11 at the UNO Park Community Center on the first of May for an evening of City Building games

Our May 8 session will be both a request night and to celebrate games rated ‘8’ or above by BGG users on a date ending in an ‘8’. 
Which games did our table leaders prepare for but never got to the table? Which games did you miss and wanted to play? Kindly email your requests to Steve so we can locate the game and assign a table leader.
What games rated 8.0+ by BGG users will our table leaders bring and lead? Expect Tim and/or Matt to lead from among: Root, Scythe, White Castle and Great Western Trail as main events and Tim to lead Sky Team and/or Harmonies as openers.
 
Tony wants to bring/lead Pillars of the Earth
Steve wants to bring/lead Quadropolis and Big City
Starting on Thursday May 16 we will be starting a monthly afternoon of traditional and family games for adults at the Milne Public Library in Williamstown. The 2-5 PM sessions will be non-curated – bring favorite games like SCRABBLE, Backgammon, Dominoes, Rummy Q, Chess & Checkers. Steve and Sandy will gradually introduce easy party and gateway games to the monthly sessions. If you’d like to assist, please do.
5/1/2024 @ UNO Park Community Center
 
IN: Steve & Sandy, Sean & Wendy, Tony & Rachel, Tim, Matt, Nicole, Chris, Rob O.
 
ON OUR TABLES:
60-Second City (led by K-ban/Sean) 2021 2-player co-op. Over 5 one-minute rounds, players frantically place domino shaped pieces onto a square grid in an effort to clear an assortment of goal cards. Both players draw tiles & quickly place them on the game board at the same time. Players work together to complete building goals while protecting their city from space-blocking pollution. Sandy and Wendy came within 2 goal cards of a complete win.
Ragusa (led by Matt) 2019 worker placement, engine building and set collection game set in the legendary city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). Players are charged with the task of building the city in the 15th century, constructing its great towers, boosting trade with the East, and finding their fortunes. Players build houses on the spaces between three hexes, gaining access to resources (on rural spaces) and actions (in the city), which means that a house effectively functions as a worker being placed, but triggering three spots at a time. Players use resources gained in the countryside to build buildings, trade, and craft valuable commodities — the value of which varies as ships come and go from the harbor. In the city, players gain access to actions, with each spot representing the three actions that surround it. The game ends once players have placed all their houses. The player with the most points from all sources wins.
Barcelona: the Rose of Fire (led by Tim) 2016 area majority/influence tile placement, in which players compete for social prestige and personal wealth while trying to avoid the revolution that is spreading through the city. Players take turns using cards to build their influence by constructing buildings (tiles) in the new city, outside the old medieval walls. The better and more spectacular the construction, the more notoriety they gain. But at the same time, this construction boom brings many workers who are living in much cheaper venues. Building high-class buildings, while rewarding in terms of prestige, may generate unrest amongst the popular classes. In order to avoid strikes and riots, players have to make sure that they construct buildings for the popular classes as well.

During the construction phase, players place workers in the Raval zone depending on the sort of buildings they construct. At the end of each era, all those workers are placed into a bag, alongside peacekeeping soldiers. Depending on the level of unrest, a number of these figures are drawn from the bag and the player with more figures drawn from their color suffers a strike.

Skyrise (led by Sean) 2024 area control/majorities bidding game where players are building a magnificent city in the sky, dedicated to art, science, and beauty.  A very clever spatial auction system is utilized to win building sites, earning favor across Islands and factions, scoring secret and public objectives, courting mysterious Patrons, and building your own unique Wonder. This deluxe crowdfunded design has incredible table presence with 3D buildings and a unique modular board made up of islands. It is inspired by Sebastien Pauchon’s 2008 Spiel Des Jahres recommended Metropolys.
Point City (led by Wendy) 2023 card-drafting, engine-building game with more than 150 unique building cards, giving players the opportunity to create a completely different city each time it is played. This game is from the same team that designed Point Salad, but is a much deeper strategic and tactical game that packs a wallop with only a large deck of cards. The rules are simple: Take two adjacent cards from the dynamic city grid and add them to your expanding city. Use your resource cards and bonuses to construct building cards that require specific combinations. Build special civic structures to multiply your city’s points and be the top urban planner! The game takes the same simple concept of drafting cards and building the best combinations, then adds new layers of resource management and engine building to the mix — making the game easy to learn, but challenging for everyone! Think of Point City as a cross between Point Salad and Splendor – with elements of both.
Happy City (led by Sandy) 2021 entry level/gateway drafting and engine building game as players build their city as a tableau of 10 structures. Players collect income and then draft and pay for building cards, trying to maximize both their population and happiness – as those symbols get multiplied together at games end for their final scores. Bonus cards lead to player interaction in the race to earn them. This is an excellent game to introduce drafting games to non-gamers and to families.
Qwinto (led by K-ban) Not a city builder, but the clock dictated something short and easy to finish the evening. This 2015 roll & write has players taking turns rolling 3 different colored d6, with everyone trying to fill the rows on their score sheets with numbers as quickly — and as highly — as possible in order to score the most points.

The active player rolls 1–3 dice, with the dice being the same colors as the rows: orange, yellow, purple. Each player can place whatever sum is rolled into an empty shape in a row that matches the color of one of the dice. Two rules must be followed when placing a sum in a row:

  1. All numbers in a row must increase from left to right.
  2. No number can be repeated in a vertical column.

A player does not have to enter the number in a row, but if the active player, the one who rolled the dice, doesn’t do so, then they must mark a misthrow box on their scoresheet. The game continues until someone has filled two rows on their scoresheet or someone has tallied four misthrows. Players then tally their points: For each completed column on their scoresheet, a player scores points equal to the number in that column’s pentagon. For each completed row on their scoresheet, a player scores points equal to the rightmost number in that row. For each incomplete row on their scoresheet, a player scores one point per number in that row. For each misthrow, a player loses five points. High score wins. Previously only available as an import, Qwinto is now available from Pandasaurus Games.

11 at the UNO Park Community Center on the first of May for an evening of City Building games Our May 8 session will be both a request night and to celebrate games rated ‘8’ or above by BGG users on a date ending in an ‘8’.  Which games did our table leaders prepare for…

11 at the UNO Park Community Center on the first of May for an evening of City Building games Our May 8 session will be both a request night and to celebrate games rated ‘8’ or above by BGG users on a date ending in an ‘8’.  Which games did our table leaders prepare for…

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