Raiders of the Games Cupboard - Part 1

On Saturday, I went to an event called Raiders of the Games Cupboard. This is a quarterly gathering of people with one thing in common - they love playing board games. I'll add a link to their website at the end of this, but in essence the day is just an excuse to hang out with friends and play lots and lots of games! I went along to this with my mate Adam, and played a grand total of 6 different games. The point of this post is to give a brief run down on those games, and to try and illustrate what sort of games are available for anyone wishing to try something a bit different!

Game 1: Agricola

Agricola is quite possibly the best game ever to be based on farming. Your objective in this game is to create and run the very best farm that you can, growing various crops and keeping herds of animals whilst at the same time fending off hunger by feeding your family. There are so many different things that you can do in this game that I'm not even going to attempt to explain it, as there are a great many parts to it that I don't even understand myself! However, I will say that there is an excellent adaption available on iOS, so if you have an iPad and want to see what all the fuss is about then I would check it out there.

So many pieces!

Adam, his wife Phillipa and their friend John are all experienced farmers, and are big fans of this game. They play it a lot, and have pretty much all the expansions that have been released. They know what to do, they know what the best moves are and can maximise the potential of the various cards they have been given. In short, they are good. I am not. This is my second attempt at Agricola (excepting playing against the computer on the iPad, as we all know that doesn't count!) and whilst I know the basic rules, I am always struggling to see more than one or two turns ahead. I was up against it from the off, but even in this illustrious company I didn't disgrace myself!

Scoring in Agricola happens at the end of the final turn, and you get points for all sorts of different areas. It is very difficult to see who has won until all scores have been added up, as most people pursue different strategies and are focusing on different things. The most important thing to note is that you lose points for having empty areas on your farm board, and you also lose points if you don't have any of a certain thing in your farm. Phil turned out to be the eventual winner, with a great score of 59 and a 5 point gap to John in 2nd place. My score was in the mid 30's (I can't remember exactly!) and as expected I was last by some distance. However, to my credit I filled my farm completely and only lost points in one of the many criteria, so I was quite pleased with how I played!

Overall, Agricola is a great game - however if you are interested in giving it a go I would direct you to the iPad version or to someone that you know who has it and can teach you, as there are a lot of intricacies that are difficult to understand  in the first few times you play. It is a much better experience if you are taught how it plays first.

Game 2: Princes of Florence

After lunch, and a little wander over to Spirit Games (the excellent board game shop in Burton upon Trent. If you're ever over that way I suggest you stop in!) we came back to the hall and set up the next game - Princes of Florence.

The rather more sparse set up for Princes of Florence.

This games sees you put in charge of one of the first families of Renaissance Florence. It is your job to raise the standing of your family by building a palace and hiring professions to work there. Each profession is attracted by a different combination of building, landscape and freedom - for example an Astronomer would dearly love a Tower in the Palace, whilst a Mathematician may be looking for Religious freedom instead. The more of the things a profession is looking for that you have in your palace, the more points you score for that profession.

You may think then that it is easy - just build a load of stuff and score big points for all the professions! No. There are limits to how many things you can do in a turn, and perhaps more crucially, some of the things you need can only be obtained at auction, so you will be competing with your fellow Princes to get hold of them. There is also a limited supply of each, so you can't be assured of getting what you need!

I have now played this game a few times, and I'm starting to get a decent grasp of the strategy needed to do well. In this particular game I think I pulled off a pretty convincing late run at the top, scoring 29 points with my final profession which gained my 14 extra Victory Points (each point a profession scores translates to 100 Florins, and every 200 Florins can be exchanged for 1 VP), seeing me end the game on 54VPs. However, my run to the top was foiled by Adam, who with final turn he picked up a Prestige card that gave him just enough VPs to get to 56. Missed out by 2 points!!!

Whereas Agricola would appeal to more hardcore boardgamers, I feel that Princes of Florence is one that anyone can enjoy. The rules are not that hard, it doesn't take long to play, and above all it looks pretty with all the pieces you get. A game I would happily play again.

Game 3: Tsuro

A rather beautiful game this one!

After two rather thought provoking games, something quicker was called for so I brought out Tsuro. As seen on the excellent TableTop YouTube channel  hosted by Wil Wheaton, this is a tile laying game where you try and navigate your way around the board without hitting either the edge or another player. There isn't an awful lot to explain with this game, except that there are 35 unique tiles and 36 spaces and that the last player standing is the winner!

I love this game. I only got it for my birthday in October, and this is the first time I've played it with more than just my wife and I, but already I think it is just fantastic. You have 3 tiles in your hand, so you have a little control over where your piece goes, but once the other players get near to you it is simply a case of survival rather than strategy. In this particular game Adam and Phil were joint winners, with Adam eliminating both of them on the 33rd tile to be played. I had ran into the board edge 1 tile previously, so it was pretty close again!


In the next post, which will hopefully be up tomorrow, I'll finish the rundown on this particular Raiders, with 3 more games to talk about. As always though, if you have any thoughts or would like any more info on these games, please let me know. I can be reached in the comments here, or on Twitter throught @Sandals_ajw

I'll leave you with some links:
Raiders of the Games Cupdoard site - http://www.raidersofthegamecupboard.co.uk/
Spirit Games (For all your board gaming needs!) - http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/
TableTop YouTube channel (The Tsuro episode especially) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMtlQxJeWvc
BoardGameGeek (Best place on the web for info on board games!) - http://boardgamegeek.com/