Gaming with the Arizona Boardgamers (Night 1)

I was able to stay awake late enough tonight to join the Arizona Boardgamers at Gamer's Edge in Chandler. It was a fun, welcoming crowd and I look forward to seeing some of them again tomorrow. I'll give a quick rundown of the games with some pictures.

Tycoon

My first play of this game, and I enjoyed it very much. Players are tycoons jetting from major city to city to build hotels, factories, gaining money in a number of ways:

• Having the highest or second-highest number of hotels in a city.
• Having factories in a city.
• Having a broad distribution of presence in the 9 cities.
• Bonus points for having factories in the city with the most number of hotels built out.

Hotels are worth more in some cities than in others. One interesting mechanic - the more built out a city gets, the more money the leaders in that city get, up to a point at which their value degrades (over-crowding I suppose). Fun game - it flowed quickly and had a diversity of methods to score.

Jeff won, followed by Junior, Chris, and Rob.

Java

Steve, Jason, and someone else that left early played Java. I don't think they finished the game, but I think Steve was in the lead when they had to stop.

New England

There were six of us left at this point, so we split into two groups of three. Jason, Steve, and I decided to play New England. This one surprised me - I enjoyed it and look forward to playing it again. I started developing quickly and raced to a substantial lead, but Steve's plan to build an early income source by choosing villagers and using his cash to develop valuable properties in the mid- and end-game. Steve won, with Jason and I finishing very close.

Anno 1452

Junior, Jeff, and Rob played this game, which I had never seen before tonight. The board reminds me of Wallenstein, and Rob Smolka even referred to it as "Wallenstein Lite". I left before the game finished, but they looked like they were enjoying themselves.