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by Daniel Berger.
Original Post: Tacticon 2008
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This year's Tacticon has come and gone. Here's the rundown:
Friday
I started with a game of Agricola. It's an interesting variant of a slew of other Eurogames. It's basically a resource management game, though the Occupations and Improvements add a level of interest (and randomness) that doesn't exist in many other Euro's. Verdict: Good, but not great.
Next up, after wasting a couple of hours due to a typo in the schedule, was Colosseum. I'm not sure how to describe it other than a Roman themed economic/resource game. Verdict: Not bad given the cool theme and short playing time, but nothing to get excited about.
Last up for the night was die Siedler von Nürnberg (Settlers of Nuremberg). This is a variant of Settlers of Catan, but adds a city, roads and tolls. The problem, beyond the fact that one of the players was overanalyzing the map every turn, is that you can get into a vicious cycle where you start losing cards because you can't pay the tolls, and you can't pay the tolls because you can't hang onto your cards. Verdict: Didn't like it.
Saturday
This was the day for the Hannibal tournament, a game which I've played several times previously. My first opponent was a newbie who had never played before. He enjoyed the game and nearly pulled off an upset when he actually killed Hannibal on turn 4. But, his inexperience, not to mention some heavy casualties he took earlier, kept me in the game and he eventually conceded we it was clear that he just wasn't going to get out of Italy.
We skipped the semi-finals (one of the winners disappeared, and another had to move onto another game) so we went straight to the finals round. I was Hannibal again. I was more careful with Hannibal this time, and drove further south, generally running amok through central Italy. My opponent conceded on turn 7 when Hannibal defeated Scipio Africanus, who was trying to break the siege of Rome.
Verdict: I'm the Tacticon 2008 Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage Champ! Woohoo!
Continuing with the Roman theme, I next played Struggle for Rome, which is a Roman themed variant of Settlers of Catan. This one was definitely the most radical departure from the standard game that I've seen. It was interesting, even if we were all a little confused by the rules at first. Verdict: Different. Weird. Kinda fun, but ultimately felt a little hollow.
The last game of the night was a oldie but a goodie called Nuclear War, which is a goofy card game where you, well, nuke your opponents. Verdict: Ah, just like old times.
Sunday
I only scheduled one game for this day, Advanced Civilization. This an Avalon Hill classic that I don't think I've played since college, mostly because it's hard to find a group of players willing to dedicate 6-8 hours to playing it. This game had six players - Thrace (me), Egypt, Crete, Italy, Asia,and Babylonia (the judge).
Technically I took 2nd place, but since the actual winner was the judge (who's not allowed to win), I was the "official" winner of the game. It was actually pretty close, but the difference was that I got nailed with an early Civil War calamity, whereas Babylonia was was relatively unscathed for nearly all of the early turns. Verdict: Hooray for 2nd 1st place!
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