Hi all - just a reminder, if you haven't already, to vote for which games will feature in the 2024 NPBGC Tournament.Those not entering the tournament are still encouraged to vote - we will all have the chance to play/discover these games when they feature during the lead-up to their tournament round.<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScUhWcVn7Sf-xzhP9viEuLqUWOiYcp6U_AGKoaOKQ_kzD5Uhw/viewform" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Use this link to cast your votes</a> - and let us know if you own any of the nominated games.

Tournament 2024 - reminder to vote!

We are now inviting entrants for the 2024 tournament. Entry is free for all club members. If you'd like to enter, please join the game entitled <a href="/games?game=clmyrlpzl01570fjlrw3rs579" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">2024 tournament sign-up</a> on <a href="/games" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Looking To Play</a>.The tournament is played over the course of the year. You will be drawn with different players in each of the 4 games, arranged within each group on a Thursday night that suits everyone in the group.For full details, please see the <a href="/tournament/2024" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">2024 tournament page here</a>.To nominate a game for the tournament, please use the <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxjZSxVdik_5XGmTeHW4l6yW2RjILiZkuwpxz6YzK8qWjOmA/viewform" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">form here</a>.

Tournament 2024 - sign up and nominate games

We played Bus at the expo and established that various games have got one or another of the rules wrong. So just to clarify ahead of the tournament games...You are allowed to have two buildings of the same type at the same intersection (this rule was played incorrectly in the game taught by me a few weeks ago).With the "extend line" action, you may only extend your line from one end or the other, not both (this rule was played incorrectly in at least one of the other games in the last few weeks).

Clarifications on the rules of Bus

The time has come for me to write about Mombasa, which my group played in the tournament this week. If we focus purely on the mechanics, this is a nice game, with some interesting bits like the resting decks; and the mix of ways to get points including things exclusive to you like the diamonds and books, and things that others can influence - namely the share prices.So far so good, but I felt it was let down - just like Alexander Pfister's other high-flyer (Great Western Trail) - by not being that well balanced. There are some ways to get points that are consistently better than others. In GWT, the best way to win is with the cows; in Mombasa, the best way to win is by [Ed's strategy]*. The rest of us knew this beforehand, I think, but failed to stop Ed doing it, so he won. These not-perfectly-balanced games are fine to play once in isolation, but they don't hold up so well when subjected to the practice they get for the tournament.My two games of Mombasa have established it alongside Vinhos as a game that I always finish second at. But unlike Vinhos, which I can happily play over and over regardless of the outcome, two goes at Mombasa is enough for me. That's partly because Mombasa is on the theme of European merchants exploiting Africa, which is not a role that I've ever fancied having a go at. But maybe in due course I'd try its sister game, Skymines, which uses similar mechanics in the (hopefully) less controversial setting of the Moon.Elsewhere, it was good to see the founding fathers at the next table, playing A Brief History Of The World; while around them the club was going from strength to strength, with its own tables and gaming mats, a refurbished upstairs room, the tournament in full swing, new members joining, and 7 full tables in play. When they first set up the club, way back when Brass was just a twinkle in Martin Wallace's eye, I guess they would have been happy with this outcome.With all the other tables I'm not sure I can give a full run-down, but other games I'm aware of were Darwin's Journey, Amerigo, Impression and Through The Desert - plus side-orders of Tsuro and Perudo.And there was a second game of Mombasa, which may or may not have been a tournament game, according to whether or not Karen knew it was happening. Ian is hoping it was the tournament game, having won. So Karen if you're around any time between now and August I'm sure the others will be glad to reschedule 🙂* Top-secret till the other tournament games are finished.

Well now that the tournament round is done, I'm guessing Ed's strategy was go heavy on diamonds. Andrew H did it too. Myself and Andrew T tried it, but less successfully, so we resorted to max out shares in one company and a bit of books respectively.

Yep. Mombasa aka. "Get Diamonds". Complicated rules with a very simple, single way to win. With Bus hopefully we will see the reverse.

27th Apr 2023 - Mombasa

We were treading the grapes in Portugal with Vital this week, for the richly thematic game of Vinhos. I'm not always a fan of the really heavy games, but in this case I find it works well: the game goes into enough detail to transplant you into the theme, mulling over your use of wineries, staff and barrels. You devote yourself to producing the finest wine in the heat of the September sun, and your brain gets utterly frazzled...I can't think of another game where the turn time increases as exponentially as this one. We rattled through the first "half" in no time, whereas by the last round I could have gone into the other room, joined a game there, finished it and been back in time for my next turn in Vinhos. But the other room had all gone home by then anyway. It's ironic that the choice of good options is so much larger in the first few rounds, and you can make the biggest impact on your ultimate score at that point; yet we all devote so much more time and effort to deciding between option A and option B at the end to gain an extra point or two. I've played this game many times and still not taught myself to do it the other way round.Vinhos has long been one of my favourite games, basically because I approach it the way I would approach actual wine making: sitting back while the sun sets on the Douro terraces, enjoying the ambience. So playing it in the tournament has come as a bit of a shock, as we end up scrutinising all the actions for the best possible way to score points, rather than just feeling good about producing top-quality wine. Even in very well-balanced games like this one, there is a best strategy, which the tournament manages to tease out. I was too distracted by the thematic immersion to focus on that, and I didn't win - but I did manage to produce two successive port wines of the highest possible quality at the end, which was more fun.I'm not sure if there's a record for most games played in a night at the club, but Table 4 surely broke it last night. They were up to 6 when I last checked, and may have got even further? Either way, The Resistance, Parade, Tsuro and an old favourite of mine - Cash &amp; Guns - were all ticked off while we edged through a couple of rounds of Vinhos. At the other table in the side room they also managed to get in 2 games: one was Barrage with the new Nile Affair expansion. I was curious to know how that went, but instead I was briefed in great detail on the numerous variants of Sudoku that Ed was playing on his phone during the downtime.Elsewhere in our room they were playing Faiyum, which is a game set in Ancient Egypt with crocodiles. Sounds fun, and possibly explains why there are no longer any crocodiles in the Sahara(?), as they get built over as the game progresses. And the last table were playing Paris, followed by a game called Garum that I'd never seen before. It's by a Portuguese designer who is not Vital Lacerda, about a fermented Portuguese export that is not wine. Garum is, or was, a celebrated fish sauce which the game blurb claims was a motivation for the Romans to conquer Lusitania. So long and thanks for all the fish. Anyway, the game itself is a nice little pattern-building / area-control combo about getting all the right fish. Personally I prefer wine, but I would like to try this one too.

Barrage - Nile Affair was a good game although that is mainly the Barrage bit and not really the expansion.  All of us probably preferred though game without this expansion although the change of map was nice.

Its main issue seems to step from the excessive points you can get from the irrigation tiles making it a necessity to try to either win a late one or come 2nd in a couple.

I do like Barrage the main game and want to play the original expansion again but not in a rush to do the Nile expansion.  That said I would not turn it down.

2nd Mar 2023 - Vinhos

Following a couple of drop-outs from this year's entry list, there are now 12 players in the tournament. So we have had to revise the draw to feature 3 groups per round, rather than 4.We have preserved the draw for Round 1 as far as possible: all groups who had already chosen a date to play have been preserved, and the players from the remaining group have been redistributed to fill the empty spaces in those groups. This has been done as randomly as possible given people's availability.The remaining rounds have been re-drawn, using the assignment to groups in Round 1 as the initial seed. The new draw covers Rounds 1-4, so no-one will be eliminated from the league until after Round 4. This rearrangement also means that the random "Space Available" slots are no longer available.The Tournament pages have been updated to reflect the new draw. The draw for Round 1 is below. These tournament games are also now in the In Queue section of the games page.Group I - 2nd March David K Robin Andrew H KarenGroup II - 23rd Feb Andrew T David A Paul T Dan MGroup III - 23rd Feb Ian Paul D Ed David H

Tournament Update

Hi - can anyone lend my group a copy of Vinhos for our tournament game on 2nd March please?

I think the two owners are Pedro and Dan M.  Although more did vote to say they had it

Hi,
I lent the club my copy for the tournment. My copy, I believe, is with Paul. If no one else uses my copy that day, you are free to use it. If you need any of my games (  Vital Lacerda or otherwise ;) )  , let me know and I'll gladly lend them to you.
Pedro Freitas

Thanks very much all - sounds like there should be one available at least!