Naturelich Games

It's been the last weekend in February. Still winter time in Germany. Cold weather and some snow. Ideal conditions for a couple of board games. Hehe. Actually, we were able to try one of Shelak's olders game: La Citta, designed by Gerd Fenchel and published by Kosmos in 2000.

La Cittá

The game board is a huge map of an medieval Italian landscape. Players place hexagonal pieces on the board to expand their two cities to attract larger populations. In the process, one has to build farms to feed the people, quarries to digg for gold and bath houses or fountains to keep the population healthy (this last one is also used to avoid ugly smells that are exhibited by a special collector's edition of the game --- no, just kidding). Once the cities of two players have grown close to one another, the inhabitants might decide to change sides. This depends on the population's current needs and the other city's attractiveness in terms of culture, health and education.

The tricky thing for me was to get the right balance between building farms and expanding my population. If you are the mayor in an over-populated city where food supplies are scarce it can be pretty tough. The game punishes this enormously by reducing the very limited number of actions a player has each turn. My population was far too large in the end game which deducts a huge amount of victory points. Shelak was the winner as he kept the number of farms and his population balanced. While I had a wonderful gold supply he was the one with a lot farms. Raven was "fighting" against Shelak's biggest city right from the start and did a great job. She came out pretty well. In the end, I think this was a long but very fun game which I hope to play again, soon.

Blue Moon: The Pillar vs. The Flit
After finishing La Città we continued with a couple of two-player games. We decided for Blue Moon, which Shelak and I had never played before, together. We both bought a copy of the game and some expansions after Essen 2004 (where Kosmos was promoting it pretty intensely) but never got much of a chance to compete. Shelak played The Flit, while I was starting with The Pillar. During the first couple of fights, The Pillar had a head start. Their special cards that require the opponent to discard a certain number of cards helped me a lot in this and thinks were really looking good. It is always fun to bug your opponent with this. The Pillar were able to win the first crystal, but during the next fights The Flit proved their full power. Shelak was playing their particular advantages (paired boosters and retrievable characters) pretty well and I did not have much of a chance. My draw deck simply was exhausted far too quickly. As a result The Flit won 2:1. A victory well deserved.

Die Dolmengötter
Next up were a couple of games of Die Dolmengötter. This game from Thomas Odenhaven works particularly well in a two-player setting. It was very enjoyable and we enjoyed two really close games. To compensate for Shelak's other victories this evening, Naturelich was the lucky winner this time. I left way, way after midnight. It was a wonderful evening! I like winter for these great board game sessions, but I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit of spring...