Games during NaBloPoMo

Well, this year's NaBloPoMo is basically complete, and I haven't posted much about games during November, 2010. I'd be remiss if I let the month go without some significant mention of gaming, since it definitely is one of my biggest recreational activities, and the way I see many of my friends.

The month started with a small Texas Hold'em Poker night. Our typical Hold'em nights have been on Saturdays, and we almost always play two. This time, we played on a Thursday, so the Dudes could not stay as late. We played one game. [Don won.] There were only six of us, and we all kept chips for a surprisingly long time. Lots of cautious play. I hope we can do this again before too far into 2011. One game just didn't seen like enough. Still, it was a fun Dude Night.

And the four of us who decided we could stay up a little longer played some Guitar Hero. I only own Guitar Hero because it was a way to get instruments for Beatles: Rock Band, but the Dudes have been patient in playing Beatles music with me, so I figured this time the supplemental Guitar Game could be one which had music they knew better.


Ticket to Ride: Europe was the game of choice for the second Dude Night of the month. Only four of us could make the night, and Eric arrived late, so we started the evening playing a little Super Mario Bros Wii. Don has always enjoyed the arcade style (scrolling, 2D) Mario games, and this is one that can be played cooperatively. I don't know why I never thought to play it with the Dudes before, but we had some fun bouncing off each other, teaching the new players to Bubble to safety and so on.

And, once Eric arrived, we went downstairs to one of Sherry's crafting tables, which is also a perfect gaming table for a big game like TtR:E, and proceeded to have Eric beat us at two consecutive games. Ticket to Ride: Europe is such a fun game. As I've discussed before, I really enjoy games that allow all of the players to make progress towards goals, even if they don't win. Eurorails and Ticket to Ride games are great examples of this type of game.

My personal gaming has been mostly Civilization IV with the Beyond the Sword expansion Mike gave me last Christmas. I've bumped the difficulty up high enough now that it is really a challenge. I've had to abandon (concede) two recent games because I had not planned well enough in the early stages of my civilization. In one, I had even run out of money (something I never do at lower difficulty settings) so my people would not work for me. I need to learn more about what items in the game cost me money later on, and I need to ensure I build enough revenue-producing features early. In easier difficulty settings, growing population was the key, but I think in this higher difficulty setting, I need to balance population growth with commerce, and I'm not nearly as proficient with that as I was in Civ III. I enjoy the challenge of learning this complex game.