&games

A new edition of Monopoly is out. It's called Monopoly Here and Now.

It follows closely on the heels of the electronic, debit-card Monopoly.

Times Square takes the place of Boardwalk. Fenway Park(?) is where Park Place used to be. Jacobs Field in Cleveland and Dallas' Texas Stadium are on the low end properties. The Grand Ole Opry, Gateway Arch, and Golden Gate Bridge are among the other properties.

Personally, I would have placed the Una-Bomber's cabin on the low end, along with Osama's cave. The Clinton Library would be in the light blue properties. The Vietnam War Memorial would have been included somewhere in my version, as would Ground Zero. I would probably keep the Opry.

And the top property in Coldfoot-opoly? The elusive EIB building.

But the truth be told, not only will I not be buying any version of Monopoly anytime soon, I wouldn't even play my version.

*All the information provided was gleaned from Erik Arneson at About Board/Card Games.

I have played more of the nominees for the Boardgamegeek "Game of the Year" than I thought possible. I've played 11 of the 15 nominees in the "Gamers Games" category. I found none of the nominees in the "Gamers Games" category to be outstanding, although Reef Encounter might achieve that status if I can play a few more games.

Here's how I voted,
note: I doubt my votes coincide with my current rating on BGG.

1. Reef Encounter
2. TI3
3. Railroad Tycoon
4. Descent
5. Thurn and Taxis
6. Caylus
7. Louis XIV
8. Shadows Over Camelot
9. Tempus
10. Hacienda
11. Elasund

Here are my top 7 games in the "Family" category.

1. Niagara
2. T2R: Europe
3. Railroad Tycoon
4. Thurn and Taxis
5. Ingenious
6. Manila
7. Shadows Over Camelot

And in the "Wargame" category I've played 6 of the 15 nominees. Here I Stand is the only game in any of the categories I find to be truly outstanding.

1. Here I Stand
2. Command and Colors
3. Conquest of the Empire
4. TI3
5. Crusader Rex
6. Twilight Struggle

To cast your vote click here.

As the leaves fall away what do they reveal?



And just a few trees over.


Been a bad year for bees and other stinging insects in the interior of Alaska. Fifty people die every year in America from bee/wasp/hornet/etc. stings. This year two of those deaths were in Fairbanks. The odds of that have to be pretty astronomical. Am told that after the first guy died the Emergency Room was swamped with bee sting patients.

I've been stung twice this year myself. These two nests in my yard are about 25' high. Couldn't see them until the leaves started falling. Had swarms of stinging critters hanging around my porch this year, couldn't figure out where they were coming from. After a couple more hard frosts these trees are coming down.

Vinci with the teleport rule, that is. (Shivers up spine.)

Apparently some ne'er-do-well rules lawyer noted that the rules of Vinci did not prevent a player from picking all his units off the board and re-entering from a different side.

This variant was used as an official rule at the World Boardgaming Championships recently. A friend of mine played in the Vinci tourney at WBC and thought the variant was interesting enough to try.

He was wrong.

Basically the variant adds too much time and chaos to an otherwise well balanced multi-player game. The teleport rule allows everybody to gang up on the leader with pinpoint attacks, while earning very few points themselves. Vinci already has serious "king maker" problems out of the box and needs house rules to fix the end game, and the teleport rule exacerbates that problem.

Oh. Bad connection.