Today was the last day of classes. Only four finals and a writing competition stand between me and the end of the first year of law school. Yay! Except for the finals and writing competition part.
I've been elected the new president of the Columbia Strategic Simulations Society, which sounds impressive until you realize that "Columbia Strategic Simulations Society" is a fancy name for Board Game Club and I was elected by acclamation (that is, nobody else ran for the position). Anyhow, I'm handling the club meeting tonight, our last of the year, and I'll be bringing the games. Here's the game list for the evening:
Twilight Imperium, 3rd Edition
The Settlers of Catan
Tsuro
YINSH
Domaine
Santiago
Puerto Rico
Ticket to Ride: Europe
The Traders of Genoa
Louis XIV
Blue Moon
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation
Powergrid
Ra
Carcassonne (With The Count of Carcassonne Expansion)
Entdecker
Hopefully that'll be enough variety, in terms both of play depth and number of players, to keep everyone entertained for a few hours.
A final note, tomorrow is apparently Blog Against Heteronormativity Day. I'd certainly like to participate, though I'm not sure if I have much unique or interesting to add to the subject. Still, I'll try to think of something useful to say. I also thought there might be some readers who'd be interested in the war of internet screeds against heteronormativity.
great1 i'm adding you to the list!
I played Ticket to Ride: Europe recently! It was fantastic, although I think it would be better with fewer players than we had (four individual people and one team of two). Man. I should be in a board game club. Maybe I'll join one, if I can find one that's nice about people being rank amateurs and slow on strategy. Any suggestions in Berkeley?
T2R: Europe, I've found, works pretty well with just about any number, though teams tend to slow any game down a lot.
Looking at Games of Berkeley's web site, it looks like they have a Eurogames Tuesday event where, at a minimum, games like Settlers and Carcassonne are played. You might try joining in there; I'd imagine the store employees who run it would be friendly and patient (they want you to have a good time so that you'll buy games, after all), and from there you can get to know the regulars.
My friend Tom, President Emeritus of CSSS, goes to a bi-weekly Eurogames meeting at a big game store around here, Neutral Ground, and has met a lot of neat people through that. I get the feeling that Eurogame players tend to be a little more sociable and friendly to inexperienced people than some of the other gaming hobbyists.