November 6 2002 RussCon Report

News

Dan posted to the russcon mailing list that (given his last week's costume), "In hindsight, I guess I should've called my character Sid Saxon." So what a sad irony it is that on the day of the following week's RussCon (November 6), Sid Sackson passed away. Sackson designed many classic games, including RussCon games: Acquire, Can't Stop, Buried Treasure, Samarkand, Metropolis, Executive Decision, Gold Connection, Kohle Kie$ & Knete, Domination, and even a game or two from his book Gamut of Games. Heck, even if the classic Acquire was his only game, he'd be famous at RussCon. Acquire's one of my favorite games, and it was Avalon Hill's game that was continuously in print the longest. Its stock certificate mechanics influenced many later games.

The Celtic Festival was great fun except for the fact that there was cold rain all weekend. I'd decided I'd go to the Houston go tournament if the weather sucked, but the predictions I saw kept saying it would probably be ok. Oh well. I hear JP won his handicap band in Houston. But I'm still glad I stayed in Austin for the Celtic Fest because there was some really great music (I especially enjoyed The Killdares, Jiggernaut, and Maggie Drennon), even if I did have to stand around in cold rain all weekend. The Killdares may become my new favorite live band, once Clandestine retires from that honor. They had me dancing for an hour in the cold rain Sunday night in the last set of the weekend.

And today (Friday November 8) is the penultimate Clandestine concert in Austin! (Not the last concert, as previously reported; apparently they will be back in January.) My current thinking is to hit the later show this Friday, deviating from normal strategy, just 'cause I tend to work late on Fridays these days.

Game Results

LaCitta	4	RussD 3 Daniel 1 RussW -1 Steve -3
Tichu	2	( Dan Ben ) 1 ( Whendy Zack ) -1
GangOf4	4	Chad 3 Marty 1 JonathanC -1 JimG -3
WhatsThatOnMyHead	5	Ben 4 Dan 0 MarkY 0 Zack 0 Whendy -4
GangOf4	4	JeffF 3 Clay 1 Matt -1 JP -3
Transamerica	4	JimG 3 Chad 1 Marty -1 JonathanC -3
Cloud9	4	MarkY 3 Whendy 1 Ben -1 Dan -3
Exxtra	4	Ben 3 Whendy 1 William -1 MarkY -3
Carcassonne	4	Chad 3 Marty 1 JonathanC -1 Clayton -3
PuertoRico	5	Daniel 4 RussW 2 Steve 0 JonathanC -2 Whendy -4
Settlers	4	Chad 3 MarkY 0 William 0 Clayton -3
Outpost	5	Zack 4 JimG 2 JP 0 JeffF -2 Matt -4
Guillotine	2	Chad 1 MarkY -1
Cribbage	2	MarkY 1 Whendy -1
Transamerica	5	RussW 4 Zack 2 JP 0 Chad -2 Daniel -4
Bluff	6	RussW 5 JP 3 MarkY 1 Zack -1 Daniel -3 Chad -5

I'd been interested in La Citta for a long time and finally got to play it. It's enjoyable but long. I'll play it again.

Puerto Rico continues to inspire much debate about the best strategies. It's cool that there's no clear answers. This game, Daniel got no quarries, and based on past experience I thought he would be at a great disadvantage... but his hacienda and hospice combo worked great. Meanwhile I had 3 quarries, and both markets and an office, so I bought plenty of buildings (and ended the game by filling my city), but came in 2nd place... by just 2 points! If you haven't tried this game yet, you really should. It's most excellent.

Transamerica continues to be the current popular short quick fun game. Check it out if you haven't already. It's a train game even William likes!

Gang of 4 is allegedly some Tichu-like game, which is enough to send me reeling in fear and loathing.

Meta Game

JeffF was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:

Hurry Up and Move Already!

Please record the time taken to play each of the games at RussCon this week, and the suggested time on the box. For each game played, players in the game will receive meta points according to the following scale where sgt is suggested game time and ygt is your game time:

ygt <= sgt: +2
sgt < ygt <= 1.1 sgt: 0
1.1 sgt < ygt <= 1.2 sgt: -1
1.2 sgt < ygt <= 1.3 sqt: -2
1.3 sqt < ygt <= 1.4 sgt: -3
1.4 sgt < ygt <= 1.5 sgt: -5
1.5 sgt < ygt <= 1.6 sgt: -8
1.6 sgt < ygt <= 1.7 sgt: -13
...

Your meta points will be averaged over all games played. You don't have to do these calculations, just record the game length and suggested length. If there is a range of suggested length, record the range and the range of players the game accomodates. I'll interpolate over the range according to the number of players. For example, Titan lists a time of 2-12 hours and a number of players of 2-6. If you play a 2 player game of Titan, sgt would be 2 hours. If you played a 4 player game it would be 6 hours.

The winner will be the person with the highest score who wants to be meta devil next week. Please record game times even if you're not interested in being metadevil, because I think it will produce interesting results.

(There was minor confusion on the mailing list about the formula, especially as -13 was originally typoed as -11, but it is indeed the Fibonacci sequence.) The results were graciously and efficiently calculated by JeffF as follows:

William +2 +2	4/2 = 2
MarkY +2 +2 +2 +2 -3	5/5 = 1
Whendy -2 +2 +2 +2	4/4 = 1
Ben -2 +2 +2	2/3 = 0.67
Clayton -1 +2	1/2 = 0.5
Dan -2 +2	0/2 = 0
Steve -3 +2	-1/2 = -0.5
Zack -2 +2 -5 -3	-8/4 = -2
Daniel -3 +2 -5 -3	-9/4 = -2.25
RussW -3 +2 -5 -3	-9/4 = -2.25
RussD -3	-3/1 = -3
Chad -832040 -1 +2 +2 -5 -3	-832045/6 = -138674.17
JonathanC -832040 -1 +2	-832039/3 = -277346.33
JimG -832040 +2	-832038/2 = -416019
Marty -832040 -1	-832041/2 = -416020.5
JP -165580141 +2 -5 -3	-165580147/4 = -41395036.75
JeffF -165580141 +2	-165580139/2 = -82790069.5
Matt -165580141 +2	-165580139/2 = -82790069.5
Clay -165580141	-165580141/1 = -165580141

Cribbage and What's That on My Head? were not counted since they don't have a time limit on the box. Does Settlers really say 2 hours? I have my doubts. Results of 8 people were greatly skewed by Gang of 4 being listed at 20 minutes. I think it should be closer to an hour, but like many card games should really be a per hand time estimate, as the game could theoretically last anywhere from 2 to 133 hands. Mark is ahead of Whendy for playing more games under expected time. William is the metadevil if he wants it.

I feel confident William will accept the honor of being Meta Devil and design next week's Meta Game.

...especially since I'm making a further enhancement to the rewards of Meta Deviltry: The Meta Devil gets full table rights, just like a regular Devil from now on, so they could stake out the dining table or the kitchen table. Of course Vice-Devils continue to get secondary dibs on the tables if no higher-ranking Devil or Meta Devil takes a table.

Ratings

New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:   
 3.6889 40.0000 RussW (4)
 3.2834 26.6667 Ben (4)
 2.7726 16.0000 Chad (7)
 1.3863 4.0000 RussD (1)
 1.3218 3.7500 Zack (5)
 0.6931 2.0000 JeffF (2)
 0.6931 2.0000 JimG (3)
 0.4055 1.5000 Clay (1)
 0.4055 1.5000 Marty (3)
 0.2877 1.3333 MarkY (7)
-0.4055 0.6667 William (2)
-0.4700 0.6250 JP (4)
-0.5108 0.6000 Daniel (4)
-0.6931 0.5000 Dan (3)
-1.3863 0.2500 Steve (2)
-2.0149 0.1333 Matt (2)
-2.7726 0.0625 Clayton (2)
-2.8904 0.0556 JonathanC (4)
-3.7942 0.0225 Whendy (6)

New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
 4.1589 64.0000 Chad won 4 of 7
 3.4012 30.0000 Ben won 3 of 4
 2.8904 18.0000 RussW won 2 of 4
 1.3863 4.0000 RussD won 1 of 1
 1.1632 3.2000 JeffF won 1 of 2
 0.9163 2.5000 Daniel won 1 of 4
 0.8755 2.4000 JimG won 1 of 3
 0.4055 1.5000 MarkY won 2 of 7
 0.2877 1.3333 Zack won 1 of 5
 0.1823 1.2000 Dan won 1 of 3
-0.2877 0.7500 Clay won 0 of 1
-0.5108 0.6000 Steve won 0 of 2
-0.5108 0.6000 Matt won 0 of 2
-0.5754 0.5625 William won 0 of 2
-0.5754 0.5625 Clayton won 0 of 2
-0.8630 0.4219 Marty won 0 of 3
-0.9163 0.4000 JP won 0 of 4
-1.0862 0.3375 JonathanC won 0 of 4
-2.4079 0.0900 Whendy won 0 of 6

Chad, Ben, and I are Co-Devils! Whendy was the Generous Angel!

November 6 2002 RussCon Report

News

Game Results

Meta Game

Evening's Soundtrack

Ratings

Links