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2004-02-25 RussCon Report

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News

13 of us played 9 games... 10 if you count Insecta, which was not recorded because it's more of an experiential roleplaying insect wargame kind of thing which JimG gamemastered, and all the players (who were insects) died trying to escape the hive.

Game Results

ArkOfTheCovenant5JP 4 Clayton 2 Marty 0 Whendy -2 RussW -4
Transamerica6JP 5 Clayton 3 JimG 1 Whendy -3 RussW -3 Jeffles -3
Tichu2( MarkG MarkH ) 1 ( Ben KevinU ) -1
HoneyBears3RussW 2 JP 0 Jeffles -2
MasterLabyrinth3RussW 2 Clayton 0 MarkG -2
RicochetRobot3MarkY 2 Ben 0 KevinU -2
TracksToTelluride3JimG 2 JP -1 Jeffles -1
Tichu2( Ben MarkY ) 1 ( KevinU William ) -1
Bluff5Jeffles 4 MarkY 2 William 0 RussW -2 JP -4

Ark of the Covenant is the latest Carcassonne game. It is more similar to the traditional Carcassonne games than is the recent Knizia-designed Castle version. Fields work like Hunters and Gatherers. Temples work interestingly differently. And there is the Ark, which you can move up to 5 spaces instead of placing a meeple (aka dude), earning one point for each meeple the Ark reaches on its little journey. This adds an interesting more explicit baseline amount of points you can expect to earn per turn, i.e. it's usually pretty easy to pick up 3 points or so just by moving the Ark.

HoneyBears, a RussCon classic, hadn't been played in a while, but Jeffles revived interest in it and the beloved red bear won 2 out of 3 races.

Tracks To Telluride is a Winsome train game, which I believe is a predecessor version (or maybe a later version) of their Colorado Rails, both concerning 1800s railroad expansion in Colorado, and both including a certain delightfully named town. (Old-timers may recall when Randy ejaculated "I can't reach Climax!" as he laid track in Colorado Rails.)

A reminder: please write and spell clearly when recording game results, especially concerning Marks (the book had a spurious MarkS and an ambiguous Mark this week...)

Ratings

Rank Ratings:       
 2.4849 MarkY
 1.6094 Clayton
 1.3863 JP
 1.3863 JimG
 0.6931 MarkH
 0.0000 Marty
 0.0000 Ben
-0.4055 MarkG
-0.5878 Jeffles
-0.6931 William
-0.7985 RussW
-1.3863 Whendy
-2.4849 KevinU
 
Win Ratings:
 2.3671 JP won 2 of 5
 1.5686 MarkY won 2 of 3
 1.5686 RussW won 2 of 5
 0.9163 JimG won 1 of 2
 0.6931 MarkH won 1 of 1
 0.6162 Jeffles won 1 of 4
 0.2877 MarkG won 1 of 2
-0.2231 Marty won 0 of 1
-0.4055 Ben won 1 of 3
-0.4055 Whendy won 0 of 2
-0.8109 Clayton won 0 of 3
-0.9163 William won 0 of 2
-1.7918 KevinU won 0 of 3

JP and MarkY are Co-Devils! Clayton, JimG, and RussW are Vice-Co-Devils.

If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.

I used GraphViz to generate the graph image.

 devil graph

Meta Game

Jeffles was the Meta Devil and mailed out the following Meta Game:

- send me 5 numbers

Alright, anyone who wants to participate, email or send me five numbers (positive whole integers)
Whoever gets the lowest unique number is next weeks meta devil.

No presence at russcon is necessary, although I will be asking those present to submit entires.
Only 1 entry per person, you may submit less than 5 numbers.

An example:
A: 1 5 7 17 22
B: 1 2 3 4 5
C: 3 6 9 12 15
D: 2 4 6 8 10

Winner is A with 7.
1-6 were submitted by multiple people, only one person send 7.

18 people participated (including several in-person entries); Jeffles reckoned the results as follows (I changed email addresses to RussCon nicknames in the results Jeffles emailed me):

Marty      1   4   6   19  22
PJ         3   12  17  19  42
Jay        3   7   21  42  117
Whendy     10  11  12  13  14
BradS      10  11  12  13  14
Mark (G?)  11  13  15  17  19
Alfred     5   7   11  13  17
RussW      1   4   11  18  36
Ben        7   12  16  21  25
Justin     2   3   6   10  11
William    12  18  43  71  97
Clay       2   3   5   8   13
Matt       4   6   9   12  15
MarkH      5   7   11  13  17
Jim G      7   11  12  13  14
Kevin (U?) 9   10  11  12  13
Mark Y     6   9   12  14  16
JP         1   5   9   11  28

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 22 25 28 36 42 43 71 97 117
3 2 4 3 4 4 5 1 4 4  9  9  8  4  2  2  4  2  3  2  1  1  1  1  2  1  1  1  1

Odd: 47
Even: 38

Any errors in recording or scoring are tough noogies. An interesting coincidence is that Whendy and BradS apparently picked the same numbers, and JimG and Kevin both picked 4 of those same numbers. 11, 12, 13 sure are popular! I wasn't surprised to see 17 popular (hence I picked 18), but I expected more than two 42 picks... Interesting that 2 almost won! As you can see, the lowest unique number was 8, submitted by Clay, so Clay is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!

Evening's Soundtrack

Beethoven, Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8
Fluffy, 5 live
Fortran 5, Bad Head Park
Mahler, Symphony No. 5
Slaughterhouse 5, Wide Open

Another of those pesky meta themes!

Links

Michigan Representative John D. Dingell's letter to Dr. Gregory Mankiw concerning the Economic Report of the President, and the apparent consideration of burger flipping jobs as manufacturing jobs.

Casshern is a Japanese movie with a cool looking trailer

Fun game: Construct words from language codes ... I earned 9 points with fikameleonoetinas... as I write this, I've been bested by n_true who got 14 points with Rumschokoladensoßenfabriken...

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