Cottage good

[dagibbs]

I spent last weekend at the cottage with some (9) friends. It was a really good, comfortable, relaxed time.


I've been doing these parties for a few years, now, and this felt (to me) liked the most relaxed and relaxing one so far. A few people are regulars and have gotten to know how things work; Rayne as usual is a great help in keeping things organised; con_girl and foms, with shopping help from ragnhildr organised one dinner, and part of another (in advance) and did the prep at the cottage, too, so I didn't always have to be worrying/planning the start of meals.

A bunch of gaming happened -- we discovered that, despite the small map, India Rails is a still a longish game. Maybe with more experience we'll get quicker. I got to play Traders of Genoa again -- I'd played it years ago at a con, and liked it, and have suggested it at a couple of gaming get-togethers, but we had someone at the cottage who'd played it and could explain the rules (thanks lj-less Michael), so we got a good game of it in. Also played includes (but is not limited to): Kill Doctor Lucky, Puerto Rico, Witch Trial, Dragon's Gold, and Kingdoms (Thank you jeffreyab for the gift of a copy of this, I was greatly surprised and pleased.).

The water was quite warm, probably the warmest of any year I've thrown this party, and much swimming enjoyment was had -- even I stayed in the water swimming for moderately extended periods of time on a few occasions. The weather was quite compatible, mostly sunny, not too hot, not too cold, and with one thunderstorm (and requisite power outage) for variety.



I seem to have gotten food levels mostly correct, not over or under-bought in general, though with a few specific variances that could probably be improved on.

• more tomatoes/person
  
• more bananas/person
  
• guacamole makings: avocado, cilantro
  
• more humus
  
• more snacky items/munchies [note: I made a conscious decision to be very light in my purchase of empty calorie snacks, for healthiness of diet reasons. Would having more carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumber slices and similar, along with more guacamole, humus, and similar satisfy this request?]
  
• sour cream
  

Water consumption for 10 people for about 3 days was about 65 litres -- very close to the 2 liters/person/day that I used as my estimate. I'm still happy to over-purchase on this.

Supplies from cottage consumed, or wanting additions:

• broken flashlight
  
• aluminum foil
  
• white/all purpose flour
  
• raisins
  
• second juice pitcher
  
• glass measuring cup that is legible
  
• new dry measuring cups
  
• a copy of Scrabble
  
• lamp oil/kerosene in case of power outages [or find out where stored]
  
• vacuum cleaner was broken/not working?
  
• [edit]pool noodles have suffered some damage, more might be wanted [/edit]
  

A couple to-dos that I'd like to get to:

• cutting and chopping the pile of logs into firewood [help dad]
  
• repainting deck: Rayne may help, ask parents about it, and about colour
  

Comments

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

I think that guac., humus and bean dip as well as different types of tortilla chips (blue corn) would be good.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Ok, and that fits within my "try for healthy food" view, too.

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

wot? no pool noodles on the list?

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Well, if you didn't keep breaking them...

[theobviousname.livejournal.com]

Good to hear you guys had a great time; I'm sorry we didn't make it.

Amusingly, however, on Saturday Manuela's friends took us out for dim sum - to a place on Somerset, on the north-west corner a block west of Bronson. We got out of the restaurant, and I took a look around and said "hey, this street looks familiar." So we walked up and gawked at your house for a few minutes. :)

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Was it up stairs, around a circular staircase? That would be the Chu-shing (often known as "the restaurant formerly known as the Fuliwa", cause it used to be called that, and it has taken a while to remember the new name).

I, too, am sorry you didn't make it.

[theobviousname.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the place exactly.

What's the story with India Rails? Any reason why it might have taken so long? I've never seen it, so I've never had a chance to scope it out, but each of the rails games seems to have a slightly different dynamic. For example, Eurorails is all about efficient routing, Aussierails is about sustainable growth and Nippon Rails is constrained by affordable routes.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure on India Rails. We did have one player who had never played a crayon rail game, so there was some time spent on rules, but not enough to account for 7 hours. There was a fair bit of extra time spent figuring what came from where, and where the various cities were, and I think possibly some of the floods, are a bit nastier -- there seem to be more rivers, and at least the Ganges gets crossed a LOT. (I haven't played Aussie or Nippon rails.) I think India rails might have been missing the doable smaller loads that allow you to run a lot of double-loaded runs or something, and it felt like there were more single-source goods than the others I've played (Eurorails and Iron Dragon).

[theobviousname.livejournal.com]

Nippon rails is a good challenge for experienced players. It is *very* constrained, and you always have to be careful where you build. There are 4 islands in Japan (Honshu - the main one, Hokkaido - the big one up north, Kyushu - south, and Kitakyushu - tucked between Honshu and Kyushu) and there are major cities on 3 of them, which means all players must be able to connect. However, there are only 5 ways to access Hokkaido, and 5 to access Kyushu (2 of which run through Kitakyushu which itself only has 3 accesses from Honshu). So fairly often someone will try to build, only to be told "You can't do that - you're blocking me."

Add in a mountainous terrain, a long, narrow board (the cheapest connection between any 2 major cities is Osaka-Tokyo along the coast for 29) and you have a challenging game. But fun. :)

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Nippon rails does sound interesting. Do you have a feel for the playing time, though?

[theobviousname.livejournal.com]

It'll take longer than a game of Eurorails, especially on a first attempt. (You'll spend the first half dozen turns - at least - learning where the cities in Japan are! :) It seemed that railbuilding expenses were higher (longer runs, more mountains, more ferries and ocean crossings) but since it's a skinny map it drops off faster toward the end.

Depending on the players, it can also be pretty cutthroat. (For a meagre investment of 2, you can force someone who was building for the land crossing to Fukuoka to detour via the ferry, if they have enough money!) Of course, that kind of play will slow the game down...

For beginners, add 50% to the playing time for Eurorails; for experienced players, it's probably more like 25%.