Last night I went to Box for board games night there.  Nick, Peter, Brian, and myself played Timelines, a game of time travel to exploit markets.  I got a pretty good handle of end game conditions from the get go, but with the way the game was played there was no way to know what you would be able to do next turn.  Anyone could completely throw off your ability to do something, which would then make you waste more turns trying to get back to a state where you could do it, just to be foiled again.  If people were only trying to do what was best for themselves then this wouldn’t be a big issue, but it was so easy to block someone that you couldn’t finish the game.  It was especially true when there was one clear leader, which is the position I got into early on since I chose the specializing strategy, which paid off well in this game.  I still ended up winning by a large margin.

BGG Link Timelines

We also played Avalon last night, which was a good bit of fun.  We had up to 9 players in one game, and we also included many of the special characters.  I got to be a special character most of the time, which was really nice.  I won most of the games I was a part of, but in Avalon it is hard to make sure anything specific happens.  I did lose when I was Merlin, which was disheartening.  The guy playing Percival didn’t know what to do, so he didn’t back me up when I pointed out the bad guys I knew.  A suspicious play by Candice also made me think that she was Mordred when it was actually Adam.  All in all it is a well balanced game with a good bit of manipulation.

BGG Avalon