DOAMcon IV was a great way to close out the summer with 5 days of board games and friends!
August was a great month and there was no better way to close it out than going to DOAMcon 2024. 5 days – 25 games – 19 Unique Titles – 3 Escape Rooms (that wasn’t official DOAMcon, but we snuck out for a break). It was a great time to meet with friends (new and old) and get to play board games.
I was excited to play titles familiar to me, new to me, and one’s that I haven’t played in a long time. And I wanted to share my experience, especially when it came to first impressions on some of the new games.
Day One
The Afternoon
The first day covered five different titles, most of them relatively quick games. We started off with Prussian Rails which is one of my favorite cube rails. It is insanity drive by the luck of the draw. Randomness? In my train game? Apparently that one is a yes please. Which is honestly surprising because that is not normally what I look for in train games.
The excitement Prussian Rails provides is the unknown turn order that is decided by pulling tokens from a bag. And the number of tokens in the bag is skewed based on player position – doing well? You less opportunities to get a turn. Doing poorly? You get more opportunities. But having opportunities doesn’t mean getting them. And some players will not be happy having the most opportunities and getting none.
To continue the games of randomly pulling things from a bag, we then switched to Spectaculum. Was this intentional? No. But we wanted a sweet and short game to get in before dinner. And Spectaculum fits the bill, it’s a 5 minute teach and maybe a 30-ish minute game. Perfect for something to fill a short amount of time.
The Evening
After getting some tasty food, we pulled out Ritual for a three-player game. Now this game is a little more interesting in terms of background because it is not a published game, but it sure looks like one (minus some typos). It does look like the game got an art update and publisher since the version we purchased though – and I am extremely excited about this!
At three players, this was a fun cooperative game to play in complete silence with no emotions on our faces whatsoever. It was interesting trying to figure out (and accomplish) what each players goals were based on the actions they took. Especially since one player’s actions could be going against what another wants. But you can’t show that! And you must move quick with the timer ticking down. It’s something that I really want to play again, and I was sad we didn’t get in more plays during DOAMcon.
Then we switched to play a quick game of New York Central. I think I was trying to stick to relatively short games just because the travel exhaustion was always looming in the background. NYC is always a quick and sweet game with some fun chaos, but this game felt a little less chaotic than normal.
That might have been due to the player count as I am used to playing NYC at 4 players and not 3. That being said – the edition we played was a home-made edition and it was absolutely a beautiful upgrade. I am pretty jealous, and I want my own.
You know how I said I was trying to stick to short games? Well, that thought got thrown out of the window when Titan came to the table. This game is from the 80’s and we were being taught by an enthusiast of the game. And that enthusiasm was infectious.
While I didn’t get to experience the full game, I could see the interest in how the paths winded and twisted, how the dice could help or harm you, and how your army could be strong or lucky. Titan had a classic 80’s feel. And it was a fantastic way to spend time with people. A perfect end to DOAMcon day one.
Day Two
The morning
Mornings at DOAMcon are always… interesting… for me. I typically wake up earlier than my partner which means I am often wandering around by myself. And I’m not the most sociable person. Luckily, the people are DOAMcon have always been friendly and inclusive which makes it easier to jump into a game. And there are some games I prefer to play at DOAMcon – mainly because other people are more positive on the game than I am. Even if I know the game well.
And that’s how Day two started off – with Hansa Teutonica. Don’t get me wrong, I like the game, but I am so bad at it. I understand the fundamentals, but I can never execute them properly. Also, this game probably has the biggest asterisks of the con as we really messed up the rules of the Britannia map. I do not think I am able to read… Didn’t realize that the map had limited action spaces as well as action conversion instead of addition. Oops. Made the game much easier and went way faster than it should have. But hey! We all still had fun.
Then I hopped over to table to relearn Pax Porfiriana. While I have played Porf before, I do not necessarily understand it so having another teach was something that I really needed. I did prefer that we played open hand (instead of doing HTI) but even with all the information around me, I still missed some key tricks. Mainly the steps of a Topple. I kind of wish that Topple cards had the steps for a topple listed out on them. Or there was some sort of reference card. There is a lot to remember and so many cards that can do so many things.
the Afternoon
Lunch is always an interesting point of the day because, if you’re not in the middle of the game, you typically are wrapping up something to start fresh after lunch. And starting fresh we did with Fresh Fish. I feel like it’s pretty much tradition to get at least one game of Fresh Fish in with Kyle since we sat down and learned it at the first DOAMcon. It’s also funny because we all learned at the same table, it’s funny how we can get into each other’s heads (or at least I think so). But I made a couple of major mistakes that put me in a not-so-great position.
Then we switched over to The Great Zimbabwe. It was at this point that I realized I had only played games off the DOAM top 20 list this day. So, it felt okay to keep that going. The game felt a little clunky, it has been a minute since I last played. And I normally do not like playing at 5-player. The game was smooth and just kind of fine. I’m not sure why but I was missing some of the dynamism I had found in pervious games.
the EveninG
Playing these games did get me a little more sentimental about some games that I haven’t played in a long time: Root! It was a table of mixed experience, but the game did remind me how much I missed playing Root. The new player had first pick of faction and Underground Duchy was advocated because it is the best choice.
Then I had a tough decision: do I go with the good choice or the fun one? Well… the option between a Vagabond and the Lizard Cult seemed fairly obvious to me. My hand had 1 choice for suit: all foxes. I did have some good vagabond items but having all cards of one suit just felt like a Lizard hand. Then Woodland Alliance joined the table, and I wondered if we were going to have a standoff. Then cats came to the table, and finally we got a vagabond.
Looking at the table, it was a made up of three factions that had a lot of warriors but little combat power, a small band of terrorists, and that one weird guy. The game quickly became skewed when the Vagabond allied with the cats and then got rid of all swords in order to avoid becoming hostile. But it also meant one less faction that could do policing.
And while all of this was happening. I was only drawing fox cards. The first several turns were just all foxes, and I was starting to build three different giant fox armies. During the teach, we had told the new player that Dominance isn’t really viable, but it was starting to look like my main path. The only problem was the fox dominance card ended up being on the bottom of the deck. I went dominance a little later than I wanted to, and I was actually able to pull it off but for some reason I felt like I didn’t deserve it. But I’m still quite proud of getting a Lizard Cult dominance win.
Midnight
Then we switched over to an equally love game: Broom Service. I really love how Broom Service integrates trick taking into its core action mechanic and allows players to gamble to get good actions or avoid risks and take okay ones. It’s a fabulous game and I want to give it more time because honestly, the game deserves it.
Then, to finish out the night, we ended up playing a quick game of Rapido (or Excape) which is just a fun push your luck type dice game. Every time your bet pans out, you go up some number of points. I must have used all my luck up by this point because I never left zero!
Day Three
The morning
I was surprised to find not so many people around at the beginning of day three. I do think there were 2 Arcs Campaigns scheduled so that did take a handful of people out of the mix. Looking for something to fill the time while we waited for more people to wake up / trickle in, Santiago was pulled from the shelf. I feel like Santiago is a little wild as the shared incentives make you calculate the delta between points gained versus points other people gained.
While I love the game, the art in the newer edition is… not great… It just looks so cartoonish, and I feel like it doesn’t fit the game particularly well. The box shows an area of luscious green fields but why would they suddenly dry up and become dessert? The northern Europe style of clothes made this concept disconnect a bit for me.
Having to leave DOAMcon at noon for some Escape rooms, I was trying to avoid a long game. But when asked to learn a prototype game (which we knew we would not finish) of 1833 1/3 I couldn’t say no. I hadn’t really gotten to play an 18XX game yet and I thought that this might be my only chance (and I was right about that). 1833 1/3 had a lot of similarities to other 18XX games but also some key differences which made it rather unique. I don’t feel like I was able to experience the whole game, but I was quite interested by what I saw.
the Afternoon
The afternoon has less board games but still games all the same. Instead, we did Escape Rooms! We decided to do 3 rooms back-to-back to back. After doing the week of Escape Rooms, I do think I was a little more keyed into these games. And I did enjoy the company of the people we went with. While we didn’t get to really catch up in the rooms themselves, grabbing lunch after was a wonderful way to have some down time and just talk.
When we got back to DOAMcon, most everyone was already locked into a game. The escape room group decided to stay together and pulled out Container. This was a dangerous move because I as well as another are not the fondest of this game. But we both wanted to try. The main difficulty came when the game was interrupted by dinner which can always disrupt the flow of a game. I just sat and stared at the board and got to truly see how poorly I was doing.
When one person has most of the money and no other real competition, it’s easy to turn that money into points with no one to challenge you
the Evening
The game of container went enough into the evening that there wasn’t enough time to start another long-ish game. Especially since the escape rooms has left me rather tired. But I still wanted to play at least one more game. One of the wonderful things about DOAMcon is the access to strange titles where only like 20 copies exist in total. And one of those titles was Greentown. A game entirely in German.
We didn’t have anyone who know the game around to teach us, so we began to teach ourselves. This was interesting because two people were reading through a translated version of the rules while another was just reading the German rules. The game was simple enough. Use action tokens to take several types of actions (run, build, build or run, build and run).
The game was sweet and had potential but the build and run clearly was too strong of a tile. Or at least that’s what I felt. And it seems that the others agreed with me because we decided to play again with only three action tokens and the game got a lot more challenging. There was definitely an interest to see if Greentown might become the next Fresh Fish as we started to tweak it. Looking back, I don’t think this will be the case without a potential major overhaul, but I am interested to see what developments will come (we might still be messing around with changes).
Day Four
The morning
Day four is always bittersweet because it is the last official day of DOAMcon. Day five is more about clean up and filling time during the airport. And typically ends with more hanging out than board games. I saw a game of Fresh Fish starting up and I couldn’t stay away. I see a game and I instantly want to join, it’s one of my all-time favorites. After Fresh Fish, Hansa Teutonica was brought to the table, and this is where I learned how badly we had messed up our last game. The game was so different.
With more limited options, we ended up having less spaces to interact with. And controlling the large cities, while still good, didn’t create the crazy extra actions. I will admit, it was more interesting to play this way but made the game considerably slower. I am curious about the other Hansa map but I’m hoping not to screw up the rules so much on the first try next time.
the Afternoon
Coming back from lunch, I was waiting for another game to end so I flitted around to see if there were any openings. Another table was also waiting for a different game to end in order to snag one of the players and so The Estates was set up. On top of the game that was initially planned. The was an open seat and I took it. Always a solid game, and a way to get bonus points from the DOAMzee raffle (get points based on number / types of games played).
With the table I was waiting on still not done, I found that people had gone back ton Greentown make even more changes. Although those changes weren’t working as well as the previous version. I jumped into a game with some minimal changes just to try it out a bit more. I was reminded of my previous thoughts that something else might need to be changed but I didn’t feel like there enough time lift to do anything.
The table I was waiting on finally finished and I joined part of that group to then lay Lowenherz. This was an interesting game that balanced between drafting desired actions and controlling the board using those actions. I don’t know why but I did not click with this game as much as I wanted to. Not on an emotional level but on a mental one. While I was enjoying the game, understanding what was happening was a taller order.
the Evening
Then came what I felt to be the closing game of DOAMcon: Sideral Confluence. It feels like a tradition at this point to get eight people around a table so we can all yell at each other about who has / needs what cubes. Setting up took a while but luckily the raffle results were being announced so that gave us some time to figure things out.
We ended up playing a mix of factions from the base game and from the expansion (bifurcation). And then the yelling began. Typically, I would yell about how I needed blue cubes from across the table but this year I decided to just run around the table so I could talk to everyone. I think I was able to get my step count in just circling the table.
Seeing some of the new factions at the table was really interesting. I enjoyed playing the charity syndicate and forcing my kindness and specialty converters onto others. The one faction I want to know more about it the one that required democracy. Having to vote while in the middle of a negotiation was quite thrilling. And sometimes people wouldn’t even remember there is a vote causing other factions to encourage democracy as well.
DAY FIVE
And so ends the journey of DOAMcon. Well mostly. There were a couple of stragglers in the morning who had afternoon flights, so we decided to get in a couple of games before leaving for the airport. Spectaculum was the first game as it went fast and seemed like a quick enough time. Plus, the game pile had dwindled so there were not as many options as before.
Then, with thirty-ish minutes left, Mino Dice was brought to the table. What a game of utter nonsense. Everyone randomly picks a die and then you bid on how many tricks you’ll win. Based off what die you have that you have yet to roll. And as the game goes on, winning no tricks becomes the higher gamble with better reward but more risk. It was absolutely silly that someone could win a trick with effectively a 0 if everyone rolled the same thing. Or sometimes rolls would be too good. It’s skill when I’m winning and luck when I’m losing, right?
This was another great DOAMcon. I really enjoyed playing games with new and old friends alike. I was honestly surprised how many games I got in with people I’ve never played with before. Though I am not the most sociable person, I was glad that I could stretch myself and make new friends. But also spending time with those who I’m already close too was really appreciated. I’m always sad that DOAMcon happens only once a year but that just makes the wait for the next one worth it.
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