[spielfrieks] Meeples Choice Retrospectives: 2011

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Well, our new app works great, but we still have the same old crappy Yahoo message system. I posted this before the 2010 retrospective memo (senility hasn't hit me yet), but it hasn't appeared yet. So I'll post this again; apologies if it shows up twice.


So let’s maintain our momentum and start talking about retrospectives for 2011 and 2010. To try to minimize confusion, I’ll describe the setup for them in separate memos and with their own topics. This will be for the 2011 retrospective.


Back then, we nominated 29 games. Here they are:


A Few Acres of Snow
Airlines Europe
Belfort
Core Worlds
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
Dungeon Petz
Eclipse
Eminent Domain
Friday
Hawaii
Helvetia
King of Tokyo
Kingdom Builder
Lancaster
Last Will
LOTR: The Card Game
Mage Knight
Ora et Labora
Pantheon
Power Grid: First Sparks
Quarriors!
Risk Legacy
Summoner Wars: Master Set
The Castles of Burgundy
Trajan
Ticket to Ride: Team/Legendary Asia
Uluru
Vanuatu
Village


Just as before, I checked out the top-ranked 2011 designs that didn’t make our original list. I found five in the top 200. If any of these get seconded, they’ll be included in the new election. Here they are:


A Game of Thrones (2nd edition)
Sekigahara
Dixit Odyssey
Letters from Whitechapel
Takenoko


Finally, anyone can nominate a game to be included and if it gets seconded, we’ll toss it into the mix. The additional games from 2012 got reasonable support, so please don’t be shy.


I’ll give us a few days for folks to make suggestions. Then on Monday, I’ll set up a new poll and we can party like it’s 2011!


Larry

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

So let’s maintain our momentum and start talking about retrospectives for 2011 and 2010. To try to minimize confusion, I’ll describe the setup for them in separate memos and with their own topics. This will be for the 2011 retrospective.



Back then, we nominated 29 games. Here they are:



A Few Acres of Snow

Airlines Europe

Belfort

Core Worlds

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork

Dungeon Petz

Eclipse

Eminent Domain

Friday

Hawaii

Helvetia

King of Tokyo

Kingdom Builder

Lancaster

Last Will

LOTR: The Card Game

Mage Knight

Ora et Labora

Pantheon

Power Grid: First Sparks

Quarriors!

Risk Legacy

Summoner Wars: Master Set

The Castles of Burgundy

Trajan

TtR: Team/Legendary Asia

Uluru

Vanuatu

Village



Just as before, I checked out the top-ranked 2011 designs that didn’t make our original list. I found five in the top 200. If any of these get seconded, they’ll be included in the new election. Here they are:



A Game of Thrones (2nd edition)

Sekigahara

Dixit Odyssey

Letters from Whitechapel

Takenoko



Finally, anyone can nominate a game to be included and if it gets seconded, we’ll toss it into the mix. The additional games from 2012 got reasonable support, so please don’t be shy.



I’ll give us a few days for folks to make suggestions. Then on Monday, I’ll set up a new poll and we can party like it’s 2011!



Larry

[Clay Blankenship [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

For 2011, I nominate one of my all-time favorites, Olympos.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
Well, our new app works great, but we still have the same old crappy Yahoo
message system. I posted this before the 2010 retrospective memo (senility
hasn't hit me *yet*), but it hasn't appeared yet. So I'll post this
again; apologies if it shows up twice.
So let’s maintain our momentum and start talking about retrospectives for
2011 and 2010. To try to minimize confusion, I’ll describe the setup for
them in separate memos and with their own topics. This will be for the
2011 retrospective.
A Few Acres of Snow
Airlines Europe
Belfort
Core Worlds
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
Dungeon Petz
Eclipse
Eminent Domain
Friday
Hawaii
Helvetia
King of Tokyo
Kingdom Builder
Lancaster
Last Will
LOTR: The Card Game
Mage Knight
Ora et Labora
Pantheon
Power Grid: First Sparks
Quarriors!
Risk Legacy
Summoner Wars: Master Set
The Castles of Burgundy
Trajan
Ticket to Ride: Team/Legendary Asia
Uluru
Vanuatu
Village
Just as before, I checked out the top-ranked 2011 designs that didn’t make
our original list. I found five in the top 200. If any of these get
A Game of Thrones (2nd edition)
Sekigahara
Dixit Odyssey
Letters from Whitechapel
Takenoko
Finally, anyone can nominate a game to be included and if it gets
seconded, we’ll toss it into the mix. The additional games from 2012 got
reasonable support, so please don’t be shy.
I’ll give us a few days for folks to make suggestions. Then on Monday,
I’ll set up a new poll and we can party like it’s 2011!
Larry

[Ted Cheatham [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I liked Olympus but ultimately sold it because it was hard to get to the table. Did the expansion add anything great?

Ted Cheatham

Post by Clay Blankenship ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
For 2011, I nominate one of my all-time favorites, Olympos.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
Well, our new app works great, but we still have the same old crappy Yahoo message system. I posted this before the 2010 retrospective memo (senility hasn't hit me yet), but it hasn't appeared yet. So I'll post this again; apologies if it shows up twice.
So let’s maintain our momentum and start talking about retrospectives for 2011 and 2010. To try to minimize confusion, I’ll describe the setup for them in separate memos and with their own topics. This will be for the 2011 retrospective.
A Few Acres of Snow
Airlines Europe
Belfort
Core Worlds
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
Dungeon Petz
Eclipse
Eminent Domain
Friday
Hawaii
Helvetia
King of Tokyo
Kingdom Builder
Lancaster
Last Will
LOTR: The Card Game
Mage Knight
Ora et Labora
Pantheon
Power Grid: First Sparks
Quarriors!
Risk Legacy
Summoner Wars: Master Set
The Castles of Burgundy
Trajan
Ticket to Ride: Team/Legendary Asia
Uluru
Vanuatu
Village
A Game of Thrones (2nd edition)
Sekigahara
Dixit Odyssey
Letters from Whitechapel
Takenoko
Finally, anyone can nominate a game to be included and if it gets seconded, we’ll toss it into the mix. The additional games from 2012 got reasonable support, so please don’t be shy.
I’ll give us a few days for folks to make suggestions. Then on Monday, I’ll set up a new poll and we can party like it’s 2011!
Larry

--
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." --Helen Keller

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I have a few:

Quebec
Rising Sun Railroads
Rolling Stock
South African Railroads


Dave.

[Dave Peters [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

And if you were willing to survive a silly nomination (in my top 3; but not
likely in anyone else's) I'd add _Trollmaster_.

I'd second Rolling Stock and South African Railroads; they're both in my
top 3 for 2011.

Post by ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
Quebec
Rising Sun Railroads
Rolling Stock
South African Railroads
Dave.

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

And for 2011, I'd like to nominate Rails of New England.


Larry

[David Goldfarb [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I second Takenoko.

David Goldfarb

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
And for 2011, I'd like to nominate Rails of New England.
Larry

[Clay Blankenship [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Did you mean Olympus or Olympos?

Post by Ted Cheatham ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I liked Olympus but ultimately sold it because it was hard to get to the
table. Did the expansion add anything great?
Ted Cheatham
For 2011, I nominate one of my all-time favorites, Olympos.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
Well, our new app works great, but we still have the same old crappy
Yahoo message system. I posted this before the 2010 retrospective memo
(senility hasn't hit me *yet*), but it hasn't appeared yet. So I'll
post this again; apologies if it shows up twice.
So let’s maintain our momentum and start talking about retrospectives for
2011 and 2010. To try to minimize confusion, I’ll describe the setup
for them in separate memos and with their own topics. This will be for
the 2011 retrospective.
A Few Acres of Snow
Airlines Europe
Belfort
Core Worlds
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
Dungeon Petz
Eclipse
Eminent Domain
Friday
Hawaii
Helvetia
King of Tokyo
Kingdom Builder
Lancaster
Last Will
LOTR: The Card Game
Mage Knight
Ora et Labora
Pantheon
Power Grid: First Sparks
Quarriors!
Risk Legacy
Summoner Wars: Master Set
The Castles of Burgundy
Trajan
Ticket to Ride: Team/Legendary Asia
Uluru
Vanuatu
Village
Just as before, I checked out the top-ranked 2011 designs that didn’t
make our original list. I found five in the top 200. If any of these
A Game of Thrones (2nd edition)
Sekigahara
Dixit Odyssey
Letters from Whitechapel
Takenoko
Finally, anyone can nominate a game to be included and if it gets
seconded, we’ll toss it into the mix. The additional games from 2012
got reasonable support, so please don’t be shy.
I’ll give us a few days for folks to make suggestions. Then on Monday,
I’ll set up a new poll and we can party like it’s 2011!
Larry
--

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." --Helen Keller

[Martin Griffiths [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

This is a little hard to keep track of via the digest, but here we go:

2010

second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis

2011

nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

[Jacob Lee [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I'm shocked to realize I only kept one of the titles on the 2011 list and I
used to own a bunch of them. 2011 was not a good year for me. I will
second any suggestion that was made because you are drawing my attention to
some titles I never considered and maybe they're good ones worth seeking
out?

Jacob

Post by Martin Griffiths ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
2010
second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis
2011
nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

[Wei-Hwa Huang [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

"I've never heard of this game but it sounds interesting" is one of the
strangest justifications for seconding that I've ever heard of.

Post by Jacob Lee ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I'm shocked to realize I only kept one of the titles on the 2011 list and
I used to own a bunch of them. 2011 was not a good year for me. I will
second any suggestion that was made because you are drawing my attention to
some titles I never considered and maybe they're good ones worth seeking
out?
Jacob

Post by Martin Griffiths ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
2010
second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis
2011
nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

[Jacob Lee [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

You're right. But I was just trying to support the people who wanted a
specific game to make the list. I would appreciate it if someone did that
for me.

Jacob

Post by Wei-Hwa Huang ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
"I've never heard of this game but it sounds interesting" is one of the
strangest justifications for seconding that I've ever heard of.

Post by Jacob Lee ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I'm shocked to realize I only kept one of the titles on the 2011 list and
I used to own a bunch of them. 2011 was not a good year for me. I will
second any suggestion that was made because you are drawing my attention to
some titles I never considered and maybe they're good ones worth seeking
out?
Jacob

Post by Martin Griffiths ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
2010
second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis
2011
nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Verbing nouns may weird language, but nouning verbs is a language destroy.

[Wei-Hwa Huang [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I think I understand your motivation now, but your generosity seems to be
misplaced.

Seconding games you've never heard of undermines the entire point of having
seconding to begin with, and just creates unnecessary work for Larry.
Either the game gets an intended second, at which point your seconding is
unnecessary, or the game is unable to get a second, in which case it's
unlikely to get any votes to make a difference. The upshot is a longer
ballot for no real gain. If we were nominating people, I could see a
person getting excited for just making the ballot even if they end up not
getting any votes, but games themselves don't have the capacity of getting
excited.

Post by Jacob Lee ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
You're right. But I was just trying to support the people who wanted a
specific game to make the list. I would appreciate it if someone did that
for me.
Jacob

Post by Wei-Hwa Huang ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
"I've never heard of this game but it sounds interesting" is one of the
strangest justifications for seconding that I've ever heard of.

Post by Jacob Lee ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I'm shocked to realize I only kept one of the titles on the 2011 list
and I used to own a bunch of them. 2011 was not a good year for me. I
will second any suggestion that was made because you are drawing my
attention to some titles I never considered and maybe they're good ones
worth seeking out?
Jacob

Post by Martin Griffiths ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
2010
second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis
2011
nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Verbing nouns may weird language, but nouning verbs is a language destroy.

[Jacob Lee [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I don't disagree with what you've said. There isn't a net gain by
seconding a game I don't intend to vote for and I did not consider how it
affects Larry - I don't want to give anyone more work! I do like having a
complete list to vote from and if one member here out of our small group
wants to include a specific a game I'm happy to back it, but your points
outweigh mine so I humbly rescind my seconds.

Jacob

Post by Wei-Hwa Huang ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I think I understand your motivation now, but your generosity seems to be
misplaced.
Seconding games you've never heard of undermines the entire point of
having seconding to begin with, and just creates unnecessary work for
Larry. Either the game gets an intended second, at which point your
seconding is unnecessary, or the game is unable to get a second, in which
case it's unlikely to get any votes to make a difference. The upshot is a
longer ballot for no real gain. If we were nominating people, I could see
a person getting excited for just making the ballot even if they end up not
getting any votes, but games themselves don't have the capacity of getting
excited.

Post by Jacob Lee ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
You're right. But I was just trying to support the people who wanted a
specific game to make the list. I would appreciate it if someone did that
for me.
Jacob

Post by Wei-Hwa Huang ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
"I've never heard of this game but it sounds interesting" is one of the
strangest justifications for seconding that I've ever heard of.

Post by Jacob Lee ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
I'm shocked to realize I only kept one of the titles on the 2011 list
and I used to own a bunch of them. 2011 was not a good year for me. I
will second any suggestion that was made because you are drawing my
attention to some titles I never considered and maybe they're good ones
worth seeking out?
Jacob

Post by Martin Griffiths ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
2010
second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis
2011
nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Verbing nouns may weird language, but nouning verbs is a language destroy.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Verbing nouns may weird language, but nouning verbs is a language destroy.

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Thanks for being gracious, as always, Jacob. You're a really nice guy and no one has been more supportive of the MCA's. But I agree with Wei-Hwa, that the purpose of the nomination/seconding procedure is to ensure that we only include games with some chance of doing well. There's another side benefit for keeping the ballot a little bit concentrated--it makes it more likely that each person's vote is meaningful, as opposed to scattering their votes for games that no one else will vote for. Again, it's just a fun exercise, but I thought that would be better for something that's meant to emulate the final round of voting that took place in the past. I know your motives were good, so thanks again.


Larry

[Jacob Lee [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Thanks, Larry. It's good to have some sort of standard. I didn't take any
time with my email when I wrote it. Just typed it and sent it without any
pre-thought.

So it's all good. Looking forward to the results.

If it's not too late I'd like to add K2 to the 2010 potentials hoping for a
second. We played it this past weekend and we always enjoy it. I took a
look just now to see how old it is and BGG says it's a 2010 release. A
mountain climbing game designed by a mountain climber, the difficulty ramps
up as you get closer to the top, a good chance of dying - a great game!

Jacob

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
Thanks for being gracious, as always, Jacob. You're a really nice guy and
no one has been more supportive of the MCA's. But I agree with Wei-Hwa,
that the purpose of the nomination/seconding procedure is to ensure that we
only include games with some chance of doing well. There's another side
benefit for keeping the ballot a little bit concentrated--it makes it more
likely that each person's vote is meaningful, as opposed to scattering
their votes for games that no one else will vote for. Again, it's just a
fun exercise, but I thought that would be better for something that's meant
to emulate the final round of voting that took place in the past. I know
your motives were good, so thanks again.
Larry

[Eric Burgess [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Yes, I'd love to turn this Yahoo Group into Slack. Anyone game for that?

Post by Martin Griffiths ***@gmail.com [spielfrieks]
2010
second Hanabi
second Lords of Vegas
nominate Haggis
2011
nominate Skull (& Roses)
nominate Trick of the Rails

--
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/erburgess> <https://twitter.com/erburgess>




Eric Burgess

*E: ****@gmail.com

*P: **626-674-4674* <callto:6266744674>

[Johan L [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

I've not seen it mentioned, so would like to nominate Homesteaders please.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
Well, our new app works great, but we still have the same old crappy Yahoo
message system. I posted this before the 2010 retrospective memo (senility
hasn't hit me *yet*), but it hasn't appeared yet. So I'll post this
again; apologies if it shows up twice.
So let’s maintain our momentum and start talking about retrospectives for
2011 and 2010. To try to minimize confusion, I’ll describe the setup for
them in separate memos and with their own topics. This will be for the
2011 retrospective.
A Few Acres of Snow
Airlines Europe
Belfort
Core Worlds
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
Dungeon Petz
Eclipse
Eminent Domain
Friday
Hawaii
Helvetia
King of Tokyo
Kingdom Builder
Lancaster
Last Will
LOTR: The Card Game
Mage Knight
Ora et Labora
Pantheon
Power Grid: First Sparks
Quarriors!
Risk Legacy
Summoner Wars: Master Set
The Castles of Burgundy
Trajan
Ticket to Ride: Team/Legendary Asia
Uluru
Vanuatu
Village
Just as before, I checked out the top-ranked 2011 designs that didn’t make
our original list. I found five in the top 200. If any of these get
A Game of Thrones (2nd edition)
Sekigahara
Dixit Odyssey
Letters from Whitechapel
Takenoko
Finally, anyone can nominate a game to be included and if it gets
seconded, we’ll toss it into the mix. The additional games from 2012 got
reasonable support, so please don’t be shy.
I’ll give us a few days for folks to make suggestions. Then on Monday,
I’ll set up a new poll and we can party like it’s 2011!
Larry

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Okay, it's time to start voting on the 2011 and the 2010 retrospectives. Same rules as before: you can cast up to 3 votes for each election. I'm going to be out of town for most of this week (happily, I'll be gaming!), so I'll let this one run until next Monday, when I'll shut it down. Then we'll see how we feel about things this time around. Have fun!

Larry

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

So while we're voting on the two remaining 5-ish year retrospectives, let's talk about what we'd like the next step to be. I figured we'd look at the years around 10 years ago next. In keeping with the pattern we've established, that would be 2007, 2006, and 2005. I have some questions for the group about how you'd like to do this. If you have an opinion about these one way or another, please post them to let us know how you feel.


1. Do you want to continue with these retrospectives, to go back to the 10-year period?
2. If so, how would you like to group them: voting for one of them at a time, no more than two years per week, or vote for all three years during the same week?
3. Once we finish off the 10 year periods, would you like to continue the process for the 15 and 20 year periods?


Hope to hear from you. Thanks!


Larry

[Dave Peters [e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
So while we're voting on the two remaining 5-ish year retrospectives,

let's talk about what we'd like the next step to be. I figured we'd look
at the years around 10 years ago next. In keeping with the pattern we've
established, that would be 2007, 2006, and 2005. I have some questions for
the group about how you'd like to do this. If you have an opinion about
these one way or another, please post them to let us know how you feel.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
1. Do you want to continue with these retrospectives, to go back to the 10-year period?

Please! I've been enjoying the retrospectives: both the discussion (as
limited and occasionally eccentric as it is) and the process of going back
and thinking about a particular swath of games.

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
2. If so, how would you like to group them: voting for one of them at a

time, no more than two years per week, or vote for all three years during
the same week?

I'd be delighted with anything you find feasible. (Voting for all three in
a single week is no trouble; and dragging it out over multiple weeks
prolongs the amusement. Fine either way.)

Post by ***@comcast.net [spielfrieks]
3. Once we finish off the 10 year periods, would you like to continue the

process for the 15 and 20 year periods?

Absolutely! That'd be great.
d

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Okay, I've shut down the 2011 voting again. Clearly, the extra time was needed, as 17 more people voted, giving us a total of 55 votes. Hopefully, changing the subject line when I start the voting on a new year will help us avoid this in the future.


Here are the updated results (original ranking is in parentheses):


1. The Castles of Burgundy – 27 (1)
2. Village – 15 (22)
3. King of Tokyo – 11 (5)
3. Trajan – 11 (5)
5. Kingdom Builder – 10 (5)
6. A Few Acres of Snow – 8 (3)
6. Eclipse – 8 (11)
8. Friday – 7 (18)
8. Last Will – 7 (9)
8. Ora et Labora – 7 (2)
11. Hawaii – 6 (11)


No dramatic changes. CoB is still our big favorite and Village has made huge gains. Trajan now joins King of Tokyo for our third spot; nice to see for an excellent and unique game. Former MCA winners Ora et Labora and Few Acres of Snow got a bit more support, although there's still a big falloff for the former game for some reason.


The full results can be viewed on the voting app by pressing the See Results button.


Larry

[[e-mail] [spielfrieks]]

Three games dropped out of the original top 10, Tim. Mage Knight was the big loser, going from fourth place, one vote from joining the three winners, to 16th, getting only 3 votes. Lancaster went from 5th to 16th and Eminent Domain went from 9th to 12th.


Larry