ICON is a large science fiction convention that takes place every year on Long Island at SUNY's beautiful . . . er, at SUNY's campus. Aesthetic considerations notwithstanding, ICON this year drew about 7,000 people, 98% of whom were wearing black or a darker color, so me and my peach shirt blended in just perfectly. But everyone was friendly (except for that one rude merchant, but hey, this is New York, so I'm used to that), so I fully recommend going if you're in the area and are at all interested in this sort of thing.
Getting there: The website told me to follow the signs to ICON. I suppose they meant spiritual signs (when the hawk crosses the moon, you will know to turn right) because I didn't see any others. But the campus is only so big and so I circled around a bit until I found a parking lot filling up with cars. The ticket office opened an hour late, but once it did, the staff did a good job of rushing everyone through. Badge in hand, I rushed off to find the Student Union and gaming!
Praise for Chris: Before this year, Euro-style board gaming was largely unknown at ICON. It was through the efforts of Chris Palermo that they came onto the scene. Chris worked tirelessly to deal with missing GM-badges, janitors who wanted to charge us for trash removal, angry chess team members who didn't see why they had to pay to play, rooms being closed while games were still being played, and a housand other annoyances. He and his group (LIBO) GM'd about 40 different games, arranged for prizes, and made it a great experience. Three cheers for Chris!
Prizes: At the end of the three days, if you played in 4 or more games, you became eligible to win the Iron Man Tournament. No one but Chris and his Excel spreadsheet knew how scoring worked, but it had something to do with how well you did in each game compared to the other players. Top prize was three fabulous games, a $35 gift certificate to a local game store (thank you Monkey Head Games), free ICON membership next year, and other things as well. There were other prizes for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. Also, just for playing in a game, you received a $2 gift certificate, and if you won, it became $5.
Players: Lots and lots of people. I didn't write down their names, so I'm going to relate everything from my own limited perspective.
Games
Things started slowly the first day, as they did on all the days. But there were enough people for a 6-player Settlers of Catan. 6 players is my favorite way to play SOC. With 6 people, a goofy synergy often arises that makes it almost like a party game. It came down to newbie and me. I felt it only fair that I tell him I could cut his road in half with a well-placed settlement and steal the longest road from him and win the game. So he blocked that move and then excitedly flipped over his newly drawn victory point cards announced he'd won. Problem was, he miscounted and only had 9 points. The game continued, allowing me to build a bit more and steal victory.
Web of Power was next. During the rules it was explained that a certain piece could be placed in the first part of game but it wouldn't score until the second part. Right then and there I had my strategy. Though it's taken me a while, I've figured out that whenever a game designer puts in such a mechanic, he expects new players to ignore the 'non-scoring' placements, thus allowing an experienced player to gleefully concentrate on it and go on to a crushing victory.
This makes the experienced player feel good because they crushed, while it makes the newbies want to play again because they feel they didn't 'get the strategy' until the game was over. Upshot: I came in second, dancing past most of the previous leaders from the first part of the game.
Citadels: I feared playing with 7 players because I heard it could take forever. Luckily, things buzzed along. A young boy playing with us invariably chose the Assassin, which made me make a few remarks to his father about the wonders of professional child counseling. The game was tight until I had a chance to steal 7 gold. I made a logical guess (the rich player had a gold district showing, and the turn before he had chosen the King) and I hit it! Boom! I vaulted ahead. The game was stopped short because of an unscheduled room closure, so I eaked out a win with 7 districts.
Next day . . . (I'm going into brevity mode now) . . . my first try at LOTR with all the expansions. Sauron killed us poor hobbits when we had but one foot out of Bree. A horrible event tile draw and a general disbelief that things could go so horribly for us happy-go-lucky shirefolk did us in.
Amun Re: My first play. Very nifty game. The players who bought farmers didn't work together enough to give AR a big enough sacrifice to give them a return on their investment, so I was easily able to truck in the money with my camels. The rest, as they say, was history.
Tigris and Euphrates: A newbie built two monuments and managed to hang onto them for most of the game. Unfortunately, he lacked one color, so his victory was stolen by an experienced player -- not me though. I had already slipped into third position and stayed there until the end of the game because of my total lack of ability to pull my head out of my wazoo.
Last Day: We jumped into Acquire with 6 players, a dangerous number since control is at a minimum. Late in the game I benefit from two profitable mergers and launched to victory. I don't feel I won though, since a single tile placement could have dropped me like a stone.
Union Pacific: This was a nerve-wracking one. We played with completely randomized dividend cards (I had always played that the dividend cards were forcibly spaced out in the deck). The first dividend came up quickly and then we waited for the next to show. And waited . . . and waited . . . until my head exploded. Then it finally came up with the other two dividend cards following on its heels. The newbie gamer to my right cheered at the end, having won her first game of the convention (the last game she played), and made a pledge to buy the game. I scored 92, good enough for third place (damn you 2nd place with your 93!), but last place scored 87, so it was a very close game.
Crokinole: I brought my cheapo Amazon Crokinole board for some in-between gaming. I was a little sheepish about it at first, since I know what a real board looks/feels/plays like. But it turned out to be a big hit, even as crappy as the board was, and soon I was expounding on the unassailable merits of my $15 board.
Story over: So the day ended. Other games were played, but are not featured here due to the fact that people still reading this monstrosity of a report have way too much time on their hands. Thanks to everyone there. Hope to see you next year! (Note: there's talk of the ICON gaming track being split off to a separate convention).
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© Copyright 2004 by George Phillies.
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