Clash of Clans - Why do I keep playing?

Due to the business of life, I haven't played any boardgames lately.  However, there is one game that I still play regularly, Clash of Clans. 

I have been playing Clash of Clans (CoC) for a quite a while now, and for a period I was really into it.  I was in a clan with my brother, which one of his friends had started.  We were buys in clan wars, having one going almost all the time.  It was a good clan to play with, helping each other out and working together relatively well in wars.  The problem I started to find is that playing at that pace takes a lot of commitment.  During the "fight" days of a war, I had to be on at least twice to attack (which was pretty close to every other day).  A war that didn't go our way was a losing proposition in terms of resources, so I had to farm to keep up my armies.  And then farm on top of that to actually have some improvements for my base.  I decided that this was too much, and scaled back my playing time.

I decided to try only playing once a day, just to keep my base up, in case I decided that I wanted to play more seriously again.  I figured that within a month or two I would either get bored and stop playing all together, or get back into it, even if not quite as much as before.  Instead I have found that I am having fun playing it once a day, with the occasional day I miss and the occasional day I play a second or third time.  Instead of being worried about wars, I just raid when I am on.  It takes a lot longer to build up enough resources for upgrades, but they are slowly coming.  I found that the strategy of keeping my town hall out and vulnerable (see previous post) along with a defense around all my resources means that often enough people just attack me for the trophies and leave my resources alone.  Of course this doesn't happen all the time, but enough that the resources alone (without raiding) is a slow net gain.

My Current Clash of Clans Base

Getting Familiar with New Games - Suburbia and Stone Age

Last week (I am a little behind on my posts) my wife and I played a few more rounds of a couple of our newer games, Suburbia and Stone Age.  We are getting to the point where we are starting to understand some of the potential strategies and tactics and try some different ones out.

We played Suburbia on a couple of different evenings.  In the first game my wife got the PR firm early in the 'C' pile, and proceeded to destroy me.  In the process she also scored the highest either of us have so far, 188 points.  I tried to make my plan around the waterfront realty; I find that it definitely gives an early boost in cash to help get key tiles.  I am finding though that later in the game turning 'B' and 'C' tiles into lakes often puts a dent in the final run-up on the score.

My 'city' in our first game

New Year (2015) Gaming - Stone Age, Dominion and Suburbia

The beginning of the new year brought a mini-holiday for me and led to some much appreciated opportunities to play some of my newer games.

Stone Age continues to be a favourite in our household, and we were excited to try it 4-player with another couple who had invited us over for an evening of games.  Neither of them was familiar with Stone Age, or even worker placement games in general.  Part of what had attracted me to Stone Age was reviews I had read that recommended it as a good introduction to worker placement games; not overly complicated but still a lot of fun.  The other couple we played with play a fair amount of boardgames, so the combination of game and players seemed to work out well, as they picked up the concept within the first couple of rounds.  I was expecting the 4-player game to be very different than a 2-player game, but I found that it wasn't.  The removal of the restrictions imposed by the 2-player version on limiting placement actually seemed to make it easier to get the resources I was seeking, and seemed to make other players choices have less impact on me (as there was limited ability to "block").  The exception was the end game, where the huts and cards seemed to disappear very quickly.  I was also a little bit disappointed that the first three placements were always agricultural track, tool, extra worker until near the end; that being said I also didn't change it up as it seemed to be the smart play for me too.  Despite all my complaints above I really enjoyed the 4-player game and will continue to want to play both 2 and 4 player games.

I also had a chance in a 2-player game to try out a new strategy; I focused entirely on tools and tool-related cards, and then population when they weren't available.  The hope was that the increase to my rolls from the tools would offset the need to hunt more often.  In this particular game we met both end-game conditions on the same turn, with only 1 hut and 1 card not being bought, resulting in the highest total score yet.  My strategy didn't work so well and I lost badly, so it won't be used again.

Final turn of Stone Age with Tool Strategy

Despite having played Dominion a fair bit, almost all of my games have been 2-player.  We got to play a 4-player game the same evening as the Stone Age game described above.  We played one of the pre-made sets from the base game, and it was heavy on +action and +card.  Playing with four experienced players combined with the kingdom card set led to a very quick game, to the point that I had trouble keeping track of what everyone else was doing.  It was still a lot of fun, but I think I would rather play a little more of a relaxed pace next time (it was late, which may of contributed to the speed we played at).

With Suburbia I have only been playing one strategy so far; maximize income early and then work on reputation.  I think with the next few games I am going to try and diversify my strategies a bit just to see how it works out.  Having a high income means that I can afford pretty much any tile that shows up in the market, forcing my wife to either buy or bury any tiles that are really useful for me.

My "city" where I focused on income

With 2-Players each "stage" (A/B/C) uses less than half of the tiles, leading to games where only one PR firm or Casino is available.  I have found so far that these are really powerful, leading to an automatic buy (or bury when a player can't afford) as soon as it shows up on the board, and a huge leg up if it is bought.  I am thinking to possibly add a house rule to remove these tiles; eliminate some advantage based on the order tiles are revealed, and make it a little more challenging as the scores climb.  I am definitely glad I got this game, and am excited to teach a few other people and try a 3 or 4 player game.

My "city" with no PR Firm or Casino

As we get back to the normal "routines" I hope opportunities to continue to play these games keep presenting themselves.

Year End Gaming

I managed to get a couple of games leading up to the end of the year.  Earlier this week I purchased Suburbia; this is a game that has been on my wishlist for a while and we played a game.  New Years Eve my sister-in-law came over and the three of us played a couple of rounds of Settlers.

Suburbia is a game me and my wife played about a year ago at a friends' house with him and his wife.  Unfortunately they live a long ways away, so we don't get to see them very often.  Ever since then the game has been one we are both wanting, so with some spending money that was burning a hole in my pocket I went and got it.  We got one round in, and the first thing that I noticed was that with 2 players the tiles stay in the market a lot longer, so you can be a little more strategic about the order you buy them in, to hopefully get the for a reduced price.  My wife was rather tired, so it wasn't much of a game, but was fun and I look forward to many more plays.

My "city" at the end of the game