Summer StabCon 2000 was held in Manchester on the weekend of 30 June/2 July 2000.  This was my first summer StabCon, although I'd been to two previous winter ones.  I was going to come up for the three days, but the offer of a lift from Chris Dorrell on Saturday was too good to miss.  We arrived at midmorning, paid the balance due, picked up our keys and headed over to our rooms in one of the university accommodation halls.  When we got to the building we had been pointed at, we realised that neither of us had paid too much attention when the keys were being dished out and we didn't remember which rooms were ours.  That was OK, though, because the keys had numbers on - 46 and 47.  Trouble was, according to the sign by the bottom of the stairs, the room numbers only went up to 45.  "The sign must be wrong", we thought, so we went to the top floor anyway - and found the sign was right.  Perhaps the numbers on the keys were wrong?  So we tried them in some of the doors anyway - no luck.   Coming out again on the ground floor, we found a caretaker chap who told us we had the wrong building and pointed us to another - where we had a similar performance.   At this point we democratically decided that Chris should go back to the main hall and ask where the rooms were.  It turned out, logically enough, that there were code numbers on the keys rather than room numbers, and once Chris got the room numbers again, we were OK.

So, after heading into the main hall, we had a look around at what was going on and found regular opponents Angela and David in the middle of a game called Roads and Boats, which looked like one of those games that make take a while.  It had hexes and fiddly counters and stuff like that.  So we left them to it and got stuck in with a chap who wanted to play Svea Rike.   I was a little wary of this game because the last time I played was probably the worst games-playing experience I have had.  That was mostly down to one of the people I played it with, however, so I was prepared to forget that experience, only to have another worry set itself up in my mind.  I mentioned to Angela that we were to play it and she indicated that it would take us the rest of the day.  I wasn't keen for the first game to take so long, but the game owner assured that it shouldn't take much above an hour and a half.  Anyway, we went for it and it proved to be an enjoyable game all round - it was made a lot easier than last time by having translations pasted onto the cards (there is a lot of Swedish text).  I even managed to finish second!   I'm not going to rush out and buy it, but I'll play it again sometimes.

It lasted two and a half hours, including explaining the rules, and afterwards we wandered back over to see how Roads and Boats was going on - it was still chugging along.   I asked how much longer it was likely to be and one of the players told me that he was going to buy or use the last two counters or whatever that turn and it would end then.   One of the other players retorted that he wouldn't be able to do both in one turn.   "Oh yes I can!".  "But if I'd known that, I'd have played differently!".  Etc...  We made a quick exit from the growing argument...

We headed over to the stall from a Liverpool games shop whose name I can't remember (sorry) and, amazingly enough, I resisted the temptation to buy anything.  Chris proved to be a bit more weak-willed, however, and bought a copy of Castle, a new game from Bruno Faidutti.  The rules seemed fairly straightforward so we decided to give it a try as a two-player game.  Its a simple game of trying to get rid of all your cards, but each card has restrictions on where it can be played and a special ability - mainly to do with making other players take their cards back into their hands.  It did point out in the rules that two-players was the most skilful way to play it - I guess they didn't count on Chris and me.  The game took an hour and Chris won for some reason.

Checking on David and Angela, we found that they had finally finished Roads and Boats after five hours of play!  And for some reason, they'd liked it enough to have agreed to play it again the next morning!?!  Wow!  As if that wasn't enough, they'd also started another game with lots of fiddly bits of cardboard, etc.  They were playtesting a game called "Courier", written by one of the other players, and it looked like that might take a time too.  We backed off again.

Chris then decided to treat me to one of his experiments.  He'd read the rules and reviews of a game called Isi and had knocked together a makeshift set, mostly using cards from the Settlers of Catan cardgame.  So he explained the rules to me and we started to play, and I started to win, and he decided we were playing it wrong.  Chris held back from introducing the 'extra turns if your name's Chris' rule and went for a more minor modification instead.  I still beat him.   I wasn't very impressed with the game, though, and won't be rushing out to buy it.   At least it didn't last too long - 45 minutes including the time before Chris changed the rules.  One good thing about playing it was the cards we were using for the board layout - we had no end of people stop, look for a bit, and then ask if it was a variant of, or an expansion to, or a new game based on, the Settlers cardgame.  I thought we should have said yes and started selling pre-production copies at £20 a time, but Chris didn't seem enthused by the idea - no entrepreneurial spirit I guess!

We were then joined by Eddy Richards and had a three player game of Castle, which again took about an hour and again resulted in Chris winning narrowly after some vicious playing...

With another addition to the group we tried out Cloud Nine, which I had just had brought over from America by a friend.  Despite coming in a large box, this is mostly a card game and lasted just 30 minutes.  Chris won again, I'm afraid... Good for him.

Next was another short game: High Society, my first Knizia game of the convention.  There are a number of 'lots' available for which you have to bid using your finite supply of cash cards (no change is given).  Most of the lots are worth various amounts of positive points, but some are negative and it is the low bidder who wins these.  At the end, the player who has bought the highest value of goods is the winner, except that the player with least cash is disqualified from winning - so you have to temper your bidding in line with the other players or try to make them overspend.  A good game, but one which I never seem to do any good at - this time being no exception.

It was eight o'clock and we split up in order to get something to eat from the students' canteen - nothing great but it kept us going.  We then finally managed to link up with Angela and David and a few others in order to play The Great Balloon Race, one of my favourite light games.

That took about 30 minutes and then David Carlisle led us on a word game where a word is spelled one letter at a time - I'm told its called Ghosts.   Each player must add a letter to the word on their turn, still spelling a real word.  However, any player who ends the word loses a life.  If you don't believe there is such a word as the previous player seems to be suggesting, you can challenge them to reveal the word and let the other players judge its validity - the loser of the challenge also losing a life.  It gets very hard to keep extending a word - especially as each player who does extend it is trying to ensure that play doesn't go all the way round and come back to them again - and you end up with some very unlikely words.    Eddy Richards saw fit to write to me later to comment on the word I tried to use to extend 'mythological' : "Mythologicalise has now been entered into the Longer Oxford Semi-English Dictionary, vb., to invent or attempt to persuade others of the existence of a word loosely based on a real one in an attempt not to lose a game horribly badly.".  Oh well, can't win them all - or any of them.  We sort of informally played that if you lost three lives you were out.  I was told later that this had led to a little friction - sorry to anyone who felt put out or badly treated.

Anyway David followed up that game with a short entertainment for four of us that I like to call 'Taking the piss out of Trev'.  It involved passing something from player to player with the receiving player having to say "closed" or "open".  They passed it to each other merrily and all sagely nodded when the recipient said the required word.  Then, when they passed it to me, they would shake their heads and smile when I got it wrong.  Finally I figured out that I was supposed to comment on whether the person who passed me the item had their arms open or closed.  Doh!  Stupid game...

It was around ten o'clock now and we had enough for a game of The Great Dalmuti (previously called Career Poker).  This is a good conference game as it is best with lots of players.  Its also good fun because you rearrange your positions each round, based on the previous round's results, to form a scale from high nobility to low scum.  Players are supposed to be complimentary of players higher up than them and scornful and dismissive of those lower down.  Strangely enough, it turned out that the same three of us occupied the top three positions for the whole game - with one exception.  I managed to finish a respectable second behind Eddy.  A bright point was that David Carlisle was joint last - so teaching him a lesson for introducing games designed to humiliate me...

Looking for a game for the six of us, I fetched out my copy of Galopp Royal, a great game of sedan chair racing!  This game always seems to be a sure fire winner for a good time.  This was particularly so for the other players in this game, as my 'team' or carriers regularly hurtled backwards at ever increasing speeds to deposit my sedan chair in the pond.  It was so bad that my turn was causing peals of laughter each time - although my general air of despondency probably added to that effect (des-pond-ency,  huh!).  I had to content myself with my final score of 23 not being less than one third of the fifth placed 63!  It was well behind the first placed 131 which was scored by David C, dammit!

It was now 1am and, after the departure or Eddy, we spent the next hour playing a five player game of Castle, giving Chris a chance to explain his cleavage fetish to a new audience.  David also won this game, which was bad enough, and Chris explained his first failure to win this game with : "The bottom line was that I didn't want Trev to win"... 

After some chatting and winding down, I finally got to bed about 3am, only to be woken again minutes later at 9am by a knock on the door.  It was Chris, all fresh and ready for another day and on his way to breakfast.  He went on ahead while I dragged myself out of bed, got ready, and joined him, Angela and David B about 9:30.  As I was still a little bleary, they indulged in a game of morning ridicule - with me as the target - swines!

After breakfast, we picked up a couple more players and played Columbus by Wolfgang Kramer - a new one on me.  Players have tiles that they must place on a map board of the sea in order to lay out a route which they can cross from Europe to America and back - the first to finish being the winner.  Some tiles are can only be placed in one place, others are one of a number of identical ones that can be placed in many places.  Some tiles aid travel, other hamper it.  You try to place tiles that allow you to progress and/or that hamper your opponents.  Quite a nice game and I managed to come second.

David asked if anyone fancied truck racing at this point.  I told him that I'd rather play a game, but it turned out that he was talking about a game of truck racing - so satisfying both of us.  The game was Die Wüstentruck (Desert Trucks) by Christwart Conrad who recently had a bigger hit with Vino (which I didn't like much).  Each player has a truck to move around a track across the desert to the finish line.  The track has one or two options for which way to go and each truck carries a 12-sided die in the back to indicate its current fuel supply.   Movement is based on cards but also uses one point of petrol per space travelled.   This would soon cause your petrol to run out, so there are spaces where you can refuel and some cards can add to or subtract from your own or other players' petrol supplies.  Some reasons, such as running out of petrol or, possibly, not being able to move, cause you to go back to the start, so it's one of those games that can take a long time and where you can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  For some reason or other I managed to get upset during the game, I think it was over the reaction I was getting to trying to understand one or more of the rules.  I was consequently in a bit of a sulk rather than my usual ebullient self and this probably had a bit of an effect on everyone else.  Afterwards, most of the players seem to have hated the game as being too random and long-winded, and the poor atmosphere probably contributed to that.   I didn't think it was too bad, but I wouldn't buy it.

Anyway, we broke for lunch, giving us all chance to recharge batteries.   Vegetarian lasagne from the canteen.  Not bad.

Next up, we ended up playing Ocean - a card game from Adlung.  We had played this before at the club and found it to be rubbish.   Absolutely no control and no fun either.  But Angela and David were keen to try it out, so we agreed to give it another go.  It was still rubbish.  I came joint first, but hadn't played any differently from Chris, who came last.  You might say that's just natural order asserting itself, but I would say that the game was rubbish as well.

On to another card game, this time the simple but fun Vampire, the game remarkably loosely based on hunting vampires...  It is listed on the box as being for up to five players, but we were trying with six and this obviously turned out to be too many.  The game was over almost before it had begun because of cards running out, and there was always someone without a particular colour, so all sets counted.   Geoff found a lot to complain about in the fact that it finished too quickly, even after being told that there were too many of us.

Back to David and Angela for the last suggestion and it was for Die Fürsten von Florenz.  Having played this a couple of times before, I warned of the importance of players getting a move on when it was their go, or else the game would drag considerably.  It is quite complex and the rules explanation took 25 minutes.  The game itself took another two hours but it is starting to grow on me a bit.  I don't think it's the kind of game you could keep unplayed, though, as its complexity means that it would take too long to learn again if you put it away for a few months.  And I wouldn't relish trying to get non-gamers interested.  The experienced players beat the beginners with Chris winning and me second.

Having won a game, Chris was keen not to play anything else, so we talked for a bit and then headed off to our cars.  On the way back it was raining a bit and I had the honour of seeing Chris's technique of turning off the windscreen wipers when he looks into the rear-view mirror - presumably in order to save wear & tear on the wiper blades.

Thanks to those who played again: Martin Bourne, Andy Bates, Eddy Richards, Michael Jones, David Carlisle, Mike Robinson, Jonathan Thompson, Jo-Anne Flowers and Geoff Brown (one of the two).  And also the regulars: Chris Dorrell, Angela Caunce, David Blowers.

Bye for now.

Trev.