Friday Night Shots (Saturday Edition) – Auction Games

Apologies for the bar being closed last night!

It’s been a bit of a struggle the last couple of weeks getting stuff written as I’ve been suffering from a bit of imposter syndrome, wondering again what the heck I’m doing with this thing.

I’m already sensing Grant giving me the side-eye.

I’ve managed to not miss a complete week, though, which I’m happy with.

So now the bar is open again (even though we have no customers) and I’d be happy to serve you up a drink while we chat about boardgames!

I’ve made you this!

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve heard it’s good.

On the Internet, don’t you know.

Let me turn down the jukebox. I’m not sure how the collected works of William Shatner got on there, but there will be words with the technician in the morning.

I have been able to get some Sunday gaming in recently, and March ended on a great note with four games played, including one new to me!

One great old standby, though, and what prompted tonight’s post, was another play of the brand new edition of Reiner Knizia’s age-old auction game, Ra.

It made me want to talk about more auctions.

Of course, Ra is a classic because it has such an innovative auction system.

You are pulling tiles from a bag, or declaring that you want to start an auction of the tiles that are already out.

Of course, if you draw a Ra tile, then the auction starts automatically.

You are also bidding on the sun tile that’s in the middle of the board. You are using one of your three sun tiles to bid, and you only get one shot at it. You could have the 3, 7 and 10 sun tiles and you have to gauge whether one of the other players will outbid you (and maybe you want them to use their larger sun to do so).

The fact that you can only win 3 auctions in a round, that you are gaining the sun tile that won the last bid (so it might be a really low number in exchange for your high number!), and that certain tiles score in certain ways at the end of the round all make this game a really thinky, almost push your luck game.

Push your luck?

That’s right. The ship moves across the water with each Ra tile pulled. If it reaches the end when a Ra tile is pulled, the round ends immediately. Nobody gets what’s still out there!

I love that.

While it’s kind of overproduced, I also have to say that 25th Century games knocked it out of the park with the new edition, with wonderful Ian O’Toole artwork!

I’d have to say Ra is probably my favourite auction game.

But it’s not the only good one.

Another Knizia favourite, though I haven’t played it in ages (I’m not even 100% sure I still have it) is Modern Art.

I have the CMON (or had, anyway) edition which looks really cool.

In this one, players are trying to auction off artwork from five different artists, trying to make the value of that artist’s work even more valuable and then collect the really valuable ones!

In this one, rounds don’t have any potential to end randomly, like in Ra.

Instead, a player will decide to auction off the fifth painting from any one artist from that round. The round ends immediately when it’s placed up for auction without actually being auctioned.

Players are trying to make money in two ways: from the actual auction (since players are paying the auctioneer) and then, at the end of the round, selling off the paintings they bought for the various artists.

At the end of each round, the three artists whose work was sold the most that round are given value, with the highest getting 30 value, then 20, then 10. The other two artists’ work that round are worthless.

The paintings are sold for the cumulative value that the artist has over the rounds.

So if somebody was first (30) in the first round and second (20) in the second round, each painting sold at the end of the 2nd round by that artist is worth $50!

The most money at the end of the game wins, of course.

This can be a tricky game because you do have to be able to gauge value during the auctions. If you don’t do that well, you are not going to succeed.

I also love that there are four types of auctions in the game, dictated by the painting you’re trying to auction off.

There’s the “bid until everybody passes” auction, there’s the “once around the circle back to the auctioneer” one (similar to Ra). Then there’s the secret bids! Everybody puts money in their hand, hidden, and then all reveal at the same time. Whoever bid the highest wins.

Finally (not counting the double auction, where two paintings can be auctioned), there’s the “set price” one where the auctioneer sets a price and then each player can say yes or not to it around the table.

The first person to agree gets the painting.

I’d like to play this one again because I do have fond memories of it.

It’s a bit more difficult to play well, and not all of my friends enjoy it, but it’s a winner for me.

A real winner for me in the genre is Nidavellir, a Norse dwarven auction game where you are bidding for dwarf cards to put into your collection.

You’re meeting them in taverns, so I assume they are mercenaries of some kind.

Anyway, players have five coins, three of which they are going to place in the three taverns to bid for hiring the dwarves that are drinking there.

One of your coins is a “zero” coin, but if you use that coin, you will be able to upgrade one of the two coins that you didn’t use to bid.

Needless to say, you will be using it each round.

(All of my pictures are from Boardgame Arena. Sorry)

Each round, there will be a number of dwarves available and you’ll be choosing how badly you want the first choice of them.

As you hire them, you’ll be placing them in front of you in sets, and each set will have unique scoring at the end of the game.

For each level (i.e. having one card from each colour), you will be able to gain a hero to add to your collection.

This is another favourite, and one I need to get to the table more often. I have it with both expansions, but have only played one of the expansions and only on BGA.

I should bring it out! Maybe I will tomorrow.

The scoring is really interesting, and makes you have to try and concentrate a little bit on one or two colours, but if you concentrate too much you won’t get any heroes.

I also really enjoy the upgrading option for your coins, since coins also get you points at the end of the game.

You should definitely try this one if you can!

Some games just have an auction mechanic placed into a game that’s not really an auction game, though.

Power Grid, power plants are auctioned off at the beginning of each round, but the main goal of the game is to be powering cities by building houses in them and having enough power plant capacity to actually give them all electricity.

Through the Ages, an excellent game, but so long and fiddly that I think I will only play it on the wonderful app, also has an auction mechanic for colonies that come up from the military deck, but overall it’s not an auction game at all.

I still enjoy it!

Those are three of my favourite auction games.

What auction games do you like?

Let me know in the comments.

(Also let me know what you thought of that drink).

Tonight’s post brought to you Kahlua, the number 14, and the letters T & A (get your mind out of the gutter!)