Good Games vs. Good Company

So I played Clash of Monarchs, the complicated CDG, with a guy who lives in my town on BGG.  It was a good experience but reallly had me thinking a lot about the eternal issue that Clearclaw makes us think about.  He's really probably wrong in this respect: that he'd rather play a great game with bad company than a bad game in good company.

In terms of the game itself and a brief AAR, it was pretty crazy, we got about 2 years out of the way.  In 1757 (our start) Fred pounded Charles but didn't crush him, took Prague right off the bat and put Austria deep in the hole VPwise.  He then beat Charles again at Prague at the end of the Autumn of 1757 when he came to attack, this time crushing him.  Charles was officially retired and the general staff was created.  Then Fritz crushed *Daun* at Eger in the summer of 1758.  Meanwhile France absolutely destroyed the Brits, taking Hanover fair and square (no Kloster-Zevin) and by 1758 reducing the Ferdinand to 10SP.  Cumberland did manage an unlikely winter operation, taking back Minden.

To open the new year, after a number of Cumberland withdrawals and a battle, an enemy retreated onto D'Estrees supply line (???) in northern Germany.  Frederick himself then raced north from Austria, set siege to Hanover but took the opportunity to crush D'Estrees and leave his siege behind when D'Estrees tried to get back in supply. Fritz then turned around, started up the siege of Hanover again and retook it for Ferdy, who didn't even have enough SP to do it himself!

On the bright side, France is decisively winning the Colonial battle and fought the British fleet to a draw and a victory!

Finally, the Russians have really shone. Konigsberg was taken in an oversight by my opponent using the winter ops card that takes it. After that, they moseyed on down outside Posnan using admin marches, then Frederick demanded that Henry go and attack the Russians! This drew Henry all the way back from Austria Poland for a nasty battle that ended with a Prussian win in the last turn of summer. When summer ended, fall began, I redrew Frederick Wants Victories! and Henry was again forced from Glogau into the field, in Posnan, to try to crush Saltikov. This ended very, very badly for him with a rout. Saltikov then turned and went straight for Berlin with a small force, overwhelming the garrison there.  We're probably going to play some more of the campaign this week.

Anyway, so I played the game with this guy from BGG and had him over to my place.  Nice guy, pretty sure (almost totally sure) he's fairly Christian.  Relatively uptight and we really don't click on any level *at all.*  All we can talk about is games and even then not on a terribly fun or engaging level.  Also a bit of a rules lawyer but I actually like that in games like this because he'll remind me of all the exceptions.  Overall, decent vanilla dude who just isn't much like me.

And I enjoyed myself a fair amount because Clash of Monarchs really is just that good a game.  But it really left me thinking about this issue of who you play with vs. what you play.  In my case, I really have no choice--there really aren't a profuse number of people who play wargames as intense as Clash of Monarchs in Champaign-Urbana.  This is the only guy I know that does, in fact, and we hooked up through BGG.  And I do love this style of game.  So I have to play with a guy like this, who is nice and innocuous enough but I can't decide if I'm going to do it again.  In many ways I feel like it's sort of a waste to spend that much time, even playing a game you love, with a guy you aren't friends with and don't have any chemistry with.  I should just be playing more reasonable games with my girlfriend...  or even, god forbid, inviting non-gamer friends over and trying out games of mine they want to play.  Or not even playing games at all and just hanging out with friends. 

It really has me torn.  I really want to play these games.  I enjoyed myself but overall I can't help but be jealous of people with gamer friends.  The Swamp Castle type situation really just sounds amazing.  People who have their sensibilities, are bullshitting and having a beer over a game, and just overall having fun.  Some nights just playing rock band or something and not even playing games--basically friends who you know through games and share that interest with.  The synergy between good games and good friends is just that strong--I know I've felt it when I played some games like BSG with friends, it really just clicked.  I just need to luck into finding somebody I really like who is into the same kind of crazy games I am, I guess.