This was Adam’s first game of Pergamon, but his deadly eye for an easily exploitable opportunity was on fine form this evening. He quickly accumulated a large pile of money thanks to some canny gambling on the funding round. Everyone put on some great shows, and at some point in the evening Joe put on an exhibition that was so good, he ran out of room on the board. This assured his win, despite a strong challenge from Adam. So successful were Adam and Joe as players that we ran out of victory points to count our winnings. Not exactly breaking the bank at Monte Carlo, but still impressive.
Joe 36
Adam 35
Andrew 27
In the second game, Adam’s tactic of gambling for extra funding back-fired and I thought maybe he might not come first. But Adam is Adam, and he had learned the basic maxim of archaeology: “Old things are good.” He boosted his otherwise average score by picking up seven bonus points in the last round for having the oldest exhibits.
Adam 33
Joe 30
Andrew 28
I’ll leave it for Sam to explain the excitement of Cornwall tin mining, and the mystical crisp that looked like a bird. But I can add the scores.
Steve 93
Sam 89
Quentin 82
Jonny 68
The leaderboard...
| Played | Points | Ratio | |
| Adam | 9 | 47.5 | 5.27 |
| Joe | 9 | 37.5 | 4.16 |
| Sam | 7 | 29 | 4.14 |
| Andrew | 9 | 26.5 | 2.9 |
| Jonny | 4 | 15.5 | 3.9 |
| Steve | 4 | 15 | 3.75 |
| Quentin | 2 | 7.5 | 3.7 |
| Matilda | 1 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
I think we ran out of VPs in that first game because we forgot to push the exhibits down five spaces on that penultimate scoring round. We managed to fit two games of Pergamon in to one four player Tinners' Trail — for the second time in as many weeks, Adam and I found ourselves lamenting the fact that we could have played Brass. Though as Adam pointed out, it would have been a squeeze on the table. Would have been worth a try though - mmm Brass . . .
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTinner's Trail round-up:
ReplyDeleteQuickly reposting this, as I had somehow remembered Quent winning when in fact Steve did. Sorry Steve.
I was the only person to have experienced this Wallace classic before (Jonny, having specifically requested to play a game he'd actually played before, was steamrollered into it), and thus I was also in charge of explaining the rules. The latter fact at least should have guaranteed me first place but unfortunately I managed to explain the game in a sentient fashion and the theme was self-explanatory. Curse you, Wallace!
During a bit of rulebook consultation though I did establish that we've been playing it wrong on a couple of counts - firstly, your basic mining capacity is two cubes of any colour, not one of each. Which makes sense - Wallace is a fickler for historical accuracy and one assumes miners didn't stop mining copper at lunchtime to carry their picks to the 'tin bit', especially when tin prices were shit.
We also realized that the Miner, Port and Train all give you 1 extra capacity in total - ie, not one of each colour. This meant the resources were harder to extract in great numbers and suddenly my series of final rounds with bugger all happening in them made sense.
Anyway, Steve won by 4 points, despite Quent hampering his final investment phase with some strategic cube placement. Q had also pulled cunning move on me in an earlier part of the game, using his hypnosis to make me spend lots of money on loads of water. If he was one of the seven dwarfs, he'd be Sneaky. But all's fair 200 feet under the ground, as they say.
Rumours of Steve receiving text help from an unnamed source during the game are currently unsubstantiated.
And I ate the crisp, so it will not be available on ebay after all
ReplyDeleteWhy do you hate I'm the boss Sam?
ReplyDeleteBecause it was confusing and boring and I got shit cards. THATS WHY!
ReplyDeleteHave you played it Chris? That was my only try of it and I LIKED it.
ReplyDeleteI will persevere with this one — it's supposedly best with five or six, so it's unlikely we'll ever have that many people not including Sam, so we'll just have to win him round.
You're looking very handsome today btw Sam, almost like a person representing the financial interests of a rich and powerful family . . .
Before my dislike of I'm The Boss becomes a GNN meme perhaps I should explain it properly.
ReplyDeletePartly I was frustrated by the cards as I alluded to above. I remember not getting any powerful cards until near the end of the game, by which time I was in an obvious position of non-contention.
But more than that, I didn't warm to the elements the game probably prides itself on, a kind of scattergun approach to deal-making with lots riding on something only to have it pulled out from under you at a pivotal moment. It doesn't bring out the most gracious loser in me, instead I just get frustrated and start dreaming of Tin Mining...
And I got shit cards.
No Joe I've never played it, but I always like to try them once. I'm always interested to find out what types of games people abhor so I don't buy them and have them stuffed in the cupboard. (Although that's all mine do these days).
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I dislike games such as Battle Star Galatica. Collaborative I guess. I don't mind rule heavy games but as I used to be a wargamer, but they must have a light version of the game to allow you to get into it. This two/ three tier approach is a fantastic way of introducing complexity to a game.
I'm not big on games that have a lot of player down time but I recognise this is all part of gaming.
What are everybody else's turn off's?
I'm too impatient/casual/thick to go for a rule heavy game. As previously discussed on the blog, I think we're probably all averse to the supposedly comic games too.
ReplyDeleteFantasy is a general turn-off, though I'm perfectly able to suspend my disbelief and go with it if everyone else is.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind rules-heavy games if I'm up to speed — I do find it almost impossible to play a game while being taught it, so I tend to gen up on BGG if a game I'm unfamiliar with is going to be on the menu.
And yes, deliberate humour almost never seems to work (with the exception of Galaxy Trucker). That said, I have a theory that the things we find mildly amusing in supposedly dry games, the 'trusted friend' in Notre Dame, for example, or the plant-pots in Colosseum, are in fact instances of a bone-dry German sense of humour.
I suggested this to my german friend Henning, and he thinks it could be the case. Any other examples to back up this theory gratefully received . . .