We chose Ascending Empires, the deceptively tactical game of space exploration. At first, it's all about vectors and velocities, as players flick their tiny ships across the galaxy (and Einstein was right – the space-time continuum is curved. In fact, it bends down slightly towards the edges) but before long, a clever use of tech levels is required to increase your options.
Joe continued to suffer from twitch-finger but more than made up for it with a canny exploitation of what resources he did have. One of his tech levels allowed him to place men on unoccupied planets, so he spent most of the last few rounds mining. He ended with only four planets on the board, but he also had a large pile of victory points sitting in front of him. I became increasingly obsessed by my inability at finding a grey planet. Adam's intergalactic space empire stretched across the board, with cities almost everywhere. Meanwhile, Sam forgot that just having a presence in all four quadrants isn't enough for a bonus – you need cities there too. His dreams of a six point bonus evaporated, and left him in third.
Joe 24
Adam 22
Sam 21
Andrew 18
A wise man once said “a man who has one watch always knows the time. A man who has two watches is never sure.” Well, the same applies to people describing the rules of a board game. It was still early, so we decided to try a new game, Ekethorp.
Sam may have had the rule book in front of him, but it was Joe who'd read the forums on Boardgamegeek. And so Sam's reading was often interrupted by Joe adding or correcting a little detail. After each interjection, Joe would then say “and that's all I know! I don't know any more” and he'd insist that Sam continue. And then a minute or so later, Joe would remember something else he'd read and would mention that, too.
As for the game, it involves secretly choosing where to place your men (Vikings) on the board in order to get the randomly placed materials, or to attack your opponents castle and steal materials from there. A sort of cross between Stone Age and Garibaldi. Since it was everyone's first go, I'm not sure if anyone had any real tactics. Adam went for the high scoring materials while I went for cheap stuff that no one else would want, hoping to get the bonus points for having completed my castle (which I missed out on by one brick. I mean – a castle with just one brick missing is as good as any other castle, right?). No one was quite sure what Joe was doing.
Adam 37
Andrew 35
Sam 29
Joe 13
An interesting game, pretty tense and nervy. The battles between Vikings were decided by use of cards from 1-6 and there seemed to be an awful lot of sixes out there. That was perhaps the least satisfying aspect of the game, but still I enjoyed it and would happily play it again.
Amazingly, after that game, it was still early. At least, that's what Sam insisted, despite what the clock said, so a quick game of For Sale was agreed upon. Until Sam remembered he never wins For Sale, so it was changed to No Thanks.
Sam 28
Adam 35
Andrew 37
Joe 40
The leaderboard...
| Played | Points | Ratio | |
| Adam | 3 | 14.5 | 4.83 |
| Sam | 3 | 12.5 | 4.17 |
| Joe | 3 | 10.5 | 3.5 |
| Andrew | 3 | 10.5 | 3.5 |
Good post title Andrew — award yourself an extra point!
ReplyDeleteYes sorry about my interjections in the rule-reading; I'm not used to someone else doing it. But I didn't do that last week when Sam taught us Taj Mahal, so I don't think it'll become a habit.
Moments in to AE, my lack of flicking aptitude reminded me why I shouldn't play the game. I felt resigned to failure: and ended up winning. So flicking isn't everything, I guess. It's why I went for the brown tech level 4, so that I wouldn't have to flick.
I find I'm often noticing strategies during play. For instance, last night I sent two ships over to threaten Sam's ship, which was blockading an empty planet I wanted; as I was weighing up the chances of actually being able to get both ships into striking range with my yippy fingers, it occurred to me all I needed to do was ram him with one ship to remove the blockade, allowing the other to land. Course I would have got a vp for zapping him, but this was a quick and dirty alternative.
It was getting that level 4 tech that sealed it though — they're all really powerful. Again, I had planned to use it to build cities, but as I distributed troops, I realised that I could repeatedly mine and drain the VPs. It's a great game, and occupies a unique place in the games library.
And I liked Eketorp, though I agree, the fact that there were so many sixes floating around made the battling a bit anti-climactic. Great that it plays with six people though, and plays quite fast too.
It was great to get three games in, always feels like a satisfying night when that happens. More games! More!
Still feel a little tragic that I was sailing so serenely towards disappointment in Ascending Empires. But hey, that's space exploration I guess.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on Eketorp, it felt like there were too many sixes floating about. Probably badly shuffled by me, sorry about that...
And yes, No Thanks. That really was the game I meant - maybe there was some mercenary subconscious drive at work, but considering I rarely win either game, I doubt it! Either way, second place feels a bit disingenuous after two 3rd place finishes on the major games. But I'll take it.
I perked up at the idea of For Sale, I like that game.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I feel your disappointment Sam, very annoying for you.