Dirk you forget about me.

There was a change of venue this bi-weekly James and Chris night which saw our respective wives meet up at my house (Chris) and us chaps set up at James'. There was a strange crossing of paths, like an improbable hostage exchange, en-route to each others houses. Thankfully each evening went off without much incident and both parties were allowed to return home.

Tonight's main (and only it turned out) fare was to be 7 Wonders. The two player variant with the Free City (Played by the non player, Dirk) proving to be a popular one. We elected to play the A side of the wonders boards for the first game and then try out the B sides for our second match. James and I must have remembered from last time that utilising Dirk to stitch up your opponent was a sound strategy. Before long he boasted a long line of resources, a tidy sum of structures and most importantly a very impressive long list of sciences. In most games up to now James and I had disregarded the science route as a sub-optimal tactic. However, posing as two benevolent funders of the sciences we generated a surge in progress not seen since the 80's and all of sudden it didn't seem so weak after all. We had shot ourselves in the foot. With an arrow naturally. There is a danger that by chunking good cards Dirk's way to stymy your opponent you in fact inadvertently create a super power.

Dirk surged to a win courtesy of a 31 point score in the sciences leaving James and I slightly shame faced although, very sportingly, we did point out he'd had a lot of luck...

Dirk - 52

James - 48

Chris - 45

With the decks shuffled again and boards selected we began the second game. James, maybe encouraged by what he saw in the previous match went after scholarly pursuits where as I elected to chase after more traditional elements with structures and military. Even though James racked up an impressive score through his science multipliers he had accomplished it at the expense of other scoring avenues and again the science route had proved fruitless. James noted that whoever gets the Palace complete with its 8 victory points tends to win. This time it was sitting pretty in my city and so it proved   that I won the game.

Chris - 54

James - 46

Dirk - 31