Old tool(s)

With Netrunner not really catching fire with myself and James this weeks 2 player event saw some tried and tested titles in attendance. When asked James said he had a hankering (Or a synonym like it) for Stone Age. It felt a while since we had played it but we both knew the game inside out. As is often the case in 2 player Stone Age access to everything is pretty much on tap and therefore keeping an eye on which of the 4 key multipliers your opponent is majoring in and taking up the slack is sort of the only challenge. There is the opportunity to damage each others scoring potential by picking up a culture card which duplicates a technology you already hold. In this game we both elected not to do this (Unspoken of course)  as it often felt like a sub optimal move.

James' tactic of hoarding expensive resources and then over paying for huts saw him make great gains on the score track and build such an impressive line of dwellings I had to double check we weren't playing Alhambra. (Pause, wait for laughter to die down.) My tactic, purely decided by the first culture cards that I picked up, was for fields and axes and trying to keep up with James in the scoring. Before the final count up I think I was somewhere between 15 and 20 points behind and not keen on my chances. James scored his multipliers first and lapped me twice to post 284. My totals faired better than I feared and I managed to creep past reaching 304.

Chris - 304
James - 281

Next up was 7 Wonders with the 2 player free city variant. We both are becoming old pros now when it comes to using the free city to our advantage. Cards your opponents want can be generously handed to the non-player it so that its money can flow into your coffers or used as a card to build layers of their wonder. Their military often gets a boost if one player has neglected to invest adequately in red cards, similarly the blue buildings cards when its a free upgrade building. The game was close and in fact was only decided by me getting a very useful guild pop up at the end from the draw deck that gave me 6 points.

Chris - 51
James - 44