Thursday 15 January 2015

Appeasing the Gods

Thursday. Andy, Adam, and birthday boy Ian converged on my house (Sam's) at 7.45. Andrew was weirdly too tired. What's he up to over in Redland?

We thought it'd be nice if Ian chose the games. Admittedly I did *mention* my current favourite Castles of Mad King Ludwig, but not exclusively. Ian was keen though, and so that's what came to the table. Andy broke with tradition (in this house) and actually read the rules properly, clarifying that the purple living rooms re-score both their own building points AND adjacency points when completed*. I'm not sure if playing it wrong hugely effected the placings in our previous efforts, but apologies to anybody if so.

* a completed room has all its exits leading somewhere, or in our house-rules version, either leading somewhere or blocked off by a massive stone wall

Andy shot off into an early lead courtesy of a huge entertainment room that got him a whopping 13 points or so. Adam and Ian battled it out over gardens - one of the kings favours - whilst I looked to try and get a bit of everything.

My castle: three bedrooms and a cellar.

Post two whisky-macs, I honestly don't remember a huge amount about it now, except late in the game I got complete analysis paralysis when, as master-builder, I was setting the prices on the rooms to be built. Succumbing eventually to the fact I didn't want to drive everyone mad, not least myself, I made the two food rooms the cheapest. Adam bought them both, embarking on a crazy triple or possibly quadruple move scoring spree. However I'd left it would be good for Adam (who was left of me and first to buy) but I really put my foot in it with this...

Adam 103
Sam 101
Andy 87
Ian 63

I still feel Adam's castle looked a bit like a set of porta-cabins

Next up was Ra. I scored big in the first round when having picked up Pharaohs and Civilisations, I could watch with satisfaction as a glut of Ras emerged and ended the round quickly. The second round was a cagier affair, which started with Adam having the craziest set of bidding tiles ever:

after me, everybody

I wasn't sure who was finishing where in this game. Partly because Andy did very well in the third round, partly because I had no idea how well Ian was doing, and partly because I didn't realise I had a set of five Civilisations. Thankfully Adam pointed it out.

Sam 42
Andy 40
Ian 31
Adam 24

And with Ian - now 32 - ending the game with a pun* worthy of a seasoned GNNer (i.e. terrible) we elected to call it a night.

*pharoah nuff







Points
Sam 1 2 2 1 2 8
Adam 4 1 1 1 5 12
Andrew 2 2 3 3 3 13
Katy 3 3 1 1 5 13
Joe 2 1 2 4 5 14
Matt 2 3 4 5 1 15
Ian 3 4 3 3 2 15
Andy 2 3 6 2 3 16
Martin 1 1 4 5 5 16
Steve 3 3 4 5 5 20
Anja 6 5 3 4 5 23

16 comments:

  1. Sounds like fun. Happy birthday, Ian. Sorry I couldn't make it, but I was asleep round about the time you guys were starting Ra.

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  2. Play Ra without me, will you . . ?

    Pharaoh nuff makes a lot more sense - pharaoh nub is just weird - but was very obviously a auto-correct :-)

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  3. Cheers folks, was an enjoyable evening.

    I couldn't quite get my head around Castles. I think one of my mistakes was chasing after my card bonuses when I should have been doing other, better scoring things.

    I do like that game though.

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  4. "I still feel Adam's castle looked a bit like a set of porta-cabins"

    Says the man with the overbalancing fork-lift truck :p

    I liked that it got more complex with four players having four victory bonuses to compete for. You may find it easier to get the hang of a two or three player game Ian.

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  5. Adam I'm just trying undermine your victory with flippant aesthetic objections.

    I love this game. I do remember loving Dominion at first though, so I'm wary of suddenly deciding it's rubbish. But right now I think its great. Adam's right Ian, 4 players does mean there's extra opponents to watch as well as extra Favors to consider from the King.

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  6. Dominion is fairly one-dimensional compared to Ludwig - and my memory is that you went off Dominion pretty quickly Sam - this is lasting love!

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  7. Any chance you could undermine my loss in Ra somehow?

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  8. You did really well to get those bidding tiles in the second round.

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  9. To be fair we've all done this with some new games only to have the sheen wear off when it gets 'solved'.

    Open question. Does anybody have a game they love playing even though they never win it? The closest I have is with Nexus Ops. Happy to play it but nearly always lose!

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  10. Brass, Lords of Vegas; in fact with any game I love I don't mind if I win or lose, that's probably the way round it works for me I think.

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  11. Railways of the World. I think I won a two-player against Andrew once. Usually I'm third or fourth but I love it.

    I also like Wallenstein and have never come close to winning that.

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  12. Andrew's here; he says "I'm the worst at Brass!"

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  13. I've never come higher than last on Brass, but I still love it.

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  14. Mmm Brass. Yep, I'm with Joe. I know it's true love when I enjoy myself just the same whether I win or lose.

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  15. I can't claim the same sense of serenity/lassez-faire as Joe and Martin, but on a lesser note, I enjoy Biblios and 6Nimmt whatever the weather.I did put in Love Letter there too, but sometimes it can explode in your face and then it's not quite as much fun. Ian, Andrew and I played Biblios tonight and the first half went disastrously for me, but it was fun trying to eke my way back in the game with my massive amount of gold cards and bugger all else (except reds, which were worth 1 point)

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