Fire in the Hole

Whilst civilisations rose and fell at Martin's house, Chris, Adam and I were occupied with the rather less epic business of wood-cutting in Lignum.

As previously explained, over two years we spend spring summer and fall gathering equipment and hiring workers, before cutting, bearing, milling and selling or drying. Or putting aside for burning in winter - wherever Lignum takes place, clearly the winters are harsh and unforgiving.

Much like the spinning wheels of Lignum itself, where each season is a miniature puzzle of cog-joining. Chris said a flow chart of how the system works at the end of each season would be really helpful. So I did a Star Wars themed one over breakfast today:

Feel free to print it out, Chris.

As well as Lignum's how-far-should-I-go dilemma of travelling the path along the forest, there's also the dilemma of where to go cutting in the forest. As players simultaneously reveal their decisions, there's always the possibility that you'll double up with someone else, as Chris did with both Adam and I on separate occasions. Adam said it was the one part of the game he didn't like.

As the seasons turned, we hatched schemes for the future with the catchily-titled Planned Work, took Tasks to complete and were regaled with Chris' seemingly endless supply of dad jokes. "I'm a dad" he told Stan. "It's allowed".

When winter came we were all able to eat and keep warm. Nobody did much logging though - we didn't have any sleds. All of us completed two tasks each, and I thought Chris might have nabbed a win when thanks to his planned work he milled up no less than six tree trunks on the final round and sold the lot. But his tasks were less valuable than mine, monetarily speaking, and Adam had only completed one- wait a minute! There's Adam, completing his second task on the last turn of the game. Adam!!!

Adam 66
Sam 60
Chris 48

Whew! It was over, and hadn't taken an age. But had we enjoyed it? Adam seemed to still be making up his mind. Chris said it scratched a similar itch as many other games, without outshining them. So far it's only me who seems to really like Lignum. Maybe I can convince someone else to give it a whirl...

At Adam's suggestion we followed up with an old favourite in Tsuro.

It's been ages since this game of confused dragons hit the table, and it was nice to revisit it. But it didn't last long - Chris and I (with some help from Adam) expired at the same time as we reeled off the board. Adam still had tiles to spend and space to spend them in...

Adam wins
Sam/Chris die simultaneously

And we finished with another game of agonising decisions in NMBR9, which has also been lesser-seen albeit for a shorter expanse of time. As with previous plays, the agonising was audible. I placed too much emphasis on getting a four, and waited too long to change plans. Adam stared at the table accusingly, like an angry owl. Chris sailed to victory.

Chris 99
Adam 79
Sam 75

It was so breezy after all the wood-carrying and pattern-forming that we breezed through again, and this time the agonising was mostly coming from Chris' direction, as he had a hole on level zero that compromised everything he built above it. I was hoping for a victory, but my much-improved score wasn't as much-improved as Adams:

Adam 99
Sam 97
Chris 71

And with that, we were done!