We - myself, Andrew and Chris - are silk merchants in Florence, intent on being the silkiest merchant come the game end. We do this by delivering silk - obviously - to far-flung climes such as London by boat, or Hamburg by wagon. But the brick and wood we use to build trading houses or ships can also be used (as can marble!) to contribute to the building of the great cathedrals of our home city, where notoriety is just as good as silk.
Two things are unique to Calimala - one is the action selection, where if an action you've selected in a previous round gets chosen again, you get to do it again too. The second is the scoring rounds, which are triggered the third time this duplicate-choosing occurs. It's a hard one to explain in simple text, but pretty simple to pick up in practice, and the upshot is that after 20 minutes or so of euro-dawdling in an area-majority kind of way, suddenly Calimala wakes up and with the merest hesitation, torpedoes its way through the fifteen scoring rounds with nary a pause.
Each scoring round is for majorities in the various destinations and their attendant delivered or contributed goods - silk for the far-flung climes and wood, brick and marble here in Florence. But the triggering itself happens so fast you barely have time to say "Shit, I never delivered to Lisbon", before Lisbon scoring is done and dusted and you realise you never contributed any marble to the cathedrals either - and they're just about to score.
The only end-game scoring has a slight sting in the tail too - everyone has an area they know will score again (more rewardingly) but they will score for everyone, not just yourself. And this proved to be decisive as Andrew's storming tactical lead was pegged back by my more strategic silk-based shenanigans. At the final scoring we were delicately poised on 42 points each after our own end-game bonuses popped out, only for Chris' reveal to favour me in the most fortuitous fashion.
Sam 47
Andrew 43
Chris 26
Andrew and I really liked it, and the whole thing included rules-explanation took 80 minutes - so brief, we decided to play Azul, or, as I like to now call it, Andrew's Revenge.
I kept smiling to myself during the game as the tiles seemed to favour me reaching not one, but two completed colours in bathroom tiles and chewits. But at the end of every round my smile froze rictus-like as Andrew racked up point after point with his now classic clustering tactic, accumulating points like a rogue ball of pizza dough accumulates all the little bits of crap on our kitchen floor.
Chris and I kept looking at each other in despair as Andrew's mastery deflated our optimism. Even me making him pick up seven blue tiles made no difference.
Andrew 88
Sam 63
Chris 56
At Andrew's request we finished with a couple of games of Tsuro. He won the first as I sent Chris spiralling into the abyss, only to be pushed out to the edge of the board with no escape route:
Andrew
Sam
Chris
And Chris came storming back to claim a win in the second game - partly I might add due to my largesse, when I forewent killing him off to claim a guaranteed second as it also meant a guaranteed not-first. Rather than hand the game to Andrew, I kept Chris alive and went nobly hara-kiri. However after that the two old stalwarts circled each other warily in a dance as old as time, until Andrew fell over.
Chris
Andrew
Sam
Good stuff gentlemen! Have a great couple of weeks all and see you one Tuesday soon... ish.
I was surprised how good Calimala was because, as I said at the time, it looks dry as bones. The scoring rounds topple like dominoes in the second half of the game giving it a real sense of momentum. And panic.
ReplyDeleteLoved Azul, and thanks to Chris and Sam for indulging me on Tsuro.
Always a pleasure Andrew!
ReplyDeleteYeah I do like the speed of Calimala. The intensity of it and how you can trigger rounds pretty much turn by turn toward the end of the game is very cool.