Babalabalonia

Saturday night games at Steve and Anja's house began with a visit from Louie, who came downstairs to see what was what. At that point there was no games on the table however, so in the absence of exciting wooden bits it was merely three middle-aged men nursing their alcohol.

Martin's Yeastie Boys beer was the stand-out. "I can see why they did it" he said, "But it does smack a bit of fungal infections" Anja then appeared and after a brief catch-up, the first game onto the table was Babylonia, GNN's recentest Knizia hit.

Martin went through the rules - which thankfully take about five minutes - and we were off. I began scoring ziggurats and claiming bonus cards whilst Martin chained tokens together. Anja started claiming cities and Steve fretted over his tiles; forgetting that a hand full of Farmers can all be played at the same time.

Despite the simple rules, there are always a multitude of things you'd like to do on your turn, and though I think I'm reasonably competent at what's best for me personally, I struggle with the idea that I need to compute other players' options as well. Martin has no such issues, and as the game wore on he surged to the front of the scores and stretched out his lead. I had told Steve and Anja we'd have to watch Martin, but we didn't watch him closely enough.

Martin 147
Sam 128
Anja 105
Steve 88

Everyone liked Babylonia so much, when Anja suggested we play again straight away, they were no demurring voices. This time things played out very differently: both Steve and Anja began very strongly on the ziggurat front, and Steve in particular putting together a juicy group of tiles on one side of the board. With me doing something similar on the other, Martin effected a kind of spoiling officer role, making sacrificial moves to stop us both scoring big.

While that was happening, Anja collected bonus tiles and put them to good use, harvesting a bunch of fields and accelerating into a large lead. My beards did what they could to keep pace, despite Martin's sabotage, but Anja's canny tactical plays kept pushing her forwards. "How the fuck did I end up here?" Martin cried, pointing to his marker some sixty points behind Anjas...

And as the game closed out, my desperate last move was enough to get me past her. "Knowing what you're doing really helps" Anja reflected. Hats off to Martin though; he came fourth, but after a considerable recovery:

Anja 144
Sam 140
Steve 125
Martin 123

Anja's observation about knowing the game was just about slap us all repeatedly about the face though when I innocently suggested Azul: Summer Pavilion. Because everyone had played the original I thought it would be fairly straightforward, but I'd not really registered how thinky this version is. In the original, options on your board are limited, and the game - as Martin observed - really takes place on the factory tiles: what you leave behind almost as much as what you take. With Pavilion, there's much more flexibility (you can even save four tiles for subsequent rounds) and there are also wild colours each round.

The bubbling fun we'd had with Babylonia slowed to a ponderous stodgy grind as Steve and Anja stared accusingly at their boards and Martin launched into various monologues about the games' failings. I also began to flag. I didn't get rules sweats; instead I had game guilt the like of which I've not felt since I made my family play... Azul: Summer Pavilion. I only remembered today that that didn't go well either!

For all of us it felt comparatively fiddly. For Martin it simply wasn't interactive enough. Although I'm not sure Anja shared that opinion when I claimed the last purple tile and bust her potential 20 points. Sorry Anja. Sorry everyone! It looks a beautiful game and I still think it's lovely for two, but last night it felt less a Pavilion in summer, more a shed in winter.

Martin 102
Sam 87
Steve 81
Anja 49

"Don't worry" Martin assured me, "I love to have things to rant about on BGG!"

We'll always have Babylonia though. Literally.