Where there is Discord, may we bring harmony

The evening started in familiar manner -- Ian, Katy and I (Martin) chatting while watching Andy B sign in and out of Discord until he could finally hear us and vice versa. As we waited, an expected Adam (T) and an unexpected one (H) appeared too and then Joe made seven. And we all know what seven means...

Adam T selected his preferred old-school 7 Wonders artwork over the new-fangled version now available on BGA and also discovered an option that lets each player choose their side of the wonder instead of having it assigned randomly. Joe may have regretted his choice, given what transpired. Half-way through Age 2 much cursing was heard as he realised that although he'd assembled all the resources he needed for the second, third and fourth stages of the Wonder, he was one wood short of being able to build the first. 

Adam H - 69
Andy - 65
Martin - 55
Ian - 53
Adam T - 45
Katy - 43
Joe - 23

Joe pointed out that he'd have got 20 points more for completing his wonder, prompting Katy to tactfully note that he'd still have been in joint last. 

Next we split into the three As on BGA and a gang of four on playingcards.io. BGA tells me the former played two games of Kingdoms with rather similar sets of scores.

Kingdom Builder

Andy - 73
Adam T - 67
Adam H - 50

Kingdomino

Adam H - 73
Andy - 60
Adam T - 49

Meanwhile on pc.io we fired up my implementation of Senators. The curse of early wars that plagued our face-to-face games has eerily continued in the virtual realm, and this one was all over before Katy even got to take her 3rd turn. Bad luck for her as she'd probably have overhauled my tie-break win. 

Martin - 8 (9 money)
Katy - 8 (1 money)
Joe - 7
Ian - 5

I'm pretty sure I never cashed in a set of cards at all, relying entirely on extortion for my income and blind bids for my senators. 

Next we tried a new one I've implemented - Knizia's game of the classic battle between robots and ducks, RevoltAAA. The game play is about as odd as the concept and the title and I think we all felt a bit baffled and perhaps underwhelmed. I'd try it again though!

Katy - 10 
Joe - 4
Martin - 4
Ian - 3
Dirk/Deck - 2 (but we cheated it out of a few points I think)

Adam T had dropped offline, having warned us that the start of "Bake-off season" would mean an earlier departure and the other two joined us for a rousing 6-player Texas Showdown. 

Andy - 4
Ian - 5
Adam H - 5
Joe - 7
Martin - 9
Katy - 10 

After Ian and Joe bade their farewells, we finished with yet another of my pc.io games (I got paid for doing this one!): Salvage, the new trick-taker from the family team who brought us Coup, Senators, The Chameleon and Hurlyburly. The bidding in this one is rather perplexing and got the better of me early on, but I managed to pull it back to a three-way tie with Katy's boat first to sink.

Andy - 4
Adam H - 4
Martin - 4
Katy - 0

See you next Tuesday!

Beyond Salvaging

 This week GNN saw a mere four members online (Katy, Martin, Ian and I). But while we were mere in numbers we were far from mere in enthusiasm. Notwithstanding being a bit tired and me being late.
When I'd arrived they'd already played Eggs Of Ostrich with Katy winning (K 19, I 12, M 9).

Next was the online debut of Senators, the auction-heavy card game of Roman political intrigue. Katy got a rules refresher which I needed as well. The game worked pretty well on playingcards.io and Katy was impressed enough with how professional it was, and she asked “Is it difficult to do this?” “Martin answered “Not really,” and then Katy clarified “Is it difficult for a normal person to do this.”

The one awkward part was how to blind bid whenever there was a war: everyone bids, highest gets a senator but everyone pays. Martin suggested a compromise: we all flipped over our coins in our player area and then, on a signal, dragged them onto the playing area. If you wanted to bid zero, you would just say so. It seemed to work well, especially for me when my opponents said they weren’t bidding while I dragged my two coins onto the board. What a cheap Senator!

Andrew 10
Ian 8
Martin 8
Katy 7

Next up was Salvage - a brand new game, not even on Board Game Geek. It’s a trick taker in which you have to avoid winning tricks with flaming boats in them. Doing so means you lose points. However, you have a chance to collect oil barrels to offset the damage. (There’s a story behind all this, I think, but it's pretty tenuous) But anyway, there are 15 oil barrels in total and the players are expected to share them nicely without the 15th barrel being taken. If that happens, then everyone loses points according to how many oil barrels they took. Greed is bad, you see.

Anyway, I had trouble getting my head around it, although I did enjoy Katy losing to Martin, Ian and I playing 1, 2 and 3 red cards (all on fire) and she had the 4. This happened three times. How we laughed. Especially me, since I had nothing else to laugh about.

Martin 14
Katy 13
Ian 11
Andrew -1

Next up was another playingcard game - Krass Kareirt. This game of playing increasingly high hands without actually rearranging your cards. It works well on the internet.

Martin 2

Katy 2

Andrew 1

Ian 0

At this point Ian retired to bed and we three pondered our next move. We went back to BGA because otherwise we're just wasting our money. We chose Can't Stop (which appears to have some kind of desert island theme to it) which I usually do well at since I'm usually able to stop. According to the end of game statistics, I went bust only once. Martin, on the other hand, had only one successful roll in the first half of the game.

Andrew 3

Katy 2
Martin 1

And that was that. Off to dream our dreams of success and derring-do. 

I’m overlooking a four-leaf clover

I arrived late and watched the second half of a game of Lucky numbers while sorting out my drinks. Ian was first to get to his last tile, but luck was against him and he couldn't place that final one, allowing enough time for Andy to catch up and steal a win.

In the end of game statistics Sam discovered he had seven minutes thinking time, which he was appalled by until he remembered that included the rules explanation.

Next up was Decrypto, the latest board game to be given an online presence with a .io domain. The site was functional and pretty boring, but it seemed to work fine, barring some peculiar word choices. We had "Wriggler" among our code words. Sam and Martin teamed up together "for old times' sake" and Ian, Andy and me made up the other team.

I can't say I was completely up to speed with the game. We got a miscommunication in round one before we fluked an interception in round two by simply guessing 1, 2, 3. Martin and Sam used clever clues to avoid any miscommunication and then used logic to intercept us in round two as well. Finally, after some very literal clues from ourselves, Martin and Sam got the second interception in round three, making this perhaps the shortest game of Decrypto I've played.

Sam and Martin, double agents

Ian, Andy, Andrew, halfwits

Next we played 7 Wonders. Usually this is Ian's strong suit but this time he was predicting his failure early on.

Andy insisted his wonder forced him to go big on military (because otherwise he’s such a peac-loving opponent). Sam finished fourth after being convinced he was in the running

Andy 66

Martin 58

Andrew 53 (+ cash)

Sam 53

Ian 45

Next up was For Sale and we began with the worst 9 ever: pick it up for free and allow everyone else to help themselves to 20+ cards. In the second half of the game Andy charitably picked up both zeroes.

Martin 57

Ian 54

Andrew 53

Sam 48

Andy 43

Now Sam left and Ian was on the verge of departing too, suggesting a short game as his finale. We chose Kingdomino and watched in amazement as Ian built a 60+ point forest. Martin’s lake couldn’t compare.

Ian 85

Martin 72

Andy 56

Andrew 49

Ian’s win seemed to give him a second win, as he deferred sleep in favour of a game of Downforce. Despite being a speedy one-lap race, I was able to make my bed during the downtime between my turns. Martin won the race but Andy bet on him so he won the game.

Andy 21

Martin 15

Andrew 14 (+ cash)

Ian 14

Now Ian finally retired and the remaining three played Lucky Numbers. Andy won again. But, mind you, he had a 3-20 spread early on while I began with numbers on my board ranging from 3-11. I never stood a chance (is my excuse).

And thus we were done. Thanks all.

Quadruple ‘A’ gaming

 “Who would have thought, six months ago, that we’d still be doing games nights online?” Martin asked as we logged onto our rather choppy Discord server. Certainly, we’ve come a long way. Tonight we were six in number: Martin, Katy, Adam H, Adam T, Andy and myself (“Too many ‘A’s,” complained Katy.

First we played 7 Wonders, as it’s somehow now almost a reflex action. Martin found himself unable to change his mind over his choice of card and asked Adam H to wait until he’d sorted it out. Adam did so, despite it ruining his “average thinking time” statistic. Andy went big on military and won. Adam T found some solace in the fact that he at least beat Martin.

Andy 62

Andrew 53

Adam H 51

Katy 50

Adam T 47

Martin 40

Then three of the ‘A’s left for one Google Hangout to play Kingdom Builder while Katy, Martin and Adam T set up on another Hangout for a game of Ninety Nine. This game ended

Martin 310

Adam T 228

Katy 43

In Kingdom Builder, Adam and I make the same mistake. Adam made it first, when I was distracted by sorting out my drinks which is why I didn’t learn from his failure. But while Adam was able to bounce back, I lay moribund and spent the last third of the game building as quickly as I could to keep things moving on.

Adam H 66

Andy 55

Andrew 34

With Ninety Nine unfinished, Andy suggested we play Lucky Numbers, a simple tile placing game in which the numbers in the grid have to increase in value from left to right and top to bottom. Easy to pick up and enjoyable enough that we played two on the bounce. Adam won both times.

With Ninety Nine still unfinished, we had a choice: another game of Lucky Numbers or a return to Rallyman GT. We went for Rallyman GT, only to have Martin pop into our Hangout asking if we’d finished before we’d even got to the first corner. Seeing as how we were a whole lap away from finishing, he went off and the three of them played Kingdom Builder. This was, apparently, Katy’s first go at the game since the old Roll For The Soul days.

Martin 70

Adam T 47

Katy 43

As for Rallyman GT, I think we all span off and it started to rain (immediately after Adam crashed. Coincidence? I think not), requiring that we all make a pit stop to change tires.

After I spin off, I have some catching up to do.

1st Andy

2nd Andrew

3rd Adam

I left after this game, but the remaining five stayed around for a game of For Sale…

Andy 59 

Katy 56 

Martin 53 

Adam H 48 

Adam T 38

After this, the three worst placed players left and the two top players battled it out in a game of Chakra…

Katy 14

Andy 8

Ballsy Dudo and the Calza Boys

Tuesday followed Tuesday followed Tuesday. And this time around, the stalwart figures of Andrew and Martin were both unusually absent. Doing the best we could under the circumstances were Joe, Ian, Katy, Andy, and myself (Sam). After Andy's standard intro of checking the online coast was clear several times before finally announcing himself, we dove into our first game of the evening with 7 Wonders. 

Most of us built wonders early, except Katy, who wondered what was going on, and Joe, who wondered why he couldn't build his wonder until Andy pointed out he didn't have any glass. Ian seemed unusually unproductive to my eyes, simply gathering lots of resources early doors and chucking down blue cards. I thought my military was going to pick up a lot of points but Andy suddenly went gangbusters on it. 

Joe insisted the GNN meme about his thinking time was pure fiction, but he did spend the longest time thinking. Ian's productiveness was more reliable than my eyes, as he picked up yet another win. My early confidence crumbled like sandstone over a particularly long period in the wind, as I claimed a shitty third. I didn't write down the scores but it was something like...

Ian 56
Katy 53
Sam 49
Andy 46
Joe 40

Next up was Incan Gold. All my years of work establishing that I leave early came to naught when first Ian, then Andy, did the same thing, with a complete lack of respect. I think everyone died at least once, and it was a who-dares-wins situation with serial non-chickens Joe and Katy tying with 26 as the more sensible amongst us consoled ourselves with living. Everyone was very close together, with the lowest being 21. Fun times

We moved on to Perudo, at Katy's request and others approval. I'd forgotten the slightly different rules on BGA, but got away with it mostly as Ian and Katy took turns to lose dice early on. Then Andy and I joined in, as Joe stayed solid on 5 whilst we all withered. Ian then reclaimed a dice with a classic calza, and I complimented Andy - mysteriously silent for a lot of the game, to the point where Joe eventually cried "Andy, why aren't you speaking?!" and I pictured him twiddling his fingers before a vast bank of screens, cat on his lap - anyway, I complimented him on a 'ballsy dudo' which inevitably led to a riff on who Ballsy Dudo might be. A mafiosi? The leader of a swing band? Maybe a rogue mathematician asking groundbreaking questions about averages. 

Katy crashed out, swiftly followed by Andy and then Joe, who survived a mid-game death spiral but succumbed anyway. It was Ian and I on two dice each. I guessed he was lying when he was telling the truth, and I guessed he was truthful when he was dishonest. Game over!

Ian

Sam

Joe

Andy

Katy

And at this point I retired, leaving the others to get up to who knows what. Thanks all, it was mysterious!