The Glow of Dishonesty

An unusual games night in one way - no Martin, Joe, Katy or Andrew - but numbers swelled to six with Mel and Ben hosting and Gareth rejoining us after a short absence. Ian, Adam H and myself made up the sextet, and after comparing notes on general health and wellbeing, we kicked things off with Just One. 

It was easy at first. Too easy - we shrugged off the odd duplicate and advanced processionally towards maximum points, to the point that each correct answer seemed curiously procedural and lacked tension. But then, like a sneak thief, Just One crept up on us and dealt out a number of duplicates. Adam's word was Flintstone, and with two Bedrocks and two Wilmas cancelling each other out, Mr Hillmann was left with a single clue: knapping. Impressively, he knew what it meant in terms of definition. But he didn't know what it meant for Just One, and having stumbled once we did so again on Ben's final guess, leaving us with a merely reasonable 10/13. How the casually mighty fall.

Then we split into threes, with Adam leading Mel and Gareth to Mexico in Railways of the World as Ben, Ian and I set up Terra Nova. This is the short version of the epic Terra Mystica, which Ian said he'd attempted to play online and found a struggle. That mirrored mine and Andrew's experience on the table several years ago, but thankfully Terra Nova is considerably more accessible. 

Mechanically, you're simply building houses and upgrading them into trading posts, then upgrading trading posts into palaces. Thematically, the changing landscape of the board represents obstacles, as each of us prefer a different terrain to settle on, so we spend shovels to do a bit of preparatory landscaping. And, as there are rewards for chaining buildings together into towns, and having the largest chains at the end of the game, there are incentives to build in each other's way. 

Ben got off to a strong start, utilising his faction's abilities to outbuild Ian and I in the centre of the board. Terra Nova has round-by-round rewards which I tried to focus in on, possibly to my detriment. Ben and Ian were taking a longer-term, strategic view, possibly echoing Adam's progress on Railways next to us. 

I wasn't keeping track of this at all, except at one point Adam said "Oh. I forgot to tell you" and I sighed with relief inwardly that it's not just me who misses critical rules. There was some tense bidding at one point, between Adam and Gareth. Mel may have been struggling with cashflow, as she sighed as well: "I'm bidding nothing, obviously". Adam helped himself to another of Ian's kilo of Lindt.

On the Terra Nova board, we were nigh on hurtling towards the end. It's only five rounds and I'd been first to pass on all of them, I think. Meantime Ben's progress after a brief mid-game stall continued, and Ian ruminated on how badly he was doing - until he made a second town, joined his towns together for the biggest network, and accelerated past me into second. In the final scoring, it couldn't have been closer. Well, for Ian and Ben anyway. 

Ian/Ben 58 each

Sam 53

Terra Nova's tie-breaking suggestion is to play a game of Terra Mystica. We applauded the ambition, but passed. While Railways continued, we instead had a crack at Spots, the dog-collection game de jour. This was so fast-moving I forgot to take photos, but I survived a catastrophic bust to be first to six dogs.

Sam - top dog

Ben - hot dog

Ian - underdog

By which time, Mexico was fully networked and Railways had finished! Adam took the win here, shrewdly doing railway-y things I imagine. There wasn't enough time for a debrief...

Adam 55

Gareth 43

Mel 31

Because we swiftly moved on to Spicy, new to Ben and Mel. We played twice, and the first game was remarkable not only for how many times we challenged Adam, but how many times we challenged Adam on the number when he'd lied about the suit, and vice versa. Not only did he end the game by emptying his hand twice, he was also points leader by a huge amount at that juncture. I suggested we play again. 

Adam's confession that he found the duplicate peppers (red and blue) confusing, led to a lot of colour-announcing, which meant more words were being said and that meant it was easier, in theory, to spot a lie. But which part of the untruth was untrue? I felt confident on a few challenges - mostly on Gareth and Adam - but tended to challenge the wrong thing. Ben challenged as well, with a deal more success. Nobody emptied their hand twice (or at all?) but Ben's chiselling skills saw him take the victory on the last game of the night, as the mighty - Adam in this case - fell again:

Ben 23

Mel 14

Ian 12

Gareth and Sam 9 each

Adam 7

As we geared up for our walks and rides home, thanking our hosts, Mel remarked that Ben had the glow of victory about him. "I think it's the lying" Ben ventured happily. 

And with that, we fled to the night. Thanks to our hosts, to Ian's boss for the sack of chocolate, and everyone for another fun GNN night!