It's only Rockleycon but I like it

Friday

Andrew and I (Sam) arrived at Rockley cottage in mid-Somerset first, and sniffed around the place finding it to our liking. Talking later with Chris and Paul, we realised we’ve been doing these weekends away almost every year since before the Millennium. Once upon a time we camped and played cards, but when Chris stumbled on Settlers and El Grande, there was a sea change toward a place with a roof and a table. This year we found ourselves in the village of Edington, and after pondering the finality and intractability of the passage of time, we broke out Castles of Mad King Ludwig and started building rooms.

Chris and Paul were new to this game of haphazard construction but picked up the rules very quickly – it’s such an intuitive game. Paul was last to be Master Builder, but shrugging off this economic hobbling and swiftly began accruing a shedload of money. He sped off up the scoretrack, never to be caught, though Andrew gave it a decent go. Chris was sidetracked by a bonus card for getting all types of rooms, a bit of a red herring bonus if his (and previous) experiences are anything to go by.

Paul 123
Andrew 109
Sam 97
Chris 89

After all that building we were pretty hungry. I started making a chorizo stew whilst the other three played the longest game of Red7 in the history of games of Red7. I cooked stew and rice and we ate it as the game went on hold.

They continued afterwards, promising the game was nearly over for several rounds whilst I entertained myself – and occasionally the others – playing Sausage and Mash with Agatha Christie.

Eventually Chris ended the game with his first victory of the weekend:

Chris 44
Paul 31
Andrew 29

Keyflower was next on the menu. This Chris’ current favourite and he was keen to show it off to Andrew and I, having played it in Bracknell and Reading Boardgame Social. He’s explained it better elsewhere on the blog, but essentially each player is building a village by bidding for hexagons to add to their existing settlement.

However as well as using meeples to bid for the card, you can also elect not to bid on your turn but to use the action on the hexagon instead. The winning bidder gets to keep all the meeples that have used that hexagon’s action, and it’s this delicate balance of getting stuff versus losing meeples at the game’s heart. It’s also a multiple-paths-to-victory game, and a bit of a head-scratcher. There’s plenty to mull over, but we played it with reasonable pace and I pulled off a surprise debut win:

Sam 64
Chris 63
Andrew 60
Paul 56

Next up was Take It Easy. Everyone loves this game for its thematic possibilities that have evolved from our original rhyming-couplets convention, combined with its ability to drive you crazy. Paul began with an unbeatable calling theme of James Bond gadgets, which he sustained brilliantly over the 21 tiles placed. Andrew followed this with a wistful take on things he missed from his childhood, and I did animated characters. I can’t remember what Chris’ one was. The scores felt almost secondary, but it was Chris again with a convincing win:

Chris 649
Sam 587
Andrew 583
Paul 550

By now it was nearly ten and we’d been playing (or learning rules) for the last six hours. When I suggested Alien Frontiers I didn’t expect two newbies to bite, but Paul and Chris were keen – or at least amenable. Rules-wise it’s pretty simple next to something like Keyflower though, so going through the rules only took ten minutes and we were away. I can’t remember much about it to be honest – toward the end my eyes were starting to feel a bit furry but with some luck from the dice I did enough to pull off a win:

Sam 9
Andrew 7
Chris 6
Paul 4

I was ready for bed, but those crazy guys tempted me to stay up for one last game: Kakerlaken Poker. I think everyone has played this by now and there are fairly diverse opinions on it. I think it’s great, personally, though I usually do really badly. Maybe something about my sleepy state made me more aware of when Andrew was lying.

Sam: Fewest cards
Paul: No pairs
Chris: One pair
Andrew: Loser with three of a kind!

A very enjoyable start to the weekend came to an end and we reeled off into bed. I recall it being funny anyway. It’s Saturday now and my main recollection is thinking “Shit, I hope Chris doesn’t bid on that hexagon for making gold” in Keyflower. But the others assure me it wasn’t all like that.


Saturday

Andrew here. The day began with Sam and I driving through the rain (perfect weather for board games) to the neighbouring village Bratton in a hopeful search for real coffee. In fact, they did stock it and Sam came out of the shop with a packet of filter coffee and freshly baked croissants, ruefully saying “Village shops aren’t the same as they used to be.”

Once we were back, we struggled with the cryptic crossword. Paul rose from his bed and we decided that the best way to get Chris to join us was if he heard the noise of happy gamers vigourously enjoying themselves. However, the best we could come up with this early was That’s Life.

Andrew 26
Sam 18
Paul 1

It was Paul’s first game, which goes some way to explain his score. Our plan worked, though, and Chris came down halfway through the game. Once a coffee was put down in front of him he was persuaded to join us in another game of That’s Life.

Andrew 24
Sam 17
Paul 13
Chris 12

After this, we cleared the table for the first of our big epic games of the day: Colonial. A huge epic of a game, taking in a vast swathe of history that lasts centuries. And that’s just reading the rules!

Ho ho.

Sam talked us through the rules, and we looked perplexed and puzzled. There were rebellions and war, diplomacy, and even the chance to abolish slavery. And that was just while reading the rules! (Oh, that joke never gets old)

But seriously, we decided to play a shortened version (up to eight prestige points instead of ten) but we explored as much of the game's options as possible. Sam got hit by a rebellion (thanks to me) and a war (thanks to Paul) but, thanks to never having got into debt, Sam was able to end the game the moment he got eight prestige points.

Sam 8
Andrew 6 and some debt
Chris 6 and more debt
Paul 4

But it was very much a training game. Paul deliberately did odd things, just to see what happened, and Chris deliberately had terrible luck when rolling dice just to entertain us. In fact, his fortune with the dice was so bad that when he finally succeeded in exploring Australia we all applauded.

It was a good game. At least I enjoyed it but then, I do like a game with a bit of a narrative to it. It felt weighty, with its nicely illustrated map and its themes of empires rising and falling. Not sure when we’ll get the chance to play it again, though. It certainly needs some sort of player guide, too.

Then we had lunch of sliced meats, cheeses, potato omelette, burningly hot quiche and dips. This was all to get us in the mood for Amerigo, another epic to stretch us to our limits.

It was new to Paul and Chris, and neither Sam nor I had played in a while so the game was dotted with confusion of the rules. I can’t honestly say it was a madcap bag of laughs, except when someone put a healthy handful of cubes into the top of the tower and only three dribbled out of the end. This happened more than once. Oh, how we laughed.

I exploited a new scoring rule that Sam and I were previously unaware of, scoring well for settlements on completed islands. It was enough to nab me the win.

Andrew 211
Sam 185
Chris 172
Paul 168

Then we went for a walk down to the local farm shop where I bought some local micro-brewed beer (as if we didn’t have enough alcohol already) and then we set off for a brief walk through some of Edington’s finest footpaths.

As we wandered past farms, we imaged the knowledgeable conversations we could have with the farmers thanks to our expertise in Agricola.

“You know, if you fence that field in, you could keep twice as many horses in there.” And “I see you’ve got a stone farmhouse. What other improvement did you get when you built that?”

Then, as it was threatening to rain again, we returned to the cottage, took turns having showers and our next game was another AP-laden Eurogame: Castles of Burgundy. In my notes for this evening, I wrote that CoB is “the fun game of having a plan and then forgetting it by the time it gets to your turn.” Sam went crazy on bonuses for shipping, and got a comfortable win. I came last, behind two newcomers to the game.

Sam 199
Chris 184
Paul 165
Andrew 163

After an excellent curry made by Chris, we decided to play something that was a bit more fun: Incan Gold! Chris was the big winner here, staying on in the first temple by himself, and getting a 9, an 11 and a 17 all to himself. A just reward for his cooking skills.

Chris 68
Andrew 54
Sam 31
Paul 6

By now, the cryptic crossword had bothered Sam and I so much that we even texted Joe, who kindly lend a hand to a particularly annoying clue. As for the games, we chose Raj as a similarly light yet tense way to pass the time. Sam won the first two rounds, but after Chris commented on how well Sam was doing, his game collapsed and he fell back into third.

Andrew 58
Chris 47
Sam 39
Paul 33

Following this, we chose 7 Wonders. A perennial favourite that we’ll still be playing in the old person’s home where we will surely end up. I went for sciences, but it wasn’t enough to beat Chris’ smorgasbord of decent scores across many categories.

Chris 61
Andrew 55
Sam 52
Paul 44

The evening was progressing nicely. We had no appetite for a big game, so we ploughed on with more simple yet tortuous games. No Thanks was given a couple of turns.

Andrew 16
Sam 32
Paul 39
Chris 75

Sam 23
Andrew 32
Paul 48
Chris 63

And then Kakerlaken Poker was dragged out again, with Paul trying to pass off most of his cards with the joyous cry of “It’s a kakerlaken!” It didn’t work.

Sam 1 pair
Andrew 2 pairs
Chris 3 pairs
Paul 4 of a kind

At five to ten Paul had a hankering for a game of Castles of Mad King Ludwig, and since our bedtimes were flexible, we were amenable. I got shitty bonuses, made all the more annoying by me throwing away a bonus card that scored money and I ended with over 50,000 marks.

Sam 120
Paul 102
Andrew 98
Chris 85

And we ended with Timeline, the general interest edition. I can’t remember much about this at all.

Paul 0 cards left
Chris 0 cards left
Andrew 1 card left
Sam 1 card left

Finally we went to bed. Just as I was putting my head down, I got a text! Sam had just realised an answer on the cryptic crossword.


Sunday

Early morning, while listening to an old pirate radio broadcast I’d found on the internet, Chris and I played Biblios. It was close, and I entered the auction round with barely any money at all. I managed to win, though, thanks to Chris not pushing me on an auction for an “adjust two dice down” card. If he’d taken it instead of me, the result would have been very different and I’d be alive today.

Andrew 8
Chris 5

Sam and Paul came down from upstairs, and they blearily looked at the quiz in yesterday’s Guardian, unable to face the cryptic again. Instead we went for a light breakfast followed by a light-to-medium game of Istanbul. My recent form on this game has been nothing short of shocking, but when I got a “Use Sultan's Palace twice” bonus card my strategy was already decided for me, and it worked.

Andrew 5
Sam 4
Paul 3 + cash
Chris 3

With time pressing, we finished what was left in the fridge while playing Tsuro. And what an exciting game it was as we all ducked and weaved, trying to find a quiet corner to see out the game while the other players pick each other off. Paul and I were face to face on one square. I couldn't kill him and survive, so I put down a tile that sent us both around the board... to the same square somewhere else! Amazing scenes. But then we were stuck and both died on Paul's next turn, leaving Sam alone on the board.

1. Sam
2= Paul
2= Andrew
3. Chris

Our last game was Verflixxt! Or That's Life. We played it through twice using all the tiles. The first game ended as

Sam 31
Andrew 15
Paul 6
Chris 2

Then in the second game, Paul requested that all the clovers be right at the end. So we put the guards on the largest minus numbers instead of on the guards (otherwise it would have been impossible to play). Chris quickly sped off, hoping to get to the clover tiles first. It looked like a good idea at first, but he couldn't quite get enough clovers to make it work.

Paul 20
Andrew 13
Sam 12
Chris -8

And with that, games were packed away and cars were loaded up.

Chris departed for home and while Paul was having a shower, Sam and I tried a lightning fast game of Trivial Pursuit (house rule: roll two dice, may move either value or the combined value) and Sam was winning six cheeses to four when Paul came down and it was time to end the weekend once and for all.

Good show, chaps. A great occasion. I'm already looking forward to the next.

I pity the Thule

Although three of us had been playing the night before, that didn’t stop us from re-entering the fray. Battle-hardened, war-weary, fight-fatigued and spat-spent, Ian, Sam and me joined Martin, Adam, Joe, and Hannah for our regular Tuesday meet.

At first, we were six because Hannah was putting baby Aurthur to bed. We filled in the time until she could join us with Timeline. Inspired by Chris’ mixed set, Sam bought a new deck of cards, and wanted to give them a test run. The theme was scientific discoveries, and there was some concern over the wording on some of them. For example, the first calculation of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Is that the first accurate calculation?

Reservations aside, it was still an educational game, and it got the evening started.

Ian 0
Andrew 1
Joe 1
Adam 1
Sam 2
Martin 2

After this, we split into two. Three of us (me, Joe and Martin) played Greenland, Phil Eklund’s new epic of obscure but accurate pieces of history. In this case, something to do with surviving on Greenland. The other four went for Amerigo. And I’m glad to say that us playing Greenland were sitting to the North-east (just about) of those playing Amerigo. It’s these little details that make it all worthwhile, isn’t it?

Being in different rooms, I only caught a glimpse of their progress of Amerigo when I went in to get another can. I did notice that Ian had made an early dash for the big island in the middle. I thought he had it sown up, but maybe he’d made his move too soon, since the scores at the end were:

Adam 121
Hannah 115
Sam 107
Ian 98

As for us in the other room, we spent a peculiar evening in the company of Phil Eklund’s latest. Our early suspicions that we were about to have a unique gaming experience was supported by the baffling slogans on the box. No eye-catching commercial-friendly words to tempt you into buying the game. More like impenetrable one-sentence explanations of certain rules (what is a "biome", anyway?) and an illustration of a typical playing card with the words “Put husband here” next to a big red arrow pointing to a woman on the card.

After a rules explanation, we had to go through ten turns (each one a generation (not literally)) and at the start of each turn there is a random event that we all have to deal with. Our first event was fairly benign: Beaver Pelt Fad. But as the game came to a close, we were all struggling to keep our number of meeples up. Even Martin.

The playing area is made up of two rows of steadily shifting cards. You can place meeples on them to hunt there (using dice) and if you’re very lucky you may get three-of-a-kind (for example) that lets you keep the card, either for victory points or as a bonus action you can put in your hand for later use.

Joe had a very up and down game, going from a hopeless situation to sitting pretty and then back again during the ten turns. I started brightly but went into a slow decline thanks to being particularly prone to shark attacks. Martin had a bit of a benefit in that green get to start of a part of the New World with plenty of wood to burn to get energy.

My tribe, the Thule (hence the hilarious blog title) are great at kayaking, but I found little opportunity to exploit this. Joe’s tribe began with a domesticated animal: a pony. Before long he found it too expensive to keep, so he killed it, only to realise the next go that he couldn’t travel as far, and he regretted his rash decision. Maybe he should have kept the pony and let an elder die instead.

We ended with the event Dense Summer Fog, complete with bland illustration. I’ll say this much: Greenland is a game which offers experiences that no other game does. Martin ran away with the win, while I just about scraped second thanks to me killing a polar bear in the second round.

Martin 27
Andrew 8
Joe 6

It was fun, but I couldn’t tell how much of that fun was due to the absurd events and cards that come up throughout the game. I’m sure we skipped over a lot of the rules. There was very little fighting or marriage. I’m sure there are greater depths to this, and the dice rolling certainly livens the game up, especially as you can collect cards that influence the dice results in your favour.

I hope we play it again, since it would be stupid to only play it once and base your decision on that.

Amerigo and Greenland both ended at around the same time, but after an evening as intense as this one, there was little chance of one last party game to finish off the night.

It’s close at the top of the form table, with just four points separating first and fifth.

						Points
Adam	1	2	2	2	1	8
Martin	1	3	1	2	2	9
Andrew	2	2	2	1	3	10
Sam	3	3	1	3	1	11
Joe	3	2	3	3	1	12
Ian	4	1	3	4	2	14
Katie	3	2	6	1	3	15
Chris	4	2	4	4	1	15
Matt	1	3	2	5	5	16
Hannah	2	2	5	5	5	19
Stanley	4	1	5	5	5	20

Saturday Night Several

Saturday night games are usually rather sparse affairs, with only a few gamers with nothing better to do on a weekend evening. Tonight was a different affair, though, with six of us congregating in Sam’s kitchen which for most of us is less of a kitchen, more of a portal into other worlds. Sam, myself, Ian and Matt were joined by Steve and Anja, bringing their baby with them.

The worlds we chose this evening were Amerigo and Macao. Two games from neighbouring centuries jostled for space on the same table. Sam, Steve and Anja went for the epic sweep of Amerigo, while Matt, Ian and I chose a make our fortunes in the Portugese colony of Macao.

Macao was a strange game, with no players spending much time gathering city quarters and shipping goods. Instead, we relied on a remarkably generous Tribute Track, allowing us all to trade cubes for coins and buy prestige points that way. But Ian’s three Baronesses gave him 15 bonus points at the end, while Matt’s minus 12 points for uncompleted cards dragged him back into second.

Ian 90
Matt 77
Andrew 66

Amerigo still had another round to play, so the three of us broke out Biblios. I reminded Matt and Ian of the rules, and I like to think I was hit by Explainer’s Curse but, let’s be honest, no one knows why people win or lose at Biblios.

Ian 6
Matt 5
Andrew 3

With that win, Ian became Mr Biblios: a rather fleeting title that’s given to whoever just won a game.

Anja and Steve had to leave to catch the bus back, while Sam totted up the scores and grumbled his way through the lengthy period of packing away that Amerigo requires. In the end the scores were:

Steve 113
Sam 111
Anja 99

I set off home after my game of Biblios but, like Steve and Anja’s baby boy, the remaining three weren’t quite ready to go to bed just yet. They stayed on for another game of Biblios, with Sam picking up the title of Mr Biblios.

Sam 8
Ian 4
Matt 3

On the form table, Ian rises to pole position with just one evening of the season to go! See you for the grand finale on Tuesday!

						Points
Ian	2	1	1	1	3	8
Adam	3	2	2	1	1	9
Martin	2	1	5	1	2	11
Matt	3	2	2	4	1	12
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Sam	1	2	2	4	4	13
Joe	6	1	3	1	2	13
Steve	1	1	1	5	5	13
Andrew	3	3	2	3	3	14
Hannah	2	2	3	4	5	16
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Anja	3	3	5	5	5	21
Katie	3	3	5	5	5	21
Jim	4	5	5	5	5	24

As for this week’s mini-divisions, Macao sees Sam on top of a table that shows what an even playing field Macao is, with eight of us players having clocked up a win. Adam leads on the medal table and points ratio.

And for all the talk of Mr Biblios passing from one player to another, we all know who the real Mr Biblios is.The spreadsheet never lies (unless I’ve made a mistake) and Sam’s mastery of the game is there for all to see.

Games are like Amerigo-round.

GNN is like a lucky dip these days: you never know what you’re going to get. One minute Adam shows up unexpected, then Chris can make it over from Bracknell, and today Paul came all the way from London to visit Cardiff and join us in our regular Tuesday games night. And if that weren’t enough, Steve manged to make it over too. Adam was hosting and, with Hannah to tired to join in, we were seven in number: Me, Sam, Matt, Paul, Ian, Adam and Steve.

But before Steve arrived, we indulged in a little Camel Up. This betting game is simplicity itself, which is probably why it appeals so much to us. But this was the first time we’d played it with so many, and that did change the game slightly. Because there was such a long gaps between turns, it seemed like everyone was doing whatever they could except actually move the camels along. If they did this, then they next few players would be in a better position to bet with the new position of the camels. Steve arrived midway through and commented that, for a race, the camels didn’t move much.


Matt 24
Paul 15
Ian 14
Sam 13
Adam 10
Andrew 8

Then we split into two. Like last week, Adam, Matt and myself we sent to the front room while the other group played a game that needed more surface area. We chose Concordia, while Ian, Steve, Paul and Sam took on Amerigo, an epic game whose promises of random maps and a dice tower were enough to convince the newbies to set sail.

In the front room, I explained the rules of Concordia to Adam and we began. It was pretty slow going, and Adam found the cognitive load quite a burden. He said that every new card that was revealed made him want to change his strategy.

Matt’s reputation as the obscure mule was well deserved, as he quietly monopolised wine. I went for brick and cloth cities mostly. In the end, those rolls of blue silk were enough to push me into first.

Andrew 125
Matt 120
Adam 104

With Amerigo nowhere near ending, we went for a game of No Thanks. This was new to Matt, so we explained the rules and then explained them again midway through the game as he didn’t seem to have understood the rule about chaining cards together. He still did okay though.

Matt 43
Adam 67
Andrew 74

Still Amerigo had land untouched by human hand, so we squeezed in a second game. This time I eschewed my usual strategy of low cards and went for higher cards instead. I got a bit of luck with a run of five, and that was enough to give me what I think is my first ever win on No Thanks! (I’ve come joint first before, but this is my first solo victory.)

Andrew 30
Adam 31
Matt 49

And by now Amerigo was over, and multipliers had been totted up. As you might expect from someone with such a strong reputation with long thinky games, Steve came away the winner.

Steve 128
Sam 118
Paul 118
Ian 100

Amazing scenes on the leaderboard, as Joe rises to top spot, even though we haven’t seen him in about two weeks!

						Points
Joe	2	2	2	3	3	10
Matt	3	1	2	1	3	10
Sam	2	4	2	1	2	11
Martin	4	2	2	1	2	11
Chris	1	2	1	3	5	12
Andrew	1	3	1	6	3	14
Adam	2	2	3	5	2	14
Ian	3	3	4	4	3	17
Paul	2	2	5	5	5	19
Steve	1	5	5	5	5	21
Hannah	2	5	5	5	5	22

God bless Amerigo

It’s the last GNN of the season! A time for excitement as the result goes down to the last second of the game. Oh, wait... that was the Brazil – Chile game. As far as GNN was concerned, the season was wrapped up long ago.

But still, three hardy gamers were in attendance. We chose Amerigo for its second outing. Myself and Sam were keen to see how it played with three – the third player in question being Matt.

Amerigo looks daunting but it such a simple game, that the rules can be explained more or less as you go along. This is what we did and, at first, I felt a little bad of Matt as I shot into an early lead with Matt in last place (and Sam not too far ahead of him). But my rush for building on small islands was a false dawn. Both Sam and Matt focused on commodities, collecting them and their multipliers.

This meant I was easily overtaken by both of them, despite Matt falling prey to the feisty pirates, he still easily passed me. Sam, on the other hand, was out of sight, and had lapped both of us by the time the game ended.

Sam 177
Matt 124
Andrew 113

Then we packed it away, carefully dividing the myriad pieces into separate lock-tite bags. For our next game, we decided on something a bit more fun: Take It Easy. Only we found when we opened it that all the counters had been mixed together in the box and we spent yet more time carefully dividing the myriad pieces before we could begin.

As we played, we continued our habit of announcing each tile. I went for the old-fashioned rhyming couplets, while Matt decided on random Hollywood actors. By now the whiskey was out, and we all found this hilarious. When he said “Whoopie Goldberg”, I yelled out a delighted “Wookie Boldgerg!” Meanwhile, Sam cursed Harold Ramis for ruining his game. Finally, Sam’s choice of calls was things from the 80s. Everyone welcomed Talk Talk, but weren't so keen on stone-washed jeans.

As for the game, it was pretty high-scoring for everyone, with 127 being the lowest for a round. Sam scored 65 points on the last tile of the last round. He was so excited, he forgot to say what thing from the 80s it was. Maybe it was Leroy out of Fame, the TV series.

Sam 557
Andrew 449
Matt 411

And then we set off home, ending the evening and ending the season!

On the form table, Gonz wins, just as he’s about to depart for Spain for the summer.

						Points
Gonz	2	1	2	1	1	7
Martin	3	2	1	1	3	10
Sam	1	1	3	5	1	11
Andrew	2	3	3	1	2	11
Matt	3	2	1	4	2	12
Ian	4	2	1	4	1	12
Will	2	4	2	3	5	16
Joe	4	3	4	4	2	17
Anja	2	5	5	5	5	22
Steve	4	5	5	5	5	24

On the Division, Martin wins the medal table and points, and he would’ve won points ratio too, if it hadn’t been for those meddlin’ Bracknell kids. James slips in under the radar and gets points ratio with his four games.

Congrats to our three winners, and let’s all rest before the next new season. In a couple of days. And here's hoping Adam and Hannah make a return soon!

Feld of dreams

Sam suggested a two-player game tonight, and I suggested Amerigo. We were both in agreement and so it was that Stefan Feld’s table-hogging opus got its GNN debut tonight.

It is a mix and match of a game. There’s a tower to put cubes in, like Wallenstien, and a sort of rondel, and a bit of Princes of Florence-style building and a few multipliers and end-game bonuses thrown in for good measure.

Despite it looking like a point salad, and ignoring the large amount of space it takes up, it's actually pretty simple. As a two player game, we were covering 3/4ths of Sam’s kitchen table, easily. Maybe with some careful stacking, we could get it down to 2/3rds but, face it, this is a beast.

So we set up the board, worked out the difference between progress tiles and production tiles, and generally learnt the rules as we went along. Sam had the advantage of a vaguely remembered review he’d seen on YouTube, but he shared its findings with me: that specialising was a good thing.

We started out doing very similar things, but soon decided to diverge in our strategies to see how the game progressed.

At the start, Sam took the lead, but mid-game, I had a couple of progress tiles that made building a lot easier and I shot off into a commanding lead. So much so that I decided I didn’t need to sail my ships around any more.

As it was our first go, we did not fully understand the subtleties of the game, such as taking gold instead of an action. The cube tower seemed to work fine, giving enough options to keep the game interesting, but also with the possibility of very few options at all, which may hobble any players plans if they haven’t planned ahead properly.

Almost everything is slightly randomised: the layout of the map, what actions are available, what commodities you can pick up etc. I think we were lucky that, in our first game, the pirates weren’t terribly scary so we could concentrate on other things,

We came to the end of game scoring. At first, I sped off into an even greater lead, even lapping Sam at one point. But he had his bonuses and multipliers still to come. It ended in the closest possible manner:

Andrew 143
Sam 142

What a game! What tension! But even before the scores were in, I was enjoying this game. The random nature of what options may be available, and the different paths a player may take to Victoryville sort of reminded me of Caverna. I’m sure there are untapped strategies to be uncovered, but whatever they are, I’m very happy to set off for Amerigo once more to discover them.

Hats off to Martin for dragging this one back from London via public transport. We salute you!