Going to the docks

Another week of remote gaming saw eight people involved. At first, four of us (Martin, Katy, Ian and I) played Tea Time while we waited for the others to arrive. It's a nice game, but I don't really get it. When Ian began with a move where he picked up two cards that cancelled each other out, I thought that was a smart move so I did likewise (having no cards is better than having one or two), only to then learn that Ian had mis-clicked and my admiration had been entirely misplaced.

Martin 43
Ian 37
Katy 33
Andrew 30

During this game, Adam T and Andy B arrived. With still more to come, the six of us chose For Sale as a nice little filler before the evening's main event.

I couldn't tell if Katy's eagerness to play was sarcastic or not, given her poor history at the game, but she did mention the "joint second" that she achieved last week. She started by picking up a 24 card for free band she disparaged bidding exchanges as "dick wars". At this moment Joe joined us, and he must have wondered exactly what game we were playing.

As for the game, Katy got her first win while Adam said "I am able to confirm that there are two zero dollars cards."

Katy 48
Martin 46
Ian 45
Andy 41
Andrew 40
Adam 38

Sam arrived too and we split into two groups of four. Sam, Ian, Katy and Martin played American Bookshop.

Katy 8
Martin -3
Sam -8
Ian -15

While me, Joe, Andy and Adam decided on a real challenge: Yokohama. It had been ages since I played and I made a few sub-optimal moves, as well as forgetting how to score points. Adam, too, was working hard to re-familiarise himself with the game, which lead to "It's all coming back to me now" by Celine Dion going around his head. Andy worked as adviser to the rest of us, since he'd played the online version before. Joe's recent real life game against Katy must have been great preparation since he strode away from us almost from the start.

Joe 131
Andy 113
Adam 70
Andrew 49

During the final stages we noticed Martin, Ian and Katy popping in to watch but never staying long. I hopped over to Google Hangouts, only to see that Ian and Sam had already packed up for bed and Martin and Katy were playing Mandala.

Finally, we were all back together, but only enough for us to bid farewell. I was frazzled after Yokohama, so I popped off first and the rest must have gone soon after because a few minutes later Discord sent me a notification of Martin’s last words of the evening: “Can anyone hear me?... Bye then” which gave me the image of him as an astronaut drifting into deep space.

I'm sure he'll be fine. At least by next week.

Back to Babylonia

I arrived at games night this week and was immediately warned by Sam not to lean back on the rear two legs of a chair. If his nightmare was anything to go by, it would result in me crushing my head against a wall. What a way to start the evening.

We began as a seven (Sam, Martin, Joe, Ian, Katy, the initially silent Andy and myself) so we played 7 Wonders. Sam bemoaned the lack of brick in his neighbourhood, Joe built eleven military points and I was so under-prepared that for me round three was mostly made up of cards with red crosses on them. Quiet Ian won again, and again he had the least thinking time. When asked for his secret, he just said stuff that I was trying to do anyway. I'm clearly missing something.

Ian 63
Sam 57
Joe 56
Andy 45
Martin 42
Katy 37 plus cash
Andrew 37

Then we split into two groups. Sam, Andy and Katy played Down Force on BGA. Martin, Ian, Joe and I chose Babylonia on Vassal, the sandbox-y website for recreating board games online.

I tried to keep an eye on Down Force, and I watched with interest as orange stalled near the finishing line, only to see green speed past for the win. Pity that everyone bet on yellow, then.

Andy $13m
Sam $9m
Katy $6m

Then they played again and, according to an email from Sam this morning, he was so tired he bid on the wrong car, played the wrong cards and thought that orange was red.

Andy $29m
Katy $11m
Sam $8m

As for us, we had to struggle with Vassal's unwieldy interface. Joe was using a pen to control his cursor and found it difficult to access the right click menu needed to flip his counters over. Martin often flipped them for him, asking if Joe needed help in the same way you'd ask a five year old if the needed their food cut up.

I accidentally put one of my counters on a tile and when I picked it up I found they had stuck together and no amount of picking up and putting down would separate them. I managed to get out of it by using the Undo button until I was back where I started.

As for the game, it worked fine online. I was lucky in that I was mostly left alone on the central island while all about me wars were waged. It was also very level in terms of cities. A close game.

Martin 138
Andrew 137
Ian 133
Joe 114

At this point the two groups were both back in sync. Joe and Sam left and the remaining five played For Sale. I started very well, picking up a 23 house for free. Meanwhile, in the selling phase Katy got $0 even though she’d played an 18. “You’re such a bunch of…” she said. Ian, on the other hand, picked up $14m with only a 9. Martin won, having ended up with a run of middling cards which seemed to do well for him. He mentioned that it meant he didn’t have to think so much.

Martin 58
Andy 55
Ian 53
Andrew 51
Katy 39

We played again. I bid high for a 30 house in the first round and then have to pass for the next four rounds as the bidding is always out of my league. Ian repeated his knack of picking up big cheques cheaply when he got the $15m with only a 13 house. Not sure what happened to Katy. Maybe she’s not good at For Sale or maybe she was disturbed by the noise of Any’s keyboard which sounded like an alien chomping on human bones.

Martin 59
Ian 52=
Andy 52=
Andrew 51
Katy 33

Katy wanted to play 6nimmt, keen to try a game that she was good at. But the fates were against her tonight as she ran into trouble early on (“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said). I was in first place until the final (fourth?) round when Andy missed a chance to screw me over when he decided to target Martin instead and managed to achieve neither. My luck didn’t last, though and I went into a death spiral (partly thanks to Katy) and ended in second.

Matin 33
Andrew 23
Andy 15
Ian 11
Katy -3

And then Ian left and the last of us chose Tea Time to close. I had to dash off mid game to give a neighbour some soy sauce. At least, that’s my excuse.

Martin 33
Katy 28
Andy 26
Andrew 24

Martin had neatly wrapped up a Perfect Five in one evening, and all without leaving his sofa. How clever. Congrats.

Rock of Ages

I was early for once and experienced the pleasure of watching people trickle into Discord. There didn't seem to be any real urgency in sitting down to play until we (Adam T, Andy, Martin, Joe, Katy, Sam, Ian and me) split into two groups of four.

Martin, Ian, Katy and Sam became the happy-go-lucky trick-taking fun club while the remaining four were the furrow-browed thinkertons of Eurogaming.

After some deliberation we chose Stone Age as suitably thoughtful without being too complex. Joe hadn't played in years and got a rules explanation from Andy. "It's all coming back to me now," Joe said nostalgically.

And then, having taught Joe how to play, Andy showed no mercy in filling up the forest so that Joe couldn't collect wood in that round. I was much more generous and I held a party on my first turn, rolling four sixes such that everyone walked away with a farm.

Joe continued to reminisce about the game remarking that it was the first game they played after Caylus, and we all enjoyed the dice rolling.

One thing that the online version lacks is the sense of satisfaction when placing all of your meeples in one area. Thus, Adam was deprived of the opportunity to feel like a gambling pro at a casino when he went all in on gold. Wasn’t enough to get him near first place, which went to the far more experienced Andy and well done to Joe whose dusty memories were enough to get him into second.

Andy 154
Joe 147
Adam 134
Andrew 127

By the time we’d finished the other four had completed a couple of games (photos below courtesy of Sam - I only recognise Tea Time) and Sam had already retired when we regrouped.

So the seven of us dug out 7Wonders, which is in the middle of its third or fourth revival here on GNN thanks to BGA’s interface making it all very easy to manage. Ian quietly sat in the corner, working on his pyramid of Giza, and winning wars - all with the least thinking time by far. I noticed that very few guilds were built, instead being used to help construct wonders.

Ian  67

Martin 62

Katy 51

Joe 50

Andy 47

Adam 45

Andrew 44

We ended on For Sale. I was quite pleased in one of the bidding rounds, picking up a 13 for just one coin but than that very same 13 got me a bit fat $0 cheque in the second round. With luck like that, I never stood a chance.

Andy 53
Martin 52 + tie breaker
Katy 52
Joe 51
Andrew 38

With that, we were done. Thanks all. See you all again soon.

Tea o'clock

Technically speaking, I was bang on time this week. At least, I had logged into Discord on my phone and was present as Katy, Joe, Martin, Adam T, Ian and Sam arrived. Alas, I was distracted by other things (making a salad, for example) and once I got to a PC, a game of Codenames was already underway.

This meant that my team mate Joe had to decipher spymaster Sam's first clue of ONLINE, 2 and he did it perfectly, picking out Amazon and Web.

Martin was not so lucky with his clues to Ian, Adam and Katy and his clue of WEIGHT lead to them picking one of our clues and then in the second round Martin chose TREASURE as his clue which prompted his colleagues to choose Temple. Alas this turned out to be the assassin and the game ended before I'd really got comfy.

By now Andy B had turned up and so we split into two groups of four. Martin, Joe, Katy and Sam played American Bookshop. Sam described it as a “devilish trick taker” and it was the word “devilish” that swung it for Katy.

They set off to a new Google Hangout so I have no idea what happened there, except that Sam won.

Photos courtesy of Sam

Meanwhile Ian, Adam, Andy and I went for Palaces of Carrera. It was Ian's first go and so Adam gave a rules explanation. Andy took the opportunity to go and get food but later admitted he'd overestimated his familiarity with the game as he had to reference the pdf of the rules. Ian was so quiet and still that I asked him if his avatar on Hangouts was a photo of himself. Adam discovered that you can’t say “bugger” on BGA.

It ended in a rare double victory for Adam. Firstly, for the game of Palaces of Carrara and secondly for the game of Race For The Galaxy that he was finishing off as we were playing.

Adam 78
Andrew 60
Andy 50
Ian 20

We learnt that the other four were playing King Domino, so we sped through 7 Wonders. Andy went into a lengthy debate about whether the left and right arrows on markets meant clockwise or anticlockwise. He must have been very frustrated about this, because he suddenly went big on military in round three. It was a futile gesture, though/

Adam 53
Ian 48
Andrew 44
Andy 39

Kingdomino was still going on so we, in our over excited state, figured we could squeeze one more game of 7 Wonders in. We couldn’t, and they finished halfway through our game. Ian went big on military and yellow commerce buildings on his way to a win.

Ian 56
Andy 51
Adam 48
Andrew 36

Kingdomino ended

Sam 53
Martin 53
Joe 49
Katy 41

Sam won again, this time on a tie-breaker so absurd that Martin scoffed at its very existence.

At this point Ian, Sam and Joe left and the remaining five of us played For Sale. Katy picked up 2, 3 and 4 and wanted the 1 as well except someone beat her to it. It was the most audacious tactic in For Sale since Katy decided to just pass on each round of bidding and pick up whatever. Today’s game ended that same way as that did. With Katy in last.

Andy 57
Martin 53
Adam 49
Andrew 45
Katy 40

Then Adam left which left us as a quartet. We ended the night trying out a simple yet tricky game called Tea Time. It's a set collecting game where each set has a mirror image. Collect two opposing cards and they cancel out. But this may be good because having no cards in a set gets you five points. This makes it better than having one or two.

Martin 41
Andy 33
Katy 27
Andrew 25

Katy 39
Martin 34
Andy 29
Andrew 24

And with that we were done for another week. Thanks all.