Lords of Tigris

Various maladies kept Andrew and Adam from the table last night (best wishes guys) but there were still seven of us around the kitchen table when 7.30 arrived: Gareth, Ian, Katy, Joe, Adam T, Martin and myself. We inadvertently found ourselves having a conversation which took an unlikely turn when Ian mentioned the Lego version of Tigris and Euphrates he'd seen online. I don't recall how we got from there to vulvas, but Katy said she'd love to see a Lego version, and gestured something the size of an oval dinner plate. At this point we thought we should probably start playing something, and kicked things off with Cross Clues.

We did pretty well, although I let the side down a bit with a rushed guess and a rushed clue. 

Everyone: 21 out of 25

I forgot to take any photos, but you know what it looks like. 

Then it was time to move on to the evening's main courses. As agreed last week, a few of us dived back into the genius (Martin and Adam) or bewilderment (Gareth and I) of Tigris and Euphrates. Martin availed us of the rules whilst at the other end another type of bonkerness began to manifest in the form of Lords of Vegas.

I'd forgotten the intricacies of Tigris - as much as I ever knew them - but the sense of not having a clue what I was doing was present and correct. Players aren't colours but types. Leaders score points for matching-coloured tiles, except the black leader who can score on behalf of absent leaders. Internal conflict (someone arrives in your kingdom) versus external conflict (someone joins two kingdoms together) is enough to think about already, but on top of the initial opacity you've got the joy/frustration of how these things come to life on the board. "I've never seen you this angry playing a game!" Martin said, but my Sybil-esque mutterings were really about my own shortcomings - I find it hard to get my head around. 

Gareth, on his debut, got blue and green leaders mixed up but coped with the fallback with more grace than I would have. Meantime across the table from us, Adam and Martin had conversations we only half-understood. Halfway through, it felt like Martin was definitely leading (points come in four colours, and your final score is your lowest-colour haul) and after that, I wasn't sure what was happening. I started some wars to just to see what happened, and it wasn't good. 

As the game neared its conclusion, Adam at first ended it, but then decided not to, setting some kind of trap for Martin instead. Meanwhile, in Lords of Vegas, Joe announced that all his shitty luck from last week was balancing out now, as his score marker moved into the giddy heights of the sixties! There was a final big casino payout to come, but Katy and Ian where nowhere near him. 

In Tigris, Martin hadn't fallen into Adam's carefully-laid trap, much to his appalled disdain, and Gareth joined two kingdoms to end the game. As we anticipated, Martin was a clear winner, and Adam reflected that despite it being his favourite game for 15 years and counting, he was still rubbish at it.

Rubbish was all he needed for second place, though:

Martin 7

Adam 4 (wins on tiebreaker, or wins on Tuesday according to my autocorrect)

Gareth (third on Tuesday)

Sam (last on Tuesday) 

Martin made the very reasonable point that if we played it more regularly, that sense of grasping for understanding would drop away. I'm not sure Tigris calls my name for regular play, but I'd be up for going again soon. I'd like to play with a vague sense of agency, at least. As the finale to Lords of Vegas played out, the four of us blasted through a super-quick game of Yokai Septet, the partnership trick-taker where you're trying to claim 7's. 

Martin and I won round one, and were wrapping up round 2 (and the game) as Lords finally wrapped up. Joe's score was astonishing. 

Joe 79

Katy 36

Ian 14

Nobody has ever scored anything like that on a GNN night, as far as I'm aware? Then, like the high-rolling gambler he is, Joe sashayed out the door to the airport. I should probably add he was picking up his daughter, but why ruin the enigmatic illusion? 

We played So Clover. 

Katy finished her clues in rapid time but we found ourselves on a different wavelength and couldn't figure out that Mug went with Croc, as in crockery. Sorry Katy! It wasn't the triumph of last week, with only a couple of sixes in the mix, but a half-decent score all the same:

22/30

Again, no pics. As well as not having the brain for Knizia's classic, I also lack basic memory skills. I did remember to take one of Polterfass though: great to get this barrel-rolling, beer-ordering brinkmanship classic back on the table. I short-changed everyone on the very first turn to get some points on the board and backed it up with a big order on turn 2, but as Ian sank immediately to minus figures, Katy was close behind me. 

Both she and Martin wracked up huge amounts of beer, Katy at one point reeling something like 48 on a single turn. Martin rerolled four barrels several times and somehow didn't go bust. As greedy as the rest of us had been on these big beer hauls, Katy was unstoppable and sailed to a convincing victory:

Katy 89

Sam 57

Ian 38

Martin 30

We wanted to finish with Push It, but I realised having leant it to my brother we couldn't. Martin and I pushed for Crokinole, but we settled on Spicy. What a little gem this thing is. As I made challenge after challenge, and Martin and Ian periodically joined in, Katy simply racked up points by telling truths and successful half-truths. "I'm not even doing anything!" she said, as we frantically challenged each other, usually to little avail. She and Martin both managed to empty their hand of cards (+10 points), but Katy was uncatchable - although Martin gave it a good go.

Katy 28

Martin 25

Sam 18

Ian 12

I was too embroiled to take a picture. Another excellent evening, thanks all. And apologies for my grumbling through T+E. 

How very a-neue-ing

This evening almost ended before it began for me, as I got into my car and found that the interior rear mirror had fallen off. Quickly I strapped it back in place with some masking tape, just enough to get me to and from Martin’s place for this week’s gaming goodness.

At first there were six of us: Martin, myself, Ben, Katy, Ian and Andy. While we waited for Sam and Chris to arrive, we decided to have a game of Why First? This game rewards coming in second and, as such, we did wonder if it was too unthematic to play it first. But that didn’t stop us.

Andy shot off into an early lead, and then tried very hard to make someone else do better than him. In fact, both Katy and Ben scored more than him, but Ben was just too good at being second and so he lost. We ended with Martin muttering something about stupid random games.

Katy 9
Andy 8
Ben 11
Martin 5
Ian 0
Andrew 0

By now, everyone had arrived and we split into two. Martin, Katy, Ben and Ian quickly decided they would like to try Discworld again. The remaining four debated our options and I mentioned Tigris & Euphrates. This got a certain amount of guarded interest but perhaps it was Martin’s anger at us playing his favourite game without him that helped us decide.

And so it was, four players sat down to a game that they barely remembered. Martin kindly stopped setting up Discworld long enough to explain the rules to us. Once we were going, it was a slow thoughtful process. We vied for territory and struggled to remember the difference between an internal and an external battle.

I played quite badly, never getting anywhere near a temple, and I sealed my defeat near the end of the game by taking on Chris in a hopelessly misjudged battle. He won easily and picked up a load of points in the meantime. Sam was first to get a temple down, which meant he ended the game with 17 points in one particular colour. But it’s your weakest colour that is scored, and in the final tally Chris had the best all round game.

Chris 10
Sam 7
Andrew 6
Andy 5

And with that done, Andy was satisfied that at least he now knew for sure that he didn’t like T&E and he could trade it away.

As it happened, Discworld ended at the same time:

Ian 96
Katy 81
Martin 73
Ben 44

With Martin especially keen that I should note “piss poor” next to Ben’s score.

At this point, the teams shuffled. Sam, Martin, Andy and Ian went for Neue Heimat, an abstract-looking game with coloured blocks and hemispheres. Ben, Katy, Chris and I went for Safranito: the fun game of spice mixing.

There was a distinct lack of garlic throughout the game, which made things difficult to finish those garlicky recipes. Chris went for the secret recipe option twice, but seemingly had little luck. I was the first to complete three recipes, thus winning the game. The final places were decided by a money tie-breaker.

Andrew 3 recipes
Chris 1 recipe and $220
Katy 1 and $160
Ben 1 and $70

And also at this time, Neue Heimat ended. Martin worked out the scores and they sounded more like something you’d get at the end of an episode of QI.

Martin 9
Ian 0
Andy –17
Sam –79

I’ll leave it up to them to explain what went wrong or, indeed, if this is a normal spread of scores.

And with that, the evening was done. At the last minute, Katy said we’d forgotten to play a game in Joe’s honour (since it was his birthday, hence his absence). So, as a last minute substitute, we put Martin’s table back the way it was in honour of Joe. Hope he appreciates the gesture.

And this is the Division

AP-ness Extension

Tonight eight of us congregated at Adam and Hannah’s place. Even Joe, who had sent emails updating us on his impending lateness, was on time.

We began with a nice little chat about what game we should play. It all seemed terribly civilised, and I was almost sad that it would end soon. Katy had requested that Sam bring The Castles of Mad King Ludwig, so that was a favourite for one table. Meanwhile, Martin corralled myself, Sam and Joe into a rematch of Tigris and Euphrates.

We set up in the front room, and as we began Joe sighed and said it had been a while since he’d played on his iPad. It had been a while, and I knew most but not all of the rules, with Martin giving a few reminders along the way.

The game went entirely as you might expect, with Martin as the confident harrasser of the rest of us. Sam won a few battles this time, and he and I had trouble keeping our leaders on the board. For my part, I barely bothered the pile of cubes used to keep score.

The most unexpected part of the game was when Martin got annoyed at Sam saying that red tiles are important for the win. He insisted that it wasn’t and that there was so much more to it than that. He did explain afterwards the “red tile” criticism was a sore point for him. I wonder if maybe we should’ve pushed it: a bit of sledging, try to put him off his game?

Martin 10
Joe 7
Sam 5
Andrew 3

When we’d finished, King Ludwig was still building mad castles so the four of us decided on a rousing game of Potato Man. Another chance for Martin to push us around, although Sam made the running early on with a score of ten in round one, he then failed to score another point. I just squeezed into third by winning the only point in the very short final round, which Joe brought to an end during the second trick.

Martin 17
Joe 15
Andrew 11
Sam 10

When we finished we went back into the kitchen to watch the points being added up on Mad King Ludwig. Adam and Ian were frowning at Ian’s castle, calculator in hand, trying to work something out. Martin didn’t seem impressed by the amount of effort it took to work out how many points people had got. Finally, with the count complete, we found that Adam had lost his 100% record on the game, and Katy chalked up her first win.

Katy 123
Adam 110
Hannah 98
Ian 95

Sam decided he was too tired to go on, so he set off home first and Hannah went upstairs to bed. Mad King Ludwig was put away in a bit of a hurry and perhaps not to regulation standards. Katy did worry that perhaps Sam wouldn’t be happy but, as Ian laconically pointed out “But Sam’s not here.”

It was only ten o’clock, so the rest of us had a quick non-leaderboard three-round game of Go Stop. Last time Matt had brought the game to a brutal end by winning the 10 card immediately. This time, however, it lasted a bit longer. Adam won round one (with a mere 4) over me (3) and Joe (2). In round two Joe won with an 8 and in round three Ian picked up a win, also with an 8, beating Joe who was the only other player to score. If we had gone with the initial suggestion and aggregated these scores into one, it would’ve looked like

Joe 13
Adam 11
Ian 8
Andrew 3
Martin 2
Katy 0

But we did say beforehand it would be non-leaderboard.

Joe then challenged us with a little maths quiz regarding the angle of the line running acorss the back of the cards. No one can say we don’t know how to have a good time!

As for the leaderboard, Ian’s two-month stay at the top is at an end, as Martin takes it from him. He also consolidates his grip on the medal table. Meanwhile, Adam’s second place in King Ludwig is enough to nab him the lead in points ratio with Katy just one hundredth of a point behind. Only two weeks left! What will happen in the closing stages?

And thanks to Joe for the blog title.

Return to Persia

This Tuesday heralded the coming together of seven like-minded individuals for an evening of board games.

Our first game was Pairs. I was dealt in as I was still taking off my coat, such is the tight schedule that GNN runs to these days. For the first two rounds, it was Sam and Martin making the running. Then Joe and Ian put some good form together. Before long we had a situation where all four of these players could potentially win next round. It was Ian what won it as Sam, Joe and Martin all went bust in the last round.

Ian 22
Martin 20
Joe 15
Sam 13
Andrew 10
Katy 8
Andy 7

Then we split into two groups. Martin, Joe, Sam and I chose Tigris and Euphrates. Technically speaking, we had all played it before but only Martin and Joe (who had it on his iPad) had any real familiarity with it. Sam and I, having not played it in almost twenty years, needed a quick run through the rules. It was one of the first games of the pre-history of GNN. I could barely remember anything about it, apart from the monuments.

Meanwhile, Ian, Katy and Andy played Vikings, a game I have not seen before. During the evening, as I glanced over at their game, I felt that I knew how it felt to be a total newcomer to games. I couldn't make out the rules at all. A big circular thing was rotated, and bits of islands were take from it. Then some meeples were added. To what end, I had no idea. That game ended:

Andy 67
Katy 59
Ian 52

Meanwhile, on Tigris and Euphrates, Sam was having a bit of a meltdown. He admitted he couldn't get his head round it at all, and often asked for a rule clarification or two. He began in aggressive style, but lost in his first two battles. He then kept trying to catch up by starting more battles, but with similar results. My plan was to hide in the corners and slowly build up points, which I don't think is how the game is meant to be played.

Joe built monuments, giving him points of each colour at the end of each round, and since your final score is your lowest scoring colour, this was a strong tactic. In fact Joe seemed calmness personified, a mirror image of the increasingly despairing Sam across the table from him. The only time his coolness broke was when he picked up the bag to draw new tiles. He accidentally picked up the almost identical bag of meeples from Vikings and he quickly withdrew his hand, shuddering, as he expressed disgust at touching something unexpected.

Martin tried to ruin Joe's plan by pitting him and Sam against each other in a position of great advantage to Sam. But Joe still won the battle, much to Martin's surprise and dismay.

The game ended with Joe saying "The iPad has taught me well."

Joe 11
Martin 9
Andrew 5
Sam 3

After this, we rearranged ourselves. Katy, Martin, Andy and Joe played Texas 42, or The National Game Of Texas, as Martin insisted on calling it even after Sam pointed out that Texas isn't a nation. Ian, Sam and I teamed up to play Vegas. Nice and simple, no white dice to act as spoilers. Noteworthy for the return of Das Exclusive to the table. But since Das is too big too pass around easily, it spent all of the game in front of me.

Sam $550,000
Andrew $390,000
Ian $330,000

The National Game Of Texas was still midway through, so then we played Biblios. And what a remarkable game it was. There aren't many other games that can cause a man to cry out "I've just eaten my own shit!" He got a series of four or five one-gold cards in a row (one-gold = shit in Extreme Biblios). That's enough to make anyone think that they must have done something bad in a former life.

Where were all the three-gold cards? Well, they were in the auction pile, coming out one after the other! I was in a bit of a fix during the auction phase, having spent all of my money and not daring to use any cards to get more money. I was going after the three “lesser” dice, hoping that Ian and Sam would cancel each other out going for the higher valued brown and blue dice. As such, I had my hand already finished early on, and I was just hoping that anything left in the auction pile wouldn't change that. And it didn't! My plan worked perfectly.

Andrew 8
Ian 5
Sam 4

As for The National Game of Texas, it ended around the same time with the score at

Andy & Martin 4
Joe & Katy 1

Since they were playing in pairs (which brought the evening to an end with a nice reference to the first game we played) it's not leaderboard. As for the Division, alas, nobody changed places this week. Here it is anyway.