Season ends on an Indian Summer

The weather was balmy and warm, and while we enjoyed an Indian Summer outside, we also enjoyed an evening of Taj Mahal inside. I'll admit to feelings of apprehension as the board was set up on Sam's kitchen table but with four out of the five of us (myself, Sam, Quentin, Adam and Joe) keen to try, it was the only choice especially after the buzz created by last night's post.

But they say you learn from your mistakes, and since I made many mistakes last night, I must have learnt a lot. Early honours went to Sam, who sped off with the apparent aim of repeating his recent victory. I got into an early scrap with Joe, but with five players it was rare that there wasn't some kind of battle for one item or another during each round.

Halfway through, Quentin sat back and declared that he now understood the rules and that he thought it was a very clever game. Adam played a wildly romantic game, refusing to back down on battles, even if it left him with only two cards. Despite his apparent confusion with the rules, he proved himself to be the king of links, with a snaking line of palaces crossing many provinces which helped him pick up many points each time he added to it.

Meanwhile, I carefully nurtured my hand of cards which left me in a position of power for most of the later part of the game. By then I was able to exploit my collection of elephants and pick up some goods in several late rounds which catapulted me up the score track.

Andrew 60
Adam 40
Sam 36
Quentin 36
Joe 32

The offer of another quick game was declined by Sam who was suffering from daddy-fatigue and needed an early night, and so we went out into the sweet warm September evening with another season finished.

So, all that remains are the scores for these past three months. It's been another successful season for Adam, taking first in Points, ratio, absolute points (all points scored in a game added together) and in points weighted by length of game. Sam came second, and I scraped a third place position right at the end with my sudden run of form (three wins out of four). Hannah came first out of the irregulars, with Quentin a close second.

However, there was a surprise winner in the absolute points ratio in the shape of Paul, who scored an average 61.5 points in his two games. And Quentin won points ratio for games weighted according to length, showing his preference for long, involved tactical battles.

I won by points weighted by how well/badly players did last season, indicating that I made the best improvement in the last few months. But it's a sobering sight to see Adam in second place even on a leaderboard where he's penalised the most! Jonny won points ratio on this scale, coming away with a very creditable five points on average. Finally comes the Olympic style leaderboard, which shows Adam and Sam in first and second as usual, but also Hannah in third – clearly demonstrating her skill at table-top strategy and resource-management.


The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio	Absolute	Abs ration	Weight	Wt. ratio	Length	Lth. ratio
Adam	24	116	4.83	1071	51	69	4.31	88.3	3.68
Sam	26	107.5	4.13	982	42.7	67	4.19	84.5	3.25
Andrew	24	81.5	3.4	567	27	72.5	4.53	61.3	2.56
Joe	20	80	4	574	30.21	50.5	3.37	70	3.35
Hannah	10	44.5	4.45	504	56	21.5	3.58	30.9	2.81
Quentin	10	41.5	4.15	351	39	22	3.14	39.7	3.97
Steve	9	33	3.67	256	32	28.5	4.07	32.5	3.61
Jonny	7	28	4	284	40.57	25	5	26.5	3.78
Andy	2	7	3.5	120	N/A	3	N/A	4	2
Paul	2	6.5	3.25	123	61.5	6.5	3.25	4.75	2.38
Chris	2	5.5	2.75	116	58	5.5	2.75	5	2.5
Sally	1	3.5	3.5	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	0.88	N/A
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	0.5	N/A

The Olympic leaderboard...

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Adam	11	9	4
Sam	9	6	3
Hannah	4	1	3
Joe	3	8	4
Andrew	3	2	11
Steve	2	0	4
Quentin	1	5	3
Jonny	1	2	2
Andy	0	1	1
Paul	0	1	0
Sally	0	0	1

Bringing the Taj to Bracknell

image nicked off the net from somewhere

Last night Andrew, Paul and me (Sam) made the trip to Chris' house for a bit of extra-curricular gaming. Andrew and I warmed up in the car with a few word games so we arrived raring to break open Taj Mahal, as Chris had spent the afternoon swotting up and was keen to play.

But Chris had parenting duties to take care of first, so the three of us got a couple of games of Trans-Europa in while Chris' children stared through the kitchen door at us asking what on earth we were doing. As this is the same response we get from most adults we were well-drilled in justifying ourselves, but I'm not sure they were convinced.

Anyway, I - finally! - managed to win a game of Trans-Europa, taking the first game with some elán if I do say so myself:

Sam 1

Paul 12

Andrew 14

But then train-buff Paul called in his all his experience to bludgeon us - Andrew especially - into a pile of twisted iron and splintered sleepers:

Paul 4

Sam 11

Andrew 21

By now Chris had packed his children off into the dungeon of fluffiness and we were ready for the main event: Taj Mahal. I'd actually bought this game for Chris many moons ago, but only today did he pop open the cardboard bits. Deferred gratification allied to iron discipline, or indifferent waffiness? You decide.

As I hope we'll be playing this on a GNN night soon, here's a quick summary of the rules.

The game takes place over 12 rounds, each round represented by a region of India to be contested by the players. How? By playing colour-co-ordinated cards (there are four suits and each player is (usually) obliged to stick with the colour they first lay) and hopefully winning at least one of five categories - Elephants, Viziers, Monks, Generals, and Princesses - all of which are represented on the cards in various combinations. Win the Elephants and you get to pick up goods (more of which in a minute), win any other category and you get to place a Palace - placing a palace scores you a point, and making a chain of palaces through different regions during the course of the game will give you more points. Win more than one category - place more than one palace. Great. But remember you only get one point per region for palaces, so multiple palaces in the same region do not get you multiple points.

How do you win? By having the most of something at the point you withdraw from the bidding. Your used bidding cards go into the discard stack and you place a palace, scoring your point. You then replenish your hand by two cards from a display (or one if you're last to finish) and you're then done for that round. Watch the other players throw their cards down with abandon, possibly weakening their hand in the process!

Winning Viziers, Monks, Generals or Princesses will also mean you get a little character tile of the category in question. You only need to collect two identical tiles to trade them in (involuntarily) for a special card. The special cards can help you in different ways; extra elephants (always helpful) extra victory points (ditto) changing card-colour during card-play (normally forbidden) and an extra Grand Mogul.

Oh, the Grand Mogul. He's a category but unlike the others he doesn't give you a tile or win you a special card. What he does is allow you to place a palace in the region (and score for it as normal) but rather than being tied to available spaces you can place the palace on any space you like - even an occupied one. The benefit of the Grand Mogul is really the fact it can help you make chains of regions even after someone has tried to block you.

So the special cards are very helpful, and unlike normal cards you don't have to discard them after bidding. But you can - and will - get them pinched off you by someone else when they get the two tiles needed to qualify for it. So the special cards can move around a little bit between players.

Back to Elephants then. They look like the poorer brother of the Viziers etc but actually they tend to be the most hotly contested category of all. Partly because they appear on the cards more than any of the other characters, and partly because when you win the Elephants, if you remember, you pick up goods. These score a point each, but crucially, pick up matching goods from another region and you not only score for the goods you picked up, but the chains of goods you're making. Pick up a rice to add to the two rice you already had and that's 1pt for your new good, and 3pts for the chain you've made. In a game of relatively low scores, these can be pivotal.

So that's about it. A couple of things about bidding though - the general rule is you bid one card at a time (and have to follow your own choice of suit) and wait for the bid to come back to you before either adding to your bid or withdrawing. But there are several white cards which are jokers, and you're allowed to lay one of these in addition to your suited card. Having a couple of these in your hand can be very helpful, as you can be a bit bossy with them about what you want.

If you withdraw from the bidding without laying any cards at all, you pick up three cards instead of the standard two. (Last out and you only get one, remember).

Finally there are some little extra chits dotted about randomly that will give you an extra card, an extra good, or an extra couple of points when you lay a palace on them. And finally finally the cards in your hand count for something at the end of the game - 1pt per white card (special cards and jokers) and 1pt-per-card of the suit you have most of.

We really liked it. Andrew did think that it encouraged card-hoarding, but I'm not so sure. If you're not laying cards, you're not picking up points, so it's more about trying to maximise what you get from as few cards laid as possible. If you only have 2 or 3 cards in your hand you'll look weak; if you have quite a few you'll look strong, so there's a little element of bluff to the game as well.

Chris led the game for most of it only to be caught on the final straight as I stampeded into round 12 on the back of my yellow elephants:

Sam 44

Chris 42

Paul 36

Andrew 24

I hope if we play it tonight we can be a little more grown-up about the euphemistic possibilities the game offers. Paul stating that "I can't beat Andy's little man, so I withdraw" had the rest of us sniggering like schoolboys.

We still had time for one last round of Trans-Europa - with 4 players this time - and again Paul came to the fore, finishing just ahead of me as Chris and Andy were swatted off the board:

Paul 3

Sam 4

Andrew 13

Chris 17

So, like the song goes, Reiner's done it again. Thanks to Chris for hosting, I was almost hallucinatory on the drive home so not sure I can make it a regular thing, but it was good to have a change of scene - and a change of game too.

From Stone to Chrome

Imagine the scene. A prehistoric landscape. A tribe of hunter gatherers are tracking wildebeest for food. Suddenly there’s a rippling in the space-time continuum and, with senses alert, the Neanderthals are able to make out the words “Fucking Hell!!” drifting towards them from across the millennia.

That would be Quentin, who took a while to get his flicking skills under control this evening, for half the table had chosen Ascending Empires as one of the games of the evening. There were seven of us – six regulars plus a new face to be carved on the Games Night News mountainside: Andy. We split into groups of four and three. The four of us (myself, Joe, Quentin and Steve) chose gleaming hi-tech Ascending Empires. Sam and Adam taught Andy the joys of Stone Age. I’ll leave it to them to give a fuller report of Andy’s debut in the comments. Meanwhile, these were the scores:

Adam 145
Sam 123
Andy 120

With two old hands (Steve and Joe) and two newbies (me and Quentin) the rules of AE were quickly explained before we set off into the galaxy. At first it was a very cordial affair until I made the mistake of choosing to approach an un-colonized planet in Quentin’s quadrant. He took this to be an act of agression and so swiftly landed on the planet in question. Somewhat offended, I instead took a poorly defended planet of his, which then escalated into a war between the two of us, with neither wishing to lose face by backing down, yet also both of us aware that Joe and Steve were doing somewhat better than us.

Steve started well and stayed that way. He even had time to offer me advice, and also casually give away the colour of a still-to-be-identified planet. By the end of the game he had a big spaceship and it would’ve been more effective with more accurate flicking. But it was Joe who really suffered from “twitch-finger”. He spent two whole turns trying to land two ships on a barely-defended planet of Quentin’s but only succeded in going around it in eccentric orbits until Steve came along and calmly shot him out of the sky.

When the game ended, Steve was a clear winner with Joe a relatively comfortable second. I credit my third place to mining, which is all I could do in between fighting off hordes of Quentin’s space fighters. Quentin came fourth, but proclaimed that he’d enjoyed the evening. I also enjoyed Ascending Empires, but for such a fast moving game, it’s quite long, and I found it a little tiresome towards the end. Perhaps I was just battle-weary. But Joe’s comedy flicking is certainly worth seeing.

Steve 30
Joe 20
Andrew 18
Quentin 14

The Stone Age had long since passed by the time we’d ended Ascending Empires, and they’d managed to squeeze in a game of Tsuro.

Sam
Andy/Adam

With time running out beofre the end of the season, you have to say that Adam has it all wrapped up at the top. Meanwhile, Steve takes the hotly disputed 7th place from Jonny while Andy crashes in at number 9.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	23	111	4.86
Sam	25	103.5	4.14
Joe	19	78	4.11
Andrew	23	75.5	3.28
Hannah	10	44.5	4.45
Quentin	9	37.5	4.17
Steve	9	33	3.67
Jonny	7	28	4
Andy	2	7	3.5
Paul	2	6.5	3.25
Chris	2	5.5	2.75
Sally	1	3.5	3.5
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5

A Flicker of Interest

Joe and I were so enthused by Ascending Empires on Tuesday we arranged an absurdly-short-notice (and hence non-leaderboard) game on a Thursday evening.

It's such a weird game that combines brain-draining tactics with flicking spaceships around, but - if you don't object to the theme, which is kind of high on the geeky scale - it seems to work.

Certainly it worked for Hannah and Joe, anyway, who tied for the win on victory points (Hannah taking it on points won during gameplay). And Adam might well have been up there too, but for an early period were all of us took chances to attack as he left his planets ill-equipped to see off incoming discs of brightly-coloured plastic propelled by the spectral hands of cosmological deities.

I found the 4-player version a headier proposition than three, and after a decent start, faded dramatically as both Adam then Hannah blocked my routes to developing research centres - and hence scoring points. Again I was reminded of Agricola and how when your best-laid-plans are scrunched into an unforgiving ball you have to adapt and overcome, to borrow an unlikely bit of terminology from the marines.

Anyway, after much laughter at Joe's stage-fright when it came to flicking, he - unintentionally we assume - lulled us into thinking he must be doing very badly, but he very nearly took first place from Hannah, who seems to adapt to games frighteningly quickly. Adam (4th) and I (3rd) were some way behind them:

Hannah 26 (wins on gameplay points)

Joe 26

Sam 20

Adam 16

For me at least, this is a winner. I don't know yet if it'll remain so or go the way of fleeting favourites Dominion and Medici, but certainly it's worth a few more games, if only to watch Joe warming up his whole body before he flicks his tiny spaceships... either 2cm into nowhere or straight off the board.

One table, two millennia

Six gentlemen stood around Sam’s kitchen table this evening for tonight’s combatitive entertainment. This suggested two games of three players, and while one half sped off into the future, the other half turned back the years and ventured into history.

Sam, Joe and Steve chose gleaming science fiction, with Ascending Empires – a game that promised 60-90 minutes on the box, but which took up most of the evening. I shall leave it for others to explain the various cries of victory and defeat, and Joe’s constant moaning about “the yips”, but the scores were:

Sam 39
Joe 29
Steve 24

It certainly sounded like more fun than our somewhat academic battle of wits. Quentin, Adam and myself (Andrew) chose the more sedate, more homely and more carciogenic lifestyle of tin miners in Cornwall with Tinners’ Trail. After a brief refresher on the rules, we began to explore our somewhat water-logged tin mines.

The first round saw us all scoring pretty evenly, but then Adam took a bold decision in round two and chose not to turn any of his points into victory points. Certainly, I’ve seen games in the past when not scoring in a round had no ill-effects in the long term, but this time it was to prove costly. Quentin and I scored sensibly in each round to balance out Adam’s last minute flourish. As it was, I couldn’t tell who’d won at the end, and after a couple of recounts and rechecking of rules, the final scores were announced:

Andrew 99
Adam 96
Quentin 88

A great game, and not just because I won...

Okay, yes: because I won. This was my first first place of the season, and well deserved, even if I do say so myself. But by the time we’d ended hundreds of years of Cornish mining, the other half of the table had barely got out of their own space quadrants, so Quentin suggested a little something that he brought along.

Dancing Dice is a curious version of liar dice, only in this game you split your six dice into two groups of three, hoping that they won’t come last when compared to other people’s dice. Because if you do come last, then you drop down the scoring track towards zero. Initially, us new boys (Adam and me) fell into second and third but I managed to put together some smooth moves and halt my decline while Adam crashed out earliest, putting him in third. I then decided to get up (get on up), as Quentin blamed it on the boogie as he fell past me and off the scoring track into second place. This gave me my second win of the evening, and an unfamiliar desire to rush home and write up the blog.

I had to wait for Ascending Empries to finish, though, as there were still victory points to be won before the game could end. Once it did, we all said our goodbyes and set forth into the cool autumn evening.

The leaderboard shows that despite Adam’s continuing bad run (only one win in his last eleven games) he increases his lead. No one changes places – Steve couldn’t overtake Jonny and I am still one and a half points behind reclaiming my third place. But at least my points ratio is a bit more healthy.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	21	102	4.86
Sam	23	94.5	4.11
Joe	18	73.5	4.08
Andrew	22	72	3.27
Hannah	10	44.5	4.45
Quentin	8	35	4.38
Jonny	7	28	4
Steve	8	27.5	3.44
Paul	2	6.5	3.25
Chris	2	5.5	2.75
Sally	1	3.5	3.5
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5

There's Always Agricola

I had some kind of mini-epiphany as Andrew and I surveyed the games cupboard on Sunday night - when did I inherit the mega-geek status I now occupy? For years I just owned Settlers of Catan, Serenissima and Robo-Rally. Then Carcassone sneaked in, then suddenly - thanks to Joe, who opened my eyes to the cornucopia of games out there - the cupboard is full. To the point where I now have to jettison games before I can buy new ones. (I did some trading today to get Taj Mahal:

)

Before I could sink further into ponderances over the rich tapestry of time, though, Andrew suggested Agricola and before you know it I was wondering if I should invest in those custom meeples...

I have games I would probably select before this; but Agricola remains a classic for me. I love the basic game and the fact you can add card decks to it to make it more intricate is obviously appealing too. It was hard to call which way this was going to go - Andrew embarked on a spree of card-playing whilst I ploughed shitloads of fields and grew more corn than I knew what to do with. Last time we'd played a 2-hander Andrew had played a lot of cards and I'd won, but his strategy was more water-tight this time, allowing him to build lots of stone houses and getting bonus points for them to boot. Both of us struggled to feed our nascent families and had to sacrifice innocent animals to the pot before they could breed, ending the game with a lot of empty pastures and carnivorous tendencies. I thought I might be in with a shout of victory, but Andrew's nifty card-play and my over-concentration of corn meant he finished in a clear first place:

Andrew 39

Sam 26

Very different game with two than 3-4 players of course, because it's easier to come up with a Plan B with your intentions are stymied by the other player. But still, a level of creativity and intrigue that's rare in gaming. Others may tickle our fancy, but Agricola remains a high water-mark of gaming.

Year of the Berger

Thursday, Joe's house, 8pm. Myself (Sam), Adam, Hannah and Joe himself embark on what will become the most tragic year of Chinese history - The Year of the Dragon, as distilled into game form by Stefan Feld - the twelve months of the year becoming twelve rounds of game time.

A series of catastrophes will befall our culture that we can only try and negate with the weapons to hand - medicine, food, builders, and the odd firework. To cheer everyone up, I suppose.

The rules explained to debutant Adam, we were away. And from the off I was reminded that The Year of the Dragon is one of those games where you can never do all the things you want to; the game strategy is about making the right choice that will not just protect your people (the way I played it the first time) but will move you along the scoring track at the same time.

Having seen Joe take 'privileges' early on in his victorious campaign of a couple of weeks back, I did the same. I also focussed on the thing that would move me along the score track - Knowledge - and the thing that would allow me to pick up that knowledge - Money. But despite moving into the lead around April my game-plan was about to implode: I had naively used my wild cards early on and come Autumn my choices on people management were severely limited - a fact I completely forgot during one particularly catastrophic round were I intended to pick up some medicine only to find the doctor wasn't in.

While I was firefighting a losing battle, Joe's firemen had extinguished all threats and were hosing each other down for fun. Joe had managed to build lots of buildings (Hannah and I had two, Adam three) and had a stack of money and rice in front of him. Sure, he threw the odd person out into the elements as a sacrifice, but it was for the greater good. Come the tail end of the year he sailed past me into the lead and during the final scoring - when your people are scored - he obliterated the competition. I sunk back into fourth, having ended the game with a solitary empty house, prompting Joe to actually apologise to me as he added on point after point. You know you've played a terrible game when people are sympathetic.

Hannah was third, and Adam, who had expanded his houses a little and diversified better than I did, claimed a very respectable second. I was frustrated by my experience but it's hard to say whether it was the game's now-solve-this mechanics or my bad management of them. I'd be willing to play it again, but that might be motivated by revenge rather than enthusiasm.

Joe 96

Adam 76

Hannah 70

Sam 61

It had just gone ten when we finished, so we decided on a short (three rounds) game of Poison. And despite Hannah's vagueness with the rules she swiftly got herself into pole position after round one, and didn't relinquish it, finishing the game with an impressive six points as Adam and Joe tied for third and I claimed second:

Hannah 6

Sam 8

Adam/Joe 21

Which means as far as the leaderboard is concerned Hannah and Joe did best with 1st and 3rd placings, Adam trod water and I took a mouthful of chlorine.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	19	95	5
Sam	22	89.5	4.07
Joe	17	69.5	4.09
Andrew	20	62	3.1
Hannah	10	44.5	4.45
Quentin	6	28	4.67
Jonny	7	28	4
Steve	7	24.5	3.5
Paul	2	6.5	3.25
Chris	2	5.5	2.75
Sally	1	3.5	3.5
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5

Andrew here. As we enter the final few weeks of this season, Joe has squeezed past Sam in terms of points ratio, and also moved up into third. However, despite Sam's bleak performance, all is not lost. He still has half a chance in coming first both in the regular leaderboard and in the Olympic-style one (seven golds to Adam's ten).

SeptCon Report!

FRIDAY

With Andrew sadly unable to come, and me unable to coerce another member of the GNN club out into the sticks - perhaps it sounded a bit scary - it was just myself (Sam), Paul and Chris competing for the SeptCon championship, a veritable Olympics of gaming both for those competing and anyone who can be arsed to read all of the below.

We converged at a picturesque cottage in the village of Foxham, and having met the farmer and his wife, their dog, three cats, and helped them bring a van-load of fresh meat into their kitchen, we sat down to commence a marathon of gaming, starting with a 7 hour session on Friday night.

Poison was first. This was new to both Chris and Paul but it's an easy one to explain so after doing my best impersonation of Reiner Knizia in a cape we were away. Everyone opened with a low-scoring round but Paul, the variant king, then began experimenting with strategy and this went horribly wrong in his second round. Chris scored a second zero in a row as I picked up a couple of points, and Paul's improved third round score - and my terrible one - wasn't enough to recover from third position. Chris came first to set the tone for a successful evening for him - but we all agreed that 3 players is exactly the wrong number to play Poison with, as unless someone plays aggressively it's very easy to slip into a pattern of everyone picking up their own colour.

Chris 6

Sam 14

Paul 17

Our gaming loins girded, we moved swiftly on. Paul and Chris had been playing Ticket to Ride so that became game number two. Contrasting styles here as Paul and Chris started building immediately and I started hoarding, looking to build a strong playing hand for later in the game. A slight misunderstanding over the rules too as Chris and Paul play the (correct) rule of only being allowed to build ONCE along the dual-track routes in a three-player game. I'd misunderstood this and thought we were playing the rule that the same player can't build both routes to block people off. It didn't change my strategy much though and everyone agreed that each player could break this rule once and once only.

My card-collecting routine (the Hillmann-method) paid off well come the final score, hoarding obviously gives you a lot of flexibility so when I was blocked I had alternative options, and I completed all my routes to end the game. Despite Paul completing extra routes I made first place, with Chris just sneaking second:

Sam 137
Chris 102
Paul 100

After a bit of tea, next up was 7 Wonders. This seems to be Paul's bête noir from a comprehension perspective, I think I explained it a lot better than last time but he still professed to utter bafflement and could not repeat the second place of his debut a few weeks ago. Instead Chris finished first in what was actually quite a tight game, to surge back into the lead overall:

Chris 42
Sam 39
Paul 37

Three reasonably fluffy games aside, we moved on to the meat of the evening: Stone Age. This was - again - new to Chris and Paul, but it's such an intuitive game it didn't take too much explanation before we were off and running. The newbies both enjoyed this - Chris especially so - but early on Chris seemed to be stumped as to what his tactic was. And despite my stressing of the importance of cards for a long time it was only me picking them up as the others went through a lot of hut-building. Despite that though, Chris staged a very decent first score in the end as his hut-multipliers popped up in the closing stages and he nabbed them. I was under the impression I was miles ahead - possibly because Chris kept saying I was, in a belated and disconcerting bit of NLP - next time I'll not be so blasé!

Sam 265
Chris 236
Paul 145

Time for one more game before we packed off to bed, but as it was gone eleven we went for the relatively brief 7 Wonders again. I ignored armies for a change and concentrated on sciences, but I made a fatal error in thinking my wonder allowed me to build a discarded card at the end of each age. No, Morrison! Only at the end of the second age, you fool! So my perceived brilliant move of burning a card for money in a plan to pick it up later (when I could afford to build it) came to naught. 9 points down the drain, and Chris pipped me for first.

Chris 55

Sam 51
Paul 30

The embryonic leaderboard (1st/2nd/3rd=3pts/2pts/1pt) showed Chris currently in first. Could he hang on to that position in the morning?

SATURDAY

Like some middle-aged family man - oh - I woke early and pottered about while those useless layabouts slept through a couple of hours of potential game time. After breakfast we pretended to be normal people and actually went for a walk in the country, taking farm dog Oscar with us. It was a beautiful area, the perfect place to sit indoors all day pretending to be Cornish miners or something.

So that's what we did. After our little perambulation we cracked open Tinners' Trail and explained it to Paul, who was in for another day of learning enough collective rules to start a new, bureaucracy-loving coalition. Chris opened the game with a canny bit of play, encouraging Paul and I to buy mines at cheap prices but leaving himself with lots of room to develop his own, and having done so he was the only player at the end of round one to invest any money - establishing an early, daunting 18 point lead. It was a long way back for Paul and I, but we gave it our best. Incredibly I pipped Chris by a point in the final reckoning, but only after he failed to give himself enough time to gather all his copper and tin in round four, fatally building a port when he should have been mining. A dramatic end, then, saw the final scores as:

Sam 150
Chris 149
Paul 90

We broke for lunch, making a swift trip to the shops followed by a fry-up. So far no fruit or vegetables had passed our lips for nearly 24 hours - Chris even suggested 'crisps' as a side dish to his planned meal of hotdogs - so if we ever do this for a week the winner will probably be the one still alive at the end of it. After eating, Web of Power was broken out the box. For those unfamiliar with it, this is a placement game with each player building cloisters across Europe and advisors to link countries together in scoring opportunities. We didn't play the proper rules for half the game, but it was the same for everyone and I nabbed another win as Paul finally broke out of third place:

1. Sam
2. Paul
3. Chris

After the delicate logarithms of Web of Power we decided to go with something that would melt our brains a bit more and Paul and Chris were keen - or willing, at least - to play London, so we gave it a shot. Not trusting myself to explain this one properly we went through the rule book a bit and it was mostly confusion-free; after a few rounds the newbies were up to speed - but Paul suffered both for unpaid loans and excess poverty, taking some severe penalties as Chris and I contested for first.

Sam 74
Chris 61
Paul 24

Perhaps because I was feeling the stress of explaining - badly - several sets of rules, it was the first time I didn't massively enjoy London, feeling it a bit of a grind. Certainly by the time it came to explaining The Adventurers I couldn't read any more rules and had to pass them onto Paul and Chris, the latter having an extremely juvenile giggling fit over the idea of sunbeams coming through a passage. Really, Chris!

Paul was a picture of maturity and calm next to him, at least until he suddenly decided to hurl a digestive biscuit at the window. He said he was aiming for the dog, but it was clearly a comment on Chris' behaviour.

Anyway, this deceptively simple game isn't alone in making the rulebook like some kind of test of stoicism, but we eventually got there and probably spent marginally more time on the game than we did on the rules - at which point Paul triumphantly claimed his first pole position. We all survived the Raiders-style traps but it was Lord Jefferies of Croydon who'd loaded his pack with the most treasure:

Paul 27
Sam 25
Chris 18

It was now early evening and, possibly gripped for a nostalgia for simpler times, we elected to play bean-growing-game Bohnanza. In this mini-classic you grow beans. That's it, basically. And despite my sluggish start I managed to consolidate my strong leaderboard position with another victory as Chris and Paul tied for second:

Sam 22
Chris/Paul 20

We broke again for food and, as winner, I was allowed to choose three games we could then argue over as to our next battle of wits. I was hoping we might go for Year of the Dragon, but after much enthusiasm from Chris and placid amenity from Paul we went with my second choice, Stone Age.

This time it was a much tighter affair, but I squeezed into first place:

Sam 227

Chris 207

Paul 206

It was fast approaching midnight so we had a little non-leaderboard game of poker then called it a night, with me now perched in first place overall.

SUNDAY

By the time the morning rolled around our initial zest for gaming two days before was starting to sag slightly, as the perpetual analysis - not to mention the intense pressure of competition - ground us down into faded husks of our former selves, like large ghostly meeples smelling faintly of sausage. The three of us living together in one house, gaming for all eternity, was no longer the beautiful ideal it seemed on Friday night. Nonetheless we remained committed and borderline enthusiastic, so we embarked on a game of Ra. Now I started off reasonably, but halfway through the second round I had three victory point chips to Chris and Paul's ten or so each. I was not confident at that point, but I managed - more by luck than judgement - to wangle first in a dramatic final round that saw us as close as possible:

Sam 33

Chris 32

Paul 31

Everyone quickly agreed to a rematch, but this time it wasn't so close, and Chris found that his very strong bidding hand in round 2 actually hampered him as he couldn't bear spending it on the pitiful offerings I was calling Ra on. As he clung on waiting for a justifiable expenditure to arrive, the round was closed out with him picking up very little, and his stronger third round couldn't rescue him.

Sam 54

Paul 34

Chris 21

On the final straight now, and we had time for one short and one long game. TransAmerica was the former, and it was another buttock-clenching final-round fight, this time Paul emerging victorious:

Paul 12

Sam 16

Chris 20

This was actually one of the best games of the weekend, and if we play it again on a Tuesday I highly recommend adding the 'Vexation' rule; utilising two tracks of your own colour to block off other players from your network. It transforms the game from a diverting filler to a devilish highlight.

And so: what game to end on? We debated Collosseum, Galaxy Truckers, another game of London? But it was a third and final Stone Age, the 15th game in a marathon session to rival StabCon. Very, very tight this time, with all of us focussed on our strategies and not deviating an inch from them. In the end my year or so of Tuesday night practice paid off again, but Paul's hot breath was leaving droplets of mist on my mammoth-fur waistcoat:

Sam 204

Paul 200

Chris 170

So SeptCon finally ended with GNN regular Sam (me, worryingly talking about myself in the third person) taking the glory. Admittedly I knew all the games and the others didn't, but I like to think of that as dedicated research undertaken specifically for this competition. Hopefully next time Andrew will be there - anyone else care to join us???

FINAL LEADERBOARD

Sam 38pts

Chris 28pts

Paul 23pts

Here's a frog Paul found.

From Japan to China, via Stokes Croft

A rare event occurred as both my Japanese lesson and games night aligned on a Wednesday evening. There were five of us (myself, Sam, Joe, Quentin and Steve) meeting in Joe’s fragrant kitchen, delicately perfumed by Joe’s dog’s anti-bark collar that sprayed citronella whenever she made a noise.

We began with a non-leaderboard game of Pickomino – a typical Reiner Knizia mix of simple strategy and blind luck. Steve joined in half way through, but that wasn’t really a handicap since no one else had made much of a start.

I quickly found my dicing knack, and had a stack of five tiles in front of me. This was whittled down by my opponents, and the advantage swung to Quentin. Joe’s technique of always choosing double fours if available turned out to be superstitious nonsense, and Sam’s rolls left him with almost no options at all. In the end, Steve came second with his usual tactic of not fully understanding the rules until the last round, by which time he’s usually doing quite well anyway.

Quentin 6
Steve 4
Andrew 3
Joe 2
Sam 0

For the main event, The Year of the Dragon was chosen. Rules were explained, and scenarios set, as we readied ourselves for the worst year in Chinese history. It was a slow affair, and preparing for one disaster seemed to leave you vulnerable for the next. At different times I remembered what was irritating and what was fun about this game. As you’d expect with three first-timers, there was a lot of thoughtful pauses, and Quentin took back and re-did his go four times at one point, which must be some kind of record.

I begun by building early, and stocking up on Buddhas. Sam planned ahead sensibly and ended the game with most people still alive and plenty of money. Joe lacked Sam’s foresight and at times was down to just three people, but he had bought privileges in the first round. Steve found himself last on the influence track and out of pocket – an unenviable position to be in, but he had two Buddhas in one building which scored handsomely at the end. Quentin also bought privileges, so he and Joe made the early running. In fact, most of the complaining about how badly they were doing came from the two leaders.

But this time, there was no last minute upset in the final scores: Joe and Quentin lead at the end as they had at the start:

Joe 83
Quentin 79
Sam 76 (Sam wins third on influence points)
Steve 76
Andrew 73

Then a third game was proposed, and since no one said it wasn’t leaderboard, I’ll assume it was. Steve set off home, and No Thanks was chosen. This time Joe used my strategy of picking up low cards (with the usual lack of success), and at the end of the game I had a lucky run of cards which reduced my score for no risk. Perhaps I should’ve sent them round for some chips, but I wanted to go home. In the end, Quentin’s steady nerve and decision to go for high cards paid off as the value of his cards was slashed by the number of chips he had.

Quentin 20
Sam 25
Joe 30
Andrew 33

A good night for Quentin (which sees him climb two places on the leaderboard), a bad night for me, and middling for everyone else.

The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Adam	17	87	5.11
Sam	20	82.5	4.125
Andrew	20	62	3.1
Joe	15	60.5	4.03
Hannah	8	35.5	4.44
Quentin	6	28	4.67
Jonny	7	28	4
Steve	7	24.5	3.5
Paul	2	6.5	3.25
Chris	2	5.5	2.75
Sally	1	3.5	3.5
Matilda	1	1.5	1.5