Tuesday night games saw 5 of us clustered around the table - Adam, Andrew, Joe, Quentin and myself (Sam), cracking our knuckles in anticipation as Joe walked in with a bag of new games - one of which, Lords of Vegas, did not play five, so we broke open the other, Ave Caesar. In this game players race chariots around the dusty tracks of ancient Rome, pausing only to throw a Denari in Caesar's lap - or, if you prefer, you can ignore Caesar for tactic's sake and sacrifice your laurels (or victory points) instead. If one had a big lead that might be a viable option, but as it was we were too in thrall of the Emperor (or fear of losing) and stuck to our task. The chariots are propelled by card play so there's an element of card management and an element of blocking competitors off where the track narrows or veers around corners.
The game suggests 4 races but as it was fairly lightweight we did 2 instead and found it an enjoyable filler, for some reason encouraging a lot of smutty humour. Quentin began another successful night by coming in first again, with Joe and Adam tied for second and Andrew and I placed third:
Quentin 8
Joe/Adam 7
Sam/Andrew 5
With the night reasonably young there was time for a semi-serious game, but we found it so tricky deciding in the end a Decider was chosen at random, and that turned out to be me. I plumped for Ra, hoping we'd have time for Poison afterwards. There had been talk of Torres but if it makes Adam feel any better I realised later that it only plays 2-4.
Ra's not a strong game of mine but rather than hedge my bets and try and scoop up tiles at the end of the round, a strategy that's burnt my fingers before, I opted for grabbing things early to cover the bases and avoid penalties, a system that would have paid off had it not been for the presence of the new Ratio King at the table - yes, Quentin did it again, shrugging off the odd penalty to grab first place. Adam's comprehensive collection of monuments saw him score big but he was also hampered by his Pharoah and Civilisation shortcomings. Joe suffered the Ra equivalent of darts-elbow; having collected the three highest sun tiles for round three he was reticent to spend them.
Quentin 39
Sam 37
Adam/Andrew 17
Joe 16
It was ten o'clock and while Andrew cracked opened the whisky Joe and Quentin decided to retire, making the last game a three-hander. As such, Poison was out, and after a little dalliance with the idea of Trans-America, we settled on 7 Wonders. I like this game for three, with a little foresight and guesswork you can think a move ahead rather than just in the here and now. Andrew had professed to being a little jaded by 7 Wonders recently, but you wouldn't have known it as he wiped the floor with us, going big on Military and Blue Buildings to finish just one point off Adam's record score:
Andrew 62
Sam 46
Adam 44
Nice to get three games into an evening, and just look at Quent's ratio! He did volunteer that ratio should only come into it after ten games (which we agreed to) but it's worryingly impressive all the same.
The leaderboard...
| Played | Points | Ratio | |
| Sam | 21 | 94.5 | 4.5 |
| Adam | 19 | 86 | 4.53 |
| Andrew | 22 | 78 | 3.55 |
| Joe | 13 | 47 | 3.62 |
| Quentin | 6 | 31 | 5.17 |
| Jonny | 3 | 10.5 | 3.5 |
| Dan | 2 | 8 | 4 |
| Steve | 2 | 7.5 | 3.75 |
| Andy | 2 | 7 | 3.5 |
| Sally | 1 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
I'd love to goggle in amazement at Quentins huge ratio, but I can't see it ;)
ReplyDeleteAndrew is calculating its size as we speak
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty pleased with my performance in 7 Wonders. Kicking myself over not actually completing the Statue of Rhodes, though.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Ave Caeser, but couldn't see the advantage of not giving your coin to Caesar.
Didn't get going at all with Ra. Although I did like Joe's involuntary summoning of the god Ra, when he turned over a tile with something that looked a bit like a lion and he said "Raargh!" He had to quickly assure us he wasn't starting an auction.
As for Quentin, well, I am in awe. 5.17 is pretty impressive so late in the season. Six games played - five first places and one second place. And normally I like to put up some other silly ways of calculating the leaderboard, but Quentin's leading those, too, so I won't bother.
Nice to get Ra to the table, such a simple, clever game; but a deeply disappointing game for me. My glee at heading in to the third epoch with suns 14, 15 and 16 was short-lived, as Sam so rightly pointed out.
ReplyDeleteI don't think forgoing Caesar in AC is a viable strategy — though if you're playing the full 4 games, and have placed first in the first three, you have 18 points. You could then gamble on coming first again but forgoing the points, since the next best score would be 16 points, for someone who had consistently placed 2nd. . . you couldn't lose that way, but you could be tied for overall first place if you didn't cross the finish line first.
And always nice to see Pauly Sphincter — shame he couldn't stay for a game.
Yep, I think not giving your coin to Caesar is only workable if you have a lead that is more than 4 laurels going into the final race... don't know how likely that is.
ReplyDeleteI did like it, though.