Easy Jet

Games Night had a late start this week so the beers and nibbles were slid across the table and Airlines was frantically laid out while reminders of long-forgotten rules were barked about. So perhaps it can be forgiven that one massive oversight shaped the game – the shape being that of a huge bulging sack of cash.

            The game started with James, Paul and Chris buying up expensive routes without a care in the world. Business was booming as little coloured jets peppered the skies. They could have sat back and smoked big fat cigars, each of them wheeling and dealing like there was no tomorrow and no end to their teetering piles of dosh.

            Then someone suggested it was too easy. There had to be a reason nobody was struggling. There’s often struggle. Why was struggle absent? It dawned on the bemused players that instead of being dealt a starting pot of 8 million each from a bank of 30 million, Paul had dealt out 30 million to each player in the extra rush of setting up.

            The wealthy air barons could but shrug and carry on. Times were good.

            A second rules mix-up was rumbled. The game had slowed with every shares card on offer being a red one and that being the only little plastic airline that hadn’t got off the ground. Nobody wanted to pick up red. Should one be able to pick from the pile? Chris had firmly warned that they couldn’t. They double-checked. They could! Hurrah. The game warmed up again. Paul bought yet more expensive routes, launching green airlines way ahead. James took over control of black airlines, which Chris had built up. Then Chris took pity on red and decided to mould it into a sky-dominating  mega-power. But it was too little too late, though he had grabbed a menacing dominance in points-aplenty Abacus Airlines. And that’s where it ended. 

The view from 30,000 feet

            The trio stubbed out their imaginary cigars, dragged out their victory point chips from behind their towers of cash and counted them up. It was close. Except for Chris. But he had provided jobs for those dear folk at red airlines. Bless.

James 95, Paul 94, Chris 86.

Then, Stone Age. A game where each and every one of them knew each and every rule. Otherwise, they might have started with a pile of gold each. James declared how he’d never won a game of Stone Age yet. Would his luck change? Plus, he was in the Stone Age doghouse as Chris showed Paul how brown three of the dice were. Because one other time, James had absent-mindedly chucked the dice into Chris’ unfinished cup of tea, instead of the throwing cup.

            From the off, James got his wheat fields growing. Paul and Chris started gathering the resources. Early tactics were unclear, though James resolved to forego any plans with nothing ever having worked for him before. But somehow, it was all working rather well for him. He had food in abundance and was quietly buying up the huts and racing round the scoring track. Paul always likes to manage a large population and had soon bred such a colony that placed end to end would stretch all the way... well, further than Chris and James’ populations. So Paul struggled for food, often feeding his men logs instead. Plus the odd brick for, erm... protein?

            Chris is usually the axe-man of Stone Age but he seemed unravelled in his plans and nervously gobbled down the Midget Gems. Surreptitiously (and unopposed),  James started to collect up all the technological advancement cards in some daring semblance of an actual plan. At the same time, he concentrated on not further browning Chris’ dice collection in a glass of coke, or sipping from the leather cup.

            At the game’s end, Chris’ final gamble came unstuck for the lack of a single log (probably eaten by Paul’s men) and he couldn’t quite leapfrog Paul into second place. James could tell he’d finally won a game but all were quite shocked at the enormous margin by which he’d done it. Over-producing wheat fields, many huts – often paid for with gold, and a full set of technological advancements. Victory (in this) at last. He’d prepared a speech, but Chris had to rush Paul to the station to get him on the last train home. They said.

James 261, Paul 141, Chris 139.