James and I were quickly into a bunch of heavy bidding wars for early territories while Paul sat back waited to see where the dust settled. James identified link between the provinces to be a key to victory whereas I felt getting goods and the elephant tiles as the way to go. As the game developed Paul came more into it. This game has a lovely balancing mechanism where winning a round of bidding can see you dominate a province but repeated wins means you retain fewer cards and are left with just one to add.
Everybody loves the Palace colours |
Cards mean power in the bidding and thus it proved that I lost out in the latter stages to Paul's fist full of cards. Such as it was that my game trailed away like a toy boat pushed out to the middle of a pond. The initial shove showed great direction and promise but eventually it just ended up floating around aimlessly going nowhere. Unlike that cracking analogy! Inbox me if you require similar - it's no trouble.
I really fancy a curry |
So Paul's late surge made the game a lot closer than it maybe looked half way through, James' Palace links making the difference.
James - 55
Chris - 48
Paul - 45
Then with time short we chose one of our favourites, Medici. There must have been some rustiness as I was allowed to load fairly generous cargos for relatively little money. Although it must be stated I was lucky with one draw where I needed a 5 to win the ships total for my last space and actually drew it out!
Chris - 163
James - 121
Paul - 114
Ah, Taj Mahal! I think it's only been played in Bristol the once, which is a shame as it's a good game. Glad it's getting recognition down your way.
ReplyDeleteAh Medici! To think we used to play it almost every week. I think it fell out of favour through over-playing around the start of the blog. A nice game to pick up and play without having to agonise over rules refreshers though.
Taj is a satisfying game, my only criticism is that because of the random card element you can be prevented from doing what you want due to the fall of the cards. In the same way Alhambra can stitch you up with money cards. However, it's the same for everyone..
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