We began with a little bit of Codenames to break the ice. The last time Chris, Sam and I played this, Chris’ wife was the fourth player and she and I comfortably beat Sam and Chris thanks to their unerring attraction to the Assassin card.
This time Chris and Sam teamed up again to see if they could beak their run of bad form. But it was not to be. Despite Paul being new to the game, he and I kept our clues simple. Chris and Sam made few mistakes, but enough to give us the edge in both rounds. Their run of bad form continues.
Next we got out the new craze in the GNN world, Marco Polo. It was new to Paul but, as we discovered more rules we hadn’t noticed before, it was still pretty new to the rest of us too.
Sam’s character came with two extra trading posts and an extra bonus for getting them down, too. However, with no money or camels to help with the cost of traveling, Sam found it difficult to get going.
Chris was Marco Polo, so got an extra dice and a steady supply of new contracts. Paul’s character was able to teleport from oasis to oasis. Mine had two different travelers, which was nice.
Andrew 62
Chris 50
Paul
Sam 28
Chris seemed happy with his second place, and I was possibly happier with my win. Paul enjoyed it too. Only Sam seemed disappointed, saying that his character was more of a curse. Chris agreed, having had the same role before. Perhaps it's something for the more advanced player, since Andy had it too, and he didn't do so badly. Still didn't win, though.
We followed this with good old 7 Wonders. We've played it so often that I forget that Paul doesn't play it very often, and needed a slight rule refresher of the icons on the cards before we got going.
But when we got going, going got we did. Or something. It was a fascinating game. We each had our specialties: me, science; Paul, military; Sam, blue buildings; Chris went for the unorthodox choice of lots of yellow buildings.
My sciences won the day, by a comfortable margin. But I almost didn't chose sciences when the chance came up in round one to build one for free, because we'd been talking earlier about how you have to challenge someone when they start collecting sciences. I ended up with 48 points just from that category alone.
But they didn't. I guess they always had a card that suited their plans better than ruining mine.
Andrew 67
Paul 57
Sam 50
Chris 41
We ended with 6nimmt. This game never ceases to amaze with its evil twists and turns. With only four players, there were occasions when we could relax since we knew no one could pick up cards, but there were also occasions when there was no escape from a heavy forfeit.
Notable events were: Paul and Chris both getting zero points in the same round, Sam going from first to last in a single round, and then Paul doing the same in the final round.
Chris 44
Sam 64
Andrew 69
Paul 70
And with that, we set off home. Except we didn't, since Chris was putting us all up for the night. That meant we could all spend the next morning actually talking to each other for a change. Nice, but it'll never catch on.
Good fun thanks guys. Great to hook up with Paul again.
ReplyDeleteThat Marco Polo guy though - sheesh!
I think that the recipient of that travelling character should be given the option of swapping it out at the start. Unless we are missing something it's almost impossible to achieve.
ReplyDeleteI just checked the rules and BGG and it seems that you get all of the bonuses for putting a trading post down, including if you are the first player to place in a large city. So those little additions would help, but I think access to the amount of money and camels you need is a hindrance especially when you need to complete the route cards too.... You're pretty much not completing many contracts in the game....
ReplyDelete