Thursday evening saw myself (Chris), Paul H and Stuart
gather, if three people can do that, at my house for another session of gaming.
To aid the decision making process I suggested that Paul be the one choosing the table top encounters for the night. Keyflower was proffered as something
he’d wanted to try for a while and I disappeared off to get it before he
changed his mind.
Keyflower is not to everybody’s tastes as it can seem more
tactical than strategic. The iconography and art can be seen as obtrusive and
unattractive and it can be a problem for the AP prone player. However it is one
of my favourites, and I'll never turn down a game of it. Its central mechanism whereby you have to decide whether to use your meeples on
production and upgrading of tiles or for bidding to gain additional ones adds a
unique aspect to the game. I tend to prefer games where you make your plans up
on the fly and react to emerging situations. This one almost insists that
you do as you get out bid for village tiles and players use production
spaces you had your eye on.
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| Forgot to take a photo. Here's one I made earlier |
The chaps took on board the rules rather well and we were up
and bidding in no time. To help the easing of their first game I made a number
of suggestions which, unless you’ve played before, could be easily missed. To
their credit these were few and far between. A testament to how successfully
they had picked it up was reflected in the final scores.
Chris 54
Paul 53
Stuart 51 – (Although this could be more. I neglected to
score the first player marker which is used as a general wild card!)
Keyflower had taken a little longer than expected so we
rounded of the evening with a game of 7 Wonders. Well two actually. As with
many people before them this has become a firm favourite with the guys. In the first
game Paul showed us how to play the game as Giza by focussing on resources to
build his wonders and at the same time buying every blue building he could.
In the second game he observed how I had played Alexandria in
the first game by focussing on one science and using the 2nd wonder
to improve the score. Then showed us how to win by using that tactic. Really
well!
Paul 54
Chris 49
Stuart 38
Paul 67
Stuart 45
Chris 39
Ah, Keyflower! I know what you mean about the reactive play. Like that too. Terraforming Mars has a similar angle due to the cards - we played last night. I think TM has a bit of luck though; it's possible to get a good or bad hand. Keyflower avoids that.
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