When Netrunner was pulled out of the bag both James and I looked down dejectedly at it. I knew at that point that my Ebay account had a new sale item coming it's way. Next out was Mammut. We looked at each other and shrugged. Mammut it was. Not a popular title and quite a while since it was last played. A perfect example of why we are embarking on our trip through the games cupboard. Tactic rusty we were as we fudged our way through the first few rounds. By round 4 I had built up something like a 12 point lead but with the way that the game is designed that can be eaten away quite quickly. My one tactic of denying James the last sabre toothed creature that he needed went some way to helping make the final totals look a little skewed. The game has never really caught fire with us and perhaps it's better with more players. It's possible this title might be joining Netrunner on Chris's new game fund raiser.
Chris - 76
James - 53
Dominion was up next as we left leaderboard games behind. I again selected a recommended 10 cards but this time choosing one which offered fewer victory points. Fewer victory points meant only one legit route to victory - Provences. Again James felt money was the best route and I, after dabbling with a few cards, followed suit. However James was ahead of me in collecting Provinces and I never caught up. Especially as he laid a card which took a card off my deck. A Province... We both felt that the game needs something to stop it being a race to stuff Provinces in your hand. You get presented with all these lovely action cards and end up ignoring most of them.
James - 42
Chris - 40
What came next will probably be referred to as the lost games or the forgotten games or something catchier. Two games of Kingdom Builder were squeezed in to the remaining hour however the outcomes were spoiled by a dawning realisation after our last moves that James had missed a key rule about the secondary action, namely, it can be played first. Although I didn't make a lot of use of this facility, the fact it was there for me to use if I needed meant I was able to get out of some tight areas. It had never been an option for James and, had it been, the games would have played out much differently.
Chris - 52
James - 27
Chris - 43
James - 29
Bring on the next games.....!
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Hip Hip Hoo Raj
At first, today’s attendance at games night threatened to peak at nine. In the end, two people bowed out at the last minute and so we were seven: Sam (the host), Joe, Martin, Gonz, Matt, Steve and me. While we were waiting for Steve (minus a poorly Anja), the six of us played Tsuro. This game gets very difficult very quickly with six players, and I was first to find myself boxed in with no hope of escape. Sam had the chance to get both Gonz and Martin out in one go, but though the will was there, the tiles were not. He bumped of Martin, but Gonz escaped to safer parts of the board and, eventually, to victory.
1. Gonz
2. Joe
3. Sam
4. Martin
5. Matt
6. Andrew
The oft-discussed Game Of The Month did not happen this week, mostly due to a freakish occurance: while debating what we all wanted to play, we happened upon an agreement after only a few minutes! Amazing. Before anyone could change their minds, we split into two groups.
At one end of the table was myself, Gonz and Steve. We didn’t have the nerve to learn anything new so we chose Village as our evening’s entertainment. The others went for Municipium, the Reiner Knizia game set in Rome. I know nothing about it, except that the meeples can gain tiny green circles that sit on top of their heads, like laurel wreaths. Martin likes this and he proudly demonstrated it for everyone.
In our Village, we needed a little refresher of the rules before we set off. My initial plan was to try and maximise Politics, but it wasn’t quite the advantage that I remember it. I did a bit of everything, and this is not a game that rewards diversification.
Steve played his game, as usual, with all the bemused confusion of a man who’s just wandered into a room full of optical illusions and disembodied voices. But I wasn’t fooled. Behind every tentative move was a sharp and cunning mind.
Gonz, meanwhile, seemed to know what he was doing. He barely killed anyone at all, and by the end hadn’t used a single third generation meeple. The game was a long and thoughtful one. I looked across the table, a little jealous at Municipium and how relatively quickly it passed by. Although I wasn’t sure what to make of the rule where you get bonus points for being second in the bath when the prefect arrives. Kind of hard to visualise that, thematically. We were still mid game when they ended.
Sam: 5 coins
Martin: 4 coins, 4 workers
Joe: 4 coins, 1 worker
Matt: 3 coins, 3 workers
They then chose a Tournament game of Raj, the excellent game of bluffing and luck. We ploughed on with our game, made all the more difficult by the fact that, after two hours of play, the score was Gonz 10, me 7, Steve 4. I know that there are big end-of-game bonuses, but after all that time, it felt like a very small return fro all that effort.
Before long, they had finished their four-round game of Raj. It was noted that, despite everyone starting with the same cards, the results were so different. Sam played an excellent third round to put himself in pole position but Martin still had enough gas in the tank to push him into first. Joe and Matt finished some distance behind them.
Martin 69
Sam 61
Joe 23
Matt 17
We were still knee deep, wading through Village. We began one round, quietly convinced it would be the last, but then we couldn’t kill off enough villagers and so we had to begin another round. Then the game ended and the points were added up. Steve’s presence in the market saw him past the well-travelled Gonz.
Steve 62
Gonz 57
Andrew30
Even at this late stage, the other four had squeezed in another game. This time, it was Love Letter.
Martin 3
Matt 2
Sam 1
Joe 0
After this, my brain was completely fried, so I got lift back while the remaining five played Take It Easy. I got a text later telling me the scores.
Sam 473
Martin 473
Matt 444
Joe 381
Gonz 358
On the form table, several players hit the reset button, being able to play five games in one evening. This means Joe’s table-topping form has now vanished. Also, Adam is getting perilously close to being in last place. Is the world coming to an end?
1. Gonz
2. Joe
3. Sam
4. Martin
5. Matt
6. Andrew
The oft-discussed Game Of The Month did not happen this week, mostly due to a freakish occurance: while debating what we all wanted to play, we happened upon an agreement after only a few minutes! Amazing. Before anyone could change their minds, we split into two groups.
At one end of the table was myself, Gonz and Steve. We didn’t have the nerve to learn anything new so we chose Village as our evening’s entertainment. The others went for Municipium, the Reiner Knizia game set in Rome. I know nothing about it, except that the meeples can gain tiny green circles that sit on top of their heads, like laurel wreaths. Martin likes this and he proudly demonstrated it for everyone.
In our Village, we needed a little refresher of the rules before we set off. My initial plan was to try and maximise Politics, but it wasn’t quite the advantage that I remember it. I did a bit of everything, and this is not a game that rewards diversification.
Steve played his game, as usual, with all the bemused confusion of a man who’s just wandered into a room full of optical illusions and disembodied voices. But I wasn’t fooled. Behind every tentative move was a sharp and cunning mind.
Gonz, meanwhile, seemed to know what he was doing. He barely killed anyone at all, and by the end hadn’t used a single third generation meeple. The game was a long and thoughtful one. I looked across the table, a little jealous at Municipium and how relatively quickly it passed by. Although I wasn’t sure what to make of the rule where you get bonus points for being second in the bath when the prefect arrives. Kind of hard to visualise that, thematically. We were still mid game when they ended.
Sam: 5 coins
Martin: 4 coins, 4 workers
Joe: 4 coins, 1 worker
Matt: 3 coins, 3 workers
They then chose a Tournament game of Raj, the excellent game of bluffing and luck. We ploughed on with our game, made all the more difficult by the fact that, after two hours of play, the score was Gonz 10, me 7, Steve 4. I know that there are big end-of-game bonuses, but after all that time, it felt like a very small return fro all that effort.
Before long, they had finished their four-round game of Raj. It was noted that, despite everyone starting with the same cards, the results were so different. Sam played an excellent third round to put himself in pole position but Martin still had enough gas in the tank to push him into first. Joe and Matt finished some distance behind them.
Martin 69
Sam 61
Joe 23
Matt 17
We were still knee deep, wading through Village. We began one round, quietly convinced it would be the last, but then we couldn’t kill off enough villagers and so we had to begin another round. Then the game ended and the points were added up. Steve’s presence in the market saw him past the well-travelled Gonz.
Steve 62
Gonz 57
Andrew30
Even at this late stage, the other four had squeezed in another game. This time, it was Love Letter.
Martin 3
Matt 2
Sam 1
Joe 0
After this, my brain was completely fried, so I got lift back while the remaining five played Take It Easy. I got a text later telling me the scores.
Sam 473
Martin 473
Matt 444
Joe 381
Gonz 358
On the form table, several players hit the reset button, being able to play five games in one evening. This means Joe’s table-topping form has now vanished. Also, Adam is getting perilously close to being in last place. Is the world coming to an end?
| Points | ||||||
| Martin | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 9 |
| Sam | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Steve | 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| Hannah | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| Gonz | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 12 |
| Joe | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 15 |
| Anja | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 16 |
| Andrew | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 16 |
| Matt | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 17 |
| Adam | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 17 |
| Will | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
Friday, 28 February 2014
Once a Lord always a Lord, but three times a Knight is enough.
The 3 player league took a back seat this week due to the emergence of my new purchase Kingdom Builder. This new addition was not, as one might expect, bought owing to reports from the pages from this esteemed blog but rather down to the fact that I was milling around my local games shop and running out of time. It was a recognisable title at the right price point and I needed to get out of there before the weight of choice crushed me into buying nothing.
The choice, it turns out, was a good one. Three games in total was played such was it's popularity. Both James and Paul had read up on game play before the evening and so we launched straight in. Our scoring methods were to be dictated by Knights, Merchants and Citizens for this first game and by all accounts this was a good combination for new players. The choices were easy to work out and left us to concentrate on getting the adjacency rule right. I tried to do well in all categories but was beaten by Paul and James's superior specialisations. James with a sprawling metropolis and Paul with his handy network of location connections. In the end Paul steamrollered us into dust.
Paul - 49
James - 43
Chris - 40
With the game's tactics safely tucked into our belts round two started with new boards and completely new scoring cards - Farmers, Hermits, Fisherman. James's two paddock tiles meant that he spent a portion of the game making very useful small settlements all over the board. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to build in one sector and failed to score in Farmers. This game was a different experience from the first. The combination of location tiles and scoring cards made the choices very difficult and the game moved along much more slowly. The game looked close and the final scores revealed the same.
Chris - 46
Paul - 45
James - 44
In our final game with Lords, Citizens and Discovers selected James found him self wedged in one corner unable to break out due to the combination of terrain cards he was getting. Each card meant he was performing the gaming equivalent of "stacking shelves", as he put it. Meanwhile, whilst Paul was cutting me a break by not blocking off my chain of settlements, I was sealing off the entrance to the Oasis sector, keeping all to myself. Earlier each of us had missed the opportunity to place our little houses in the city island and it remained unpopulated for the rest of the game. James eventually broke out of his corner but it was just too late to influence the scoring effectively.
Chris - 65
Paul - 63
James -57
The choice, it turns out, was a good one. Three games in total was played such was it's popularity. Both James and Paul had read up on game play before the evening and so we launched straight in. Our scoring methods were to be dictated by Knights, Merchants and Citizens for this first game and by all accounts this was a good combination for new players. The choices were easy to work out and left us to concentrate on getting the adjacency rule right. I tried to do well in all categories but was beaten by Paul and James's superior specialisations. James with a sprawling metropolis and Paul with his handy network of location connections. In the end Paul steamrollered us into dust.
Paul - 49
James - 43
Chris - 40
 |
| Thinking |
With the game's tactics safely tucked into our belts round two started with new boards and completely new scoring cards - Farmers, Hermits, Fisherman. James's two paddock tiles meant that he spent a portion of the game making very useful small settlements all over the board. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to build in one sector and failed to score in Farmers. This game was a different experience from the first. The combination of location tiles and scoring cards made the choices very difficult and the game moved along much more slowly. The game looked close and the final scores revealed the same.
Chris - 46
Paul - 45
James - 44
In our final game with Lords, Citizens and Discovers selected James found him self wedged in one corner unable to break out due to the combination of terrain cards he was getting. Each card meant he was performing the gaming equivalent of "stacking shelves", as he put it. Meanwhile, whilst Paul was cutting me a break by not blocking off my chain of settlements, I was sealing off the entrance to the Oasis sector, keeping all to myself. Earlier each of us had missed the opportunity to place our little houses in the city island and it remained unpopulated for the rest of the game. James eventually broke out of his corner but it was just too late to influence the scoring effectively.
Chris - 65
Paul - 63
James -57
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Art for art’s ache
This week’s regular meet was held at Adam and Hannah’s. There were seven of us (Adam, Hannah, Martin, Sam, Joe, Gonz and me) but despite 7 Wonders being the only available option if we wanted to play a game together, we passed over that option and went straight into the evening’s main courses. There was a four-player game of A Study in Emerald (Martin, Gonz, Adam and Hannah) and a three-player game of Bruxelles 1893 (me, Sam and Joe).
The three of us went into the front room where we had to spread the game across three occasional tables, delicately balancing the main playing areas on the largest oval table. Just getting the layout right took several attempts, and quite a few minutes. It was to be an omen for what was to come.
We explained the rules to Joe, who asked insightful and intelligent questions. This made me think he already understood the game better than I did. I had a plan in round one, but even by round two I was being squeezed out of auctions and when round three finally began, I’d pretty much forgotten what the plan was at all.
If it was long with two newbies, it was a dirge with three. We added at least an hour to the recommended playing time for three, and this is not a game that gets better the more it goes on. While it has some nice ideas, it has far too many of them. They may overlap, but they never really gel.
I popped into the next room to see how Victorian London was coping against a battle between anarchists and octopuses, but I found that board equally baffling. In the end, Martin went mad in order to end the game at an opportune time, putting his colleague Hannah in second and leaving the two beastly loyalists in last.
Martin 9
Hannah 4
Adam 5
Gonz 3
When they’d finished, we were still knee-deep in art. Our game was taking so much time we even quipped "Bruzelles 1893? That's when we started playing it." So they began another game: Kingdom Builder. Another new game for Hannah, I think. Gonz took revenge for his recent last place.
Gonz 70
Hannah 51
Martin 51
Adam 37
When Bruxelles finally came to a close, we even had a few minutes debate about the score track, since it only went up to eighty before resetting to zero. Sam scored over one hundred, so should he put his counter on 20 something or 0 something? By now I was exhausted. If a game can’t even get the scoretrack right, it’s a bad sign.
Joe 133
Sam 126
Andrew 85
And there the evening ended. Sam suggested a final game of Raj but sorting out who’d play a five-player game out of seven people was one logistical puzzle too many for our frazzled brains, and in the end the offer was never taken up.
And if the evening wasn’t long enough, on the way home Adam called me to say that Sam had left his bag behind, with his keys etc. in them. Sam dropped me and Gonz off before one last dash across Bristol to round off quite a fraught evening for all concerned.
And on the monthly division, Martin leads on points and medal table, while Steve still holds on to points ratio.
The three of us went into the front room where we had to spread the game across three occasional tables, delicately balancing the main playing areas on the largest oval table. Just getting the layout right took several attempts, and quite a few minutes. It was to be an omen for what was to come.
We explained the rules to Joe, who asked insightful and intelligent questions. This made me think he already understood the game better than I did. I had a plan in round one, but even by round two I was being squeezed out of auctions and when round three finally began, I’d pretty much forgotten what the plan was at all.
If it was long with two newbies, it was a dirge with three. We added at least an hour to the recommended playing time for three, and this is not a game that gets better the more it goes on. While it has some nice ideas, it has far too many of them. They may overlap, but they never really gel.
I popped into the next room to see how Victorian London was coping against a battle between anarchists and octopuses, but I found that board equally baffling. In the end, Martin went mad in order to end the game at an opportune time, putting his colleague Hannah in second and leaving the two beastly loyalists in last.
Martin 9
Hannah 4
Adam 5
Gonz 3
When they’d finished, we were still knee-deep in art. Our game was taking so much time we even quipped "Bruzelles 1893? That's when we started playing it." So they began another game: Kingdom Builder. Another new game for Hannah, I think. Gonz took revenge for his recent last place.
Gonz 70
Hannah 51
Martin 51
Adam 37
When Bruxelles finally came to a close, we even had a few minutes debate about the score track, since it only went up to eighty before resetting to zero. Sam scored over one hundred, so should he put his counter on 20 something or 0 something? By now I was exhausted. If a game can’t even get the scoretrack right, it’s a bad sign.
Joe 133
Sam 126
Andrew 85
And there the evening ended. Sam suggested a final game of Raj but sorting out who’d play a five-player game out of seven people was one logistical puzzle too many for our frazzled brains, and in the end the offer was never taken up.
And if the evening wasn’t long enough, on the way home Adam called me to say that Sam had left his bag behind, with his keys etc. in them. Sam dropped me and Gonz off before one last dash across Bristol to round off quite a fraught evening for all concerned.
| Points | ||||||
| Joe | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 8 |
| Martin | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 8 |
| Sam | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 |
| Gonz | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
| Hannah | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| Steve | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 12 |
| Andrew | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 14 |
| Anja | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 16 |
| Adam | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 17 |
| Will | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
| Matt | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
And on the monthly division, Martin leads on points and medal table, while Steve still holds on to points ratio.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
Indian Summer
There was a maths trade on BoardGameGeek recently and I traded away some unpopular games for new territory. One I had meant to take off the list was Ankh Morpork - inevitably I got it in the trade - and another was Raj.
Raj alleges itself to be an "outrageous" bidding game, which is a lot of hype to live up to for a card game in a board-game sized box. I'd read the basic game was OK but the Tournament version was quite addictive, so was looking forward to trying it.
Outrageous!
The game is very simple - there are 15 tiles; valued 1-10 and -1 to -5. Each player has 15 bidding cards and when a tile is drawn randomly from a the pile and revealed, everyone makes a bid. The highest bidder picks up the value tile, the lowest bidder receives the minus tiles (which are, as you may have guessed, bad).
Raj
But if there are any identical bids, they cancel each other out, so you have to be very careful about when you play your high cards. Stanley really liked this game and keeps asking to play it, so we've played 3-handers with Little Joe and two-player games against each other. Joe's tactic of always playing his highest card didn't get him anywhere, and when I suggested he play some low cards he took me at my word and played his lowest card every time instead. The result: he wiped the floor with us! I'm pleased to say that tactic only worked as a one-off, however. Stan and I twice played high cards that tied, giving Joe easy (default) pickings early on with his low-value cards.
Andrew liked it too - you need to keep track of what tiles are left and, if you can, what cards your opponent has. It's very moreish and we played three times on the trot.
We also played Ankh Morpork, which was pretty dull - silly of me to suggest it for two but I wanted to try it again. I am baffled it's relatively high rating considering the randomness and repetition though.
And as the evening closed out we bashed out 7 Wonders - Andrew took the sciences route, but passed a lot of science cards to Dirk, meaning I grabbed a convincing win. Only Gonz has really made the sciences look indomitable, and that was in a game where Andrew I kept passing them to him thinking he was digging his own test-tube grave. We won't make that mistake again!
I'll bring Raj on Tuesday - it plays the basic game in ten minutes and hosts up to five.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
From Truro to Tsuro
Last time I went to a Roll For The Soul games night, I got there at 7.00 and because I was so late, I had to sit out the first game. This time, I was determined that the same thing shouldn’t happen again, so I turned up bang on 6.30, ready to play. I was the first, so I ordered food and began to wait.
Martin turned up at around 6.45, which reassured me that the evening hadn’t been cancelled without me knowing, but no sign of Adam. Luckily, Sam and animator Ian popped in on their way to a posh restaurant’s opening night. They had time for a quick game so we played Divinare, the game of psychic intuition. It was new to Sam and Ian, but they seemed to get into it quick enough. Certainly, they didn’t ruin their chances in the first round with a –5 score like I did.
It was fun and pretty tense at the end, when you have to wait to see what the final cards are and how that effects your prediction. Martin rode out the clear winner with 16 (all values approximate), with Ian just beating Sam by a point to claim second place (10 to 9, I think). I was miles behind with about five points.
During this game, I texted Adam to find out how far away he was. He texted back that he’d forgotten all about it! Amazing! He and Hannah arrived after half an hour or so, just as Divinare was winding up. After his recent two last places and now forgetting about an entire games night, maybe impending fatherhood has taken the edge off Adam’s otherwise steel-cold clear-thinking brain.
Sam and Ian left, and the four of us chose Tinners’ Trail as the main game of the evening. Martin and Hannah needed only a slight refresher of the rules, and we were off! This time Tinners’ Trail was uncanny in its topicality: our Cornwall was every bit as sodden as the real one. And it got wetter as the game went on.
Despite the water, prices were high for the first two rounds, so mining was worth it. Even in the final two rounds, the market never collapsed, which was a relief for me. I concentrated my efforts into three generous but soggy mines, using adits to maintain their levels of copper and tin throughout the game. Hannah built an empire in the east, and Martin tried his luck at additing into an empty area and then buying it cheap, only for it to turn out to be a slightly metallic lake. Adam squeezed his plans into the area around Land’s End and Lizard Point.
As the final round began, I had plenty of copper in my mines, and not much else. We remarked that my whole game relied on the dice roll for the price of copper. As long as it didn’t bottom out, I thought I’d be fine. It was £4. I breathed a sigh of relief and managed to scrape the win by the thinnest of narrow margins, winning on the money tie-breaker. Me and Martin got 107 (but I had £3, he had none), Adam 101 and Hannah 97 or 94.
I was very happy with my win, and somehow it seemed more enjoyable because the opposition was so strong and because it was so close. Mind you, Martin spent most of the game moaning about his dice rolls, and he still almost won. I’d hate to see him play Tinners’ Trail when the dice rolls go in his favour. Adam remarked it was the first time that he’d seen the adit tactic work, but then we concluded that the watery nature of the game probably suited it.
After this, we ended on a lovely game of Tsuro, with Hannah going out first, boxed in by me. Adam then left Martin with no choice but to kill himself. Finally we met in one corner of the board and Adam was able to lay the fatal tile that ended the game in his favour.
Another Roll For The Soul over, and the evening ended with a rare threat: a lift home with Adam and Hannah. In a car. It’s a shame that, as pedestrians and cyclists, we weren’t sure of the quickest way back, and I sent them down a dead-end street on the way, but they got me back in less time than walking, and that’s all that counts.
Martin turned up at around 6.45, which reassured me that the evening hadn’t been cancelled without me knowing, but no sign of Adam. Luckily, Sam and animator Ian popped in on their way to a posh restaurant’s opening night. They had time for a quick game so we played Divinare, the game of psychic intuition. It was new to Sam and Ian, but they seemed to get into it quick enough. Certainly, they didn’t ruin their chances in the first round with a –5 score like I did.
It was fun and pretty tense at the end, when you have to wait to see what the final cards are and how that effects your prediction. Martin rode out the clear winner with 16 (all values approximate), with Ian just beating Sam by a point to claim second place (10 to 9, I think). I was miles behind with about five points.
During this game, I texted Adam to find out how far away he was. He texted back that he’d forgotten all about it! Amazing! He and Hannah arrived after half an hour or so, just as Divinare was winding up. After his recent two last places and now forgetting about an entire games night, maybe impending fatherhood has taken the edge off Adam’s otherwise steel-cold clear-thinking brain.
Sam and Ian left, and the four of us chose Tinners’ Trail as the main game of the evening. Martin and Hannah needed only a slight refresher of the rules, and we were off! This time Tinners’ Trail was uncanny in its topicality: our Cornwall was every bit as sodden as the real one. And it got wetter as the game went on.
Tinners' Trail, after the end of round two
Despite the water, prices were high for the first two rounds, so mining was worth it. Even in the final two rounds, the market never collapsed, which was a relief for me. I concentrated my efforts into three generous but soggy mines, using adits to maintain their levels of copper and tin throughout the game. Hannah built an empire in the east, and Martin tried his luck at additing into an empty area and then buying it cheap, only for it to turn out to be a slightly metallic lake. Adam squeezed his plans into the area around Land’s End and Lizard Point.
As the final round began, I had plenty of copper in my mines, and not much else. We remarked that my whole game relied on the dice roll for the price of copper. As long as it didn’t bottom out, I thought I’d be fine. It was £4. I breathed a sigh of relief and managed to scrape the win by the thinnest of narrow margins, winning on the money tie-breaker. Me and Martin got 107 (but I had £3, he had none), Adam 101 and Hannah 97 or 94.
I was very happy with my win, and somehow it seemed more enjoyable because the opposition was so strong and because it was so close. Mind you, Martin spent most of the game moaning about his dice rolls, and he still almost won. I’d hate to see him play Tinners’ Trail when the dice rolls go in his favour. Adam remarked it was the first time that he’d seen the adit tactic work, but then we concluded that the watery nature of the game probably suited it.
After this, we ended on a lovely game of Tsuro, with Hannah going out first, boxed in by me. Adam then left Martin with no choice but to kill himself. Finally we met in one corner of the board and Adam was able to lay the fatal tile that ended the game in his favour.
Another Roll For The Soul over, and the evening ended with a rare threat: a lift home with Adam and Hannah. In a car. It’s a shame that, as pedestrians and cyclists, we weren’t sure of the quickest way back, and I sent them down a dead-end street on the way, but they got me back in less time than walking, and that’s all that counts.
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
The adventures of sheer luck
Dusk on Tuesday brings Bristol’s finest out to the best games night there is for miles around. This week it was Joe who was hosting, and Martin, Adam, Sam and I arrived first, with Steve and Anja expected shortly.
To fill the time until their arrival, rather than talking to each other, we thought we should play a game, even if it meant Adam reaching awkwardly over his plate of chips and between various condiments when it was his turn. We chose No Thanks, because it’s a good game. I poo-poohed my “take the lowest card” strategy in favour of a “take a fairly low card” strategy. Not much of an improvement. Me, Martin and Adam were swept aside by Sam’s high-card tactics and by Joe’s joining of cards 28-24, with plenty of chips in reserve.
Joe 11
Sam 13
Martin 20
Andrew 27
Adam 36
There was still no sign of Anja and Steve so we played Timeline. An excellent game (if you know history) and a perfect excuse to see Joe’s automatic shuffler in action.
Once the game got going, we placed our bets and showed our ignorance. Wrong guesses were, for the most part, only out by a decade or two. I think I made the least accurate guess of the evening: Apparently, microbes were discovered in the 1500s, and not in the late 1800s as I had thought. But I still battled back to run out joint winner with Joe and Martin. Sam came second with Adam in third, having made one correct guess.
1= Joe
1= Andrew
1= Martin
2. Sam
3. Adam
By now, Steve and Anja were here. The seven of us decided to split into two groups of four and three. Adam, Sam and Joe went for Russian Railroads. Me, Martin, Anja and Steve chose A Study In Emerald. This had been mentioned in emails before the evening, and I’d got the idea into my head that this was some kind of cross between Mr Jack and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective.
My discovery that the storyline included giant octopuses and was based on a short story by Neil Gaiman was offset by the fact it was designed by Martin Wallace. But my initial doubts grew into convictions during the game. It crammed into one game the secret identities of Revolution, the rule of avoiding last of High Society, the deck-building of Dominion, the sudden endings of Palaces of Carrara, and the area-control of, oh, lots of games.
The secret identities bit didn’t work at all, as I accidentally attacked my team mate, and then the next go, before I could undo my mistake, Martin saw which way the game was going and chose an option that luckily allowed him to end the game. A bit of an anti-climax, frankly.
We were in two “teams” but since the winning team came first and second, I’ll just put the points as we ended.
Martin 18
Anja 13
Andrew 11
Steve 7
After this, Steve and Anja went back home. The game of Russian Railroads still had half an hour to go, so Martin and I sped through a game of two-player Agricola. We scooped up wooden meeples like poker chips, and before you knew it, I’d lost again 52-30, despite Martin’s disgusting battery farming of horses. There must be a law against this.
Finally, RR came to an end. Martin and I marvelled at the final round scoring of 100+ points, and that’s before bonuses. It seemed like one opportunity after another to add to your score. In the end, Sam won, using an improved version of the strategy he used last time. The first time we played, the three of us ended 14 points apart. That didn’t happen this time:
Sam 482
Joe 424
Adam 397
By now it was almost eleven. We drew this evening’s entertainment to a close. Joe insisted he could clear away the bottle-strewn, meeple-infested table after we’d gone. And so, we went.
On the form table, while Gonz is away in Spain, Sam takes the opportunity to steal top spot. It’s a narrow margin, though. Only the "best most-recent score" rule separates them. Despite coming last, Steve actually improves his score. But the big winner tonight is Joe, who replaces two “6”s and a “1” with two “1”s and a “2”, sending him up from ninth to fourth.
To fill the time until their arrival, rather than talking to each other, we thought we should play a game, even if it meant Adam reaching awkwardly over his plate of chips and between various condiments when it was his turn. We chose No Thanks, because it’s a good game. I poo-poohed my “take the lowest card” strategy in favour of a “take a fairly low card” strategy. Not much of an improvement. Me, Martin and Adam were swept aside by Sam’s high-card tactics and by Joe’s joining of cards 28-24, with plenty of chips in reserve.
Joe 11
Sam 13
Martin 20
Andrew 27
Adam 36
There was still no sign of Anja and Steve so we played Timeline. An excellent game (if you know history) and a perfect excuse to see Joe’s automatic shuffler in action.
Once the game got going, we placed our bets and showed our ignorance. Wrong guesses were, for the most part, only out by a decade or two. I think I made the least accurate guess of the evening: Apparently, microbes were discovered in the 1500s, and not in the late 1800s as I had thought. But I still battled back to run out joint winner with Joe and Martin. Sam came second with Adam in third, having made one correct guess.
From the invention of writing to
walking on the moon, in one evening
1= Joe
1= Andrew
1= Martin
2. Sam
3. Adam
By now, Steve and Anja were here. The seven of us decided to split into two groups of four and three. Adam, Sam and Joe went for Russian Railroads. Me, Martin, Anja and Steve chose A Study In Emerald. This had been mentioned in emails before the evening, and I’d got the idea into my head that this was some kind of cross between Mr Jack and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective.
My discovery that the storyline included giant octopuses and was based on a short story by Neil Gaiman was offset by the fact it was designed by Martin Wallace. But my initial doubts grew into convictions during the game. It crammed into one game the secret identities of Revolution, the rule of avoiding last of High Society, the deck-building of Dominion, the sudden endings of Palaces of Carrara, and the area-control of, oh, lots of games.
A country called "Gary"
The secret identities bit didn’t work at all, as I accidentally attacked my team mate, and then the next go, before I could undo my mistake, Martin saw which way the game was going and chose an option that luckily allowed him to end the game. A bit of an anti-climax, frankly.
We were in two “teams” but since the winning team came first and second, I’ll just put the points as we ended.
Martin 18
Anja 13
Andrew 11
Steve 7
After this, Steve and Anja went back home. The game of Russian Railroads still had half an hour to go, so Martin and I sped through a game of two-player Agricola. We scooped up wooden meeples like poker chips, and before you knew it, I’d lost again 52-30, despite Martin’s disgusting battery farming of horses. There must be a law against this.
Finally, RR came to an end. Martin and I marvelled at the final round scoring of 100+ points, and that’s before bonuses. It seemed like one opportunity after another to add to your score. In the end, Sam won, using an improved version of the strategy he used last time. The first time we played, the three of us ended 14 points apart. That didn’t happen this time:
Sam 482
Joe 424
Adam 397
By now it was almost eleven. We drew this evening’s entertainment to a close. Joe insisted he could clear away the bottle-strewn, meeple-infested table after we’d gone. And so, we went.
On the form table, while Gonz is away in Spain, Sam takes the opportunity to steal top spot. It’s a narrow margin, though. Only the "best most-recent score" rule separates them. Despite coming last, Steve actually improves his score. But the big winner tonight is Joe, who replaces two “6”s and a “1” with two “1”s and a “2”, sending him up from ninth to fourth.
| Points | ||||||
| Sam | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
| Gonz | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Martin | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
| Joe | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Steve | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 12 |
| Andrew | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 14 |
| Hannah | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 15 |
| Anja | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 16 |
| Adam | 3 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 16 |
| Will | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
| Matt | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
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