| Ralph's Game Log for May 2003 | Minutes |
| 2nd |
| Purchase:Cartagena ($18) |
| Crokinole | B20:
Scott brought his crokinole board to B20 this week.
We sat down and played a team game against Rob and Dave F.
We got spanked.
Rob and Dave F (110), Scott and I (45)
| 30 |
| Klunker | B20:
I've been wanting to give this game a try ever since I saw it on Dave's game collection.
It's a game by Uwe Rosenberg.
Each player is a jeweler trying to collect sets of jewelry.
This was a first play for all of us.
As in most of Uwe's games I was confused the first couple of hands and of course I forgot some of the special cases.
All in all this was very enjoyable.
We had a three-way tie so it came down to the tiebreaker.
Me (17-3), Ben (17-3), Dave F (17-7), Scott (13)
| 50 |
| EVO | B20:
This was one of the most nastiest games of EVO I've ever played.
This was one blood thirsty group, making sure anybody with extra dinos would suffer especially if they belong to Kyle.
My dino went the multi feet path, while Jeff was a heavy egg layer.
The rest of the others were a little more balanced.
Dave (52), Me (45), Jeff (45), Campbell (43), Kyle (41)
| 90 |
| Bohnanza: High Bohn | B20:
This was my first play with this Bohnanza expansion and Jeff's first introduction to Bohnanza.
The expansion adds a western theme to the game by adding buildings like the Sheriff's Office, Salon, etc.
Each of the buildings provide special powers to the owner.
Typically the more expensive a building is, the more it provides.
Players can get a bonus for having four different buildings with up to eight points for all eight buildings (no dups allowed).
At the end of the game the player's score is equal to the coins he has plus the value of his buildings and any bonus that buildings provide.
This is one of those expansions that require multiple plays to remember each building's power.
Jeff (26), Kyle (20), Campbell (19), Dave (18), Me (13)
| 75 |
| Nodwick The Card Game | B20:
Dave bought a new game today so we decided to break it in.
First play for all of us.
It a real time trading game in which each player is trying to rebuild his henchman from an assorts set of body parts, a little magic and duct tape.
After three players complete their henchmen the game ends.
First player out gets a 2-point bonus and the second player gets one point.
The player score is the largest number of body parts of one color set plus bonus points if any.
After the first game and most people figured out the how to play, so we played again.
I wasn't fast enough in either of the games.
Dave (3+7), Vitas (0+4), Ben (3+0), Jeff (4+0), Me (0+0)
| 25 |
| Cartagena | B20:
I too bought a game and we played it! First play for Jeff and Vitas.
This is a game were you want to move your six pirates from jail to an escape boat.
First player to so, wins.
Each player get three actions during their turn.
There are only two choices during an action; move a pawn by playing a card, or fall back to collect cards.
Fast and simple game.
We stopped after the Jeff got all his men on the boat.
Jeff (6), Ben (4), Vitas (3), Dave F (3), Me (1)
| 40 |
| Showmanager | B20:
Final game of the night and it was a flush-o-rama event for me!!!
This was Jeff first play and after learning at least four games in one night he had a good excuse for only scoring 20 points.
Kyle (62), Vitas (37), Dave (37), Rich (33), Me (31), Jeff (20)
| 60 |
| 3rd |
| Wyatt Earp | Golf, Grill and Games:
Only Matt and Annette showed up for golf.
Steve arrived just as we finished our round.
The games commenced with a quick game of Wyatt Earp.
It had been a while since Steve had played a game of Earp so we gave him a quick refresher.
Annette and I got out to a quick lead during the first hand.
During the second hand, Matt played hoser.
He got all the hideouts and used them on each of us successfully.
The game was close but Matt was able to squeeze out the win.
It was time to start grilling and magically more people arrived as I ignited the grill
Matt (28), Me (26), Annette (23), Steve (10)
| 40 |
| Robo Rally | Golf, Grill and Games:
The games commenced after everyone had their fill of chips, burgers, dog and alcohol.
Actually, alcohol continued to flow during the games.
One group was off to play Puerto Rico while I started a game of Robo Rally.
I set up a 2 x 2 tile, 5-flag race, using Shield variant.
Chris L arrived during the second turn but wouldn't join us.
He instead jumped onto my computer and played Java Settlers, eventually joining the other group in a real game of Settlers.
Chris S and I started strong and we both arrived at the flag simultaneously but I had the lower priority number so I touched the flag and then proceeded to push Chris S into a pit.
I got a bad draw the next turn and wasn't able to move much.
The delay helped Al get to flag two and he pinged me a couple times as he went by.
Al and I now raced towards the 3rd flag which in the middle of the Giddy board.
I was down to five points of damage so I decided to shutdown, which gave Al the lead.
Maria caught up and touched flag three and gave chase to Al.
Meanwhile, Chris was still trying to touch the second flag.
Al suffered from a couple of bad draws and Maria got to the fourth flag and was cruising towards the win.
I got lucky and was able to get the right cards to use a blue track to get me to the fourth flag and nearly catch up to Al.
The shield held up Maria allowing Al to have a shot at winning.
On the final turn Maria needed a move one, while Al needed a turn left and a move 2 to win.
Maria got her card and won.
Chris was on his way to the fourth flag.
Maria, Al, Me, Chris
| 180 |
| Carcassonne | Golf, Grill and Games:
Next up was Carc with everything.
Al said he was going to use the Tofu non-farmer sharing strategy and it worked.
I think the builder makes this strategy very viable.
A couple of monster cities were complete but the ones with the cathedrals were not.
Al (118), Me (99), Chris (93), Chet (82), Maria (80), Holly (53)
| 60 |
| Puerto Rico | Golf, Grill and Games:
Ilise is a PR junkie, one game wasn't enough that she push for another.
Nobody refused.
Starting order Ilise, Chris, Dimitri, Me
I started with corn as my crop so I built a small market.
I was able to acquire coffee and the roaster with in a couple of turns and started cranking out the money.
I eventually built a factory and added some extra crops to my mix.
I built three large buildings but Ilise was able to get one last shipping phase before the game ended.
She also was able to build a large building.
My mistake was skipping one of the building phases, it would have finished the game one turn earlier.
Argghh!
Ilise (54), Me (47), Chris (46), Dimitri (46)
| 70 |
| Cartagena | Golf, Grill and Games:
I pulled out a quick game cause Ilise was going to leave when John finished his game.
Midway thru the game I had to recruit Chet to take over Ilise's position.
I finished first but Chris wanted to play it thru.
Chet was out next and after we show Chris that one of his boys was still in jail he accepted last place.
Me, Ilise/Chet, Dimitri, Chris
| 30 |
| Showmanager | Golf, Grill and Games:
It was late and we were down to six players.
Chris suggested Showmanager and I figured it would be picked up easily.
Boy was I wrong.
Christine and Chet had trouble understanding some of the rules and I was starting to feel that I picked the wrong game to play,
but when Christine whipped out a 41-point Ballet and Chet a 30-point Wolf, I didn't feel too bad.
I must of been late because Chris tried to pass off a Queenie as a King Lear and it would have worked if it wasn't for Holly's eagle eyes.
The noobies ruled the game.
Best quote of the game, Christine "I'm gonna flush for fun!"
Dimitri (51), Christine (43), Holly (38), Me (34), Chet (31), Chris (23)
| 60 |
| 9th |
| X-Bugs | B20:
Dave and I played a game of X-Bugs instead of heading over to Scholar to buy games.
This is a tiddlywinks game.
Each player gets an army of "Insects" and the objective to destroy two of three opponent's bases.
Each turn the player rolls his 3 die and "moves" the insects that were rolled face up on the dice.
An insect is destroyed if enemy insect land on it.
Some insects have special abilities like shooting webs, taking another turn if it lands a specific side up, hiding, etc.
Dave initially had a better touch being able to wipeout a large number of forces but I got some lucky bounces at the end.
Me (2), Dave F (1)
| 30 |
| Mogul | B20:
Mogul is a railroad stock bidding game with an interesting auction scheme.
Each turn a card is drawn.
The cards in the game represent shares of stock and its border color represents the color of stock that can be sold.
Players owning stock of the type drawn gets a victory point for each stock of that type that he controls.
In the auction round a player bids a coin or takes the pot (i.e.
dropouts).
The last player in gets the choice of keeping the card or sells his shares of the designated stock.
The second placed player gets the other choice.
Selling stock gives the player victory points equal to the number of stock in play times the number being sold.
The game continues like this until the crash card is flipped over.
The person with the most VPs wins.
Pat and I were heavy in pink stock.
We both started hoarding cash for the eventual sell pink card.
Pat had more money when the sell pink card came out but this is were I made my mistake.
Instead of contesting the card, I bailed.
The next card that came up was another sell pink and I still didn't have enough money to outbid Pat.
Ah well, live and learn.
Pat (23), Me (20), Dave F (19), Scott (15), Steve (12), Dave L (11)
| 60 |
| Puerto Rico | B20:
Staring Order Me, Dave L, Rich, Jim
Dave L, Jim and I decided on playing Puerto Rico while the other group went on to play Barbarosa.
This was Jim's first play of Puerto Rico, so we spent about 30 minutes going over the rules.
During the time Rich arrived and joined us.
Jim had trouble understanding certain concepts so we as a collective mind offer advice and best moves strategies.
Half way through the game it was apparent that Jim (or was it we?) was kicking our asses as a shipper.
Our individual instincts kicked in and we left Jim to fend for himself.
I got the builder strategy going but my shipping was very light which in the end hurt me.
I finished the game when I filled my last building spot.
I got full bonus points (7) for the Residence and five for the Fortress.
Meanwhile, Rich got the balance right, getting a decent amount of shipping and buildings including the Guildhall.
Jim was doing well with the shipping until we stopped helping him.
He was able to build a couple of large building as well.
Rich (52), Jim (50), Me (42), Dave (41)
| 120 |
| Traumfabrik | B20:
This game hurt! I fell behind in actors and picked last for several of the party phases.
In order to break out of the rut, I had to overbid on a couple of low level Actors.
I completed three movies but got no awards.
Rich on the other hand walked away with plenty of them.
Rich (83), Campbell (72), Mike (56), Kyle (53), Me (44)
| 60 |
| Ra | B20:
Another Knizia bidding game that I haven't played in a while.
I gave a brief rules overview for Jim who had only played once before.
Got behind in pharaohs, collected almost no culture, got last in Sun totals and only got one triple in monuments.
I'm surprised I got over 20 points!
Terry (36), Kyle (39), Rich (37), Me (22), Jim (20)
| 60 |
| Bluff | B20:
Closer for the night, I went out pretty quick on a pretty dopey call.
Kyle, Dave F, Rich, Adam, Me, Jim
| 30 |
| 12th |
| Cartagena | SOG:
Got the early birds to play this quick game.
Josh had most of his men near the boat but Rob got his six in first.
Rob (6), Me (3), Mike (3), Josh (0)
| 30 |
| Meine Schafe, Deine Schafe | SOG:
Thirteen persons attended today's SOG day.
Four players went off to play Java, another five to play Fresh Fish and we finally decided on the sheep game.
First play for everyone except for me.
Chris got a decent sized pen early and bailed out.
I stayed in until the last of the tiles ran out.
I bailed out too, after realizing that I could not make a larger pen.
Hindsight, I should have stayed in to hose Sarah.
Sarah built her big pen and left Pete the last player standing, where he promptly made a placement mistake and hosed himself.
Sarah (18+1=19), Chris (12+6=18), Me (8+3=11), Pete (4)
| 60 |
| Ra | SOG:
Chris push Ra and I wanted to get rid of the bad taste of Friday's Ra spanking.
Chris made me go over the rules for Sarah.
The first round won me the game because I was the last player with a sun chip so I was run the table and fill up the lower row with tiles.
It got me the lead in Pharaohs, and a three-culture set.
After that round, I was able to maintain the pharaoh lead and always had at least one culture.
Sarah was collecting monuments getting a triple and a quad by the end of the game but she lost too many points during the first two rounds to catch up to me.
Me (49), Pete (34), Chris (24), Sarah (22)
| 45 |
| Ivanhoe | SOG:
We played another quick one, while we waited for the other group to finish up their game.
I took an early lead but I had the misfortune of losing two battles in which I had a maiden as a supporter, causing me to lose chips.
Pete started a nice run winning four in a row.
Chris followed that run with one of his own.
The game was down to a three-way tie for the last game and Chris picked a blue tournament that would give the game to Chris or me.
The game came down to drawing a card from the deck.
Chris (5), Me (4), Pete (4)
| 30 |
| Fist of Dragonstones | SOG:
Matt pushed for a game of FoD.
Having no other counteroffers, we started the bidding fest.
This is definitely not a game for six players.
It felt long and dragged out.
Marcus, not being a fan of bidding games, got so frustrated that he left the game.
Marcus wasn't alone in his distaste of the game, Pete was whining too.
I added my two cents about how the game would be better if people were drunk and picking on Chris.
Pete gave Chris the game so we could play something else.
Chris (3), Lewis (2), Matt (2), Pete (1), Me (1), Marcus (1)
| 60 |
| Drahtseilakt (Tightrope) | SOG:
A game by Knizia with a 6 Nimmt flavor to it.
Each round, a player receives 9 cards (unique values ranging from 1-50) for bidding on nine balance cards (ranging from 1 to 9 with two specials).
The balance cards are randomly drawn and bid on one at a time.
The player that plays the highest card, get blue balance points and the lowest card gets red balance points.
A red point will cancel a blue point and visa versa.
The object is to have no balance points at the end of the round.
The player with the lowest score after the required number of rounds wins.
Chris had the knack for this game, going through all five rounds without getting any points.
Chris (0) Marcus (13), Pete (13), Me (14), Matt (44)
| 30 |
| 14th |
| Purchase:Alhambra ($26.5) |
| Cartagena | Al's:
A quickie while we waited for people to arrive.
Close game.
Rich (6), Me (3), Steve (3), Tofu (2)
| 30 |
| Drahtseilakt (Tightrope) | Al's:
Since this group likes 6 Nimmt I figured I teach them this game with my homemade version.
I used 6 Nimmt's 1 - 50 cards, a homemade set of the 11 "Balance" cards and red/blue poker chips.
We played one hand but stopped after more people arrived.
Good response to the game.
Chris (0), Rich (0), Me (1), Steve (8), Tufo (11)
| 15 |
| Bluff | Al's:
With Al no longer grilling food and most people done with eating we began with a quick game of Bluff.
Second early exit of the week, I must be losing my touch.
Rich, Al, Tufo, Chris, Steve, Me
| 20 |
| Carcassonne | Al's:
Tofu did it again, no farmer strategy.
I messed up the mepple count while trying to break into a 9 cities meadow.
If I had been successful I would have won!
Tofu (107), Rich (102), Me (83), Chris (80), Steve (67), Roberto (61)
| 75 |
| Puerto Rico | Al's:
We broke up into two games, Puerto Rico and Settlers.
This was noobie game with me being the only experienced player.
Spent about thirty minutes going over the rules and the possible strategies.
Staring order was Steve, Chris, Al, Me, Roberto.
The going was slow especially when the builder was selected as people tried to figure out there moves.
Chris and Al settled on factory strategy.
I too was working towards the factory but since they bought it first I had to concentration on shipping.
I built a wharf, which was fine, but I had trouble getting money.
I was able to scrounge up enough for the Customhouse.
Chris got the factory going generating plenty of money to build the Fortress and Guildhall.
Al also had the factory working and went for the residence because he had filled his plantation area.
Roberto built the City Hall and poor Steve got nothing.
Shipping+Building+Bonus=Score
Chris (22+25+14=61), Roberto (33+17+5=55), Me (31+13+7=51), Al (20+23+7=50), Steve (20+14+0=34)
| 150 |
| 23rd |
| Purchase:Zirkus Flohcati ($2.25) silly card game but it was cheap! |
| Europa Tour | B20:
Adam, Campbell, Jim and I started the night with a couple quick games of Europa Tour.
At the start of the game each player will get 10 cards, which will be either a country, an airplane or a boat.
The players will arrange these cards on their rack.
Each turn a player can draw one of the five face-up cards on the board or draw a card from the deck.
He may discard the tile or swap the selected tile with one of his own on his travel plan, discard the swapped tile.
Certain connections require boat or airplane so there has to be a boat or airplane card between the two countries.
The first player to get a connected travel plan wins.
Game 1: Adam
Game 2: Me
| 30 |
| Die Maulwurf Company (The Mole in the Hole) | B20:
This game is comprised of three boards with holes in them.
Each player begins with a number of moles, 6 moles in a 4 player game, and a deck of 6 tiles that have the following numbers (1,2,2,3,3,4).
During a players turn he randomly draws a card and must move one of his moles that many spaces.
The object is to get your moles in a hole.
Once all holes are filled the board is removed and any moles not in the holes are removed too.
This continues for several more boards until the last board, which only has one hole.
The first one in the hole wins.
On the last board, I had two moles; Adam and Jim had one while Campbell was shut out.
Adam had the best position and the right draws for the win.
Adam, Me, Jim, Campbell
| 40 |
| Ra | B20:
A large turnout for today, there were four concurrent games, Die Handler, Amen Ra and two Ra.
I had the smaller group of three instead of five, which I prefer.
Jim's second game so he was still trying to figure the game out.
The second round killed Jim in which a Pharaoh and Monument killer chits were in the bid, so no one wanted to Ra it.
Jim was forced to call Ra, the only bid chip he had was the 13, DOH!
Me (55), Dave L (50), Jim (21)
| 45 |
| Medici | B20:
Knizia's once a round bidding game.
Each player can only buy five goods per turn.
There are three turns during the game.
Playing Medici with people who know the game is a very enlightening experience, learned some good stuff!
Looking forward to the next game of it.
Steve (88), Terry (86), Brian (78), Campbell (59), Me (53)
| 60 |
| Edel, Stein & Reich | B20:
A card version of the Basari game.
Negotiation games aren't my preferred type of game but I liked this one.
Each turn players gets to bid on executing one of the four available functions (three with four players) that means someone is going to be left out in the cold.
The available functions are Get Money, Get Gems, Use Event Card, Exchange gems.
If a player is the only who bid for the funtion then he gets to execute the function.
If more then two players bid for the same item then no one gets it.
If two players bid for the same item then they have to negotiate using gems for the privilege of using the function.
Terry ran away with the game.
Terry (66), Brian (48), Adam (48), Me (47), Steve (44)
| 50 |
| Taj Mahal | B20:
Why do I keep playing this game? My best performance was when I was clueless.
I keep playing this cause it is a challenge.
This loss was due to Steve (a noobie) who challenged me on the first round and didn't giving me an out.
I had burned five cards to get the land and two temples, I would have been happy without the land since my initial strategy was connection.
Arghh!!! Still got to learn when to pick my fights.
I guess that's the real reason I still play this game, learning.
Terry went heavy in Elephant strategy and had no one opposing him.
He ran away with it.
Terry (61), Brian (47), Adam (42), Steve (33), Me (30)
| 75 |
| Paris Paris | B20:
Closer for the night.
I got a nice lead going but people whacked on my key scoring points.
Scott was ecstatic when he won, he first in many plays.
Scott (44), Jim (31), Me (27), Brian (25)
| 30 |
| 25th |
| Advanced Civilization | Rob's:
I went to Rob's condo for Memorial Monster Game Day, arriving at noon.
With Adam, Campbell and Rob we sat down to play a quick game but we barely got going when Terry showed up.
We started a 5-player game but Constantine arrived a few moments later.
At that point we had enough for the monster game, so we went ahead and voted to play Advanced Civilization.
We had seven players for the game. Three of them complete noobies.
During the rules explanation, some of us went in search of food.
The game started around 2 pm on Sunday.
Terry (Babylon), Rob (Thrace), Adam (Crete), Campbell (Africa), Suze (Assyria), Constantine (Egypt), Me (Italy).
The game started without any real surprises.
I seized the boot of Italy and the eastern part of Greece while Adam took the southern part of Greece and Turkey.
Babylonian tried to get to the coast but Suze and Constantine blocked him out.
Constantine and Campbell set up a border between them.
Rob was kind of screwed not getting into Greece quick enough.
He was forced to go eastward into Turkey and had a limited number of city sites by the time he crossed the Black Sea.
About three or four hours into the game, Terry began to whine about the game.
He didn't feel that the game deserve it's accolades since its fun/time ratio was low.
He was getting some really bad draws too, getting un-tradable calamities several turns in a row.
Suze was in the lead about mid-way through the game when I score a huge trade getting all nine salts.
It was looking good for me.
I had a nice lead, consistent city count and was trading well.
In the late Iron Age, I got hammered with the 'Epidemic' and the 'Iconoclasm and Heresy' calamities.
My empire collapsed to one city.
My game stalled for three turns that allow Adam and Campbell to pass me in VPs.
Monday 3 AM, Campbell reached the final spot on the chart.
He beat Adam by a scant 11 points.
Campbell (4033), Adam (4011), Terry (3552), Me (3358), Suze (3016), Rob (2982)
| 900 |
| 26th |
| 6 Nimmt! | Ilise's:
Filler while we waited for others to show.
Matt and Annette were new to the game.
Game only last two rounds.
Me (11), John (13), Eric (13), Ilise (26), Alice (31), Matt (35), Annette (66)
| 30 |
| Bohnanza with High Bohn | Ilise's:
Used my homemade version of High Bohn.
This was Eric and Alice second play of Bohnanza so it was still pretty new to them.
Matt bought the Sheriffs office that gave him a coin for every blue bean havest.
Nasty little card.
It is gonna take several play of this to learn of the buildings functions.
Hopefully, once we know all the abilities it'll speed up the game.
Matt (25), Me (21), Eric (18), Annette (16), Alice (10)
| 75 |
| Puerto Rico | Ilise's:
We played a game of Puerto Rico while the others played a game of City and Knights.
Starting Order was Matt, Me, Dimitri, John and Eric.
I tried a different strategy trying to do a heavy shipping with indigo.
I started with the Hospice that gave me plenty of people but didn't get my strategy to work.
John and Eric both set up Factory strategies. John had a better setup than Eric and was able to generate more money than Eric.
John bought two buildings, the Residence and Guildhall. I was the only other to build a big building, the Fortress.
John (52), Eric (35), Me (33), Matt (31), Dimitri (31)
| 75 |
| Tranamerica | Ilise's:
Quick game while Eric waited for Alice to finish her game of Settlers.
Game lasted three rounds before I flew off the edge.
Matt (9), Dimitri (8), Eric (7), John (4), Me (-1)
| 30 |
| Bluff | Ilise's:
Introduced Eric to our favorite filler.
John got unlucky on several of his called and was knocked out quickly. I follow a few turns later.
Dimitri was happy cause he was finally in the winner circle.
Dimitri, Matt, Me, Eric, John
| 20 |
| Alhambra | Ilise's:
First play for all of us.
I read the translated instructions out loud to Annette and Dimitri.
Once the game started, the play went rather fast.
At first, I thought we were playing wrong cause no one had buildings in the reserve mat.
After the first scoring round I realized the real purpose of the game was to dominate types of buildings rather than creating a nice city.
I started concentrating on Garden and Towers, the big scorers.
It almost works, but Annette got a very long outside wall for some good bonus points.
Post-Mortem
Found several session reports and other translations that clarified certain rules.
It looks like we played the game slightly wrong.
The main rule we got wrong was in the Buy Building phase.
When paying exact cost for a building it allows you perform another action, not just buy another building.
The other rules we got wrong was we allow Annette to freely move any number of tiles during the Change Alhambra phase.
It should have been only one tile per turn.
Annette (131), Me (130), Dimitri (124)
| 75 |
| Showmanager | Ilise's:
Final game of the night.
Only Dimitri and I had played before.
A quick rules explanation and I was off flushing.
My fist play was horrid and the worst part was I was forced to place it in middle column due to other plays produced before hand.
First time I've seen a Ballet in the right column and a Wolf in the second column from the left.
I was able to produce the best Wolf and a strong Ballet but the other plays were plain ugly.
Ilise got the get consistent set of plays.
Ilise (51), Arlene (41), Me (39), Mel (32), Dimitri (30), John (27)
| 75 |
| 26th |
| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | Online:
It's been a while since we got together to play a game of City and Knights.
John's wife, Penni, has just recently started playing SOC and wanted to give C&K a shot.
James got the green metro first but I got to the last building first so I was able to steal the metro.
Then it was gang up on Ralph time.
Lloyd took the longest road to prevent me from doing a quick win.
The longest road eventually became John's.
It was starting to look like game was going to drag but I got a great streak of numbers that I was able to get the yellow metro, play the trader and build the longest road for victory, all in one turn!!!
Me (14), Penni (8), Lloyd (6), John (7), James (8)
| 90 |
| 28th |
| Showmanager | Al's:
We had 6 players and the only game I had with me that could handle 6 was Showmanager.
All noobies except for Dimitri and I.
Spent about ten minutes going over rules.
This turned out to be a rare game for me.
I was able to control my urge to flush and took the freebie at times.
Although Chris claimed he didn't get 'it', he was able to produce all four of his plays without borrowing.
I had to tap my Wolf so I could finish a strong Ballet but I'm pretty sure that is what lost the game for me.
Chris (49), Me (48), Rich (40), Steve (39), Dimitri (25), Al (20)
| 70 |
| Puerto Rico | Al's:
The others started a game of Web of Power.
We started Al's latest addiction.
I have to add that we messed up several times and didn't fill the colonist boat.
I estimate that the game should have been over about a round earlier if we had been a little more observant.
Steve went Tobacco trading (office and markets) scheme to generate money while Al and I went into the Factory strategy.
Steve built City Hall while Al got the Custom House and I got the Fortress.
One the last turn Al filled his building area by buying Guild Hall.
I picked up the Residence but it was all for naught since they were unpopulated.
Al and I tied but he had more goods and money left over.
Al (42-7), Me (42-2), Steve (37)
| 75 |
| Bluff | Al's:
Dry spell.
This is the 4 or 5 game in which I've knocked out early.
Dimitri's second win in a row!!!
Dimitri, Maria, Chris, Steve, Al, Me, Rich
| 60 |
| Euphrat & Tigris | Al's:
Steve and Al have been wanting to play this game for several weeks.
I went over the rules and tried to point out several noobie mistakes to avoid.
The game was interesting cause Al was experimenting with all kind of conflicts making the board look very chaotic.
This was also the first game in which all but one of the Monuments were on the board.
I miscounted the number of gold on the board and made two gold kingdoms merge giving Steve a free gold thinking that the game would end.
Maria noticed that it was not the case and that there actually three gold still on the board.
The game continued for a few more turns and turned out to be a close one with Steve and I going to the second tiebreaker.
Me (9/9/12/13), Steve (9/9/11/13), Al (8/8/8/9), Maria (6/7/7/12)
| 90 |
| 29th |
| Zirkus Flohcati | Lunch time:
Holly stopped by the office for a visit. You'd figure if you got laid off you wouldn't return at all.
Guess it the people and not the job.
Luckily I brought all my new card game.
This was an intro game for Dimitri and Holly.
Dimitri was collecting Trios but I was able to get the Gala with a couple sevens in my hand.
Me (61), Dimitri (51), Holly (38)
| 60 |
| 30th |
| Purchase:Klunker ($7.30) An interesting card game from the designer of Bohnanza. |
| Time Control | B20:
Vitas received this game for review. He tired teaching Matt, Dave and I the rules during a mock turn. First thing he mentioned was this was a real-time strategy game which meant all the moves would be done simultaneously. It just seem a little crazy having to move your tokens to other peoples time line at the same time, even the actions, events and combat are supposed to be real-time. Matt walked away, Dave and I followed soon after that.
Ditched
| 45 |
| Alhambra
| B20:
Dave and Matt wanted to play Alhambra. Vitas tried to be annoying during rules explanation, a little payback for the grief he got in the previous game. This time we played with the correct interpretation of the rules. Vitas near the end of the game decided to concentration on tweaking his city rather than pick up new tiles. The result was loss of dominance of a couple of building types and big points. Matt squeaked out the win.
Matt (107), Dave (105), Me (94), Vitas (72)
| 45 |
| Dante's Inferno | B20:
Vitas pulled out another game, a cross between Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, for us to play. The game begins with a nine by nine square comprised of tiles. The tiles are colored red, yellow blue and green. Each tile has two number between 3 and 11 except for 7. The tile also represents two levels of hell. The corner tiles are black and are tiles in which players and demons may move between the levels of hell. In the center of the uncompleted map is Lucifer.
Each player will start with three monks on the first level of hell, three additional monks can be added to the game later in the game. During each player’s turn, the player will rolls two dice for production. A roll of seven adds a demon to the board, player’s choice. A 2 or 12 allows the player to place/move the doubler/nuller tokens, otherwise players check for resource production based on the location of their monks. Each tile with the number rolled will generate a resource of the tile’s color which are added the player’s resource mat. If a double if rolled each player gets an extra resource. Monks in the 3/4 level get double resources, 5/6 level get triple and on the 7/8 level they get quadruple resources. After production the player gets to move a monk for free and a demon for free. Players are also allowed to move other monks (theirs and others), place tiles, flip tiles (block) and move up/down levels for the appropriate cost of resources.
Dave L (defeated Lucifer), Vitas (Level 8), Me (Level 6), Jim (Level 4)
| 75 |
| Steam Tunnel | B20:
Dave L, Jim, Vitas and I played a quick Hip Pocket game. This is six by six-grid of cards. Four of the cards are place face up. Each turn you to flip a card and then either place a control token on an uncompleted tunnel or bury a card. Burying a card means that all tunnels are considered to go straight through to the other side. After the last card if flipped over the scoring round begins, arguably the longest part of the game. Each tunnel scores points using the sum value of all end points times the number of face-up segments.
Jim (109), Me (91), Vitas (87), Dave (47)
| 25 |
