January 3, 2006 |
| Valley of the Mammoths |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 4 Settlements (+11 food) | 1 | |
| Dan | 4 Settlements (+3 food) | 2 | |
| Lee | 3 Settlements | 3 | * |
| Annie | 2 Settlements | 4 | * |
| Brian | 1 Settlement | 5 | * |
Notes: Since we were at Dan's we gathered around to play one of his games. We hadn't played Valley of the Mammoths in probably 2 years, and I remember it as a chaotic dicefest that took too long.
This time it was much better. Dan had the rules down this time, for one thing, and it wasn't too chaotic for me, as I managed to get a ton of food early and expand nicely. Everyone else really had to fight for food, and I was located in a corner of the board where expansion wasn't really an issue.
On the first turn I played a "family visit" card, which gave me a male and a female on the other side of the board. On my second turn I had three settlements, and with births to come I was looking good. While Dan, Lee, Brian, and Annie were also expanding to two settlements, I was going to kick butt after births...until Annie stole one of my females.
I declared war on Annie and made her a victim of both post-partum illnesses that I could take out with my card. Then, as I founded my fourth settlement, I prepared to make a big attack against Annie's nearest settlement for my next turn.
Also at this point Brian was getting surrounded and crushed by Lee, who was trying to create a safe area for his people. His problem was that he only had two women (he didn't receive any during the births phase). Dan was just barely keeping up on food, and Annie had very few warriors and I had declared war on her, as my lone settlement on the other side of the board had only one guy.
Then an event card killed off two of my warriors in my Attack Annie encampment, and I was suddenly worried that I might lose the game. I would be in big doo-doo if I didn't get some warrior births.
In winter, Brian and Annie started losing population as they couldn't keep up with food demands. I had killed a massive amount of mammoths and bears early on, so I had a ton of food. Lee was okay, thanks to a card that gave him 12 food from a crop instead of 8. Dan was in good shape, and was preparing an expedition to wipe out my lone guy on the other side of the board.
Then, in the last stage of winter, the event card revealed a blizzard...No one could move! This assured everyone of keeping their settlements! I had plenty of food, and all that was required were some births. I was going to have 3 births and Dan was going to have 4. As we were tied at 9 people, I'd need to get at least one set of twins to win. I got 'em and anxiously watched Dan roll the dice. No twins! Thus we each had 4 settlements and 13 people. The final tiebreaker was food, and I had way more than Dan did.
The game went very quickly and made much more sense. I intentionally stayed close to the side to be close to food but not too much of it. Lee, Dan, and Annie were pretty centrally located and didn't get much of the food. Brian really didn't and was about a half-step behind in strategy. Plus, I had awesome cards and the final Event Card really saved my bacon (not to mention I managed to get twins twice!).
| Traumfabrik |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 75 | 1 | |
| Annie | 57 | 2 | |
| Mike | 55 | 3 | |
| Lee | 50 | 4 | * |
| Brian | 44 | 5 | * |
Notes: Next, we played Traumfabrik, one of the most fun auction games ever created.
I don't have my notes, so I can only sum it up kind of quickly:
Dan edged people out and barely won. For one thing, he made a 5 point movie just after Brian did, and so got the 4 point reel. This meant that, at the end of the game, he had the worst overall movie. He also had the advantage of drawing first in almost every single party phase, giving him the primo pick of the litter. He won the best movie of the third round and best entertainment movie. Also, he managed the best adventure movie (again by 1) over me on a play I'll discuss below.
Lee made solid movies slowly, making the first (and best movie) of the first round (an adventure) and eventually manipulating the auctions so that he ended up with the bes Drama by the end of the game.
Brian didn't do too much, as he was short on actors all game and only managed to pick not last in a party once. I don't think he won any awards, though he may have finished the first entertainment movie, but I think Annie did.
Annie played pretty well, managing to make four quality movies and getting the best direction movie. She generally picked 2nd or 3rd in the parties, though she did pick first once.
I made 3 movies, foregoing a chance to complete Bambi in the third round in the hopes of making an Adventure movie just good enough to pass Dan. I had the best movie of the 2nd round (Casablanca staring Cary Grant) but my Adventure movie needed a three-star anything for me to pass Dan for first in it. There was a three-star camera available after Dan picked first, but Annie snagged it, leaving me with only 2 star selections. My total was thirteen, which only tied Dan's Adventure movie (and left me at 12, since both 13's were gone), and this left Dan the 10 points for best adventure. Annie sort of played kingmaker, as her movie on the final turn wasn't going to be finished, and I would have had 12 more points while Dan would have lost 10 if I could have gotten 3 stars for that final movie.
Dan did his hoard and bid high technique again, which almost didn't work. But his reliance on getting top pick at the parties helped his few victorious auctions into victory.
| Lucky Loop |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 65 | 1 | |
| Mike | 43 | 2 | |
| Brian | 20 | 3 | * |
Notes: At this point, Annie passed out from fatigue and Lee headed home. Normally game night is over by 9:30, but since Dan stays up late, we played one more game.
We finally had the right rules to play by, and Dan and I did pretty well, though I really got hosed out of completing my third trick. Had I finished it, I would have ended up within about 2 or 3 points of Dan. As it was, Dan barely passed all four tricks (only 1 or 2 of them with flying colors), and Brian didn't really pass any, as he confessed that all he had was really low cards in his hands. In fact, I was always about to try a big trick when Brian would lower it.
Dan then managed to make his last trick with only 25 points of difficulty, confirming his victory. It was pretty fun and didn't take as long as I remembered it taking.
In the end, replays of two of Dan's games were much more fun than the original attempts.