February 14, 2006 |
| Boy Meets Girl: a Tragedy |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Lee | 35 Beers | 1 | |
| Karla | 25 Beers | 2 | |
| Mike | 19 Beers | 3 | |
Notes: In honor of Valentine's Day, we played this game of bad dates. I was playing Raimonds, who was on a date with a Japanese economist named Sumiko. Lee was Ace, an ex-con who was on a date with a money-hunting divorcee, and Karla was a gamer named Karl who was on a date with a German woman whose English was pretty bad.
I never really had a good card all night, and I missed out on a chance to hose Lee in the first round. Karl and Inga had the worst date, though Ace didn't enjoy taking the divorcee to a Star Trek Convention. Raimonds, the creepy lumberjack, actually had a good time, despite taking Sumiko to a stinky petting zoo:
Karla: 14 beers
Lee: 12 beers
Mike: 5 beers
The second round, Raimonds had the worst date, but Karl and Inga were still a dud, too. Ace didn't have too bad a date with Vanessa, but the combined experience was still worse than the one Raimonds and Sumiko were having.
Karla: 22 beers
Lee: 17 beers
Mike: 15 beers
On the last date, Raimonds and Sumiko didn't have too bad of a time - looks like our creepy lumberjack wasn't going to have the worst date, though he somewhat redeemed himself by saying, "Thanks for introducing me to your grandma, she's pretty hot!" Karl and Inga actually had a better time than Raimonds did, and their lead in most beers was obliterated by an 18 beer bad date that Ace had with Vanessa, high-lighted by how she talked about getting a job at the jewelry store "just in case" they might need the employee discount soon, and the last straw was when she casually mentioned that she's ovulating and the timing is just perfect!
Ace won.
| Power Grid |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 17 cities (powered 17) | 1 | |
| Lee | 12 cities (powered 12) | 2 | * |
| Karla | 15 cities (powered 8) | 3 | |
Notes: Since Lee won the first game, I let him choose the second game of the night, and he picked Power Grid. I got excited because I have two new maps I haven't tried yet. We pulled out Italy and started playing it. Lee had a positive view of the game from the beginning, as he really liked the map artwork.
As the game progressed, I started with the worst power plant, so I put my first city in the northern section, which had a lot of cheap cities bunched together. Much to Lee's and Karla's good sense, they also started up there, crowding me into the center so that my long-term future in expansion was going to be very expensive.
In the Italy map, there aren't as many resources to start with, so the coal plants aren't that great. So, despite having coal and hybrids early, I wasn't able to expand very quickly. We all kind of matched each other for a while. Karla was able to power more cities, but didn't have the cash to expand.
Soon we were able to power 4 plants, and that's when I made a move, breaking through the Karla and Lee connections and getting into southern Italy. Then, I went for a nice upgrade in a coal plant while Karla went for a big upgrade in garbage, also buying a nuclear plant. Now able to power 7, I made the jump to 7, and triggered step 2. Lee was kind of painted into a corner, as Karla was able to buy garbage first, and his garbage was prohibitively expensive, so he slowed down immensely.
Thus I was making more money, and the other key was that I was the only one buying oil, making it very cheap. On the next turn, though, Lee bought a big oil plant, taking away my oil monopoly. I waited and got a big coal plant (3 coal > 6 cities), and Karla passed (she was already able to power 12). I made it up to 10 cities this turn, while Karla was at 8 and Lee at 7.
In the next turn I tried to get someone to buy a 2 Power wind plant, but no one went for it, so I forked over the cash. It wasn't too disastrous, as it enabled me to move supplies from my now obsolete plant to my better plants, and saved me the hassle of buying one set of resources. With a maximum power ability of 12, I built up to my 12th city and was resolved to buy an excellent power plant next turn. Karla and Lee were still at 10 and 9 cities, respectively, just behind me. Lee had better power plants than I did, as he was able to power 15, but he was less efficient in powering his cities, and he and Karla were competing for resources.
Finally, I got my big plant by paying a prohibitive 60. This boosted my power to 17, and I figured I'd be able to win in a couple turns. Karla needed a boost, too, and she went for a power 6 plant - still competing with Lee. Lee bought another good plant (which he needed to power up to 17) for about 34, and he had also bid me up a little bit when I got my 7 power plant.
This turn I had very little money, so I only expanded to 13 cities. Karla made it up to 12, and Lee got up to 11. Both were paying through the nose for resources.
In the last round, I got Lee to buy the 50 fission plant. I wanted him to buy it so that he would be lower on money - I needed to get to the cheaper cities, and the less money he had, the less he'd be able to expand. He bought it for 52. Karla passed - eager to end the game at this point - and I passed after that. Lee was too short on money to get far, only getting to 12 cities. Karla went crazy, and despite only having the resources to power 8 cities, she expanded as much as possible - getting up to 15 cities. I was pretty much free to do what I wanted in southern Italy, and I found a couple cheap connections in the middle of the board, and with my 102 electros I managed to build 4 more cities with 24 electros left over. I won easily.
It's kind of odd getting to the front and staying there. You pull in more money per turn, but you also need to be able to avoid conflicts in purchasing resources. What helped me was in mid-game that Lee and Karla were rivaling each other in garbage and uranium while I was able to buy oil for cheap, and coal never really got too bad. Another thing was that Lee bought too many power plants. He upgraded a plant almost every turn. The trick is to avoid getting too many middling power plants and then focus on getting to 17 or 18 in power.
In the end, my experience (I've now played this 8 times to Karla's 2 or 3 and Lee's 1) carried the day.
Lee liked it, and Karla would have done better if we hadn't gone ten minutes over on the schedule.