Moonie was acting super tame - flying onto Dan's shoulder of all things - and Karla was showing Cato the baby bird to everyone. Unfortunately, she left the bedroom door open, Moonie saw it, and seized his chance. He got into Cato's room, and despite being taken out of there immediately, he couldn't get Cato out of his tiny white head. So he screamed and screamed and called and called and flew and landed it places (like the cabinets) that freaked Karla out.
In the end, I settled for yelling at Karla for leaving the bedroom door open while Moonie was out, and then we locked him up and put a blanket over his cage.
March 7, 2006 |
| 6 Nimmt! |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 33 | 1 | |
| Scott | 43 | 2 | |
| Jamie | 48 | 3 | |
| Annie | 50 | 4 | |
| Jim | 67 | 5 | |
| Dan | 75 | 6 | |
| Karla | 78 | 7 | |
Notes: It seems like I've played this game too much to enjoy it so much, but I always have a good time. It's never my first choice, but when faced with 6 people present (or 7, as it would later turn out), it's probably the best choice...despite what Dan says.
For the first round there were only 6 of us, and Dan cleaned up, not taking a single trick. Karla, Jim, and I struggled a bit, but no one had a disastrous round, as we all had nice, even football scores:
Dan - 0
Scott - 7
Annie - 14
Jim - 17
Mike - 21
Karla - 24
Jamie showed up then, and we dealt him in, but I assigned him 24 points - a tie for last. Annie and Karla thought that was mean of me, but it was either give him a share of last place or make him wait. Why should we put him ahead of us? Huh? Huh?
In the second round, Scott, Annie, and I had good rounds, and Dan defined the word "disastrous," jumping from first place to fifth. Jamie apparently needed another round to warm up:
Scott - 16 (9)
Annie - 19 (5)
Mike - 27 (6)
Jim - 29 (12)
Dan - 39 (39)
Jamie - 44 (20)
Karla - 47 (23)
At this point Dan pretty much gave up hope while Jamie and I had excellent rounds. I managed to manipulate one card set so that Scott took it, and I hoped Karla would break 66 so that I could claim victory. No such luck:
Mike - 27 (0)
Annie - 35 (16)
Scott - 36 (20)
Jim - 47 (18)
Jamie - 47 (3)
Dan - 51 (12)
Karla - 64 (17)
In the last round I super lucked out once as when I thought for sure I'd be stuck taking a row, Scott played a card one number lower than mine and took the 8 point row for me. God bless 'im. Dan and Karla zoomed past the 66 point barrier, and I managed to win by 10.
There were two instances of someone mistaking the 99 card for the 66 (one performed by Jim, the other by Karla). As always, there were 5 or 6 instances of someone saying, "Oh crap, I thought I'd get that row," with everyone making that mistake at least once except for me and Jamie.
Kudos to Jamie for taking third place after being placed in last to start the second round.
| Ra |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 59 | 1 | |
| Dan | 47 | 2 | |
| Annie | 34 | 3 | |
| Karla | 10 | 4 | |
Notes: We split up into two groups, and I managed to get Jamie and Jim to play Puerto Rico, leaving Scott, Karla, Annie, and Dan to play Ra. I'm not sure what happened in this one except that Karla played like crap (much like her effort in 6 Nimmt!, I'd imagine.
59 is a pretty damned impressive score, though, so Scott must have seriously whipped some ass.
I'll also mention that I heard Annie say once, "I'm pulling a Mike," which meant she was invoking Ra before anyone else wanted her to. Karla hates it when I do that. When Annie did it, that must have completely thrown her off her game, as she only amassed 10 points - the same total she would have had if she had sat down to play then immediately left.
| Puerto Rico |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 55 | 1 | |
| Jim | 49 | 2 | * |
| Jamie | 44 | 3 | |
Notes:Jim and Jamie may be the only people in our group that don't like Ra very much. As such, I got them to play Puerto Rico with me. I also hooked Jim with the line, "It's the #1 rated game in the world." It's true. You could look it up.
After about 20 minutes of going over the rules, we got going, and there was perhaps one rule I omitted along the way, but it was minor, and I don't remember anyone getting frustrated.
Jamie hoarded corn early on, while Jim and I eschewed Indigo for richer crops, like tobacco (me) and coffee (Jim). Jim and I also amassed a couple of quarries each while Jamie netted one. Jamie amassed a very small VP chip lead, but then I hosed him on a captain phase (putting the tobacco on the remaining ship) and he was forced to dump about 4 corn.
While Jamie was amassing corn, Jim and I were grabbing buildings. I went for a lot of purple ones (hospice, small market, harbor, office) while Jim went after production. Both Jamie and Jim grabbed the factory before I could, so I went for modest production plus a harbor. This meant that all my deliveries would essentially be doubled (I was producing one of everything except coffee, and two corns). If I can't get the Factory or a bunch of corn, I like to get the Harbor.
With the Factory, Jim and Jamie weren't too loathe to take the Craftsman, and Jim and I were heavy in money. Jim then picked two pretty heavy Mayor phases, and suddenly we went from early-mid game to late game.
Jim and I adapted pretty well. Jamie finally had money, and forced to choose between a wharf and a bonus building, he went with the wharf. Had he managed to get a wharf one or two shipping phases earlier, he would have been fine. As we weren't shipping very often, VP chips weren't too abundant, and Jamie by the end was the best shipper.
Down the final stretch I saw the writing on the wall and scooped up two bonus buildings, while Jamie and Jim each managed only one. (It was at this point that the confusion over the text on the Guild Hall came up.) We ended the game soon after as Jim and I each built a 12th building in our cities. Jamie's city was mostly empty (he was a corn shipper, after all), and whereas he had a modest lead in VP chips (and took the Customs House), it wasn't enough to offset the building advantage Jim and I had.
| Final Scoring | ||||
| Player | VP Chips | Buildings | Bonus | Total |
| Mike | 20 | 23 | 12 | 55 |
| Jim | 16 | 23 | 10 | 49 |
| Jamie | 22 | 17 | 5 | 44 |
In the end, Jamie didn't ship enough to take advantage of his corn lead. Had I not hosed him early on, he probably would have taken second place. I thought that my second big building boosted me to victory (I added the Fortress (5 points) to my Town Hall (7 points). Had I just bought a 3 pointer (I just barely had enough for the bonus building), Jim and I would have tied. Jim probably would have won as he had some barrels in his warehouse. Thus, even though I felt pretty safe and secure, I was pretty close to losing the game on a tiebreaker!
Jim's bonus points came from the Guild Hall, and he amassed the maximum of 10 points from it for grabbing all the production buildings (Coffee Roaster, Tobacco Storage, Sugar Mill, Indigo Plant, Small Sugar Mill, Small Indigo plant).
| Villa Paletti |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | Master Architect | 1 | |
| Dan | Didn't win | 2 (Tie) | |
| Scott | Didn't win | 2 (Tie) | |
| Karla | Knocked Over the Tower | 4 | |
Notes: Karla completed the hat trick of futility for the night, finishing last by knocking over the Villa Paletti tower. As always, it was loud, though Moonie wasn't terribly bothered about it. Jamie, Jim, and I were still wrapping up Puerto Rico, so she went for a walk with Scott, and when she came back we were completing final scoring.