Gaming Results

With a hot beginning to the week, I implored the group for a host and Scott was good enough to come through for us with his blessed central air. After weeks of meager attendance, six of us conglomerated today, highlighted by the glorious returns of Jim and Brian (and Scott, for that matter).

Having moved many of his plants, Scott unveiled a host of various small flying insects, all of which he named Darren. Darren was a happy companion for us throughout the night, though he started getting killed with alarming frequency after 2 hours.

Circus Flohcati

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Mike	70	1
Jim	58	2	*
Brian	56	3	*
Scott	47	4

Notes: Taught Brian and Jim the group's filler game of choice, and we enjoyed watching Scott keep drawing double colors. I had a nice combo of early, low-numbered sets, and some fine drawing and collecting of bigger numbers at the end. The game ended when Jim drew the final card.

Elfenland

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Scott	17 (+4 cards)	1
Jim	17 (+2 cards)	2
Mike	15	3 (Tie)
Dan	15	3 (Tie)
Brian	15	3 (Tie)	*
Lee	14	6

Notes: I pulled out my stock of 6-player games, which consisted of Elfenland, Around the World in 80 Days, and Medici. There was a big drum of support for Elfenland, so we set it up. I heard a comment or two about how we used to play this one a lot and it's been forever...that sort of thing.

I taught the rules to Brian pretty quickly (I think Jim had played before), and Dan started us off. In the first round things were pretty innocuous, and all of us managed some decent starts. I didn't have any boar tiles, so I was a bit skimpy on movement, but I did have three raft cards, which gave me some flexibility. Still, I could only manage 5 cities. Dan, going first, laid a wonderful path, as did Scott. At the end of the round, there were three of us in the far west, with the other three scattered across three cities in the middle. I should mention that I allowed two or three people to discard and re-play cards to maximize their impact...I know Brian did it in the first round, and Lee would do it later.

First Round Scores:
Dan - 7
Scott - 7
Jim - 6
Mike - 5
Brian - 5
Lee - 5

In the second round, things fell into place for me, as Lee laid a fortuitous tile right in front of me and I was able to get key pieces everywhere I needed. Lee complained about my first placement, which cost him an extra two cards of movement. Everybody else had another solid round, though Scott edged everyone out by getting to 7 for a second straight round.

Second Round Scores:
Scott - 14
Dan - 13
Jim - 12
Mike - 12
Lee - 11
Brian - 10

For the final round, Jim was alone in the west and only required a fairly straightforward (if upstream) swing through the west and south - all by his lonesome. Scott was in the middle with me and Lee, and Dan and Brian were around and in the desert respectively.

Well, you can guess what happened. Scott was ambushed, though Brian's first attempt to slow him down was placed on a tile that would have helped Lee or myself instead. To cover our tracks, Lee and I tried slowing Scott down in two other places. Then someone laid one to slow down Dan and Brian, and we left Jim alone. Jim refused to place his obstacle tile, saying "I don't like those things." Karla shares this point of view. I think they're somewhat helpful, and they can be (somewhat) planned around, and don't slow the game down much.

At first, it looked like his strategy would pay off, as no one placed a tile in Jim's path!

The trails got moving, though, starting with Jim, who would tie for the round's high score with five visits (matching the equally unthwarted Brian, whose last-place score made him untouchable). One reason he may not have scooped up more visits was that there were no other tiles being placed in the south, as everyone else had already visited there. Thus, he had little help.

I was next, and set the tone for the round by barely visiting three spaces thanks to all the obstacles (and lack of rafts in my hand and having a non-matching upside-down tile draw). Scott, realizing that he only needed three cities and that the tiebreaker was # of cards, AND having seen that Jim was only at 17, conserved his cards and got three cities. He rafted downstream for one, had two clouds to get over one obstacle in the mountains, and then had an unobstacled unicorn to get to a third. There was no way to get to a fourth city from there anyway. After that, Brian managed 5 cities, Dan bottomed out with just 2, and Lee got three.

Scott won on a tie-breaker.

I should mention that just after we started, a friend of Scott's named Rick came by, and he looked EXACTLY like the Troll on the Troll-cart card. For some reason though, instead of calling him a troll (so Scott could share the card with Rick), Lee started calling it the "old man" card, so Scott would have felt bad showing him. Maybe it was for the best anyway...

Who is pictured on this card?
a) a troll
b) Rick
c) Dan in 10 years

Around the World in 80 Days

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Brian	68	1	*
Scott	69	2	*
Dan	74	3	*
Jim	80	4	*
Lee	OUT	5 (Tie)
Mike	OUT	5 (Tie)

Notes: Finally, presented with a choice between Around the World and Medici, Dan wanted Medici(!) and I wanted Around the World - I thought it'd be more fun. No one else had an opinion, so we flipped a coin, and Fortune blessed us with Around the World, which pleased everybody by the end.

Scott, to be silly, placed his marker on the 69 to start the game, and gigglingly averred, "I'll start here!" I made some inane comment about starting on a high number is bad, completely missing the salacious point of his joke.

After some quick rules explaining, we started. I should note that though everyone else understood how the detective worked, Jim didn't, and stuck to his "no obstacle!" strategy of Elfenland by generally moving the detective out of the way rather than trying to hose. He thought the detective counted at the end of the round, but it's at the end of each individual player's turn.

It was a frenetically paced game. Having two players be eliminated in the six-player game made it crazy. Until rather late in the game, when Dan (thanks to a connection card) made a burst ahead, all six of us were frequently in the same place. We took turns taking the "first to appear" chip, and Brian usually got the "last to appear" chip for a while.

Then Lee discovered that I had a rule wrong. When the gray event cards show up, ALL event cards are discarded, even those in other players' hands. This rule makes Brian P.'s strategy from a month or so ago somewhat less useful, as when that gray card appeared he should have lost all those cards. Despite finding this rule, Lee kept drawing event cards.

As it got near the end, Dan, who had a tremendous lead, began to squander it a bit, and finished with a fine 74 score, though he got a bit panicky because the detective was on his space. I was in good shape, as was Lee, but we were both short on cards. I had a one day advantage on Lee, and we were about 10 days back of Dan. Jim appeared in London second, as, having no chance to win, he finished in 80 days on the nose.

Then I made my desperate gamble. I exchanged three cards, hoping for a double of two ship cards. I didn't get it, and though I could have finished one day behind Dan, I figured, "What's the point?" and wanted to try again next turn. Then Scott, who was to my left, took the first-player token and got to the same place I did. Then Brian, who was to HIS left, got to the last space as well. This left Lee and me in the cleaners, as there was no way they'd both pass on chances to get to London.

So it proved. Despite another added day, Scott got to London in 69 days - exactly what he had predicted before the game started! But then Brian put a damper on Scott's premature ejaculation celebration by getting to London in 68 days, thanks to a pair of 4 ships and a 2 train!

Afterwards, everyone stated their enjoyment of the game, though Jim was still unsure about the damned detective. The next morning Scott confessed via email that he had left the salsa we had enjoyed out on the table, and a flock of Darren had allocated themselves all around it. Darren soon decorated the bottom of Scott's vacuum cleaner.