Gaming Results

May 5th, 2005

Dan and Scott showed up a bit late tonight, so Karla and I squeezed in a round of Lost Cities before game night began in earnest.

Lost Cities
Results
PlayerScorePlaceFirst Time?
Mike711
Karla342

Notes: This is pretty much the only game Karla will play with me one-on-one, despite my attempts to lure her into playing Balloon Cup, Mystery Rummy, or Odin's Ravens (or Carcassonne).

I was off to an incredibly slow start. I had only high cards, and only a couple hand-shakes. So I started throwing away some high (and low) cards, just to give myself a chance. This strategy gave Karla a nice set of jungle exploration cards, but it ended up working out for me, as I managed to scoop up a decent enough set of desert exploration cards (8), an awesome exploration into hell (44), a profitable excursion into the underwater city (1) and a pretty good voyage into the Himalayas (18).

Karla had gotten a bit too excited, and though she had a nice foray into the jungle (20) and the Himalayas (12), she had a meager journey in the desert (6) and lost money in the ocean (-4).

Entdecker
Results
PlayerScorePlaceFirst Time?
Dan761
Mike612
Karla563*
Scott464*

Notes: Dan and I had played this 2-player a couple times, and I thought it was kind of boring, though Dan really liked it. I explained the rules to Karla and Scott (Karla kept leaving the table as I was saying something or zoning out as I said something else), and eventually we got underway. We used the suggested, first-timer setup.

Entdecker, which is German for "Explorers," is a game about discovering islands. It costs a certain amount of cash to sail around the board, and each player flips over tiles and has to place them where his ship is sailing (sort of like Carcassonne). Players get points for having a presence on an island when its discovery is completed, with the larger presence getting more points. Additionally, points can be gained by putting scouts on jungle paths, which makes them garner trade goods for more points at the end of the game.

I went for the +5 island off the cheap side of the board, and Dan and Karla were infatuated with going for the +10 island on the right side of the board, which cost them money early and didn't guarantee their getting on the island. Scott, in mimickry, then started from the left side of the board to get the other +5 island for himself!

Karla and I managed to score first, getting a couple small islands, and we slowly made our journeys. I finally managed to finish my +5 island, which gave me quite a load of points. Karla had a ton of scouts on the jungle paths, due largely to her flipping over a lot of "?" tiles that had the friendly natives. Eventually she tried to challenge me in a path that was +15 points, but I held her off.

Scott wasn't really scoring any points, and Dan was saving up for some later on. Everyone kept trying to get tiles that would fit a very specific place, but would only buy two tiles. Of course, they'd never be able to place them. I would buy about 3 or 4 every time, and I usually got what I wanted. Dan was particularly frustrated by this, and Scott was just kind of baffled. He over-focused on the one +5 island. Karla and Dan had large presences on the +10 island and also some medium-presences on Scott's +5 island.

At this point I was in the lead and had some nice jungle points coming. Unfortunately, I hit a HUGE rut in money. I had to roll for myself every turn, and I rolled, in sequence, 2, 2, 3, 4, 2. I never had ANY cash, and I could never get either a fortress on the +10 island or a scout or anything on the other +5 island. That killed me, and Dan, even when I intentionally did not roll (despite having only 2 gold), left with only 1 or 2 gold of his own, still refused to roll the die. I called him a fucker in (semi)mock frustration, but then Karla rolled...a 2. Thanks, hon. Sheesh. So, Scott's turn. Does he roll? Of course not. (Jackass!)

Mike's turn again. I don't roll. If I roll, I'm doomed. So I have my 7th pathetic turn in a row. Meanwhile, Dan is spreading all over the board, and space is going way too quick on the only two islands that mean anything. Soon, Dan finishes the +10 island before I can get much of a presence there (and he gets 29 points). Mike gets 4 points. Worse, the +5 island gets finished and I get...0 points! It become incredibly expensive to finish, as it formed a "U", with the only opening being from the top of the board.

Scott didn't score much aside from the +5 island, and he also did poorly on the jungle paths, not netting any points whatsoever. He challenged Dan on one path which was obvious that he was going to lose, but instead of trying to get points somewhere else, he just used up 4 scouts to no end whatsoever. Had he spread those Jungle guys out, he could have hosed Dan a bit somewhere else. As it was, Scott did hose Karla on his last turn, costing her 10 points (and 2nd place). Dan managed to get the lead in 2 paths (like Karla and me), plus 1 for Scott. To sum up his scoring, he also led on the +10 island and getting 2nd on Scott's +5 island.

The game took about 2 hours to play, but Karla really enjoyed it. She said, "It took longer than I thought it would." But when I asked her if she liked it, she said, "Yeah, it was more fun than I thought it'd be." It's definitely much more fun with 4 than 2. If I get stuck low on cash, next time I'm going to forfeit rolling the dice. Not having any cash killed me.

Can't Stop
Results
PlayerScorePlaceFirst Time?
Dan7, 4, 81
Mike11, 122 (Tie)
Scott2, 32 (Tie)
Karla 4

Notes: Karla pushed her luck way too much in this one, and only had pieces on the board(!) after I had already closed out 11, Scott had closed out 2, and Dan had closed out both 7 and 4. I had just closed out the 12, with a fairly decent opportunity to close out 6 in the same turn (I also had 10 to keep me alive), but I chickened out. This gave Dan a chance to close out the 8 (he needed about 7 rolls), and he did it without much concern, confidently saying "Eight" each time he rolled and pointing at the dice as if he were P-Diddy or Kid Rock.

At one point, out of spite, when Dan quit the 7's just one spot short of closing it, Scott rolled for 7 (starting from scratch) and tried to close it out just to piss Dan off. He made it all the way to the 3rd one from the top before failing.