May 19th, 2005 |
Another game night, with Dan (sans Annie), Sam, Scott, and (eventually) Jamie in attendance.
| Vom Kap bis Kairo |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 8 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 7 | 2 | |
| Karla | 6 | 3 | |
Notes: First time we played this one in a while, and I did what I always do: I overpay for something in the second to last piece of track and get stuck one spot from the end.
Karla got out to an early lead, forcing Scott and I behind some mountains. She then got really conservative with her bids and ended up being stuck (herself) behind a chain of mountains. I managed to scoop up a bunch of bonus tracks while Scott scooted past 3 or 4 pieces, but then I spent them all on my second to last piece of track and haplessly watched Scott both outbid me for the last piece of land and easily coast to victory.
I could have won if (miracle of miracles) I had flipped over two straight cards with 0 track on them for Scott, but I couldn't do it.
| China |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 48 | 1 | |
| Scott | 39 | 2 | * |
| Dan | 35 | 3 | * |
| Sam | 32 | 4 | * |
| Karla | 21 | 5 | * |
Notes: Next I wanted to give China a shot, as I had played it the night before at the Madison Board Gamers and was slapped around by this guy Sterling. In that game I made several mistakes that he, sitting just to my left, jumped all over, and in this game I pretty much copied his strategy.
Of course, there was a problem understanding how the emissaries worked, which got Dan slightly upset (he thought you didn't need a majority in emissaries - just a presence).
The game was pretty non-descript, though Dan figured out about 1/3 of the way through that everyone might as well play as many cards as possible, since you get them all back every turn. No one else picked up on this, though, and they often played only one card at a time.
I focused on getting points in most regions and winning the emissary battles. Dan managed a nice road (with his fortress), but I completed one nearly as good. No one else had a road, as they kept hosing each other. My road was in a sort of safe place, as it crossed into multiple territories, and everyone was focused elsewhere. In the end my overwhelming advantage in emissary points (only Dan and Scott really bothered, netting about 4 and 10 points, respectively) took the victory.
| Illuminati |
| Results | ||||
| Player | Groups | Secret Goals (Peak) | Place | First Time? |
| Bavarian Illuminati (Sam) | 7 | 29/35 Total Power | 1 | |
| Bermuda Triangle (Mike) | 5 | 5/10 Different Alignments | 2 (Tie) | |
| Shangri-La (Dan) | 4 | 4/5 Peaceful Groups | 2 (Tie) | |
| Society of Assassins (Jamie) | 3 | 2/8 Violent Groups | 2 (Tie) | |
| Servants of Cthulu (Scott) | 3 | 3/8 Destroyed Groups | 2 (Tie) | * |
Notes: At this point, Sam asked to play Illuminati, and I was lukewarm on the idea. I told him that it would be better to play with 2 hours to kill rather than the 1.5 remaining in game night. (I was wrong, it's better to play with 3 hours to kill.)
Something made me pull it out, though. Perhaps my thoroughly crushing victory in China shed some form of residual guilt, or maybe, once and for all, I wanted to show everyone the flaws in this game, thereby banishing it from game night (the weekday version at least) forever.
We started playing, and Jamie showed up in the middle of the first round, so we included him in. Karla was actually present for a little while as the Gnomes of Zurich but she botched her first control attempt (rolled a 10 when she only upped the modifiers to 9) and then ducked out to watch a tape of the "O.C."
We had a "first round truce" in effect, and everyone grabbed things in the first round. I snagged Saturday Morning Cartoons, Sam nabbed another good one, and Dan took control of Orbital Mind Control Lasers and used that to grab another group. Scott grabbed the wealthy Military Defense Contractors, and Jamie grabbed two things as well.
Things went pretty normally from there. I went for High Income Groups, Sam went for high power groups. When Sam or Dan got too many groups, Jamie, Scott, and I teamed up to neutralize or control their groups. Scott did a few destructions, ending up with about 3. Sam made it all the way to a total of 29 power (just 6 short of his goal), but then had to face a neutralization attempt from Jamie, which wrecked him. I needed all 11 alignments and only netted about 5 or 6. Dan needed 5 Peaceful groups, and managed to get up to 3 or 4 before he was neutralized down to 2.
I mostly spent my turns gathering money, passing, and letting everyone hamper each other. I would occasionally throw some dough into a fight and tried to seem innocuous. No one attacked me the whole game, which ended prematurely at about 9:50 when Karla, who had gone to bed, informed us that we were being too loud. I granted Sam the victory, as he was pretty much ahead (though he was short on cash). Had the game gone on longer, I think I would have one. I had a nice power structure, a subtle secret victory, and a lot of money, as I hadn't bothered trying to control crappy, dead end groups. Of course, things can change quickly.
One funny part was when Sam tried to take over one of Scott's groups, we spent about 10 minutes spending money on each side, and then Scott "Murphy's Law"ed Sam's roll anyway and his whole attempt went for naught.
Dan said, when we were done, "This game has some problems." I agree. The adding/subtracting of the power rolls take forever, and turns just seem to take too long. If we could shorten the damn thing up somehow it'd be much more fun. This is a common problem in Steve Jackson Games.