June 16th, 2005 |
Attendance was stuck at 3 for a second straight week, as Dan continued his snooty West Sided-ness and Jim never got the reminder email. Scott braved 70+ degree temperatures and Karla's blazing wit to appear, and game night finally got started at 8:45..
| Circus Flohcati |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 53 | 1 | * |
| Scott | 46 | 2 | * |
| Karla | 44 | 3 | * |
Notes: Circus Flohcati is a clever little set collection game. The cards are themed like a flea circus and are numbered from 0 to 7 in each of 10 colors. You get points by making sets of three, but you also get points for the highest card of each color that is in your hand when the game ends. Card are collected by a "push your luck" mechanism - you can flip over cards from the deck, stop at any time and choose one, but if you flip over a second color of something, you lose your turn and the last card selected goes into the discard pile.
The game ends either when the stack is depleted or someone reveals that they have cards in their hands of all 10 colors. When sets are made you place them in front of you (like Go Fish or Gin Rummy). There are a few special cards, too, that give you a chance to take cards from other players and make it okay to draw double colors on your turn.
Karla and Scott were both a little flustered at my rules explanation, but they eventually got it (Scott after reading about one of the special cards himself.
Scott and Karla made a lot of "Lost turn" flips, and I tried going for sets of low numbers, but grabbing a 6 or a 7 if I drew one. Scott "got" the game about halfway through, and Karla fixated on the "one of each color in hand" rule, and tried to end the game as quickly as possible. With no sets, she lost. Then she said, "O-o-o-okay, let's play again."
| Circus Flohcati |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 87 | 1 | |
| Karla | 64 | 2 | |
| Mike | 52 | 3 | |
Notes: So we played immediately a second time and this time it was much better, as we went all the way through the stack. Karla and Scott kept taking the low numbers (or stealing them with hand draws) and I only managed two sets while they made 4 each. Scott had about five 7's in his hand when the draw deck was gone, and that completely overwhelmed Karla's mediocre stash.
(Ex Post Facto Note: I have since discovered that we were - sigh - playing two rules wrong. When the "Gala Show" is announced - which Karla did in the first game, you get a +10 bonus. Second, we were playing that if you duplicated a show, you discarded ALL the cards out there. The correct way to play is only to discard the NEW duplicate and leave the rest of the cards there. These rules would have changed some tactics in both games and would have given me a MUCH better score in the second game).
| Boomtown |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 108 | 1 | * |
| Karla | 100 | 2 | * |
| Mike | 62 | 3 | * |
Notes: In Boomtown, players bid on cards, either mines or event cards, and try to make the most money by the end of the game. When a player wins an auction (which goes around until only one person is left) he gives all his money to the person on the right. That person keeps half (rounded up) and gives the rest to the next person, who keeps half, and so on until the money runs out or money would be passed back to the buyer. Then, the winner selects a card, followed by the person on his LEFT, etc.
Each mine is part of a city and has a number on it and a bunch of gold pieces. Two dice are rolled after the cards are taken and any mines with a number that matches the dice roll gets the number of gold pieces on the mine. (Like Settlers of Catan) There are a few rules that make it so that sometimes when a mine produces gold you have to give gold to other people, if they meet certain requirements or have special cards.
Anyway, it was a grim game for Mike the whole way through. The first flip was two mines and some dynamite. I won and picked the mine with the less frequented number, thinking that Scott would take the other mine and make Karla choose. Instead, Scott took the dynamite, blew up my mine without really understanding what he was doing, AND Karla ended up not only with the only mine, but with the most money, since she was to my right. To add insult to frustrating injury, I rolled a "9" for mine production...which happened to be the number of Karla's mine. After I explained to Scott why using the Dynamite was a bad idea, he said, "Oohhhhh!"
The game wasn't much closer after that. Karla became mayor of two cities immediately, which meant that I was paying her gold every time certain of my mines came up. Then Scott, rather than try to challenge Karla for one of her mayor-ships, targeted Mike and his meager stack of mines. I became mayor of Cold Mountain, but Scott blew up my only good mine immediately, before I even had a chance to roll for it, so that he could get the mayorship of that town (but he never did).
Scott made good headway, and I was woefully behind in mines. Karla took the tactic of never trying to win an auction. She typically just let Scott and me bid, took our money, and then grabbed whatever card she could. I didn't really feel like I was doing anything until I managed to get two saloons set up, which took some money from Karla, who was way in the lead.
Coming down the stretch, Scott's mayors in two cities started getting him some good cash, usually at Karla's expense, and my saloons were also whittling her down. In the last two rounds, two holdup cards came up, and I successfully robbed Karla of 6 gold and Scott successfully robbed her of 7 on the very last turn (the first number was a 2 and as the second die was rolling around, Karla started to say, "You're not going to make it!" but it turned up a 5).
Had Scott's robbery attempt failed, he would have lost, as it was a 14 point swing in points.
Score breakdown:
| Chips | Mines | Mayors | Total | |
| Scott | 51 | 47 | 10 | 108 |
| Karla | 41 | 49 | 10 | 100 |
| Mike | 31 | 26 | 5 | 62 |
It's a fun, chaotic game, and I'm going to be certain to take the dynamite next time I play and get more mines. I went for a few too many action cards and gave up on becoming mayor too easily.