June 23rd, 2005 |
Game Night was held at Sam and Jill's place tonight, and after a game of Samurai (requested by Sam) Dan showed up and we played a new game (Pueblo) as well as a new-ish game (Boomtown).
| Samurai |
| Results | |||||
| Player | Buddhas | High Hats | Rice | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | 2 | 5 | 5 | 1 | |
| Mike | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | |
| Sam | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | |
Notes: We set up Samurai and got it rolling along nicely after a quick rules redux. Sam got it really quickly, but Karla forgot about the multiple play tiles - though that hardly bothered her at all. Sam and I competed early for Buddhas, which was kind of silly, as one of us should have gone for rice paddies (since Karla went for High Hats early on). It also didn't help that Sam and I kept competing for stuff while Karla was whisking away everything she wanted with hardly any competition from Sam or me.
I recognized that Karla was kicking our butt at about the 1/3 way point and left Sam's pieces alone, choosing to focus on Buddhas he hadn't gone for. Though my pieces were well protected, Sam left a few pieces in positions that were not quite safe, and Karla attacked those pieces, snagging them from Sam. It turned out that Karla's tiles rarely didn't grab a piece but Sam's frequently would only get half the pieces he wanted (or fewer).
About mid-game I started to advance and solidified my hold on the Buddhas. Sam's Buddha-clutching had waned, and his lost efforts at getting rice on a certain island fell apart when he didn't protect his tiles well. Sam then tried to gain a grip on a bunch of pieces on the southern-most island, but curiously exchanged commodoties in such a way that it helped Karla grab both of them. Karla had a 4-strength high hat piece next to a rice paddy, and Sam exchanged the rice paddy with a high hat! To add insult to injury, Karla not only (and predictably) grabbed the high hat, she later managed to grab the rice. It was certainly an odd move. (I didn't question the move because Sam is incredibly skeptical of any advice I give and tends not to trust me.)
We added up our pieces after I managed the last piece and I was unsurprised to see that Karla had (once again) managed a majority in two pieces. She was unrivaled early on and just seemed to have all her 4 pieces and 2 & 3 samurais out there all game. Still, a good game I'd like to try more often. Sam liked it, too, and Karla likes every game she wins.
| Pueblo |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | 33 | 1 | * |
| Sam | 38 | 2 (Tie) | * |
| Dan | 37 | 2 (Tie) | * |
| Mike | 51 | 4 | * |
Notes: We set up Pueblo for 3-players, but then Dan showed up and we played it 4-player. In Pueblo, you get a set of colored and neutral blocks. The object is to build the pueblo with your blocks as covered up as possible. As the king marches around the perimeter of the structure, each colored block he sees (which corresponds to a player) gets penalized. The object is to keep your blocks as out of sight as possible. The higher a player's block is when the king sees it, the more penalty points the player gets.
With the rules quickly explained, we quickly started off, and no one massed too many negatives. Sam was hit a couple times early, but never for very much, and I was able to stay very low in points for quite a while. We all went through some moderate waves of penalties. First Sam, then Dan, then Karla were hit in a row. There were many attempts to minimize penalties, so efforts of penalizing others were usually subservient to desires to protect one's own bricks.
I knew I'd have a rough time of it when I passed on placing my colored block on an edge. The move would have given me 2 or 3 guaranteed minuses at the end, but I thought I'd be allowed to place the move next turn, so I protected some higher pieces with a neutral block. Then, Dan placed a block in such a way that I would no longer be able to put my block in the small minus spot. Therefore, I kept building higher and higher. On my second to last turn, I placed a brick on the top of the pueblo (reaching levels 5 & 6), and I was only able to protect two sides of it. Still, I was in (apparently) good shape after the building was done. Sam was also in good shape, and I thought he'd win, as his blocks were somewhat exposed, but only on the bottom. Dan looked to have too many 2 and 3 point exposures and Karla had a bunch of perimeter pieces. The tally:
Mike: 15
Sam: 15
Karla: 16
Dan: 16
The final walkaround exposed my flaws most critically. My lofty and only half-protected bricks proved a deluge of penalty points, and I knew I was doomed. Dan, Sam, and Karla were all very very close. It came down to a couple of things. Dan had more perimeter points on one side than Karla did, and Sam had more exposed top pieces than Karla. Hence, Karla's final walkaround score was the least of everyone's and she pulled out the victory as the least egotistical builder.
Afterwards, I admitted that I had learned a valuable lesson: don't build higher. I should have grabbed some low point side pieces, but I advised Sam to take one instead and focused too much on one side of the building. After the game, Dan said, "I wondered why you kept building higher and higher." Because I was a fool. Duh!
| Boomtown |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Sam | 100 | 1 | * |
| Karla | 89 | 2 | |
| Dan | 87 | 3 | * |
| Mike | 75 | 4 | |
Notes: This game is quickly proving to be another one of my banes. Two last place finishes in two tries, AND I have now been the victim of 4 out of 5 dynamites not won by yours truly. In this game, I righted my ship and managed to get a bunch of mines, and I was doing fairly well for a little while, but the consumption of wine muddled my thoughts a bit and one absolutely terrible round did me in.
The game started off well enough (for me, though Karla "won" the governor card, which was useless with no mayors about), as I managed to get one of the early mayors, snagging Dry Gulch and then Cactus Junction in quick succession. Sam grabbed Coyote City and won 10 gold early on. Then, Dan, persuaded by Sam, used an early holdup card on me and snagged 6 gold. Then he blew up one of my mines and grabbed Mayor-ship of Dry Gulch from me while Karla laid claim to Cold Mountain. Dan also claimed mayorship of San Narciso, thwarting my attempt to do so.
Still, I was within striking distance of catching Dan in San Narciso, and I had a nice stock of mines. After I acquired a Collapse-able 7 mine (which produced 7 gold per roll) and we rolled 7's in consecutive turns, I thought I'd be in great shape, and I was, as I stole San Narciso's mayor-ship from Dan...Then the tidal wave of poor play and rotten luck hit me.
First, as I was on the cusp of losing San Narciso to Dan, I let him win an auction with 2 mines, a dynamite, and a holdup. The bid had gotten up to 7 and I felt that I would get something good without sacrificing 8 gold (half of which would go to Sam, who had obviously - to me - taken the lead). Karla had recently foregone mines to lay claim to a couple of Saloons, one of which seriously bothered Sam enough to have it blown up. Dan took the dynamite and blew up one of my San Narciso mines, squelching my meager efforts to hold it. Then, Sam held me up. 6 more gold down the drain. At this point I said, "You guys are targeting me too much," which was completely true, as much because it made me miserable as it's not a good strategy to aim everything at one person. Then, the coup de grace occurred when Dan rolled boxcars - 12 - for the gold collection, and my beauutiful 7 mine collapsed. Game over. I never seriously competed again and my only focus was on grabbing the Dry Gulch mayor-ship by the end (which only cost Dan second place).
Every time the numbers of my mines were rolled from then on, they were in mines which were held by my opponents. Dan, Sam, and especially Karla raked in almost all my money. We rolled 7 a lot, and Sam was the one raking it in on 7's, with Karla getting some cash from a small mine and getting money from her Saloon from me (and after she grabbed the dancing girls, I was losing two gold per turn to her when a 7 was rolled).
I didn't really have good mines, and my only hope of advancement was Mayorizin', so that's what I did. Sam had the money lead from early on, and he helped knock me out of the game and generally made good moves. He had a huge collection of Coyote City mines, which made sure 1) no one took his mayor from him, and 2) he rarely paid any cash during gold colleciton to any other mayors. If Karla had been able to keep her Coyote City saloon around, he probably wouldn't have pulled it off, but he was wise enough to blow it up after it leeched from him twice. His mines weren't particularly good as a group (in fact, they were worse than mine), but two of them were good 7 mines, and there were a LOT of sevens rolled (which upset Dan throughout the game and me at the end). Dan had a lot of high-yield mines, but they were all on numbers like 4, 5, and 10, which were almost never rolled. (It also bugged me, I should add, that boxcards were rolled twice, and both times really helped Sam rake in the cash - in addition to destroying my best mine the first time. >:(
The breakdown:
| Player | Chips | Mine Gold | Mayor Points | Total |
| Sam | 59 | 36 | 5 | 100 |
| Karla | 42 | 42 | 5 | 89 |
| Dan | 38 | 44 | 5 | 87 |
| Mike | 28 | 37 | 10 | 75 |