July 2nd, 2005 |
I had tucked Pirate's Cove in the car as Karla and I set out for Rakesh's party for some reason - I think because we had been talking about it. So what happens but we show up at Rakesh's, and at around 11 pm Lee and Dan clamor for me to get it so we can play. I grabbed it and Dan wasn't paying attention, so he missed his chance to play it. I fought through the noise-making revelry of Jamie and Rakesh to teach the rules, and we got through the game pretty well. After about 3 turns, Jessica, Peter, and Phoebe were eagerly flipping over the new cards.
| Pirate's Cove |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Lee | 45 | 1 | |
| Jessica | 36 | 2 | * |
| Phoebe | 35 | 3 | * |
| Mike | 32 | 4 | |
| Peter | 22 | 5 | * |
Notes: The game started off with a 3-way battle on one of the spaces (between me, Jessica, and Phoebe). I fled, and Jessica sank Phoebe's ship to take an early lead. Peter and Lee greedily sucked up gold for the most part.
There was another big battle soon after that, between four of us: everyone except Phoebe. Peter suffered from the "kill my spouse" syndrome, and was sunk quickly by Jessica. Then Jessica and I took care of Lee, but Jessica was badly damaged and I sank her ship on my next shot.
Things were pretty nice and calm for the rest of the game. Most battles were short and sweet, and Phoebe and Lee really did a good job avoiding everybody. Peter made the mistake of selecting the Flying Dutchman's island twice, and despite having Long John Silver's parrot (always roll 6 dice), he could never make any headway against the damn ship, as his rolls were really quite poor. I also made the mistake of selecting the Dutchman's island in the 10th turn, which cost me a chance at 2nd place.
Peter and I had trouble upgrading our ships and we found ourselves at Pirate's Cove often. Jessica got out to an early lead, but a weak spot was soon discovered in her sails, and though she did a lot of damage on her attacks, we frequently were able to sink her, especially in the last 1/3 of the game.
Lee made good headway after a mediocre start, avoiding folks and getting his 2x card to work to perfection. He was also attacked by the Royal Navy (a good move by Peter) but he had a Crow's Nest card and was able to sail to a free island - gathering VPs instead of getting blown out of the water.
In the end, Lee's experience paid off, I think. Phoebe didn't have any battles for the last 2/3 of the game and joined in the final attack on the Flying Dutchman at the end, but didn't really time her treasure deliveries too well. At one point, she had to throw some treasure (about 5!) overboard. Jessica did well until she started getting chased off near the end, and poor Peter made some poor island decisions and was ganged up on to boot.
My 3rd place finish was due to some early defeats and flights and then a very poor 10th turn. Jessica was short on tavern cards and didn't net any extra points at the end, though the rest of us scooped up a few. Peter was only at 15 fame points before revealing his stack of bonus cards.
Lee had been bragging about his "high average points" on the website and he only improved it tonight.
I'd also like to applaud Lee, Jessica, Phoebe, and Peter, as they ignored the many loud cries, dancing drunkenness, and general chaos to play a pretty focused game of something they had never tried before.