Gaming Results

July 30th, 2005

I wanted to play some more games, as my gaming itch had hardly been scratched. I got Scott and Lee to come over, followed eventually by Jamie. Dan was busy with Annie and never made it over. Jamie, Lee, and Dan all admitted they had stayed out too late at Mark's the night before.

Tower of Babel

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Karla	84	1	*
Scott	69	2	*
Lee	66	3	*
Mike	65	4	*

Notes: I wanted to try another new one and everyone was willing to give it a go. It's a very nice and quick game, and everyone enjoyed it. In Tower of Babel, there are 8 monuments with 3 goods required per monument. Each good requires a certain number of cards (from 3 to 6) and each turn a player can try to complete one of these goods. Other players make offers, and players score points depending on how much they helped build the monument, how much they tried to help build the monument (but were rejected) or for collecting the goods chip (by being in charge of the building or using a "trader" card). There are thus numerous ways to score but it can be a bit tricky to get a read on strategies.

Anyway, we gave it a shot, and everyone quickly laid claim to a different good chip, as I went for masons, Karla went after shipping, Scott took trade, and Lee had cranes. What happened next kind of dictated the rest of the game, as everyone kind of overdid it on trying to build things without having the cards ready. This resulted in two odd series where Karla was the only person able to help the builders (Scott and Lee in these cases) and she used her "trader" card to take their chips. These two actions deprived her of cards and gave her few points in building the actual wonders of the world but gave her a huge chip lead that no one ever came close to challenging.

My strategy was to focus on one goods chip and then try to get first or second in several wonders. I managed the second, in fact, getting a HUGE amount of points in the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. I had actually secured first place in that monument very early on, but I avoided completing it for a while, hoping for other monuments to get completed first - the later a monument is completed, the more points it nets for those in control.

That was my only good strategy. Karla's strategy was to collect a bunch of chips and then get points for making offers that were always rejected. She must have gathered about 1/3 of her points by having her offers rejected. She frequently offered 3 or 4 cards - simply too many to accept late in the game, as we were all trying for something - and would get 3 or 4 points rather than competing for the wonders.

In the end, it was Karla's 20 points in chips and her (I'm guessing here) 30 points in rejected points that garnered her first place. The rest of us kind of hosed each other a bit, but never got in Karla's way. Once, when Karla was going for a 5 shipping chip, no one offered her anything, but she laughed at our patheticness and completed the good anyway, as she used all 5 of her own ships.

Also, late in the game, Scott received a bonus card (the extra turn one) and tried to end the game on his turn, but only managed to give us some extra points each, as he had nowhere near the cards needed to complete it. I also got hosed on the very last turn, as Lee completed a 6 crane piece, but I had absolutely NO cranes to offer and thus I missed out on a few more points. Lee did manage to finish the cranes, but with no thanks to me.

So in the end, we were all close, except Karla, who ripped to an early chip lead and just held on. I'll need to try this again to see what the strategies might be to oppose that. I suspect players will need to pass on turns in order to strengthen their hands. No one passed once the entire game. (In fact, about 2/3 of the way through the game, I kept offering it as a suggestion, and Karla said, "No one's going to do that, Mike!")

Tikal

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Scott	109	1	*
Lee	103	2	*
Jamie	102	3	*
Mike	95	4

Notes:Jamie showed up just as I was explaining Tikal, so we included him on it. I recently played this for the first time with the auction variant, and it is so much better that way that I played it that way with these guys. It was great.

We started off pretty innocuously, though I had to convince Lee early on that the treasures really were worthwhile to have. Scott put a bunch of his little orange pests out there all over the place, and I won the right to take the first scoring round. We had only barely grabbed anything (though I had more treasure points than anyone), and the scores were tight and low (remember, auction games start with everyone at 20). Lee 25, Scott & Jamie 24, Mike 23.

The second round got interesting, though we were all just getting started. Scott spent a large amount of his troops in guarding a size 8 temple, but didn't really have anything else. I had won the auction for the scoring round and played it pretty well, but I had spent turns investing rather than claiming stuff, as I had set out a base camp and had a few treasures. My guys were well placed, but not scoring much. Lee had the most temples and Jamie had a pocket in the Northwest corner that was soon going to score him a lot of points. Jamie 43, Lee 41, Mike 34, Scott 30.

I then made a big big mistake. I had a temple in mild control that I had built up to size 8. I had three men there and figured I'd be okay for one more turn before needing to guard it, as I didn't think Scott could get enough guys over there to seize it. He proved me wrong. Had I bid two more VPs to get the tile I would have gone first and made the move moot, but I thought I was safe, Scott went before me and ruined the game for me. I was going to build it to 10, move a guy, and guard it. Instead, Scott sneaked in a guy I didn't see and had 5 points left to seize it. That left me in bad bad shape. As the only other place I could go would cost me an arm and a leg in movement points. I was now doomed.

Soon after my misplay (or Scott's clever play, if you think Scott's actually capable of that kind of thing), Jamie secured his pocket in the Northwest and built it up to 10. Lee then had a string of hard to get to temples in the south east. I had a bunch of guys pulling their puds all over, and Scott had invested in two temples, one built by Lee and one built by me. He was now ready to spread his men like ants. Lee 71, Jamie 66, Scott & Mike 60.

Mike's workers are hopelessly scattered throughout the jungle, doing what grad students everywhere do...wasting time.

Lee, Jamie, and I each put our base camps in the east while Scott solidified one temple and made the investment to break into Lee's string of temples in the southeast. I made a different investment by breaking into Jamie's string of temples in the east as well. I had two temples in the north fairly well guarded, too.

Then the last scoring round came up. I had built the second to last tile, and Scott was going for the last tile. As he would go last, I was going to go first in the scoring round. Scott said, "Then I'll pay one for the last tile." This is technically illegal and probably shouldn't have been allowed. But, as we didn't know the tiebreaker for who would go first until I had already moved, I suppose Scott might have outbid me for the right to go first in the final scoring round. I'm not sure what we should have done, but in the end, the decision we came up with hosed me more than anyone, as Scott once more grabbed a temple from under my nose and scored it while it would cost WAY too much for me to get any points.

In the end, Scott's usurpation of temples (one each of Jamie and Lee and two of mine) got him the win. His men were well spread out across the board (I counted only one of his guys that was doing nothing). About 1/3 of my guys on the board were doing nothing, and I still had 5 in my supply. Lee did all he could, but his shortage of treasures cost him. The big problem was that Jamie and Scott had seized some temples from him and they simply cost too much to move around to. Jamie was in good shape, but had to move around just to break even on some temples after I threw some guys around by his group in the east.

In the end, Scott's first scoring held out, beating Lee by 6. (I thought I saw a way to get Lee more points, but I kept my mouth shut. It only would have given him 3 more points anyway.)

Everyone liked this one, and Lee and Scott enjoyed taking smoke breaks between turns. It took awhile, but everyone played pretty quickly, considering all the choices that need to be made.

Circus Flohcati

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Lee	67	1	*
Mike	61	2
Scott	58	3
Jamie	57	4	*

Notes: We played a quick game of Circus Flohcati, which was won by Lee. Everyone went for a few sets, but Lee had more points in his hand at the end of the game.

Circus Flohcati

Results
Player	Score	Place	First Time?
Scott	58	1 (Tie)
Jamie	58	1 (Tie)
Lee	57	3
Mike	53	4

Notes: We immediately played again, and I kept getting hosed. Once I had just picked up the dark blue 7 and Lee flipped the "Ask for a color" card, so I had to give it to him. Then, later, I flipped the yellow 7 and Lee drew the "Ask for a color" card again. This time he started with Jamie, and it came around to me and I lost my Yellow 7. This really hurt, as my strategy was to get the Grand Display. I got it, but as I only had one set and lost two 7's (to be replaced with a 1 and a 0), I still had last place, as everyone else had 2 or 3 sets and better final hands.

I had a lot of fun, mostly due to everyone's desire to focus and play and have fun. Even though you guys beat the crap out of me tonight, I had a blast. Thanks for coming!