August 6th, 2005 |
A second game night of the week was sponsored by Lee, after he, Dan, and I made poor showings in poker that afternoon. It was in honor of Sam, for whom this was one last Madison weekend, as his weekends will start taking place in Philadelphia.
| Boomtown |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | 78 | 1 | |
| Lee | 77 | 2 | * |
| Annie | 68 | 3 (Tie) | * |
| Dan | 68 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Mike | 66 | 5 | |
Notes: It took some rallying, but after ordering a couple pizzas (which Lee, on the excuse of having eaten 6 perogis, said he wouldn't touch), I finally got us to the game table, and drew out this little goodie.
I explained the rules, and after Karla changed into some jeans, we got going. I was a quick mayor of Cold Mountain, and Annie was the mayor of San Narciso quickly enough, but an early snag of the Saloon Girls was near useless, as the saloons were not quick in appearing.
Soon Karla became mayor of Dry Gulch, Lee was mayor of Cactus Junction, and Dan was mayor of Coyote City. I only had 4 mines all game, three from Cold Mountain, as I tried to avoid making payments to any of the mayors. I collected several times from my Cold Mountain mayorship (which only got up to 3), but Dan, Karla, and Annie all made their own cities prohibitively expensive to mine, so they collected 5 or 6 of them. Thus, only Lee and I were challenged in our mayors.
Auction after auction I eagerly anticipated a saloon, only to see mines and dynamites appear. I frequently went for the action cards, and probably took about 7 of them, including a holdup (which failed), 2 dynamites (one on Karla and one on Dan), the card shark, saloon girls, and mustang.
Lee and Annie had a lot of mines, but were paying top price for them, especially as they competed for Cactus Junction's mayorship. Dan was plugging along nicely, but then 7 was rolled four straight times, and he stopped getting money (especially after I blew up his only 7 mine, a Danger! mine). I had the most chips, but no good mines, and Lee rebounded from a poor start, especially since he was getting 10 chips per "7" and had the Governor card for Cactus Junction.
Finally, I got two saloons, one in Coyote City (with Saloon Girls!) and in San Narciso. They hit Annie the hardest, taking about 12 chips from her near the end. In the last turn, Lee made Annie pay 11 chips to take the mayor pawn from him in Cactus Junction (she had to pay 6 more for the privilege), but Lee ended up losing by one point to quiet Karla. Sam had come in midgame and accused me of manipulating things so that I would win - I was glad Sam got one last shot in on me before he headed East - but he was wrong, as I took last place.
| Player | Chips | Mine Gold | Mayor Points | Total |
| Karla | 37 | 36 | 5 | 78 |
| Lee | 44 | 33 | 0 | 77 |
| Annie | 19 | 39 | 10 | 68 |
| Dan | 32 | 31 | 5 | 68 |
| Mike | 44 | 17 | 5 | 66 |
It was a fun, close game, and Lee liked it, but complained of having a losing streak.
| Shadows Over Camelot |
| Results | ||||
| Player | Character | Role | Result | First Time? |
| Karla | Sir Percival | Traitor | Won, Alive | |
| Lee | Sir Kay | Loyal | Lost, Perished | |
| Annie | Sir Tristan | Loyal | Lost, Alive | |
| Sam | Sir Palamedes | Loyal | Lost, Alive | * |
| Dan | King Arthur | Loyal | Lost, Alive | |
| Mike | Sir Gawain | Loyal | Lost, Alive | |
Notes: With 6 of us, we were limited to Shadows Over Camelot and Acquire, and so we went with Camelot, as Sam showed an interest, and Lee and Annie (and Karla) all like it. We played with the traitor.
Last game, the Fate card was played early and the traitor was quickly revealed. Now, I'm not so sure that's a good strategy, as the exposure costs the group 2 cards each, gives the traitor the ability to cause more havoc, and costs the group a chance to accuse the traitor and give the group one more white sword. We'll see how it plays out in the future.
The game started off with everyone grabbing cards. I amassed for one turn, then went off, as Sir Gawain to save Lancelot's armor. King Arthur went to take on the Black Knight, and Sirs Kay, Percival, and Palamedes got started on the Holy Grail. Sir Tristan fought the Saxons.
The side of good quickly had a run of bad luck, as the Black Knight quest was filled before King Arthur could lay more than one card. Arthur lost a life and cursed the person who put down a 7 card for the knight face down. There was obviously a traitor among us, but who put down the face down card? (Karla at this point asked why I shuffled the cards before flipping them over - to hide who played what, honey.)
We soon had more trouble, as Mordred showed up and was fighting against Sir Tristan with the Saxons. Sir Gawain placed down a pair of 4's for Lancelot, but all I had was 1's for the 3 of a kind. I spent a turn wiping away one card with a Merlin and crossed my fingers. If I could just get my last 1 down before another Lancelot showed up...
Sir Tristan, with aid from King Arthur, managed to complete the Saxons, Mordred be damned, and things were looking up. Sir Percival was suspiciously never taking a life, always placing a card or a siege engine. We teamed up to stop the Mists of Avalon from stopping the Grail Quest in its tracks, but Sirs Kay and Palamedes were getting frustrated. King Arthur made steady progress against the Black Knight. Then, Sir Gawain put down his last "1" card. The white total was 11. The Black total was...9! Victory! Lancelot's Armor was saved and Gawain added two more swords. White now had a 3 to 1 lead, but siege engines were piling up.
Sirs Kay and Palamedes got all the way to the 6th space on the Grail Quest before faltering, and Guinevere summoned only one knight back to Camelot. Then, we lost Excalibur forever, with no one having attempted it. Sir Kay played the Fate card, and Sir Percival was revealed to be the traitor! I had my suspicions, as Karla's character had 4 lives still while everyone else had 1 or 2 left! We lost 10 cards (as a group) and went forward with heads shaken in sadness at Sir Percival's treachery.
King Arthur then defeated the Black Knight easily, but an invasion of the Saxons had us on the ropes, with 11 siege engines present. The count was only 3 white to 3 black, and we were in bad shape after King Arthur lost his first bout with the Siege Engines.
Sir Tristan put a Heroism card on the Grail Quest to spur us to bigger things, but no one joined him there, as we were in dire straits fending off the siege engines. Sir Gawain chopped one down, as did King Arthur. Sir Kay marched in, boasting about his ability, but rolled very poorly (an 8) and couldn't cover for it (he played a 4, and could only have added another 4). We were down our best fighting knight. Sirs Gawain and Palamedes each warded off another siege engine apiece as King Arthur vainly rushed off to help Sir Tristan.
The traitor made sure to add only siege engines, though, and we were soon back up to 11 of them. Sir Palamedes drew a card, as he was down to one life, and woe to us all (except that rapscallion Sir Percival!) the goodness that was Camelot was betrayed and sacked.
The side of good had some bad luck with the siege engines, and I think the knights devoted too much time to the Grail Quest and should have focused more on some easier things after establishing a presence up there. I was glad that I was productive - I completed a narrow victory over the Lancelot Quest and was probably the most helpful knight - but the rest of the crew was dismayed.
We'll get 'em next time!
| Acquire |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | $46,700 | 1 | |
| Lee | $30,000 | 2 | |
| Annie | $28,000 | 3 | |
| Sam | $19,700 | 4 | |
| Dan | $19,000 | 5 | |
Notes: Karla was good enough to let us play one more game, and so we went with Acquire, because I wasn't really up for Ticket to Ride and I didn't want to explain the rules for El Grande or Traders of Genoa (and Wallenstein would have taken too long).
We started up, and I was dismayed that I was the only one not creating a company (along with Dan) on the first turn. Annie formed Zeta, Lee formed American, Sam formed Phoenix. Then Dan got going, starting Quantum. Annie formed Sackson, Lee formed Fusion and Sam Hydra. Despite my not starting anything, I bought heavily in Zeta early on and then managed to get minority share in American just as it was merged into Phoenix.
It then became an odd game. Lee and I re-formed and merged American two more times, and each time I was majority owner and Lee minority. Sam said, "WHAT?!" a bunch of times, and couldn't believe he only got $300 for his one share while Lee and I raked in thousands of dollars.
Then Lee and I were the only ones with money for close to half an hour. Zeta kept absorbing companies, but they were the companies on the right half of the board, which only Lee and I (and to a lesser extent, Sam) had any stock in. The companies that would have benefited the others to have been merged, Phoenix, Quantum, and Sackson, were all far away and at least two spaces from merging. Lee and I basically picked the companies we wanted to take the leads in. I slowly managed a controlling interest in Fusion, Hydra, and Quantum, while Lee focused on Sackson and Phoenix - Phoenix was going to be merged, it was only a matter of time.
After what seemed an eternity, Annie played a Phoenix merger, and people finally had some money. Lee then passed on buying any stock, neglecting to buy the two remaining Sackson shares. When Annie merged it into Hydra, he instantly lamented it. Dan beat him by one share of Sackson. Lee had the most money at the moment, but I felt I was in good shape for the three remaining companies. Sure enough, everyone concentrated on making Zeta a size 41 company (it had absorbed 2 small Americans and a good-sized Fusion, all three making Lee and me excellent profits), and I managed one last turn to end the game, consolidating my lead in Hydra.
I was now Majority in Quantum and Hydra, and tied for minority in a close race for Zeta. Annie had the Zeta majority, which netted her a bonus $17,000 to make her final score respectable. Lee just missed minority with 5 Zeta. My easy majorities in size 5 Quantum and size 15 Hydra gave me an easy victory.
The game was really odd, in that the companies that merged were critically devastating to Dan, Sam, and Annie. I'm not sure if I would attribute that to bad planning or bad luck. The early investments in Zeta paid off for everyone, but not until the end. The big problem was that all the companies were far from each other, and only American was merging frequently, and only Lee and I were investing in it. As I said, Sackson, Hydra, and Quantum were far from anything else, and Phoenix was in absorb mode until it got close enough to Zeta.
I guess it was a blend of forming too many companies that couldn't merge too quickly and spending money. Lee and I happened to go for the right ones, and that was the difference.
Near the end, Sam confessed that he didn't know what he was doing and he was too drunk. It was kind of odd that he would be 1 of three different stocks whereas everyone else was buying 3 of a kind or at least 2 and 1.