December 13, 2005 |
| Trias |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 30 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 24 | 2 | |
| Jamie | 21 | 3 | * |
| Jim | 20 | 4 | * |
Notes: I'd played this one three player a couple times and wanted to give it a run 4-player. It's still pretty good, but adds a bit more chaos.
Dan foolishly placed an initial herd on the south pole once he heard that it can't be moved. Of course, it scores nothing at the end of the game. Everybody else kept their herds near the edge and the game progressed nicely.
Jim managed to get a nice-sized island for himself, but Dan managed to gain a foothold on it, and also had a size 2 island all his own. I was pretty much competing with Jamie for a size 4 island, and trying to keep up with Jim in another. Jamie had one island under lock early, then expanded into a little section I was working on.
Things were even early, though Jim was frustrated by having his dinos dumped in the water by Jamie. My attempt to form an isolated island were thwarted when Dan kept re-connecting it. At last I managed second place on Jamie's island and Jim's. I looked to have a nice size 4 island, but Dan reconnected his own island (on which he had about 7 herds) to the one Jamie and I were fighting over - thanks to a drift Jamie performed that made the connection very easy for Dan.
We then spent turns breaking the island up and reconnecting it. Jamie did so to reclaim first place on our little island, then I foolishly re-did it to get second on the island as a big one. Dan made the final move by dumping Jamie off the island and making the final re-connection. It was at this point, with the deck in the 2's, that Jim decided to perform his drift from the deck. Of course, it was the meteor, and Jim was forced to perform his final turn. As I was the only one with herds in my stockpile, I added them to the big island and earned a solid second.
Dan's presence on the other islands was minimal, but he earned 15 points on the final island. That, coupled with a bunch of 2 point gains throughout the game, netted him the victory.
I should mention that we probably scored the islands too many times. There were times when an island simply re-shaped itself that I may have scored it, as Jamie caught me doing once. I doubt it would have changed the victory, though.
| Tower of Babel |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Jim | 72 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 58 | 2 | |
| Jamie | 55 | 3 | * |
| Annie | 52 | 4 | * |
| Dan | 47 | 5 | |
Notes: Karla had called and ordered me leave Jamie's early, as I was driving to Kenosha tonight and needed to hit the road before the snowstorm hit. So I wanted to play something good but quick. I passed on Boomtown and chose Tower of Babel. Dan said it would take forever, but what does he know? This one takes about 45 minutes.
I'm going without notes here, but I recall that Jim won, and I think I have the order of everything correct. Jamie and I were battling for last most of the game, and I only netted 3 chips - all ships. People were using their Trader cards with a good deal of cleverness in this one, too. Annie was going for camel chips and really wanted to get a lot of houses out there. One thing I was doing was forcing people to tie for first place in houses, which would keep them from scoring too many points. It never seemed to benefit me enough, though.
I had a ton of ship cards early on, but I had few houses. Dan was also pretty skimpy on houses and was trying to collect the masons. Jamie went for masons and cranes, and Jim managed to get first place in back to back monuments, leaping to a huge lead with only a couple turns left. In one of these I gave him an offer that helped him and barely gave me any points (it gave me a presence worth all of 3 points). He ended up in first for the monument and received a valuable chip. Jim and I were the only ones to get the building cards - I managed 3, Jim 2.
I went solely for ship chips, so I was eager to accept houses for the chip. This didn't work that well, though, as I never had first place all to myself either through a miscalculation or bad strategy. Also, I had a problem collecting the shipping chips as Jim started collecting them. Thus, when he would get one, I'd have to pass on collecting one, because everyone was out of shipping cards. Had Jamie or Dan (who were not to my immediate right) been collecting them, I wouldn't have minded, but his using the cards up right before me (and not accepting my trader cards) was chafing.
In the end, Jim had two sets worth 15 points added on to his considerable sum and easily defeated us. Jamie said, "You destroyed us!" I'm starting to see more in this game, I have to say, and will have to be much more careful next time.