Gravitt held a meetup at a new location. A pizza restaurant called Plank’s near Parmer and IH-35. I tried their plank (style I guess) pizza. It was meh. But they did have ZiegenBock on draft for a buck. You can’t beat that! Hopefully the meetups will continue with a better frequency than they have in the past.

The tables were a little small for gaming. But it’s a restaurant. What do you expect?

Race for the Galaxy

Jon and I started out with a quick two player game of Race for the Galaxy.

Age of Steam

My big game for the day was a game of Age of Steam on the original map. Jeff had wanted to play it and I was more than happy to oblige. We had two other people join who were also new to the game. Unfortunately, this was not their type of game. But they did keep playing all the same.

My position was not the best. Jon was all alone on one section of the board. I was in the middle of the board surrounded by people. I know Jon commented during the end game that he made a mistake by not upgrading his engine. While he had better goods than I did at the end, t he was not able to catch up to me.

Chaos in the Old World

Jeff wanted to play a new area control game about ancient gods. Unfortunately, no one had played it before or read the rules beforehand. So I am sure that we got some things wrong (not even counting the mistake when assembling the board).

While I love dice games, this one had a fatal flaw. When attacking, an enemy unit is killed on a four, five, or six. So far, so good. However, if a six is rolled, you get to roll the dice again for an extra attack. For as long as you keep rolling sixes. This was used to devastating effect on Jeff and Tim almost wiped him off of the board. Thankfully, we called the game after an hour or so and I was able to leave. I was not enjoying that game at all.

Race For The Galaxy

We started off with another filler game of Race For The Galaxy.

The Princes of Machu Picchu

It took us a while but we finally decided on a game to play: The Princes of Machu Picchu. I took a different strategy this game. I tried concentrating on activating my priests as much as I could during the game. And I didn’t place that many workers out in the field. Unfortunately for me, I could not collect the set of cards that I wanted. They were spread out into too many areas. And since I didn’t have a lot of workers out in the field, I didn’t score that much at the end. It was also the first game that I have played where we had an ending due to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors.

Race For The Galaxy

The meetup group used to meet regularly and at a large gaming space (even if it was in a church). But it doesn’t anymore. Only occasionally will it meet elsewhere. This time was at a wine creation place (with a Christian sounding Water To Wine). There are only a couple of tables here. And they are cramped! But I will take what I can get.

We started off with a opening game of Race For The Galaxy.

Through The Ages

We then moved on to a three player game of Through The Ages (even kicking out a potential fourth player). Jose was new to this game. But he started off strong. He was far out in the lead for most of the game. It was only in the third era that I started making progress towards catching up to him. And, when we were performing final scoring, did I finally pass him. Wow, I didn’t see that coming. I was able to score more than him for each of the final categories.

Dominion: Intrigue

We started off with yet another filler of Dominion: Intrigue. And yet another meh playing.

Phoenicia

Luckily, everyone was interested in playing Phoenicia. It has been too long since I have played this game. And I suffered for it. Instead of building up my income immediately, I bid on, and won, a dyer card. I had my sights set on Cloth Making and not on profitability. Unfortunately, it took me the entire game to recover from that setback. The R.O.I. (return on investment) nature of this can also amplify a slow start into a much slower purchasing power. Unfortunately, I probably cannot get game to the table again.

Ra: The Dice Game

We finished up with the Ra dice game. It is pretty thematic to the original game. However, there is no bidding aspect to it. So you can’t always call Ra when it your turn and you have low tiles. Which means that this game has a different feel to it.

Dominion: Intrigue

We started out with a game of the new Dominion expansion. It is an okay game. I could see how some people might love it. For me, there are many other light filler type games that I would rather play.

Tigris and Euphrates

Our real game of the night was the classic E&T. It took a little bit to refresh our memory on the rules. Thankfully, everyone was willing to play it again. In the first game I was able to come in second to Susan. During the second game, Wayne started an External Conflict between myself and Susan. Luckily, I had the right set of tiles to win all the battles (and Susan didn’t). This propelled me into the lead. It also helped that no one picked on me after that and I was able to place tiles to round out my collection of cubes.

Unfortunately, I was quite mean to Jeff during the second game. He had three of his leaders out on the board only being supported by one common red tile. I needed to support my kingdom from external threats. So I kicked out his three leaders with one catastrophe tile and joined up the remnants of his kingdom into mine.

Small World

For the first game of the night, we started out with Small World. This is a Vinci reprint. But with changes. Changes that, in my view, weaken the game. And make it lighter and fluffier. My tribes during this game were the Diplomatic Ghouls, the Forrest Giants, and the Seafaring Trolls. I initially started out scoring much less victory points than everyone else. Those Ghouls were perhaps not the best choice. My my next race did so much better. I was able to score a lot of point from the Giants and from the remaining Ghouls left on the board. This was enough to boost me into first place. I coasted into the end with the Trolls (playing only one round with them).

They have simplified the game, shortened the game, and have added a small bit of extra randomness with a die (concerning your last attack). None of these changes are for the better in my opinion. Though they will make the game more appealing to a wider audience.

Roll Through The Ages

We ended out the night with Roll Through the Ages. As a push your luck dice game, it ranks highly for me. It is very thematic. And it has some strategy to it. There are different paths you can take. Just keep in mind that this is a dice game.

Power Grid Central Europe

I played Power Grid tonight. And it was a close game. I would have won if I hadn’t have been so paranoid. Sigh. I knew the game was close to finishing. So I was considering hoarding enough fuel to last for two rounds. This way, I could not be hosed if people were to take enough of the coal away so that I could not power all of my cities. I was weighing this against the chance that I could connect to enough cities in order to end the game (and win). However, I didn’t think that this was likely given the fact that my cheapest routes would be blocked by the other players (as they should do). Sadly, I spent my money on the coal. And then watched as the connections were in fact not blocked at all. Oh, well. Can’t predict everything…

Dominion

We started off with a opening game of Dominion. At the end, I won. But, during the game, I sure did not think that I was in the lead at all. I guess that I believed my Jedi Mind Powers along with everyone else.

Tichu

This is the first game that I have played Tichu with in a while (since March). Too bad I don’t have enough friends willing to play Tichu with me regularly. Or at least consistently.

Steam

Ed and Susan brought over Steam to play. I am a huge Age of Steam fan and I have been reading up on Wallace’s changes to Age of Steam to turn it into Steam. Unfortunately, none of the changes sounded good online. But I had to at least try it once.

Essentially, all of the changes serve to dull the game from the brilliantly sharp edge that AoS has. I know why these changes were made. They certainly make the game more acceptable to the general public. But they remove the struggle to claw your way up first to profitability and then to dominance.

In this game, we pretty much stayed to our respective corners. I was able to successfully poach from Ed just before he was able to deliver goods a couple of times. Susan took a couple of 6 deliveries away from me. But my network was just too good and I had quite a lot of 6 and 5 lengthed deliveries.