Pillars of the Earth

Man, it has been a while since I have played Pillars of the Earth. And I don’t know why. It seems good enough. Although there is less fighting over resources with three people.

Big Three

John introduced us to a three player climbing game called Big Three. There are more combinations than Tichu but no bombs. With sixteen cards, you have more flexibility in what you can play. The winner of an initial bid gets four extra cards and is playing against the other two people. If the winner goes out first, then the other two people give the winner the amount of points. Otherwise, if someone on the opposing team goes out first, then the winner gives both people the points in the bid.

When Jon called last hand, I was ahead of John by 5 points. So John had to make a three point bid and go out first. Fortunately, for myself, Jon and I were able to set him (and Jon did the right thing even though he was last with no hope of catching second place).

Brass

Doug wanted to play Brass again with all of the rules correct. And Jon obliged. I started off by building a cotton mill for 12 and a canal for 3. My next turn was the same thing. On the third turn, I took a loan (having spent all of my money) and then shipped both mills. Fortunately, no one else shipped cotton to an external market. And I was able to net 5 dollars for my missing ports.

I started off at the end of the first round last in points. But, to make up for that, I had a good revenue source. I was able build one harbor. And then Doug opened up Barrow-in-Furness. I thought about it and decided to build another harbor there as well. It took most of my money, and I was hobbled after that for the rest of the game. I could only build one high-value cotton mill a turn. In the end, I don’t think that it mattered. No one else was able to catch me.

Brass

Wow, I actually got to play Brass. We still had some rules confusions. So this game has to rate in the top ten of obtuse games. Doug did a good showing of trying to catch me with my shipyards by building some high value cotton mills laying valuable track. But it wasn’t enough.

During the Meetup, Ed wanted to play it (for his first time). Unfortunately, it was difficult to recruit even a third player. Fluffy Susan hosed us once again by playing Pandemic. This time, Ed had printed out some helpful player aids which clarified most of the niggly rules. But, even this time, we had managed to miss some points.

Last Night On Earth

Disc golf and eating at Dos Salsas caused me to arrive late. I walked in on Chapel playing an Ameritrash game!

Glory To Rome

Jon was just starting to play Glory To Rome (which he had just played Thursday night). Since Nick and John were wanting to play Bridge and this was a game day, I jumped into the GtR game. I am liking this game less and less. It seems that the cards are not well balanced. For example, in this game Jon built a Garden. This allowed him to hire four more clientèle (for a total of six). Now, with three brown clients, he has a huge advantage in building new buildings with the Craftsman. The game is pretty much over at that point. Unfortunately, it drug on for another half an hour.

Through The Ages

Ed wanted to play Brass. And this was the reason why I drove up to this game day. Unfortunately, we could not get a game going for lack of other players. Sigh. So I opted to play TtA instead.

I don’t know how I survived in this game. My army was pathetically weak! I was ripe for an assault. Fortunately, I was only attacked three times (one where I lost three science, and two where I let Chapel attack me even though I had defense cards). I was able to eventually get my army up to be only a couple of points behind after many turns. In this game, I only saw two tactics cards. This is the one flaw of this game. And that is the random nature of the military deck draw. I really think it should be fixed where you draft military cards like you draft the normal cards.

I was definitely ahead in the victory point generation. And they finally called it when I finished the wonder that gave me 24 points.

Escalation!

We played a couple hands of Escalation and it was painful because none of the cards that I drew matched up with others in my hand. Not much you can do with that except grimace and bear it.

Wizard

We then moved on to Wizard, which is a much better card game. But one that I have not played in a while. We didn’t even use the big clicky wheels. How flawed! I played a perfect game and did not miss any of my predictions. I also beat Nick, who played perfectly — only less so.

Elfenwizards

At least I was able to play Elfenwizards again. It is a negotiation game that uses dice. The only problem was that this game drug on for twice as long as it should have. And, because of that, I started to get distracted.

Wabash Cannonball

My second playing of this game was much better. We played with the correct rules (well discounting that one minor hiccup). And we used my version of the game board (which I spent way too much time working on). But it worries me that there are a couple of people in this group who are against playing it. So sad.

Glory to Rome

Chapel brought this game last week and we did not play it. So I took it out and made sure that we played it. This game is very similar to Race for the Galaxy. Except it has a Roman theme where RftG has a Science Fiction theme. The rules, mechanics, and building powers are slightly different. But not different enough to make me want to play both. I still like RftG better than GtR.

Wabash Cannonball

I came across this game when reading clearclaw‘s posts and became intrigued. A lot of people like this game and rate it highly. So I tracked down Winsome games and ordered it. When I ordered it, I was warned that the components are rather cheap. And they are extremely cheap. The rules are black and white and pixellated. They remind me of a photo copy. The map is a plain folded color sheet. The railroad income track is at least laminated. The cubes are standard colored wooden cubes. But the money and railroad stocks are cheap paper.

Gameplay was interesting. And i definitely want to play this again. On the forums, a couple people have already went to the effort of sprucing up the map and including some helpful information. But, due to fears of litigation, they have not shared their work with others. This motivated me to try it myself. I spent two very long days working with (and learning) Inkscape. I will see what comes of it.

Tichu

To finish out the night, we played Tichu. I had an amusing pass where I received K,J,J! I love it when you trade up. Also, on one of my hands, I had an Ace bomb, Phoenix, pairs, and some low cards. I was all set on calling Tichu. However, Mike plays a length 8 straight, Kings full of Queens full house and has one card left. I did not know where the Dragon or the Dog was so I did not call it. I was sad to learn that my partner has both of them. And he also plays high enough so that Mike passed on singles a couple of times. Oh well.

Due to a scoring error, we shouldn’t have played the last hand. But it was a fun one. We thought the score to be 745 to 955. It was desperation Grand-Tichu time. Jon was not paying attention as he was talking about Dexter. So I am forced to call it. I made my GT. And Jon goes out second for the win (we had all the high cards between us).

That’s Life!

While we waited for Jon to show up (he was late because one of his employees spent too much time talking to him), we played a light filler game. It has been a while since I have played That’s Life! Which is a shame since it is a decent game. Yes, a die is rolled, but you still have a choice because you can move one of three of your pawns or one of the neutral pieces if anyone is on that same spot. Mike flew very low under the group radar. It seemed like he was quietly going for the win. Doug foolishly got in a fight with me over a couple of pieces. His mistake was not realizing that I was moving after him so he would eventually be forced to move off of those spots. And when he did, I was able to claim a couple of negative negators to tie Mike for the win.

Brass

Mike brought over Through The Ages for me to compare with the F. R. E. D. version. And that got him, Jon and Doug in the mood for a three player game. I instead played Brass. I took a couple of chances on shipping Cotton which failed. This cost me a couple of rankings in the final score. I also didn’t think that the others would build the shipyards as quick in this game. It seemed that the going strategy was to take a lot of loans to pay for those buildings. I definitely want to play this game again.

Bunte Runde

Since we were waiting for Nick to show up, we started off with a light filler. It played quick enough that we played it twice in a row.

Risk Express

And since Nick had still not showed up we started another light filler. This time, it was risk express. For some reason, Jon decided to sit out this game.

Ra

About now, we decided to give up on Nick and play Ra. It is definitely a great game and always plays differently.

Phoenicia

To finish up the night, I was able to get in a five player game of Phoenicia. This is the first time that I have played with five people. Usually, it is just with three. In this game, I chose to go after Mining instead of Cloth making. I passed on the first two forts and was able to get the last fort for cost. And I was able to secure a Granary for two extra store-houses (which I needed since I wasn’t going after Cloth making). With available workers and the mining card secured, I concentrated on building up my economy. Fortunately, there were no cards that I needed. Jon was off to a great start. However, instead of building up his economy, he decided to buy different cards. Mike had mining as well, but he took a time-out to buy Cloth making as well.

Once I got my economy up to six income cards, I turned my sites to victory points. I bought two city centers and one city wall for the win.

Dampfross

Ed pulled out Dampfross, a old (25 year old) train game. This game uses dice in a number of ways. The first way was somewhat useless. The start player rolls a six-sided die and builds that long of rail. Everyone else builds one after the other and then play passes to the left. This continues until all but three cities have been connected. The first player to connect to any city gets 6 dollars.

Next was the random and painful part of the game. Two cities are picked and a race is run from one to the other. Everyone who joins the race rolls two dice and moves their train that many spaces. So, you had better roll well or miss out on any rewards. The most painful aspect of this game is that it is possible that both the start and end cities will be your own and very close together. Other people who use your track only pay 1 dollar per hex up-to a maximum of ten. So, if the cities are 3 hexes away and two other people join, it is possible that you can lose the race and receive 6 dollars, the second place person will receive 7 dollars, and the first place person will receive 17.

This actually happened three times in our game to Dave. Another slightly less painful occurance is if there is a track where two people have to pay equal amounts (or even relatively equal) to run the race, then it is random whether you win or the other person wins. This happened to me a couple of times. And it sucks because the vast majority of the track was owned by me.

Darjeeling

Next up was Darjeeling, which was a game I wanted to try at BGG.con. I was glad to try it at Ed’s since a couple of people in my group are against playing it again. I liked the first playing of it. It seems like a good lunchtime game candidate.

Age of Steam: Golden Spike

John expressed interest in playing this team version of Age of Steam. So I did everything possible to make this happen. Including getting John to walk off the start up of Hamburgum. After reading the rules, Ed and I decided to be on opposite teams and each take one of the other newbies as their teammate. However, it seems that we misunderstood how the teams were formed. Because Ed (who started third) chose to build track on the same side that I had made us partners.

We played half the game before we noticed this mistake. Here I was helping John out by giving him advice and not taking Urbanization from him. I was also hosing Ed at every opportunity.

I made a critical error during this game. I noticed that Dave was within striking distance of Promontory. But it was through three mountain hexes and therefore expensive. I told Ed this but we both ignored it and continued playing. What we should have been doing was delivering cubes to cities along the main route. This would have connected us to Promontory.

I think Dave did the wrong thing by ending the game without making sure he would win. John had built much more track than he did thanks to owning all of the track along the main route. This gave him the win.