Antike

Mike and I planned on playing Antike and then Indonesia for Ed’s long game day. So I was looking forward to the trip up north. And this game was different than the other playing was. (Besides the fact that the red tide was not present). There was very little fighting during the game. However, there was a massive military build up. Jon would be the first to build troops. And the rest of us, fearing an invasion from Jon, would build up as well. Towards the end of the game, I built up all of my ships and all but 4 of my armies. I was the first to fight when I needed 1 more city for another card (by attacking Roxana). Jon messed up by missing an opportunity to take out one of Ed’s temples for the win. And instead, Mike built another temple for the win.

Kubb

Unfortunately, Mike hosed me by not playing Indonesia. Clark, who we had not seen in a while, brought a Viking throwing sticks game. And he set it up outside and taught us the rules. I braved the cold winds to play with Jon. And we did very well and were in the lead for the whole game. After knocking down the opponent’s sticks, I had one shot to knock down the king for the win. Which I did!

Hacienda

Another playing for me, and this is the third time that I have started this game! Which I think is a disadvantage, but anyways… I taught this game to two new people. We used the symmetrical board but I didn’t concentrate on building a large land area. Instead, I tried to connect to as many markets as I could. So I played a lot of animals. This probably speeded up the game. At the end of the first scoring I was behind. But during the final scoring I was in the lead. Until Susan’s water scored for 20+ points which vaulted her into first! Good first game win Susan!

Jambo

While we were waiting for the others to finish their games, Susan and I started a game of Jambo. This is a game of buying and selling goods. However there are an awful lot of special event cards (items, animals, or people) for my tastes. I had trouble finding the cards that you actually need to win the game. Namely the buy or sell cards. And of the few that I did find, only a couple were usefull to me. Probably a game that I would not play again…

Intrigue

Ed suggested we play this game of backstabing and treachery. And I acquiessed reluctantly. You have a house that has four positions in in that pay 1K, 3K, 6K, and 10K per turn. And you have two each of four types of workers that you send out. And once one category of worker is in a position in a house, only that category can work there. So, you first collect income. And then you make deals with applicants sitting in front of your house. And then send two applicants in front of other people’s houses. The meat of the game is in the deal making part. You can make deals with people but they are not honor bound to follow them on their turns.

On the first turn, I sent two people to Ed’s house since he was going next and there would be no conflict. I made an agreement for a 6K position and I hoped that he would place the other in at least a 3K position. But Ed put him in the 1K spot. However, I was at least able to maintain parity with Ed during the game since I kept his person in my 6K spot as long as he kept mine in his 6K spot. On my next turn, I sent a person to Mike and gave him 5K to put him in a good spot. However he choose to put him in the worst spot (1K). This effectively burned any future deals with Mike for the rest of the game. Which was surprising that he did that so early in the game.

It was clear that Mike was winning the game. However, only Ed and I saw that and tried to make deals to avoid that. The other players were not so concerned with that and allowed Mike to get paying positions. Ed’s workers were decimated towards the end. He had only one worker in a paying position. However, the surprise ending was that Roxana pipped Mike by one 1K for the win! We were definately giving her too much money in our deals with her…