For Sale

We started off with this light, but good game. The auctioning is simple and works rather well. You bid for properties which you then turn around and sell for money. There are a number of rounds based on the amount of people in the game. You either increase the bid or drop out, loose half your current bid, and take the lowest property (which number from 1 to 30).

In the second half of the game, you turn around and simultaneous blind bid for money (which number in two sets of 1 to 15). Obviously, you want to use as low a property as you can. I had won the 29 property and knew Susan had the 30. So my dilemma was when to use it. I passed the first opportunity for a 15 and hoped that Susan would acquire it. But, she didn’t. When the second 15 came up, I definitely skipped that one. At the end of the game, I learn that she was not even tracking or going after the 15s. Sigh. I only psyched myself out it seems.

Through The Ages

Next up was Through the Ages. Harry specifically came to Ed’s to play this game. And you did not have to twist Adam’s arm to get him to play it again. I did alright in this game. My weakness was not keeping up my military strength. Adam was in last for most of the game. But, towards the end, he built up his army to be much stronger than the rest of us. He first attacked Harry and took him down a notch. Next he was going to go after either myself or Marty. Fortunately, he went after Marty and came up with an astonishing 37 points taken from Marty. Thankfully, the game ended (he had mentioned that he was going to go after me next). The end game scoring slowly moved Adam firmly into the lead and me into second. I was doing alright with Elvis as a leader and some Theaters. But I think what had hurt me was not having enough civil actions during the game. That and not enough science generation.

Age of Steam: Mississippi Steamboats

With this being one of the last of Adam’s gaming days in Austin, he got to pick the games for us. Which meant some nice and meaty games. He decided on playing a game of Age of Steam with a new map. The addition rules were short and terse. So we misunderstood some of the aspects of the game. Like, for example, of do you need to purchase the track from a city on the river to the river itself? We decided that you had to. Apparently you did not. But I think that it really didn’t hurt the game after all.

Apparently, Adam had made some mistakes in both calculations and misremembering the rules. So he was in catch up mode. Since this is such a tightly strung game, it was rather impressive that he was able to keep up with us after being forced to take three shares a round (and then maxing out early). I thought that I was not doing so well. I wasn’t able to get longer and longer deliveries. And I was dependent on the northernmost river connection which turned out to be rather flaky and only one space wide. The steamboats (which allow you to transport across the river and give you bonuses for delivering on them) are pretty random on where they end up. Rolling two dice and moving the result will do that.

I was surprised when we started the final scoring. I turned out to have the most victory points after the shares were subtracted. And no one out built tracks either…

Tichu

To end the night (and to make me stay for another game), we played a game of Tichu. Adam was aggressive in calling Grand Tichu as usual. But, the heroic team set him every time.

Our (that is to say, Ed’s) only Tichu call was amusing. I led the Mahjong with a straight and random-wished a ten. Which turned out to hurt Ed as he was forced to play. However, he did call Tichu and played the rest of his straight when everyone passed. Ed was able to go out first. And I was able to make it out second with my nine bomb. Sadly, Adam couldn’t either set Ed or stop me from going out with three Aces and three Kings left in his hand…