Phoenicia

First up was Phoenicia again. This time a fort was in the initial three cards. I had seven dollars, so I bid on it and won it. This hurt me getting my initial production ramped up for a couple of rounds. But with two forts in the game, I thought it was worth it. John went for dye houses and was able to purchase both of them. But he was unable to get a fort. Which meant he was limited in the number of workers. I went after mining. However, in a three player game, there is only one smelter. So I was only able to convert my mining into improved mining. I was eventually able to move all of my workers over to mining and keep my production in the lead. Mike was certainly lagging in production. But he was able to buy a city center.

And then came a critical round. I wanted a public works. I made a mistake in letting Mike get the first one cheaply. Mike then bid all of his money for the second. Which was more than I wanted to pay. I turned my sights on the Refugee Settlement, but John bid all of his money to get it. Mike was then able to get a City Walls to go beyond 28. John bought the Trade Fleet. And I bought the second City Walls. I was hoping to buy the Trade Fleet as well to first place guaranteed. But I was able to train enough workers to pip Mike at the end.

Next time, I will try and remember just how important the City Center/Shipyard and the Public Works are to end-game victory point generation. It is not just about ramping up your income production.

Aquadukt

John brought out Aquadukt which is a short and simple dice fest. But not the kind of dice game that I like. On your turn, you can either place up to three of your houses randomly (with a 20 sided die), place a well, or build irrigation channels. Houses can only last on the board if they are next to a 1-sized canal or up to two away from a 2-sized canal. The strategy in this game is when and where you place the wells, and how you extend the canals. When you place houses, it is random in which of the 20 neighborhoods you can place a house. And you might have a choice on where to place the house in the neighborhood.

Today, I won two 2 mark hands. They were pretty similar in that, for the
last bone that I would play, I need it to be a “walker.” Which means that
it needed to be the top value in its suit with no trump possible.

The first hand was: 1:1 2:2 4:4 5:5 6:3 3:3 3:2. For this hand, I called
no trump, and led the 6:3 as a three. One of the opponents knew I was
going to walk a small three but my 1:1 drew out his 3:1. So when I played
my 3:3 it would draw out his last three. And I would claim with the 3:2.

The other hand was: 4:4 6:4 4:3 4:1 1:1 3:3 3:2. For this hand, I
called 4’s as trump. I needed that no one on the opposing team had all
three of the remaining 4s. Fortunately, they did not and I was able to
run trump out. Next up was to play my double 1, the double 3, and then
the 3:2. Once again, no one had “protection for threes” (meaning that
they could keep two threes and play the low one on the double three and
keep the high one to stop the 3:2).

The initial draw was amusing today. When there are more than four people waiting to play a game, we each draw one bone randomly and the people who hold the highest four bones will play. I drew a 6:5 so I was guaranteed to play. The second to the last person drew the 1:0. And, surprisingly, the last person drew the 0:0 (4% chance)!

Phoenicia

First up was Phoenicia — a game I have been waiting on for a while now. Thankfully, the publisher allowed people to play an online version for free while the game was being published. This allowed me to try it to see if it was different from Zepter which I already own. And it is. It is much more condensed and quicker. The only problem with it is how to explain the “technology tree” to new people. There is something on the board that shows what cards give discounts or abilities to other cards. But it shows farming (which does neither) and doesn’t show the granary (which gives improved storage) or five of the other cards in the game.

I took the dyer and dye house, but I was limited by the number of workers since I missed out on both forts. Doug was doing advanced mining, but he was limited by storehouses (and had to discard money). I was eventually able to end it by buying a city wall.

UR

Next up was UR which I bought during Boulder Game’s Saturday night sale. With a FAQ, we had another go at the game. Everyone pretty much left each other alone during the beginning of the game. I had a sweet setup in the corner with Culture and Agriculture rapidly growing my civilization.

Railroad Dice 2

After John nixed To Court the King, we surprisingly settled on Railroad Dice 2! I was glad to get this game back on my radar. After a quick rules refresher (these are perhaps the most poorly translated rules that I own — and after the game was over, I noticed that we got two things wrong.), we played the game. The game bogged down towards the end as all of the simple dice were gone and we could not replace them with complex dice quickly enough. But I still like this game and consider it a fun and innovative game.