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December 06 |
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5th October 05.....................................................7 Players We were down to 7 tonight and next week it will probably be fewer still with Dave Dudley and Steve Hilton both off.
San Marco – 75 minutes
Richard and Duncan were introduced to San Marco for the first time.
Carcassonne – 40 minutes
Played using the Count of Carcassonne expansion. Carcassonne is a favourite of Duncan’s I understand. I think this is the first time anyone has played with the Count expansion.
Katzenjammer Blues – 10 + 10 minutes
Ra – 70 minutes
It was time to introduce James to our most played game of 2004. It is not a game that grabs you from the first playing, it take a couple of games to appreciate.
First Epoch. I got out very early with only a couple of Ra’s on the track. My bluff was called when I was on my last sun and I was forced to bid when I didn’t really want to. James also got out early which left Dave and Steve to collect full racks of tiles. Steve came out with a lot of Pharaohs. It feels to me like the person who can score the most Pharaohs on the first Epoch goes on about two thirds of the time to score most pharaohs on each of the remaining two scoring rounds. I scored least points with 4. I think Steve had most with 7.
Second Epoch. This was the shortest of the epochs with its main feature being that no floods were drawn. This was devastating to James who had managed to come out of the first epoch with 6 rivers. Steve was still scoring better than the rest of us helped by his Pharaohs.
Final Epoch. We went into this round with Steve about 10 points up with the rest of us all about equal. A reasonable balance of everything came out. I caught a full rack of tiles that must have given me 20 points. Steve could have taken it for himself but it didn’t have anything like that value to him. Steve got lowest suns and Dave got the most.
Industrial Waste – 70 minutes
I enjoyed this game to the extent that I will consider buying a copy when I am at Essen if it is going cheap. Steve and Dave made a much better job of managing their factories than James and I did. James spent heavily on cleaning up after disasters. I was the only one who took out a loan which I never managed to pay off. Steve ended the game after comparatively few turns. From where I was sat it looked like he was controlling the game though Dave was mirroring him most of the game. Dave just missed out on victory when he did a surprise double production on the last turn.
12th October 05.....................................................4 Players Mike’s report: Well, just four of us braved the downpours and ignored the soccer, and were rewarded with an enjoyable marathon gaming session - we finally stumbled out of the Club at 11.10 p.m.!
Medici – 60 minutes
If you don't make a reasonable start in Medici it's very difficult to get it back, I picked up lowest values bonus score and a nondescript set of commodities on Day 1 and that was curtains for me. Chris came back strongly on Day 3 with joint highest values score plus good commodities but Julian's excellent 2nd Day (including a fortunate 10 Gold that dropped in his lap) meant he couldn't be caught.
El Grande – 120 minutes
As close and exciting as the scores suggest! Chris was always a little behind, Steve and I were the mid-game pacesetters but I attacked Steve and ignored Julian too much and he got back in the game. A vicious two-pronged attack by Steve and Julian hit me so hard in Round 7 that I thought I'd be looking at 3rd place, but I managed the end-game bid cards and court movement better than the others (a facet of the game where experience counts for a lot, I think) and clawed it back. Having not had a good experience of EG the first time they played it a long time ago, this time it got a much more favourable reaction from Steve and Chris, so this may see a few more plays now.
19th October 05.....................................................8 Players There were 8 of us again tonight which we split into 2 tables of 4. Both Julian and I had come back from Essen with new games to play and Steve had been off buying new games at Waylands so we are going to be in for a few weeks of learning rules.
I will be away next week. I am busting to play Caylus but it will have to wait.
Settlers of the Stone Age – 90 minutes bgg
Julian picked up the German version of this game for a measly ten Euros. I have had Keith’s copy of this game sat on my shelf for a couple of years and have never brought it to the club. It is a game that for me falls into the same category as Entdecker, Candamir and Elasund all beautifully produced Klaus games that are fun to play a couple of times. None of these games engage my competitive spirit. I don’t care how well I do though the experience of playing is pleasant enough.
Richard took the lead from the off with Julian managing to keep pace for about the first 30 minutes of play. Beyond this polarization took hold and Matt and I went backwards as quickly as Richard went forwards.
Carcassonne – 40 minutes
We used the river expansion to open up the game a little before the meeple placement hotted up. Richard Matt and Julian were all sharing a prosperous field which if scored jointly, would have seen me finishing last and Matt would have finished well ahead. Late in the game Richard inadvertently brought Julian’s 3rd farmer into play allowing Julian to take the points for the big farm and win the game. In fairness I think Julian would have made the connection without Richard's help.
Time Pirates – 90 minutes bgg
This is the first time any of us have played this Alan Moon game.
Vampire – 20 + 20 minutes bgg
Yet another Knizia card game, he must make up a new one of these every other week.
26th October 05.....................................................11 Players We got a healthy turnout of 11 tonight. I forgot my camera yet again so we have no pictures. I think these reports are a bit boring without pictures and the web site is getting dull without the colour pictures bring so I will make an effort to bring the camera along next week.
Caylus – 150 minutes
There is a lot of buzz about this game on bgg at the moment. It was the most talked about strategy game from this years Essen. It is great to play a game that has only been around for 2 weeks. The only people in the world who have played it more than a couple of times are the play testers. Here is a nice review by one of the testers.
With explanation time added in we could not manage to finish a full game. It was decided to call the result 2 building spaces in from the final scoring space. This worked ok but left the result, had we carried on, slightly in doubt. I know Matt would still have won but I could not say for the rest of us. James was marching up fast and I felt like I was on the wane.
This is a big game full of possibilities. I can only comfortably make space for a new release like this once or twice a year because of the table time that will be needed to explore its possibilities. I can say already that for me it is up there with Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence and Amun Re.
We were all finding our feet so I can’t pick off much in the way of comment on individual strategies. Matt was early into the castle which gave him a neat foothold on the favours table. James seemed to do the best job of accumulating money which by the end of the game he was managing to convert neatly into prestige. Richard was up with Matt for half the game, with some sensible balanced play, I am not sure why his score tailed off. I used the bottom buildings row of the favour chart which I think I could have made really work had I managed to win more favours.
Advanced Civilisation - 120 minutes bgg |