Weekend Gaming: Terra Mystica

First off, happy belated Mother’s Day.
Now on to the gaming. Friday, I taught Joe, Louis, and Kevin Terra Mystica. I was playing as the Nomads again. I spent most of the game building all over using improved boats to get around. While doing that, I was ignoring the cult tracks which would be my undoing.

Kevin was mastering all of the Cults, and had built a sizable lead there. Joe was a strong competitor, but couldn’t quite squeeze past Kevin. Louis’ Giants were working toward a large empire, but my boats were the key to my dominance on land.

In the final scoring, it was the cults that made all the difference. Kevin’s points there pushed him over 100 points for the win.

Saturday night, Louis and Kevin joined us for another game of Terra Mystica. I was playing as the Chaos Magicians, with Gina as the Fakirs, Louis playing the Darklings and Kevin as the Dwarves.

I started by building my Stronghold on the first turn. I had planned to take advantage of the double favors for Temples, so a temple came shortly after. My kingdom wasn’t huge, but by the end it consisted of a Stronghold, Sanctuary, and two temples.

While I was working on that, Gina and Kevin were expanding through the center, and Louis had the right side of the board mostly to himself. He was maximizing the Darklings’ bonus points for terraforming and jumped to a big lead.

I had managed to take control of three of the four cults, but even maximizing that and trying to get as many bonus points each round it wasn’t enough. Louis, Gina and Kevin all tied for largest empires, and Louis had too big of a lead to catch.

We finished the night with a game of Glen More. Louis and Gina were focused on whiskey, but Louis managed to snag the first two Taverns. Kevin was getting a bunch of points early using an Annual Fair and Butcher, but didn’t have much for end game. I was all about villages, chieftans and special tiles. I had some points from a sheep butcher, but most of my points came from the chieftans and the castle that provides a bonus for villages. The final score was extremely close, with Louis losing to me by a single point.