Weekend Gaming: So Many Games!

I played a bunch of games this weekend, but didn’t get many pictures of any of them.

On Friday, Gina and I tried out Stone Age for the first time.  It was fun, but we ended up playing a couple rules wrong, which lead to less conflict than there should have been.  As a result, the scores were quite high and I ended up winning about 300 to 250.

We then played Race for the Galaxy, in which I snuck out a win due to some nice development cards.  We finished the night with Eminent Domain.  I was able to get a very nice warfare/trade system going with the tech that allowed me to trade my ships for points.

On Saturday, out friends Nick and Laura joined us for the evening, along with Ryan and Louis.  We played some 7 Wonders, which was won by Laura.  Then Ticket to Ride Europe with the Big Cities cards from the expansion.  Louis was able to rake in a ton of routes, but they were all relatively low points, while I had fewer ones, but with bigger points.  We both finished strong, but I was able to just edge him out for the win by three points.

Next up, Ryan, Louis, Nick and I played a round of Kingdom Builder.  I was doing alright with a big group of settlements in the center, but it wasn’t quite enough.  Louis had connected to every castle and had a strong presents in all regions, which lead to a win by about 10 points.

We finished up the night with a quick game of Monty Python Fluxx, won by Nick.

Then on Sunday, after playing some disc golf and enjoying the park, we headed home for some Eminent Domain with Nick, Ryan, Joe and I.  We played two games, and I managed to win both.  The first was due to a bunch of planets and a strong military presence.  The second was a quick game with nearly everyone either surveying or colonizing each turn.  I had wanted to try a produce/trade system, but ended up with good colonization planets and managed to colonize six planets and win by two points.

We finished up the weekend with a game of Cities and Knights of Catan with Jaime and Ryan (Joe was on baby duty).  Jaime and Ryan were just rolling in cards and resources, while Gina and I were having a tough time getting rolling.  We both managed to get some stuff going late in the game, but it was too late.  Jaime was able to go on a nice run of Cities, and then finished the game with a single settlement.

All in all, a wonderful weekend with a bunch of friends.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Relaxing

Gina and I played Hawaii and Race for the Galaxy Friday night.  In Hawaii, I was trying to be efficient and only bought a single side two fruit.  I was getting good deals and had quite a bit of fruit, but I really didn’t have enough goods each round and I still failed to meet the target at the end of a few rounds.  Gina, on the other hand, was playing with Spear Huts.  She was regularly picking up around 10 points each turn, and I just could catch up.  I did come close, only losing by 15 points.

In Race for the Galaxy, I started with some strong military cards and with some nice Uplift windfall planets.  I also had a Genetics Lab that let me refill those planets so I could trade the genetic goods for cards.  I picked up the New Galactic Order about halfway through, and that was the difference in the game, adding about 15 to my final score.

On Saturday, Ryan, Jaime, Joe, Louis, and Kevin came over.  We started the night with 7 Wonders with Joe sitting out to watch their newborn.  I was trying a money to science/civilian strategy, but I didn’t get enough money and didn’t really see much science.  I did score quite a bit off of civilian cards, but not enough.  I was in last place with 46, while Ryan had a nicely balanced setup and 60 points.

Then Ryan took off, and Joe took Jaime’s place for Hawaii.  All of the huts and the tikis were close to the beach, so I started with the intent to fill my island with Kahunas.  Problem was that I was going last on the first turn.  I missed out on any huts, but I did spend everything I had on Kahunas, which were pretty cheap.  In round two, when I wasn’t able to get a long hut early and the other huts were too expensive, I went to plan B.  I was able to get a side 2 boat relatively cheap, and I grabbed the top island for a foot hut.

From there I continued on my island dominance.  I was able to get the boat/surfer god, and a few more islands, netting me some nice points.  I did end up with huts in all of my villages, but I wasn’t able to get any tikis until the last turn.  Because of that I was only able to score three of my villages.  Even though I was in first going into final scoring (Gina was in second from spear huts and Joe was in third from getting end of round bonuses all game), I didn’t think I had a chance.  Louis pulled in 45 points from all of his kahunas, but not much more.  Gina and Joe only had about 20 end game points.  Kevin had a ton from his irrigation, hula girls and fruit god, but it wasn’t quite enough.  My three kahunas, one hula girl and my boat god were just enough to eek out the win by two points.

The group finished the night with a game of Dominion with Intrigue and Prosperity.

 

 

Everyone seemed to either have a Militia or Goons, so having 5 cards on a turn was a real treat.  I was pushing a Peddler, Minion, Trade Route strategy that started with a couple Militias to get things rolling.  I was off to a slow start, while Joe had started minting gold and was buying Provinces fairly regularly.  He wasn’t able to push the end of the game soon enough, though and started to stall, while I started hitting runs of Peddlers and Minions with 4 coin Trading Posts.  I was able to grab three Colonies to go with my two Provinces and Estates to put me at 44 to Joe’s 41.

 

Gina and I weren’t tired after everyone left, so we played a game of Agricola.  My hand seemed to just go together well, and I actually ended up playing all of my cards.  I had the Bookshelf to help play more occupations, and my Animal Tender allowed me to keep animals in my house early, which I used for food.  The other two major occupations were the Adoptive family allowing me to use my new family members more effectively and one that let me fence in stables when I built them, keeping my wood costs low.  I ended up filling in all but on space and had points in nearly every category.  It was an incredible game that scored me 57 points.

Weekend Gaming: New Game Weekend!

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July, even if it wasn’t a holiday.

Due to the 4th falling on a Monday, I had both Monday and Tuesday off of work, so I had plenty of time this weekend for games, barbeques and home improvements.

On Friday night we had Louis, Kevin and Ryan over and started the night off with a couple games of 7 Wonders.  Gina and I had played a couple hands of the two player variant earlier in the week, so we were pretty familiar with how things worked.  The first game, though, was taken by Ryan.  He had ton of military and civilian structures and no competition on the military front.  He also managed to snag the Guild that provides bonus points for the number of defeat tokens his neighbors had, so that just boosted his score further.

I was able to win the second game with a much more balanced setup.  I only won military victories in the second age, but I had a bunch of science points and points from my wonder to squeeze past Kevin for a one point victory.

Kevin managed to take the last game, again with a pretty heavy military strategy that he decided to try after basically ignoring military all night.

After that, we played a game of Race for the Galaxy (with the expansions), which Ryan had brought over.  Gina and I hadn’t played it in ages, and it was only our third play through.  I started off the game with a planet that provided me with some military bonus, along with some military worlds in my hand.  I decided to stick with that strategy, and it worked out quite well for me.  I was getting to draw 5 to 7 cards each explore phase due to some bonuses and was able to really dig for the military cards.  I didn’t need cards to pay resource prices, typically, so I could pretty much ignore the Consume and Processing phases.  And I had a bonus card in the Rebel Alliance that gave me some significant military power.  I was able to build to 15 settlements and developments (needing 14 to end the game due to the Rebel Alliance).  This gave me a ton of points at the end of the game, placing me well in the lead.

After spending the day putting in some new hardwood flooring in my entryway on Saturday, I was ready for some games that evening.  The group was the same as Friday but with the addition of Joe.  We started off with another round of 7 Wonders.  This one was a little goofy because there was an alternating pattern of military power.  Joe, Kevin and I all had some military power, while Gina, Louis and Ryan had very little, if any.  The people with no military, though, were sitting between those who did, so Joe, Kevin and I were all able to max out our military points.  Ryan was going hard into Science, and Louis had a lot of Civilian points.  Gina had a bit of everything, with a heavy focus on Guilds at the end.  I can’t honestly recall exactly who ended up winning, but I know it was one of the closest games yet.

Next, we went about learning to play Ryan’s new game, Nightfall.  The game itself is a deck building game like Dominion, but instead of building a kingdom, you’re building an army of werewolves, vampires and zombies to attack your neighbors.  It’s pretty cool.  The biggest issue we had learning is that we missed the rule about discarding cards for influence.  Like Dominion, there are cards available to buy.  You need influence to do this, and you only get two influence per turn, while most cards cost three or four.  So the first few turns were painfully slow.  We finally figured out that you can discard cards from your hand for more influence, and then we were finally able to get some better cards into our decks.  It was a fun game, but learning it was a bit painful.

We finished off the night with a game of Dominion, using the new Cornucopia set.  We combined the Intrigue and Cornucopia sets to play the Spice of Life setup.  I’m not sure if it was the lack or buys available, the Young Witch passing out Curses, or a lack of money in general, but the game seemed to drag on a bit.  No Tournaments were won, and while I was able to grab a couple Fairgrounds, I wasn’t quite able to push them to 6 points.  I think Kevin or Ryan ended up winning, but it was a pretty low scoring game.

Sunday was just spend finishing up some projects and playing some video games.  But then on Monday, we spent all afternoon and into the evening barbequing and gaming.  Ryan, Louis, Kevin, Joe, and Dana all joined us.  Ryan, Louis, Joe, Kevin and I played a game of Nightfall before dinner.  Knowing the rules and such made for a much smoother game.  I was trying to get a direct damage and unblockable monster combo going, but it didn’t work as well as I’d like, plus it let Louis combo a card that could mess my stuff up, so I wasn’t having much luck getting anything going.  Luckily I wasn’t looking like much of a threat, so while I took a beating early, I was ignored late in the game and finished up with the least Wounds for the win.

After a dinner of brats and burgers, we played some Princes of Florence.  Louis and I were able to trade some works back and forth, but I messed up in the auctioning and bought the wrong thing one turn.  I’m not sure it was a huge factor, but it did mess up my flow.  Ryan was able to build up a ton of building with his three builders, but Louis ended up winning, with me in second and Joe a close third after getting about 20 points just from Prestige cards.

That was all for this weekend.  Plenty of new games and lots of fun.  I will try and get reviews of 7 Wonders and Nightfall up later this week.  Both games were a lot of fun, and 7 Wonders was definitely a hit with the group.

Until next time, happy gaming!