Weekend Gaming: Big Game Night

Everyone was in attendance Saturday night.  Phil, Ryan, Louis, Kevin, Laurel, and Joe all wanted to play, so I had to setup an additional table to fit everyone in.

Louis, Phil, Kevin and I played Castles of Burgundy, while Ryan, Joe, Gina and Laurel learned Ginkgopolis.  In Castles of Burgundy, I was ignoring boats and animals early.  I was trying to fill in my cities and grab the bonus tiles for the buildings.  I was mostly successful, netting a bunch of Watchtowers and Workhouses along with their bonuses.  Phil and Kevin were both shipping a fair amount of goods, while Louis was filling in a lot of small areas in his estate, grabbing a bunch of bonus points early.

In the end, I was able to fill in my animals, cities and knowledge areas, but the end game bonus wasn’t enough.  Louis had built a huge lead with all of his bonuses during the game, and then added a fair bit more at the end.

 

After we finished that and the others finished both Ginkgopolis and 7 Wonders, Ryan and Laurel had to take off.  The rest of us sat down for a round of Railways of the Western U.S.

 

My baron was to have the most bonds, but that idea got shot down in the opening bid.  Joe was bidding hard for the opportunity to go first and I didn’t want to hamstring myself that much.  I ended up picking up Hotel Topeka with the intent to deliver a bunch of the purple cubes that were in the area.

Gina was also down in that area, delivering to Oaklahoma City and eventually connecting to Grand Junction for the major line bonus.  Joe had Texas to Denver handled pretty well, and Louis had the Tacoma to Ogden route completed.  Phil and Kevin were both on the West coast, with Kevin working much more efficiently.  Phil had taken a ton of bonds to get started, but he eventually started making some big deliveries.

We were all shipping quite a bit, and a lot of towns were emptying out quickly.  The game ended before a lot of us expected it to, and scores were tallied.  Gina finished with the fewest bonds and had scored the Baron for that.  That pushed her into first place, with just barely over 20 points.  It was the shortest and lowest scoring game we’d ever seen.  It was at this point, that someone noticed that there weren’t enough Empty Cities.  Apparently I had miscounted and we only had 16 instead of 18.  We called the game as it was, and another round would not have significantly affected the score most likely.

 

After everyone left, Gina and I finished the night with a quick game of Ginkgopolis.  I focused on spreading out with the urbanization action.  I managed to get the building card that provided a bonus for each building that was size 2 or less.  That netted me about 15 points at the end and provided the winning points.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013!

Joe, Jaime, Ryan, Louis, Gina and I spent New Years eve playing games at our place.  We started with Hawaii while Ryan sat out to just chat.  I got into the boats early and used them heavily to propel a Kahuna/Tiki strategy while also scoring a bunch of points with the boat god.  Joe came close with a strong spear hut strategy, but came up just short.

Jaime had to take off at that point, and Ryan wanted to play 7 Wonders.  I didn’t think I was doing too well, sitting low on military and science.  I was able to use the good provided by my wonder to push heavily into civilian cards in ages two and three, though, and picked up 37 points from them alone.  I ended up edging out Louis for the win.

The last game of 2012 was King of Tokyo.  Joe stood in Tokyo too long and was eliminated early.  I managed to get in at that point and then picked up the Jets card to allow me to escape without damage.  I scored some points and managed to eliminate Louis while in Tokyo.  Gina eventually knocked me out of the city, but not before I had scored 13 points.  I regenerated some and then took control again when Gina had to yield.  It was looking tight between Ryan and I , but I had a nice roll, scoring the last 4 points I needed to take that game.

So after finishing three for three on New Years eve, we started the new year off with Castle of Burgundy with Joe, Ryan, Louis and I.  I didn’t have a real strong idea of how to progress in the game, and I was trying to get some decent animal and city points.  I came close, but Ryan took one of the bonuses I desperately.  Louis had been hitting the boats and shipping early, plus he had the estate with the city area that he managed to complete to launch himself into the lead for good.  It was a closer game than some, but I fell a bit short in the end.

On New Years Day,  Joe and Jaime joined us again for some Star Trek Catan.  I started off hot with some nice Tritanium ports and locations, but then slowed down.  Joe started slower, but eventually started picking up cards with the McCoy ability.  I held the Longest Supply Route card for a while after stealing it from Joe, but then Gina swooped in and built a bunch of roads to take it, putting her within one of winning.  It wouldn’t be enough, though.  Joe managed to grab the last point card from the deck to get him to ten and the win.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: The Hobbit and More

Busy weekend.  In gaming, my wife and I played Agricola Friday night.  I had the Tutor occupation and the Writing Desk improve mt allowing me to play out all of my occupations.  I had a bunch of points on my improvements as well.  I ended up taking a couple Beggar cards early in order to advance my game rather than feed my family.  I ended up with a nice 6 room stone house, a full family and a large pasture covering the rest of my farm.  Gina was pushing heavily into fields of grain, and then ended up with a little of everything in scoring.  It was by far her best game and she finished with 46 points.  My bonus points were just enough, though, to edge her out as I finished with 48.

Then on Saturday, my son and I build the LEGO Hobbit Bag End kit.  It’s a lovely kit and was a lot of fun to build.  My wife and I then had a nice afternoon movie and dinner date going to watch The Hobbit.  It was a wonderful movie, and I would highly recommend it.

We finished up Saturday with Louis, Joe, Ryan, Kevin and Jaime joining us for games.  Ryan, Louis, Kevin and I started the night with Castles of Burgundy.  I was trying to fill my large city area with Churches and Markets after getting the knowledge allowing multiple copies of the same building.  I was successful in that, but Ryan snagged two of the bonus point knowledges before I could.  Kevin was completing a bunch of small areas early in the game and jumped to an early lead.  He never relented that lead, using animals, shipments and area completions to rack up points.  By the time we finished, Kevin had 100 points on all of us for a massive win.

Joe, Gina and Jaime had played 7 Wonders in the meantime, finishing with a 52-52 tie between Gina and Joe, with Jaime coming in second with 51.

We finished up with Gina, Joe, Kevin, Louis and I playing Navegador.  I was trying to push a heavy factory strategy, but I got a bit distracted with privileges and a couple early churches to really get it going.  The others were all playing pretty balanced too, so there weren’t any goods being mass produced.  Kevin was focusing on exploring and colonies, but Gina and Joe were the ones pushing to Nagasaki.  Joe forced the end of the game before pretty much anyone other than Kevin was ready.

The game finished with Kevin in the lead, followed by Louis, myself, Gina and Joe.

Until next time, happy gaming!

 

Weekend Gaming: Dominance

Friday started off with Gina and I playing some Agricola.  My first hand had the Community Well, Water Carrier, Well Builder and a few other cards that would put food onto future rounds.  I was able to get the Well built in round 5, and then it was off to the races.  There was tons of food on each round, and there was only one turn where I needed to worry about food, which was taken care of by a big fishing trip.  By the end, I had points on every one of my improvements and a strong farm for a nice 52 points.

The second game started off well and I was heading for a decent grain strategy.  I had left myself open, needing a grain to get things moving, but Gina got there first.  I had to take Beggars that turn.  I ended up picking up veggies and some animals, but it wasn’t the best.  I ended up losing to Gina by a point.

At that point we decided to play Castles of Burgundy, and Joe happened to call just as we were setting up.  Gina started off very strongly by completing a bunch of small areas early.  I was slowly building up my area, but nothing terribly focused.  In the second phase, I grabbed the bonus for each different type of shipped goods and later the one for each trading post.  I was also able to snatch the knowledge that would let me build multiple of the same buildings in a city, since I only had two big cities with two single hex cities.

I was eventually able to catch up, but I didn’t think I had much chance of winning it.  Gina had a big lead, but not much for bonuses, and Joe had both a good score and some bonuses.  When the final score was tallied though, I was able to just edge out the both of them with my bonuses.

Then on Saturday, Ryan, Jaime, Joe and Kevin joined us, and Louis showed up part way through the first game.  We started with Eminant Domain with Ryan, Kevin, Gina and I.  Gina was pushing heavy Warfare, Kevin was doing Technology, Ryan was mixing some Tech and Trade, and I was going heavy into Survey and Colonies.  I was able to grab two Improved Colonizations and followed Survey every chance I got to pick up ten different planets.  I then was able to use Improved Colonize twice to colonize four planets.  I ended up with 25 points overall for the win.

We finished up the night with a big game of Dominant Species with Joe as the birds, Louis the Arachnids, Kevin the Mammals, Gina the Amphibians and I the Insects.  I started off the game by forcing the Amphibians extinct after removing the elements from their tile.  This also got rid of the Arachnids on that tile and gave me dominance.  The glaciation was mostly controlled by Gina and was mostly pushing away from me.

The Amphibians did come back on the other side of the ice from me, and I was able to spread out pretty well uncontested.  Grass was coming up on the abundance action multiple times and I was able to populate my area with a bunch of it.  Things were going well; that is, until the birds appeared.

Joe was having trouble, as the seed elements had pretty much been wiped off the board and nothing new was coming up.  He eventually was able to adapt and then proceeded to fly across the ice to attack me.  He did some damage, but not enough.  I was able to repopulate, while Joe continued to attack everyone.

Through this whole thing, Gina and Louis had been able to strengthen their positions on the bottom and left of the board.  Gina had come back strong and was picking up Domination points all over the place along with some Survival points.  Kevin was lagging behind a bit, but not too far back.

By the time the Ice Age happened, I had dominance on eight areas with only Joe in the area to get domination points.  I was a ways back from Gina and Louis, though.  I picked up 36 points from the Ice Age and then the final score pushed me into the win.  It was a pretty close game for most of us, and a lot of fun.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Holiday Bonus Edition

Since yesterday was a holiday, Joe and Ryan joined us Tuesday evening for some games.  We started things off with some Eminent Domain.  I decided to try a heavy military strategy, with some research thrown in for extra points.  Gina took the Warfare role occasionally, but not enough for me to really benefit.  Ryan was colonizing a lot, with some decent research and trading for additional points.  Joe was going straight for colonizing a ton of worlds.

I was able to get about four level two research cards and five worlds, but it wasn’t enough.  Joe and Ryan tied on points, but Ryan took the tie-breaker.  Joe losing on ties would become a theme for the day.

Next up was Hawaii.  Phil had joined us at this point as well.  I pushed for a bunch of gods and took the god that scored extra at the end of each round and one that scored bonuses for surfers/boats.  Joe was visiting the islands a bunch, while Ryan managed to grab four side two spear huts and was scoring eight points every time he grabbed a shell.  He just blew past all of us, but didn’t have much for end game bonuses.  I did alright, but didn’t catch Joe or Ryan.  Joe had a bunch of end game points, but ended up one point short of Ryan.

Phil had to take off after that, and so we played some Castles of Burgundy.  I grabbed the bonus tile that provided four points for each kind of animal.  Then I started grabbing banks.  In the second round, I was able to grab the knowledge tiles that allowed me to have more than one of the same building in each city, and to buy any tile on the board.  With this I was able to fill in my entire estate minus the boats.  In one city, all but one of the tiles was a bank.  Joe was heavily invested in trading with a minimal estate, while Ryan and Gina were more balanced.  By the last round everyone was very close.  I had a bunch of bonuses for my banks and animals, and ended up tied with Joe for first.  Since my estate was more developed, I was declared the winner.

On Wednesday, Gina and I played a quick game of Agicola in the morning.  We were both able to fill our farms nicely.  I was using the Manure card to harvest a bunch of my grain and bake bread, while amassing a bunch of animals and fences with a fence delivery.  Gina had a huge pasture and a bunch of points on cards.  She finished with 40 points, while my full family and stone house propelled me to 49.

Then after spending some time at the lake, Joe and Ryan joined us in the afternoon for Navegador.  Ryan wasn’t too sure about the game when we started, but got into it pretty quickly.  He and Gina were sailing around picking up colonies and occasionally exploring, but nothing major.  Ryan was able to amass some major cash and turned it into some factories.  Joe was exploring pretty heavily and picking up a ton of colonies once we got into the spice areas.  My plan was to build factories and process the goods that the others were producing.  I actually ended up with a single colony, and then used my two starting boats to help me around the rondel a couple times.  I picked up a few churches to get me more workers and then just hammered the market, building and workers actions.  Once I got up to enough workers, I picked up the privileges for factories and churches.

I finished the game without a boat or exploration token, but I had a bunch of points from my churches and factories.  Joe had a ton of colonies and points from shipyards.  Joe didn’t have quite enough, and for the fourth time in two days, he fell just short, losing by one point to me.

Until next time, happy gaming.