May 22, 2004 |
Last minute gathering to play some games on a Saturday night. Jill and Sam stopped by near the end of our first game, and Dan and I played a very late game when we were a little tipsy.
| Carcassonne |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 150 | 1 | |
| Dan | 143 | 2 | |
| Annie | 130 | 3 | |
Notes: I received a ton of cloisters, which took me a while to complete, but once I did, the game was pretty much mine. There was a 48 point field that we all shared, but I had a 12 pointer at the end to pass Dan for the Victory. Annie, as I recall, had a lot of farmers out, but only 2 of them were worth any points. Dan and Annie also shared a nice big 26 point city.
| Quo Vadis? |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Jill | 20 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 18 | 2 | |
| Sam | 9 | 3 | * |
| Annie | 2 | 4 | * |
| Dan | OUT | 5 | * |
Notes: Everyone's first time but me, and I tried to get a big lead, zip about quietly, and then sneak into the final committee for a big bribe. And it worked...almost. Dan was going to be the last one into the final chamber, but everyone knew he had the most laurels (Annie and Sam both had paltry totals, so I was only concerned with Dan and Jill). Dan started to grumble that we shouldn't play these types of games and then Annie laughed as she claimed the final spot in the last committee.
Dan's big mistake was grabbing too many big laurels on one side of the path. He had 4 out of 5 in one committee and 3 out of 3 in another, and was grabbing all the laurel wreaths. He tried to make some big bribes, but they didn't quite pan out, and although he was going to eventually make it into the final chamber, Annie made good use of the Caesar token I had placed for her to grab the last spot.
Dan, despite "throwing laurels around like a Saudi Prince", still had enough to have won: 21. Jill seems good at these types of games, as she lets people propose deals to her and quietly gathers up points.
| Killer Bunnies |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | **Magic Carrot** | 1 | |
| Jill | Lost | ||
| Dan | Lost | ||
| Sam | Lost | ||
| Mike | Lost | ||
Notes: Next up was Killer Bunnies, and we were all a little wary of how it would turn out. So, we played with only 12 carrots (instead of the full 20 with the expansion sets).
The game went pretty innocuously, as most of the weapons were launched when the attacker had no bunnies. I started the game with the heavenly halo, then acquired Annie's red sinister bunny (who had a quadruple lucky clover). Despite my good luck in keeping bunnies alive, though, I could only amass 2 carrots. It was almost enough. Annie had 4, Dan had 1, Sam had 2, and Jill had 3 (I think). I did the dramatic carrot flip, and Annie ended up holding the magic carrot, though my Samurai carrot made it to the final two. All in all, the game didn't take long at all, mostly because there were fewer carrots.
One other note: no one bought cabbage or water or defense cards, as no one played a feed the bunny card!
| Can't Stop |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | 3 | 1 | |
| Mike & Dan | 2 | 2 | |
| Jill | 1 | 3 | |
| Sam | 0 | 4 | |
Notes: Dan and I teamed up to play some Can't Stop, and we were just 2 rolls away from closing the 6, but we were compromised because that was our only possible roll in the final round. Annie just needed two rolls on her turn to close the 5, and Sam and Jill really weren't too threatening.
Annie managed to pull it out on her second roll.
| Domaine |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 48 | 1 | |
| Mike | 45 | 2 | |
Notes: Sam and Jill left and Annie crashed on the couch. Dan and I still wanted to play, though, so we scooped out Domaine. Dan had a big advantage early, as he had made better opening placements than I did. I felt behind the 8-ball the rest of the way, and my inebriated state didn't help much. Dan was also pulling in 3 income per turn while I was only netting 1, and he made a key Alliance between two of our cities just as I was about to kick his butt.
Still, I recovered, and managed to protect my weaker domaine from Dan and make inroads into the neutral areas and Dan's weakest Domaine with my most powerful (4 knight) domaine. I managed to grab the castle in the center, and although I had been down 28 to 6 at one point, I actually came back and took the lead by a point or two as Dan jostled for position. Still, Dan was in much better endgame shape, as he had much more money, and I was unable to do anything more than grab about 1 point at the end. The score at that point was Dan 43, Mike 42, but as Dan had more money, he got the 5 points and I got 3 for the final tally.
In the last game we really focused on wall pieces, but this game had a LOT more variety. We really made excellent use of all the card types - we each made alliances, used betrayal cards, expansion, etc. We each attained and lost monopolies on one type of mine, and I managed to out-income Dan, 4 to 3, by the end thanks to some good maneuvers.
Despite my bad start I played well, but Dan played well, too, unfortunately. He stopped two or three of my big plans just in time, and managed to fend me off in the end. It was a good, aggressive game.