June 5, 2004 |
Karla told Jamie that we were going to play games Saturday, so we did. We endured the incredible heat of our little place (we kept it hot for the sick parakeet's benefit) to make it through 3 games.
| Hansa |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 49 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 41 | 2 | * |
| Annie | 38 | 3 | * |
| Karla | 32 | 4 | * |
Notes: In Hansa, each player runs a trading company which operates in the Baltic Sea. Each turn, the players sail the boat around the sea and try to place themselves in good operating conditions to win by 1) setting up markets in cities (which cost a good), 2) buying goods (which cost gold), and 3) selling goods (which give victory points, but cost a market). Moving the boat costs 1 gold, and when purchasing goods, the money goes to the player who has the majority in the city. Victory points are earned at the end also by having markets in each city.
Everyone went for a "goods" strategy early on, and although Dan was often weak in markets, he often had a lot of cash (as he had the majority in a few cities early), and he managed to sell his goods a lot. One turn he sold 4 goods of two colors, and he felt that it should have cost 2 markets instead of 1 (he felt this was unfair - I think that it was simply an excellent move, plus, it cost him ALL his goods, which he could not use to create a market later).
Karla was not only having trouble collecting goods, but she was losing goods when Dan and Annie were converting them into points. I was just ahead of Karla, and despite my low income, I started to make some forays into Dan's big leads, and, after I set him up for a couple big turns early on, I made sure to make his turns cost him extra - if I felt he would be able to do to much with his cash, I would leave him in a crappy city.
In sum, there were a couple things that helped Dan win. First, he played well. Second, I played poorly. In this game, you can really help the person behind you if you're not careful. I wasn't. I set him up for some very big scores early on, and then kept doing so for too long. This got us all killed. By the end, I was careful to leave Dan far away from what I thought he would do, and his scoring really slowed by the end. Karla gave up on turning goods into VPs (she was way behind) to get a market in each city and keep anyone from taking a majority. My better play by the end got me closer to first, but I never had a chance.
| Coloretto |
| Results | ||||
| Player | Role | Character | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 77 | 1 | ||
| Annie | 74 | 2 | ||
| Dan | 62 | 3 | ||
Notes: I wanted to play a 3 person game (I've never played with less than 4 before, and usually I'm stuck with 5), and I had a spectacular first round (41 points), and a solid enough second (36) to fend off Annie's attack (41 point second round). Dan was bitching and moaning, and his attempts at greed (where, when you're the only person left and you try to stockpile a row for yourself) were tremendous failures. This is opposed to his greed luck in Ra, where he always pummels us.
I should add that I made a play in the second round that really helped Annie (in an effort to keep myself from getting hammered), and then she accidentally helped me out big time one hand later. Though the moves balanced out, it kept me in the lead. We only played two rounds as Jamie showed up and Karla had returned and made ice cream drinks for us (ice cream, amaretto, and vodka).
| Oasis |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 121 | 1 | |
| Jamie | 100 | 2 | * |
| Karla | 86 | 3 | |
| Annie | 71 | 4 | |
| Dan | 56 | 5 | |
Notes: I brought this game out for a second play, and it took too long. I think the trouble was that we were all giving too consistent offerings, and the cards never really got mixed up. So the same amount of stuff kept becoming available. Plus, Jamie and Karla were sitting next to each other, and they distract each other to no end. It wouldn't have been so bad, but Jamie kept pinching off my camel train and the heat was nigh-suffocating.
Jamie had a HUGE camel caravan, but very little else. I thought he might win when his caravan (17 strong) was bolstered by Annie flipping over one too many cards - a double carpet multiplier. I thought that would do me and my incredibly strong rock tiles in. Karla had a nice oasis group, but couldn't get a multiplier tile for her rocks, and Dan did a piss poor job at everything except steppes, but that was it. Annie had a nice group of camels, but very few multiplier pieces - plus Jamie blocked off everyone's camel groups. He really had a ton of them.
I counted camel points first, and Jamie had a HUGE lead - 85 to about 33 or something (for Annie). I had only 3 points, and Karla had about 8. But Jamie had very little else, and I had enough balance in everything else to overcome Jamie's lead - as my rocks gave me a blistering 90 points (10 multipliers x 9 rock tiles). Dan knew he did miserably and thanked Karla profusely when she ended the game.
No one group of tiles was worn out - they all were taken away equally, and some rounds simply took too long. I think with more focus and less oppressive heat this game will be better (again). We need to do better jobs of making offers, too. Dan was the only person really willing to go against the grain in offers (partly because he'd played before and partly because he had a few more cards early on).