July 23, 2004 |
Sam and Scott wanted to play some games, so Sam made burgers and we all drank Miller Lite for a while. Our two games of Clans were succeeded by a visit from Stu, who works for the Kerry campaign, and when Jamie showed up we got to Sam's favorite, Puerto Rico.
| Clans |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 48 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 47 | 2 | |
| Sam | 40 | 3 | * |
Notes: In Clans, everyone is secretly assigned one of 5 tribe colors. The tribe markers are spread evenly across the board, and players take turns moving markers into spaces with other markers. When a group of markers is isolated, that group is scored. Each color in the group gets one point for every marker in the group. For instance, if a group consists of 3 red, 2 blue, and 1 yellow, Red, Blue, and Yellow each get 6 points (3+2+1). The player who created the group (i.e. isolated it), gets a bonus chip - an extra scoring point counted at the end of the game.
There are a couple other little rules involved. Notably, there are bonus points for creating a group in a certain type of terrain at a certain time, and there are "conflicts" if every color is involved in a finished group. Conflicts are resolved by emptying the group of every color with the fewest markers. So, if there are 1 yellow, 1 red, 2 blue, 3 red, and 2 green, the yellow and red markers are removed, then the region is scored (2 blue + 3 red + 2 green = 7 points for those colors). That's it.
I warned these guys that this was a pretty abstract game, and that oftentimes after the game ends people tend to say, "How'd I win?"
This one was no different, though I tried to add strategy tips I'd read on the Board Game Geek. I could only remember one, though - "Don't make big groups. Try to have your color present in as many small ones as possible." I'll list some others below.
Anyway, Scott and Sam just kind of pushed their pieces around, though Sam seemed to appreciate the subtleties involved a bit more. I tried to figure out who was who, then manipulate the pieces so that I was getting my black tribe into a lot of pots. I also finished a lot of groups, but Scott finished one more than I did - which resulted in his "How'd I win?" victory. It should be noted that the red color was far ahead of all of us, but no one was red - which I suspected.
| Clans |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Sam | 56 | 1 | |
| Mike | 54 | 2 | |
| Scott | 53 | 3 | |
Notes: In the second game, Sam made a very transparent move that marked him off as the Yellow tribe (he created a conflict in which only yellow pieces survived). Everyone played pretty well. I stuck to my strategy, trying to pin Sam's yellow and Scott's green into smaller areas while manipulating my black tribe into slightly larger groups. I almost pulled it off, but my black tribe marker was way ahead about 2/3 through, and so I was the victim of a short "get the leader" campaign, though Scott and Sam later admitted they didn't know that I was black.
We all managed to create 4 groups (and get 4 bonus pieces each), and Sam held out for a close victory. I therefore lost 2 games of Clans by a total of 3 points.
I like this game. It's short and the strategies are there, though it seems that they aren't. Here are some more strategies that I found on Boardgamegeek by some folks who play 100's of games of it on brettspielwelt.com.
| Puerto Rico |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 65 | 1 | |
| Jamie | 50 | 2 | |
| Sam | 43 | 3 | |
| Scott | 35 | 4 | |
Notes: We almost were set to play Power Grid, but when Sam learned that I brought Puerto Rico over, that ended that charade. Jamie and Scott had only played once before, and I let Sam sit to their left. This gave him the opportunity to take advantage of their miscues rather than me. Also, I gave him the option of 1) putting himself to my left to try to overcome my manipulations, or 2) putting himself to my right - giving him the advantage but letting me take advantage of his miscues. He chose option two. Starting with the starting player, we went Scott - Sam - Mike - Jamie.
As always, I went for money early on, and so did Sam. Jamie and I, though, since we had corn, managed to get a few early shipping points, and Scott soon had his own Indigo boat, and Sam, who had concentrated on money and quarries early, didn't ship until about the 4th time the captain was taken. He did recover nicely from that, though.
Nobody was able to get a monopoly on anything. Scott's Indigo was challenged by Sam. Sam's sugar was challenged by Jamie. Scott's coffee was challenged by Jamie, and my corn was challenged by Jamie and, much later, by Scott. Oops! I did have a monopoly on tobacco. An absolute monopoly. I was the only one producing tobacco the entire game. No one challenged me at all. This was a grave mistake.
I squandered one entire boat - the 7 boat, which is the biggest - by putting one barrel of tobacco on it each shipping phase. Why did I do this? Because I also had the harbor. The harbor gives +1 VP each time you place barrels on a ship, so I made each of my tobacco barrels worth 2 VPs, 3 if I had chosen captain (which I frequently did in order to put one of my other goods - Indigo or Corn - onto one of the other ships). With a small market, tobacco production, and a factory, I had plenty of money and I made good on almost every turn. I made one small miscue when I grabbed a third tobacco field late in the game, which allowed Jamie and Sam a chance to pick their own tobacco field, but they both passed on the chance.
Sam blamed himself badly at one point for choosing Craftsman and allowing me to pick Captain with all the ships available for shipping. That wasn't a good move, by any means, but it was kind of like blaming losing a war because the USO show had Bobcat Goldthwaite instead of Bob Hope. It certainly may not have helped the cause, but it didn't make much difference.
Scott had money problems most of the game, and Jamie played pretty well, but someone - anyone - needed to have stopped my tobacco monopoly. I figure I must have gotten about 10-12 extra victory points and at least 5 or 6 doubloons more than I should have by being left alone. Here's how the scores broke down at the end. (I could have given Scott and Sam a few extra points in the end, but I was malicious and didn't let them fill their buildings with colonists).
| Player | VP Chips | Building VPs | Bonus VPs | Total |
| Mike | 28 | 23 | 14 | 65 |
| Jamie | 21 | 23 | 6 | 50 |
| Sam | 27 | 16 | 0 | 43 |
| Scott | 20 | 15 | 0 | 35 |
I'm worried that if I keep having these runaway victories I might scare Sam off Puerto Rico forever.