September 4th, 2004 |
Karla wanted to have people over, so we invited everyone we could manage. Dan, Annie, and eventually Jamie made it over and we made it through a couple shorter games.
| Hansa |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 48 | 1 | |
| Dan | 46 | 2 | |
| Annie | 39 | 3 | |
Notes: It was a very tight game, but Dan couldn't quite remember how the changing of goods into VPs worked, and so he started out by collecting two different colored triple barrels. Not that that's really a detriment, since you can turn one into a market, but he was pissed anyway (Note: when is he not pissed?)
I had the early VP lead in barrels, and I managed to make some nice purchases, and felt like I was the front runner much of the game. Annie tended to only collect two goods markers before converting them into points, and I tried to make sure I had a set of three. This seems like a better policy for two reasons: 1) you get another "bonus" point (each good marker gives you a point PLUS the # of barrels on it), and 2) it maximizes the depletion of your markets. By midgame, Annie tended to be in very few cities thanks in part to her quick barrel turnover.
By the end, Dan had made a pretty good recovery (despite my best efforts to keep him in useless places, he was making nice gains by the end of the game) and was threatening to take me over. Annie initiated the end of the game, and I was the last one to go. I managed to get one last market installed in a city, which was (barely!) the difference.
| Ra |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 50 | 1 | |
| Dan | 33 | 2 | |
| Annie | 25 | 3 | |
| Jamie | 24 | 4 | |
Notes: I can't remember much about this game, except that I used my gods to maximum effect, generally taking a flood tile to go along with all my rivers. I was never penalized (something that really hurt Jamie and Annie, and Dan, to a lesser extent), and I managed to get a good amount of pharaohs, getting the bonus at least twice.
I worked greed to an excellent degree, getting a really nice stock of stuff by the end of the 2nd round. My primary antagonist was Dan (since he always wins), and he tried to get some good stuff for cheap in the 2nd round, but the amount of goodies was always either too cruddy to do him much good or too good to be passed on by the other players' higher tiles.
By the end, Jamie and Annie had a nice group of monuments, but their early penalties (for no civs or low pharaohs) doomed them, despite Jamie's 10 point bonus for having 4 different civs in the 3rd round. My river, no penalty, and strong pharaoh collection left me in good stead. I also was careful to only bid on stuff that had a good bidding tile. Sometimes it was lucky, but other times I bid or not based on the sun tile in the middle. I had excellent tiles all game and I think that had a lot to do with my final standing.
To top it all off, I had the +5 bonus for best bid tiles at the end.