September 14th, 2004 |
I arrived late in an effort to get some beer, only to have Dan yell at me for not calling him, as he had already brought a twelver of Miller Lite. He also ate goulash while Annie had a ham and cheese sandwich.
| Traumfabrik |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 78 | 1 | |
| Annie | 59 | 2 | |
| Dan | 57 | 3 | |
| Karla | 35 | 4 | |
Notes: Karla called for Traumfabrik, and I was happy to play it. We each took our studios, and I made a concerted effort to stay near the lead of actors when it was time to go to parties. That paid off really well. Karla kept getting stuck with nothing during the parties, partly because she always went last (because she had few actors) and partly because she kept getting new movies to make that didn't require actors, and the last choice was invariably a 1 or no star actor.
Anyway, I made Gone with the Wind starring Henry Fonda pretty quickly, which was a 14 point movie. It was the only movie made in the first round, and I managed to get top movie honors as well as first entertainment movie. Karla was soon able to finish a 6 point copy of The Court Jester, and Annie managed a 16 point Casablanca in the third round (to get the award for first drama).
Dan did his typical thing which was to gather a ton of contracts and wait for stuff he really wanted. This tended to backfire a bit, though, as one of us would invariably raise the price higher than he wanted to pay. He did manage to make an 18 point copy of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (starring Marilyn Monroe) in the third round, though, taking best picture for the round. He also managed a stinker of 3 points, which was highlighted by the appearance of Mike Nerdahl, who made sure The King and I was awful.
In the last round, I managed to make an excellent version of Ben Hurr worth 17 points. That gave me more than enough to overcome the awards I didn't get:
Dan was hurt not only by paying too much for certain auctions but also by only getting a total of 4 possible movies in front of him. One of the keys to the game is to get movies dones quickly so that you can grab some more potential films.
Karla's movies.
| Edel, Stein & Reich |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | $110 Million | 1 | * |
| Annie | $73 Million | 2 | * |
| Dan | $63 Million | 3 | |
| Mike | $27 Million | 4 | |
Notes: Dan wanted to play something old, but didn't really volunteer anything that anyone else wanted to play, so I grabbed this darling little game that I really enjoyed the first time we played. This time we played with 4, which guarantees more unhappiness out of the players. The bulk of that unhappiness landed on me.
Basically, almost every turn there were either 3 of kind being offered (in which case only 1 person got anything), or there were 2 people getting what they wanted and 2 others having to barter. I always seemed to be the one needing to trade or not getting anything. The first round was really bad, and I managed all of $6 million, which is so bad as to be laughable. Karla and Dan were the leaders, and Annie had managed to get close to $20 million.
The second round started off okay, as I managed to score my yellows for a quick $6 million, but then my run of awful luck struck. While I took every turn bartering or getting nothing, Karla was getting pretty much what she wanted, Dan was also doing pretty well (after a few turns of some awesome gems resulting in nobody getting anything, everyone was scared to try to get good gems - so they avoided them. Dan took advantage of this late in the game to get some great gem collections for free). Annie also occasionally got something for free, but I went about 12 straight turns either bartering or getting nothing. The second round ended with Dan leading in rubies, but Karla led in all three of the other gems and received a bonus $7 million for having the sole topaz majority. Annie received the contract money.
With about 2 turns to go in the final round I finally managed to get something unopposed, but I was in such dire straits that it didn't matter. Karla had another excellent turn, winning two more gems, while Dan and Annie had the majority in the other two. I split the contract money with Annie. I never once had the majority in any sort of gem throughout the entire game. I blame it completely on my unfortunate card play.
Despite my utterly paltry effort, I still enjoyed the game. Like By Hook or Crook, sometimes you just have to smile and shrug.
| Killer Bunnies |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | Magic Carrot | 1 | |
| Karla | 7 carrots | 2 | |
| Annie | No bunnies | 3 (Tie) | |
| Mike | No bunnies | 3 (Tie) | |
Notes: Dan said he was really in the mood for this, and I wanted to try it out with my new Violet Booster, so we gave it a go. Dan and I each started out with triple specialty bunnies, and we parlayed them into some nice opening turns. Then the Feed the Bunny cards came fast and furiously, and Karla, with her two large prune danishes, was in great shape. Dan, Karla, and I also bought defense cards, which barely lasted through the first 5 rounds or so. There were also a lot of weapons coming at us.
At one point I had four bunnies, and then I lost them all really quickly as Dan played a Feed All the Bunnies card on me for 3 cabbage and 1 waters apiece. That cost me all of them. Then Karla played the Cyber bunny on me and I managed to chase him off, though Annie killed him on her turn. Dan used the F-18 hornet and blew up Karla's bunny. The jet flew back to Dan before doing any more damage, as Annie had a barrier that turned the jet around. I also lost a bunny by being stupid and playing a boomerang card on Karla. The stupid thing, of course, came back and killed me.
I was short on Kaballa Dollas all game, and Karla and Annie were getting a ton of them. Annie played the Freshness Center card on me, and I had no money, so I had to forfeit my two carrots. (Grr! I hate that card!) I got her back, though, by trading one carrot for two. Annie replied, "That's fine. You probably gave me the magic carrot!" Maybe....
Dan kept destroying us, and whenever he lost a bunny a new one would pop up. I managed to buy the orange pawn, so I got to use the Magic Fountain card twice. The first time it didn't work, but the second time I managed to revive two bunnies - of course I took the specialty bunnies and I had double turns. These guys were quickly wiped out by Dan, who attacked them with Radiation. I had stupidly put my Back to the Future card in the Run pile, so I was unable to use it and save one of my bunnies. Annie spent most turns getting money and buying carrots, and Karla periodically chose new carrots, and as I was more of a target for Dan, her one or two bunnies weren't targeted.
Near the end, Annie targeted one of Dan's bunnies with an earthquake. When I warned her that it would affect an adjacent bunny, she attacked me! I said, "No way!" and made her attack Dan. What the hell?!? I warn her about the effect of a card and then she targets me when I'm trying to save her?!? That was B.S. (Can you tell that I was doing poorly?)
With all my bunnies gone (and all Annie's), Dan selected one last carrot to end the game. Karla had the most cash, so she received Annie's and my carrots - I only had two anyway. I had NO money all damned game. Dan had about a 2 to 1 majority over Karla, and sure enough, Carmen showed up, and Dan unsurprisingly had her. He said afterwards that he had a great time. The game looks so busy with all the pawns, cards, and shops, that Karla wanted to take a photo of it. We played with all 20 carrots, and it took about 65 minutes, which wasn't too bad, and it was non-stop action, because we are all pretty familiar with it. It's reached that point for the four of us where it just flows really nicely. It can get pretty nasty, though.