How the game looks with the expansions through orange.
September 28th, 2004 |
Karla bailed out tonight because she didn't feel well, and Dan, Annie and I got in a quick game of St. Petersburg before Jamie, followed quickly by Mark, showed up. It was Mark's first time, and I think he had fun.
| St. Petersburg |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 68 | 1 | |
| Annie | 59 | 2 | |
| Dan | 58 | 3 | |
Notes: The last time we played this it really took a while, and Dan didn't like it. This time it went pretty quickly, and Dan still didn't like it. I'm not sure what he dislikes about it. There are a lot of decisions to make, and the correct one is not always obvious. My experience with the PC version gave me enough of an advantage to come out ahead.
Annie and Dan both went for a building strategy rather early on. They managed to get a decent amount of aristocrats, but I had immense amounts of cash (I also managed to snag an early observatory), and I had 2 more aristocrats than they did, which gave me a comfortable victory. By the end I was getting nearly 40 rubles per turn in the builder phase, and probably close to 30 in the Aristocrat phase.
By contrast, Annie and Dan were a lot poorer, though not terribly so. They had early VP leads, but I bought enough buildings and had enough aristocrats on the final turn to pass both of them by. You guys should play the PC version. Here's the link to it (you'll also want to download the English language pack near the bottom of the page).
| Killer Bunnies |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mark | Magic Carrot | 1 | |
| Mike | 7 Carrots | 2 | |
| Annie | 4 Carrots | 3 | |
| Jamie | 3 Carrots | 4 | |
| Dan | 0 Carrots | 5 | |
Notes: We've played a few good games of this lately (after some terrible ones several months ago), and lately they've really been working out. Tonight was no exception. We played with the Orange expansion pack, which includes the Pawn shop, where you can buy pawns and dead bunnies.
Mark and started off with no bunnies, and I had to instigate the "3 round rule". Due to the Pawn Shop, though, I pushed the rule to 5 turns, since it's possible to get a bunch of money and buy a new bunny in the Orange set. We still didn't get any, though, and I got angry when Annie made me feed my bunny (who died), and then Jamie killed my Holographic bunny with the Nuclear Radiation.
While Mark and I were flopping around and doing nothing, Dan was laying waste, but not getting any carrots. Annie was losing bunnies, and managed to get some carrots. Jamie had an unending stream of bunnies, and was actually spending a lot of time taking double turns, as he managed to get two triple specialty bunnies. Then I played a card that spun everyone's top run card one stop counter-clockwise, and I managed to steal a triple specialty bunny from Dan. Heh heh. That was the move of the game for me.
After that, Mark and I were in good shape, and we hoarded the most bunnies. Mark, at one point, just before I received my triple specialty bunnies, played Poverty Poker, and he, Annie, and Jamie each put a bunny and a carrot in the pot. Mark won - and it wasn't close, 12 to 3 to 2. Mark chuckled heartily.
Soon I amassed a nice amount of carrots, and was taking two turns. I bought the purple pawn, and also managed to get two other pawns (the green and yellow). I also had two large prune danishes, so I was going to be immune from "Feed the bunnies" the rest of the game. I also got a "Random Dolla" card, but only rolled a five. This was a immediately after Jamie just rolled a 20 to avoid being eaten by the Remote Control Piranha, so I was a bit upset.
I got pissed twice. Once when the Nuclear Radiation killed my Holographic bunny, and when Jamie tried to blast my rabbits to bits with the stupid nuclear missile. He changed his mind and played it on Mark. Then Dan redirected it back at Jamie, who got mad at Dan for doing that. "Why'd you do that?!" he lamented. I let him be upset for a little while before reminding him that he had a card that canceled the re-direct card. He was very happy until Mark canceled the missile altogether with an anti-missile card.
I also had a card that let me sneak a peak at the top 5 carrot cards. I was happy to see that I had none of them. I picked up a few more, knowing full well that none of my new ones were in the top five, either. With 7 carrots, I had nearly a 50% shot of winning.
I flipped the carrots one by one. Dan, who had no carrots despite having bunnies all game, was out. Then Annie, then Jamie. With about 6 cards left, I had a 2 to 1 lead on Mark. It got down to 1 to 1. Would it be Max the lunatic carrot? Or Russell the Gladiator? It was Russ and Mark won.
It was a pretty fun game, and it took about an hour or so. I should say that one mistake Annie made was not using the 3 free Kaballa Dolla she got each turn for her Red Congenial bunny. It ended up dying of starvation and Dan bought it from the Pawn Shop later on. If she had spent the Dollas each turn, she could have picked up cabbage, water, and defense cards, all of which were incredibly cheap - 1 for cabbage and defense, 2 for water.
How the game looks with the expansions through orange.
| Liar's Dice |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | Last | 1 | |
| Jamie | 2nd to Last | 2 | |
| Mark | 3rd to Last | 3 | |
| Mike | 1st out | 4 | |
Notes: This was one of the closest games of Liar's Dice we played. No one ever lost more than 2 dice on a call, and there were a lot of exact matches. Jamie lost some first, then Mark, then me, then Dan lost the lead. Near the end, there were only 6 dice left (from 20 starting), and we were all still in it. Dan and Mark had 2 dice, and Jamie and I had 1. I was knocked out when Mark called Jamie on an exact match, and the other three were left with one die each.
Mark went out next, and then Dan won it at the end with a nice roll and bid. I think. Poor Annie just sat and watched, as she refuses to play this game.