December 22nd, 2004 |
Lee didn't make it :(
After bumping into him on Saturday, he said, "I'm going to start making it to game nights." We're still waiting, big guy.
It was just Dan, Annie, Karla, and I. Jim was caught in a snowstorm in Indiana and Ohio and had to be rescued by his dad and brother. Game Night was nearly as dramatic.
| Pirate's Cove |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 40 | 1 | |
| Karla | 38 | 2 | |
| Annie | 37 | 3 | |
| Dan | 26 | 4 | |
Notes: Given the choice from among Princes of Florence, Mystery of the Abbey, and Pirate's Cove, Annie picked Ticket to Ride. ("Tickettoridetickettoriiiiiiide!") No dice. We went with Pirate's Cove.
The game started out fairly normally, with everyone kind of doing their thing, and in the first 4 turns, there were 4 fights, and everybody lost one. It was pretty even, as everyone had a few tavern cards, and we all had either Fame points (Mike), treasure (Karla), a good ship (Annie), or money (Dan).
Then things got nutty. Two straight turns, Annie, Karla, and I chose the cannon island. I chose it because I had Billy Bones' parrot, who always uses cannons in battle (regardless of crew). My cannons were at two, my crew at 3, so I wanted to puff up my cannons. The first turn, I damaged Annie's cannons and then was blown up. Karla fled. Dan giggled and laughed at our battle.
Then, the next turn, the three of us went to the same island again. I was surprised Annie went there, but couldn't blame Karla - she needed the cannons. I went first, and did some good damage - to Annie's crew this time. Part of the reason she returned to the cannon island was because I damaged her cannons in the last fight. Since the two levels were equal, I went after the crew. Then, Karla, rather than help out, fled again! This bugged me and I said so. She ignored me. I still lost the battle, but came close to winning and actually got her crew down to 2. No way she'd be coming back to cannon isle again!
Then, on the next turn, Annie went to crew island and Karla went to an island with a lot of treasure, while Dan...decided to go to cannon island, for no real reason except, as he said, he thought I'd go somewhere else! Hmmm, let's see. I've got a parrot that needs cannons, cannons are my lowest stat, and I've gone to that island three straight turns since The Flying Dutchman left. This time I'll go to...Sail Island!
As I tend to do in this damned game, I expressed outrage and frustration. My last two turns had gone completely contrary to plan, then, when I tactically ensure that Annie is off the island, Dan comes along to mess me up. I said something like, "I feel like quitting!" which I meant only for as long as it came out of my mouth. Then Dan offered to go to another island. "Look, I'll go to Hull Island, okay?" That would be unfair to Karla and Annie, though, (and probably Dan), so I said no and was determined to do as much damage as possible to Dan's ship before limping back to Pirate's Cove.
But the Dice Gods were kind to me. As I had a higher sail, I went first, and luckily rolled two hits, knocking Dan down to only 2 sail points. Then he rolled, and hit me twice. He knocked out my MasterCraft cannons. Then I knocked his sails to 1, he hit my cannon again (only 1 hit on 3 dice), and then I rolled a hit on my two dice for victory. To further stress my luck in this battle, Dan did a grapeshot attack with three dice (hitting on a 3,4,5, and 6) and rolled 1,2, and 5. One more hit and I'd have been done for.
That one lucky battle saved my honky butt and doomed Dan to last place. Well, not quite, but it helped me immensely. I couldn't believe I won, and Dan called me a dick.
The rest of the game was quiet, with Annie accumulating treasure and fame, and Karla getting a LOT of treasure. I was right behind Annie, and I had some excellent tavern cards, and Annie doesn't like investing in them - she was at the tavern isle at one point in the 11th turn and didn't want to buy any, partly because she thought they'd be free for some reason - so I knew she didn't have more than 1 or 2 points worth. If I could just stay within 4 points, I knew I'd win.
On the 11th turn I played "Crow's Nest" which lets everyone play their turn in order, rather than simultaneously. I selected myself first, and went to an island with the most treasure. Dan followed me. Karla and Annie went to uninhabited islands. Before choosing my island, Dan asked if he could play multiple battle cards in the same fight. Uh oh. So I knew he was aiming for me. When I asked why, he said, "So that I can mess with you." Oh. The trouble was that I had an awesome ship, and it didn't make much sense for him to try to blow me up.
Well, Dan played two battle cards: Grapeshot attack (one attack roll a 3,4,5,6 to hit) and Smoke screen (only hit on a 6). Had he gone after my parrot first, then picked on me, he would have won. Instead, he went for my sails, which were lower, and let me roll 5 dice per turn. He almost won, though. I (again) got pretty lucky. His grapeshot hit all 3 times, and my sails were down to 2. I had gone first, and hit once, knocking his sails down to 3 points. When I went again, I hit his sails again, down to 2 points. He hit my sails, and I had 1 point left. It looked like I would need two sixes on my next roll to stay alive...and I did it. Game. Set. Match.
If Dan had taken one turn to go after my parrot, I would have lost 2 points, and probably wouldn't have been able to hit him. As it was, I was still very very lucky, and Dan, going into the battle with his chosen tactics, probably would win that scenario about 2/3 of the time.
I took the island, dooming Dan to last place, and though he wanted to play the Navy card on someone (me, perhaps?) on treasure island for the last turn, the card's text precluded the option. The 4 of us teamed up to beat hell out of The Flying Dutchman and we buried our loot. Annie's 3 point lead on me shrunk to two after that, and Karla's parrot brought about 17 or 18 treasure chests to treasure isle. When she played her bonus cards, she took the lead over Annie, but I had the Golden Hind, Maltese Wine, and a song, so I squeezed past her for victory.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have freaked out. But I always say that after this game. When I lose, it's always frustrating. And when I win, it's a frustrating affair.
| Maharaja |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 7 palaces (+12 rupees) | 1 | * |
| Karla | 7 palaces (+6 rupees) | 2 | * |
| Dan | 5 palaces (+15 rupees) | 3 | * |
| Annie | 5 palaces (+6 rupees) | 4 | * |
Notes: Dan said, "You've got a new game and we're not playing it?" So he grabbed Maharaja, and I went over the rules as well as I could, but I missed a couple things. For one, I forgot to give everyone their 6 houses right off the bat, though I immediately remembered when Dan wanted to pick houses up, so we re-did the first turn. Then, though my example was correct on moving the governor chips around, it was misleading, and so Dan thought that you could pick any governor chip and move him to next in line. This happened about 2/3 of the way through, and really frustrated Dan.
The real big problem, though, was that I played too well. I didn't really know how to play, but I had selected the #1 character so that I could go first each turn. In fact, I was able to go first for the first few rounds, and managed to build the center palace in the first three regions we visited! Meanwhile, Dan, Karla, and Annie were only able to score in two of the first three while I was raking in top cash for the first few rounds. This put me in a huge lead, and I felt kind of bad about doing so well. So, I decided to select a new role just to be different.
Anyway, Annie became obsessed with the wandering monk, and kept taking it from whoever had him until late in the game. Taking the monk means you run around for free, but if you're too careless, you end up giving too much money to your opponents, which was pretty much what happened. About midgame, I totally messed up, pretty much squandering a turn in doing nothing productive. It was about here that Dan tried to move the governor he wanted down to the next position, and when I said, "Didn't I tell you guys you could only move it down two?" Annie shook her head no and Dan just grumbled. The thing was, I had sort of explained it, but, as I noted above, it was in a poor, confusing context, and I can see how they misconstrued it. mea culpa.
In the end, I was in great shape, despite my total mess up in midgame because I was looking two regions ahead instead of one (oops), and Karla was finally making money and making some nice gains. What Karla did was invest in one or two regions down the road and get a clear majority in them, then head off somewhere else to establish some more regions. I tried doing what she did because it was so successful, but that was where I goofed up. Dan, at one point, made a nice use of the #3 guy (who gives +2 points per outer palace), but it was stolen from him. Karla also made nice use of guy #6, who gives a three rupee discount on palaces.
When Dan and Annie were two palaces behind the Mike/Karla pace, Dan muttered, "This game blows." I ignored him at this point.
So by the end, Dan went for a house strategy, building them cheaply to try and get in the top 2 of income per city. It helped that he had so many houses on the board, and he could pretty much go where he wanted. Annie was trying to catch up, and started making some various clever moves by the end, but she was woefully behind. Karla was right on my tail, and she managed 7 palaces in the same round I did, but I had arranged it so that I would have more money, as the last scoring round was in a region where I had a house, whereas Karla could only manage 2nd place. I win.
After the game, Dan, who had frustratingly threw his governor tile and doubloons onto the board, thinking it was over, re-iterated his earlier comment and said, "This game is pretty painful." I asked him what he meant, and he said that when I grabbed all those early middle palaces, that pretty much coasted me to victory from the very beginning. I answered that I couldn't believe that everyone let me have the #1 role so much early on. I thought someone would take it away. But the real reason was that we didn't know how to play for the first few rounds.
In a game like this, people tend to get infatuated with one role. It happens in Age of Steam, too, where someone will just keep choosing "First Build" or "First Delivery". But people (usually) need to diversify. Especially early on. By the end, I think people were getting how to play and overcome my initial strategy; Karla, in fact, completely caught up despite a miserable start. Here are the strategies that can be used to stop the "Mike's going first for the first 4 rounds" strategy:
1) Skip the first city and build a palace in the next city the maharaja will visit.
2) Take the #1 card from Mike and go first yourself next turn.
3) Skip the first city and use the visit order action to change the next city.
4) Bid higher at the beginning of the game and use the Mike strategy yourself.
Anyway, the lack of experience did us in. I knew that the role changing would be used only for short-term, not long-term gain. I also knew that no one (except me) would use the visit order action. In general, I tend to have a "first play" advantage because I'm familiar with the rules, too. So, all in all, this was a less than idyllic victory. I think I can win Dan over for the next game. We played a few things wrong, for instance, and I think my rather basic method of winning the first game can easily be defeated. I think it has a LOT of potential now that we have experienced it once.