December 28th, 2004 |
I took a break from playing Civ III on my computer, which is helping me to overcome the disappointment in the Prince of Persia PS2 sequel, in order to play some games at Dan's with Dan and Annie. Karla was in a lazy mood so she stayed home.
| Torres |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 164 | 1 | |
| Mike | 158 | 2 | |
| Annie | 142 | 3 | |
Notes: This was our second time playing this game of castle building, and our first try in a while. The first time we played we played the "place new knight" move incorrectly. We played that you could put it anywhere on the board, so long as it wasn't on a castle tower. The correct way, of course, you have to place it next to an existing knight. The real way is much more strategic and makes the game more difficult (as evidenced by our lower scores).
As Annie placed her knight out first, it was up to me to put the king where I wanted, so I put it in my own niche. I managed to build up one castle pretty good and get to the third level on it. Annie had a size 12 castle, and Dan had a couple of size 9's and a small 3 pointer. In addition to my 15, I had my knight on the castle with the king, netting me 5 bonus points and the early lead. The score was 27 to 21 (Dan) to 18 (Annie).
Dan went for a Get-Knights-Out-There-And-Draw-Cards Strategy, so he was in good shape. Annie had a ton of cards, but never used them, probably because she wasn't sure how a lot of them worked. It's best to just get one or two, and then plan a turn around them, as most are not intuitively helpful. Still, they do things that don't cost a precious action point.
In the second round, Annie and I managed to get in on the king's palace. Dan expanded to a size 7 building in the middle, but I decreased its size by one. He also tried to take the highest spot away from me on my favorite castle, but I was able to get it higher by one thanks to an action card (the same one that decreased his castle's size). After the second round, scores were in the 60's (Annie and Dan) to high 70's (me). But Dan had more knights out there, plus he had control of where to put the king. He put it in an incredibly difficult spot to get to, and Annie and I were unable to get in on the 15 point bonus (though Annie tried to use every card in her hand to do it).
In the last round, I had to increase my own holdings while keeping Dan at a standstill. He was able to play conservatively, and just went for easy scores, though he did sort of go for a couple card draws when he really didn't need to. The cards aren't as useful the last couple turns and Dan would have been better off either putting out more castles or taking the free points. I thought I might have a shot.
I immediately gave up on getting to the king's castle, so I went for most points. I was short on knights, so I was at a disadvantage, but I did about as well as I could. I managed to build a 35 point castle, but two of my other castles were pitiful (just 12 and 5 points), and though I managed 21 points on the other castle, Dan had 28 out of it. That coupled with some other good plays managed to get Dan the victory, as he inherited the crown from the king.
| Attika |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 2 shrines | 1 | |
| Dan | 1 shrine | 2 (Tie) | |
| Annie | 1 shrine | 2 (Tie) | * |
Notes: This game looks deceptively easy. It looks like you try to make a line of buildings and hope that one of your opponents can't stop you. That's not how it works, though. If everyone plays this game correctly, it's very difficult to connect the shrines.
Annie, the Spartan yellow, got off to an early "lead". It looked like she was ahead, but she was impatient, putting pieces out there in hope of a quick victory. Meanwhile, the Athenians (Dan) and Corinthians (me) stockpiled our stuff, making ourselves ready for a big push later and saving up resource cards.
I was doing really poorly, and Dan was displeased with his tiles, but then again he always is. I think he's the opposite of Annie. He does too much investing, and Annie does too much early playing. Dan was forced to block Annie's Spartan advance twice, and I blocked Dan once. Annie was really upset about this and didn't want us to block her. At one point, I thought that Annie's "Stop being mean!" plea was going to keep Dan from blocking her, but said, "You've gotta block her. It's the only strategy." That won Dan over and kept the game alive.
Ironically, there was a point where Annie could have won the game. Dan had minorly blocked her - he made it 3 steps to the shrine instead of 2 - and Annie could have built all three of her roads - 4 cards + 1 resource on the board to get the first street out there, then play two more connectors. She missed the chance, though (unsurprising, seeing as it was her first play), and Dan was able to complete the block the next turn.
Then it was my turn to threaten. I had a large connection (from the fountain to the Village) and laid all three down for essentially nothing. Dan saw it and told Annie to block me. Annie, either because she really couldn't play anything or because she didn't think I'd do it (I was two away from one shrine and one space away from the other), let me have a go, choosing instead to collect cards.
Unfortunately for them I finished off the Fountain connection, which gave me an amphora. Then I laid the quarry for 1 card and the fortress for free to connect to the shrine near Annie. With my amphora and my two remaining resources I had just enough to place one more building - the plaza, I believe - next to the other shrine. Huzzah for Corinth!
| Bermuda Triangle |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | $220,000 | 1 | |
| Annie | $170,000 | 2 | |
| Dan | $160,000 | 3 | |
Notes: Annie was really eager to play this after two tougher games, so Dan gave in. I vowed to score $0. I lied. I lost the first ship, and the storms tended to avoid Annie as if they had cooties. I managed to make it around and scoop up some good stuff, as both Dan and I managed to get big scores of oil. Annie never did make it to the oil, she only had a bunch of smaller cards: lumber, bananas, sugar, and the home port bonus. I had a nice mix of stuff, and was able to survive to the end with two ships. Dan could have done better, but the storm was sitting right in front of the Southeast port for a long time, and he couldn't move for about 3 turns. Annie then made a dash for some oil (and $100,000), but the storm hit a cardinal direction, then returned to the middle and scooped her ship up.
I couldn't believe I won and said so. Dan just said, "This game is so stupid."