January 16th, 2005 |
We managed to get in a game of Blokus early on with Howard and Jamie, then, after everyone skied and snowboarded and we watched the Vikings and Colts go down in two spectacular flaming balls of incompetence, we got the gaming boulder rolling and played a few of 'em.
| Blokus |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Jamie | -1 | 1 | * |
| Annie | -4 | 2 (Tie) | |
| Howard | -4 | 2 (Tie) | * |
| Mike | -4 | 2 (Tie) | |
Notes: I lured Howard in to play this, and I think he enjoyed it. Jamie and Howard played pretty well, going into the middle right away, as I did. Though Howard regretted playing his 5 long straight piece. Annie tends to avoid everyone and tries to stick to her own area, which is not a good idea. It's important to get into as many possible branches as possible. At one point, when I made a play that got me across Howard's initial string of pieces, it dawned on Jamie that you can sneak through everyone's sides and he enjoyed it a lot from then on.
I'm very used to the game, so I'm used to looking at every single corner of every single piece, but Howard had some trouble, and I gave him a couple hints. I also aided Annie a couple of times. Jamie didn't need my help - he played great. He made two or three nice blocks to keep a nice little section between him and me clear of my invasive green pieces, so I was forced to go into Howard's region. Eventually I filled it and made my way (barely) into Annie's space, but Jamie kept expanding into Howard's area, too, and as Annie's area was still available to him, he had many places to put things.
I made one bad move. When I was trying to get into Jamie's area, he made a perfect block. So I made another attempt, but I used the 5-square straight piece, which brought me too close to Jamie's side of the board, and he was able to cover both corners of the piece. Had I used a smaller piece, I might have made a better foray over there, but as it was, I did manage to get into a tie for second.
| Gang of Four |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 15 | 1 | |
| Mike | 22 | 2 | |
| Annie | 29 | 3 | * |
| Jamie | 43 | 4 | * |
Notes: After riding, the first game we tried was Gang of Four. We're starting to get better at it, as Dan and I both made some nice plays that resulted in our opponents getting hung with some big (for us) amounts of points. In fact, the scores would have been much higher if Dan had remembered the "last card" rule. The first time he forgot it he was going to hit all three of us with from 20 to 40 points each. The second time he forgot it wasn't as big a deal, and the third time he forgot it, I let him off the hook. (He doesn't like the "last card" rule.)
Whenever I finished last, I had to (twice) break up a pair of phoenixes. That stunk. Jamie did give me a card that gave me a Gang of Four once, though. That was sweet. Jamie wanted to play Traumfabrik, but no one else wanted to, so we quit after a while and let Jamie and Howard and Annie go get some food.
| Power Grid |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 18 (Powered 18) | 1 | |
| Dan | 17 (17) | 2 (Tie) | |
| Mark | 17 (17) | 2 (Tie) | * |
Notes: After the playoff games were over I got the three of us who hadn't gone out to dinner to play Power Grid. It was Mark's first time, but he seemed to get it pretty well, and we decided to play on the U.S. side of the board. Mark chose to start in the far west, Dan took the southeast, and I took the south.
All of Dan's expansions were really cheap early on, then mine were next cheapest. Mark ran into expensive connections the quickest, but as soon as he would get out of there, he would have much cheaper connections for the rest of the game as Dan and I would have to stockpile money to break through the Rocky Mountains.
We built and expanded and a good clip. Mark initially went for oil plants, and Dan managed a couple wind plants and a garbage by mid-game. I went with coal and oil, mostly, though I did manage a 2 wind plant.
Dan was the first to 7, and I was worried that he'd rake in too much money for Mark and me to catch up. But I was expanding more slowly because I was purchasing bigger plants. I managed to get the 6 garbage, the 7 oil, and a 5 wind. I was set for the rest of the game, although Dan had already expanded to two more cities. He was at 14, I was at 13, and Mark was at 12. Mark, though, received two awesome plants for the minimum back to back. He got the size 7 hybrid and the size 6 "fission" plant. He already had a 5 coal from early on. So Mark and I were both ready to power 18.
Here, Dan had to expend cash on better plants, as his mediocre ones were no longer worthwhile. He spent one turn refusing to expand, allowing me to pass him to 14 while he stood at 13, in order to save up money both for a better power plant (he could only power 15 at this time) and to make the big push west before I would. It was rather a clever move, and if he hadn't needed a better power plant he could have possibly managed to beat me.
One other key was that I was the only one, late in the game, with a garbage plant, so I was able to let the resources get cheaper and cheaper while I used my wind and oil plants to power my cities. I managed to get garbage down to a cost of 4 each, which was really really cheap, and bought them each of the last two rounds.
In the last round, Dan managed a better plant, but he was still stuck on powering 17, and he also had expensive resources of coal and iron. During expansion, Dan went straight west, and could have expanded to 18 cities, but it wouldn't have blocked me off and only would have cost him money. Mark almost got to 18, as he expanded east into Florida and Georgia, but he fell one measly electro short in an attempt to connect to Miami.
I managed to get all the way to the west coast, and connected my last city to Vegas. I was the only one at 18, and as I could power them all, I won. I had about 8 electros left, so even if Mark had connected to 18, I still would have won, but he would have held 2nd all by himself. As it was, I gave them a tie.
Dan said he liked the game all right, but feels it's over-hyped at the 'geek. I really like it a lot.
| Traumfabrik |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | 79 | 1 | |
| Jamie & Howard | 56 | 2 | Howard |
| Mike | 50 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Dan | 50 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Mark | 23 | 5 | * |
So, Dan (reluctantly) and I (somewhat eagerly) returned to Hollywood and made some movies. Bidding was high and furious in this game, and there were a lot of expensive things. Dan was groaning a lot as Jamie and Howard sometimes took too long to take their turns, both in bidding and in auctions. For the most part, though, they did fine.
Annie, I recall, got in my way in one important auction which cost me the first Entertainment award and later she won another auction which would have given me about 3 more points while taking away 3 of her own. Mark didn't finish a movie until very late, while Howard and Jamie finished about 3. So did Dan and I, though my last movie was a "12" but I could only get the "9" reel, because of all the other movies made with about that much stuff.
Here was how the awards turned out:
First Drama: Jamie & Howard
First Adventure: Dan
First Entertainment: Annie
Best Movie (round 1): Jamie & Howard (13 points)
Best Movie (round 2): Annie (17 points)
Best Movie (round 3): Mike (18 points)
Best Adventure: Annie (12 points) for The Sea Hawk
Best Entertainment: Mike (18 points) for Harvey
Best Drama: Jamie & Howard (14 points) for The Grapes of Wrath
Worst Movie: Mark (3 points) for The Three Musketeers
Best Direction: Annie (10 stars)
Movies Made:
Mark - Almost finished Gone with the Wind starring Clark Gable, and his Three Musketeers featured the swashbuckling heroics of Boris Karloff.
Annie - Arsenic and Old Lace featured a lesbian love affair between Lana Turner and Lauren Bacall.
Dan - Rita Moreno starred in The Court Jester, and Director Schwartz, who prefers ladies in his lead roles, opted for Deborah Kerr rather than Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo.
Jamie & Howard - Jamie and Howard put Bert Lancaster in The Grapes of Wrath, and they renamed the Orson Welles/Charlton Heston vehicle Gentlemen Prefer Charlton Heston. On the Waterfront featured the brooding Frank Sinatra.
Mike - Harvey featured Yul Brenner as a wacky drunk and Gary Cooper as the invisible rabbit. Citizen Kane featured the incomparable Bogart as the title character with the splendid Ingrid Bergman as his lover.
After the game was over, no one could understand how Annie had won. She had won because she finished four movies, won a few (not all) awards, and not one of her films was worth less than 12 points. She bamfoozled us all.
| Colossal Arena |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | 9 | 1 | |
| Mark | 9 | 2 | |
| Dan | 7 | 3 | |
| Jamie | 5 | 4 | |
| Mike | 3 | 5 | |
Notes: Having bested us once, Annie was out to do it again. Annie started off with bets on the Ettin, while I made a secret bet and didn't manage to be the main backer for anyone in the first round. Mark went for the Seraphim, while Jamie went for the Magus and the Daimon. Everyone also made a secret bet, and Mark's was immediately revealed, making him the main backer for the Unicorn. The Wyrm perished without a bet.
In the second round, Annie once again bet on the Ettin, while I placed bets on the Daimon and the Troll, becoming the latter's main backer. My secret bet was on the Ettin, and Annie proceeded to kill him off without thinking of it. When she tried to take back her turn and kill my Troll, I stopped her and said, "Tough luck." I think everyone was glad I did that because no one defended Annie.
Next up for destruction was the Magus, on whom Jamie had placed two bets. Mark started to use the Seraphim more and more, With my Ettin bid dead, I placed a bet on the Unicorn. Mark had two open bets on the Seraphim, whom Mark protected very well. Dan joined me in backing the Troll.
The Daimon was next to go, costing me and Jamie the game, pretty much, and Mark placed his last bet on the Amazon. Mark's secret bet was finished off. In the last round, Annie finished the game by killing off the Unicorn. Jamie survived with 5 on the strength of his secret Seraphim bet. Annie's secret bet was on the Amazon, and Dan had 3 mediocre bets on the Amazon, Seraphim, and Troll. He, too, showed his chagrin when Annie killed off her own Ettin, as that was whom he had placed his secret bet on. Mark's 7 points for the Seraphim almost nabbed him the victory, but according to the rules, when there is a tie, the winner is the person whose turn was more recent. Annie, having played the last card, therefore won.
Next we tried to play Illuminati, but Mark was really grumpy about it and Dan felt that it took too long. I had fun, but it was obvious we weren't going to finish too soon, and Mark and Dan weren't having a good time, so I recommended that we postpone the game until the next morning, but we didn't finish it then, anyway, as we just cooked breakfast, packed, and went home.