January 19th, 2005 |
I was determined to play El Grande tonight, and Dan seemed into it, so I dug it out from the pile and we played it. Jim showed up when we were in the third round and patiently watched. Karla wanted to end it after 6 rounds, but Scott and I really wanted to keep going - plus, messing with the game when they've planned on going the full 9 rounds is bad.
| El Grande |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 126 | 1 | |
| Scott | 120 | 2 | |
| Dan | 114 | 3 | |
| Annie | 91 | 4 | * |
| Karla | 66 | 5 | * |
Notes: This is just about my favorite game, and I think Scott and Annie enjoyed it, too. Dan complained a bit, but I'm not sure why - I think he felt that early mistakes were keeping him from winning. I don't think that's true. If everyone plays well, you can usually keep the leader in check. In fact, the game was a bunch of revolving leaders from the get go, as Scott had a big early lead, then Dan caught up to him. After that, Scott and Dan traded places, but I took a one-point lead after the second scoring phase, then managed to get a bigger lead by the 7th and 8th rounds, until finally holding on to win in the last round. Annie and Karla were pretty much toast by the 2nd scoring round.
What I love about the game is that you have to be patient, and you have to be calculating. Scott really appreciated this, and his play was pretty excellent. One of the ways I managed to stay ahead of him at the end was because I had better auction cards at the end, though he was always in excellent shape. Dan said he made some mistakes, but the game has a good "get the leader" element to it, and making early mistakes really isn't impossible to overcome.
In fact, I made some mistakes early. Annie did a great job of keeping me from getting many points on the first scoring round, as she (and Dan) took a majority over me in my home province of Granada. Scott, of course, trumped Annie in her home province of Aragon, and Karla had an easy win in her home province of Basque, but only had cubes in one other province - Seville. There were a few cubes in Galicia and a big battle in Old Castile, won by Scott, with Dan winning his home province of New Castile. Scott had the early lead, and I was in last. At that moment, I decided to 1) keep control of Granada and 2) spread my guys out all over the board to get in as many scoring regions as possible.
The fact that I did so poorly after the first scoring round helped me in the next couple rounds, as I was getting 2 or 3 points here and there when certain regions were scored, as Dan and Scott were determined not to give each other points, and Karla and Annie didn't mind giving me points, as I was behind both of them, too. Whereas everyone else was having trouble balancing the provinces-court-board numbers, I was in good shape all game. Annie, at one point, picked up the king card (which lets a player put up to 5 caballeros on the board) when she had no caballeros in her court, thereby wasting a good chunk of the card's power. Dan, I felt, played fine.
One thing that really helped me was that I was able to spread all over the board. At one point, everyone had to pick a region and get rid of all one's pieces in that region. Since I had a bunch of single caballeros all over, this didn't affect me too badly. I was then shocked to see Annie and Karla each lose about 5 caballeros to the provinces while Scott lost at least 3. (It was Dan's card, so he didn't suffer.) With my scoring aided by seeming non-threatening, and by re-claiming Granada and putting the king in there for the scoring round, I managed just enough points to overcome Scott in the second scoring round.
By this point, Annie and Karla were doomed, and Annie was no longer a threat in my home region of Granada. So, over the next couple turns, I focused on getting scoring cards, which I planned to use in my home region. Twice before the final scoring round I gave myself 10 and 8 points while giving only Annie 3 per turn. These extra points helped keep my edge. In round 8, Dan started to make some nice plays, getting a lot of caballeros out there and scaring me. So did Scott. I was by no means certain my lead would hold up, as Scott made some excellent plays which made several groups of my caballeros useless. In round 8, I was so focused on using the action on the action card that I forgot to put any caballeros on the board (I could have put three in there). As someone else went on to their turn I said that I forgot to put them out and was about to put them on the board, then decided that that would be cheating. It kind of helped, actually, because it meant that I would have 5 caballeros in my court for the last turn rather than 2, and I'd be able to see if any of my essential regions would need extra help.
In the last round, Dan put up the highest bid, and I was hoping I'd get 2nd, but it was no sure thing, as everyone put down high cards, and I was worried Karla would put down the 12. If she had been able to do so, I would have been going about 4th. I was able to get 4 more guys out there (Dan took the 5 card), and positioned my caballeros to get the most points, usually trying to get 2nd or 3rd in various regions. When the final scoring took place, there were a ton of guys in the Castillo, and Scott and I tied for 3rd, keeping us from adding points, whereas Dan took 1st. I was worried that he'd win. It didn't help that I had to waste my castillo cabelleros by putting them in my home region - I was scared that Annie or someone might try to take the lead there, and as first place was worth 10 points to me there (I had put the higher scoring marker there on the last turn) I absolutely had to have it.
As I added up the points, region by region, it looked closer and closer. By the time I got to Granada, Scott had a 6 point lead on me, and Dan, who had the lead after I got to New Castile, was just a little behind. But I managed to rake in 12 more points to Dan's 5 and Scott's 0 over the last two regions and I claimed victory.
Annie and Scott said they liked it, though Annie said she "sucked at it." Dan said it was okay, but not as great as people think it is. Karla said it was good, but it took too much thinking. It does, and that's why I like it. There's very little luck, and everything has to be done carefully. Putting too many eggs in too few baskets is devastating, but the temptation is always to do just that. It's still in my top 3.
| Rette Sich Wer Kann |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 23 | 1 | |
| Jim | 21 | 2 | * |
| Annie | 19 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Dan | 19 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Karla | 17 | 5 | |
| Mike | 13 | 6 | |
Notes: Jim wasn't sure of a good 6-player game to play, and I wanted to play something different that wouldn't take long to teach the rules to. Therefore, I steered him towards this cute game, which we hadn't played in quite some time.
The game started out oddly enough, with everyone voting to get our beloved "Death Boat" to the island in the first 3 turns, netting everyone either 7 or 5 points. Then, everyone teamed up to get the orange boat to the 8 and 6 point island, getting everyone (again) more points.
Then things got ugly. Karla, Jim, and I were the only people in a boat that was voted to spring a leak. I tried to get Karla to vote for Jim, but she voted to kill her own husband! What a sweetheart. I was also killed in another boat, just as it was making it's way to the middle island. I was killed, again, in a vicious team up of Dan and Annie, who like most couples, try to HELP one another rather than KILL one another. Sheesh. My last two guys were stuck in some swimming fiascos and that was it. It didn't help that I was wasting my captain's hats on silly things.
Scott didn't lose a guy for a long while, but finally everyone teamed up to make him lose one, despite the fact that Scott tried to lie and say he had lost a swimmer when he hadn't! Then the "banana boat" sank with one of Dan's fellows still in it, and Jim, after losing a couple of his purple swimmers early on, managed to get the rest of his guys saved to the middle island. Karla only managed to save 3 guys. Annie and Dan seemed like they would win, but when the banana boat sank (thanks in part to Dan's vicious vote to throw Annie out of the boat) they weren't in good shape any longer. Scott, despite losing two guys, managed the victory because he didn't lose either of his bigger swimmers.
Jim was pleasantly surprised that he managed to get 21 points after he was hurt early on. He never was able to catch up to sneaky, quiet Scott. Karla and Jim had a running joke where they would say "This game sucks!" whenever something bad happened to them.