January 28th, 2005 |
Sam wanted to get together, so we hooked up to play a few games. Dan showed up pretty late, probably close to 10:15 or so, so Sam and I enjoyed a couple two player games first.
| Hera and Zeus |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | Found Io | 1 | |
| Sam | Never quite caught Argus | 2 | * |
Notes: This game went really well. It absolutely shines when people play it well. Sam was Hera and I took Zeus. At first, Sam was a bit behind, as I made an effort to keep him only with 2 columns active. He picked up on this, though, and after stocking his hand, he managed to have 3 solid rows of stuff.
I used a Pythia early to try to get his Nemesis card, but she wasn't in his hand. After that, Sam cleverly placed a Pandora card, and I attacked it with a Pegasus and lost a whole lot of stuff, including my Poseidon and an Apollo. Sam then took advantage of my mistake (I left the Poseidon card on top of my discard pyle) and used the Sirens to summon MY Poseidon into his hand. From then on, I had to rely on being quick and clever.
But it got worse before it got better, as Sam used the Pythia to reveal an entire row of mine, and he found where Argus was. I still had no idea where Io was, and every time I thought I knew, I was wrong. Through a few clever moves - playing my second Pythia, then attacking my old Poseidon, then playing a Siren to get him back - I managed to at least have my strength 7 guy back, and I managed to wipe out a couple of Sam's Furies with my Pandora.
Sam then made a concerted attack against the three monsters protecting Argus - wiping out a giant, a centaur, and destroying my Poseidon with his Nemesis. I used Dionysus to keep him safe behind Apollo and a Medusa, but Sam had better cards and started wiping out my guys. I was stuck with just two columns, and all my good cards were gone - plus he had just wiped out my Medusa with an Amazon. Sam still had about 5 cards on the table, but only 2 in hand. I figured Io wasn't on the table, so I attacked his hand with a Pegasus - something I hadn't yet tried. Voila! Success! Io was in his hand, and Zeus managed to thwart his overbearing wife.
Sam liked it, and it was easy to teach, as a lot of cards have relatives to Stratego: Medusa=Bomb, Hero/Amazon=Miner, Pegasus=Scout, Pythia=Spy, etc. Very fun.
| Clans |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 54 | 1 (Tie) | |
| Sam | 54 | 1 (Tie) | |
Notes: Sam and I set up Clans (because Dan wasn't in yet), but just as we were finishing set up, Dan showed up. I offered to let him play, but he said no thanks.
Sam and I started playing, and I made a move that made it seem like I was yellow. Sam kept moving blue pieces, and I knew he was blue. I was pretty sure he didn't know what color I was, but his blue pieces were popping up everywhere. A few times I was going to lose out on points (thanks to conflict), so I minimized the damage by making blue's points smaller. I managed to get in mostly on smaller villages, as I tried to make blue double up in order to get points, or I'd cut villages into smaller pockets, so that the points would be more evenly distributed in case of conflicts.
Near the end, blue had a big lead on me, so I made one smaller village (netting the 4 point bonus for my black clan) and trie d to get all the bonus chips. By the end, I had an 8 to 4 lead in bonus chips, and blue was ahead of black, 50 to 46. After counting the chips, we both ended up with 54. I looked in the rules but have not discovered what the tiebreaker is. My suspicion is that the one with more bonus chips wins, but I'm not sure. We'll soon find out, as I have posted the question on boardgamegeek.
Update on 2/3/05: It's official, there is no tiebreaker. Sam and I tied for victory.
| Settlers of the Stone Age |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Sam | 12 | 1 | |
| Dan | 5 | 2 | |
| Mike | 4 | 3 | |
Notes: We stayed in the early mists of human time and played Settlers of the Stone Age. Sam beat the living crap out of us. I was never getting what I needed. Early on, I couldn't get meat. Then, when I needed new explorers and villages, I couldn't get hides. Also, every time we were able to get the Neanderthal and Sabre Tooth to annoy Sam, Sam would roll 7 and put it back on a tile that Dan and I were on. He was merciless.
Sam got off to an early lead immediately, as we kept rolling 4's, which were incredibly advantageous for Sam, giving him bone and meat up the ying yang. Dan at least got something on 4's (meat, I believe), and he was able to at least move around a bit. But Sam was able to quickly move AND get up to the 2nd levels of construction and clothing, so he managed to get the first three explorer tiles before Dan grabbed one. Sam was also discovering the desert tiles. He found the first one before I had even moved my first scout out of Africa, and thus one of my most beneficial spaces was useless within the first few turns. It was awful.
Sam was also pretty skimpy with his trades, always demanding two things for one. In games like Bohnanza, it never works, and in this game it never works either, especially since a 3 for 1 trade can net somebody anything. On top of that, Sam was in the lead from the get-go, and really didn't need TWO things, much less even one.
Also, Sam was usually able to spend all his tons of cards before he'd be robbed by the roll of 7. This was usually by design and cleverness, but it was occasionally due to luck, too. Later in the game, when Sam was in Australia while his African villages were still producing goods for him (and Dan and I still had villages in Africa producing nothing but yummy clumps of sand), Sam complained when Dan and I "ganged up" on him. (That's in quotes because Dan and I combined weren't netting as many resources as Sam was.) Sam would still groan even though we were getting our teeth kicked in. At one point he said, "What the hell?" when I (again) placed the Neanderthal on one of his hexes. Dan laughed, "Still complaining about the hose?"
Dan and I also made it more fun for ourselves by always trading with each other. Even if we sort of needed something, we'd trade it just to give the other person a chance. That was fun. I had hoped to catch up to Dan, but he managed to get one more point than I could.
Sam just reamed us. I managed 3 villages and an Adaptation point. Dan had 4 villages and an Adaptation point. Sam was Mr. All-around. He only had 4 villages, but they were one of each race (2 bonus points), plus he completed the Construction, Clothing, and Food chains (3 more points), plus 1 Adaptation point and the 2 bonus points for most explorers.
Nice job, Sam. I still feel as though some tremendously bad initial luck and Sam's incredibly quick and destructive desert tiles are what doomed me and Dan, though it's possible we're just terrible. It just seemed like when I needed meat (early), bone (early-middle), and hide (middle-late), I never did manage to get them. Dan was in roughly the same state that I was, but he was lacking flint when I lacked hide, and he also didn't have hide for a big chunk. Sam managed to get everything that he needed all game, though Dan and I were able to deprive him of meat for several turns near the end (when he needed to move an explorer to get more tiles).