February 4th, 2005 |
Karla was sick and stayed home, and I managed to get her to play Lost Cities with me. Then Sam called, and I zipped over to his place, where we played a couple more games to while away the time while we drank some beers.
| Lost Cities |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 128 | 1 | |
| Karla | 88 | 2 | |
Notes: I smoked Karla. In the first round, I didn't really have a lot of points, and little opportunity to get better, whereas Karla was trying to get massive points in all five expeditions. I tried rushing through the deck as quickly as possible (I was only on 3 expeditions, and only one was really going to be worth anything - 30 points, as it turned out), and I managed to do so, much to Karla's detriment. The score after the first round was 52 to -43. Karla was really overambitious and was mad at me ("You suck!") for not letting her finish her expeditions. (Sometimes I'll let her do it - if I had done so this time, she would have killed me.)
The next round was pretty good for both of us, as we both tagged a couple of very profitable expeditions. I had four profitable expeditions, ranging from 14 to 24 points each, while Karla had a magnificent voyage through the jungle, managing the lone 20 point bonus in this round (she managed to get 71 points), and caught up to me - just a little bit, really. I was still in great shape for the victory, but Karla did manage to get into the positives. The score was 126 to 29.
The final round was where Karla made her push, and if I hadn't had a couple of lucky red draws near the end of the round, I would have been close to dropping below 100 points. As it was, though, I broke even in the Himalayas and lost 21 points in my desert expedition. The Under the Earth expedition gave me enough positive points, though, to garner a net gain of +2 for the last round, and Karla's last round, though excellent (with a 20 and a 28 and no negatives), wasn't potent enough to overcome her initial losses.
| Ivanhoe |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | 5 | 1 | |
| Mike | 4 | 2 | |
Notes: After Lost Cities, I thought we'd try out Ivanhoe, just to see what it was like in a two-player game. The game was very quick, and each player has much more control over everything.
We started off innocently enough, with each of us netting a few colors. Karla won the all-important and prestigious purple jousting tourney, then I won the green tourney (for brawling). Karla then won the blue battle axe tournament, and I took home the red sword-fighting tournament. Karla held a 4 to 3 lead after winning the axe and morning star tourneys while I managed only the morning star tournament victory in response. Then, Karla went for the win, twice (she needed to win a sword tournament), and I was able to play a lot of my action cards to fend her off, using my Ripostes and Ivanhoe card to stay alive. I did so, and then managed to win the battle axe tournament. Karla now only needed the red swordfighting tournament, and I needed the jousting.
I had forgotten that if a player wins a jousting tournament, she can use the purple chit to exchange for any other color. So when I went for the jousting tournament to try to win, the game was going to end one way or another, as we both had won 4 tournaments. Karla, at first, half-heartedly fought for the purple tourney, thinking only a red tourney would let her win, but when I said that a purple can be exchanged for anything...well, I got my ass kicked, and she became the most renowned knight in the land.
| Carcassonne |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 125 | 1 | |
| Sam | 107 | 2 | |
Notes: Sam was sitting at home watching May while Jill watched a movie at a friend's house called Employee of the Month, so I popped by to play a couple games. We tried to get Jamie to come by so that Sam could indulge his dream of playing Puerto Rico, but when we finally got in touch with him at 10:30, he was sloshed and hadn't yet had dinner.
So we played Carcassonne, and I won kind of handily. Sam was getting some rotten luck, as he was getting stuck with road piece after road after road after road (it was crazy, actually). Meanwhile, I managed to get almost all the cloisters (except perhaps two of them), and I also managed to get most of the city pieces. Sam managed a few smaller cities and did get some farmer points, but by the end we broke pretty much even on farmer points and Sam's road points were no match for all my city and cloister points.
I think that if Sam had the Inns & Cathedrals expansion that he would have done much better. With that expansion, you can net double points on roads. He had a 14 point road, and with the double, it would have really taken off. Add a few more doubles here and there, and who knows?
| St. Petersburg |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Sam | 186 | 1 | * |
| Mike | 173 | 2 | |
Notes: I told Sam that I was very well practiced at this and so I gave him a 30 ruble start to my 25 rubles. Man, was that an uphill battle for me. For one thing, I was way behind in income from the get go. Sam managed a fairly good first turn (under my supervision and guidance), and I only had 4 rubles after the first round as a result of 1) being stuck taking two shipbuilders in the first worker phase (net income of -7), 2) purchasing the observatory (net income of -6), and 3) purchasing the Secretary (net income of -8). When the workers came up for the second round (and I had first pick), they were all 5 or more rubles each. When I saw that, I knew I'd have a rough time of it. Sam was able to buy pretty much anything he wanted, and had an incredible lead on me in cash throughout the entire game.
Sam, then, ended up winning, because of a bunch of factors, which will pretty much sum up how the game went:
- the extra worker he got early helped hiim a ton,
- he was able to get the observatory abouut mid-game, rather than late game, where it's not so useful,
- his observatory draws seemed lucky - whhile I was getting fur traders (2 of them, and I had no trappers), Sam was able
to draw the Senator and at least one other upgrade aristocrat,
- Sam managed to get the Tax Collector inn the second round - exacerbating an already glaring cash advantage,
- he was always in great shape to draw fiirst on the crucial rounds.
The last one can partly be blamed on my poor play, but since I was low on money throughout the game, it was difficult for me to dictate how many cards should be out there, as there was a very real chance that I would get stuck with them. So, with Sam WAY ahead in money (he was getting about 3 to 6 rubles per turn more than I in the worker phase, 5 more in the builder phase, and near 20 more in the aristocrat phase near the end), I was forced to change tactics. As I needed to get the most bang for my buck, I went exclusively for high VP aristocrat upgrades and only bought the most expensive buildings. (The theatre, for instance, at 20 rubles, gives you 1 VP per 3.6 rubles, where the Customs House gives 1 per 4 rubles, and the Market 1 per 5 rubles.)
I managed to get the Czar out in the third to last round, and that kept our scores comparable. Still, though, in the last round, when I really really needed two aristocrat upgrades to appear (I had 9 of them, and Sam had about 13), Sam had first draw and only one appeared. I had hoped that he might not take the one upgrade that was out there, but he did, and he was given a further 10 point advantage. As I knew he had a ton of cash, and I only had 6 point lead by the end of the game, despite my VP point heavy aristocrats, I knew I was doomed. Had I gotten the last upgrade, I still would have lost, and as it was, I was pretty happy for the way I hung in there, despite being at a tremendous disadvantage from the very beginning.
I thought the game would be more fun for Sam if I made it harder on me (I would have, quite honestly, smoked him if we had started even from the beginning), and therefore it was worth it. I also kept Sam from doing very stupid moves - like, on the last upgrade round he wanted to buy a building upgrade, which would have cost him money with no possible upside whatsoever.
At the end, Sam said, "This is an interesting game." I think he was a bit overwhelmed, since we had both had several beers and I held his hand through the first few rounds of the game.