February 26th, 2005 |
Dan and Annie came over before Dan was going to head out to a party, and we killed a few hours playing games.
| Edel, Stein & Reich |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Annie | $114 Million | 1 | |
| Dan | $104 Million | 2 | |
| Mike | $89 Million | 3 | |
Notes: The game was pretty tight through the first two rounds. I was a close last after the first round, $34 Million for Dan and Annie to my $27 million. We all had a majority in one or two gems, and Annie and I each had the Contract, netting us an extra $10 million. Dan managed to get more than I did by getting the majority in green and having a couple of bonus cards, one of which netted him an extra $6 million from the green and another gave him about $5 million more.
In the second round I did really well, outscoring everyone, as I manipulated Annie and Dan in money, gems, and cards to score the highest for the round. Annie and Dan at one point really competed for the blue gems, and Annie ended up with 14 of them by the end of the round. This was actually the play of the game, as the resulting round showed. (What? The blue gems determined the winner in the second round? Yup.) After two rounds, I had second place: Dan had $68 Million, I had $65 Million, and Annie had $63 Million.
The final round started off okay, as I scored my green gems with a bonus card to get some extra cash (though it cost me my narrow lead in them) and I got money a couple times. Then things got cruddy. Dan and I were competing with each other for three different gems: green, red, and yellow. Annie had a vice grip on the blue (and managed to get a +5 million for having the majority in blue event card). So, what should happen, but Dan and I kept competing back and forth for gems at the end of the game. So, while we pretty much marched in place over the last 5 turns of the round (including one time when we both went for the contract card), Annie, staying out of the line of fire, picked up money turn after turn, and amassed about $30 Million while Dan and I kept swapping our gems back and forth to very little, if any, advantage. As I had fewer gems to start with while we made our trades, I was forced to accept worse deals, letting Dan advance, but only a little bit.
That's how Annie won the game by taking a bunch of blue gems from Dan in the second round.
| Puerto Rico |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 55 | 1 | |
| Dan | 48 | 2 | |
| Annie | 39 | 3 | |
Notes: Annie really wanted to play Puerto Rico, so Dan and I went along. The order was Dan-Annie-Mike, and I managed to get the corn while Annie and Dan had indigo. (Dan said he should have just taken the indigo when he set the three plantations aside.) He has been getting it a lot lately.
I played this game pretty similarly to the game we played last week. I went for shipping early on (since I had corn), grabbed the small market, grew some tobacco, and then grabbed the harbor and tried to hog two ships with my goods for much of the game. This worked out well. I was never teeming with cash, but I did get all that I wanted (although I did want one more big building at the end...).
Dan and Annie kept stepping on each other's toes during the first third of the game, especially in shipping. Annie picked up a construction hut and wanted to have 4 quarries, like Scott managed to do in the last game. I was shipping as much as I could early on, both to take advantage of both (first) my monopoly in corn and (a little later) my harbor. I did manage to get a lot of useful buildings. Dan was barely producing indigo at the beginning, as he was really short on cash, but then he scooped up coffee production and a large market, and it was pretty incredible whenever the trader was taken, as Dan would sell his coffee for 7 doubloons, while Annie would get 1 or 2 (for indigo) and I would get 4 (for tobacco).
I made one purchase that wasn't really required: I picked up an Office, thinking that with only three people, the trading house would often only have 3 goods in it (with one of those three goods being a tobacco). Still, the office is worth 2 VPs. That's why purchasing something is never really too crippling. As I was the only one producing tobacco, I thought that I'd ensure a lot of cash coming to me. Still, I was never really in a position to take advantage of my tobacco and I frequently got my money from taking roles with cash on them.
I kept my tobacco monopoly all game, though Annie did manage to get some corn produced about 2/3 through, but I felt like it was too late. I had enough cash to keep up and I had a huge lead in shipping VPs. Dan made a run late in the game, and on the last Captain's phase of the game I finally got hosed on shipping, as I only netted 2 points (I was probably averaging around 6 or 7 per shipping phase) while Dan scooped up around 10 and Annie had 4.
We each had a bonus building, as Dan had grabbed the fortress, I had the customs house, and Annie had the Town Hall. Both Dan and Annie were shipping indigo, but, as I said, they were really hampering each other in the shipping phase, which allowed me to manage the most points there. Also, they didn't really produce their second crops until a little late (later than I was managing to produce both corn and tobacco). Annie eventually found herself in a building strategy - she did, after all manage to get all 4 of those quarries she wanted - but she was short of cash (she never really had a cash crop, though she did manage to get sugar) - and was usually stuck getting smaller buildings. Dan had a nice selection of buildings, as his coffee cash really boosted his money about halfway through the game. Late in the game, though, there was a decided turn away from money towards VPs, as the colonist ship was running out.
Annie, with the Hospice and the Construction Hut, rarely took the Mayor, opting usually for the settler. Dan had the Hacienda, and though he said at the end he should have purchased the Residence, he only had 11 spots on his island filled, so he would have managed the same amount of bonus points.
I never really figured out what Dan and Annie were exactly going for. Dan wanted to ship indigo and grab a cash crop and go from there. Annie wanted to get corn (which she did rather late) and then get 4 quarries. That was about it. My goal was to (as noted above) keep a monopoly on corn as long as possible, grab a quarry or two, produce tobacco, hog two ships, and get the Customs House. I managed all my goals and felt that I pretty much coasted to victory, as Dan and Annie weren't able to thwart me until late in the game. Here's the final tally:
| Player | VP Chips | Building VPs | Bonus VPs | Total |
| Mike | 28 | 20 | 7 | 55 |
| Dan | 21 | 21 | 6 | 48 |
| Annie | 14 | 19 | 6 | 39 |
Dan won the Indigo battle on the ships 2 out of 3 times (thanks to his seating position). Dan also was careful about position when it came to grabbing goods. If I was gathering something, he tried to avoid that good. Had Annie produced corn (or tobacco) early on, she really could have slowed me down, but she mostly stuck to indigo and sugar early (mostly because she needed cash and could only have produced 1 corn early anyway) and didn't hamper my shipping or selling until very late.
Annie said, after it was over, "I like this game, but I suck at it."
Now she knows how I feel about Edel, Stein & Reich.
| Wyatt Earp |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | $28,000 | 1 | |
| Dan | $25,000 | 2 | |
| Annie | $25,000 | 3 | |
Notes: To end the night, we took another Annie request and played Wyatt Earp, one of my all-time favorite games. The first round was pretty close, as we all managed a majority or two. Butch Cassidy went unclaimed, despite having $5000 on him, thanks to the fact that we all tied with 6 points each for him and couldn't divide up the booty. The first round scores were:
Mike: $7000
Annie: $7000
Dan: $6000
In the second round I went for a new strategy. I almost had enough cards to play for the Butch Cassidy bounty, but I
wanted to save up the cards so that I could play them all at the end and get a lot of cash for him. I barely played any
cards, though I added on to a couple of melds. Dan complained about his cards, though once some melds were in play he
was able to play a ton of cards on top of them. I managed to get the head bounty on Wes Hardin, then, when Annie discarded
Butch Cassidy, I snatched him up, threw down 10 points on him (and a further $3000 on his bounty), then gave him a
stagecoach robbery, and managed to get every last dollar on him (all $11000). Had I played the other melds a bit better, I
might have won, but I only managed $2000 more (from Wes). Annie did rather poorly, mostly because all her "draws" were
missing; I don't think she hit a bullet hole all game. 2nd round scores:
Mike: $19000
Dan: $18000
Annie: $11000
In the third round, Sundance was the cream of the crop, so I went for him and tried to get out ASAP. I managed to do so
in a manner similar to my second round strategy. Dan had a pile of Jesse James cards on his meld, and Annie was one point
away from getting in on the bounty (which was pretty big), and had her Bank Robbery worked, she would have challenged me
for the victory. As it was, her rotten luck cost her. I once again relied heavily on my big score (a $6000 bounty for
Sundance) and got a few thousand as (usually) the third highest scorer on a meld. Huzzah for Sheriff Mike.
I should mention that Dan and Annie thought I would have clobbered them by a lot more money. As it was, it was pretty close. I mean, had Annie got in on the Jesse James bid we might have tied (or else I would have one by $1000).