| Results |
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 19 | 1 | |
| Scott | 18 | 2 | |
| Karla | OUT | 3 | |
Notes: Karla wanted to play again, so we did. This game was more like a regular game, as everyone was able to
buy a bunch of stuff. I quickly bought the Island (10 points), which cost me $41 million. Then I sat back and tried to
carefully bid people up. One of my strategies was to get Karla and Scott to use their small money cards so that they'd
have to really overbid or else let me have the item. I guess it worked.
Karla really spent a lot of money gathering a recognition card and spending cash on a lot of smaller items. She had the
TV (1 point), the painting (3 points), the Cruise ship (5 points), and the Jet (6 points). At one point she finally passed
me for the lead. Then Scott got rolling. He bought the basketball team again (8 points) and also grabbed the car (4 points).
This gave him the lead over me, and I was in third place. Then Karla overspent to avoid the Casino card (-5 points) and
Scott took it. He then managed a recognition card. I was still in third. But then my "whittle away the low cash cards"
strategy reaped returns, as I managed to get the 9 point castle for all of $15 million.
Then I let Scott pay about $4 million for the trophy wife (2 points). He had ((8+2+4)-5)*2. This equals 18. I had 19,
and Karla, with only 1 money card left, definitely had less money. I was in good shape, great shape after Karla was forced
to take the IRS card. Only Scott ended up paying not to have it, and I was in like flynn.
| Results |
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | 3 | 1 | |
| Scott | 2 | 2 | |
| Mike | 2 | 3 | |
Notes: Still waiting for Dan & Annie to show, we played Can't Stop. Scott went for the popular numbers, generally
aiming for 7 and 8. I started on those two plus 6, but after a couple early busts I had to give them up and go after some
other numbers. Karla started off going for the hard to roll numbers, like 3, 4, and 10.
Soon Scott closed the 7, then Karla closed the 3. Scott was about to close the 5, but I managed to close out the 11, and
after Scott closed the 5, Karla closed the 2. Scott and Karla were both threatening to close the 8 next turn, so I went
for 6's and 8's, but only managed to get sixes. Rolling only for 4's and 8's, I chickened out and stopped. Then Scott
had some incredibly poor luck and the dice refused to give him an eight, so he had to try to win the game by closing 4, 10, or
12. He didn't make it, and Karla was able to close 8 on her next turn.
| Results |
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 107 | 1 | |
| Karla | 91 | 2 | |
| Dan | 81 | 3 | |
| Annie | 74 | 4 | |
| Scott | 49 | 5 | * |
Notes: Next up was Santiago, and it works, as Dan noted afterwards, much better with 5 people than with 4. There's a
tighter premium for space, and the auctions are much more expensive. It's excellent.
Scott was really overwhelmed. He made a lot of misplays and wasn't sure what to do a lot of the time. I think he'll get
it next time.
In this game, I started off early by setting up a big banana plantation, which Karla quickly joined me in. This would end
up being one of two 9-tile sized plantations in the game. Scott started a pepper plant which quickly rotted, but everyone
else had their crop (Dan = bean, Annie = sugarcane) on the water.
In the second round I bid high to get another banana field out there, letting Annie put the two-worker field out there and
putting my own 1 worker out there. Dan started a potato plantation and Scott managed to get a pepper field out. Soon
the banana field was growing rapidly, and then a sugarcane field started in the corner. It ended up size 5 and was the only
plantation of any substance I didn't get in on.
There were two big moves that occurred. At one point, Dan volunteered to put a potato plant in a risky area - one where
he might not get water, but would, if it were watered, make a nice sized potato plantation that all of us could enjoy. I
was the canal overseer, and the bids were kind of crappy except for the one offered by Annie. So I took Annie's money, and
Dan was really angry with us for not helping him out, since he had gone out on a limb to help us out - the rest of us
took spots that were already watered (he should have given a better bid). I only had a single worker on my potato plant,
but Karla had two, so she should have helped Dan bribe me but didn't. I didn't really care about Dan's potato crop dying,
because I would hardly net any points anyway. So I let it die. No skin off my hide, but it did piss Dan off.
The other big move was one I learned from Annie last game. To refresh your memory, I let Annie get first pick of some tiles,
thinking that she'd go somewhere beneficial to both of us. Instead, she hosed me, and I lost. This time, I hosed everyone
else and placed my tile right where it made all the other tiles either practically useless or with a very slim chance of
getting water. This resulted in my getting a bunch of points where everyone else had to use their own canals or waste their
rather high auction bids (some bid 5 or 6 to my 7) on worthless tiles.
Eventually a big bean plantation formed in the left side of the board, and though I didn't have the most points from it, I
did manage a substantial amount. On the second to last turn of the game, Scott got freaked out and felt like he had to do
something important, and he ended up forcing himself into a silly play. He said so soon afterwards. On the last turn, I
finally had to play my own canal (everyone else's was gone by about turn 5, with Annie using hers in turn 2, Scott in turn
3, Karla in turn 4, and Dan in turn 5). This netted me a few more "just in case" points in the big bean field.
Dan had had money most of the game, and the canal overseer role switched around quite a bit, with all of us having it twice
except for maybe Dan, who had it once. Sometimes it was worthwhile and sometimes not. Only once did the overseer trump
everyone and put the canal where she wanted it. One time Annie only made 2 escudos from Scott and Dan because she was
broke and no one else wanted to interfere with Dan and Scott's cheap placement. Annie was broke, so she had to take the
money.
In the end, my huge scores in the banana (63 points) and bean plantations (36 points) gave me the victory. My only other
plot was an 8 point potato plantation. Karla (36 points), Annie (27 points), and Dan (9 points) got in on the bananas, too.
Dan matched my 36 points for the beans, as did Annie. Dan and Karla managed 20 points each in the sugarcane field I missed
out on, too. There were also some extra points available for the potato field, and Scott managed a few points in a pepper
plantation.
The only other thing to say was that I bid well this game. Whenever taking the first plantation was worth it, I did
it, escudos be damned. I tried to manipulate my tiles into positions that would be used by other folks, and when I really
needed the canal, I really bribed them. Karla played well, as did Dan (until we hosed him on that potato
plant), and Annie did okay, but never got the cash she needed from the canal overseer role. Scott, as I mentioned, was a
bit lost.
| Results |
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Jim | 13 (+6 cards) | 1 | |
| Scott | 13 (+2 cards) | 2 (Tie) | |
| Dan | 13 (+2 cards) | 2 (Tie) | |
| Karla | 12 | 4 | |
| Annie | 10 | 5 (Tie) | |
| Mike | 10 | 5 (Tie) | |
Notes: We had an hour to go and Jim showed up, so we brainstormed for a good 1 hour six-player game. I would have
liked to play I'm the Boss!, but no one wanted to. Power Grid, Acquire, and Alhambra were all out because they tend to
take too long. I would have vetoed Bang! because we've played it a lot lately. Killer Bunnies was given the Heisman by
Karla and Jim (and me! Six player Killer Bunnies can take a while). It was with a grim look that Dan admitted, "I guess
Bohnanza's our best bet right now." His admission was greeted by a "Yay!" from Annie, who's wanted to play Bohnanza for
quite some time now.
Scott was at first conservative in trading, but I quickly got him over that. The beans, after all, don't do you any good
to be in your hand. Early on, I got him to trade me a green bean and a coffee bean for a red bean. As he already had two
read beans, the third red would give him an extra gold coin. Dan said it was a bad deal for Scott. No way! At that
point, a green bean was worth 1/2 gold and coffee 1/4 a gold. Add those together and they don't add up to the
1 gold I gave to Scott. It was a very fair trade.
Dan was (appropriately) Stink Bean central. He harvested a ton all game. Early on, Karla bought a third bean field, and
Scott and Jim soon followed suit. Karla didn't use hers enough to warrant its use, but Jim and Scott did a great job
manipulating it. Karla and Annie held onto their respective Soy Bean fields for too long. At one point Karla could have
traded Dan just about anything for his Soy Bean and didn't do so. That was odd.
Scott and Jim made nice reapings on red beans. I kept getting stuck with crappy trades for the most part, and I never
really felt like I was a threat to win. Annie and I both had to tank some fields inefficiently. Scott had huge fields
of Chili, Wax, and Coffee at one point and managed to max them all out. Jim also maxed out some fields, including red
and wax beans. Dan scored a lot off of Stink, and Karla had Black-eyed and Soy. I got a bunch of mediocre scores but
never maxed out on anything, and, like Annie, I had to forfeit a couple fields.
The game ended on Karla's turn, which was the turn before my own. (I got her to cash in her Soy bean field when I
reshuffled the deck, which gave her one last turn. Said I, "See, aren't you glad you cashed in your soy now?" I didn't
get a happy answer.)
We counted out our coins, and Jim, Scott, and Dan tied. Jim had six cards left to Scott and Dan's two, so he won. This
resulted, predictably, in Karla saying, "Jim always wins!"