Two gaming sessions this week to report on:-
1 - I met with Julian & Ester on Monday evening as they were keen to get some more gaming in; possibly they are really liking the new hobby?! I first introduce them to Zooloretto & after explaining the rules & basic concepts/tips, we were away. I felt like I started well & didn't have any animals in my barn for a long time, while the other two quickly had a couple of types. They quickly caught on to check what everyone else was collecting so they could try to place a tile in a truck which wasn't benefictial (or as little as possible) to anyone else. I was the first to expand my zoo & thought I was on my way to a win, but after a bit of crafty swopping animal types around, Ester seemed like she was catching up. A bit of buying here & there, I started feeling less sure especially after I had to take a couple of trucks that put a total of 3 animal types in my barn - bad news!
Final score - joint 1st was Julian & Ester on 27pts, me in last with 22pts. Oh, the shame!
We then moved onto Stone Age. We all had a good game the previous week at the Legion with Michel (who doesn't share the same views) & the newbies wanted another go. Julian especially learnt the importance of the scoring cards. This was a game of more bad dice rolls than the previous game & there were quite a lot of cards bought... Julian went up to NINE workers & built a lot of builings (7?) to my 5.
Final scoring - 1st was Julian on 137pts, 2nd was me on 115pts & Ester was on @100pts.
Last game of the evening was Fearsome Floors which I thought would appeal to Julian's back-stabbing nature. I am beginning to think he & Damen were separated at birth! After an explanation of the movement rules & showing examples of how the monster moves through walls, as well as how this can be manipulated to screw around with your opponents, we were off. I was the first to get a person out, then Julian & quickly followed by Ester. By the 2nd phase, Julian had got his 2nd person out ahead of me (so was currently 1st on tie-break of getting out quicker) & we only needed one more to win the game. After a bit of Julian trying to shaft me, which I countered by sacrificing my penultimate person to shaft him back, he had no-one left to move & I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself as I still had one more fairly near the exit & only Ester to worry about. The only way I could lose was if the '1 Kill' or '2 Kills' tile came up (as the monster moves 20 spaces)... unfortunately, it did & the monster soon had me in its sight, gobbling me up & at the same time, giving Julian victory from the hands of defeat!
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2 - at the Legion last night, I had hoped to try out Chicago Express but we (me, Ben, Nasty Nick, Steve & Nick Bleech) decided to settle for Princes Of Florence. I was more than happy as I'd never player a multi-player game of PoF which is meant to be difficult & tense. I chose Works that seemed to rely on large buildings & quickly found myself bidding hard for Builders so that I could put the three large buildings (Lab, University & ?) close together. I also had Works that relied heavily on Religion, Lakes & Forests, so was feeling quite chuffed about that. My final Works Value was 24(!) & converted it all to points. But it wasn't enough to beat Steve (the winner) or Ben (2nd), who both had Prestige cards that gave them extra points. I did end up one point ahead of Nasty Nick, which was enough for me!
Nick B left, so the 4 of us played Yspahan quickly. We saw a huge amount of cards being taken & played, one of which I used to build the +2pts building. This may have been the crucial point that won me the game as I score a gigantic 29pts in the 2nd week for having 4 complete souks, which gave me a bonus 8pts. Towards the end of the final week I was miles ahead, but Steve caught up & ended 4pts behind.
The fact that I beat Nasty Nick TWICE (shock!) was the icing on the cake as he had been stirring things up all evening! But I still love him (oo-er, missus!)...
Friday 30 January 2009
Saturday 17 January 2009
15th Jan - Puerto Rico
With the new gamers (Julian & Ester) in mind, I arranged a game of Puerto Rico with them, Michel & Nick. Me & Nick have played Puerto Rico a fair number of times & we seem to favour a strategy of going for the Hospice (+1 colonist for settling) as our first building. I wanted to do something different as it can be a tedious to stick with the same strategy every single time for me.
I was the lucky player to choose the first role & chose Builder, taking a Large Indigo Plant. Unsurprisingly, Nick went for the Hospice. I only remember Ester going for the Small Market (+1 doubloon when selling).
I hadn't played for a few months & as the game progressed, I was beginning to feel I was lagging behind most of the others once we all began to produce a variety of resources to ship for VPs; due to only producing 1 Indigo & 1 Sugar in the early game, I wasn't gettin many VPs while Michel & Nick seemed to shipping more than the rest of us. I decided to try & get the Wharf (+1 VP per shipment) followed by one of the large 4VPs buildings, so this strategy began with an early purchase of the Construction Hut (may take a Quarry instead of a plantation in the Settler phase) & this reaped rewards as I has 3 manned Quarries & used it in conjunction with the Large Market (+2 doubloons when selling) as well as taking the Prospector role if there were extra coins on it, to sell Tobacco for a large sum. This enabled me to have the money to buy the Wharf, which I didn't use as much as I wanted seeing as the ships got very full up and/or were stocking up with resources I didn't produce (coffee & corn). I quickly got up to 10 coins again & agonised over whether to go for a Harbour (your own ship) which would have been excellent seeing as I had the Wharf, but I noticed Nick was amassing lots of colonists & would probably look to buy the Residence (4VPs, +1 VP per 3 colonists) in the game as it would give him a siginificant number of bonus VPs. I decided to stir things up a bit by buying the Residence to Nick's dismay, but in part, I took this for myself because I was estimating this would also happen to be the 4VP building that would given me the most bonus points by the end of the game.
Ester was also rolling in the money with selling coffee & using her Small Market, which she used to buy the Guild Hall(?) (bonus points for production buildings). Michel was struggling for cash, although he seemed to be producing & shipping a lot. Julian was also producing a fair amount & had the Factory to gain extra doubloons with production. I think Nick ended up going for the 4VP building that gives bonus points for violet buildings, he wasn't exactly rolling in the money but he had two manned Quarries which helped him out enough. Both Michel & Julian had the Hacienda which also you to draw a bonus plantation in the Settler phase & it didn't seem like their draws were doing them any favours; I am personally not a fan of the Hacienda myself.
The game ended as a result of running out of colonists. Results:-
1st - Matt, 33pts & 7 doubloons.
2nd - Nick, 33pts & 6 doubloons! (3 doubloons, 3 corn)
3rd - Ester, 31pts.
4th & 5th - Michel & Julian (can't remember who won the tie-break).
Very close game, though unusually low-scoring as me, Nick & David pointed out.
I also had the pleasure of sitting next to Huggy, who was playing A Game Of Thrones. I took great delight in scattering his carefully arranged wooden pieces at his side twice & making sure he was not cheating!
I was the lucky player to choose the first role & chose Builder, taking a Large Indigo Plant. Unsurprisingly, Nick went for the Hospice. I only remember Ester going for the Small Market (+1 doubloon when selling).
I hadn't played for a few months & as the game progressed, I was beginning to feel I was lagging behind most of the others once we all began to produce a variety of resources to ship for VPs; due to only producing 1 Indigo & 1 Sugar in the early game, I wasn't gettin many VPs while Michel & Nick seemed to shipping more than the rest of us. I decided to try & get the Wharf (+1 VP per shipment) followed by one of the large 4VPs buildings, so this strategy began with an early purchase of the Construction Hut (may take a Quarry instead of a plantation in the Settler phase) & this reaped rewards as I has 3 manned Quarries & used it in conjunction with the Large Market (+2 doubloons when selling) as well as taking the Prospector role if there were extra coins on it, to sell Tobacco for a large sum. This enabled me to have the money to buy the Wharf, which I didn't use as much as I wanted seeing as the ships got very full up and/or were stocking up with resources I didn't produce (coffee & corn). I quickly got up to 10 coins again & agonised over whether to go for a Harbour (your own ship) which would have been excellent seeing as I had the Wharf, but I noticed Nick was amassing lots of colonists & would probably look to buy the Residence (4VPs, +1 VP per 3 colonists) in the game as it would give him a siginificant number of bonus VPs. I decided to stir things up a bit by buying the Residence to Nick's dismay, but in part, I took this for myself because I was estimating this would also happen to be the 4VP building that would given me the most bonus points by the end of the game.
Ester was also rolling in the money with selling coffee & using her Small Market, which she used to buy the Guild Hall(?) (bonus points for production buildings). Michel was struggling for cash, although he seemed to be producing & shipping a lot. Julian was also producing a fair amount & had the Factory to gain extra doubloons with production. I think Nick ended up going for the 4VP building that gives bonus points for violet buildings, he wasn't exactly rolling in the money but he had two manned Quarries which helped him out enough. Both Michel & Julian had the Hacienda which also you to draw a bonus plantation in the Settler phase & it didn't seem like their draws were doing them any favours; I am personally not a fan of the Hacienda myself.
The game ended as a result of running out of colonists. Results:-
1st - Matt, 33pts & 7 doubloons.
2nd - Nick, 33pts & 6 doubloons! (3 doubloons, 3 corn)
3rd - Ester, 31pts.
4th & 5th - Michel & Julian (can't remember who won the tie-break).
Very close game, though unusually low-scoring as me, Nick & David pointed out.
I also had the pleasure of sitting next to Huggy, who was playing A Game Of Thrones. I took great delight in scattering his carefully arranged wooden pieces at his side twice & making sure he was not cheating!
Tuesday 13 January 2009
Right, I thought it was about time I put some kind of feline-related - and non-gaming! - post on here... makes sense since I've called this blog 'The Best Blog Concerning Games & Cats'!
Since I was born, we've lived around cats. My mother was (and still is, to a lesser extent) involved in Persian cat shows in a big way & years ago, it felt as though there was a conveyor belt with a new kitten every 6 months or so with a stunning & cute fluffy creature for the latest project. The most cats we've ever lived with was 20...! Yes, I know... a lot of dead mice & furballs!
Due to several reasons, the number of cats has now dwindled down to 7 - the main one being the 'cat boom' years turned into an aging population, which meant we've had a lot of nine lives being used up. It's much more manageable now - all the cats we have currently are Zendique exotics, which basically mean they're still Persian but with a short coat rather than being long-haired. It seems the latest trend in cats these days...
Since I was born, we've lived around cats. My mother was (and still is, to a lesser extent) involved in Persian cat shows in a big way & years ago, it felt as though there was a conveyor belt with a new kitten every 6 months or so with a stunning & cute fluffy creature for the latest project. The most cats we've ever lived with was 20...! Yes, I know... a lot of dead mice & furballs!
Due to several reasons, the number of cats has now dwindled down to 7 - the main one being the 'cat boom' years turned into an aging population, which meant we've had a lot of nine lives being used up. It's much more manageable now - all the cats we have currently are Zendique exotics, which basically mean they're still Persian but with a short coat rather than being long-haired. It seems the latest trend in cats these days...
The picture above; the white boy is Dylan & was made the first UK Imperial Grand Champion & UK Imperial Grand Premier at the height of his 'fame' a couple of years ago. Apparently, people still talk about him at cat shows. The grey boy (Iggy) is actually's my sister's & has done reasonably well - he looks very similar to a grey boy (Tzar) that my mum has at the moment.
Well, that's it. Probably not very interesting but thought it was worth adding a useless fact about me on here...
Friday 9 January 2009
First game of 2009 - Caylus
It was the first gaming session last night back at the Legion, after the previous two Thursday evenings fell on Christmas Day & New Year's Day. So it was good get back into a weekly routine.
Quite a big turn-out saw three games being played; a 4-player group, including two newbies (Esther & Julian), played Ticket To Ride:Marklin, 6 played the full number accommodated for in Pillars Of The Earth with the expansion.
Keith, Paul B, Andre & I played Caylus. I am extremely fond of worker-placement games, even though there seems to be increasingly more & more of these coming out, but I consider Caylus the best of them all even though I'm also fond of Agricola (which feels more of a fun game). After all, when Caylus first came out in 2004, it was considered by some the father of the worker placement mechanic. Despite my fondness for Caylus, it remains a game which I still feel I haven't quite mastered the best strategy/strategies to be pursuing so I tend to go on an instinctive basis as the game progress. Perhaps I just haven't played it enough yet (approx. 5 times)?
By the time the Dungeon scoring happened, both Keith & Andre were in the lead followed by me, then Paul B. All of us seemed to be managing to contribute to the building of the castle (you need 3 different resource cubes - one of which MUST be a food - per house) fairly equally & constructing a few buildings. No-one seemed to be in a particularly more advantageous position at this point.
By the time we reached the Walls scoring, I had noticed something significant something about Andre's game; he had built a number of buildings that the other three of us seemed to be using quite a lot in comparison & getting extra points - in particular, the buildings that provide more than one resource; Farm (two cloth or one food), Quarry (two stone) & Workshop (two stone & one cloth). I had a Stone building that I thought would be useful - Farm (two food & one cloth) - as this would give me a food or cloth in addition to a point each time someone else used it. I made a tit of myself when I placed a worker twice in Paul B's Mason to build a Stone Building... only to remember I wouldn't have any stone once the Mason was activated! Stupid.
The turning point in my strategy came when Keith built the Bank that allows you to buy 1 Gold for 2 coins or 2 Golds for 5 coins (Gold is worth 3pts apiece at game end) & I decided I would pursue a Gold-gathering strategy by collecting money where I could & buying it up, as well as placing a worker in the Mine. I also constructed the Alchemist that allows you to convert 2 resources into 1 Gold or 4 resources into 2 Gold as an alternative to buying if I needed it.
As we ended the last stage of the game, all apart from me had built a Residence to gain extra money in the collection phase & it became clear both Keith & Andre seemed to be working towards getting a Prestige building. Whether Andrew twigged that I was focusing on gathering Gold for game-end, I don't know, but I got the impression he was keen to speed the game up by moving the provost ahead of the balliff. Both Andre & Keith managed to build a Prestigue building by the last turn & it was looking close as I had 7 Gold cubes twinkling away...
Final scoring:-
1st - Andre, 74pts
2nd - Matt, 69pts
Keith - circa 60-62pts?
Paul B - circa 50-55pts?
A great game by all & I was left wondering what if I hadn't wasted those two worker placements? So slight is the line between success & failure....
Quite a big turn-out saw three games being played; a 4-player group, including two newbies (Esther & Julian), played Ticket To Ride:Marklin, 6 played the full number accommodated for in Pillars Of The Earth with the expansion.
Keith, Paul B, Andre & I played Caylus. I am extremely fond of worker-placement games, even though there seems to be increasingly more & more of these coming out, but I consider Caylus the best of them all even though I'm also fond of Agricola (which feels more of a fun game). After all, when Caylus first came out in 2004, it was considered by some the father of the worker placement mechanic. Despite my fondness for Caylus, it remains a game which I still feel I haven't quite mastered the best strategy/strategies to be pursuing so I tend to go on an instinctive basis as the game progress. Perhaps I just haven't played it enough yet (approx. 5 times)?
By the time the Dungeon scoring happened, both Keith & Andre were in the lead followed by me, then Paul B. All of us seemed to be managing to contribute to the building of the castle (you need 3 different resource cubes - one of which MUST be a food - per house) fairly equally & constructing a few buildings. No-one seemed to be in a particularly more advantageous position at this point.
By the time we reached the Walls scoring, I had noticed something significant something about Andre's game; he had built a number of buildings that the other three of us seemed to be using quite a lot in comparison & getting extra points - in particular, the buildings that provide more than one resource; Farm (two cloth or one food), Quarry (two stone) & Workshop (two stone & one cloth). I had a Stone building that I thought would be useful - Farm (two food & one cloth) - as this would give me a food or cloth in addition to a point each time someone else used it. I made a tit of myself when I placed a worker twice in Paul B's Mason to build a Stone Building... only to remember I wouldn't have any stone once the Mason was activated! Stupid.
The turning point in my strategy came when Keith built the Bank that allows you to buy 1 Gold for 2 coins or 2 Golds for 5 coins (Gold is worth 3pts apiece at game end) & I decided I would pursue a Gold-gathering strategy by collecting money where I could & buying it up, as well as placing a worker in the Mine. I also constructed the Alchemist that allows you to convert 2 resources into 1 Gold or 4 resources into 2 Gold as an alternative to buying if I needed it.
As we ended the last stage of the game, all apart from me had built a Residence to gain extra money in the collection phase & it became clear both Keith & Andre seemed to be working towards getting a Prestige building. Whether Andrew twigged that I was focusing on gathering Gold for game-end, I don't know, but I got the impression he was keen to speed the game up by moving the provost ahead of the balliff. Both Andre & Keith managed to build a Prestigue building by the last turn & it was looking close as I had 7 Gold cubes twinkling away...
Final scoring:-
1st - Andre, 74pts
2nd - Matt, 69pts
Keith - circa 60-62pts?
Paul B - circa 50-55pts?
A great game by all & I was left wondering what if I hadn't wasted those two worker placements? So slight is the line between success & failure....
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