A Boardgamer Boardgaming

New Game: Pick and Pack!

2007-12-11T17:45:00.000-05:00

Tony and I played this new game that I've just picked up the day before. We had Berkant and Mike as floating audience...heh. Both of us played for the first time, but I thought I had a slight advantage after having self-played (though badly) once before. And off we go...well, Tony was constantly picking up lots of apples, so I fell behind with that. It was about picking up apples in the beginning, and trying to do various actions later in the game. I put a premium on one of my better crates with only 2 trays on it, and put a wholesale on one of Tony's crates that had a tray with 6 apples. Then Tony put two wholesales on two of my crates, leaving me with only one crate left in play. But since Tony blocked one of my premium tiles, that means that this crate would remain open for the rest of the game. Close to the end, I made a strange maneuver to swap one of my 1-apple trays with one of Tony's 2-apple trays utilizing a rush order action. Little did I know then, this would be a game breaker for me, as I won by 1 point! Tony had 13 + 4(.5) + 10 + 14(premium) for 41 points, while I had 5(.5) + 4(.5) + 18(premium) + 15 for 42 points. Nice! Not a bad game, though it does burn the brain just a little. Tony mentioned that he was only looking for me to get fewer apples while I was looking to prevent him from taking certain actions, which was certainly true. So now I'm going to lose the next time...heh.

Power Grid Italy with New Plants!

2007-12-10T16:36:00.000-05:00

I picked up the Italy/France map just this day, and played the Italy portion in the evening with Harry and Li Zhen. And we used the new power plants. It's a double expansion game! We played the higher-cost lower three regions, together with the higher resource costs, it should have been a game where money was tight...unfortunately, not so with the efficient power plants! So money was almost never an issue, which kind of took a bit of fun out of the game. But in any case, we proceeded as usual, this time I actually built more houses than Harry sometimes! Initially I was blocked in by both of them, but I rammed north to take a stake there (with enough money to do that...heh).

The power plants were mostly balanced, so we couldn't get a lasting plant early in the game, which is good. Step 3 auctions were kind of lame, though, since we were all trying to bet if the next plant is going to be one of those giant ones. So instead of bidding high for a plant, there was almost no bidding. In the end, I was the only one with 19 capacity while both Harry and Li Zhen had 18 capacity. I had just enough money to build to 19 cities, so I won. Harry had less money than Li Zhen, so Li Zhen got second place. But the trick is, had Li Zhen bought one more plant in the last round to raise his capacity to 19, there was a possibility that he might have won...heh. But for now, I win for the first time in a while.

About the new power plants...I think the way we play them sort of ruins part of the fun. The giant plants that are above 50 messes things up quite a bit. Maybe that's why for a few games now, we had enough capacity to finish the game way before we had enough cities on the board. That slowed the tension by quite a bit. So in the future, we should either play with the old plants or play only the new plants up to 50, like what the rules said...heh.

Final scores:
Li Zhen: 18 capacity and cities, 53 dollars left.
Harry: 18 capacity and cities, 36 dollars left.
Me: 19 capacity and cities, 36 dollars left.

New Power Plants!

2007-11-25T15:13:00.000-05:00

It was a Sunday night, and everyone was bored. I bought the new Power Grid Power Plant Deck, and enticed people to play for two days, and finally Li Zhen Harry Forest took the bait. We played at Li Zhen's place. First of all, a note about the quality of the new plants...they're ok, I guess, but not as good as the original. The new plants are suffering from a little warping already, and it spins a lot on the table. Also, it seems that the printing was coming off pretty easily...anyway, these are just small complaints...on we go with the games!

Harry and Li Zhen decided to have a drink of alcohol, Li Zhen doesn't seem to be affected, but Harry was louder than usual...heh. Anyway, we played on the US map with NE and South-Central excluded, forming an arch type shape for our game. Initially I accidentally put up the wrong restock chart, gaining protest from Harry for buying oil plant that could end up costing him more than he thought. But we proceeded anyway, since we don't want Harry to win. I tried the garbage approach again. The three of them battle for the east while I tried a new approach by settling alone in the west coast.

Surprisingly I was the one triggering step 2, and things started to go bizarre. The power plant market stalled. All the plants in the market only powered 3 or 4 cities, and we wanted to upgrade to large ones. So for three or four turns, nobody bought any power plants. Meanwhile, I was stuck with capacity 9, and the other three had higher capacities (10 or 11). Not only that, my resources were costing more than the other three, so obviously my cash reserve after this stall was low. Meanwhile, the three of them kept on expanding their cities, but I kept back, only having the necessary 9 cities and not building.

Finally, a barely buyable plant came up, and it powers 5 cities. I was aggressivly pushing to buy this one, and got it, pushing my capacity to 12. Unfortunately, the step 3 card appeared right after, meaning that good plants were being pushed up to the market one at a time. Li Zhen got one next, pushing his capacity to 14. Forest didn't get one. So Harry got to buy one at face value, and it just happens to be one that has capacity 7, pushing his capacity to 17. At this point, we figured it's pretty much over, and we were right, since Harry simply used his massive reserve to build up to 17 cities, and he won.

But...this felt like quite an unsatisfying end, so Forest Li Zhen and I kept on playing as a 3-player game. We wanted to have an opportunity to play the big plants. In the next round, all three of us got a plant (I got the fusion plant for 6, used to cost 50, now only 44), and at that point both Li Zhen and I had capacity 16, while Forest was below that. So now if either Li Zhen or I build to 17 cities, the game would be over and the two of us will compare money for the secondary winner. I knew that I would have less money, so I only built to 16 cities. Li Zhen was afraid that I have more money than him, so he didn't trigger the end game and built to 16 cities as well. Forest was just happy to be still in the game.

Then the final round came. Coal was running short. I only have supplies for one coal plants, and was sure to have no more coal available to me this turn since I'm first in turn order after having bought that fusion plant. Only two plants remain in the deck, and one coal plant that powers 7 came out, which was the only plant in the market that would improve my capacity. I cannot pass, so I picked that one, hoping that there's a slim chance that Li Zhen would get it so that I would have the other big plant available. Well, Li Zhen was smart, so he passed. I replaced this new plant with my original coal plant and increased my capacity by 2. If I had replaced another plant, my capacity would increase by 3, but I would not have enough coal to power it all. So now I have capacity 18.

Li Zhen obviously picked the one that came out next, which was the big 50 plant where 2 uranium powers 8! Forest and Li Zhen went to a bidding war for this one, since whoever wins this one would have the highest capacity. The bidding ended when Forest jumped the price from around 70 to 100! Li Zhen thought that's too much for him (foreshadowing!), so he let Forest have it. Now Forest has capacity 19! Li Zhen picked up a nuclear plant that powers 6 to bring his capacity total to 18, hoping to drive the price of uranium up, but it didn't work so well.

Now Forest built up to 19 cities, so he won the secondary game. Li Zhen and I both built up to 18 cities, and we compared our money, which of course Li Zhen had way more than me, so he ended in third place while I was dead last. Now, a couple of analysis...

(a) If Li Zhen knew that I had very little money in the second last round and ended the game at that round, he would have won the secondary game! But I guess he was insecure, or he wanted to play more!

(b) Forest had only 8 dollars left at the end of the game! So if Li Zhen had pushed the price up by at least 9 dollars, Forest would not be able to afford his 19th city, and he would had to compare money with both Li Zhen and I, for which he would definitely lose. That's why it's very important to keep the money secret, or people would overanalyze this so much!

Ok, I enjoyed this game greatly, even though I ended up last. Well, maybe not for the stalling in step 2, but otherwise it was fun.

First stage scores:
Forest: 11 capacity, 16 cities.
Harry: 17 capacity, 17 cities, 93 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 14 capacity, 14 cities.
Me: 12 capacity, 13 cities.

Second stage scores:
Forest: 19 capacity, 19 cities, 8 dollars left.
Li Zhen: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 122 dollars left.
Me: 18 capacity, 18 cities, 46 dollars left.

Quick ingenious game with Gary

2007-11-23T13:59:00.000-05:00

It was Friday night, and Gary and I were in my office waiting for Forest and William. I opted for a quick game of Ingenious, which I haven't played in a while. This is a close game, but somehow I was constantly running out of tiles that have my lowest scoring colour. Seeing this, Gary was blocking me left and right. At the last turn, both of us had 7 7 8 as our lowest three scores, but Gary gets one last turn, and he just happened to have something to score for his 8, so he wins! Doh...good game.

Final scores:
Gary: 7 9 15 10 9 7 (7 7 9)
Me: 12 7 8 13 11 7 (7 7 8)

What? I won at Power Grid?

2007-11-19T13:41:00.000-05:00

We still had time, so played a bit of Power Grid Benelux, the supposed faster game among the maps. We picked three sort-of-elongated region this time. Li Zhen picked the south, I picked the north, and Harry was squeezed in the middle, meaning Harry couldn't expand much. Li Zhen was slow in the power plants. I hit step 2, and step 3 came soon afterwards. In the second last round, both Harry and I had capacity 17, but neither of us had enough money to build up to 17 cities. This gave Li Zhen a chance to build up his power plants. I decided to only power 12 cities that turn, hoping to conserve some money with the resources. For the final round, I was last in turn order. Only one 6-plant on the board, the rest 5 or lower, and no more plants were available. Harry passed on the power plants, I decided to put the 6-plant up for auction. If I won that, I would have 18 capacity (and Harry was regretting it now), but if Li Zhen won that, he would have 17 capacity, and we would all go into a tie-breaker. Turns out that Li Zhen wanted that more than I did, so I let him have it. We all built up to 17 cities with 17 capacity, and it was time to reveal the money... Li Zhen had just 2 dollars left... Harry had 73... and I had 94...so even with low power in the second last round, I still won! Yay! That was an interesting game.

What? I won at Settlers?

2007-11-19T13:24:00.000-05:00

After the prayer meeting, Harry Li Zhen and I started off with a game of Settlers. I get to pick last, so somehow that's a good thing for me...or so I thought. The game started off pretty evenly, actually, with everyone building nicely up to 4 points or so. But it kind of stalled a bit as brick was scarce. Li Zhen took the longest road, which Harry later took away from him. I got largest army. Lots of 5s were thrown, and each time Harry would get a brick and an ore, and later 2 bricks and 2 ores. After a string of 5s, I used a monopoly to get 7 ores from Harry! But I used them badly, by trading for one development card...which was a soldier. I managed three ports and after a short string of good rolls, I managed to snatch the longest road from Harry and win the game! Wow...I haven't won at Settlers in a long time... And Li Zhen is officially not liking Settlers anymore, just like me...heh.

Final scores: Li Zhen 5, Harry 5, Me 10.

3-player Power Grid Central Europe

2007-11-12T14:32:00.000-05:00

Li Zhen joined Harry and I for the Central Europe game. I noted initially that oil is scarce in Central Europe, but apparently they weren't listening...heh. We picked eastern Poland, Slovakia and Austria for yet another elongated play area. This time, the bottleneck is at Wien and Bratislava, and Li Zhen took that one out of the gate. And that had a great impact on the rest of the game. Harry and I were stuck in the north, and later Li Zhen even moved northward as well, so it's infeasible for neither Harry nor I to go down to Austria. That means Li Zhen had control over when step 2 starts...

...but, we had an awful power plant market. All of us have capacity for 5 or 6 already, but for the longest time, the power plants for sale all have capacities 2 or 3. So for many many rounds, all of us were simply gathering up money, while Li Zhen refuses to go into step 2 until he buys a better plant. Meanwhile, both Harry and I needed oil for our plants while Li Zhen only needed coal and very cheap uranium. Oil was running dry, and our costs for oil went higher and higher.

Eventually, Li Zhen sees another uranium plant on the market and bought it. In that round, he finally broke into step 2 with the building, but Harry and I still couldn't build because we have to wait until the next round. At the end of the round, after placing the highest power plant under the deck, the replacement card was the step 3 card! So this is the round where both step 2 and 3 happened! This has never happened before...

Now we can go on a shopping spree for power plants. I first set my eyes on the 3 hybrid -> 7 cities plant, and Harry wanted that too. The bidding went crazy...eventually I bought it for 75 bucks! Yikes. Then Harry set his eyes on a 2 oil -> 6 cities plant, but (wisely) decided against it since oil was running dry. That round, though, I bought all the oil, so while Li Zhen and I both powered around 10 cities, Harry only powered 2, so he must be low on money. Next round, Harry and Li Zhen went on a bidding war over the 3 coals -> 7 cities plant, which Harry won for 80 bucks! Harry was not expecting that, I think... Li Zhen picked up a 3 trash -> 7 cities one, while I picked up the 2 oil -> 6 cities one, which I can afford since I was first to buy resources. But, unfortunately for me, I don't have enough money to build up to 17 cities, which means I need another round to win. But I don't have another round, unfortunately, as Li Zhen has a ton of money (who knew) and builds up to 18 cities to win. Meanwhile, Harry still had one oil plant that he couldn't power, so his score is pretty low. That was a very intense end game, I think. Quite enjoyable, too, if not brain burning...

Final scores:
Harry: 17 capacity, 12 resources, 13 cities, $70 left.
Li Zhen: 18 capacity, 18 resources, 18 cities, $157 left.
Me: 18 capacity, 18 resources, 15 cities, $21 left.

2-player Power Grid Benelux

2007-11-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

Harry and I played on the Benelux map using three elongated regions from top to bottom, with a bottleneck at Maastricht. Harry took that city initially, but I managed to cut him off from the north, though. Somehow I was always low on cash, behind on the city building, and that hurt me at the end. I was the first to have capacity 21 while Harry have around 14, but I couldn't build up to 21 in that round. Next round, Harry gets up to capacity 20, but I still couldn't build up to 21 cities. Instead, he built up to 21 cities, winning the game by powering 20 while I only powered 18. Oops. Anyway, it's a very quick game, I think.

Final scores:
Harry: 20 capacity, 21 cities, $4 left.
Me: 21 capacity, 18 cities, $11 left.

First Full Game of Settlers in the Office

2007-11-06T18:43:00.000-05:00

So Mat saw the board when he entered unexpectedly...and the three of us played it. It was a wood-barren board, and I went first, so I picked a 3/11/6 wood/wood/wheat corner. After Tony and Mat placed their settlements, I ran out of luck. The only viable choice for me was on a 4/8 ore with 3:1 port. Doh. That pretty much doomed me, I think.

And the game begins. First, we find it funny that Mat called the development cards "devvy cards." Next, Tony was buying development cards like crazy (for a total of about 6 or 7 in the game), so Mat called him a "devvy baron"...heh. In any case, I was pretty much boxed in for expanding territories. And there is one spot that I had my eyes on for a while, only to be taken by Mat after (a) he used a road building card to get there and (b) I traded a wheat with him so that he could build the settlement there. Doh. Tony got the largest army for sure. But then Mat made a peculiar move...one where he offered to give Tony 5 cards for his "eternal goodwill"...heh. Well, obviously Mat was trying to avoid the 7, but what we didn't know is that in the next turn, he built a road to get the longest road card, upgraded a settlement to a city, then revealed his VP card to claim the victory. That was quite an interesting game, I think (though I was really never in the running). Tony had two VP cards, so he ended up with 8 points. I had lots of wheat and ore to give me 3 cities and a total of 6 points. I think we may be doing this in our office again...

Tony's First Settlers Experience

2007-11-06T18:40:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I've decided to give Tony the rules for Settlers. He seemed to get it. And off we go... Just Tony and I now, me thinking that this is just a trial run to get him familiar with the rules and stuff. Turns out that my initial placement is so bad (because I wasn't thinking about it) that it impeded my progress greatly. Meanwhile, Tony was doing various things, building settlements, upgrading, buying development cards. Just as I started to catch up, it was time for him to go to a seminar. So we decided to end the game there. Turns out that both of us had a VP development card, so he won with a score of 6 to 5. Doh.

3 games with forest

2007-09-11T14:45:00.000-04:00

Played Ingenious for the first time, and played 3 times in a row since Forest was addicted instantly! I only got the scores...I won 2 out of 3. Scores in brackets are the lowest ones that determined the winner.

Game 1:
Forest: 10 12 11 9 9 11 (9 9)
Me: 10 11 9 11 12 10 (9 10)

Game 2:
Forest: 8 18 18 8 9 14 (8 8 9 14)
Me: 8 18 9 9 8 9 (8 8 9 9)

Game 3:
Forest: 11 9 9 9 10 18 (9 9 9)
Me: 10 14 14 10 9 9 (9 9 10)

More (fun and) games with John and Tim (3/3)

2007-08-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

That php thing didn't work so well, so I decided (foolishly) to make a program that would throw 10 sets of dice without revealing what the results are, and let the player blindly choose which one to be the official one. Surely this would cut down on the complaints about randomness, right? Yeah..........not. I mean, there are 10 choices up there (without you knowing what the choices are), but if you select the one with the only 7 on there, then it's really your fault that you didn't avoid it, right? Sigh...

In addition to the dice throws, however, I've finally implemented the (what I thought would be a) kryptonite for John: a chess timer! So each player has a clock, starting with 30 minutes. Once you "throw the dice," the clock starts to count down until you hit the "end turn" button. With John being so slow each time, surely he is going to make unnecessary mistakes in order to beat the clock... Yeah.............not.

What ended up happening was that a lot of 3s and 11s were thrown, all in John's favour. Several times, Tim said "next" too quick, i.e. after I have hit "end turn" for him, and he suffered greatly for that, like not using some of the resources or progress cards soon enough. Meanwhile, John used an all-too-cruel and nasty strategy of constantly activating the knight to steal from Tim, all just for a sheep... This made Tim angry (even though he invented this strategy). (Aside: A day later, I realized that this is an illegal strategy, since each knight can perform an action only once per turn...doh. And there are other uses of the knight which I wasn't aware of, which makes the game a lot more interesting...) Anyway, the story goes, John built too quick, and won the game with close to 7 minutes left on his clock. Doh...

Now they want me to do a program where each of the 216 dice throws is represented as a button...yikes. Yet another attempt to get a truly "random" game...which will never happen...

Final scores (time remaining): John 13 (6:52), Tim 5 (15:16), Me 9 (19:03). I'm always the fastest.

More (fun and) games with John and Tim (2/3)

2007-08-20T23:32:00.001-04:00

John insisted on playing Puerto Rico for several days now, even though Tim insisted on playing Settlers Expansion. Solution: we play both, and I get insomnia. First up, Puerto Rico. In this game, Tim and I produced a lot, and shipped a bit, but not much, since John certainly wasn't going to Captain nor Craftsman. Somehow each time John produced something, either they go to waste because no ship can take them, or he couldn't sell to the trading house since it was already there or full. But what John lacked in goods and shipping, he gained in buildings, tons of them. Eventually he ended the game by occupying all the building space that he got. Even being low on shipping, he still came remarkably close to winning...but Tim snagged the victory this time.

Final scores (VP chips + building VPs + large building bonus VPs):

John: 1 + 23 + 13 = 37.
Tim: 16 + 16 + 7 = 39.
Me: 13 + 15 + 6 = 34.

More (fun and) games with John and Tim (1/3)

2007-08-20T23:32:00.000-04:00

As if I didn't have enough torture, I went back to play games with John and Tim... Why did I do that? I don't know. Anyway, Tim and I played a game to start, and the choice of game: Power Grid! Yay...finally. This is the first time I've ever played the 2-player version, and it's not that bad...

We chose the three central regions of the US for this game. The auctions were generally not too exciting, going up by at most 4 from the base price. I somehow decided that I would use garbage and uranium, while Tim used primarily coal and oil. So of course my resources were a lot more costly than his. We were both neck-and-neck in terms of getting capacity and building cities, though somehow Tim was one city ahead of me. But we got to a point where none of the power plants on the market was good to buy, so we passed on buying one for several terms, amassing a lot of money. This was where an interesting thing happened...

Tim bought a nuclear plant, and then we were both tied for plant capacity (11). He bought two uraniums, hence driving up the price to 12 for me. I had two uranium plants, and thinking that uranium is too expensive, I bought only one uranium. And then we were off to city building. This is where the massive money that Tim accumulated from the previous rounds came into play: seeing that I didn't have the resources to power more cities than him, he decided to build (from 8) up to the game-ending 21 cities, and ended the game right there. That was a very clever move! Nice one. So even though he could only power 11 of his 21 cities, he still won...heh. So in the end, my timing was off by just a step, and lost the game. Still a fun game for 2 players here. Only got to step 2...heh.

Final scores:

Tim: 11 capacity, 21 cities, 11 powered, 54 dollars left.
Me: 11 capacity, 9 cities, 9 powered, 192 dollars left.

Painful gaming (2/2)

2007-08-19T14:35:00.000-04:00

Worst game ever. Yeah. Anyway, it was a Sunday, and somehow John decided that he wouldn't sleep during the night...so that just shows how awake he was. Back to games, Tim was waiting for revenge from the game last time, so we played yet another game of Settlers Expansion (which is a game I simply don't want to play, quite frankly).

We used the php dice thrower again. This time, it seemed to favour a ton of 6s, hence John was able to build a metropolis almost right off the bat. John built to a quick lead while Tim and I were far behind. Somehow, though, John seemed upset, and this was especially true after he built a city that was almost immediately downgraded by the barbarian. And even though we warned him about that, he still got angry and complained about everything, and of course things didn't go his way because Tim and I were teaming up against him and stuff...I don't know, he displayed a ton of ridiculously negative emotions, even though he was winning. This is when I realize something: a game is played to have fun, when the game stopped getting fun, maybe we should stop playing. And that is probably what we should have done, just stop playing.

Not surprisingly, John won. Then he started smiling, and then he started to berate Tim and I for how bad our positions on the board were, and how his was so good, even though Tim and I knew that it's all because of the incredibly lucky dice throws that got him the win. That was just horrible behaviour from John. Anyway, that is that for the worst game ever.

Final scores: Me 6, Tim 6, John 13.

Painful gaming (1/2)

2007-08-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

Horrific gaming...and that's only the start. So I've hastily made a php webpage (learning php at the same time...heh) which simulates dice throws in Settlers Expansion. Thinking that this might quelm the complaints that come from "real" dice being unfair. Well, think again, I say. The computer dice seem to like certain numbers over other numbers, or at least that's what we felt like. Somehow or another, this meant that John won the game. So then Tim and I complain about the dice...doh. All I remember was that it was so painful to play this game...but as I said off the top, this was only the start...

Final scores: Me 8, Tim 5, John 13.

Ah...I remember more now...this is the game where John built all three metropoli...had one defender vp, which he forgot, so he took the merchant...

Thursday gaming with Tony & Zhentao (3/3)

2007-08-16T22:36:00.001-04:00

Strange game of Torres. Actually, I don't remember much from this game. I'm in green, Zhentao in orange, Tony is blue. Two giant castles were in play, and mostly we competed to get the highest in these two castles. In the process, I have obtained diagonal-jump card and the over-the-knight jump card in order to get up. However, just when I was ready to jump over Zhentao's knight in the western castle, Zhentao moved that knight to somewhere else...doh. So that was a silly move for me. Anyway, Zhentao won this one, sweeping the night's games.

Scores:

After phase 1: Me 23, Tony 30, Zhentao 38.
After phase 2: Me 105, Tony 93, Zhentao 125.
After phase 3: Me 245, Tony 234, Zhentao 272.

Thursday games with Tony and Zhentao (2/3)

2007-08-16T22:34:00.002-04:00

Carc with expansion! Zhentao and Tony finally agreed to add an expansion to this game, and Inns and Cathedrals are mild enough that it doesn't change much of the game, so off we go. I drawn both Cathedrals, placing one in Tony's large city, hoping that he wouldn't complete it, and placing the other one in my large city, hoping that I could complete it. In the end, both of us gave up on completing our Cathedral cities, and ended up scoring nothing for those cities...oops. Tony's was just one tile short, though (the SW city in the picture).

One of the most interesting feature was the one on the NW corner. Tony first had a city there, however, Zhentao built two cities nearby, threatening to join them together and making Tony's city useless. To complete all of these cities, though, they needed a 3-sided city tile. There was one 4-sided city tile in the original set of tiles, but I drew that one, so I didn't complete that city for them. The 3-sided tiles came very late in the game. There were the two Cathedrals in the expansion, but of course I drew those, so that didn't work. Just when we were thinking that there was no way that those cities could be completed, Zhentao drew a 4-disjoint-city tile from the expansion! He didn't get the huge city, but he did complete two cities, Tony completed his one city, and they all got tons of points for that. In addition, Zhentao farmed in the middle of that tile, so he got 12 points off of that farm. Doh.

The big meeples only came into play once, when I was competing for that (what end up being) a small city on the extreme SE. Zhentao was not happy...heh.

Close to the end, Tony drew a tile and placed it quickly. But later he wanted to change it so that he could join a farmer to the giant farm. Too bad, we said no. And what happened was that had we let Tony join that farm, he would have tied for first place for the game! This is almost reminiscent of a previous game that we played...so proper farming is important!

Final scores: Me 92, Tony 85, Zhentao 108.

Thursday games with Tony and Zhentao (1/3)

2007-08-16T22:34:00.001-04:00

We gamed at the 4th floor TV room in my apartment. We made another attempt at Play It By Ear, even though that's probably Tony's game to lose. Well, I pulled ahead at the beginning, but Tony passed me soon. Throughout the game, it seems that Zhentao and Tony kept getting the easier categories... In the end, though, Zhentao hit an easy short term memory category, and then made a wild guess on a Godfather question, and he won! He's not supposed to win at this game...but he won! And that's the only shocking thing for this evening. Close to the end, I was behind a bit, so I bet big on several questions, only to take me even more behind. Final scores: Me 5, Tony 13, Zhentao 18.

First 4-player Torres

2007-08-13T23:16:00.001-04:00

Yes, first 4-player Torres. And it felt quite different, since the number of blocks that each player gets is pretty limited, so I can't always build what I want to build.

Wooo...pictures! First time I photographed a game for reference! Too bad the focus wasn't throughout the board...and since this is a 3D game, some info is not shown correctly.

I'm in orange, Li Zhen in green, Brian in blue, and Ed/Ingrid (newbies) in black. Brian jumped into a big lead early on, while I missed a knight on a castle, got myself behind and never recovered. In phase 3, I placed the king at this impossible location, so nobody can get the bonus...heh. I was thinking of placing at the lone castle block on the east end, thinking that perhaps I could build a tower of height 3 beside it and stand there all by myself...unfortunately that would violate the area >= height rule...

I tried to come back late in the game, and managed to get really high up on that NE castle, and preventing others from getting higher. However, since Brian couldn't get the height there, he suffered a bit from that castle's scoring, while Ed/Ingrid somehow managed to get just one level below me. The most hotly contested castle was the one in the SE, where attempts to block people from getting higher meant 6 knights were placed in that one castle! That's just strange yet amazing... In the end, Ed/Ingrid caught up and won the whole thing.

With 4 players, it certainly felt a lot more chaotic, but still kind of fun. However, being behind is so hard to catch up...

Scores:

After phase 1: Li Zhen 30, Ed 33, Me 27, Brian 42.
After phase 2: Li Zhen 103, Ed 112, Me 90, Brian 118.
After phase 3: Li Zhen 211, Ed 227, Me 195, Brian 221.

Afternoon gaming with Zhentao (4/4)

2007-08-09T23:15:00.003-04:00

One final game with Zhentao before we were done for the day. Carcassonne was played, and this time, he got the upper hand. In fact, I lost pretty badly...heh. Maybe that's why I don't remember much of the details...

Final scores: Me 78, Zhentao 127.

Afternoon gaming with Zhentao (3/4)

2007-08-09T23:15:00.002-04:00

Torres was on the table already, so why not play a second game? This one's funny, though. I built a large castle (initially with a hole in the middle...heh...later filled up the hole), and got up there sooner than Zhentao did. So I had a small lead after phase 2. During the end of phase 3, Zhentao was competing for height in that giant castle, and he built it so that he needed the elevator card to get up there...but he forgot that he didn't take that card in the previous turns! I was winning anyway, so I let him have the elevator card...heh. That large castle ended up having a surface area of 12 and height 8.

Scores:

After phase 1: Me 25, Zhentao 24.
After phase 2: Me 101, Zhentao 95.
After phase 3: Me 265, Zhentao 258.

Afternoon gaming with Zhentao (2/4)

2007-08-09T23:15:00.000-04:00

First Torres with Zhentao. First time I played a 2-player version of this game. Not too bad, actually. Pretty close all throughout the game, and Zhentao managed to win by 1...heh.

Scores:

After phase 1: Me 33, Zhentao 36
After phase 2: Me 104, Zhentao 103
After phase 3: Me 217, Zhentao 218

Afternoon gaming with Zhentao (1/4)

2007-08-09T23:14:00.000-04:00

4 games were played in Zhentao's office between Zhentao and I. First game: Meeples! I only remember that somehow I kept closing cities that were nearly impossible to close, and somehow I have meeples in my hand all the time. Maybe that's how I won the game...heh. Scores: Me 120, Zhentao 113.

Tuesday evening with John and Tim (2/2)

2007-08-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

Second game of Puerto Rico. This is one where no one wanted to end the game, since none of us knew if we would win or not. And when it ended, all three game-ending conditions were met, each occurring during one player's turn. How nice is that? John won this one, but later I found a rule that we played wrong, which would have given Tim the win...heh. The rule that we played wrong was the Mayor phase...apparently in addition to placing the new colonists on the board, you can switch around the current colonists as well. Since we didn't allow this, one of Tim's large buildings went unoccupied, losing him about 4 or 5 points, which would have been enough to win.

Final scores (VP chips + building VPs + large building VPs):

Me: 26 + 19 + 15 = 60
Tim: 30 + 25 + 7 = 62
John: 37 + 19 + 9 = 65