Thursday gaming with Tony & Zhentao (3/3)

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.

First 4-player Torres

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 (3/4)

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)

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

Second game of the night: Torres! This is fast becoming a favourite of ours, apparently. We didn't build any huge castles this time around, which made things a bit tight for all of us. There was one interesting move at the end... We have this castle of area 5, and Tony was standing on level 4, with a level 5 space right next to it. I wanted to block Tony from going to that level 5 space, so I placed two blocks, one to enlarge the castle by one so that I can use the other to increase the level 5 space to 6. Then I thought, what if Tony had a "jump 2 levels" card? So I placed another two blocks, one to enlarge the castle once again so that I can use the other to increase the level 6 space to 7. Surely that would be ok now. Unfortunately, what I forgot was that Tony might have the "door-to-door elevator" card, and he did. So his knight on level 4 jumped down, added 2 blocks to the level 4 space to make it level 6, used the elevator card to move the knight into the level 6 space, then easily moved up to level 7. Oops...me bad. So by doing this, I lost 4 blocks, and I couldn't increase my score much, hence I lost. Even with this move Tony wasn't able to move ahead much, so he finished last, meaning that Zhentao won.

Final scores:

After phase 1: Me 34, Tony 28, Zhentao 31.
After phase 2: Me 100, Tony 81, Zhentao 101.
After phase 3: Me 216, Tony 197, Zhentao 226.

Monday night post prayer meeting: Torres! Li Zhen, Brian were newbies to this game, though they had fun building gigantic walls out of the castle blocks prior to playing already, so they chose to play this game to see what it's about. I being the experienced, one, had a slight advantage...but Brian being the slow-thinker learned the game well enough that he played pretty good. Li Zhen was just playing for fun, I think.

It was a pretty close game, and I don't remember many details about it. Brian and I were tied after the first phase, but because of the ordering, I leaped into the lead by 1. The second phase was so close that the three scoring markers were in consecutive spaces on the scoring track! In the third phase, Li Zhen managed to get up to level 8 on a castle with surface area 11, which I think is the highest-scoring knight ever. Brian managed to get to level 7. I was at level 5, and Brian was trying to block me from going higher and made the adjacent space level 7. Little did he know that he played right into my hand...I had the "door-to-door" card, and was able to sneak into that level 7 space by going through the door on the top block of the level-8 space. And that's how I won the game!

A good game by all, but I probably won due to more experience with the game...

Final scores:

After phase 1: Li Zhen 32, Brian 40, Me 41.
After phase 2: Li Zhen 118, Brian 119, Me 120.
After phase 3: Li Zhen 270, Brian 267, Me 282.

Saturday afternoon: a special C&O boardgame gathering of 3 at Tony and Zhentao's place. First game: Torres, which they seemed to like. I started off in the first phase by expanding a castle to a large surface area, and of course this attracted knights of every colour. Tony managed to go one level higher than us, so he was in the lead after the first phase. Zhentao and I were tied after the first phase, however since Zhentao was scored later than I, he got one more point, and he was sad because then he couldn't be in last place and move the king...

I moved to king to this giant castle, and the struggle to get a second knight here started. Tony was the one who was left out of the king's bonus in the second phase, but he still managed to build higher than us, so he was still in the lead. There was one round where I converted an action point into a game point, so moved one ahead of Zhentao. But after scoring phase 2, somehow Zhentao was still ahead of me by 1 point! Again, Zhentao was not happy because he couldn't move the king...

I moved the king to another giant castle that Zhentao built (later having surface area 10). This time all of us got the king's bonus, I blocked Tony from going higher in the first giant castle (which had area 10 and height 8), Zhentao was flustered in not knowing what to do to get more points (which I pointed out for him). For the final scoring, I scored first, then Tony, who leaped just a tiny bit ahead of me, and then scored Zhentao, who scored just one point more than me! Doh! It's like that all through the game! That was a close and exciting game for all of us, and we all liked it.

Scores:

After phase 1: Me 34, Tony 45, Zhentao 35.
After phase 2: Me 116, Tony 128, Zhentao 117.
After phase 3: Me 261, Tony 267, Zhentao 262.

Thursday evening: boardgaming with John and Tim at their place. First game: Torres! A new game for them, and the rule-giving phase was chaotic as usual... They finally got it, but still were confused by some rules mid-game...heh. In any case, they took way too long in deciding everything...really. I don't even remembered what exactly happened in that game, except that John took an early lead, and never lost it, so he won.

Scores:

After phase 1: Tim 25, Me 32, John 37.
After phase 2: Tim 90, Me 92, John 121.
After phase 3: Tim 196, Me 229, John 244.