Friday 16 October 2009

There were eight of us.

Carl had brought St Petersburg and its expansions. Anna and Andrew expressed enthusiasm and I was interested in seeing what the expansions added.

At the other end of the table Anne, Andrew Rea and Nigel taught Mark Louis XIV. I hear that Nigel stuck close to Louis at all times, Andrew won with an excellent looking score and Mark survived the experience.

Andrew 51

Nigel 48

Anne 47

Mark 40

At our end of the table, we decided to play with both of the expansions, which adds a bunch of cards, some to replace existing cards but mostly additional ones. I concentrated on buildings (which is regarded as a sub-optimal strategy in the basic game, but the Debtor's Prison was very tempting (even though it was several turns before I used it to dig into the discard pile). The Warehouse also tempted me, which in turn allowed me to snag a bunch of good building expansions which I got around to building later on. Inexplicably we allowed Carl to buy 5 Markets! And also the Teashop (which gives a VP per noble) and encouraged him into a noble heavy strategy (but his building were comparable to mine in income and VP). Anna also went into nobles while Andrew as initially more balanced but eventually joined the nobel race.

Carl 146

Andrew 120 (+8 roubles) = 120.8

Anna 120 (+2 roubles) = 120.2

Ian 106

Both games finished at the same time (which shows how much time the expansions add to St Petersburg -- that said I enjoyed St P with expansions and would be happy to do it again).

Mark and Andrew left and we debated what six player game to finish with. We ended up teaching Nigel, Anna and Andrew Mogul, which none of us had played for awhile. Andrew and I sold our brown shares and jumped to an early lead which left us poor and share-less. Nigel also went broke and learnt the hard way how difficult it is to pull back from poverty. Carl amassed a share portfolio which gradually payed off and he pulled away from the rest of us. I finally managed to get some shares but too late. Nigel recovered from his early troubles to come second.

Carl 28

Nigel 21

Anne 16

Andrew 15

Anna 12

Ian 11

...and so to bed