Friday 11 December 2009

It's been two years since I last played Quo Vadis?, which is far too long for a game I enjoy though rarely do well at. It is quite a short game and we played it twice, and John won twice.

John B 24
Anne   19
Ian    18
Craig  16
Nigel  16 (not in Senate)

John B 26
Craig  21
Nigel  15
Anne   14
Ian    21 (not in Senate)

I then taught Edel, Stein & Reich (John had played before but had forgotten). This is an odd game where players must simultaneously choose their actions. If you are the only person to choose that type of action, you get to do it. If three or more people choose the same type of action then none of them get to do it. If two people choose the same type of action then they barter jewels with each other to choose which of them will do the action. At the three scoring points in the game there is a payout for majorities in each colour of jewels and then people who scored loose some of their jewels. The collecting of jewels became less important by the third round as the supply drained and majorities became entrenched.

Anne   64
John R 63
Craig  57
Nigel  45
Ian    26

Up to this point there seems to have been theme of psychological games, involving direct negotiation and/or bluffing, which makes a change from the more standard Eurogames we play. Craig went home (having won no games on his birthday) and we switched back to more orthodox gaming by finishing the evening with my new game of Nefertiti. I didn't get any Seals and missed a great play that would have landed me 4 out of 5 gold head-dresses. John did much better than any of us, with the only intermediate scoring and generally more stuff.

John B 139
Anne    77
Nigel   75
Ian     72