Friday 21 May 2010

We started the evening with 2 city building games: Attika and Metropolys. Attika has been played quite a lot on Friday nights recently, while Metropolys has been popular with a more select crowd.

Attika
In Attika there were an unusually high number of threats to win by linking two shrines. First Nasia covered the board in blue and nearly joined two shrines but she was thwarted, not to be put off she almost did it again only to be stopped again. Nigel tried and then Anna, but these were successfully countered and in the end it came down to whether Nasia or Anna would get all their pieces out first. Anna won beating Nasia, Anne and Nigel.

Metropolys
I (re-)taught John R. I had the statue goal, which I think is the trickiest. I couldn't decide which one(s) to concentrate on. Once I had a couple of pieces down (next to separate statues) I couldn't figure out how to finish either of them off. Meanwhile John avoided playing buildings and Andrew did a rush and got lots of Trendy locations while I settled for the first Metro. Perhaps I should have concentrated on highest in area, the Trendy regions, my colour and perhaps the Metro card. In the end Andrew was too powerful for us. John was struck by the agonizing decision.

Andrew 39
Ian    24
John R 13

After the city building Nasia and Andrew swapped seats and we moved onto a pair of more meaty games: Sylla and Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal
Anna played the connection game though not as successfully as Andrew and Anne, who concentrated on Elephants though Andrew did it better. Nigel also played. Unfortunately no one wrote down the scores.

Andrew
Anne
Anna
Nigel

Sylla
We taught Nasia. I led on the points track for the entire game, and lost lots of people (mostly slaves and another Christian). John saved his people, was Consol three times and controlled the events keeping the Slave Revolt and Christian Persecution going throughout the game. Nasia bought lots of stuff and lost lots of people too, but she also quietly collected lots of tokens, to win on début.

Nasia  77
Ian    70
John R 66

Frank's Zoo
Taj Mahal finished first and that end of the table moved onto Frank’s Zoo. Apart from Andrew who was rapidly heading for 30 no-one else seemed keen on reaching 18, so the game went on for 6 hands!

Andrew 3 8 15 21 23 26
Anna   5 9 11 13 17 20
Anne   4 2  6  9  8 12
Nigel  0 4  3  1  8 10

Null & Nichtig
I finally got to play my card game Null & Nichtig for the first time. I had been apprehensive about how this simple game plays. The deck contains five 13 card suits, numbered 0-11 with two zeros. Suits are irrelevant for determining what cards you can play or who wins the trick, but they are crucial for scoring. Tricks are won by the highest card played, between two equally high cards the first one played wins. The cards won are placed face up in front of you, one pile for each suit. Your score for the hand is the sum of the top card showing on each pile at the end. So you don’t want the last card you take in each suit to be a zero!

John R 38 65 87
Ian    24 58 82
Nasia  17 32 60

It was an interesting learning experience as we gradually picked up the principles of the game. Most obviously the last player to play on a trick is usually in the most powerful position. Also both low cards and high cards are powerful, while middle ranking cards can are a nuisance. I would class it as simpler and perhaps slightly more random than David and Goliath while slightly less painful than Stichlen. An interesting light filler of a trick taking game.

After most people had gone home Nasia and I played Null & Nichtig again, introducing Anne to this surprisingly nasty little game.

Nasia 30 72 95
Anne  27 52 95
Ian   38 69 93