We started this as an opening filler while we waited to see if anyone else would show up. I am not sure what the scores were but Travis (the only American at the table) won. Moira and Anne went off the end and Andrew, Andrew, Anna and Nasia were in between.
(John and I played one hand of Lost Cities. John played a yellow 5 and as I had the 6, 7 and 10 (from memory) I assumed he had the 8 and 9 so I played the 10 only to pickup the 9! I greedily started the white before I got all my green down as I could see John had been picking up white and thought there was plenty of time to get them down. He decided to not start white and leave me in the lurch.)
El Capitán
As we taught Travis he said it reminded him of a different game (I expect he was thinking of the previous incarnation of this game - Tycoon).
Andrew started by going to the bank and getting two loans (I need to check on BGG to see if this is kosher). The rest of us went to bank later and took one loan. But Andrew went into the second round with a distinct cash advantage. Most cities only had one player's warehouses.
In the second round I stayed too long in Tunis and missed my opportunity to hurt Andrew in Marseille (and also missed out on 2nd place in Athina). At the end of the second round nobody had gotten to 9 cities but Travis was closest. In the third round we were trying to optimize our earnings and hurt each other.
Unfortunately it is a very thinky game, which leads to a lot of down time. I can see it playing better online. While we were playing this there were three games played at the other end of the table!
Andrew 248
John B 190
Travis 170
Ian 141
I re-read the rules looking for something about what players could and couldn't do on the first turn, and it is contradictory.
In one place it says:
"The youngest player is the starting player of the first phase, i.e. at the beginning of the game. She is given the starting player token "El Capitan" and places it in front of herself. In her turn a player may sail first and then must perform one of the three following actions:" and lists 1. Build a warehouse, 2. Build a fortress, 3. Take a loan.
A bit later under Sailing:
"At the beginning of the game all players must buy at least one destination card and sail to a destination city with their ship."
I couldn't find anything in rules forum on Boardgamegeek.
Though in the rules for Tycoon (the original game that El Capitan is based on) it says:
"Before you fly out at the start of the game or if you have no more money, or if you do not want to build on your turn you can fly back to your bank and take out a loan. You do not need a plane ticket for this."
Rheinländer
Most of the game was mostly "civilized", until near the end when Andrew came under attack. Though he took advantage of Anne's merging of one of his dukedoms with one of Anna's. It was Nasia's first game.
Andrew 40
Anna 40
Nasia 38
Anne 34
Moira 23
Frank's Zoo
Anna taught Moira and Nasia one of our staple games. Anne used her "I have another pair of killer whales" strategy. While Nasia and Andrew had bad games. Moira did quite well but Anne and Anna bounced the lead back and forth between them, and Anna had it when the music stopped.
Anna 4 9 12 18 25
Moira 5 8 8 13 17
Anne 5 9 16 15 18
Nasia 0 1 3 5 4
Andrew 3 0 4 6 8
Attika
Moira went home and Attika hit the table again. This time Anne won with a shrine to shrine victory.
Finca
Most people left and Nasia went down stairs to fetch her copy of Finca. John spent the first half of the game picking and delivering lemons. I tried not to use my special tokens and tried to deliver fruit as soon as I had picked enough for a delivery and ended up doing a lot better than in my last game.
Ian 48
John B 44
Anna 35
Nasia 32
