Friday 13th January 2012

Luke was early and we played TransEuropa while we waited for the others to arrive. On the third or fourth hand Anne and I went off the end to leave Luke to win with 3 points.

Frank's Zoo
We thought Mark might show up, so we played our usual starter to give him time to show up. Annie raced to 19 in 3 rounds, but it took 2 more for me to get there (and over take her).

Ian    4  7 13 18 28
John B 3  9 13 17 20
Andrew 1  5  2  8  7
Anne   8 14 19 23 26
Sharon 3  4  7  9 11
Luke   2  1  3  1  7

We split into two groups of three.

Brass
I burnt 5 cotton mills which was perhaps slightly too many. Arguably I burnt too many ports, and didn't build enough rail. Sharon had the most buildings left after the end of the canal phase than anyone else, and went on to win with plenty rail and cotton shipped to ports.

Sharon 188
Anne   170
Ian    162

Navegador
John was surprised by his win. I'm not sure what strategy each of them used, except that Andrew grabbed a lot of early Privilege tiles.

John B   151
Luke     137
Andrew P 134

Friday the 13th was lucky for me, Luke, John and Sharon.

Friday 6 January 2012

Hornochsen!
While we waited for the final people to arrived, we started a game of Hornochsen!. I started with a totally green hand, but other players had plenty of red cards which gradually came out during the game. Luke (who hasn't played for awhile) tried the get out early strategy, while most of the rest of us tried the waiting game. Anne and I ended up with 2 multipliers each but Anne made much better use of it.

Anne   48
Sharon 18
Ian    12
John R  9
Luke   -3

Patrician
Ceedee arrived bringing a German couple who were surprised to see so many German games that they hadn't seen before. John taught everyone this game of tower building. He must have taught well as he didn't do as well as he normally does.

Liz    43
Tobes  38
John B 33
Ceedee 27

No Thanks!
While the final towers were being completed at the other end of the table, we played a quick game of passing unwanted presents (cards) around the table. People quickly caught onto the idea of bleeding coins from other people. Remember low score is good.

Sharon 16
John R 24
Ian    27
Anne   33
Luke   48

After lots of games were suggested we settled on a couple of longer games.

Navegador
I taught this game of exploration and tried a strategy of starting by building a gold factory and later getting sugar plantations. My economy never kicked in and I faded badly. Liz started by exploring the coast of Africa, her expanding gold mining empire fuelled her ship building and colonizing enterprise. Ceedee was a keen but poor explorer who somehow managed to build churches. John had both gold mines and sugar plantations and made plenty of money, which is counter to our normal ideas of a good economy. Luke had both sugar plantations and sugar factories.

John B 85
Ceedee 82
Liz    80
Luke   69
Ian    63

Taj Mahal
John lost a big battle against Sharon and another one against Tobes, which . Tobes had a newbie tendency to stay in fights longer than was good for him. Sharon developed a well connected network of palaces but it wasn't enough to come back against Anne who won 8 markets. Perhaps there wasn't enough competition with the elephants.

Anne   60
Sharon 52
Tobes  42
John R 32

Around the World in 80 Days
John objects to the blue cards in this race game, so a house rule was played so that in addition to the normal effects of blue cards, the person drawing it gets to draw again. Sharon raced efficiently around the world and finished first. No one else managed to finish in fewer days.

Sharon 65
John R 68
Tobes  69
Anne   73

Coloretto
This game was new to Liz and Ceedee, but they caught on quickly. Ceedee was perhaps a little conservative, while Luke was very greedy. In this game greed paid off.

Luke   28 + 31 + 22 = 81
Liz    20 + 31 + 21 = 72
Ian    25 + 23 + 23 = 71
John B 23 + 19 + 26 = 68
Ceedee 15 + 24 + 17 = 56