Wednesday, April 22nd 2009 Session Report - Timing Is Everything

So tonight I arrived first to Chris’ house, something I never do. Usually I’m the one trying to convince people to play something short first so I can make game 2. Brian and Kevin arrived shortly after I did. We were just sitting down to decide on something to play when Joel arrived. This would be a recurring theme of the night, since Matthew and Craig managed to arrive pretty much at an opportune time for starting the next game. Only Bruce couldn’t make it into a game by virtue of his extremely tight schedule, something we regretted as we left the night.

Chris, Kevin, Joel, Brian and I debated for a moment about what to pull out. We had quite fewer options for 5 than 4, and settled on Tribune. After the debacle that was the green difficulty level where Brian won the game on turn 2, we decided to play red. Honestly we thought that this would have made the game a bit shorter than the yellow, which requires Tribune to end the game. That condition, in a 5 player game, could have made for a long one for sure.

I was the first player on turn one. In my opening hand were no leaders and 2 pairs. That was a pretty easy decision for me on what to keep. No matter when I play I always look toward tribune as a mandatory objective, mostly because if you don’t get it you end up with less points on a tiebreaker if that happens. I settled into trying to pick up a couple factions on turn one and managed to secure the praetorians first, then the patricians if I could. This did not net me a scroll, something I’d pay for later. Joel took the legates, Brian took the senators, and Kevin took the Vestal Virgins I believe. Chris didn’t get any, but solidified his position on the board. At the end of the turn, Joel took the chariot and covered the legates.

Next turn Joel was first, and I was last. I don’t remember much about this turn except that I managed to take the Patricians. I had plebeian cards in my hand too, but since I didn’t have a scroll at all (and had no way of getting one) I didn’t make the play to take both. Kevin took the Senators and Chris took the Virgins. Joel took the gladiators and collected a ton from the catacombs. Brian took something too, but I’m not exactly sure what it was. Joel won the chariot again and kept the legates covered. This was getting old, since they’re really only one of two ways (without leaders anyhow) to get a scroll, and Kevin had just played about 35 points worth of senators down.

Next turn Brian was first, and he ended up taking over the gladiators I believe. He had picked up several leaders which we allowed him to get. Chris took the Plebians and Kevin took the Patricians from me. Joel still had the legates covered and was buying legions for 6 per turn following Chris’s assassination. Chris also managed to get eternal favor this turn before someone took the Virgins (Kevin?). I don’t think I took anything this turn, but managed to lose the praetorians, having acquired all the necessary legions at least. At the end of the turn Chris blocked the plebians.

The following turn Chris took over the patricians, I took the senators after an assassination, Brian took or held the Gladiators, Chris took the legates too, and Joel I think had the Praetorians at this point. At the end of the round Chris was exactly one laurel short of victory, having acquired tribune through the Patrician/Plebian route. We looked the board closely and determined that even if someone could get to the 4 victory conditions needed, we weren’t going to be able to beat him on tiebreakers, so we cleaned it up with Chris the clear winner.

I’m not sure what is going on with me, but I’m losing a little of my attraction to tribune. Maybe I need to get back to playing with less than 5, as there are only 2 scenarios that hold that many, or maybe we need to play the other one with the obligatory Tribune. I think that one would be a little more interactive, as the blocking that would happen would be quite interesting. If we’re playing five the next time we play, I’ll definitely vote that way. Either that, or try the game out with fewer players, just something to shake it up.

Once that one was done we were trying to decide on what to play next. Becky (Chris’s daughter) was unavailable for her favorite, Power Grid, so we decided to pull out Agricola. We were setting up and opening the K deck to give it a play when Matthew arrived. His arrival meant we needed a 6 player game (despite his protestations that he’d happily watch Agricola, we weren’t having that). We cleaned up the little we’d set up and pulled out Power Grid. It took a minute to settle on Benelux in case more players showed up, and on the original deck of plants. I was first to bid on a plant, lucky me. I chose to bid on #7 since the oil is more accessible than the coal on this map, and I thought I’d have a decent shot at placing first. What I wasn’t counting on was Brian taking the #3 and both placing before me and buying oil first, driving up the cost. I also forgot how much I hate the 3 resource plants. Really, really hate them. I managed to set up as close to Brian as I could, which also happened to be where I saw the overall cheapest connections.

Turn 2 was what I’d consider one of the key turns. I picked up a plant that provided 4 cities for 3 oil (breaking the rule I mentioned earlier). Brian got to pick last based on his low starting plant and got #33, a 4 city wind plant. In a six player game this one is one you can end the game with, since you only need to build to 14. Everyone got a pretty good plant this turn actually, and of course we paid for it later with a delay in quality plants. Chris, Kevin and Joel were kind of in the central area of the map, with Matthew focusing more on the middle west area. I did my best to take what I could from Brian, but his ability to not have to purchase resources was key.

Matthew and Joel triggered step 2 in about 4 turns, and there was the natural huge expansion on the following turn. Matthew was running a bit behind due to his plant order, and Kevin sort of felt the squeeze in the turns before the expansion. Being close to Brian actually made it so I couldn’t really influence where he was able to expand, which was not good since Matthew was really too far away to do too much about it until it was too late, and everyone else was even farther. Brian was about 5 elektro short of triggering the end of the game on one turn, and managed to keep himself in 5th position with only me to try to compete with him. I was no where near the cash he had and rather than play for second place between Chris, Kevin, Joel and myself we cleaned up and declared Brian the winner, mostly because Craig had arrived and we didn’t want to make him wait too much longer either. Bruce actually arrived and had to leave during this game as well, and we were all sorry that he didn’t get to play anything. In fact, I think he even left before Craig arrived, since they didn’t pull out anything 2 player at all.

At the end of the game we were decided to split into 2 camps. Team Lucier wasn’t interested in Galaxy Trucker, something Chris seems to have really taken a shine to. Brian was talking about getting in a play of Pandemic before Friday, but I wasn’t particularly interested in that, mostly because I feel like the game could easily be dominated by one player sort of coming up with the moves and telling everyone else what to do. Mostly I was worried I might do that, even if I didn’t know the moves or the game that well, and I really don’t want to. Brian had also brought along Stone Age, something I’ve only played once and wanted to try again. Everyone was fine with either of those 2 options, and we set out trucking across the galaxy or developing a stone age settlement.

I can’t comment on the Galaxy trucker game except to say that Matthew and Craig were newbies and Chris was the seasoned player. He managed to win from what I heard, though by round 3 the others were really catching on and Craig said he’d like to play again. I’m interested to see what the expansion adds and changes.

Joel, Brian, Kevin and I played Stone Age. I liked the game the one time I played it before and I thought it was fun. I also knew that the other time I watched the game I saw Brian crush everyone else, so I had to watch out for him. The game started off fine, I grew my family while Joel farmed and Brian took a tool. Then we all started in on resources, and Brian picked up a couple quick cards. That was red flag #1, as the cards can get pretty ridiculous pretty quick if you get a lot of them. About 3 turns in it was pretty clear that Brian was running away with the game, and Kevin was having a good bit of difficulty trying to get his starvation strategy to work, so decided to go anti-Brian and helped out me and Joel by prolonging the game to at least give us a chance to catch up. I’d like to think this is some sort of sibling rivalry that manifested itself in the game. We played about 4 turns more than we should have, and Kevin basically took as many blocking and unnecessary actions as he could to give us a chance, and even actively avoided blocking me on one turn. In the end, at a game where the winning score was 225, I won by one point. Without the assist from Kevin, Brian would probably have taken it down by at least 50 points.

It was a great, long night of gaming where a lot of fun was had by all, but at the end at least a few were pretty wiped out. Chris had crashed and we had to wake him up to say goodbye. Wednesday gaming is always a good time, and we hope to get more people out as the weeks go on. I know its getting nicer outside and we may see fewer people due to that, but I hope we continue to get some good gaming in, as I don’t have too many of these sessions left.

Brian's take:

An Excellent night of gaming. We started at 5 players (Me, Chris, Wade, Joel, Kevin), and pulled out Tribune with a "Red" objective that called out 4 victory conditions from the typical set of selections. The game progressed rapidly, with Chris aggressively harvesting cash and maintaining chariot control. He was able to win this with ease, and we didn't even play out the last turn due to the certain victory. A few of us would have got 3 VCs on the last turn, and with a stretch a couple of us may have gotten 4, but there was nothing to compete with his power VCs for the tiebreak (Tribune, Eternal Favor). It was well played by Chris.

We decided to pull out Agricola and as we 3 minutes into the setup, Matthew shows up for a 6th player. So we tore it down, and pulled out Power Grid with the Benelux map. For a refreshing change, we went back to the original deck of power plants, and I have to say that I think this worked well with this map. Setup consisted of your typical spread around the map, and the game played without too many surprises. I jumped into position right away with the #3 plant and used it to take a gamble wait on my 2nd power plant that ended up being the #33 Wind-4 plant in the 2nd round. I think most people underestimate the power of position in this game, particularly in a 6p game. With this wind plant, I could safely build into the lead and not have to worry about paying the position tax on resources that ultimately killed Wade. 2 turns later Wade bid me up to 44 on the #35 Garbage-6 plant knowing that it was a lynch pin plant for me. I would have went to 48 on this easily, and with it, as well as the only player using garbage, I was in a strong position. I built up to 10 cities, and was powering them for a cost of 9 total. Then I just laid back and built up cash reserve for any number of final plants that would have worked for me. I remained at 10 cities and let the board pass me by as I piled up cash. We did not play the final turn as I had the tie break well in hand, with 2nd position to leverage it.

Matthew got screwed mid-game when he needed a new plant, and nothing flipped up that would move down a 4 or 5 city plant. This set him back and entire round almost. Wade ultimately could not pay for his oil addiction and have enough to compete. If I remember right, the other 3 players were throttled by a combination of board position choke, and more resource intensive plants. I was mostly paying attention to Wade and Matthew since we were neighbors.

Craig showed up near the end of the game, which gave more reason to skip the final turn and move on. At this point, 7 of us split into 2 groups. Craig, Chris, and Matthew played Galaxy Trucker, while Wade, Kevin, Joel, and myself took out Stone Age. A Euro-style game with plenty of Ameri-trash dicing, it has a unique niche in game style. The game focuses is worker placement to gather resources to buy points in the form of cards (for end game), or huts for immediate scoring. There are plenty of nuances to the scoring and strategy, and is balanced real well on different focuses. I ramped up hard for tools, wood gathering, and cards. Wade was focused on hut building, Joel was playing a hybrid, and Kevin was trying out a worker starvation strategy. I jumped out to a large lead quickly with more cards than anybody while Kevin's starved workers refused to cooperate. At this point, he threw in with Wade and as the game progressed, the Wade/Kevin team was able to overtake me. Wade managed to farm 8 fields at game end to entirely feed his clan of 8. That was a strong showing. I was trying the desperate player manipulation tactic of claiming that Wade was actually winning, but with the class of players at the table, this was a lost cause. In a game where 230 points or so won it, the delta between Wade and I was only a single point. This is amazing in a game like this where points come fast. Joel had a strong showing, but without the aid of Kevin, was not able to compete with Wade. I do not think any of us played the game particularly optimal, leaving plenty of room for improvement. When we all have piles of left-over unspent resource most turns, its apparent that we were all leaving points on the table.

A great night of gaming.