June 03, 2009

Participants: Jon, Elijah, Nadine, Gili, Abraham, David K

Elijah had no play practice, or school tomorrow, I'm guessing.

Dominion

Jon 42, Nadine 39, Elijah 33

First play for Elijah, who liked it. This time Nadine didn't believe in the power of Chapel. I took it and used it thoroughly. It was still hard to get rolling, because there were no cards that gave any bonus coin (except Market) or bonus actions other than +1 (Market, Cellar, and Spy). I ended with 6 Provinces, 2 Duchys, and 1 Estate.

Nadine did much better than I expected, having slowly taken 9 of the Duchys, as well as 1 Province.

Magic: the Gathering

Gili, Abraham

I taught this to Gili last time (or the time before), and she came back with a lot of rules questions to clarify. Abraham showed up and helped her through many of them. They played with some random cards until we finished Dominion.

Antike

Jon 9, Abraham 5, Elijah 4

First play for Elijah. I figured it would be his type of game, and he liked it. Abraham also was willing to play, and we were splitting into 2 games of 3 players each, so that worked.

I played Germanic, Elijah Italy, and Abe Greece. I moved forward 1 level in Know Hows for defense, production, and army movement, and then built a massive army. Elijah built one temple close to me which I sacked, and then I move on to Abe.

Abe concentrated on temples, building 6 temples for his 6 cities, and moving to second level in defense. He couldn't build any more until he expanded. I built a temple opposite his and massed armies. He couldn't defend all of them, but thought to lure my armies off to one side and them strike back into my territory. Unfortunately, he miscalculated his defense. I had just enough movement and armies to sack two of his temples at once, and doing so put me over ten cities, for a net gain of 3 point in a single round, which was enough to win immediately (we played to 9 points).

After I sacked his temple, Elijah spread out to Africa and the Spanish coast, largely trying to avoid conflict and hoping that Abe and I would kill each other.

Power Grid

David, Gili, Nadine

While we played Antike, they player Power Grid on the Eastern coast of the US (wussies). I don't know the results, but I know they skipped straight to phase 3 from phase 1. And played with our house rule of the top four cards of the deck open for inspection.

[DK: I won by powering 17. I think Nadine and Gili both pwered 16 with Nadine having more cash. Nadine could easily have built more cities, but she couldn't increase her power (6 plants ran out). Gili could power 18, but couldn't afford more than 16 cities. I ended with about 70 cash (before powering). Throughout much of the game Gili had tons of cash and thought she could afford to pay top bucks for power plants. In hindsight she overpaid.]

It's Alive

Abraham 51, Jon 49, Elijah 35

Abraham suggested this. I know it sounds ridiculous, but after playing the game again I really liked it. I've played it hundreds of times, but I still feel like I'm finding new strategic ways to approach it. I considered my point counts with coins near the end of the game, for instance, and evaluated whether it would be worth it to end the game with no coins but get the 5 point bonus, which is what I did.

But I lost to Abe, who had a smaller board but a hoard of cash. I actually lost the game on his turn, right before my turn, by buying a card from him instead of letting him take his own auction.

Path

Elijah, Abraham

I introduced both of them to this, just to see if they liked it. It's not easy to get into, because of the huge decision space available at the beginning of the game on each move. They didn't get to finish the game.

Atlantic Star

David 47, Nadine 44, Abraham 37, Jon 36, Elijah 31

First play for David, Abraham, and Elijah. Elijah had to leave mid-game, so we tried to play out his hand for him as best we could.

No one ever wants to play this, so I asked if I should get rid of it. I didn't realize that so many of them hadn't ever tried it. In the end, there's certainly a lot of luck, more so as the game goes on, but still enough decision making and money management to make it fun. I think they enjoyed it well enough to play again (if not suggest it).

David won, despite having accidentally bought a high valued card for a route he had already completed about mid-game.