As JR noted, five of us broke out Herr Berg's Medieval at JR's last night. First time for Dr. Rob, Bill T, and that rabble-rouser Nate. Chris was also a novice, while I was the hoary old veteran with two whole games under my belt.

Opening choices saw Chris get the HRE and Ayyubids, Rob snag France and Byzantium, Nate Spain and Venice, moi England and Latin Kingdoms (?!), and Bill picking up the Almoravids and Hungary.

Hungary quickly falls to Chris' HRE which puts Bill in a hole he never recovers from. Spain is not whole until the end of the game when Nate manages to put it all together, only to have Rob's French cross the Pyrenees and take the northern half at the end. A mad scramble in the Baltic saw Chris and Rob steal most of the spoils, and the Knights of Christ set up in the Baltics as usual.

The Mongols threatened to come early, before all the buffer states had come out, but a little bribe here and a little cajoling there got more map cards on the table in time. In the end, the Mongols ate five cards, taking chunks out of Russia and the Near East.

Many Crusades were called, but only a couple resulted in anything worthy of being called booty. [(c) Straight Line Emporium]

When the smoke cleared, Chris had a clear lead at 36, followed by Rob at 28 and myself at 27. I'll spare Nate and Bill the embarrassment of posting their scores (Nate's Russia suffered worst at the hands of predators both Mongol and otherwise...)

Out of my five powers, four were in Civil War on the last turn...

As always, we did get a couple rules wrong. You only get the bonus VP for multi-province powers at the end, I'm sure we scored that wrong. Also, you cannot play Civil War on a power unless it started the turn eligible. This would have changed a couple of combo plays.

Otherwise, I think everyone agreed that while it's a bit long and very chaotic, it was a reasonably good time in good company. I'd certainly play it again as is, but I have a laundry list of changes I'd like to try out sometime...