-
Who's the more foolish? The fool or fool that plays after the fool?(loofish)United States
DURHAM
North Carolina
-
March 29th:
5 player with the 1910 set of tickets. 5 player is crowded and the eastern US got very crowded very quickly. I developed my route out of Washington DC and then stayed away, with the run from St Louis to Denver the backbone of my network. J had the northern cross-country map, Tom and Mike fought over things in the northeast and heading south. Rick ran from Sault St Marie to Miami. It was quite peaceful out in the west when I reached San Francisco, but that soon changed. There was also quite a run on tickets, partly because everyone only ever kept one they liked.
Tom waffled on his approach, taking a ticket that he couldn't do then scared of picking again, opted to play some spoiler/blocking moves, then changed again, picking a lot of tickets and he actually ended up with most completed (15 point Globetrotter bonus). My first 2 picks were easy enough to do (I was putting back anything that hit the east that I hadn't already claimed) but LA to Calgary was a challenge - especially after my route from Portland to Seattle was blocked. A desperate hunt for red cards followed but I just about made it to Calgary as J was using her last trains. Mike had some disappointments in getting good tickets and switched to desperation moves to try and find something - he ended up with a net loss of 3 from his tickets. Rick was denied one of his by a Tom block (cue cussing), J also was blocked (not so deliberately this time) by Tom's route to Montreal. I completed 5 out of 5 - everyone else had some incomplete - so it was not a surprise that I ended up the winner. J missing out on Montreal cost her the game as it turned out.
Tom: 96
Rick: 113
Me: 135
J: 109
Mike: 49
The game played quickly, even with frequent ticket contemplation (Rick and I are both good at keeping the game moving) and was done in an hour. It was quite boisterous at times, sparked off mainly by Tom and his blocking. 5 player Ticket to Ride is pretty fraught with accidental blocking anyway, but Tom was looking for potential spots to mess up someone's planning. Part of the problem is that this is a friendly game and a more important part is that it is just not a very good way to win - Tom had by far the lowest points-from-trains and really only the tickets he did and the Globe-trotter bonus got him to a respectable score - in other words the part of the game he was playing for points rather than blocking. I suspect he will be hearing about this for a while from Rick anyway (they share an office)!
|
|
|
