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Chief EGG Head
United States
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Finally a full weekend off for me. That means only one thing, game day! To start this off Robert and I played Subulata. In a previous post about Cwali games, picks from the collection-cwali I had mentioned wanting to try Subulata and here was the perfect chance. Neither of us had played before so we set up our little swimming grasshoppers and off we went. Each player has 9 pieces numbered 1-9 and you play on a grid. Pieces are allowed to move in a straight line towards the opposite corner or goal. You may only move left or right, not diagonally. Your piece moves wither 1,2, or 3 spots depending on the type of starting square the piece is on. If you land on the same spot as an opponent you capture it. Game ends when no legal moves left or one players grasshoppers are all in its goal. Score by summing the values of the grasshoppers in your goal plus 1 for each captured piece. We tied at 15. Another nice abstract from Cwali.
Cary arrived next and while we were waiting for Julie, he pulled out his Slamwich edition of Gloria Picktoria. The score cards in this game were fairly bunched up with 4 one after another before anyone had played any sets and then again another 4 bunched together. Cary won this one.
By now Julie had arrived and Cary was itching to try Princes of the Renaissance again. We played with the Machiavellian variant powers. We were randomly assigned families: Cary had Baglioni, Eric and Robert had Bentivoli and Matatesta, and Julie and I had Montefeltro and Gonzaga. Cary obviously went offensive military and Robert went heavy into influence and became the puppet master behind the Pope. Eric built up a big defensive military but never really capitalized on his counterattacking abilities. Julie surprisingly went down the military road and I went for merchants. For some reason Cary was never able to get his military operations going. Well there was all kinds of money and influence changing hands every turn, way too much negotiation and kingmaking for me to enjoy the game. I mean if you are going to make it all revolve around negotiations I don't see the point in having the rest of the game exist at all. Blech. They should just play Diplomacy. The best part of this game was when I won a counter battle with my crossbow tile, 0 attack strength and 1 defense. Robert won the game.
Bryon had arrived and we set up to play Dampfross. This is a great old game that really requires 6 players. The first part of the game involves building track via crayon rails and earning some small income for connecting to cities. The second half of the game involves random selection of two cities and players can choose to participate in the race between them. It's easy if you own all the track between cities. If you don't then you can choose to pair with another player who can complete your route or pay another player to use their track. Once the participants are ready they roll a die and move along their track, because of this the shortest route does not guarantee a win! The winner earns prize money and the player with the most money at the end of the game wins. So yes there is lots of randomness and dice involved but it's still fun. We played on the Spain expansion map which apparently isn't in the database so I've added it.
We split into two 3 player games. Bryon, Eric and Julie played Yspahan. Robert, Cary and I played Infinity a classic from the 1970's. Infinity takes up to 4 players who are placing tiles in a specific order, building the universe. Each player has identical tiles, with a hand of six, and take turns placing them on the board. If you can place at least 4 tiles you earn a time tile and for 6 you earn two. If you are the first player to play the 16th tile you earn the infinity tile. Here is a close up of the tiles and player rack. Robert ran away with this one. I'd be interested in trying it with 4 players next time.
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You may only move left or right, not diagonally. Your piece moves wither 1,2, or 3 spots depending on the type of starting square the piece is on. If you land on the same spot as an opponent you capture it. Game ends when no legal moves left or one players grasshoppers are all in its goal. Score by summing the values of the grasshoppers in your goal plus 1 for each captured piece. We tied at 15. Another nice abstract from Cwali.
Robert ran away with this one. I'd be interested in trying it with 4 players next time.
