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Who's the more foolish? The fool or fool that plays after the fool?
United States
DURHAM
North Carolina
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After a while without the time or energy, my wife is done with her seasonal extra hours and some semblance of normality returns. So we managed some games together this weekend.
First up, Glen More. Both of us went for forest/quarry early on, I got a village and Castle Stalker, jumping me up on the chieftains, adding to that I got Castle Arnedale for the money. J took the castle with a whisky barrel, also getting the wheat/distillery working. End of Round 1 there was only a point between us. I took some of each type of resource and an Annual Fair, plus the combination butcher, so started getting points that way. J distilled, got Iona Abbey, then a Tavern. Late on Round 2, she got Loch Ness after much deliberation - she was meeple-poor. I meant to get Loch Monat for the green tile bonus but had misaligned my clansmen so couldn't get a river tile, so I had to go another way. I got the chief double Castle. It was still all close at the end of round 2, though I looked in a strong position. However, J managed to get good use of the round 3 items, grabbing the Bridge and the Grocer, then finishing with Cawdor castle to blunt my chieftain advantage. I got the 4 pt Tavern and Loch Oich, which netted some good points. We were the same size so no losses, really it was J's bonus for yellow tiles than had her overtake me. So often useful.
Jenny: 60
Me: 51
We hadn't brought it out for a while and I had a sort of feeling that I had done too well at it last few games: I had won pretty handily, even accused of reading up on strategy on BGG. So I was glad that my wife suggested it from my short-list. I was even more gratified that it continues to provide some interesting game play and the balance I had this game of working out how I wanted my own piece of Scotland to look and coping with her round 3 rally: should I have grabbed the bridge or grocer, even though I had less use for them? Perhaps should have gotten the grocer...
Next game was Race for the Galaxy. All the expansions in play. Her Rebel Freedom Fighters against my Alpha Centauri. I had Terraforming World and 2 rare good windfalls in hand, plus Galactic Engineers, which increased the value in trade and helped produce on windfalls, so a great opening hand for A.C. I also pulled out Terraforming Robots in one trade, so my opening plays were quite set already. J built up her military capability, also laying some early markers toward the available goals. I noted this but was not really on a course that I could do much about it, with 3 Alien/3 Uplift/4 rebel and 3VP/2PP goals out, along with 6+ military and 3+ Consume powers. That last was in my mind as mine, but the others would be tricky. After my reasonably quick opening, J started to play double Settle and she did so for the rest of the game. Relentless conquest. I tried to keep up, though I had not been able to pull more rare windfalls, I did get Galactic Scavengers to help out. Tourist World and then Earth's Last Colony were the best I could do, the VPs were slow to move. With both at 10 cards in tableau and J having played double Settle so many times, I guessed that she would explore to get more fodder, but no. She got what she needed down, while I had a weakish Consumex2/Produce. The result was a dominating victory. Begging leave for the "what might have happened" she did an explore/develop turn instead of the double settle and then the double settle the turn after. As a result I scored 18 VPs on the following turn (Consume x3) plus settled 2 worlds as well (one of which was under Galactic Scavengers). That was actually enough to overhaul her, so she was quite content to accept her own glorious win instead.
Jenny: 53
Me: 32
Just goes to show, it is a race and timing is everything. The extra set-up for all the expansions is a bit of a pain, but an organized box and a routine makes it pretty quick. Balancing all the different factors is the crux of the game: can you pass on getting VPs and missing Goals for your strategy? On top of working through how you pay for the cards you want to play. And never forget this is a race.
With children tucked away in bed came a double-header of Carcassonne: The Castle. I built a big House and worked almost all game on a big Tower. J went for Markets right away and then had a lot of meeples working on all different projects. She was without a spare for a while, but finally finished one small Tower and things started to move. I tried a couple of times to get some Markets of my own, but got rather shut down in one and, after I pulled the 4 points per Market tile, J joined two of our markets together (no scoring there). We did rather run into each other's developments in the middle of the board and there was some consideration of whether they would be finished ("how many tiles like that are there?") but all did get finished, even if some weren't as aesthetic as we'd have liked. I had the Big House so scored a 9 point bonus at the end, but J had too much for me to catch up.
J: 95
Me: 79
Game 2 of the double-header started off as the lowest scoring game ever (it was 6-2 forever) but then things started scoring again. I got the 4 point Market tile, we both got double score-Towers. J did built a mighty big Tower for that as well, while also managing a large House. Once again I was looking at a deficient going into end-game scoring, and this time though I did better with Markets, J had the 11 point bonus for biggest house. Not so close.
Me: 88
J: 111
This really is a perfect couple game, what I can't figure out is how she keeps winning!
Thanks to photographers Nekau, YtamshG and morelju!
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