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Sharon Khan
United Kingdom
Shefford
Bedfordshire
Games, games and more games!
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There were just 4 of us. Richard rang to say they’d both be a bit late, so Sami and I started with Lost Cities 2 player – it was fairly close after the first two rounds, but then I had a bit of a disaster in the third! Next we pulled out Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, and had just set it up when Richard arrived, so it became a 3 player game – Sami started heavy military, while I started cash. Then a whole pile of military cards appeared, so Richard switched into military, just in time for them all to dry up! Needless to say, I did rather well, being the only cash player! After that we pulled out Factory Fun, which was new to Richard. Sami and I gave ourselves a handicap, giving Richard 5 seconds to look (and grab) at the machines available each turn before we did, and it turned out to be too much of a handicap, with Richard winning, just ahead of Sami – I had a disaster, being unable to place any plant in the last four rounds, only having access to two of the colours by then – oops! Marion arrived in the middle of it, so when it finished we started the first proper game of the evening.
Marion asked for something heavy, so Richard went for Shipyard. Marion was the only person to sail boats at all in the early part of the game, with both Sami and I going for the large boat strategy (I only sailed one boat all game), and Richard only sailing two boats late on too. I also went heavy on employees, which is something I hadn’t tried before in a 4 player game, but it seemed to work – I was worried there would be too much competition for them with 4 players. Richard had problems getting the employees he wanted, as they were both on the bottom right row of the rondel, and it had a tendency to get stuck there for a bit, and then go flying round the rondel back to that square – but with Sami or I moving it, never Richard – he did consider whether it was worth paying 6 cash to move it round the rondel one turn, but decided against it.
After that we decided to try one of our new Works games, Airships, which I had played a couple of times a few years ago, but was new to everyone else. Marion got off to a bad start, replacing the same card several times by accident, and in doing so reducing her production right back to just one white dice! We were nice, and left the only card she could attempt for her to get, otherwise she would have effectively been eliminated, but it did put her well behind on the production curve. Richard was early to get a black dice – and a black dice numbered 7 too, so quite valuable, and that, combined with some exceptionally lucky dice-rolling, got him off to an early lead. I had a slower start, but managed to slowly build up my production to be able to start on airships, and was able to convert my dice to points quite successfully; Sami wasn’t quite as lucky with his production, but picked up some good point cards. It turned into a two-way tie between Richard and I, with Sami close behind, and my Hindenburg part broke the tie-break for the win.
We had time for one more proper game, and after a bit of discussion we settled on The Settlers of Catan, which Marion has played twice before but for some reason not liked, although no-one could see why, as it seems a game she should do! She said she’d give it another go, and so we pulled out the base game. I went for the risky strategy of starting on only 3 different numbers, which didn’t pay off for me – giving me very long gaps early game when I had no resources at all, and I wasn’t helped by Richard deciding to compete with me for one of my only decent settlement spots on the board (and winning), despite having built his first road in a different direction, so I thought I was safe trying to build there. There were a lot of 4s early on, which helped Marion and Richard to a good start, with lots of brick going their way, but then they dried up and brick became quite a scarce resource mid-game. We then had a very bizarre run of 2s – three of them in a row (and all double 1s too, as Marion very helpfully pointed out!). Sami decided to check the dice tower hadn’t broken inside (how he thought that would have created double 1s every time I’m not sure!), and then the game proceeded, and the dice decided to suddenly be nice to me and roll some of my numbers! I then realised that I’d started on a stone port, and so the 7 stone I’d been hoarding suddenly became rather more useful, and I actually was able to build something (shame I didn’t realise that earlier really!). By then it was very much between Sami and Richard for the win though, and it was clear only a round later that the game wasn’t going to go on much longer. Richard was unable to win on his turn, and chose not to play his Monopoly, and two good dice rolls before Sami’s turn gave him enough resources for him to get the last point he needed.
We finished with a quick Escalation!.
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