A Select company of games tonight.
Terra Mystica
This was my second
game of Terra Mystica, both with the same five players- me, Scott, Michel,
Gareth 1 and Gareth 2. In this second game Gareth 1 suggested we call him by
his middle name to avoid confusion- so he will be known as Spencer for this
report. Scott has played about 5 or 6
games as various different races and so is the most experienced
The previous game had
seen Fakirs, Alchemists, Dwarves, Giants and Witches, which had been chosen
more at less at random. This time we followed the rulebook and choose in turn
order (the order listed above).
I chose the Nomads
because I wanted to try the other side of the Fakirs board and their power
seemed fairly straightforward. I hadn’t noticed, but there were some good red
cult/brown cult round bonuses available which favoured the Nomads starting
position.
Scott picked the Auren
and Michel the Mermaids, my two opposite terrain types. Spencer picked the
Halflings which was less convenient and Gareth chose the Dwarves.
I placed my first settlement
on the middle continent, next to green, brown, red and black spaces. Scott
promptly occupied the Green space next to me. Michel chose a blue space on the eastern edge of the
continent. Spencer and Gareth landed on the Eastern continent, which is most
convenient for tunnelling Dwarves, with Gareth also taking a spot on the
Southern and Spencer on the Northern
continent. Michel’s second placement was next to Spencer in the North,
Scott’s on the Eastern continent a little way from the others. My 2nd placement
was on the Eastern Continent next to Spencer and Gareth and on the Northern
Continent next to Spencer and Michel.
For the first turn the
round bonus was 5 VPs for a town and something for every 4 spaces on the Grey
track- everyone ignored this. The second turn bonus was for Level 3 buildings
and one worker for every 2 spaces on the red track.
I used the first turn
to upgrade my central settlement to a Stronghold and turn the black space
adjacent to it to Desert with the Stronghold power, building a settlement
there. Because I was adjacent to every other player, I accrued power rapidly,
especially as the others (apart from Michel, who did not build a stronghold
yet) proceeded to build their Strongholds adjacent to me (although taking care
to wait until round 2 for the bonus points).
I also sent a priest
to the red track, can’t remember whether I took the priest starting tile or the
priest special action- did burn 3 power that turn so probably the latter. Scott
passed first, making me last for turn 2.
This enabled Michel,
who had taken the shipping starting tile, to pre-empt me by settling the blue
tile on the central continent, between my previous terraform and a nice piece
of desert. I therefore turned round and terraformed in Scott’s direction, building
up to a Temple. I chose the two red spots temple power, which allows towns with
only 6 worth of buildings. Later on in the turn I sent another priest to the
red track, putting me on tier 8 and getting me 4 workers at turn end.
In round 3 I completed
the first town, with a Stronghold, two settlements and a temple- I didn’t need
that temple power after all...I chose the extra power key and used the power to
take a spade action, settling the space east of my settlement on the Northern
continent. This had the effect of cutting Spencer off by limiting him to three
spaces- he was blocked on the other side by Michel. Since he had already been
confined to three spaces in his other settlement area- hemmed in by Gareth (who
had tunnelled underneath him), me and Scott, he was not best pleased! I then
upgraded the two northern settlements to trading posts.
In round 4 the round
bonus was one money for every space on the brown cult track, which I had
already begun to advance up.
I terraformed two more
spaces in a line east from my northern trading posts, bringing me a second
town, for which I picked the priest key. Everyone else was finishing towns
about now- Spencer by building a Sanctuary on the eastern continent and Michel
by use of his special mermaid power. I think Gareth and Scott also eventually
managed two towns. I also built a Sanctuary around this point. I managed to get
up to the 9th space on the Brown cult track, for 9 money...
Going into round 5,
which gave points for settlements and 4 power for every 4 spaces on the red
track, I picked up the special power which gave points for settlements.
However, Spencer had been working on his shipping and was able to block me in
the North by terraforming a nearby desert. He also built a bridge to another
desert but failed to Terraform it and, after upgrading my shipping, I was able
to take that space. Meanwhile Michel had been trying for a second town and
terraformed two spaces to swamp with the two spades power action. The space he
left unbuilt on would be a convenient connecting location for my settlements,
meaning I would just need shipping level 2 to connect them all, so I used my
stronghold action to take it.
I had taken the
starting bonus which gives 4 VPs for each level 3 builidng and I hung on to it
until everyone else had passed, before taking the starting bonus which gives 2
VPs per trading post.
In the final round I
was able to build the 3rd and 4th Trading posts and
upgrade my shipping to level 3. I had definitely won most connections (Gareth
taking 2nd prize) but the cult tracks were more fiercely contested,
with Scott motoring up three of them and overtaking me on the red track to
claim 10th tier. I secured 10th tier on the brown track, leaving
Scott and Gareth to fight it out over the blue track and Gareth to take the
Grey track more or less uncontested. Spencer had been able to use his Shipping
to break out of his straitjacket and terraform some more spaces. For my final
move I burnt enough power to buy the terraforming upgrade for 6 more VPs, which
was about the distance between me and Gareth on the final scoring. Scott was
close behind, with Michel and Spencer following more distantly.
We now move to a
rather less complex game.
Diamant
A nice 8 player game
of push your luck to (almost) round off the evening. I stayed in longer than
anyone else on the first mine, emerging with a decent haul before the final
disaster could be drawn. Then I legged it out the second mine as fast as I
could, which turned out swell when the mine proceeded to collapse in on the others.
My choices in the next three mines were fairly conservative, maintaining my
clear lead. I think Tom made most of his points on the 5th mine, but
I could be wrong.
Phil 29 Tom 16 Jon 14 Dan 12 Gareth I 8 Gareth II 8 Scott 5 Woody
5
One push-your-luck
game leads to another...
Nanuk (thanks Jon)
There was still time
for one more game, so a welcome return to deer and fish hunting in polar
regions….
Woody managed to pick
the wrong side on just about every occasion, and his game-end spoils reflected
this. No-one trusted Gareth I of course, but Scott, Dan, Jon and Philip ended
up on the most successful hunts. Scott’s judicious selection of the Nanuk cards
was enough to tip the balance in his favour for a good win.
I still think that a
more streamlined scoring system is needed, as the current method seems to take
far too long. Any ideas anyone???
Scott 12; Dan 10; Jon 9; Phil 8; Tom 6; Gareth II 6; Gareth I 4;
Woody 1
A quick trip back to the beginning of the evening...
Verrater (thanks Jon)
It has definitely been
too long since this was played at IBG – maybe because it needs exactly 4
players to work well. The game was new to Tom, but he picks things up quickly
so we were soon underway. Woody and Tom gained the first major spoils, mainly
because no-one turned traitor during the first round. However, Jon quickly
changed all that, by defecting soon after. Tom found himself in the minority
and found it hard to score many points, but when Woody jumped ship, the sides
again evened up.
Jon was scoring
consistently by picking the Strategist. This didn’t leave him with many cards
or much influence, but a regular 2 points can often be very helpful. All the
other players had used the builder a couple of times during the game, and when
the final scoring came, they maxed out on 6 points each. This made the final
scoring pretty close, with Jon’s unspectacular progress being enough to just
win the day.
Always a fun game –
let’s hope that it comes out again soon…
Jon 24; Tom 22; Dan 20; Woody 19
More from Jon...
Palastgefluster
(thanks Jon)
This was turning into
the evening of small box games, as Tom brought out this card game. The idea is
that each player has 7 different character cards, which are all shuffled
together and then dealt out. Each character has a different ability which is
used when the card is played into a player’s own tableau. The goal of the game
is to put down 6 characters without being forced to play a duplicate. This, as
we found out, is harder than it sounds!
Jon and Tom managed to
screw up a couple of times, and were forced to play illegal characters
(initiating what Tom thematically described as “dark whisperings…”) It was soon
becoming obvious that playing 4 or 5 cards was a risky strategy, and it was
often better to try to trap someone else. This was Dan’s plan in the final
round – Tom was looking like a dead duck, so Jon stepped in to try to save him
and elongate the round, but only succeeded in giving himself a couple of
rubbish cards that resulted in him losing the round instead. This was enough to
allow Dan to reach the magic 5 points first, although “start player ‘cos I’m
the oldest” Woody was very close behind.
This was actually a
fun little game (once you had deciphered the unhelpfully coloured and
illustrated cards), and definitely one to try again soon.
Dan 5; Woody 4; Tom 3; Jon 2
"Loitering within tent" is a quotation from "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett. It is also of course, what nomads do.
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