Those that were present: Gareth II, Paul, Jon, Tom III, Tom II, Jim, Arturo, Neil, Chris II, Paul II, Dan, Philip
What those played: Coup G54, Trains: Rising Sun, Agricola, Terra Mystica, Cash ’n’ Guns, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Cash ’n’ Guns II & III, Port Royal, Castles of Mad King Ludwig II
Trains: Rising Sun
With Paul and Jon locking horns on this last week both were keen on a rematch and it was good for myself and Tom II to learn the revised game.
Having been selected start player I took THE best position on the map and there was no way anyone was going to prevent an inevitable victory. Whilst Paul and Jon built up their hands Tom followed my example of laying rails, collecting waste, filling that board up. Everyone had avoided each other pretty well until first Jon started impinging on my borders, and the Paul decided to do the same. As it was I slipped nicely through to pick up one of the town to town bonuses and felt that my empire was going to be strong enough, I just needed one more sets of rails into either or . But it wasn’t to be.
Jon had been hoarding the yellow buildings and Paul snuck through some last minute stations. A close game all round but that inevitable victory was on hold..
Final Scores; Jon - 42, Paul - 39, Neil - 38, Tom - 36.
Coup: G54 (Cheers Jon)
An early evening foray into the world of Central American politics - with only Tom (3!) not having played Coup before.
This game saw an interesting mix of cards, as two of them took affect after players had lost lives. The Intellectual could be claimed in order to take 5 coins when losing your first life, and the Lawyer could be used to take all the remaining coins from a player that is eliminated. The other roles were Farmer (take 3 coins and pass 1 on), Newspapers (take a coin and swap a card with the deck) and Judge (give 3 coins to a player and then kill them!).
Tom was the first to depart, after wrongly accusing Gareth of having Newspapers. Philip followed close behind (he likes to play this game fast and loose - bravo!) and then Gareth was 'judged' out of the game by Jon. Neil was the only player claiming the Lawyer' and raked in a fair bit of cash from these eliminations, but a combination of a Coup and a judging by Paul took him out too.
So it was left to Paul and Jon to duke it out, both with 1 role left. Paul had been claiming it was the Judge, which Jon suspected was true, and Paul was also 1 ahead on coins.
Therefore it seemed a straightforward race to 7 coins and a Coup by Paul. The only slim hope that Jon had was to dive into the deck and hope that he picked up his own Judge, which he could use against Paul's Judge, if Paul chose to use it rather than Coup'ing. And as it turned out, this is exactly what happened - Jon got lucky, picked up a Judge, and was able to successfully claim it when Paul tried to assassinate him.
That almost makes up for Paul winning at Trains last week......almost....
Cash 'n' Guns (thanks again Jon)
6 foam guns, plenty of bravery, some stupidity and a lot of fun.
Game II - Tom II 95; Jon 85; Neil 80; Paul 75; Dan 55
Game III - Jim 85; Neil 85; Tom II 60; Jon 60; Tom III - dead
Port Royal (cheers Jon)
This hasn't been out for a few weeks, but Tom and Jon managed to fudge a reasonable rules explanation together for the other 2 players.
Tom III became Mr Money-Bags, but was then hit with 2 taxations in quick succession, which certainly stymied his immense purchasing power.
Tom II finished the game first, taking himself to 13 points, which only Jon was able to match. The tiebreaker is apparently coins left over, but as neither player realised this until after the count-up, the game was declared an honourable draw.
Jon 13; Tom II 13; Jim 9; Tom III 6
Despite having played the game once already Dan was happy to take on Paul and me for a quackish three-player. Dan didn’t quite go for his downstairs strategy that had won him his earlier game although he did have some nifty room placements to isolate some late purchases of sleep rooms to prevent me from taking one of the King’s Favours.
Paul picked up some good lengths of hallway although it was his outdoor rooms that scored well for him. Despite not being able to pick up on any additional bonus cards - Dan pilfered those successfully - I was able to concentrate on the livings and size 400 rooms that were my main incentive. The living rooms additionally meant I won the King’s Favour of external entrances.
Throughout the game I managed to stay ahead with some juicy points for those living rooms as well as some high paying activity rooms. Final scoring would all be down to those bonus cards. It was tight. It was so tight that Dan and I tied on 82 points each. Tie breaker? Couldn’t remember what it was.. cool, total room size of your castle, surely my bigger tiles had this? Damn, wrong again… Dan’s extensive network of stairs and hallways paid off, his castle was 4,900 square feet, a whole 250 sq foot bigger than mine, double damn!!
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