It seems like ages since I last played some games.
Part of the reason is that it has been ages. The last Sunday evening was two weeks ago, and we had six players that night, and spent most of it playing Apples to Apples. Since then I haven’t managed to fit anything in apart from a couple of games of two player Puerto Rico and a round of Lost Cities.
This week Scott joined the regulars (Fee, me, Tony and Bekki). His favourite game is Alhambra (and the girls seem to love it was well) so we started with that.
I had one of those games were everything went perfectly. I’m pretty certain I’m the best Alhambra player in the group anyway, and I won with a score of 104, almost 30 points ahead of second place. At every scoring round I had a majority in Towers (it really helped that only one Tower appeared before the first scoring round and I was able to grab it), a majority or share-thereof in Gardens, and the longest Wall.
This game was the first time that I actually spent any actions redeveloping my Alhambra. I actually bought a Tower that I couldn’t place to protect my majority, and later when I bought another Tower with no wall, I noticed that instead of simply placing it, I could swap it with my only Manor (I bought it to connect all of my walls), and the turn after place the other Tower, both guaranteeing a Tower majority and extending my wall further.
After Alhambra we played Hare & Tortoise. Only Fee and Tony had played this before, and the rules translation Tony had didn’t seem to be the greatest. Having looked at some slightly better rules translations online we were definitely playing some rules wrong. In particular we were playing that you could move backwards to the next empty Tortoise space. At one point I moved back 16 spaces!!! [The reason for this was that it would let me move onto a lettuce space next turn - the lettuce in front of me was occupied.]
After my huge move backwards, I had a large amounts of carrots, and was planning to finish in a few large bounds, but it wasn’t clear whether Tony, who had been plodding along in first place would beat me there or not. I the end Tony reached there on the same turn as I did, but he was sitting before me and took first place.
We were a long way ahead of the other three. Although Fee says she really enjoys Hare & Tortoise, I think the game is strategic and calculational enough for Tony & I to have a large advantage. And once the field gets spread out a little, there’s less ‘multiplayer chaos’ than I would have expected. [This may be because we were allowing the large jumps backwards]
Scott, who had made some good moves early on, before losing lots of carrots on an ill advised jugging of the hare, finished third, and Fee managed to finish fourth eventually. Both her and Bekki had problems with arriving near the finish with far too many carrots.
Scott left after H&T, but we didn’t have time for either of the meatier games I had brought (Domaine or Tigris & Euphrates) so we played a hand of San Juan. I had nothing for the first couple of builds, so saved up for Silver, then built a Black Market. I also get a Smithy, so I figure I’m planning for some kind of Production plan, which is fortunate when I find a Guild Hall mid-game.
Coming to the final builds, it is clear the game is between me and Tony. Tony has been going for the violet plan, and has been using both Quarry and Poor House to accelerate his builds (he’s a couple ahead of me, and I’m a couple ahead of Fee and Bekki), and he has a City Hall. I suspect I might need to slip in a cheap catch-up production build to overtake him, but you don’t get much control in four-player. As it turns out Tony, as governor is able to close the game by building a Palace for 25+6=31 points, whilst my Palace leaves my score as 24+6=30. Very close!
It seems likely that after this weekend the next boardgame session may be some time off to various commitments.
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