Dr. Caylus or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Provost
We learned how to play Caylus at Todd's house on Thursday. It was long, and by "long," I mean about 4 hours, at which point I was well beyond my scheduled bedtime and had a 8:00 meeting scheduled for the next morning... but I digress. The length was partially due to the fact that 4 of the 5 people had never played before, and that after 10:30 pm, some of us were having difficulty focusing; so I am optimistic that my next game will be speedier. That said, it's a complex game, thus the award, and I spent the first part rather paranoid that the provost would nullify my placement of precious workers. I eventually realized that timid worker placement could destroy my chances of winning and that due to the incentives for other players to move the provost forward instead of backward, placing workers near the provost was not as risky as it had originally seemed. I'm certainly intrigued enough to play it again, but if most games take 2 hours or more, I'm unlikely to add it to my collection. (The upper limit of my playing time "sweet spot" is about 90 minutes.)Also, Saturday afternoon I taught a couple people how the play Ticket to Ride, and lost pretty badly as the other two experienced players blew us off the map. Due to a strategic miscalculation at the beginning of the game, I failed to complete one of my original destination cards, which was a 34 point swing.Stats as of January 28th: - Individual Game Sessions: 11
- New Titles Played: 4
- Days elapsed/remaining: 28 / 337
Pizzaro and Company Explore Blue Moon City
Last Thursday night at Todd's house, we broke out Pizzaro and Co. for the first time. It's an auction game, which means a bit of a learning curve. I think I won't overpay quite so much the next time we play. Todd and Lee then introduced me to Blue Moon City, a game of racing around a city to rebuild pieces of it. Of course, rebuilding the city is just a means to an end. The real goal is to collect crystals and convert them into victory points. I'll have to try that one again too.Stats as of January 19th:- Individual Game Sessions: 9
- New Titles Played: 3
- Days elapsed/remaining: 19 / 346
Starting Off With a Bang
Well, it's been a busy week of gaming.Thursday at Todd's house, we started off with a filler game of Treehouse (new). It was short and intriguing. I think I would try it again. The main event for the evening was a 4 player game of RA, which ended up being a pretty close race between the three experienced RA players at the table. Todd, Lee, and I capped off the night with a hand of Lord of the Fries, using the Montezuma's Mexican Deli menu. It definitely felt different from playing with the standard Friedey's menu, and Lee crushed us mercilessly.Today, I taught DL and EM how to play Attika by beating them four games in a row. There were definite points where one good or bad draw could have given someone else the win, but in the end I managed to grind out a win. Despite their string of losses, they both liked the game; so I'll be getting my own copy of Attika soon.
Stats as of January 6th:- Individual Game Sessions: 7
- New Titles Played:1
- Days elapsed/remaining: 6 / 359
Goodbye 2006. Hello 2007!
Well, my attempt to track statistics on my game playing activities in 2006 didn't succeed very well. However, I did play quite a few games since my last post, including: - Cities and Knights of Catan (new)
- Puerto Rico
- Guillotine
- Lost Cities
- Mah-jong
- Can't Stop
- Jacob Marley Esq.
- Metro
- Settlers of Catan
- Nertz
- Enemy Chocolatier (new)
- Tim's Prototype (new)
- Power Grid (new)
- Tower of Babel (new)
- Fearsome Floors (new)
- Hoity Toity (new)
- Settlers of Catan - Great River Expansion (new)
- Attika
- Warrior Knights (new)
- Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation
- Burn Rate (new)
- Lord of the Fries (new)
- Girl Genius: The Works (new)
- Bohnanza
I don't have time to discuss my thoughts on the above mentioned games, but some were definitely keepers.As of this posting, I have played zero games in 2007, but that should change tonight at Todd's house. We'll just see how well I do keeping stats on 2007.
