| Ralph's Game Log for August 2002 |
| 1st |
| Carcassonne | Lunch Time: Got hosed by trying to finished a city with a cathedral (failed). Eventually sneaked into and won a 9 city farm. Still lost by 14 pts.
Dimitri (90), Me (74), Craig, Holly
|
| Theophrastus | Danger Planet: 2nd time playing this game. Long duration (about 1 1/2 hour) for a card game.
Cindy(70), Tom(60), Me(54), Andrew(53), Pilar |
| Euphrat & Tigris | Danger Planet: 4 Years since I've played this. Understood it a little better this time around. Not a blood thirst crowd only two catastrophes were used.
Me (9-9-13), ?(9-9-10), Cindy (8), Vitas (8) |
| 2nd |
| Carcassonne Online | Online
2 Player pickup game on BSW. Very different game with only 2 players. I didn't get good luck in city building but won the farmer war. Finished in 20 minutes.
Me 100, Marge 99.
|
| Lost Cities |
Black out special! Power failure gave us a moment to play two hands of Lost Cities while the machines came back on-line. Dimitri showed that slow and steady beats going for the gusto.
Dimitri 62, Me 4
|
| Squint |
B20
Pictionary type of game except players use tiles with shapes instead of drawing them.
Gary (9), Me (8), Tom, Matt.
|
| Formula De |
B20
Three players with two cars. Gregg lead car had an one too many collisions and wiped out. Half way throught the second lap the table collapsed. Raced called due the tragedy.
Dave1, Ralph1, Ralph2, Dave2, Gregg2, Gregg1 (crashed)
|
| Puerto Rico |
B20
Started out in the third position. Built the small market and started trading. Went straight for Coffee production as my second crop. Was able to do good shipping but didn't have enough money at the end for the big buildings.
Andrew 38, Me 35, Dave 28, Tamara 22
|
| Through the Desert |
B20
Second try. Fast and Simple. Each turn you place to camels to extend your carvan routes. Objectives are watering holes, Oasis, longest caravan and blocked out territory.
Andrew 90, Tom 76, Me 71
|
|
| Dschunke |
B20
Interesting blind bidding game. Each player has one action per turn. Then you blind bid goods (Rice, Fish, Eggplant or Spice) for money or specials based on the market. 10 Turns. Game was about an hour long.
Andrew 70, Tom 57, Me 55, Richard 45
|
| 5th |
| Bohnanza | Lunch Time
Lots of donations in this game, Craig was looking strong but holly sneaked away with it.
Holly (25), Craig (24), Dimitri (20), Me (16)
|
| 6th |
| Wyatt Earp | Lunch Time
Three hands of Wyatt Earp, Dimitri tried a hoarding strategy during the second hand, it didn't work.
Me (27), Craig (17), Dimitri (16)
|
| Carcassonne Online | Online
Game on BSW with friends from Mobile and Austin. Our regular wancatan game end abrubtly when one the players experienced the "Blue Dcreen of Death" on his machine.
Since I had less than an hour before bedtime we decided to have a quick Carcassonne game. Got an early lead but couldn't recover enough meeples for the end game. So I thought, I managed to squeak out the victory.
Me (64), James (61), Lloyd (56), Helen (41)
|
| 8th |
| Puerto Rico | x-Boss
Got together to play Puerto Rico. I got 5th position. I had money early, so I bought a factory. Near the end I was able to produce all five goods but it didn't help. Couldn't get enough money to buy a big building.
Dimitri started strong, shipping corn and getting quarys. Near the end John started his comeback by shipping and getting extra VPs with the harbor. Ilise ended the game by filling her building slots.
It ended in a tie.
John and Dimitri (52 with no gold and 5 goods.), Ilise (47), Me (38) and Craig ( 32).
|
| Fabrik der Traum | x-Boss
Introduced this game to Ilise and John. Craig and Dimitri had played once before.
Packed full of newbies and it showed. I crushed them.
I created the first movies in two Categories, got the highest scored movie in the second round and won best Direction.
John got Worst movie at 2.
Me (97), John (55), Dimitri (53), Craig (53) and Ilise (41).
|
| 9th |
| Fabrik der Traum | Lunch Time
Craig wanted a revenge game. He came close; claims that next time everyone is going to gang up me so I don't win. hmmmm.
Got Best Direction and worst movie (5)
Me (88), Craig (81) Holly (67) and Dimitri (54).
|
| Mystery Rummy 3: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | B20
Dave and I play this game while we waited for additional people to show. Felt a little slower than Wyatt Earp or MR1: Jack the Ripper.
There were too many times where we would draw and discard as we waited for the correct card.
Extra draw or some wild cards would help this game. I'll try it a few more times.
Dave (120) Me (60)
|
| Wyatt Earp | B20
Played this one so Dave could experience another Rummy Variant. He agreed it played better.
Me(30), Dave (23)
|
| Taj Mahal | B20
Bidding game. Each round there are six item to bid on with your hand of cards. Hand management important.
Scoring by placing palaces, winning the teritory, having a chain of connected provinces and taking the random
chips off the board.
I started off early, I tried to alway win something, didn't matter too me. Had a huge lead by the 10th province, that's when
Kyle decided to stop me. Didn't win anything in the last two provinces. Terry surpassed me.
Terry(49), Me(40), Kyle(39), Brian(38), Dave(30)
|
| Web Of Power | B20
Great game where players via for control of European countries by placing cloister and advisors.
Chaotic start to the game, 4 Countries opened in the first round. Lost advisor control in Frankriech which kill me. Rich only placed 6 clositers but
all of his advisors. Worked pretty well.
Terry, Richard, Me, Allison, Dave
|
| Samurai | B20
A game with Hexagons!! Tile placement game. Trying to acquire three different type of piece (rice paddies, buddhas, or high hats) by
surrounding the piece with your tiles. Whoever has the high point value for that piece wins the piece. Ties are discarded. Game
ends when one set has been acquired or 4 pieces discards. Terry won by dominating in two type.
Terry, Me, Brian
|
| 12th |
| Wyatt Earp | Lunch Time
Three hands of Wyatt Earp, Craig's luck finally turned around. Three hideouts failed against him as the last hand ended.
Craig (31), Dimitri (17), Me (16)
|
| 14th |
| EVO | Lunch Time
Holly's first EVO game and she kicked butt. Lots of climate cards were played that wiped out plenty of dinos.
At the end, Dimitri attacked Holly three times with a horn advantage and lost all of the battles.
Craig tried to be agressive but four horns and one leg just doesn't work. Full duration game, comet rolls were all high.
Holly (63) , Dimitri (56), Me (53), Craig (40)
|
| Carcassonne | JATO:
Al went heavy on the farmer but didn't score any points during the game. In the end he did a good job of catching up. I completed most of the cities I stared except for one which got "cathedral-ed", came close though.
Me (70), Rich (68), Al (63), Maria (60), Tofu(47)
|
| Settlers of Catan | JATO: 6 player SOC. Initially played with
special build phase after each players turn. It was too slow so we dropped it in favor for a hand size of 11 against the robber.
Maria had an early lead but I played nasty and block her in so she couldn't easily get longest road. There was a battle for
longest road between Al, Roberto and Rich. I was ready to win when Al upgraded two settlements to cities and grabbed longest road.
Al (10), Me (9), Rich (8), Roberto (7), Maria, Tofu
|
| Hick Hack | JATO:
Closer for the night. Lots of chickens got munched to the point that every shuffle had more foxes in the mix. Never noticed that before.
Game 1: Tofu (38), Al (38), Maria(38), Me (37), Roberto (38), Rich (11)
Game 2: Al (38), Maria(37), Roberto (37), Rich (32), Me (19),Tofu (18) |
| 15th |
| Muscat | MVGA:
Rock, Player, Sissors game. Boardgamegeek has a good description of the game. Nuff said, I got my butt kick but I still liked it. Quick and easy.
Walter (62), Paul (47), Anton (42), Me (29)
|
| Settlers of Canaan | MVGA:
No that's not a typo. Priest = Knights, Plague = Robber, Additional Development cards like Caravan (2:1 trading for one turn),
Spy (Look at an players Dev cards, take one), etc.
Every time a seven is rolled a brick is placed on Jerusalem. Players can build bricks for Jerusalem by paying a brick and an ore.
Whoever has the most brick, gets the King's Blessing (2:1 port player's choice). Player's can only build bricks for Jerusalem if they have a settlement/city on the southern map edge or can connect to another player's settlement/city via a road.
On ties, no one gets the bonus for largest Priest, Longest Road or the King's Blessing.
Game ends when first player reach 12 VP or the 28th brick is placed on Jerusalem (most VP is winner).
Likes: Additional Dev Card types.
Dislikes: Static map and numbers. The Gold tile (choose any resource) in the north seemed unbalanced.
Me (12), Rich (9), Paul(9), Walter
|
| Basari | MVGA:
Gem trade game. During your turn you roll a die and move that many spaces around the market. You can then you secretly choose one of three actions to do, roll a die, get gems from the market or get vps from the market.
If three or more people choose the same Action nothing happens. If two people choose the same action thing then those players must haggle with gems to see who get to do the action. Others get to perform the action.
The turn ends when some one has done a complete lap. Score point based on the number of gems you have. Game last three turns. Can't haggle worth squat! My brother would rule!!
Paul (81), Walter, Me, Rich
|
| Puerto Rico | MVGA:
2nd Position. Had money early so I bought the Harbor, should have waited till I had stuff to ship. Walter was a shipping God once he got the Wharf. Play in an hour.
Walter (69), Me (65), Jeff (55), Paul(49)
|
| 16th |
| Tikal | B20:
Finally got to play my UG4 door prize. This an exploration game set in jungles of Mexico.
Each turn a player draws a tile, places it on the map and then performs actions with their expedition. I created a base camp and create an isolated temple cache. Several people had the opportunity of breaking into it but no one did.
Adam went heavy on the treasure search and got several sets.
Me(102), Adam (99), Dave (90), Brian (78)
|
| Shark | B20:
Stock trading game. Kyle got some early lucky rolls and score big. I took several risks to get into the game but got hammered twice and lost big cash.
Kyle (525),Ryan (463), Scott (366), Me (233),
|
| Atlantic Star | B20:
Showmanger using a cruising theme. Objective is to complete a cruise in four regions. Each turn, a player picks from one of the four boats to add to their hand or build a cruise.
Me(48), Dave(47), Kyle (44), Scott(35), Dave L (23)
|
| Expedition | B20:
Players start with 12 destination plus several open destinations on the map. Each turn you get to direct the next stop of one of the three expeditions.
First person to reach all their destination ends the game. Each destination reached count as a point, destination not reached loses a point.
Dave (21), Me(19), Scott (16)
|
| 22nd |
| Purchase: Burnrate The Dot-Com card game. Damn saw this and I had to buy it. |
| Royal Tuff | Danger Planet:
Introduce Tony, Chris and Matt to this racing game. They got it quick enough and started using cutthroat tatics to slow down my horses.
Chris was doing well after the 2nd race but Tony pick all winners in the last race doubling his wealth.
Tony (2400), Me (1800), Chris (?), Matt(?)
|
| Puerto Rico | Danger Planet:
Started in fifth position. Built a small market so I could start making money. Next step was to get the coffee going. Quickly realized that I was not going to win via shipping since Tony was ship lots of corn early, Chris was heavy in Tabacco and Matt was doing Coffee. Started taking anything with money and when I could, the Settler for the quary.
Built the Customs building (+25% for VP Chits) for keep away purposes then built Guild Hall because I had lots of production buildings.
Tony(48), Me (47), Chris, Matt, Kevin
|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game | Danger Planet:
Evil side: The Master and 3 vampires(Kevin)
Good side:Buffy (Rich), Willow (me), Oz (chris), Xanther (Eric)
The Master came after Buffy and cornered her. Willow went looking for an artifact and found the Magik Sword. Oz and Xanther ran over to help Buffy.
After finding the Magik Sword, Willow ran over to Oz and gave him the sword. Oz promptly turn into a werewolf and lost the sword. Didn't matter. Buffy used her pencil and killed the Master.
Buffy and the crew kicked ass!
|
| Star Wars Epic Duels | Danger Planet:
Good Side Mace Windu and 2 Clone Troopers(Me), Hans Solo & Chewi (Cindi), Luke and Leia (Chris)
Evil Side Darth Vader and 2 Stormtroopers(Eric), Darth Maul and two bots (Rich), Count Dooku and some more bots.(Vitas)
The setting was in the Emperors Palace. Mace came out agressively and used his whirlwind attack, torching a Bot and gave Dooku some hurt. Then he got his.
Ran away to pick up some cards but the pain kept pouring in. Count Dooku was getting some too. My last gasp attack was up run up to Dooku and Darth Maul. Used another whirlwind attack, killing Dooku. Mace promptly died.
Chewi use a bowcaster attack and gave Vader some pain. Hans and Leia were off to the side smooching while Luke was dealing with Maul.
My lone Clone Trooper pecked away at Maul. Vader and Maul finally went down.
Once again, Good triumphs over Evil.
|
| 23rd |
| Burn Rate | Lunch Time:
First time for all of us. Silly game about dot com companies. Each player controls a dotcom with 100 mega bucks in the bank.
Each turn you can play up to four cards or discard four cards.
You can play cards that allow you to hire, fire people, get more funding, poach opponents employees, etc.
At the end of the turn, you add up the burn rate of all your employees and subtract from your bank roll. You keep playing till you're bankrupted.
The last player with cash wins.
Bad ideas is the central theme of the game and it is the major force behind your opponent's defeat.
Pushing a Bad Idea onto a player forces the player to hire engineer(s) to support the bad idea until he can play a release card. If he can't get enough engineers then he's required to hire expensive contractors to do the job.
I outlasted Dimtri and Craig
|
| Web Of Power | x-Boss
Game night at Ilise and John's. While we waited for the Chinese food to arrive I taught Web of Power to Holly, John and Chet.
Me (49), Holly (39), John, Chet
|
| Royal Tuff | x-Boss:
After dinner was done, it was time to play Royal Tuff. I picked a loser and no winning horse in the first race. Next race I rode the 1s place horse with a two bet but so did Ilise.
This turned out to be ilise's game. She had the knack for picking the correct horses. She ran away with the lead.
Ilise liked it and Dimitir didn't hmmm wonder why?
Ilise (2050), John (1250), Christine (1250), Me (800), Dimitri (750)
|
| EVO | x-Boss
Holly/Chet and Ilise/John team up for this game just in case their munchkins got in trouble. Christine's strategy was to have a balanced dino, john/ilise went for tail and legs, while holly/chet
went for the protection and eggs. I went for the card genes while Dimtri became an unmoving egglaying machine. Nastiest turn was in the middle of the game when someone play small meteor to change the weather towards cold.
That was follow by It's Freezing and Strong Sun. Just about everybody lost about 2/3 of their dinos. I had a nice lead through out the game but Holly's breeding/survival strategy worked too well.
Two in a row for Holly.
Holly/Chet(56), Ilise/John (53), Me (51), Christine ( 51), Dimitri (48)
|
| Puerto Rico |
x-Boss
I played fouth position. Started out with my corn shipper strategy. Built the market/hospice, got more corn and some quaries.
Did some good shipping. Quaries ran out quickly so I started grabbing tobacco. John and Ilise grabbed the harbors, Holly/Chet took the last tobacco storage and I knew I was in trouble.
Tried to buy two big buildings but could only get the Custom House. Ilise grabbed two big building and that was the game.
Ilise (57), Me (52), Holly/Chet (43), Dimitri (40), John (40)
|
| 24th |
| Carcassonne | Post Golf:
After a good day of golf we return to John's house for dinner and drinks. After the golf game recap was done our converation drifted to last night's games.
Seeing Steve's confused look we decided to teach him this game. Steve picked it up pretty quick and at one point had a huge lead over everyone. Steve finished a 15 point Cathedral city. Ilise and John completed a monster 32 point city. I was monastery master getting at least 4 of them, maybe more.
I used my Uber meeple to capture farmer lead and the game.
Me (102), John (92), Steve (92), Ilise (89)
|
| Bohnanza | Post Golf
Ilise's neighbors Andrea and Sccot came over for dinner, follow by a game of Bohnanza.
Not one of my best games and this one hand was probably the worst for me. I was out of sync with most of the group.
First three turns I had to harvest beans for nothing because of the required planting.
I only beat Andrea and Ilise because I didn't buy an extra bean field.
John(17), Scott (15), Steve (12), Me (12), Andrea (11), Ilise(11)
|
| 27th |
| Wyatt Earp | Ashland Park
Went down to Ashland Park for free BBQ and live music. Dimtri and Christine were there and he had his bag-o-games.
Dimitri (27), Me (24), Christine (16)
|
| 29th |
| Burn Rate | JATO:
Forced Al to hire some VPs and then played "Change in Business Plans" (double burn rate for a turn) on him. That sent him to the
depths of bankrupcy.
Me, Al
|
| Carcassonne | JATO:
Tofu play a good interloper strategy. All he did was "help" people build cities, the big ones being a 30 pt catherdral and a regular 22 pointer.
Maria was the farmer but it wasn't enough to catch up to Tofu.
Tofu (115), Maria (107), AL (104), Me (92), Rich (80)
|
| Talisman | JATO:
Haven't played this one since the late 80s, figured it was time. No Return variant. I was the Druid who got turned into a toad by the enchantress and then stomped on the other players.
Several other people got "toad"ed but none with serious consequences. It was so nostalgic to hear the "Toad Toad Toad" chant again. Roberto as the Troll, having strength of 13, got to the Crown of Command. Tufo the Elf refused to submit and died. Maria the Wizard submitted.
Rich as the Ghoul was able to get to the Troll with one life. He used his special drain life ability on the Troll and gained a life.
The Troll would promptly beat it out of him.
The Ghoul finally missed on his attack and the Troll took him out the old fashion way, with the club. Al the Assassin finally died because he refused to submit.
Roberto, AL, Rich, Maria, Tofu, Me
|
| 29th |
| Piece Pack- The Garden | Danger Planet: Piece Pack is a set of game piece that can be used to create a multitude of games, like a deck of cards.
We picked a game call the garden. Each turn a player can place two pieces on the table until there are no more pieces. You score points at the end of the game based on your pawn's position. The more garden you can see the more points you get.
Karl (14), Vitas (13), Me (11)
|
| Burn Rate | Danger Planet:
Endurance game! First long game of Burn Rate. Lots of funding initially. Vitas went out first and Karl not clearly enjoying the game shut down his business and gave up.
Me, Karl, Vitas
|
| Pueblo | Danger Planet:
Wow you look at this game and you think Tetris. It's a three dimension puzzle like game that drove me crazy.
Lucky for me Vitas was worse. Each a player get two sets of colors,his primary and a neutral color. They must place one of his piece on the board and then move the Chieftain up to four spaces.
The cheftain gives point to players in which it can spot colors from it's location. Ground floor one point, 2nd floor two point etc. After the last block is placed the Chieftain takes one more lap and scores at each location. Person with the least points wins.
Karl (35), Me (49), Vitas (58)
|
| Goldland | Danger Planet:
Exploration game with the objective is to set up camps (for vps) in Adventure tiles (7 of em) and pillage a temple for it's golden amulets (vps) and gold coins (vps).
Each turn a player can move, explore and/or trade. We had a rules interpetation disccusion. Finally decided by a coin flip.
Vitas, Doug and I got to the temple and got our amulets. Jeffery ran around getting gold from the adventure tiles and Karl was playing with his palm pilot.
Doug (21), Jeffery (20), Vitas (20), Me (20), Karl (3)
|
| 30th |
| Settlers of Catan | Holly's:
Started lucky and end lucky. First two dev cards were VPs, follow by road building, a few knights and Year of Plenty.
Create longest road with five cities. Upgraded to a cities and end the game. Holly was the closest with 8 points.
Me, Holly, Matt, Annette
|
| Wyatt Earp | Holly's
Played while we waited for others to show up. Looks like the luck flipped.
Annette (26), Matt(21), Me (20), Holly (13)
|
| Bohnanza | Holly's
Dan and Amy were new to the game. I think I better start looking at adding the extra field to my strategy.
Matt (14), Hope (11), Holly (11), Me (11), Dan (10), Amy (10), Annette (7)
|
| Carcassonne | Holly's:
Dan and Amy were new to the game. Don't remember much other than I took all of the cities with my farmers (56 pts).
Me (95), Holly (66), Matt (60), Amy (40), Annette (37), Dan (35)
|
| EVO | Holly's
Very close game. Annette used the Strong Babies card to knock me out of the mountains and the lead.
Annette (48), Me (46), Holly (45), Matt (44) Chett (44)
|
| Hick Hack | Holly's:
Closer for the night.
Annette (45), Chet (36), Holly (30), Matt (24), Me (22)
|
| 31th |
| Hick Hack | X-Boss:
Introduced the game to new players.
Greg (48),Ilise (38), John (33), me (20), Patty (17)
|
