| Ralph's Game Log for Oct 2002 August Log Sept Log |
| 1st |
| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | Online:
Serious lack of sheep caused a big slow down. First wave of barbarians knocked out 3 of 4 players cities.
John, who kept his city, was able to dominate. We made it tough on him but he won anyway.
John 13, Me 7, Lloyd 6, James 5
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| 2nd |
| Trans America | Lunch Time:
Two quick games for lunch time. Craig still thinks too long.
Ralph (12), Holly (7), Craig (1)
Holly (7), Craig (5), Me (1)
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| Purchase: Money! Played it last month, good for lunch time gaming.
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| Mage Knight Dungeons | Danger Planet:
Showed up late to Danger Planet. Luckily Vitas and the gang were just going over the rules for the game. I can't really hate dungeon crawler games.
Each player gets a hero. Object of the game is to enter the dungeon, grab some treasure and exit. And, what is a dungeon with out monsters?
Each turn a player has two actions, move his character (only once per turn) or move a monster (two monster when the player's character is dead).
We entered the dungeon, encountered some creatures and died. Thinking of make a team game for the next play.
Me, Cindy, Vitas, Karl
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| Tikal | Danger Planet:
Broke in Vitas' copy of the game. Cindy hadn't play before. It was a close game. Cindy went big into the treasure hunting eventually getting 3 full sets.
Karl and I did the excavation and control of temples for our points while vitas tried to control a few big temples.
Game was close and I know exactly where I messed up. I got a treasure site and placed it so you had to spend 6 actions points to get to it, which I did.
Hindsight that was bad. I spent 6 actions points to get to the site; those 6 points could have been three excavations for my temples. Bad move cause the treasure didn't do me any good.
Karl (94), Cindy (93), Me (92), Vitas (82)
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| 3rd |
| Money! | Lunch Time:
We got together with Ilise and went to Tennesse's for lunch. After people finished eating the messy BBQ, we played one hand of my new game.
People misunderstood my description of the scoring, so the scoring was a little off. I collected too many coin. Ilise almost collect a full currency set but missed out on a 20 (120 swing).
Ilise(390), Holly(340), Craig (320), Me (150), Dimitri (80)
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| Linie 1 | B20:
Richard brought this game. After a few of the rules I realized this was Streetcar with a different end game. End game uses a die with 1,2,3,4,H,H where the numbers determine the speed of the trolley and H means go to the next stop.
This a tile laying game where you're trying to connect your terminals and your stops. After the route is complete, you run your trolley between the terminals using the route created.
First to finish is the winner. Everyone except Dave finished their tracks with in a turn of each other. Richard was 1 away from winning when I rolled an H.
Me, Richard, Adam, Dave L
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| Cartagena | B20:
Cool little game where you're trying to move your six pawns from the prison to a sloop via a secret tunnel.
Cards can move a pawn to the next available symbol in the tunnel. You get more cards by dropping back a pawn. First to get his 6 pieces to the sloop, wins.
Me, Adam, Campbell, Brian, Dave L
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| Agora | B20:
While we waited for Richard to finish his game of Crokinole, we play Vitas's game Agora. A tile laying game where the cards represent shops.
The twist is the cards can be placed in any manor. Players can buy shops and each exposed entrance of a shop generates money. First player to 50 wins. Not a bad filler.
I created a super shop but Dave and Vitas closed off some of my entrances. Got lucky in the last draw by drawing an extra income generation card.
Me (55). Dave L (42), Vitas (29)
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| Tikal | B20:
Vitas wanted another try at Tikal. Gave kyle a quick refresher. We decided that the final scoring round would be score in ascending order (last player first). First scoring round came early and I got almost no points.
Spent most of the game trailing on the scoring track. Vitas and I butted head for two temples committing too many men for those points. I got lucky and was able to get two isolated temples near the end.
Since I went first in the final scoring round, I was able to steal control of a 5 pt temple, which gave me enough points to tie Richard.
Richard (95), Me (95), Kyle (89), Vitas (82)
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| Heimlch & Co | B20:
Fun game of deduction and bluffing. Played my ignore strategy (i.e., I don't move my piece). I was able to pick two player's color correctly. Brian got three.
Ralph (49), Brian (47), Dave F (47), Dave L (42), Scott (39), Kyle (28)
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| Mause Rally | B20:
I was heading home but was convinced to play one more game. In this game each player has a token of a mouse, which you flick with a stick. Each time your mouse passes the checkered flag you get a piece of cheese.
Through out the track are holes. A player's that has a mouse in the hole gets to flick the cat token. Cat token is used to block the mice and knock them into the holes.
Silly game, loved it.
Dave F (7), Richard (6), Scott (6), Me (6)
Richard (8), Dave F (6), Scott (5), Me (5)
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| 5th |
| Puerto Rico | Annette's:
Ilise and John needed a Puerto Rico fix. Only got a three-player game going, since everyone else was interesting in playing something else.
I got first position. I went builder while Ilise and John went for shipping. Both of them got harbors but Ilise was a better shipper.
I bought the customhouse to play keep away from the shippers. Game ended after a shipping phase.
Ilise (56), Me (51), John (40)
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| El Grande | Annette's:
Brian brought this game. None of us had ever played. We quickly read the rules and spent a few minutes going over the sample game.
We spent a good half an hour trying to figure out the "why" of one of the actions cards played in the sample game. We decided it was wrong. I need to ask someone at B20.
No issues occurred during the rest of the game. I took every action card that hosed other player's cabarellos. John kept telling us he didn't get it but he scored well, sandbagger. :)
Looking forward to playing it again.
Me (96), John (92), Trisha (88), Brian (88)
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| Bohnanza | Annette's:
The other group was in the middle of their game so we taught Tisha and Brian Bohnanza. Played face up for a while so they could understand the mechanics of the game.
John wheeled and dealed himself into a victory.
John (24), Me (23), Trisha (18), Brian (18)
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| Guillotine | Annette's:
Mixed up the groups after the game of Bohnanza. I decided we should celebrate Annette's heritage, so I pulled out Guillotine.
She appreciated the humor of it. I was able to get 4 of the place guards, which offset my tragic figure and maytr's heads, that I had cut.
End the third day early with an action card, Holly didn't like that cause she was about to play a good card.
Me (23), Trisha (23), Annette (20), Holly (13)
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| Kardinal & König - Das Kartenspiel | Annette's:
Played another game set in medieval Europe. It's one of Holly's favorite games.
Was able to win because Trisha got the one of -2 vp law chips and annette got two of them.
Me (39), Trisha (37), Holly (36), Annette (36)
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| Cube Farm | Annette's:
With most people gone, we played one more game. Took out Cube Farm. It's a tile laying game that cost 4 bucks.
The idea is to occupy the cubicles next to the good stuff and stay away from the VP and receptionist.
Played two hands of it.
Annette (69), Me (69) Matt (66)
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| 8th |
| Money! | Lunch Time:
Played one hand of Money while we waited for Craig to comeback with the food order. I got a full set but dimitri did a better job of get two sets.
Regina's first game.
Dimitri (620), Me (580), Regina (460)
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| Wyatt Earp | Lunch Time:
Regina said she was going to play this game until she won it. We made sure she didn't win.
We had to end this game after three hands.
Me (24), Craig (20), Dimitri (19), Regina (15)
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| 9th |
| Wyatt Earp | Lunch Time:
The conspiracy to keep Regina in last place failed. She started with a strong first hand and was able keep us in check till the end.
I blamed Dimitri.
Regina (30), Dimitri (26), Me (25), Craig (20)
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| Money! | Lunch Time:
Had a few minutes left for lunch so we play one hand of "Money!". I would have had only 500 pts but someone tossed in the right set for me to score an extra 240 pts, otherwise Regina would have won again. Can't have that!!!
Me (740), Regina (530), Craig (440), Dimitri (80)
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| 10th |
| Frag | Al's:
First victim of the game and eventual duck was Tufo. I got lucky and got the guided nuke with my starting hand. I popped out and launched it. Al made the mistake of coming out of the safe zone only to get nuked. Rich had high speed and jumped into an island to get stuff. Dimitri zinged him with poison darts, which reduced his speed and thereby forcing him to be stuck on the island for most of the game.
I was sliced and diced by Chris's teleport/double chainsaw attack. I respawned and took out Tufo.
The general mayhem ended with Dave killing Al and played a game hack that allowed him to get another turn.
Tufo was the victory kill.
Dave M (3), Al(2), Me(2), Tufo(2), Chris(1), Dimitri(1), Roberto, Rich
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| Puerto Rico | Al's:
Introduced Maria and Roberto to Puerto Rico. I was in third position. I went for the money in this game. Acquiring coffee early and was able to generated good cash. Roberto and Maria were doing a great job of shipping. I bought the harbor, which allowed me to catch up to their shipping.
I bought the Customhouse, which gave me the game (8 VP bonus). Game end due to lack of VPs.
Me (61), Roberto (53), Maria (41), Dimitri (39)
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| 11th |
| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | B20:
The land of no sheep, the best value for a sheep tile was a 5. I got out to a quick lead with two defender of Catan vps but stalled due to lack of wood.
Everybody else was able to get to Science level 4 (free resource if none received) except for me.
Constantine was got a Metropolis, two Dev VPs and longest road to win.
Constantine 13, Greg 9, Me 7, Nick 6
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| Call My Bluff | B20:
Constantine went out pretty quickly with some bad calls. The game was tight for a few rounds with everyone getting down to a few dice.
I got knock out next. Nick won the bluffing contest.
Nick, Gregg, Me, Constantine
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| Muscat | B20:
Gregg's first game. Started out strong, I got several of my musicians to the higher tiers quickly but I didn't have enough musicians.
Next time I'll have to do a more balanced approach.
Gregg (49), Brian (43), Me (39), Nick (35)
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| Traumfabrik | B20:
Ed Wood Tribute game. I create a 5 point movie in the first turn, scored first yellow and best film for the first turn. A turn later, Rich produced at 4 pointer. I won a lot with several no star chips, so I produced another bad movie (3pts). I thought, for sure, that I had succeed in getting the worst movie but Dave L only finished one movie and it was worth 2 pts.
Dave scored the Best Direction and 2 "Best Movie in a Category" awards.
Dave L (93), Me (70), Rich (65), Dave L (30)
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| 12th |
| Titan | Chris's:
Pulled this out from the bottom of the box. Hadn't played it in at least 10 years. I was the only one who had played. Started around 8 pm and decided that the game would end around midnight.
My Titan stack didn't recruit well and was attacked early. Me the only Titan veteran was knocked out first, oh the shame. Chris proceeded to stomp and score huge points. He knocked out Todd a few hours later. Midnight arrived (thankfully), we added each player's Creature values to the their score. Chris won!
Chris (812), Marcus (472), Esa (372), Todd (60), Me (0)
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| Web Of Power | Chris's:
Introduced this game to Chris and Marcus. Each player began playing for the cloister chaining and I was forced to block them, using wild cards no less, instead of working on my scoring. Bad move, I was stomped.
Chris (52), Marcus (50), Me (43)
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| 13th |
| Purchase: Mamma Mia! Hey, it's from the game designer of Bohnanza and it has an "!" mark in the title just like Money!.
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| Mamma Mia! | Rice's:
We both finished both our possible pizza orders. Figured out that we didn't remove the required number of ingredients for two players, doh!
Kristin (8) and Me (8)
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| 15st |
| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | Online:
Damn the random number generator was on the fritz. I picked the 6 and 8 tiles cause they're supposed to come up often. Instead the 4,5, and 11 hit it big. Only seven in the game and it seriously hosed me.
Lloyd was looking good but ran out of steam. John cornered most of the wood in the game and dominated.
John (13), Lloyd (8), James (8), Me (5)
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| Carcassonne | Online:
Spent most of the time countering Paradox99 aggressive take over bids. Felt like I was getting all the big city tiles too. Created two supersized cities, sadly didn't complete either.
Paradox99 (72), Lloyd (54), Me (59), James (33)
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| 16th |
| Purchase: Risk:Lord of The Rings Cheap at BJs.
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| Money! | Lunch Time:
Introduced Tim to the game. He seemed to have some problems grasping the concept but I guess he was bluffing cause scored using three sets. Holly and Craig went for collecting one big set while I collect one big set and some triples.
Tim (740), Me (620), Holly (540), Craig (500)
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| Money! | Ilise's:
Broke in Ilise's copy of Money, which I had found in New Hampshire last weekend. Ilise and I both got two almost complete sets in the three hands. John's first hand didn't score well but if it had he would have been in the game.
I was able to out score Ilise in the third hand, by figuring out which currency she was collecting and keeping a 20 and 30 from her.
Me (1950), Ilise (1880), John (1480)
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| 22nd |
| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | Online:
Pretty balanced game. James went heavy on the sheep with sheep port while Lloyd and I went for balance.
A see-saw battle if I ever saw one. Lloyd got off to great start but faltered in the mid game. James came out of nowhere to take the lead, which didn't last too long. I took the lead but lloyd and james kept beating on me.
Finally was able to tough it out and win by stealing longest road from Lloyd.
Found a bug in the program. Lloyd lost a knight in battle even though it had room to retreat.
Me 13, James 10, Lloyd 6
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| 23rd |
| Carcassonne | Lunch Time:
Pulled out the lunch time classic to teach lynn but she bailed out on us.
Craig started strong but made the mistake of trying to finish a city with a cathedral. Dimitri lockout one of his city with a bad tile place.
Finished strong by completing two cities at the end. Nobody did any real farming. I won the farmer battle with only two farmers and collected an additional 36 points.
Me (129), Dimitri (80), Craig (44)
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| Money! | Al's:
Opened with a hand of Money! while we waited for people to show up. Al and Chris hadn't played before.
Me (780) Dimitir (600), Al (500), Chris (500)
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| Trans America | Al's:
We played Transamerica while we waited for the pizza to arrive. Dimitri's first play.
Nothing special other than the second game end in two rounds.
Chris (9), Tofu (9), Rich (4), Me (4),Dimitri (1),Al (-1)
Rich (8), Me (6), Dimitri (5), Chris (3), Al (2), Tofu (0)
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| Frag | Al's:
Biggest complain after the first game of Frag was the amount of downtime. Al and I decided to modify Frag for a little more speed.
We defined a new attribute, Agility, which was the sum of speed and accuracy.
At the beginning of each turn, Agility and Movement values are rolled.
The turn is then divided into three phases where each phase has:
1) Move up to 1/3 of rolled movement by ascending agility
2) Fire by descending agility
3) Pick up phase
Tufo Fragged Al with a special card, most people spent a few turns trying to grab stuff.
Tufo launched a nuke at me and hit. I had medpacks, so I survived that attack. Took him down. Chris teleported over to get the leftover goodies but I took him out too.
We gave up after 4 turns. Decided that this game pretty much blows for large groups.
Me(2), Chris, Tofu(1), Rich(1), Dimitri, Al, Roberto
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| Money! | Al's:
Half the group went to play Football on the Xbox. The rest played Money! First play for Roberto and Maria.
Al was trying different strategies which explains the low score.
Roberto (1610), Me (1560), Maria (1380), Al (450)
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| Manhattan | Al's:
Introduced this game to Al. Maria, Roberto and I had played before.
My card draws just didn't seem to help me at all and it didn't help that Maria and Roberto kept taking my towers.
I was able to take tallest tower at the end of the game. Still lost badly.
Tallest Tower 29 floors
Roberto (57) Maria (45) Al (35), Me (29)
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| 24th |
| Carcassonne | Lunch Time:
Dimitri wanted to play Transamerica but Craig wanted revenge for yesterdays spankin'. No revenge for Craig today. I built massive cities in this game, snagging a 36 pointer solo and shared a 24 cathedral city.
Dimitri and I split on the farmer action. Lynn did well for her first game.
Dimitri (116), Me (98), Lynn (79), Craig (54)
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| Taj Mahal | MVGA:
My first game I played was my best and I've gotten progressively worse.
Looks like I have a negative learning curve with Taj. Rich got the +2 bonus card and retained it for most of the game. I bidded for spice and gems but was never able to get them when I really needed them.
Rich (68), Dan (45), Paul (40), Me (38)
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| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | MVGA:
6 Player Island City and Knights. Argh, two hours of hell. I started out strong because of the weird rolls that were rolled.
I was able to get Savior of Catan a couple of times and built two settlements. My lack of ore hurt me though.
I was almost able to take longest road but someone use the traitor card to steal my knight, which broke my road. Dan won by building two Metros and lots of cities.
Dan, Walter, Me, Paul, Anton, Rich
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| Union Pacific | MVGA:
Another railroad building game. A little more complex than Trans America. Each turn a player has the option of expanding a railroad line or playing railroad shares.
During each of the four scoring rounds the player with the most shares get value of the railroad, second place get 1/2. Winner is the one with the most money.
Rich (90s), Paul (80), Dan (80s), Anton (70), Walter (60), Me (59)
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| 25th |
| Trans America | Lunch Time:
Dimitri new favorite game, he started out strong initially but I was able finished first twice in a row.
Me (10), Dimitri (8), Craig (0)
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| Puerto Rico | B20:
Second Nick to the group, I forgot his last name. Second position. Started out with my standard approach; small market, small indigo planet and a few quarries.
Dave went heaving in corn, eventually getting 6 plantations.
Nick's strategy was similar to mine. Dave was a crazied shipper.
I bought the harbor to help my shipping. Nick made good money and bought three large buildings, which he had kept empty for production purposes. I only bought one and realizing that if he manned those building I might not win, so I decided to finish the game with a final shipping phase. Guess I didn't realize how much stuff Dave had shipped.
Dave L (51), Me (43), Nick 2(39)
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| Traumfabrik | B20:
My favorite movie making game. Started out strong and made a nice 16 pt comedy, which won best film for the quarter.
Was able to complete five movies but nothing to compare to Dave's best films. Dave got worst movie and I had best direction.
Silly movie result, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Rita Moreno.
Dave (90), Me (79), Rich (72), Nick 2(53)
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| Atlantic Star | B20:
Created a quick yellow cruise and borrowed against it. Card draws not in my favor so I burn lots of money clearing out the queue. Best cruise was a second placed two star. Finally broke Dave's winning streak but not by much.
Rich (44), Dave L (42), Mike (39), Scott (37), Me (36)
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| Werewolf | B20:
Eleven player game of werewolf with kyle moderating. A blood thirst villager nominated me. My defense was uninspired so they hung me. I was a lowly villager.
Werewolves won.
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| Halunken und Spelunken | B20:
This a game with 8 blinding bidding rounds for movement. Lowest moves first. Object is it to collect sailors for local dive bars. Each sailor is worth points and each player's largest suit count double.
Was able to make some good bids and grabbed a nice suit for my score doubler.
Me (111), Dave F(79), Scott (69), Rich (69)
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| Union Pacific | B20:
Wanted to give this game another try. Played a more distributed game choosing to have share in a lot of lines rather than having lots of shares of a few lines.
Nick did an excellent job of controlling the "El Paso Railroad" plus a few of the smaller lines. We got two scoring rounds back to back which really helped Nick.
Mike had to leave during the fourth round, we made his play collectively. Luckily it was for only three turns.
Nick (162), Rich (138), Me (124), Mike (104)
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| Carcassone: Hunter & Gatherers | Online:
Lloyd and I decided to try out the new Carcassone Hunter and Gatherers on BSW. One of the problems I noticed were the blocky images. Until you learn the tiles it was pretty hard to figure the animal types.
One thing I did was to use the hunter a little too early and not taking advantage of the river points.
I also whiffed on how to use the huts. I demanded revenge so we play an second game.
I hosed Lloyd with a nasty tile placement that locked two of his meeples in a forest for most of the game.
Lloyd (196), Me (84)
Me (193), Lloyd (164)
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| 29th |
| Settlers of Catan: City and Knights | Online:
First set of barbarians took 6 turns to hit, an amazing feat with 5 players.
The slowness of the barbarians allowed us to develop knights for the defense.
The second wave hit rapidly and took out three cities. John had the advantage because his city survived.
He grabbed longest road and was looking unstoppable. As in all games, it was time to smack the leader and it worked.
A most amazing struggle for victory occurred. John was the leader with everyone else nipping at heels. Lloyd, Helen and James all built Metros while I developed my settlement and road network.
The longest road bounced around but at the end it belonged to me. Helen had to resources to win but realized that she had max out on cities upgrades and couldn't expand to build any more settlements. We all laughed. James encountered the same problem. Lloyd almost messed up too, by not getting the correct resource to fix a sabotaged city. He was able to fix his city, play a trader card and upgraded his second city to a metropolis (stolen from Helen) for the victory (5 VPs as defender).
A great game that had three players within one build/upgrade of victory and two others with in three VPs. Hail Lloyd, Defender of Catan.
Lloyd 14, James 12, Helen 10, Me 10, John 9
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| 31st |
| Trans America | Lunch Time:
Halloween festivities during lunch. Dimitri want to play Trans America and convince Regina and Scott to play. Regina and Scott played for the first time.
Craig was very happy to win.
Craig (10), Me (4), Dimitri (4), Holly (4), Scott (4), Regina (0)
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| Carcassone: Hunter & Gatherers | Online:
Still trying to figure out the rules for this game. James dominated the Lake network, Lloyd and I thought he kicking but at the end I came out on top. The problem is that the map disappears after the last tile so we can't figure out the final scoring.
Me 126, James 87, Lloyd 81
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| Lord of the Rings | Danger Planet:
Halloween night. A light night for gamers. Jumped into a game of Lord of the Rings, a game I've been wanting to play for a while.
Eric (Frodo), Me (Pippin), Rich (Merry), Anton (Fatty), Cindy (Sam) were in the game. First time for me and it had several of the expansions.
Failed, the group encountered too many foes in Isenguard.
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| Dice Run | Danger Planet:
Several people left for Salem and only a few were left. Karl pulled out this light game for the closer.
Wow, a game with 30 dice and they are almost never rolled. This is a secret objective game. Initially, all thirty dice are grouped together. Each player gets a tile, which represent the value and color of the die, that he wants to be in first place.
Each turn a player plays a card that move a die value or color forward to the next group. There also special cards that swaps groups, adds gaps, etc. When the special score card is drawn, each player get a point per die that matches in value or color. Who ever gets the most points get 3 pts, second gets 2 pts and third get 1 pt. The point leader after four rounds wins. Enjoyable game, random but expensive for a bunch of dice and a deck of cards.
Me (9), Karl (8), Eric (7)
Karl (10), Erice (10), Me (8)
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