This game was tons of fun, and the expansion added a lot of really interesting new elements that make the ship building much more complex and interesting. The lasers everywhere approach isn’t nearly as powerful on this version, as the internal intruders will take out a good bit of that kind of ship. I figured out a lot about how to use the new components a little late in the process, but next time I play that it will be a great time. I played with Chris and Jeff. Jeff was way behind, but I got 100 points with Chris getting 107, so the game was pretty close. Had I been the first player in any round I probably would have taken the win.
Last night I had a really great round of Tzolk’in. Adam, Illia, and David were playing with me, and I was going full out god pleasing. Surprisingly I didn’t use the end of the food track that much, but instead used the more powerful top of the building track. I think next time I’ll employ a similar strategy, but instead of doing the food track focus on the resource track. I ended up with a score of 86, which is one shy of the highest score we’ve seen in the game.
Last night we played video games at Beachhead. We had 2 TV’s running and got a good number of systems there. We had the XBox, Wii + U, PS3, and GameCube. I mainly played super smash brothers. I also got some people to play test one of the games I’m working on and they had good feedback on it.
I also played a round of Tongiaki at Box, and this game is very entertaining. You have to give up a little bit of your sense of control, as other people can move your pieces around the board and send them to their doom. I took over a small corner of the board for myself and it worked really well until right at the end when people un-king-made me. I still got 3rd with the concerted attacks, but that isn’t nearly as nice as winning. It is still a hugely entertaining game when it chains into ridiculous place.
Tuesday night I went to the Box game night and played 2 games of 7 wonders. In the first game I went large military early to discourage my neighbors from trying to go against me, and it mostly worked. I got the full 18 points from military. I also did a ton of the blue building, which give straight points. Those combined with the guilds and wonders gave me a decisive win at 67 points. The second game I got a lot of the cards I wanted in the same hands, so I couldn’t build the things I wanted. I also didn’t get very much in the way of money coming from the other players, and I was relying a little bit on that. I got 51 points, which wasn’t bad, but still not nearly good enough to win.
Adam Nick and I continued on to play a round of Tzolk’in. Adam was pretty amazing and managed to get 4 monuments. He sacrificed the feeding of his people to get it, but with 4 monuments you can ignore a good bit of that. It was pretty amazing to see. I made a huge mistake two turns from the end which cost me at least 14 points, and would have made the game a 1 point difference instead of a 15 point difference. I was able to just beat Nick as it was, and the extra crystal skulls I had were the key to that. I got two tech advances for the crystal skulls track at the start of the game, so that made it easy to decide what tech I was going to do. I went crystal skull and gods, which was ok, but next time I will do pure god delight. It will be interesting to see how that pans out. I will get mainly food, and a good bit of food tech, then spam the please a god spot at the end of the food tech track.
Adam and I were on a team against Steph and Nick. Steph and Nick were both able to get up a decent number of points and Steph had quite the tableau going; however, Adam was able to generate many more points, with a bit of feeding points to him from me. I was able to pick up a could of the special achievements with help from Adam, and that sealed the game for us. They were able to hit some of Adam’s points, and at two points they took out my tableau entirely, but I was able to build it back up with some well timed cards.
Saturday Evening Adam and Nick came over to play some games with Steph and I. We played a game of New Era, where I got the merchants guild, and a good bit of help around cooperates, and a synergistic set of cards around gun production. This made it so that I could pull out a quick victory. Nick had an amazing attack engine going, but he wasn’t generating any points. He was able to destroy any building he want, and usually could take out multiples per turn, but he never got the point buildings down and wasn’t reincorporating.
Adam, Nick, and I played another round of Tzolk’in last night. I wasn’t playing any particular strategy, so I just got a lot of people, and got them working. I was mostly efficient, and it worked out ok in the end. Had Nick not sniped the monument I was somewhat building up to I would have probably beaten Adam, but things went well anyway. I think next time I’ll be going full god pleasing.
It's an Exciting World 