It's an Exciting World

We decided to stay in on new years and had a few of Steph’s roommates join us.  Tina and Amit were around and they joined us in a game of Tokaido.  I had gotten Tokaido for Steph and she got second in the game we played.  Tina won by a good bit, and Amit got a close third to Steph.  I got a far last.  After that we sat down for a good game of Dungeon of the Endless and watched When Harry Met Sally.

We played another round of Tzolk’n with most of the expansion material included.  I had a great time since I got the clan that could take on debt.  It made the game a lot more interesting for sure.  Had I gotten a little more aggressive and bought the wonder that Adam wanted, I would have won.  As it was I was able to get a very close second.

Chris came over to Jeff’s at noon, and we did a 6 sealed pack of Khans.  I had a fun morph deck that would probably have been able to take on either of them, but it wasn’t able to take on both.  Chris and I then played a second game, and his creatures were able to overrun me.  He had something like a mardu deck, but included lots of enchantments that applied to all his creatures.  That plus I didn’t draw mana well on the second game let Chris win.  We decided to then play a game of Lords of Waterdeep.  I didn’t get good enough plot quests to really drive my game forward, Jeff and Chris got quests that allowed stronger gameplay.  I was also doubled up with Piety for jeff, which slowed me down a bit as well.

We played a fun game of Vegas Showdown with Tina winning by a good bit.  She was mistaken at one point and placed something she couldn’t, but even taking the difference out she still won by a good bit.  I made an early bet that didn’t turn out, but still got a solid second.  I really enjoyed the play, even if it was a bit slow at times.  We had a lot of points where many people took the publicity action, which was a little surprising.  Perhaps with 5 people it happens more often than with the 4 i’ve played with before.

For games night I played Wealth of Nations with Tina, Chris, Iliya, Yanika, and one of Yanika’s friends.  I chose the capital start, and was able to build 2 more capital buildings in the first turn to get an efficient 6 production.  I then focused on building banks, and was able to get that going.  I made some mistakes that cost me the game, but it wasn’t that bad.  I also helped out Yanika in her planning and trading.  She didn’t really understand how the game worked, and didn’t do all that well because of it.  Tina held back at the start, then really ramped up in the late game.  She got way ahead with some ruthless trading, and won by half a point over me.  I really enjoyed the game, especially since I didn’t want to play a game that involved much chance.  Early on Chris left to go help out Rachel, and Adam took his spot on the board.

I played Xia again, and it wasn’t as fun as last time. The game went wayyy to slow, and the explanation took a long time as well. I got ahead and had to slow down a bit. I also noticed that getting ahead made you start accelerating, so there was a runaway effect. We all called the game early, but I think I could have won it if we played it all the way out. I was able to get a big gun and kill everyone with it.

Iliya, Steph, and I played a game of Ad Astra.  I started with a water world, so I set my aim towards the terraformers.  Iliya and Steph were getting pretty good synergies from each other on production and scoring, but I was able to just barely outstrip them by building 4 terraformers, and scoring that card twice.  I won by 14 points, which is a pretty big margin.

This was a pretty good game, but we didn’t really know what we were doing.  That made some of our choices not ideal, and other choices simply stupid.  I had a few instances where I was poised to do really really well, and the dice didn’t turn out as hoped.  The first time I was about to take down the bad guy npc, to complete a mission and give me the regular goodies from defeating the bad guy, but the cop npc took him down before I could.  I had done most of the damage and the other npc stole the kill.  I’d love to play again, but with fewer people, a longer game, and now knowing what to do.  Adam ended up winning, even though he rushed too much at the end and postponed the game about 4 turns.