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Seattle Cosmic Game Night, Saturday, 21 February 2004

TITLE

Seattle Cosmic met at the house of Dave_Howell? and Eric_Yarnell,_ND? in Seattle on 21 February. In attendance, in rough order of attendance, were hosts Dave and Eric, David_Adams?, Justin_Newstrum?, Timothy_Higgins?, Ben_Sklar?, Alex_Rockwell?, ChadUrsoMcDaniel, John_Reiher?, Marty_Hale-Evans? and Ron_Hale-Evans?, Alex_Duncan?, Nat_Dupree? and Steve_Dupree?, Jay_Lorch? and Michelle_Teague?, James_Moore?, Tonnvane_Wiswell? and Jason_Meininger?, and Mark_Haggerty?. (Names in italics indicate newcomers, or "New Guys".)

By the way, New Guys and relatively new guys: if your name has a red question mark beside it in the list above, you can click on the question mark to create a home page for yourself.

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Finstere Flure (#1 of 2)

Game: Finstere_Flure?
Location: Living room
Time: 17:45-18:36
Winner: Tim Higgins
Prize: ?

Scores

I didn't really have a clear idea about how to play, so I just ran for the door in round 1 as fast as I could. This was not wise. Though it looked like Tim was in trouble because he hung back and got two of his people eaten fairly quickly, it actually ended up being tactically brilliant. One of the most important things was to maneuver your people to draw the monster toward other players and away from you. I think this game is all about understanding how the monster moves and putting your people in good positions to help drive it the way you want it to go. This does not always mean running the furthest away--often not.

Anyway, in round 1, no one got out of the room alive. I was the only one who had a piece eaten in the last phase (my 1/6 dog piece) so it was permanently out of the game.

In round 2, Tim got out two people in the first phase! And though the monster came rampaging back around by the exit door, Tim snuck his third piece by and won. Well done.

--Eric_Yarnell,_ND?

Starship Catan

Game: Starship_Catan?
Location: Attic
Time: various
Winner: Alex Rockwell, 2 times; Ben Sklar 1 time
Prize: ?

Scores

Alex and I played 3 times with Alex winning 2 out of 3. Maybe I should not insist on going first when I lose as the only time I won was when Alex went first. :-) In all games there was a struggle to get the advanced modules mainly for their VPs, but also for their abilities. Although all 3 times, I did manage to get the advanced sensor module before Alex. And in the last game, I won as I was able to get a trade planet giving me a 3rd friendship point and the Friend VP as well as 1 more advanced module for the 10th VP and the win.
--Ben_Sklar?

I'm not sure if they just changed tables, or if Alex played even more Starship_Catan? with somebody else, but note that my photo shows them on the far attic table, and the pictures above show them on the near table (the one that folds into a triangle).

Gargon

Game: Gargon?
Location: Basement
Time: 18:00-18:30
Winner: Dave Howell
Prize: ?

Scores

What happened during this game?

Comments from the players?

--YOUR_NAME?

Scarab Lords

Game: Scarab_Lords?
Location: ?
Time: 18:20-19:20
Winner: Alex Rockwell
Prize: ?

Scores

So Red is a mostly offensive deck and Blue has more diversity. At first it was looking kind of bad for Alex, and I was really weaning down his draw pile. Unfortunately, he pulled a bunch of powerful stuff at this point and I just couldn't hold it off. We then did the thing where the loser draws 5 cards from the white deck to improve things (I chose to try and diversify) and then the winner chooses. The second game went even more badly, suggesting the only reason Alex had any trouble in the first game was because he had a very bad initial draw (and in fact his first action in the first game was to redraw almost his entire hand). Sigh. Alex is the king of CCGs and CCG-type games.

--Eric_Yarnell,_ND?

Vanished Planet

Game: Vanished_Planet?
Location: Living room
Time: 18:45-23:05
Winner: WE WON!
Prize: n/a

Races (clockwise from Ron's left)

Interestingly, when we started, Tim (who's game it was) promptly declared that We Were Doomed and the Game would be Impossible To Win. I felt this was not necessarily supported by the facts, but decided to wait. At first, his prediction seemed possible; at the 1/2 way point, we really had only the first few points even in sight. But things started picking up rapidly, held up only by the complex economics of upgrading combined with pretty weak documentation to assist in calculating costs. In the end, we won with two or three people still potentially able to score points if some of the last players had slipped at the last moment.

It really is an "us versus the game" cooperative game, and trying to find a way around the game's restrictions as a team was really enjoyable. I intend to play it again, although this time I won't have to spend my 'down time' constructing cost breakdowns of all the items. It was a real pain to try to figure out if you could purchase Item X with the couple of Personel and big pile of Resources you'd have during a turn. So I made a chart breaking down all the partial costs of various items on some graph paper. This handy chart is now available to all as a PDF file.

--Dave_Howell?

The board at close of play.

Puerto Rico (#1 of 2)

Game: Puerto_Rico?
Location: Attic
Time: 19:00-20:00
Winner: Nat Dupree
Prize: ?

Scores

What happened during this game?

Comments from the players?

--YOUR_NAME?

Bridge

Game: Bridge?
Players: Jay Lorch and Michelle Teague vs. Alex Rockwell and Eric Yarnell
Location: ?
Time: 19:30-20:20
Winner: ?
Prize: ?

I can't understand the score sheet fully, which I think was written by Jay, but it looks as though Jay and Michelle may have won two games and Alex and Eric one. I will be happy to fax or email Jay a copy of his score sheet so he can correct me and add more detail, or perhaps he or the other players can do so from memory.

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Yes Jay was keeping score, but I scratched stuff all over it too. We mostly had to learn about bidding as only Jay really knew (and Alex to a lesser extent).

I had a fantastic last hand by the way--26 points (all aces, 2-3 kings, 2-3 queens, a jack, but no long suit). I did not know the convention was to bid 2 clubs right off when one has such a killer hand. Anyhow, it seemed like a no trump hand to me, and we ended up in 3 no trump. I didn't know how to play it very well and probably should have led right off with my two strongest suits, spades and hearts I think, but instead didn't. Thus we didn't make a slam, which Jay suggested I could have bid. Perhaps we could have if only I had know better how to pull it off. It was great getting such a nice hand regardless!

--Eric_Yarnell,_ND?

Industria

Game: Industria?
Location: Attic
Time: 20:00-21:30
Winner: Nat Dupree
Prize: ?

Scores

What happened during this game?

Comments from the players?

--YOUR_NAME?

Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers (#1 of 2)

Game: Carcassonne:_Hunters_&_Gatherers?
Location: Basement
Time: 20:00-21:00
Winner: Jason Meininger
Prize: two giant dice

Scores

Mark had not played Hunters & Gatherers before, although he was familiar with the Carcassone play. I, on the other hand, play almost exclusively in bloody one-on-one situations, and despite my status as newbie in the room, I was unable to contain the ruthless evil inside.

Mark gained advantage early with a sprawling watershed that I was unable to close, and cleverly expanded a hunting ground to connect with one of my own. It was then I knew that my only hope of victory lay in bringing his hard work crashing down around him. I managed to draw the temple tile, and then it was gloves off. I was able to locate the temple in a prime position to reclaim and dominate the now very fertile hunting ground, and as we neared the end of the game, I also succeeded in negating his watershed by connecting it to an otherwise worthless watershed of my own. It was snide and cruel, I admit, but he took it well. I suspect he'll tromp me next time.

--Jason_Meininger?

Medina

Game: Medina?
Location: Basement
Time: 20:10-21:10
Winner: Tonnvane Wiswell
Prize: plastic water game (see PrizeBag)

Scores

This game has an interesting mechanism of city building crossed with "waiting for someone to blink." Once I figured the final version of the highest scoring city type could only be colonized by me (since the rest of the crew had settled for smaller or average sized cities of this type, with plans to expand them through the addition of stables), I was able to focus on blocking other cities from getting much larger as well as trying to tempt people to make plays that would ultimately advance the value of my cities. Of course, eveyone else was desperately trying to NOT to make that particular city I had my eye on get any bigger ... or to find a way to block it so that it would be taken out of play before being claimed, leaving me with a tiny, tiny city of my own. Was it newbie's luck that I won? I'm not sure, but I was very happy that on my first game I managed to hold my own ... while learning a new game and meeting a bunch of nice folks.

--Tonnvane

Robo Rally

Game: Robo_Rally?
Location: ?
Time: 20:30-22:30
Winner: Justin Newstrum
Prize: ?

Scores

We played on the Coliseum map. This has a deep (three level) pit in the middle surrounded by conveyor belts. There aren't many other board elements. We decided on a single map so we wouldn't be stuck playing all night.

Initially Jay and Justin got to the first flag and shot each other a lot. They were really hurting. I think Justin powered down but Jay committed suicide, I don't exactly remember. Anyway I was hung up back at the first flag and felt far behind. But we had fixed what we all felt was a major flaw in the game--that often when someone gets ahead, they stay ahead. The fix--multiple flags with crossing paths. It worked great--I caught back up and actually almost one, except that Jay ran into me at an inopportune moment and threw me all the back to the middle of the pit. Justin was nearly winning but drew badly three turns. Jay looked like he could pull it off, but then suddenly Justin got exactly what he needed and slipped in to tag flag 3 and win.

--Eric_Yarnell,_ND?

Puerto Rico (#2 of 2)

Game: Puerto_Rico?
Location: Basement
Time: 21:15-22:30
Winner: ChadUrsoMcDaniel
Prize: ?

Scores

It was a bloody, bloody battle from the start. I faced the kind of awesome competition I was dreaming of when I first headed off to a Seattle Cosmic meetup. Although I have never thought that one could have too many quarries, with hindsight I can see I should have got more crops into production. As it was, I was cash poor throughout the game despite getting tobacco in production fairly early (should have taken the prospector more!). I also criticially miscounted my money during the next to last round, winding one doubloon short of being able to get a large building in the final round (this could have been remedied by NOT purchasing an hacienda the preceeding round, which I did just for the VPs it was worth). I was pretty bitter about missing out on my large building ... since I only had my own sloppiness to blame. I finished second, but with 12 points between myself and winner Chad I felt as if he had buttered the floor with my decaying carcass. OW! At least I threw some unexpected moves in toward the end once I figured out that victory was not in the stars and all that remained for me was trying to maintain a sense of dignity as I went down.

--Tonnvane

Heh, Tonnvane, if you think this game was a bloody battle, try playing with Alex Rockwell, Jay Lorch, and Ben Sklar too next time.

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Industrial Waste

Game: Industrial_Waste?
Location: ?
Time: 21:30-23:00
Winner: Steve Dupree
Prize: ?

Scores

What happened during this game?

Comments from the players?

--YOUR_NAME?

Geografacts

Game: Geografacts?
Players: Mark Haggerty, Justin Newstrum, Alex Rockwell, Eric Yarnell
Location: ?
Time: 22:50-23:36
Winner: Eric Yarnell
Prize: ?

This is a great edutainment game in my opinion, but only if played with Mark & Eric's Not-So-Patented Improved Learning Version. In our method of playing, there are 2 cards for each continent and 2 general question cards. When you roll that category, we do that card. If it is not completed, it goes to the bottom of the stack and will keep recur until every question is answered correctly.

Alex left [partway through] at 23:07. Puerto Rico or something called to him. But because of playing Puerto Rico, he definitely knew the capitol was San Juan!

Hardest card: wiki:WikiPedia:Bhutan

Capital: Thimphu
Language: Dzongka
Currency: Ngultrum

--Eric_Yarnell,_ND?

Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers (#2 of 2)

Game: Carcassonne:_Hunters_&_Gatherers?
Location: Basement
Time: 23:00-00:00
Winner: Jay Lorch
Prize: ?

Scores

Before this game started, someone casually asked if this was really all that different than regular old Carcasonne, and what, indeed, was the purpose of playing such a game with 5 people when it really didn't scale up so well? My answers were, "Yes it is different," and "It's good to play with more than two because your strategies go stale if you don't mix it up." The second answer was proved more than true as Jay took his lack of fear of engaging in cooperative behavior (completing other people's forests) to a stunning victory thanks to all of the bonus tiles he amassed ... giving him many opportunities to play a second, far superior tile to the one he'd previously placed. I also played according to my philosophy of "trying to play the best game possible" by suggesting he place his four way river as the strategic head to a new watershed, and the points he ultimately earned from this move helped him surge to the fore. A very good game ... next time I'll remember that when playing against more than one person, cooperating is a much less risky activity!

-- Tonnvane

Finstere Flure (#2 of 2)

Game: Finstere_Flure?
Players: Alex Duncan, Nat Dupree, Steve Dupree, Marty Hale-Evans, Ron Hale-Evans, Tim Higgins, Michelle Teague
Location: Living room
Time: 23:30-00:45
Winner: Tim Higgins
Prize: ?

What happened during this game?

Comments from the players?

--YOUR_NAME?

Filthy Rich

Game: Filthy_Rich?
Players: Mark Haggerty, Dave Howell, Eric Yarnell
Location: ?
Time: 23:40-00:45
Winner: Eric Yarnell
Prize: ?

I won with the Striped Monkey Pub and The Snake (total $4 off each luxury!). I had two luxuries fairly quickly and soon learned to always have enough to cover 1 or 2 tax rolls before my next turn (lost a business fairly early to taxes). We also stayed on pages 2 and 3 a lot where I dominated. Mark had just pulled a luxury with a special card where he could delay paying for it, but I had enough money to just buy my third luxury anyway and won. Yeah. I'm filthy rich now.

--Eric_Yarnell,_ND?

Credits

Scorekeeping: A cast of tens.

Data entry gruntwork: Ron Hale-Evans.

Photos: Ron Hale-Evans, Alex Duncan, and Dave Howell

NEXT MEETING

Saturday, 28 February 2004, 5:00 PM at the two apartments of Nat and Steve Dupree, and Jay Lorch and Michelle Teague, in Redmond. Come play for fun and FABULOUS PRIZES from the PrizeBag!

Remember, Seattle Cosmic Game Night occurs every weekend, in one of three locations: Kent, Mill Creek, or Tukwila. Email Ron Hale-Evans for a full schedule and directions. If you come, please bring a snack or drink to share (cookies, chips, soda, juice, etc.)

Supporting Seattle Cosmic and Games to the Rescue

GamesToTheRescue is a philanthropic project of the Center for Ludic Synergy and Seattle Cosmic Game Night. The aim of the project is to provide game equipment and a book of game rules to hospitals, for use by patients and visitors. You can support GamesToTheRescue by buying games via our Funagain affiliate program, buying Seattle Cosmic Gear, and in a number of other ways. See the GamesToTheRescue page for more details.

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