Private session. 3-player Capitol, 3-player Streetcar, 4-player Advanced Civilization, 3-player Deluxe Illuminati.
Players were Sean, Ralph, myself. New players to the game were: Sean, Ralph, myself.
We spent 12 minutes going over the rules.
Basically, players have a hand of actions. They use actions to build buildings and place them in districts on the game board. After each round, players bid cards for fountains, temples and amphitheaters. Players with the highest ranking buildings get points. Second highest get less points. Game is played for four rounds.
Competition to place in districts is high towards the end-game. The thing to watch out for is building too high and not having a place to put the building. The game was fairly interesting.
Game lasted 72 minutes. Final scores were:
Note: One thing we did wrong: we thought that entire bids are lost when we lost bids. The correct way to play was to lose only what was revealed so far before passing on bids.
Click here to buy Capitol at FunAgain.com.
Players were Sean, Ralph, myself. New players to the game were: Sean, myself.
This is a game of drawing tiles and laying them to form tracks that streetcars can follow. Each player gets two cards which shows the player their starting and ending points, and which stations they must go through.
I thought this game would be fun because I tend to like tile-laying games, but I found this game tedious. It's tied to the tracks I draw, which may not be useful -- and that causes me to wait until I do draw good tiles, or to make inefficient use of the tracks I have. Sean thought he had a complete path for his goal, and Ralph double-checked it and agreed. A turn later I thought I had a path as well, following Sean's path, but we all discovered that there was no legitimate path after all. The rules say that if a mistake like that is made, to continue playing as though a path weren't found yet. I think this game is less fun at that point -- on the disheartening side.
Chris arrived, and we set aside this game unfinished after a half-hour of play. After all, this session was meant for a monster game of Advanced Civilization!
Game lasted 30 minutes.
Click here to buy Streetcar at FunAgain.com.
Players were Sean (playing Africa), Ralph (playing Babylonia), Chris (playing Assyria), myself (playing Asia). New players to the game were: Sean, Ralph, Chris, myself. I had the first turn.
We spent lots of time going over the rules.
We spent a chunk of time going over the turn sequence. I won't go over it here, but the idea is to start at fixed locations then expand your territory, thereby accumulating resources.
The major turning points in the game, I think, were when catastrophies struck, evening out the playfield. Especially noteworthy was when barbarians attacked Chris. However, he was inland, and they attacked through Sean's territories, wrecking havoc with his locations. This happened twice.
We ended early, in the early bronze age because Chris was getting tired and disheartened. Game lasted around nine and a half hours. I think we were two-thirds through the game. Chris was surprised that he was ahead, though.
Note: Sean recalculated his score after-the-fact, and it put him at first place. To tell the truth, I question the accuracy of our scores because we were fatigued at the end of the game, and I didn't double check the scores because I was thinking of how to maximize my score having the last turn, and everyone else was plowing ahead of me to calculate their scores. After my turn, Sean noted a way to eek out a few more points for me. But I didn't count it.
Game lasted 570 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here for Chris' take on the game.
Players were Ralph, Sean, myself. Sean was a new player to the game. Ralph had the first turn.
We spent 20 minutes going over the rules.
This is a game of power structures. Basically, cards representing different organizations and different alignments are hierarchally arranged in front of each player. Players try to add to their hierarchy by taking over organizations that are uncontrolled, or in control by another player. Players win by meeting special conditions of their Illuminati.
Ralph played the Discordians, Sean played the Bermuda Triangle, I played the Network. We were fairly even in the number of organizations we held, but Sean was able to control all the alignments before we could foil him.
Game lasted 60 minutes. Final scores were:
Click here to buy Deluxe Illuminati at FunAgain.com.
Click here and scroll down to "27th" for Ralph's take on our games.
