Germantown 02/04/08

With Bob unable to attend due to his youngest child's birthday, we found ourselves only 10 for the night...

• Doug Hoylman
• Carol Loman
• David Fair
• Aubrey Bell
• Todd Heidenreich
• Martha & David Briggs
• Nick Schroedl
• Doug Mercer

First up was a game of Cartagena II. We started with 4 players, but Eric had to leave due to a family emergency (did you get the keys out of the sewer?) so we finished as a 3-players game. The game was very close, and each player has 3 actions on their turn. Carol was able to get all of her men out, but did not have 1 action left to "raise the flag", so on my turn, I moved my last man out and raised the flag. Doug was next, and had i not ended the game, he could have done so with 2 actions. Like I said, very close!

Next was Uptown at table 2. I keep brining this hoping to get to play but others always seem to play it with out me. I still know very little about the game, but it looks interesting. In this playing, Martha came in 4th, David 3rd, Nick 2nd, and Aubrey won.

Chang Cheng is a game about building the Great Wall of China. On your turn you can play 2 walls to separate regions, 2 action cards to separate regions, or 1 wall and 1 action card in the same region. Players with majority in a region score points for that region. At the end of game, players lose points based on regions on the other side of the wall (where the Mongols attack from -- and those regional borders do not match the ones from the other side). So you have to work hard to avoid losing points on one side while still gaining them on the other. Interesting game. Carol had a bit of trouble managing things, but did end up in the positive, scoring 1 point and taking 4th. Doug H. scored 13 and 3rd place, I had 20 and 2nd, and Doug M. had 26 and 1st.

Strut is a race game with a yahtzee-like twist to the game play. Players roll dice in a communal pool, then try to score points from cards in hand. Todd taught it to the others and they played for quite some time. Nick won the game, and as there is no mechanism for second, we simply have recorded that David, Martha, Todd, and Aubrey were also playing.

Race for the Galaxy is one of my new favorites. I swear I could play this all night. Our first game was 3 player, and the first time playing for Doug M. we ended the game by building to 12 cards and running out of shipping chips on the same turn. Doug M. had 22 points for his cards, and 7 for his consumption, but no bonus dev's hurt him and he ended in 3rd with 29 points. Doug H. had 25 for his cards, 10 for his consumption, and 8-points from bonus dev's for 43 points and 2nd. I had only 17 from my cards, and a whopping 28 from my consumption (I had been consuming for 10-12 a turn there at the end), no bonus dev's, but it was enough for 45 points and the win.

Meanwhile, there was a battle to have the best planned vacation at the other table, as the players played 10 Days in Asia. I like this version of the game a bit more than others, as the railroads really add to things and make them interesting. Aubrey had trouble with his travel planner, and lost a shoe in Bucharest, so came in 4th. Nick had his Travelers Cheques stolen, and ended up in 3rd. David got slapped by a cocktail waitress in Kuala Lumpur and ended in 2nd. Martha was hailed by all as a superior travel guide and good haggler in the market stalls, and took 1st.

Race for the Galaxy was the last game of the night, and for round 2, Todd joined us. Todd played New Sparta but was hampered by the lack of a bonus dev at game end, scoring (15+2+0) 17 points in 4th place. Doug M. played an excellent game but was also caught short by the bonus dev and scored (23+5+0) 28 for 3rd place. Doug H. had very good luck getting high VP worlds down, scoring (22+4+5) 31 and 2nd place. Dave scored most of his points consuming and got a late bonus dev down for (10+19+6) 35 points and the win.

See you on the 18th!