Session Report for Saturday, 10/21/2006

8 Players, 7 Games

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Tower of Babel

(Drew, Chris, Marshall, Robert)

MarshallPhilips –

Robert, Drew, and I were the first to arrive and we decided to try out Tower of Babel. Right after we’d played the first turn (in which Robert failed in his build) Chris pulled in so we gave him some workers and dealed him in.

The game ran into a bit of a rules controversy right at the end when Drew completed a wonder and drew an action card. It turned out that he got the “take a free turn” action card and wanted to play it immediately. There was some debate on whether you can play an action card in the same turn you draw it or not and the rules don’t address the issue. I suggested that the scoring of a wonder is actually a different phase and occurs after a players turn therefore you shouldn’t be able to play the card. Everybody agreed and we went on with the game.

I ended up winning a tight game by one point over Chris, I was powered ahead by collecting 4 “Crane” chips for 20 points.

Later I looked up the rules on boardgamegeek and found this thread in which the very same controversy is debated. There’re quite a few people who argue that the card should be playable but no official ruling.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1136134

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Railroad Tycoon

(Marshall, Kevin L., Karen, Drew, Chris, Robert)

MarshallPhilips -

This game had perhaps the closest finish I’ve ever seen in a game with this many players. Everybody was within 5 points of the winner’s score despite a wide divergence in points during the game and despite radically different strategies.

The winner was Kevin who finally proved that the “issues tons and tons of shares” strategy is viable. I think he issued 27 shares before it was all over and had to issue shares just to pay his dividends on the last turn. Of course he was helped considerably by completing the New York to Kansas City with Western Link route which netted him 20 points and some juicy deliveries to Chicago. That’s about the best use I’ve ever seen the Western Link put to. And I don’t think Chris minded either as he benefited from some of the random cubes that pop up in Chicago when deliveries are made from the Western Link.

Drew made the Baltimore to Toledo route but missed his bonus goal of connecting to Chicago. Robert made the Boston to DC route and also made his Tycoon bonus of being the first to upgrade to level 6. Karen got a delivery bonus to Jacksonville and also made her Tycoon bonus of having the most money (to my detriment because that was my goal also). I did get a delivery bonus to Louisville however. I don’t think Chris got any bonuses but he made up for it with several long deliveries.

All in all a well played and enjoyable game.

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Polarity

(Scott, Brandy.)

Scott and Brandy showed up about halfway through our RRT game. Man the timing on that was bad but they were able to kill some time playing Polarity at least.

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O Zoo Le Mio

(Scott, Brandy, Marshall, Kevin L.)

This was my first game of O Zoo Le Mio and I fount it pretty enjoyable despite getting crushed. The best part of the game to me is the puzzle aspect of figuring out how the tiles will fit into your existing zoo. It’s kind of like Carcassone only harder. The other clever mechanic is the way ties are handled. Basically each player has a spot on a tie-breaker list and if two players tie the one higher on the list wins the tie but moves to the bottom. Clever.

I think Kevin won this game narrowly over Scott

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Palazzo

(Brandy, Marshall, Kevin L., Scott)

MarshallPhilips -

After O Zoo Le Mio we had time for another quick game so we pulled out Palazzo, a game that Scott has wanted to try.

With four players in Palazzo you’ll be doing pretty good to score off of two buildings and sure enough that’s what most people had. Except for Scott who managed to get three shorter buildings. Also, everyone managed to keep their buildings made out of the same material which scores bonus points.

In the end Brandy powered to a win on the strength of two 5-story palazzos all made of the same material. No one else got both of their palazzos up to 5 stories.

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Tikal

(Chris, Drew, Robert, Karen)

Now that Tikal has been played I think that every game I own that’s worth playing and handles more than two players has been played by the group (even though this game was played on Drew’s copy). Recently we’ve knocked out Hansa, Acquire, and Mississippi Queen so I’m basically out of new good games to bring.

I’ll try to remedy that over Christmas…

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-- MarshallPhilips - 23 Oct 2006
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