Game Night: Saturday 7-15-2000

Well, after a close call in organizing dinner while in the midst of ordering a toilet, dinner turned into a impromptu pot luck. We started a game of Mississippi Queen at 9pm ish. We started drinking before that.

Although we had about 11 people, 6 gathered in the parlor for MQ. I love this game, especially with the 'expansion' [Black Rose] goals of having to pick up passengers. Despite Ed's complaint that player one always wins (I was player one), I only won by one space. There were 3 occasions during the race that someone could have passed me and did not. As a matter of fact, since at the end of the race you can go careening into the beach, it was possible that Pete could have won. Even so, all players ran a very close race. I wish this game wasn't $45 bucks or I would buy it.

The alcohol was in full swing at this point, so we switched to card games. We played Apples to apples, Rage, and Take 6. At one point during apples to apples, Jen made me laugh while drinking water, and I full on sprayed her! oops. By the end of Rage, Michelle was loopy and I was verbally spewing (I hope I wasn't too embarrassing). I remember that Michelle won the first Apples (who else), that no one would do the apple (even though Ed did his general Brukulter from Hogan's Heroes), and Beth won the 2nd game (we played 2 -a rarity). I don't remember who won the Rage game (I was FAR behind, maybe Ed?), but Take 6 was over quickly as Ed lost almost every hand by -20 or more!. I think I won that, and almost everyone at the table that played a 'fifth' card was declared a 'whore'. It was after 1am when we broke up.

A great game night. Even though we had only Tim, Tim's Brother Dave (one night only!), Jen and myself, it was a rollicking good time. 

We started with a new game called Die Fursten von Florenz (The Princes of Florence)

This Medici like game adds an element of infrastructure management. It is no longer just enough to buy items, you have to put them to use to get points. It was a wonderful game, although it needs a tad more German Translated. (The tiles are in German, so I will be writing the English on them before we play again.) You use your resources to populate your plaza and attach artists to produce work. This work translates into prestige (victory points). Many more variations in play than Medici. Not better, just a notch deeper. In the purchasing phase, in order to increase strategy, you can only buy a resource that has not already been purchased (as supposed to the 'lot' concept of Medici). In the 'building' phase, you then build out your plaza area using your purchases and other option available in that phase. Really super cool. You plaza than adds value to the 'works' of art produced based on the artist you have (each artist card depicts what items in you plaza prove inspirational for him or her). Works of art produce prestige and victory.

The second game we played was Condottiere.

This card game took 5 minutes to learn and it rocks!!! It is sort of like the old card game war, only with a small risk like board and a 20 minute play time. You deal out ten cards numbered 1-10 to each player. You have to conquer 3 sequential providence (either across, up and down, or diagonal!) to win. You don't get new cards until everyone uses them up, so there is an element or resource management. Add to this 5 special cards, and it is amazing how much fun this game is. I actually showed it to John and Ed at Sunday movie night (Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, not that great), and we played 2 full games. I have lost EVERY game I have ever played of it. Jen won BOTH games Saturday night, John won both Sunday night.

By the way, I also was at the mall on Sunday letting Jacqueline play in the play area. We went into the "Wizards of the Coast" store and I was very impressed. This is what hobby stores should be like. Lots of games we have and do not have, the unavoidable collectable card games, and networked PCs to rent (with games already loaded) for $6/hour. They had Apples to Apples and such, and had Formula De. Ed and I had talked about purchasing this. The problem is that unlike Mississippi Queen, Formula De take about 20 minutes a LAP. If a race is only one lap, what's the point? If it is say, 10 laps, that's way too long. So I passed. Beautiful game though!!!