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| Das Amulett |
| Land Unter |
| Ra |
Game Night: Saturday 10-6-2001
Last Saturday brought a lot of people including new faces. John brought his daughter Ashley, Don and Noel brought Byron (who I had met about 3 years ago). Pete and Michelle brought apple pie (not technically a person, but a delicious surprise treat!). The night consisted of late night dinner, some Robotron (mame), and an amazing game of Das Amulet. 6 people, 4 of which are tied for last at one point with 3, whilst Ed is sitting pretty with 6 (and Ashley with 5). How could Ed possibly lose. I HAVE NO IDEA. I mean I did not make an amazing run, and basically did not even have an above average turn. I simply got pimped two rounds in a row for ZERO gems. Then, stuck with 21 resources (maybe more), I was able to grab two gems in what turned into the last round. I won by having 7 different gems, there is NO way I could have gotten an 8th gem, probably for at least 2 turns. Had I not gotten the 7 unique gems, Ed would have been able to buy anything next round and won easily. He is my only theory on game play at this time. Like in Medici, you must know when it is better to get squat then to overpay. I did not make this decision, it was made for me. But still, and entire turn not spending resources allowed me to steer the next round sorta. Still, it could have been just luck. I had written the game off as unwinnable. So when I did win, I stood up and yelled "YES!!!", like I had won the lotto. This is of course the closest I actually have come to winning the lotto, since to date, I have yet to match even a single number.
Das Amulett Winner Ray 7 - Ed 7 - Ashley 5 - John P. 5 - John M. 4 - Steve 3
We decided to split into 2 games (lots of people). Our table played the simple yet engaging Condottierre, whilst the other table decided on RA. Jen seems to have spanked everyone in Ra, while Condottiere came close to a caste system. This game definetly has a similarity to "Cosmic Encounters' in the fact that there are weak hands. The only way to get rid of them is to play them out as quickly as possible.
Condottiere Winner Noelle 3 - Don 3 - Ray 2 - Byron 1 - Ed 0 - John P. 0
Still getting down the strategy for this one. I thought I had one... guess not.
Land Unter Winner Byron 15 - Noelle 14 - Ed 12 - John P. 8 - Ray 8
Not even a lot of yelling from this game, so I don't know what happened.
Ra Winner Jen 41 - Steve 26 - Pete 24 - Michelle 20 - Suzanne 16
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Game Night: Saturday 10-13-2001
The Mansons came over for dinner, a game of Cartagena (candyland for grown-ups) and Time Pilot 1983 (mame). Since I taught them Cartagena, it is no surprise I won. But they really understand the game, put a lot of thought into it, and next time we play this they will already have the rules and concepts down.
After the Mansons left (looks for their swinging Halloween tiki party soon) Ed and Alias Johnny wretched themselves away from the latest Massively Multiplayer Online game and joined Jen in I in a game of Torres and birthday cake for Johnny. I was in last the whole game, but finished admirably (I could never buddy up the the king!). Jen, in her first game of Torres, was amazing.
Torres Winner Jen 168 - Ed 149 - John P. 146 - Ray 146
By this time, I had had a big rum drink, so I grabbed an easy card game. This is the game with the 9 different sets of cards and you bury one and start a collection and score points for having 1st or 2nd place in each collection. With the score round looming in round one, for some inexplicable reason I held cards in my hand when I easily could have grabbed 4 points. As you can see, that early blunder cost me the game.
Reibach & Co. Winner John P. 32 - Ray 30 - Jen 29 - Ed 28
For next week, I have a new game called Werewolf. No game parts required! It is party game that is currently floating around college downs and the National Puzzlers League conventions. Simple and silly, so we'll give it a holiday go of it.
Game Night: Saturday 10-20-2001
Saturday brought us to Pete and Michelle's Asian cook-off. We arrived very late to see a salsa based shrimp (so good, you'll do the chef), Pad Thai, eel, Chinese chicken, wine, and lots of other stuff. I blew into the kitchen and at 80 mph (Iron Chef Pizza), cooked some sort of encrusted hot bean sesame pork (it was ok) and Kim Chei Beef (delicious). Then, we migrated to our usual location (not to avoid cleanup mind you) after a roasted apple cinnamon desert with Green Tea ice cream!
We (at Pete's suggestion) decided that it was a great opportunity to play Union
Pacific. We were right. A great game with everyone really developing solid
lines. Except for Michelle. She had solid lines AND Union Pacific stock of
which the rest of us missed in dividend payouts 2 and 3. You would think that
after missing dividend 2, there would be no way we were caught out of dividend
3, right? Ha. Michelle put up 1.23 Billion and shamed Steve and I who finished
2nd and third with 1.0B and 1.02B. Pete, who became strangely obsessed with
yellow trains, and Suzanne, who got the "Dick in the ass", but only halfway in"
special finished in the bottom tier.
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