tiredI had hoped to convince
spross to run a game of Desolation that day, as I really want to play in a roleplaying game, as I rarely get to do so. (Thank Goddess, Nick will be running a game of something on Friday night!) So, in the end, we did some board games again. The entire gang was out, although hub_ got to my place a bit late, and oni_neko seemed disinterested in stuff as usual (but she had been out partying the night before, not that this is an excuse). We settled in for an afternoon of gaming.The afternoon started off with a game of The Princes of Machu Picchu. I figured that since the players, other than
oni_neko, had played the game before, it would go faster this time. No such luck. Took over three hours(!!) to play the game, and I wasn't frustrated at my play so much as at the sheer length of time it took players to do things (even with the learning curve for oni_neko). I took a completely different approach to the game, myself, this time, and tried to stick with the strategy that I started with. I wanted to have an individual win for myself and avoid the overall Spanish victory. Since the first Sacrifice card that I drew had a pottery and a Condor Priest on it, that's what I decided to go after, and added the Virgins later after the second Sacrifice card came up. We managed to win the game from the Spanish on Day 9, when I claimed the last Virgin card, and so at least that part of it went well. The final scores were:
Victory Gold Multiplier Final Spanish
Points Score Victory
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JohnK 13 17 1 12 13
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Hubert 12 20 3 12 36
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SteveR 14 11 1 14 14
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Tammy 14 18 2 14 28
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Angela 4 11 1 4 4
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Other than
oni_neko's low score, the game was pretty even across the board, although if the Spanish had won out, hub_ would have won the game cleanly, even with the good game that Tammy played. I was pretty pleased with my overall performance in the game, but the fact that we didn't finish until almost 4:00 pm ruled out playing much of anything else.We did manage to switch over to Ticket To Ride, and played a 5-player game of the North American original game. I had this gut instinct that I should sit out the game, as I had a bad feeling about it, but really wanted to play. Bad mistake. I kept three tickets - Sault Ste. Marie-Oklahoma City, Winnipeg-Houston, and Montreal-Atlanta - since I didn't get a long destination ticket in the four, and I knew that I was in trouble inside of three turns when
spross blocked off three entrances into Houston! After that, I couldn't draw any cards (or locomotives) to get into Houston the back-door from the El Paso side, and Tammy beat me in there cleanly about three-quarters of the way through the game. I finished off the other two tickets, but by then it was way too late. I was totally frustrated and annoyed by the end of the game, and it showed when I actually snapped at Tammy at one point (I apologised to her after the others had left and we sat down for a bit to talk over tea). The final scores in the game were: spross 100, oni_neko 40, Tammy 116, JohnK 76, hub_ 117. He beat Tammy by one point because he finished two long routes, same as she did, but he had three extra destination tickets on top of that. Anyway, like I said, I should have listened to my guts and not played that game. Two of the players (and I'm not naming names, but Tammy knows who I'm talking about!) play way too competitively when we do TTR, and the blocking seems quite deliberate at times.So, Tammy stuck around and we chatted for about 45 minutes about various games and other stuff (our birthdays are a day apart later this week), and after she took off, I started to make the salad for supper, and then sat and read a bit of Paragea by Chris Roberson for about 20 minutes just to calm down a bit more. Ah well, at least I wasn't bludgeoned at the board games the way I was last Sunday afternoon. But I really hope that
spross runs Desolation next week!Anyway, off for a cup of herbal tea!