Ludocracy Now

So!  My Birthday!  Was a roaring success.  I think 9 separate hungover people came over to partake in more champagne and board games.  Annie got here first and demanded a play of Caylus which I was more than happy to oblige.  Scyler also wanted in!  The last time you may remember him as a Ludocrat was during a game of Founding Fathers.  Caylus is certainly a step up from that…

…but of course he won.  Now, I’m pretty sure he won because both Annie and I were giving advice and Brekke showed up mid game and started helping him exclusively.  But, really, he should have let me won.  It was my birthday!

As Charles and Tyler also showed up near the end of the game our numbers became six.  I held up Liberté and Carcassonne as my two French games that would work with this number.  Discretion said Carcassonne should be played so I added in the gray meeples and described Carc with just road and city scoring and off we went.  Much fun all around!

For our second game of Carc I introduced the Inn & Cathedral tiles (thanks, Ma!) and Farm scoring.  A touch more complicated but still very fun (more fun than I remember Carcassonne being, actually).  After two games of Carc, Tyler and Charles headed off to a Ham party (whatever that is), Annie left with basically anaphylactic shock (she is allergic to cats but could not stop harassing Puss), and Tom showed up.

Thus began a very sad presentation of the Troyes rules to the three remaining revelers.  I could hear myself explaining the dice, the buildings, the event cards, the character cards, the influence track, the tradesmen, again referencing the character cards, and I knew it was making no sense to anyone.  Thankfully, Christina showed up and I figured we should just abort mission and play Carcassonne again.  Scyler left to shower (finally), Nate and Jake showed up.  Nate with a birthday present of French cheeses and Jake with a birthday present of a hug.

Again, a six player road and city only game was started and I finally got my first and only win of the day.  We then, again, added in Farms, Inns & Cathedrals and near the end Nate and Jake took off and Charles and Tyler returned to take their place and we finished the game.

Now it was Charles and Tyler’s turn to demand that we build King Philip the Fair’s Caylus Castle so I dealt the remaining five of us in for one last game of the evening.  Brekke ruined my birthday by beating me by one point.  The provost wreaked havoc on many a good plan and the chaos of a five player game meant low scoring.  I did take a video of all the players Caylus reactions but I look and sound like a drunken fool so I will spare everyone from that.

Very successful birthday but I’m hoping I can learn how to explain Troyes better and get that to the table ASAFP.  Until next time, when I head off to the inaugural Minneapolis Abstract Gaming day!