Ludocracy Now

Hello and well met Ludogeeks.  I am happy to report some fine gaming went on in my humble neck of the woods!  (Also, don’t tell Jeff but I have quite a large package of new games coming…  eh heh… help me).

I played a game of Burgundy with Jeff (since I made him dinner he agreed to play) and two games of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries with Erik.  Perhaps watching all this Game of Thrones has made me evermore cunning as I walked away with three wins!

Details after the jump!

So Jeff and I played some Castles which was very nice of Jeff.  I was dealt board 3 which I had played before and Jeff got board 6.  I chose the bottom right setup as I did last time and Jeff plopped his home castle in the center.

Now, Jeff had remembered my final scoring yellow tiles from last time so he made it a point to acquire as many of those yellow suckers as possible which was dangerous for me since my board 3 strategy depends on filling that center ring.  Thankfully, three separate yellow tiles graced the black market which means a total of 13 yellow tiles were available through out the game (12 are needed for two players to cover yellow and 10 come out normally).  I let one go by in Phase A but after that both Jeff and I were able to close out yellow completely by making yellow a priority.

Jeff also focused on Blues pretty hard while I tried to cover Silver quickly then go for Beige.  I left pasture pretty much ignored and sold goods five or six times.  Our final boards:

Me above, and Jeff:

Final scores: 225 - 178.  I may still have been able to win without closing off my group of six yellows but my score certainly wouldn’t have been that high (it was worth 25 to cover it, plus the last tile I got I think gave me 4).  I doubt Jeff will ever be interested in the game enough to try to build up his own board and simultaneously block me from doing the same (which is crucial in 2p).  Perhaps if I try one of the number 10 boards with the new rules it would handicap me for a more even game.  I still had fun, though, because the French Countryside is my passion.

While we were playing Burgundy, Erik had left a message that he’d be up for gaming.  He came over and I proffered many a fine two player game but Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries was Erik’s choice.  Fun fact: his family played this game at his Norwegian-side family reunion!

There are some funky rules differences in this game with regards to Locomotives and we probably played semi-illegally for the first half of the first game.  And probably to my advantage.  I stuck to the western half of the board and Erik took the East (although I did try to block access to Copenhagen just in case he needed it.  I finished eight tickets to take the Globetrotter bonus and the win 136-89.

Second game was a less successful.  I took a 21 point card near the end of the game… only to realize I didn’t have enough trains to finish the damn route.  Erik also had a brain fart which turned out to be even stinkier as he had forgotten to fill a two-track link that would have completed a high value ticket.  We both finished seven tickets and I managed to win 91-84 but if Erik had just remembered why he had kept two green cards he would have won by about ~15 points.  I hate finding out in the end game that you never connected those cities you had planned on…

Anyway. Nice to get two classic games in on a Monday.  We’ll be having a bit of a Crokinolympics later this week as if you couldn’t get enough of table top curling.  Until next time!