Ludocracy Now

I am certainly blessed—not necessarily with good luck or skill… but with friends who game.  Whenever possible the actual people involved in the following have helped reconstruct the events as they happened.

The Castles of… I don’t want to talk about it.

Ben, pictured looking like a younger version of Jake, perhaps sharing some sort of genes due to having the same mother and father, said he was up for playing Burgundy due to his brother’s recommendation.  “Finally,” I thought, “a respite from my losing streak.”  Apparently I didn’t think hard enough.  We both worked the #1 beginner board and I lost 183-181.  I could have tied points-wise if I hadn’t profligately spent two silver on a worthless black market tile (would have lost anyway to the tie breaker).  I let Ben get three mines in three rounds.  That has been a HUGE indicator of loss for me.

ConHex

Jake and Ben have played Ketchup and Hex before so I knew Ben would be up for an abstract like ConHex.  This game is so great.  I prefer it to Hex (well, at least at my skill level) in that I think it’s more prone to changes in momentum—I can come back from three miserable moves to still win (maybe this has less to do with the game than people’s collective experience, I don’t know).  I won both very close games and needed something mindless to follow.

Crokinole

Yeah so I lost the first three games I played against Ben to 100 points.  Keep in mind I have logged over 70 Crokinole games to his zero.  Some people just get it.  I did win the fourth and I was saved more losses by Jake and Jeff showing up.  Jake and I teamed up to win a team battle against Jeff and Ben.

Hansa Teutonica

We didn’t have a whole lot of time before I needed to yell at a television screen so we played one of my favorite three-player games that I can’t seem to win (obviously Jeff was not interested).  My 24 points on the Coellen table did (finally) give me the six-point win.  (I say “finally” because I always focus on Coellen and it never seems to work.  Perhaps sibling rivalry was working in my favor this time).  Because I love the game so much I wasn’t empathetic enough to know how much the others enjoyed it at the time, but I did just text Ben what he thought and he replied that he gives it a “four out of five” and says it was “better than a law seminar.”

Let’s get some more games in—specifically Eclipse! Or Summoner Wars!  Or seriously more Burgundy so I can break my losing streak!  Until next time, folks.

Erik and I celebrated Caylubration with two games of Caylus last night.

First game: I took the building favor track and Brek took the point track.  I think we were both warming up, I monopolized the gold space to build the only prestige building which helped secure the win.

Second game: I took the point track, Erik took building.  I have a hard time adjusting to anything non-building track since that’s what I normally play—out of my 15 games of Caylus, I think I’ve taken the point track twice or three times.  Anyway, Erik and I finished the game and we both had exactly 100 points.  He had one resource left over and I had one ducat.  The rules prescribed a shared victory.  How apposite.

A dessert of ConHex.  I promise Erik played much better in the second game (he was unclear on the rules in the game I took a picture of—hence the goofball board situation).  More Caylus to come after a Twilight Struggle interlude!

Sunday.  Texted Jake who, as far as I know, has no obligations, and Tom who I have been dying to game with.  Jake and I ConHex‘d while waiting for Tom.  I lost.  It was annoying.  Tom showed up and we Hansa‘d.  Jake won, I was a few points behind.  I wanted to play again because I take losses in Hansa poorly…  Instead, we played Saint Petersburg… I won by fifteen and then gave the game to Tom as a house gift.  I should have given him In The Shadow of the Emperor as well—next time I see him.  After Tom left, Jake and I played ConHex again and three games of Hex.

Calyubration III starts tomorrow.  Nothing but Caylus (and maybe a session of Twilight Struggle…) for the next five days.  I LOVE CAYLUS (And I better win).

Nothing beats a nice Monday game night, especially since it can distract you from watching your favorite baseball team implode.  Am I right?

Anyway, Jake came over for 3 rounds of Fjords (I won 45-41) and 4 rounds of ConHex (I won first three, Jake took the fourth).  Erik showed up and although I again put Castles of Burgundy up for suggestion, we turned to Hansa Teutonica, as I was eager to avenge my miserable last place showing.  Jake complained of never having a coherent strategy while Erik and I blocked each other as much as possible.  I let my score marker sit at 18 points as I tried, and failed, to expand my network.  When Erik ended the game with the final bonus marker, Jake’s six office network multiplied by a filled key skill gave him the edge for a beginner’s win.  Very difficult game to tell who is winning during the course of the game.

We finished with a not pictured game and a half of Taluva.  Jake and I both built our final tower on the same turn each with seven huts left.  He, however, was ahead in turn order.  I managed to go out right after him for second place with Brekke in a distant third, bewildered.  Another very difficult game to analyze.

Great fun, and some possible rounds of Cosmic Encounter coming up tomorrow night!  I am very excited.

Annie had Good Friday off, and I got all my work done so we did a little Victory 44 and ConHex for lunch.  It took Annie a few tries but our third game was pretty competitive.  I managed to block on the edge and then ride it up the side for the win.

We headed to my place and too full to play anything too long, we sat on my balcony and played three games of Hive splitting 2 and 1.  This is a fun game that I should just carry around with me.  Have a good Easter!