Weekend Gaming

Apples to Apples

It started with dinner.

Although I was still getting over being sick, and Rachel was full blow coughing all over the place, we somehow had: three visiting Mennonites, a local family of four, Nadine from the game group, and Brendan (an Anglican) from the game group, all over for dinner.

We all had a good time, and the Mennonites gamely tried to defend their pacifist stance, as they always have to do when confronted by non-pacifists who live with terrorism on a daily basis.

After dinner we played Apples to Apples four times, twice with the Mennonites, Brendan, Nadine and myself, and twice more also including the two kids. Brendan wants everyone to know that he won one of the games.

Puerto Rico

Sat after Rachel's shiur, Rachel and I played two-player Puerto Rico. I decided to mix it up again, and we played with the following:

Wildcat Strikers 1/1: At the beginning of a round, you can sacrifice WS and declare that one phase this round will act as Prospector instead of its usual function. Move your colonist to San Juan.

Captain's Quarters 2/1: When you ship, you may add a colonist into the Hold for 1 VP. Each Hold can store only one item of any sort.

Bazaar 2/1: During Mayor, you may trade a GP/VP/barrel for an additional colonist; during Craftsman, you may trade a colonist/VP/GP for an additional barrel; during Trader, you may trade a colonist/barrel/VP for an additional GP.

Small Warehouse 3/1

Trade School 4/2: When you buy a building, you may pay an additional GP to have it come manned with a colonist.

Office 5/2

Inheritance 5/2: When you buy a production building, take its matching plantation from the supply.

Small Wharf 6/2

Super Market 7/3: Trade at +3

Large Business 8/3: Builder and Captain's privileges (Build at -1, +1 VP during Captain phase)

Large General Workhouse 8/3 (2 circles): Produce any type of goods with matching plantations.

Port Privileges 9/3: Once per Captain phase, you may load onto the wrong ship. Choose a type of goods, choose a ship, and load as many barrels as you can of that good onto the ship.

Cathedral 10/4: +1 VP/3 red point VPs on buildings.

Fairgrounds 10/4: +1/2/3/5/7 VP for 2/3/4/5/6 types of plantations (including quarries).

Fortress 10/4

Custom's House 10/4

City Hall 10/4

Looking at this set, I thought that Captain's Quarters and Port Privileges might work together. CQ is hard to use, not only because the loss of a colonists is so hard, but also because it is easy to get locked off of boats, and only one colonist can be in the Hold at one time. PP helps you get around that. PP is a strictly better building than Wharf, but not completely overpowered.

I got both CQ and PP, and still lost by a very large margin. Rachel got Wildcat Strikers, Trade School, and Large Business. She got a large building, and then I got one on the second to last turn. At the beginning of the last turn, she sacrificed her WS to prevent me from taking Mayor, which prevented me from manning my large building, and then she bought her second big building, manned. Score: something like 53 to 41.

Auctions, Monopoly, and D&D

Saturday night I checked my emails. I won a new set of Settlers of Catan cards and the GIPF game in geekgold auctions. Only, I turned out to be twenty geekgold shy. I'm behind in submitting my session reports, so I'm off to do that after this blog entry.

I've also been getting numerous emails about my Monopoly listing. Way to draw traffic. :-) I will be exchanging info and some links with some other sites.

At the next game night we will be doing roleplaying again; I have enlisted Josh's help (another game group member) to become an assistant GM. I've never worked with an assistant GM, so the experience should be interesting. Josh came over on Sat evening and we fleshed out the world and talked about the rules. Should be an adventure.

Toodles,
Yehuda