Weekend Gaming

Puerto Rico

Nadine, Rachel, and I played in the late afternoon. Unusual buildings:

Poorhouse 2/1: Take a doubloon if you end a building phase with 0 or 1 doubloons. Result: I bought it as my second building and managed to use it three times. Not a very powerful building.

Mercantile District 5/2: +1 VP when you trade. Result: No one bought it.

Specialization Wharf 6/2: After crafting, you may discard the barrel on SW and place one of your barrels on SW. Only one barrel may be on SW at a time. When shipping, you can use SW as a wharf for the barrel type on SW. Discard the barrel on SW after SW is used. Result: No one bought it. But it's fine.

Private Boat 9/3: You may ship any three barrels on your own ship.. Result: No one bought it, but it's fine.

Reserves 10/4: +2 VP for each type of good on your board. Result: I've used this before, but it's hard to use. You have to time it perfectly. And have a Storehouse.

In our game, Rachel bought a Hospice and Assembly Line, while I bought an early Indigo Plant with my Poorhouse. As a result, the colonists went quickly, and the game ended with the colonists running out (first time in years, I would guess). Scores were therefore low. Rachel won 39 to mine and Nadine's 33.

Yinsh

We ate lunch at some friends, and they had two young men as guests. One of whom, Joe, brought out some of his Magic cards when he found out I played games. He had played Settlers of Catan once before, but couldn't find anyone else to play with. Meanwhile, the other one, Adam, had heard about Settlers and wanted to learn how to play.

They came over to my house while we were playing Puerto Rico, and I gave them Yinsh to play with until we finished our game. Joe picked it up immediately and loved it, while Adam is a less serious analyzer and so played more for fun. Joe won handily.

Settlers of Catan

After we were done with our games, I brought this out and taught Adam and we played. We had a great game, I was trailing a bit by mid-game, with a bit of bad luck with the numbers. Adam and Joe were also both cautious traders, but not in a bad way.

I managed to buy a slew of development cards near the end of the game, and earned two hidden victory points and Largest Army. I was pretty close to victory, but Joe got Longest Road and revealed his own hidden victory point to take the game.

More converts. Joe goes back to the states next week, but Adam will be around until January, so hope to see him come to game nights in the meantime.