Cleopatra and the Society of Architects - 31 January

The first outing for Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Adrian's Christmas present from James. A really great looking game where the players compete to build elements of a temple without succumbing to corruption. The player who has the most talents (the credits received for building) at the end of the game wins - but only after the player with the most corruption counters has been fed to the Nile crocodiles. Quite a lot of luck involved with how the resource cards turn up and limited opportunities for backstabbing, but a lot of fun and short enough for two games in an evening.

The master builders were James and Stuart, who scored the most points in both games. In the first game, James just pipped Stuart by a few points but Kieron found himself in 2nd place after the corrupt Stuart was thrown to the crocodiles.

In the second game, the players placed mosaic tiles carefully to benefit from the consequential reductions in their corruption at the end of the game but the tiles were used up before Adrian got a chance to follow suit, so his corruption level saw him end up in the Nile. James and Stuart had exactly the same number of talents this time but Stuart's lower corruption allowed him to take 1st place.

El Grande - 24 January

To Kieron's this week for one of his Christmas games - El Grande. There was some initial confusion as James and David recognised some of the paying pieces and cards, but not the board - it seems that some elements were recycled for the "sequel" game El Caballero.

We decided not to play any of the many expansions this time and just get on with learning the game. And what a great game it was.

Although points are scored at the end of round 3,6 and 9, the cards allow for special scoring throughout the game and taking advantage of this allowed Stu into an early strong early lead while Kieron was left on the starting blocks. However after the round 3 and 6 scoring, Kieron's hidden Castle force pushed Kieron up to second place with David narrowly in the lead thanks to some tricky use of the King to protect his home territory.

In true Rivals style David struggled to maintain his lead for the last 3 rounds as the others attempted to dismantle his empire and the last scoring round saw David just edge ahead of James by a couple of points.

All in all - a great game, with a nice balance of empire building and backstabbing. There's no point planning too much ahead as many cards can completely change the situation.

War On Terror - 17 January

The first outing of a game James had spotted in development and bought on release - War On Terror: The Boardgame - which has an official website here. It's very politically incorrect and caused a bit of fuss in some papers and on Board Game Geek but we found it rather funny and, more importantly, a damn fine game too.

We read the rules and set up the game, and started playing it reasonably conventionally, with Stuart surprising everyone by resisting the temptation to turn terrorist from the outset. James was first to become an Evil Empire, thanks to his own unlucky spinning of the Axis of Evil, but soon passed the Evil balaclava to Kieron, and shortly thereafter to Stuart. David ended up with it not long afterwards and then kept it for the next two and a half hours. Although we wouldn't let him take it off, we did allow him to show his face before heat exhaustion took him out.

All players start as Empires but can become Terrorists by being wiped out, bankrupted or voluntarily if they think they can no longer win as Empires. Stuart grew quite quickly which brought swift nuclear retribution in Europe from Adrian, who paid for it in North America later. Deej almost got a conventional victory towards the end of the evening but just fell short, and then everyone fell on him.

Adrian switched first to Terrorism which cleared Antarctica and most of North America of Empires. After defeating the last Empire counter in North America, David followed suit taking Asia and Australia with him, cunningly converting Stuart into a Terrorist too, and the Terrorists then controlled enough to claim their victory.

James was left to consider what might have been because he would have won the following turn had David not gone over to the Dark Side. Kieron regretted not going Terrorist when he had the chance, and Andy inspected his small but honourable forces in South America.

So Stuart, Adrian and David share the 10+6+4 points (rounded up to 7 each) and James picked up 2 points, worrying that our scoring system may turn folks away from going for the glory of an outright win!

One of the highlights of the game is the exchange of Secret Messages. Some excerpts give a flavour of the Rivals backstabbing tendencies...

James to Adrian: Can we freak people out by exchanging the first secret message?
Reply: Absolutely old chum.
Reply: Not sure that worked!
Reply: No, we'll have to be more blatant.

Adrian to Kieron & James: As fellow nuclear powers, what say you to wiping out all of Stu's cities? Alas, Scandinavia would die. But I never liked pickled fish anyway...

Stu to Kieron: Take out Adrian.
Reply: Yeah - I'm worried about him.

Andy to Kieron: Never again shall you do this, for I will wipe you off the board.
Reply: Truce?! James has the most points this year...

Kieron to James: Let's fund Stu to get Deej!
Reply: I'll attack Deej anyway...

A really fun game that played even better than we hoped.

Mare Nostrum (with Mythology Expansion) - 10 January

James hosted a new Xmas game, Adrian's Mare Nostrum, boosted up by its Mythology expansion to cater for 6 players. Hard core Rivalry ensued. Adrian as Egypt got off to an early start, getting his second hero/wonder card quickly. But was sat on by James with little means to retaliate. Stu continued his vocation of carnage and built legions to attack Deej's Greece, but was seen off very quickly by the Greek centaurs. Stu's attention then turned to Kieron's Atlantis and desultory warfare raged in the west for the rest of the game. Andy as Babylon expanded his influence consistently, but somewhat purposely. The game came down to James' dominance of three of the roles - Trade, Gods and Movement. Early trading was cautious but the later uber-trade-fests resulted in James managing to buy the Pyramids. Deej also could have, but Adrian (unwittingly) picked James to play first. With the Pyramids gone, Kieron was next in line, being able to win with a fourth hero/wonder card. Deej and Stu could both acquire another to make three; Adrian had his (original) two; Andy his starting hero. But immense influence. :-)
With the now agreed scoring system, James got 10, Kieron 6, Deej and Stu 3 each, and Adrian and Andy on big fat 0s. After two games then, the running average scores are (by my reckoning): James 8; Deej 4; Adrian 4; Kieron 4; Stu 3; Andy 1. So Mr Parker pulls ahead...

Antike - 3 January

We played the war and civilisation game Antike. New player Russell played the knowledge game and spent coins on inventions rather than armies and joined Adrian (who played a similarly peaceful game until a lightning armada strike on one of David's temples) on the podium with 7 points. James managed to scrape 14 sea territories in the last round but couldn't destroy one of Andy's temples to take him beyond 6 points. David's empire left lots of temples and 5 points. Kieron and Andy spent the game accummulating forces for a huge battle that never happened, after Kieron attacked one of Andy's cities early on in the game, and they both finished on 2.