Antike - 20 February

The last time we played Antike was June 2008, which is a reasonably long time to forego playing a clever little game which, like Imperial, uses the Rondel mechanism, but unlike Imperial lacks the twisty elements that sometimes exclude players early on. We played on the Western European side of the board and opted to take the countries that our choice of seats around the kitchen table indicated. Asymmetrical play occurred from the start with some players going for the temple strategy, others looking to expand and others again going for knowledge. The early game was dominated by border tensions between Andy, Orhan and Deej. Andy as Carthage amassed a large army south of Orhan's territory and asked for clarification on exactly how many men he'd need to wipe it out. This bit of Derrening probably over-achieved as Orhan (who had not only been the first to build armies) was also the first to use them in attacking Andy - clearly pre-emptively... Alas, fighting gave Orhan no pleasure as he looked longingly at the peaceful lands to the East where James, Adrian and Kieron quietly gained technologies and settled new cities.

The game played out faster than we remembered as players amassed victory points quickly. The highest scoring players all had a mixed economy of scoring methods, but Adrian marched to victory in the end. Points: Adrian 7, James, Kieron and David 5, Andy 2 and Orhan 1.

Peloponnes - 1 February

Once Andy arrived we chose to play Peloponnes. This is fast becoming one of my favourite games.
 
Another great victory for Kieron. Both first and second place made much more use of the sea tiles than the rest of us - maybe something the rest of us should consider...?

Kieron 28/27, Orhan 24/37, David 21/27, James 21/25, Andy 27/18  

Priests of Ra - 1 February

Kieron set out his stall early this week, stating that David breaking his run of last places since Christmas last week didn't happen since Kieron wasn't around to witness it. This has me worried - maybe we all just blink out of existence whenever Kieron isn't looking at us. Maybe we should re-evaluate the the whole blog, considering that most of us may well be works of fiction. Maybe I need a lie down.

Ahem. Back to the evening in question. With Andy expected to arrive mid-evening we chose to start with a new twist on an old favourite - Priests of Ra. Gameplay is largely the same with the difference being the types of tiles and sets being collected. In this version you collect types of people (who disappear at the end of each epoch), buildings (that stick around) and pyramid building blocks (to be scored at the end of the game). Balance is provided by the accumulation of plague tiles that cause penalties at the end of each epoch. The main twist is that the people and building tiles are two sided, the person taking the tile out of the bag can choose which colour to reveal. Priest tiles allow the occasional tile flip.

 A lot of comments on Boardgamegeek suggest it an unnecessary change to the original. It's a bit more child-friendly as with the exception of plagues, all point scoring is positive, and the tile flipping adds an extra dimension. You have to be careful when collecting your winnings though as it's easy to flip a tile by mistake as you gather them up. There's also a strange gap in the theme - you collect types of people (say farmers) and buildings (like farms) but there's no advantage to matching them up. Maybe it's something that was removed in playtesting, but the use of colour and graphics makes you think there should be a relationship.

As for the game - well it was back to normal for David. After failing make nearly all the bids in the opening round, he then pulled a Ra to end the epoch with 2 chits unspent. Kieron tried the same brinkmanship approach in epoch 2 and pulled out 2 full tracks of tiles. The final score told it all:
Kieron 90, James 69, Orhan 56, and David 30.

Maybe Kieron was right after all...