Hamburgum - 9 October

At a long overdue curry evening we agreed to reduce our game variety so that we could concentrate on a smaller set of games and take advantage of the fact that we'd remember the rules. In this way there would be shorter set up times, better strategies, fewer rule 23 moments and much fun and hilarity.

We implemented Project "Old Farts With Poor Memory and Little Patience" immediately with a quick return to Hamburgum. To demonstrate how much better things were, Andy promptly asked what the rules were, Kieron managed to mistakenly misremember the missed rule from last time and James forgot the scope of the donation chits. David sat crowing about his vastly superior memory until he later realised that he'd forgotten a rule printed on the player guide in front of him about always being able to sell goods to the bank for the knock-down price of £30. Not much use early in the game when goods are going for around £100, but pretty useful at the end game when the trading price is £50.

David got the jump on the others and built up an early lead making use of lots of buildings. Kieron and Andy stalled near the start but Kieron started coming back in the mid-late game. James kept his donation scores quiet for as long as possible making it look like he was in a worse position than he really was.

At the end game, Kieron and Andy loaded the dockyard up with ships and made a play for the ship donations, building up a large score. This effectively stalled David's game - limited trade options meant that he never managed to put the funds together to complete a church. Instead he had to make do with picking up as many cheap donations as possible. James completed a couple of churches and picked up some very useful donations along the way.

The final scores were very close: James 81, Kieron (who really thought he'd won for a moment) 80, David 78, Andy 52.