Village - 15 October

I have a rule of thumb that goes 'If you are stupid enough to show any competence at something then you'll be asked to do it again'. I should have known that the plaudits (well plaudit) for last week's write up would result in me being suggested for this week's effort.

Kieron, James and David had a foggy drive over to Andy's for a game of Village. We played the expanded version with the addition of the pub.

Andy went all-in on the market, acquiring a huge stack of chits. Kieron played the market for a bit, but then switched to a gold/council strategy generating lots of gold and converting it to victory points. James concentrated on travelling and towards the end of the game was able to gain some positions in the church. David went for a more balanced game - some market, some travel, but kept ahead just enough in the church to earn the bonus points each turn.

Tactics around the balance between spending time (and killing off your people) and influence (a scarce resource) varied. James rattled through his family at quite a rate but as a result ended up with lots of influence cubes giving him a lot of options later in the game. David was at the other extreme, spending influence as it came in meaning he had more people to spare but had very limited choice of actions.

As the end game approached both the Chronicle and the pauper's graveyard were almost full. James had five in the Chronicle where as Kieron only had two. On the other hand, Kieron was stacking up 9 or even 12 points a turn just from use of the council.

James triggered the final round on gaining the final travel location with the final graveyard space being filled. This caused David to utter a rude word (earning a fine of his match fee and a 6 month ban suspended for 1 year) as he realised his cunning plan was for some reason based on thinking James was playing yellow not red. The resulting brain meltdown caused him to think of an even more cunning plan securing the a fifth spot in the Chronicle and victory.

Final scores: David 66, James 59, Kieron 58 (for the second week running being pipped by 1 point by James) and Andy 40.

We concluded that we would probably leave out the pub next time as it slowed things down a bit and the game is good enough without it. Despite the variety of strategies the top three were very close.