Eight Minute Empire & Downfall of Pompeii - 29 July 2015

First play of David's birthday gift to James.  Eight Minute Empire claims to be learned in one minute and played in twenty (not sure where the eight comes from...).  The small board has a large number of territories on a small number of continents.  Players buy cards that allow then to add counters to the board, or move them across land and sea, and a couple of other options, in order to maximise the territories and continents they control.  But the cards also represent resources, and sets of these earn additional points at the end of the game.  Neat, good fun and does play in 20-30 minutes even with us!  Final scores: James 12, Andy 9, David 8 and Stuart 7.

Plenty of time for a medium-length second game - Downfall of Pompeii.  The first half of the game is placing people, and the second half is directing lava flows over your opponents - Nya Ha Ha!  Final scores: Stuart 8, David 7, James 7 (3rd place since more people killed by lava!), and Andy 5.

Downfall of Pompeii & Tzolk'in - 10 September 2014

We started with Stuart's Downfall of Pompeii (which I half-remember playing at Adrian's many years ago).  A bit of strategy, a fair bit of luck, but a lot of fun in particular in the second half of the game as you direct lava over your opponent's pieces!  Nicely self-levelling too as one tends to direct the lava over the colour with the most pieces, and it did end up very close.  Final scores Stuart 9, David 8, James 8 (third place because of more people taken out by the lava), and Kieron 7.

Plenty of time to then play Tzolk'in with its rotating cogs.  Stuart went for skulls, David a bit of everything, James went for gods, and Kieron seemed to always be short of food.  Final scores James 76 (jumping ahead thanks to a card that rewarded the god strategy), Stuart 61, David 48 and Kieron 31.