Notre Dame & Colt Express - 8 January 2020

Another game in rat-infested Paris with worker placement and card game Notre Dame.  Andy's 4 block strategy gave him lots of double coins or rat removal but didn't generate the prestige points needed.  Stuart stayed out of Notre Dame itself, collecting plenty of prestige points from the character cards.  David, James and Andy visited Notre Dame each turn but James' extra cash enabled the larger donations, ultimately pipping Stu to first place by just two points.

We then played Colt Express with the Horses & Stagecoach expansion that David got James for Christmas.

As well as the obvious, this also adds hostages who can be ransomed (but cramp your style during the game), whisky flasks that give bonuses with the cards, and an extra strongbox defended by a shotgun-wielding character.  That sounds a lot but it all complements the original game really well, giving more variety and opportunities to shoot James.  Stuart and David got the strongboxes but a later punch-up saw Stuart take them both and climb to the roof in the last move to avoid sharing any booty.

Notre Dame & Skull - 19 December 2018

It had been a while since we played Notre Dame.  I tried a new tactic of ignoring the rats and taking the damage each turn - it almost worked but David acquired lots more victory points through good use of the characters.  Final scores: David 70, James 55, Stuart 54, Andy 37.

Then we tried my Christmas present from Adrian - Skull.

This is a bluffing and bidding game - a simpler but much more colourful game than Perudo, with Skulls and Flowers rather than numbers.

One of those games which looks very simple but there is more to it.  It worked pretty well with three (Andy spectated) but we suspected it would work better with more - and indeed I played this again with six players with friends over Christmas and it was fun with more interaction between the players.

Notre Dame & Ra - 5 May 2016

A good night for Stuart with a double win.  Despite the name of the game, Stuart managed to win Notre Dame with 60 points without a single visit to the church, followed by James 53, Andy 50 and David on 43.

A much closer result with Ra and Stuart pipping David to 1st place by just one point.  Final scores Stuart 50, David 49, Andy 30 and James 26.  I still really enjoy this game although I've forgotten how to play it well - must try harder to rise out of the lower quartile!

Notre Dame & Ra - 26 August 2015

Just the three of us last week, so we tried Notre Dame.  The closeness of the regions with three provided easier pickings with the carriage movement, and Stuart and Andy pretty much cleaned up before James got a look in, but he did get an early visit to the Cathedral instead.  Rats came and went, character cards provided variety, and we had a good close game.  Final scores Stuart 51, James 49, Andy 43.

Time then for perennial favourite Ra.  With three players, each has four bidding tokens, so potentially more opportunities to win bids, but the best bid token (13) wasn't even used in two of the epochs, due to rapid arrival of Ra cards.  Final scores James 47, Andy 34, Stuart 26.

Notre Dame and Ra - 25 February 2015

Another play of the ingenious Notre Dame which has some neat mechanics and a nice theme.  A variety of strategies were employed and it was a high-scoring game across all players.  David won after making big donations at Notre Dame in the final rounds of the game, reaching 67 points, then James on 55, Kieron 54, Andy 50 and Stuart on 46.

Plenty of time for a hilarious game of Ra, notable for being (we think) the first time that a player has ended all three epochs with a smaller score than the 10 we each started with.  Another clear win with David on 44 with lots of buildings, James on 33, Andy 28, Stuart 23 and Kieron on 8 (no sniggering at the back please!).

Notre Dame - 17 December 2014

A welcome return to Notre Dame - one of James' bargains from the UK Games Expo Bring & Buy a couple of years ago.  Despite blog evidence to the contrary, Kieron had no recollection of having played it before but it had been a while for everyone so we ran through the rules in full.  They seem complex but the game isn't complicated.  There are a lot of different actions and special cards in the game but the choice at any one time is fairly restricted, so it plays fairly quickly and we completed the game in a couple of hours, leaving time for an extended set of anecdote rounds.

It looked at one point like Kieron was going to run away with it, since he had 8 or 9 influence markers on the Earn Prestige Points region of his borough.  But the cards to make the most of that position thinned out, and other bonus cards appeared which favoured others.  Final scores: James 57, David 47, Andy 47 (but behind David on remaining coins and influence markers - and probably a little further behind had we spotted earlier he was collecting all the red messages rather than one of each colour first!), then Kieron on 46 and Stuart 42.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers ;-)

Notre Dame - 15 May 2013

James finally succeeded in getting one of his cathedral games played again.  Notre Dame is very popular on BoardGameGeek with someone even building a big 3D version of the game:

We had an early Rule 23 event - although each player selects three action cards, he only plays two of them each turn.  Consequently, influence markers aren't as in quite as short a supply as previously, and the game plays quicker (about 90 minutes).  A wide range of final scores with David on 70, Orhan 60, Andy 47, James 39 and Adrian 31.  Despite the earlier enthusiasm for Alea Iacta Est, most of the Rivals were too tired for a second game so we everyone went home for an early night.

Notre Dame - 17 October 2012

A trip over to Andy's and a quick return to Notre Dame to try to embed this new game in our heads. This time we played it as a 5-player game and it played just as well.

This is one of those games where it doesn't pay to plan too far ahead. You need to have a flexible strategy to react to the card choices you face at each turn, and decide whether to risk short term gain against the chance of being stuck without cash or influence markers for a turn or two.

Orhan took himself out of the game early by making a big payment for a large number of prestige points, but then the fall of the cards meant he struggled to get back into the game. Plague struck early and James, Kieron and Andy chose to ride it out while David ended up with more hospitals than he wanted as he was passed them turn after turn.

The funniest thing for me was the perception that I had a grand plan involving the prestige bonus from the parks. It all came about by accident as I'd decided to avoid the park (following James' difficulties last time) but ended up being passed so many that I was getting +2 every time I earned any. This helped me squeeze into a win ahead of James who got to 86 with no park bonus.

Final scores: David 92, James 86, Kieron 70, Andy 76, Orhan 52

Notre Dame - 3 October 2012

First outing from one of James' purchases from the Games Expo back in May - Notre Dame.  This Rio Grande game had a good BGG write-up and was a Spiel des Jahres recommendation (amongst other accolades) when it was released in 2007.

Utilisiing a clever modular board that fits neatly together for anything from 2 to 5 players, the game represents the boroughs around Notre Dame, with the players being Parisians who use influence to build a residence, a local park, and donate to the church to increase their prestige.  Played over three sets of three rounds, there are some neat mechanisms with action cards (choose from a few, then pass the decreasing choice to the player on your left), buying favours from character cards, and trying to combat the regular effects of the plague.

The best strategies (used by Stuart and David) seemed to work on building up influence, then money, and then chasing prestige.  Alternatives like prestigious buildings and travelling (James and Andy) didn't fare so well this time, and Andy and I did feel stuck at a couple of points.  But we all enjoyed it, and after running through the rules, we played it in around 1h40m, so easily time for a quick game afterwards next time.

Final scores: Stuart 89, David 70, James 48, Andy 44.