A mega-games night with five players and three games. First off was old favourite Peloponnes. Adrian played an interesting new strategy with no building purchases, and just three resource tiles (mostly food) and three sea tiles. Along with the ever increasing population civilisation, his population continued to grow and although his lack of buildings impacted prestige points, the strategy got him into second place, behind James' - whose score was bolstered by the last round purchase of the "2 coins equals 1 prestige".
There was a huge amount of money swimming around in the game, with many of us passing on purchases several times during the game. There were a couple of unusual features with the disasters too. Firstly, none occurred until all five were showing two of their three counters. And secondly, no disasters occurred in the final round, as they had all already happened, with the final two counters both being blank. Final scores (population/prestige): James 27/34, Adrian 27/24, David 21/31, Stuart 16/35 and Andy 18/12 (following a devastating earthquake in the penultimate round).
Then a bluffing/bidding game of Skull, which David won. Works much better with more players and is a fun end-of-evening filler.
And then finally, we managed to fit in a game of Azul after Adrian left. This is a neat tile laying game (real wall tiles as in a mosque) with simple mechanisms but plenty to think about.
David scored strongly from the start and we never really caught him up, despite a large negative bonus forced on him by James in the final turn. Final scores: David 62, James 55, Stuart 51, Andy 26.
There was a huge amount of money swimming around in the game, with many of us passing on purchases several times during the game. There were a couple of unusual features with the disasters too. Firstly, none occurred until all five were showing two of their three counters. And secondly, no disasters occurred in the final round, as they had all already happened, with the final two counters both being blank. Final scores (population/prestige): James 27/34, Adrian 27/24, David 21/31, Stuart 16/35 and Andy 18/12 (following a devastating earthquake in the penultimate round).
Then a bluffing/bidding game of Skull, which David won. Works much better with more players and is a fun end-of-evening filler.
And then finally, we managed to fit in a game of Azul after Adrian left. This is a neat tile laying game (real wall tiles as in a mosque) with simple mechanisms but plenty to think about.
David scored strongly from the start and we never really caught him up, despite a large negative bonus forced on him by James in the final turn. Final scores: David 62, James 55, Stuart 51, Andy 26.
