Vasco Da Gama - 25th March 2015

4 rivals came tonight for the very last night at Kieron's before he moves out. This one game is one of Deej and Kieron's favourites and is the last game to be packed!

Kieron took an early lead as very few ships were sailed. Andy decided to go for the money grab to restrict options which worked early on. However, due to lucky minus money cards coming out, the costs of actions were not too prohibitive until the very last turn when, poised to slot his ship into the last vacant top row slot, Andy found himself having to pay to sail because a positive card finally appeared and he was one coin short! This left Kieron free to put a 3rd ship in the top row and he sailed to victory for an unprecedented 4th win in a row (although he is claiming a 5th due to a win for the French in Sunday's Napoleonics)

Final scores: Kieron 74, Deej 64, Adrian 56, Andy 42

Vasco da Gama

Once Andy had finally decided to join us, we had a great game of Vasco da Gama.  There are some neat mechanisms in this game but it took me at least two of the five turns to recall how it all slotted together and get used to the amount of forward planning one has to do.  Kieron and Orhan surged ahead, with Andy and me struggling to keep them in sight.  Towards the end of the game, Kieron really pulled away and as two of Orhan's ships failed to move on to the next port, I managed to catch him up and just squeeze ahead.  Final scores: Kieron 86, James 59, Orhan 58 and Andy 34.

Vasco Da Gama - 9th June 2010

The depleted rivals settled down to another evening of one of the Christmas games which has proved quite popular. The clever mechanism of pre-selecting your actions ala Agricola/Caylus but with the added complexity of each action having an order of execution, makes for an interesting, if occasionally headache inducing, game! As usual, Deej was able to spot the weaknesses in everyone else's game plan and Kieron made another fatal error in the final round by not placing a token on the expedition slots in time before they were filled up. Final scores Deej 100, Kieron 85, Orhan 74

Vasco da Gama - 13 January 2010

First outing for Kieron's new game Vasco de Gama.  Historically, Vasco da Gama was charged with finding a maritime route to India.  Players play the part of rich shipowners who, under his patronage, aim to achieve prestige and riches.  To succeed in the enterprise, they must manage the money and actions at their disposal in order to hire captains, recruit crew, build Ships, launch them and send them to the Landings of Natal, Terra de Boa Gente, Mozambique, Malindi, Mombasa and Calicut.

Beautiful looking game with some really clever mechanisms, particularly the selection of turn order.  A very close game with both David and Stuart finishing with 37 Victory Points and Kieron and James on 46.  But after the final totting up, the ships navigate along the coast one last time, and the number of ships each player has resolves the ties.  So James took 1st place from Kieron and David 3rd place from Stuart.

On BoardGameGeek, there are some useful game summaries.  Reading these and some of the comments, suggests we may played something wrong.... when you first send a ship to a landing, the number of Victory Points indicated on the Ship Slot occupied by the ship is immediately scored, as well as taking the bonus.  We only took the bonus.  Can you check this Kieron?