1/16/08

Home

January 16 2008

I think this was the first official game night for the Appalachian Gamers for 2008. We played a Kris Hall's beautiful home in Hurricane.
Attendees: Dave Gilligan, Charlie Davis, Kris Hall, and Kris' wife.
Yes, she has a name but I am old and forgetful.
Games Played: Giganten, Manhattan, China

Giganten
Race across Oklahoma or Texas drilling oil wells and then shipping your oil to one of 3 companies. Then trying to grab control of the companies to sell the oil. It is slightly confusing early on but the big idea is to control the companies so that you get the most money for your oil. It was a close game. Dave won by about 12,000 which isn't much considering the average price for a barrel is 5000. I took the drill everywhere you come to strategy. Dave was a little more picky and then mid game changed plans and did the drill all of the oil wells near the start line. Mostly because Kris cut him off and his train was way behind. Kris seemed to be picky early and then go for anything he could reach late in the game. I never got an big payoff but never took the minimum for any oil. Kris hit both extremes. Dave had a lot of mid sized payoffs but ran out of oil when he changed plans. With 3 players, I think I got lucky most of the game. If you played with four players the game would be much more cut throat since there are only 3 companies and only the winner gets the big payoff.
Definitely worth playing again with 4 to see how it turns out.

Manhattan
Kris' wife joined us. I think the finishing order was Dave, Kris'
wife, Kris and me way, way behind. After the end of the first round everything was close. After the second round Dave and Kris' wife had made a break. Dave scored the highest building the last 3 turns. In the last round, I tried to meta game the others into attacking Dave but they had their own agendas. I continued to cover Dave's buildings but only managed to slow him down and pretty much did nothing for myself.
I like the game as a quick "move and don't think about it" game but I can see the wrong groups taking forever to play. Also it seems prone to the problem that if all players are not of similar skill the weak player could give the game to one of the others. That may be what happened in our game.

China
Just the 3 guys played. First play for Dave and myself. Kris used his advisors to great advantage. I scored best with houses. Dave tried the all around approach. Kris won. I got second. Dave was right behind me.
I didn't pay attention to the end of the game and neither did the others. All of us ended with potential game changing plays in our hands. Since I was first, I think I could have gotten one more advisor on the board and broken up one of Kris' majorities. Of course he might have been able to score some other way also so it probably didn't matter.