Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Session Report: June 2, 2003
Games Played: Lost Cities, Giganten, 6 Nimmt!
Gamers: Mike, Josh, Chip, Rob, Lewis, Mark, (Eric)

Thanks to Mark for hosting. Thanks to Lewis and Rob for providing transportation.

LOST CITIES (0:26)
Chip: 88, 126, 153
Lewis: 22, 16, 32

Lewis and I started a game of Lost Cities while waiting for the Queen's Necklace game to wrap up. I've been playing a lot on the computer and I wanted to try out some strategies on a human player.
This is a fun game, and, at about 10 minutes a round, a good filler.

GIGANTEN (2:05)
Mike: 67,000
Rob: 54,000
Chip: 49,500
Josh: 37,500

Josh introducted us to this oil-drilling themed game. My appraisal of the game before we started was considerably higher than after we finished playing. I like most of the mechanics of the game, moving around a little truck and trying to position your train to haul to oil back to the storage tanks. I was a little disappointed to learn that the railroad movement was one-dimensional - the tracks run up the side of the board as well, but that is merely decoration.
I think the downfall of the game was the over-powered "move everyone else's train back 3-5 spaces." The most powerful of these cards was drawn during the last full turn of the game. Also, the board became very crowded very quickly. It's possible that with 3 players, this would be less of an issue.
At one point, Josh and I were bidding for the right to sell oil at one of the refineries. Josh had 4 or 5 oil stacks there, all but 2 of which would go to waste if he lost the auction. I, on the other hand, had nothing to gain by winning the auction - I simply wanted to maximize the amount that Josh paid for selling his oil. Picking a number more or less at random, I bid 17. As it happens, I picked exactly the right number, as Josh had 18 license points to bid with. Had I picked a lower number, he wouldn't have had to use all his license points, and had I bid higher, I would have been stuck winning an auction I didn't really want.
I liked some elements of this game, and I will probably play it again someday.

6 NIMMT! (0:35)
Lewis: 41
Mark: 42
Josh: 44
Rob: 54
Mike: 70
Chip: 72

After last week's marathon game, we decided to play to 66 instead of 100. Lewis didn't pick up any points in the final round to steal victory from Mark, Josh, and Rob, who were leading.
Good game. I'll keep playing it, and someday I might even win (or at least not do horribly).

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