quarrel | Gaming Friday

Nothing much to report.

I got to Gaming Night late and got to watch the tail end of Channel A. Basically, take Cheapass Games’s The Big Idea, mix in a bit of subjective judging like in Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, and make it about pitching anime shows.

Second was a five-person game of Citadels — one of the smallest groups more than one of us remembered ever playing that game with. Points-wise, I ended up dead center in a tight pack flanked by a runaway expert and a newbie. Dave trounced everyone by more than ten points due to being the only person to get an 8-city-cards bonus and one of only two players to get an all-5-colors bonus. Orbus squeaked past me into 2nd place by a single point with the help of a big last-turn play. I, in turn, edged out the 4th place player by two points. I’m sure I would have done better if I’d correctly judged who I should’ve been trying to hinder (and been able to actually do it, which is hardly a given, seeing as that game’s core mechanics intentionally make it tricky to sabotage specific players).

Third was 7 Wonders with the same five people. We stuck with mostly core set rules due to the presence of new players, but we did allow some expansion monuments. Again, Dave blew everyone out of the water the way he usually does: with a big Science score. Now, the best way to prevent someone getting lots of Science cards is for other players to use them too, but I was in a lousy position to do that. I sat directly to his left, so for two-thirds of the game I’d be getting cards from him. And the one phase where the direction was reversed, I did intentionally discard Science cards rather than feed them to him, even though I had to neglect my own development to do so and was confident I’d guaranteed myself a dead-last finish. In hindsight, I think I robbed him of about 15 points — a lot, but not enough.

As for submarining myself: I came in 2nd. A very close 2nd, but still 2nd. It boggled me. A ton of fortune and unexpected factors added together in my favor. I lucked into three high-value pure VP cards and two Guilds that matched what my neighbors had done. Many other players were playing expansion Monuments that give more special abilities but fewer VPs than basic ones do. The only unusual act I can say was a clever play on my part was that, when I built a special Monument step that removed me from military contests and left my neighbors to fight each other instead of me, I stayed quiet about it. The move did, in fact, go unnoticed, and my neighbors mis-planned their militaries as a result, which saved me 2 VPs and cost Dave 6. But I didn’t consciously stay quiet. It wasn’t a smart, deliberate decision to be sneaky. I just…did it. So there’s that.