January 21, 2016 Session Report

Good Group of 11 for this week's session: Eugene, Mike, Megan, Alex, Greg, David, Patrick, Ben, Neville, Rembert and myself. Games played: 8-Minute Empire, Kingdom Builder, CV, Orleans (Deluxe Edition) and Palaces of Carrara. Some details follow.

Started with 8-Minute Empire as the quick warmup game. Took closer to a half-hour than eight minutes. We all were about even in terms of area control points but Mike had collected more endgame bonus points (the set collecting aspect of the game) and thus was the winner. Scores were Mike 12, Eugene 10, Megan 9 and me last with 8.

Other people began to arrive, and soon we had three tables going. At one table, a four-player game of Kingdom Builder broke out. It was won by Patrick (54) ahead of Greg (50), Ben (42) and David (23). This same group wen on to play of Palaces of Carrara, which Greg had brought. No surprise, Greg was the winner in a lopsided game, score-wise. Greg wound up with 105 points, outscoring the other three combined: David (41), Ben (36) and Patrick (3).

Neville, Mike and Rembert played CV. Neville was the winner (52) compared to 33 for Mike and 30 for Neville. Mike requested I include the following comment for the blog: "Rembert had happiness and one time but didn't know how to use it."

Finally, Alex, Eugene, Megan and I played the new version of Orleans that can go up to 5 players (but we only had 4). As in another recent game, Alex came out the winner. He concentrated on getting brown (the Wheels) early then shifted over to Red for more actions and to enhance city-building and movement. He added the Horse Wagon that helped him more more efficiently. Final scores were Alex 160, Eugene 138, myself 116, Megan 57. It was Megan's first play. I concentrate on the gray guys but only got one Wheel and was behind on Red as wheel. Tough to decide what to focus on (Black, Brown, Red or Gray) in the opening rounds when you can't do everything.