Ludus

Since Carrie and I will be at TCEP 15: The Elder Party this weekend, we will not be hosting Ludus on Labor Day, September 1st, 2008.  Ludus will resume its normal schedule on Monday, September 8th.

We hope to see you at TCEP, but if not, have a good (and safe) holiday weekend!

Tonight we played Race for the Galaxy and On the Underground.

• Tony won On the Underground with 48, followed by Shaune (46), Tim (32), and Chris (31).
• Blaise won Race for the Galaxy with 37 against Craig (33).
• Blaise won Race for the Galaxy with 40 against Craig (32).
• Blaise won Race for the Galaxy with 40 against Craig (33).
• Chris won Race for the Galaxy with 23 against Craig (22).

Attendees:  Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Rachel and Jim "Blaise" Trigg, Tim and Shaune Lee, Chris Hom, and Tony Montuori.

Tonight we played Fluxx and Race for the Galaxy.

• Carrie, Sallie, and Rachel played Fluxx.  Rachel won the first game, and forced Carrie to win the second game.
• Craig won Race for the Galaxy with 26 and 9 cards, followed by Blaise (26 and 2 cards), and Tony (24).
• Blaise won Race for the Galaxy with 42, followed by Craig (34) and Tony (20).
• Tony won Race for the Galaxy with 35, followed by Craig (33) and Blaise (32).
• Blaise won Race for the Galaxy with 34, followed by Craig (33).

Attendees:  Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Rachel and Jim "Blaise" Trigg, and Tony and Sallie Montuori.

Tonight we played Agricola and Race for the Galaxy.

• Lije won Agricola with 31, followed by Brian (30), Craig (27), and Dave (26).
• Brian won Race for the Galaxy with 34, followed by Craig (30), Tony (20), and Shaune (16).
• Shaune won Race for the Galaxy with 65, followed by Brian (46), Craig (44), and Tony (28).

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Brian Carpenter and Lije Bailey, Shaune Lee, and Tony and Dave Montuori.

Just a quick reminder that Tad and Craig's Excellent Party 15: The Elder Party will be held, as usual, on Labor Day weekend this year (Friday, August 29 - Monday, September 1, 2009).  For all the details, download the flyer.

I woke up early, packed everything into the car, checked out of the hotel, had breakfast and got over to the convention with a few minutes to spare.

• 9am, RoboRally (RRY) Finals, I washed out attempting to escape the third flag, but I had a lot of fun getting there.
  The RoboRally tournament had a strict 2-minute time limit on programs. On the first turn I picked up the Recompile option (discard and redraw your entire hand, then take a point of damage), but using it meant that I would have to evaluate my current hand (30-60 seconds) and then have to do it again for the new hand. I actually used it successfully 4 or 5 times, including once when I already had 3 locked registers. Sadly, even the recompile couldn't save me from a robot backing up (and pushing me) after I pushed him. The resulting mess killed both our bots, and neither of us were able to recover momentum after that.
• 9am, Ticket To Ride (TTR) Heat 3, skipped in favor of RoboRally Finals.

After that was the drive back to Sterling, which was tedious, but uneventful.

All in all, I had a great time this year (better than last year) and I'm already making plans to be there in 2009.

Saturday started out like Friday: I lost consistently, but enjoyed myself.

After playing Puerto Rico, Eric, Cathy, and I made a pilgrimage to the Wilbur Chocolate Factory in Lititz, PA. What we didn't know was that the entire town of Lititz was shut down for some sort of craft festival. We eventually made it to the Wilbur factory store, where we stocked up on chocolate and sweets, but it was cutting things close.

The Manifest Destiny heat was pretty miserable -- I was stuck playing with people who bitched, moaned, threatened, and cajoled about every single decision someone made. The leader frequently whined about being targeted by the other players. This dragged out a 3 hour game to being only 2/3 done at the 4 hour mark. Shudder!

Finally, and 9pm, there were the RoboRally semi-finals, which were the highlight of the day. The game was close and hard-fought, with lots of robot interaction. Three of the players from my board advanced to the finals, including myself.

• 10am, Race for the Galaxy (RFG) Heat 3, I took 4th in a 4-player game.
• 11am, Puerto Rico (PRO) Heat 3, I took 4th in a 4-player game.
• 3pm, Manifest Destiny (MFD) Heat 3, I took 5th in a 5-player game.
• 4pm, RoboRally (RRY) Heat 2, skipped -- already qualified.
• 4pm, Ticket To Ride (TTR) Heat 2, skipped in favor of Manifest Destiny.
• 4pm, Race for the Galaxy (RFG) Heat 4, skipped in favor of Manifest Destiny.
• 9pm, RoboRally (RRY) Semi-Finals, qualified for finals! I took 2nd out of 5 at my board, missing the victory by 2 turns.

While I did pretty awful today, I still enjoyed myself, which is the important thing.

I spent a lot of time with Eric and Cathy Raymond, and Ken Burnside, playing Race for the Galaxy and commiserating about how badly we were losing games that we should have been winning.

• 11am, Power Grid (PGD) Semi-Finals, I took 5th in a 5-player game on the Italy map.
• 2pm, Ticket To Ride (TTR) Heat 1, I took 4th in a 4-player game on the USA: 1910 board.
• 4pm, Puerto Rico (PRO) Heat 2, I took 4th in a 4-player game.
• 7pm, Race for the Galaxy (RFG) Heat 2, I took 4th in a 4-player game.

We ended up playing more Race for the Galaxy, followed by a trip to Starbucks for hot chocolate.

I met up with Eric and Cathy Raymond after Power Grid, and we ended up playing a couple of rounds of Race for the Galaxy so that I could improve, and so that Ken Burnside could learn. After that we went out for dinner.

• 12pm, Power Grid (PGD) Heat 3, I took 3rd in a 5-player game on the Benelux map. I don't think I made any mistakes, but I got squeezed early on, and had some poor luck with power plants early on, which left me a day late and a dollar short for the rest of the game. I may still make the semi-finals; tomorrow will tell.
• 1pm, Race for the Galaxy (RFG) Heat 1, skipped in favor of Power Grid.
• 7pm, Puerto Rico (PRO) Heat 1, I took third in a 4-player game. At one point I bought the Harbor when I should have bought a wharf, and I didn't make good use of my factory.
• 7pm, Manifest Destiny (MFD) Heat 2, skipped in favor of Puerto Rico.

I got rid of the migraine, eventually, but only got a couple of hours of sleep. At 6am I gave up and decided to go get breakfast and hit a supermarket. After a short nap, I headed over to the conference center, where I met up with Eric and Cathy Raymond.

• 10am, Empire Builder (EPB) Heat 2, took second in a 4-player game. This wasn't good enough to make it to the semi-finals (no surprise) and I decided that I'd rather play something else instead.
• 2pm, Power Grid (PGD) Heat 2, skipped, in favor of Manifest Destiny.
• 2pm, Manifest Destiny (MFD) Heat 1, took third in a 4-player game.
• 2pm, Empire Builder (EPB) Heat 3, skipped, in favor of Manifest Destiny.
• 6pm, dinner with Eric and Cathy Raymond.
• 7pm, RoboRally (RRY) Heat 1, won! This qualifies me for the semi-finals. I actually made it through 3 flags on 2 boards, against 5 other players.
  This game was funny -- all of the players were laughing and having a good time. The funniest bit for me was where I had taken enough damage (5 points) to call a shutdown. Another player was behind me, and he did more damage to my bot, including pushing me along. I 'woke up' with 5 points of damage and a locked register. I drew 4 cards and declared another shutdown. I ran away (and got shot for 4 more points of damage), but when I was done, I had traveled a full board length (in the right direction) and was fully repaired. This is probably what allowed me to win.
• 10pm, Vegas Showdown (VSD) Heat 2, I took third in a 5-player game. Not good enough to make the semi-finals.

At one point during the day, I was able to purchase a copy of Race for the Galaxy. Hooray!