Tonight we played Puerto Rico.

• Craig won Puerto Rico with 64, followed by Jim (55), Tony (52), Dave (51), and Shaune (44).  Craig was using the Frosted Flakes strategy (ship corn and sugar).  Tony and Jim had the factories, Craig and Jim had harbors and wharves.  In the next-to-last Mayor phase, there were exactly enough colonists to fill the colony ship.  The game ended due to (1) running out of colonists, and (2) running out of VP chits.

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

Tonight we played Power Grid, San Juan, and Cineplexity.

• Craig won Power Grid on the Central Europe map (powering 15 cities with $70), followed by Blaise (13/$131), Chris (13/$25), Shaune (13/$21), and Tony (13/$12).
• Tony won San Juan with 41, followed by Craig (31) and Shaune (29).
• Craig won 2 games of Cineplexity against Tony, Shaune, Liska, and Carrie.

Attendees:  Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Rachel and Jim "Blaise" Trigg, Lisa "Liska" Niemczyk, Chris Aumiller, Shaune Lee, and Tony Montuori.

Carrie and I will be hosting Ludus on Memorial Day.  We'll be up in Philadelphia visiting Carrie's family, but we expect to get an early start back on Monday, so we hope to be ready for playing games early -- say 3:00pm.  I'll update this if plans change.

Edit:  3:00pm gaming is a GO!

Tonight we played Puerto Rico.

• Craig won the first game with 70, followed by Dave (41), John (36), and Dana (28).
• Craig won the second game with 74, followed by Carrie (59), and John (52).

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Dave Willmes, Dana Leader, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played San Juan.

• Carrie won the first game with 36, followed by Craig (27) and John (23).
• Craig won the second game with 34, followed by Carrie (24) and John (20).
• Carrie won the third game with 45, followed by Craig (32) and John (22).

We all ate too much birthday cake.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Cineplexity and Puerto Rico.

• Craig and Blaise dominated Cineplexity, with 3 wins for Craig and 2 wins for Blaise.
• Craig won Puerto Rico with 73 points, followed by Tony (62), Dave (53), and Shaune (38). All three possible end-game conditions were met in the last round: Tony exhausted the victory points, Shaune exhausted the colonists, and Dave and Craig each filled their cities with buildings. Craig and Dave built Factories, Tony and Craig built Harbors. Dave and Craig each built two large buildings. Tony started pursuing a Factory strategy, but switched to a Corn strategy when he was shut out of buying a factory.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Rachel and Jim “Blaise” Trigg, Shaune Lee, and Dave and Tony Montuori.

Tonight we played Unexploded Cow, Castle Merchants, San Juan, and Dead Money.

• Craig won Unexploded Cow with 2750, followed by Dave (2100), Shaune (2000), and Tony (2250).
• Craig won Castle Merchants with 19, followed by Shaune (15), Tony (15), and Dave (14).
• Craig won San Juan with 32, followed by Tony (31), Dave (31), and Shaune (25).
• We played Dead Money until Shaune gave up and let Dave win.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Shaune Lee, and Dave and Tony Montuori.

Tonight we played On The Underground and Apples to Apples.

• Dave and Tony tied for first at On The Underground followed by a tie between Craig and John, with Blaise bringing up the rear.
• Tony kicked ass at Apples to Apples.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Rachel and Jim “Blaise” Trigg, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Vegas Showdown.

• Craig won Vegas Showdown, followed by Helen, Shaune, Dave, and Tony.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Shaune Lee, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and Helen Powell.

Tonight we played Set, Ticket To Ride, Power Grid, and San Juan.

• Carrie and Blaise were winning Set while we waited for everyone else to arrive.
• Dave won Ticket To Ride at 154, followed by John (121), Jenne (92) and Sallie (91).
• Craig won Power Grid on the Benelux map, followed by Blaise, Tony, and Shaune.
• Tony won San Juan at 40, followed by Craig (32), and Shaune (25).

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Rachel and Jim “Blaise” Trigg, Shaune Lee, Jenne Heise, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Manifest Destiny.

• Craig won with 31 points, followed by Tony (28) and Dave (27).

This was Craig's first time teaching Manifest Destiny, and so we didn't really get started until after 9pm, and we didn't finish up until around 2am. Given how close the scores were, Dave and Tony picked up on the strategy: pound on Craig, early and often.

Craig started with Pennsylvania, Dave started in Louisiana, and Tony started in Virginia. In the first turn, Tony played Spy to steal Craig's destiny card, and Dave used Supreme Court to cancel Craig's play of Congress. Careful card play and some good rolls for Breakthroughs (Turnpike and Mechanization) allowed Craig to recapture momentum and the lead. Eventually Craig was slowed down by hitting the token wall: all but two of his tokens were holding territories, breakthroughs or pioneers. This allowed Tony and Dave time to catch up on income and territories. Eventually there were a number of big payoffs in a single turn, following a Manifest Destiny play, allowing everyone to buy enough advances to kick into end game.

Attendees: Carrie Hafer and Craig Trader, and Tony and Dave Montuori.

Tonight we played Cineplexity, Puerto Rico, Ticket To Ride, TransAmerica, San Juan, and Set:

• Everyone joined into Cineplexity as people were eating and socializing.
• Dave won Puerto Rico with 55 points, followed by John (54), Craig (53), Tony (52), and Grayhawk (43).  At one point in the game, we exhausted all of the resources.  At the end, Tony built all of his buildings, and then we ran out of VPs.
• Blaise won Ticket To Ride with 104 points, followed by Rachel (94), and Monica (90).
• Carrie won TransAmerica, followed by Blaise, and Monica.
• John won San Juan with 38 points, followed by Grayhawk (33), Craig (33), and Tony (21).
• Carrie taught Monica how to play Set.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Monica and Frank "Grayhawk" Huminski, Rachel and Jim “Blaise” Trigg, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Puerto Rico.

• Craig won the first game with 62, followed by Dave (56), and Tony (45) .
• Craig won the second game with 55, followed by Dave (45), and Tony (38).

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, and Dave and Tony Montuori.

Tonight we played Unexploded Cow and Cineplexity.

• We played Unexploded Cow twice -- many cows died.
• We played Cineplexity three times:  Craig won twice, and John won the third game.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, Dana Leader, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Betrayal at House on the Hill and San Juan:

• In Betrayal at House on the Hill, John betrayed us to assist Dracula and his bride.  Tony and Dave were quickly turned, Dave killed Eric, and after a brave fight, Craig was overwhelmed and turned, allowing the dark forces to win.
• In San Juan, Fuzz buried us with production buildings (35), beating Tony's monumental architecture (33), Dave's crammed chapel (28), and Craig's pitiful plantation (17).

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Eric Kervina, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played TransAmerica, Unexploded Cow, Chronology, and Ticket To Ride.

• John won TransAmerica, Sallie didn't win, Craig didn't lose, and Tony lost it.
• Tony kicked cow butt at Unexploded Cow, Sallie and Craig beat the curve, and Helen and John got stampeded.
• Helen beat Tony, John, Sallie, and Craig at Chronology.
• Helen beat Sallie, Craig, and Dave at Ticket To Ride.

We all ate Key Lime Pie or Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting, to celebrate birthdays for John and Dave.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Helen Powell, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Settlers of Catan and On The Underground.

• Craig won Settlers of Catan with 10, followed by Sallie (9) and John (7).
• Dave won On The Underground, followed closely by John and Craig.  This game was notable for being very close -- only 4 points separated Dave and Craig at the end, and all of us managed to complete large loops, with most of our track built.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Dave and Sallie Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Ticket To Ride, Fluxx, Power Grid, Metro, and San Juan.

• Craig won Ticket To Ride, followed by Sallie, Tony, and John.
• Blaise discovered Carrie's evil Fluxx combo deck (one of every keeper, two of every action, and one of every rule or goal from several versions), and several hands were played.
• Sallie won Metro, followed by Blaise and Rachel.
• Craig won Power Grid on the France map with the new Power Plant Deck, followed by Helen, John, and Tony.
• Helen won San Juan, followed by Dave and Craig.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Lisa Niemczyk, Helen Powell, Rachel and Jim “Blaise” Trigg, Dave, Sallie, and Tony Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Power Grid using the "Green Power Grid" variant that we've been toying with.  With 4 players, the goal  was set at 20 cities.  We played on the Benelux map which sped things up a bit, and while things were cramped (we used 28 cities instead of the recommended 32), the play was pretty good, up until the end.  At the end only Dave and Craig could power 20 cities, John could power 18, and Tony was way behind.  Dave came out ahead on money, for the win.

During post game analysis, we concluded that we needed to add an additional 7-plant, and reduce the goal to 18 cities to make the variant fair -- given enough money, every player should be able to power all of the required cities, and maybe one or two more.

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Tony and Dave Montuori, and John McMahon.

Tonight we played Vegas Showdown and San Juan.

• Tony dominated Vegas Showdown with 56, followed by Dave W. (47), Dave M. (45), and Craig (32).
• Dave W. won a close game of San Juan with 35, followed by Craig (33), Tony (32), and DaveM. (30).

Attendees: Craig Trader and Carrie Hafer, Tony and Dave Montuori, and Dave Willmes.