Ludus

Tonight we played TransAmerica and Vegas Showdown.

• Jim won Vegas Showdown with 53, followed by Craig (50), John (40), Sallie (39), and Shaune (36).
• Sallie won TransAmerica with 7, followed by John (8), Dave (16), and Craig (20).  We scored this using tournament rules (one round per player, total all rounds, low score wins).

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

Most folks escape the DC area for the holiday, but with nothing else planned but sit around watching the grass grow and the mosquitoes breed, we've decided to host a one-day gaming, jewelry, and movie extravaganza. So come, play games, watch movies, make jewelry (or just see how someone else does it), relax and enjoy yourselves!
Feel free to show up anytime after Noon, and stay as long as you like.  We'll either have things to grill, or order out for pizza.

Tonight we played Puerto Rico.

• Shaune won Puerto Rico with 47, followed by Dave (42), Craig (39), and Tony (33).

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

Tonight we talked a lot and played Cineplexity.

Attendees:  Craig Trader, Carrie Hafer, Dana Leader, Dave Montuori, and Rachel and Jim "Blaise" Trigg.

Tonight we played Puerto Rico, Ricochet Robots, Pandemic, and Race for the Galaxy.

• Carrie and John played Ricochet Robots.
• Brian won Puerto Rico with 51, followed by Dave (50), Shaune (40), Tony (39), and Craig (32).
• Brian, Dave, and Shaune played Pandemic, with one loss and one win.
• Craig won Race for the Galaxy with 32 (on a tie-breaker), followed by John (32) and Tony (24).

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

This year the World Boardgaming Championships will be held in Lancaster, PA, on August 5-10, 2008. I will be going again this year, with the intent to participate in these tournaments:

1. Power Grid (PGD)
2. Puerto Rico (PRO)
3. Vegas Showdown (VSD)
4. Empire Builder (EPB)
5. Manifest Destiny (MFD)
6. Race for the Galaxy (RFG)
7. Ticket To Ride (TTR)
8. RoboRally (RRY)

There's some scheduling overlap between these tournaments, so if I'm good/lucky enough to get to the semi-finals/finals, I might have to drop one in favor of another.  Last year I wasn't that lucky, but I've improved with Power Grid (some) and Puerto Rico (significantly), and stand a strong chance of being competitive.

One consequence of this is that I need to play these games frequently over the next two months, particularly the more strategic games.  I also need to play a wider variety of opponents, so that I can cope with different strategies.  Towards that end, I'm going to try to schedule some all-day-Saturday gaming sessions before August.

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.

Next weekend (March 28-30) will see me at Enlightenment XI, a weekend-long convention devoted to Age of Renaissance and Manifest Destiny.

In order to get in the spirit of things, Carrie and I went over to Vienna to play a game of Manifest Destiny. In theory, I was going to play, and Carrie was going to watch and learn. When we got there, Bill Crenshaw (the game designer) and Greg Stripes (a former champion) badgered Carrie to play, so that there would be 4 players. Reluctantly, she agreed, and play commenced. I have played Manifest Destiny once, and Carrie had never played before, so neither of us knew the rules, much less the strategy. At the end of the game, Carrie had won, followed by Bill, myself, and Greg.

At this point Carrie announced that, having beaten the game designer and the reigning(?) champion, she was going to resign, undefeated, from playing Manifest Destiny.