Lunch Time: Having played my two round of golf for the day I went over to Al's for his bi-monthly game night. While Al was cooking up dogs and burgers, I taught Steve a game he has been dying to play. I concentrated on taking advisor lead early while Maria and Steve picked up points with cloister. Steve even managed to get a cloister chain early. After the first scoring round I was lagging behind in points but that was okay, it was part of the plan. I don't how but Maria knocked me out of the advisor lead in a couple of the key countries. It didn't help that I ignored Frankenreich too.
Maria (73), Steve (65), Me (54)

Al's: Steve really loves this game and pushed for it again. Luckily, I like too. We got Roberto and Al to play. Maria was putting the kiddies to sleep. I think we like this game due to its screwage factor and gambling like quality.
Maria join us during the second game.
Me (35), Steve (36), Roberto (28), Al (24)
Me (27), Maria (25), Roberto (24), Steve (21), Al (17)

Al's: I went over the rules since most people have play only once or none. I had been concentrating on getting UP stock lead, having 5 in my hand when the first scoring round occurred. It was somewhere around the twentieth card. Maria and Al had three UP already showing and Dimitri had just played one. I decided to pass on placing my UP stock to pick up another stock cards. Who would have figured that the next three scoring cards would come up within the next 6 draws!!! It was one short game and I got spanked!!!
Maria (75), Al (72), Dimitri (69), Steve (54), Roberto (51), Me (34)

Al's: I was hoping to teach Al and Steve this game so we could start playing vinci online, but Steve wanted to play Alhambra. Al and Dimitri were interested in Vinci so we split up into two groups. It was wierd initial set of civs, with the first three having livestock attributes. There was some serious fighting for the green regions. Dimitri had the early lead. Al next civilization was a barbarian/agriculture mix which he used to create a huge empire in that streched from Spain to Turkey. I wasn't doing too well trailing Al by twenty points, I declined my 2nd civ while Al and Dimitri were still expanding their second. I picked up a double mine civ and with in two turns I was cranking out 20 plus points. My final empire expanded from Spain to England to Northern Italy and at it's height it scored 26 points. Al and Dimitri did a newbie mistake and chose to keeping their empire instead of attacking the leader. By the time they realized what needed to be done it was too late.
Me (162), Al (150), Dimitri (134)

Al's: Closer for the night. It was getting late so we were looking for a quick game. We went for speed carc and finished the game in 20 minutes. The gang thought it was funner this way. Steve was wicked happy it was two carc victories in a row.
Steve (79), Dimitri (78), Me (75), Roberto (66), Al (49), Maria (41)

MVGA: Walter, Paul and I tried playing ES&R but it proved to be uninteresting as most time everyone was picking unique actions. Luckily, Rich and Jeff arrived and we restarted with five players. I was lucky with my picks only having to barter only a few times for actions. I also won the contract lead in two of the rounds. Rich and I tie for first but I forgot to notice whom had the most gems left. I only had 8 left so I'm pretty sure Rich had more.
Rich (60), Me (60), Paul (42), Walter (40), Jeff (36)

MVGA: We spent some time deciding on what to play next. With six the game definitely feels more random. Jeff got off to a good start getting early exact buys. After the second round he was 20 points ahead of the rest. I was able to control enough tiles at the end to catch up to Jeff but he had three more walls than I had.
Jeff (81), Me (78), Dan (65), Rich (59), Walter (56), Paul (44)

MVGA: Next, we played the Islands variant of Settlers of Catan with every tile we could find. I had a choice between 9,10,11 and a 5,10 with 3-1 port site. I went for the port trading ability. I should have picked the other hex. Nine and eleven rolled quite often. Rich got out to a fast start, snagging the longest road and seven points before anyone else got to four points. We ganged up on Rich and it allowed Dan, Jeff and Walter to make it look like it wasn't easy.
Rich (10), Dan (8), Jeff (7), Walter (7), Paul (5), Me (4)

MVGA: With Paul's departure we chose to pay Acquire. I only got to start one hotel chain, which was the only chain in which I had majority shares. It eventually merged into one of the safe chains but could only get three shares of it. That's when I noticed that create a small chain and merging it into a big one was a very good way to get more shares of a very expensive chain. I must try that next time.
Rich (37,200), Walter (37,000), Dan (35,500), Jeff (31,300), Me (26,500)

T&K's: I went to Tony's and Kristin's for Independence Day celebration. There was a group playing a game of Dominoes called Mexican train. Sue asked me to take over for a round but she didn't come back. We played till Jeff and Lori had to leave. A few hours later we started another game.
Game 1: Sue/Ralph (150), Paula (220), Lori (221), Dave (234),Jeff (250), Stan (278)
Game 2: Tony (148), Me (234), Paula (241), Kevin (273), Patty (349), Alan (354), Stan (514)

T&K's: After the domino game, I had a few people willing to try Carcassonne. Sue was the only experience gamer having played Hunter and Gatherers once before. I decided to go easy on them by avoided farmer conflict and helper strategy. Near the end of the game I placed an uber meeple in a couple of cities for some extra points. Kevin unknowingly merged my meadow with a large one scoring me lots of points.
Me (85), Kevin (67), Alan (63), Sue (61), Tony (41)

T&K's: Whipped out this game hoping there was some interest. Sue and Kevin were up for another game and we got Kristin to join us. The game was longer than normal because Kristin would agonize over her decisions and that was quite funny.
Hand 1: Me (31), Kristin (25), Kevin (24), Sue (16)
Hand 2: Sue (33), Me (29), Kristin (27), Kevin (26)

T&K's: Sue was looking to play one more game. Luckily for her I brought along a two-player game. Learning curve helped me win the first game. She did the standard newbie mistakes of starting all expeditions. The second hand I had an amazing hand, getting cards of only two colors in my initial hand. As I finished placing my original expeditions I got a streak of new color for another high scoring expedition. The third hand was the closest as she started to pick up the strategy.
Me (3) Sue (0)

GSG: Starting order: Bob, Me, Bill, Don, Eric-1
I went over the rules for the newbie Don and as a refresher for Bill and Bob. I got off to a slow start, choosing to buy the hospice first before getting an indigo factory. I followed up with a sugar mill, coffee roaster and a factory. Bill went heavy in indigo and some corn production while Eric dove into the corn strategy. We had an ooopps in the game that caused us to do two mayor phases during a round. We noticed the problem too late in the round to retract it. This occurred during the time when there were lots of open slots in the building area. The error speeded up the game by one, maybe two, turns and the game ended with no one buying a large building. I was close to getting the Fortress too, bummer.
Eric-1 (34), Bill (30), Me (27), Don (25), Bob (23)

GSG: Another set collecting game along the lines of Coloretto but didn't seem to have the screwage factor. Each round, the dealer deals out 12 cards and creates sets of similar items. Each player beginning with the dealer gets to take on stack or draw a card from the deck. Leftovers are placed in the king's collection and the player to the left of the dealer becomes the dealer. After the deck runs out, each player compares his set to the king's set. A player scores nothing if he has more of a set than the king's set otherwise the player scores his set count times the king's set count. Total up the value of all sets and that's the player's score. Simple.
Eric-1 (57), Me (54), Bill (39), Don (34), Eric-4 (33), Bob (33)

GSG:
Eric-1: Macon; his tokens are worth 4.
Eric-4: Vampire; can enslave defeated opponent's tokens
Bob: Wrack; for each his token in battle, he can force opponent to lose a token or a card
Me: Mirror; can reverse the values of attack cards played
Bill: Seeker; can ask a question before cards are revealed
Don: Healer; can rescue opponents tokens from the warp for cards.

We couldn't seem to agree on a 6-player or two 3-player games to play. I was pushing for Union Pacific but the complaint there was the game "dragged" with six. So, I agreed to play this game but I've never really been a fan of this game. Powers were assigned randomly. Early part of the game, Eric-4 and Bob looked like the inevitable winners. Eric-4 had captured a large number of tokens (alot of them Eric-1s) and Bob would whittle away an opponent's tokens and attack card. I had a little luck on my side. Only one opponent selected my color from the destiny deck so I wasn't attacked much in the early part of the game. Bill kept mentioning that this game the progenitor of Magic The Gathering. I believe it, special powers, zaps, unzaps, timing issues uggh! Many times did my head hit the table as players tried to unravel actions and events during the game. Just about everyone had a shot at winning the game. My attempt was to force Bob into a compromise situation with an edict, I would have lost the combat otherwise. I suggested we trade two of my bases for one of his for a mutual win. He refused, but it didn't matter cause a rules lawyer found a one base swap limit rule. Don and Eric won the game on a successful attack on Bob. Game ended after three hours. I wonder about their definition of "dragged"!
Don and Eric-1, Bill (4), Me (4), Bob (3)

Camp Ganska: Golf Camp Ganska was a wash out but the diehards still came over. I broke out the burgers, beer and the board game EVO. I picked up the initiative early in the game and kept it through out. Craig got the early egg lead giving him a growing lead. Dimitri picked up four cards in the first five rounds and used them to hammer Craig so he wouldn't get too far ahead. There was a serious lack of parasols and fur early in the game so the climate played a big roll in the deaths of our dinosaurs. I responded by going heavy in eggs, Dimitri with feet and Craig picked any available parasols and furs by out bidding us. Craig was able to sustain 8 dinos during the end game while Dimitri and I could only keep five or so alive.
Craig (64), Me (56), Dimitri (47)

Camp Ganska: I tempted Dimitri with my new two-player game. We started the game after a quick run down of the rules. We did a couple Burst of Strength rounds before we started vying for new cities. We both expanded our city count but it didn't get exciting till the count got to 8. Dimitri and I swapped cities here and there. I ran out of troops on the board allowing Dimitri to get a city for the win.
Dimitri (10) Me (8)

Ilise's: We got to Ilise's a little late, Chris and I were playing a round of golf at my place. I figured they would be playing Settlers but it was Carcassonne instead. That was good for Chris since he doesn't enjoy as much as everyone else. I broke out my Rage deck and trimmed it down to make it a Wizard deck. Only Chris and I had played before so rules explanations were needed. John had no problems understanding this game. He had perfect bids for first six turns and had a 60-point lead over the closest opponent (Chris). Ilise on the other hand wasn't doing too well, having a score of zero after the sixth turns. Either John's luck ran out or Chris did a good job of trip him up. He faltered in the last four round, adding no points to his total while Chris got enough to share the win. Ilise did a good come back, scoring 100 points in the final rounds.
John (150), Chris (150),Me (120), Annette (110), Ilise (100), Matt (70)

Ilise's: Damn that six-player issue! Games tossed about where Alhambra, Union Pacific, Settlers and Cartagena. Alhambra won out cause it was a little faster than the others. It was a weeknight after all and I'm the only one who is unemployed. Yes, this as a six player game bites! Chris and I were having bad draws. After the 2nd scoring round, Chris's new objective was to come ahead of me. There were a lot of two and three way ties for building types in this game. I had one of the few dominate positions with the Brown buildings but not enough in the others. On my final turn I was able to grow my wall by three which gave me a one point lead over Chris, much to his dismay.
Matt (75), Annette (73), John (70), Ilise (59), Me (48), Chris (47)

Ilise's: The crew was breaking up for the night but Chris really wanted to try Colorette. We convinced Matt and Annette to try it. Ilise and John were cleaning up and getting their munchkin ready for bed while we played. Annette and Matt did well in their set collecting, while Chris and I collected too many cards in the negative. It was enjoyed by all.
Annette (35), Matt (33), Chris (26), Me (24)

B20: Staring order Matt, Steve, Campbell, Me
I was going to try the corn whore strategy but Campbell was doing that too so I chose to go factory. My initial picks were the small market, indigo plant and sugar mill. Steve saved up to buy the factory early but only had one good at the time. I was all set to buy my factory having corn, indigo and sugar production, but Campbell beat me to it. I had to readjust my strategy so I picked trading enhancing buildings like the office and large market. I made lots of money and bought the fortress and city hall. Steve got his factory going eventually producing all five goods for good cash, eventually buying the Residence. Campbell the corn whore who picked the factory was semi successful with it, picked up the Guildhall.
Me (50), Campbell (45), Steve (35), Matt (31)

B2O: More players arrived and we broke up into several groups, Ra and Go. I whipped out Coloretto to kill some time. Vitas arrived as we were starting the first game but passed to save my cards from pizza grease, so thoughtful of him. This was a close and high scoring game with everyone getting at least one full set. I guess it was the friendly play. I convinced Vitas to join us for the second game by suggesting that I would handle the cards so he could continue eating his pizza. I noticed that Jim was just trying to collect his three colors and would bail out early to avoid getting the extra color. I think Jim learned an important lesson in this game. Sometimes bailing out early to avoid getting screwed hinders more than it helps.
Game 1: Jim (54), Me (54), Steve (48)
Game 2: Me (35), Steve (30), Vitas (21), Jim (14)

B2O: Steve pushed for Traumfabrik and surprisingly Vitas was excited to play. I had thought Vitas didn't enjoy the game. After the bid for the first 4-star director, Steve dumped all his money to win a lot with two movie stars. It seems like a crazy thing to do for first pick at the party. He was able to maintain his movie star lead through out the game with only Vitas coming close to challenge. I cranked out the only movie in the first round some nice points. Jim for some odd reason collected lots of high star director but little of any thing else. I think he managed to finish one movie. I had four completed in the third round and my fifth was waiting for a director, which were all gone by the final round. I just sat back and hoarded contracts. I had 31 of the 48 at the end of the game. No Best Direction award since there was a three way time. Steve has the best Drama and Action, Jim best Comedy and Vitas the worst movie.
Steve (83), Me (79), Jim (59), Vitas (51)

B2O: We had six and I only had one game in my bag that could handle six. Jim bailed out to play Settlers. This was Dawn and Brenden's first play. For some odd reason Dawn wanted to name the non-player and she chose Fred. Women!! This turned out to be a lucky day for Vitas. Not only was he lucky with the card draws but also had found someone he could sweet talk into flushing the board. Brenden tried to go the cheap route but didn't work, especially with his Ballet production, which happened to be in New York. He was last there, even with people tapping their productions for big cash. I was able to beat Vitas on one lucky last draw getting the perfect card for my final production that came in first.
Me (58), Vitas (53), Dawn (31), Fred (29), Brenden (28), Jim (21)

B2O: Vitas just couldn't refuse this at 50% off. Modular map with hexagons, tasty! We divided into two teams, Vitas and Brenden versus Dawn, Jim and I. Three characters on each team. We went over the quick start rules for everyone but anyone with war game experience basically knew the format. Alternating turn based game with phases for fire, movement, reaction and plenty of die rolling. Dawn was instantly turned off by the game. She was good doobie and hung in for a couple turns. We set a time limit of 60 minutes and played for about 5 or 6 turns, with the first two turns taking most of the hour. This game was trying to be a board game version of a first person shooter. Characters appear, run around the map, attack other characters, etc. The main objective for characters is to enter the labyrinths to challenge the guardians. If a challenge is successful, the player gets goodies that usually enhance the character's ability to attack the other team. It was interesting enough for me to give it another shot.

B2O: Not too many people left. I pulled this out only cause it was one of the few games in my bag that could be played with three. First play for Jim and Vitas. It took a while for Vitas to figure out the game but once he did he spank our butts quite handily. Vitas enjoyed so much that he asked to play again.
Game 1: Vitas (2+1+4=7), Jim (3+0+0=3), Me (-1+1-1=-1)
Game 2: Vitas (5+5+2=12), Me (-1+3+3=5), Jim (5-1-1=3)

B2O: Last one for the night. This is a quick game but the final scoring takes as long as it takes to play the game. Vitas shared two big scores, one with Jim and the other with me, which gave him the edge.
Vitas (194.5), Jim (149), Me (78.5)

SN@C: Ahh, return of the Saturday Night @ Chris's. This time it was Vitas who brought Maria's bribe, chocolate ice cream. We played this game while Chris put his children to sleep. First play for Vitas. We exhausted the draw deck to end the game. Todd had the most points in suits but Vitas and I had three sets of trios.
Vitas (65), Me (64), Todd (58), Rob (35)

SN@C: The main course. Chris and I had been jonesin' for a starfarers game for quite some time. When the fifth showed up, I was happy I had bought and brought the 5-6 player expansion. We played with a couple variant rules which were, the first three event cards that result in a space jump are ignored and the first row of planets did not contain any special tokens such as the pirate lairs. Vitas got off to an early lead but lost it to some lucky event cards that were drawn by Chris and I. We both got free colony ships. Chris and I passed Vitas as we developed extra colonies and picked up friendship tokens. Chris picked up the "Ore Production" card and I picked up the "Galactic Relief Fund" otherwise known as the whiner card. It wasn't effective at all since I generated goods on just about every roll. I should have paid better attention to my situation.
Rob took to the theme of the game and sent a colony ship exploring just about every possible system and finally settling next to the traveler's trading post. Rob beat Vitas to the traveler's post for the friendship token. Chris snagged victory by parking a colony in his own backyard (the open colonies on the home system).
Chris (15), Me (13), Todd (10), Rob (9), Vitas (7)

SN@C: Chris wanted to try something new and this fit the bill. Went over the rules for everyone. There were the typical underpay/overpay barters when new players are involved. Chris and I jumped out to the lead during the first round. I did it by getting cash and contracts while Chris scored with three sets of gems. With his gems depleted, I figured Chris would sputtered but it was not to be. He picked up enough cash and contracts to once again edge me out of the lead. The final round saw a lot of three-way and four-way ties but the game play over all was better with no one winning more than one gem set.
Chris (70), Me (62), Rob (52), Vitas (36), Todd (27)

SN@C: Played two rounds of Coloretto. First time I saw a wild card stick around a whole turn, mainly because it happened to be on a stack with two colors that would cause some pain for most.
Me (19+26=44), Todd (20+22=42), Rob (22+19=41), Chris (14+21=35), Vitas (16+16=32)

SN@C: Closer for the night.
Chris (7+0+6=13), Vitas (7+4+2=14), Todd (12+0+20=32), Me (12+31+11=54), Rob (34+20+34=88)

SOG: We were waiting for more people to arrive so I suggested we play 6 Nimmt! or Bluff. Rob and Chip were both stoked to play Bluff. Went over the rules for Sara. In the first round, she lost four dice when she called a bid of 20 fives with 10 showing. She didn't last much longer after that. I lost 3 dice on one bid early but I was able to hang around until I went for broke and made a very aggressive bid with 4 dice on the table. It came down to the wire for Rob and Chip.
Rob, Chip, Me, Vitas, Lewis, Sara

SOG: With the arrival of Mike and Jessica we could have split into two groups or play a large game. We broke out the 6 Nimmt! After the third round, Rob and I were tied and remained tied as we both managed to pick up one point apiece.
Me (5+9+15+1=30), Rob (15+2+12+1=30), Mike (6+20+17+13=56), Lewis (2+7+34+15=58), Chip (34+4+11+17=64), Jessica (20+22+18+12=72), Sara (8+36+11+19=74), Vitas (11+26+8+29=74)

SOG: We broke up into two groups. We played Carc with all the non-river expansion. Chip and Sara had never played the original Carcassonne so I went over the rules. Harlen arrived just as I had finished explaining the rules, so I had to go over the rules again. I saw a nice meadow early in the game so I jumped on it. From then on I concentrated on building cities in my meadow even though there were some very tempting large city fights that I could jump onto. Mike tried to bust into my meadow and, of course, I had to counter. We eventually had three farmers apiece about midway through the game, that's a lot of locked up meeples. Harlen went on a scoring rampage and lapped at least one other player. With a couple of draws left, I gambled and tried to merge another meeple into that hotly contested meadow that Mike and I had been fighting for. It worked and Mike wasn't able to counter it. I scored 6 pig fed cities. For the commodities leads, Harlen had the wheat, Mike the barrels, and Chip and Mike shared cloth.

It was Bastille Day so I suggested that a game of Guillotine was in order. Everyone that that was a great idea but somehow Chip lured them away with a game of Set. That evil boy! I couldn't believe it but then I remembered his last name so he must be one of them aristocratic frenchies and didn't want to see his great, great uncle on his mother side lose his head, again!
Me (89), Harlen (83), Mike (54), Chip (52), Jessica (49), Sara (42)

GSG: My second visit the GSG session. James brought Volldampf and Mark quickly rounded up five interested players. James went over the rules and it was similar to Age of Steam except a little less complex. Richard, Phil and I started by jumped into debt, selling two bonds apiece, while Mark and James only sold one. I sold two bonds so I could win the first auction because I saw a combo of cards that would be a good start. I started by buying one of the routes that would allow me to transport a blue good to a blue city. Phil saw what I was doing so he bought the adjoining route for a little piece of the action. After the first turn Phil was so winning with a score of three and he didn't even spend money in auction phase. I wasn't the only one to pay attention to Phil's approach. From then on Richard and I were always passing during auction phase, preferring to save money and go last in route picking. As the game progressed, Phil got control of the Northwest routes, Mark the south and James the North. Richard and I had a mishmash of routes on Western side but we would get some money here and there as people used our routes to move goods to their final destination. Mark got lucky on the cube distribution; always seemed to get the perfect cube for the maximum six-track jump. Richard won the tiebreaker by having the most money at the end of the game.
Mark (18), Me (13), Richard (12) James (12), Phil (12)

GSG: I jumped onto a game of Traumfabrik. While I was setting up the game, Mark went over the rules for the newbies, which was everyone but me. It smelled delicious but this are the kind of game in which I get over confident and end up losing. I got the early star lead, which helped finish the only movie in the first round. Brenden and Dawn were a little timid in the beginning refusing to go too high for lots. Brenden went almost two round without winning a lot but once he got going there was no stopping him and massive hoard of contracts. I finished my third movie in the final stages of the third round and only need two tiles for my final movie. None of the tiles that I needed present itself on the final round, so I hung back and hoarded contracts. At the end of the game I had 27 contracts, Best Direction and Best Action. Dawn picked up the best Comedy and worst movie while Richard got the best Drama.
Me (95), Richard (86), Dawn (62), Brenden (32)

GSG: I went over the rules for Don, who had never played before. Brenden and I got off to a fast start scoring point on rivers and sharing a couple of forest. Dawn meanwhile started to hunt a very large meadow. It looked tempting so I tried to merge in a meeple into that field. Later in the game I got the Stonehenge tile that I placed in a position to merge with Dawn's hunting grounds. Don started making a strong comeback as he finished two rather large forests. In the end. I stole the 22-point meadow from Dawn with my Stonehenge dude, definitely the swing point for me.
Me (98), Don (89), Brenden (83), Dawn (72)

GSG: Closer for the night, we played two hands of Money. Phil left after the first hand. I was really lucky in both games as people kept dropping the exact card that I needed.
Me (780+820=1600), Don (650+540=1190), James (540+500=1040), Mark (230+600=830), Phil (470)

Al's: Steve had been dying to play this game for quite some time. I had a bad first round, only scoring twelve points but Al was worse with seven points. After the second round Steve had over forty points and Chris wasn't too far behind. Steve started whinin' about how I was going to win, similar to Chris's paranoia about how I fly below the radar till the final moments of the game. I had a strong third round scoring cash, multiple gem sets, getting contract lead and some good bonus points. I didn't win but I beat Steve.
Chris (72), Me (69), Steve (48), Maria (28), Al (23)

Al's: Chris pushed this dice game. The game has three dice each with an L, C, R and three dots on its faces. On the player's turn he rolls dice equal to the number of tokens, quarters in this case, up to three. An L means give a token to the left, R gives a token to the right and C put a token in the center. The dot means he keeps his tokens. If a player has no tokens he get one attempt to stay in the game. If he rolls three dots then he takes whatever is in the center pile otherwise the player is eliminated. The game is more of a drinking/gambling game.
Rich, Dimitri, Maria, Al, Me, Chris, Steve

Al's: A much better dice game. I kicked everyone's butt, having five dice left over at the end of the game. Al's comment of the game, "Ralph won cause he told the truth this time!"
Me, Al, Rich, Dimitri, Steve, Chris

Al's: We split up into two groups of four. The other group played Euphrat and Tigris. We played Zirkus Flohcati while we waited for Maria to put the children to sleep. This was a trio happy crowd with Roberto putting down the most, four. I finished the game with the gala. Chris didn't seem to enjoy it.
Roberto (65), Me (63), Chris (54)

Al's: Another new game for the crew. Went over the rules. This was the fastest epoch I've ever played. I about five non-Ra tiles were pulled. I had three of them getting a Pharaoh and a culture early in the epoch. Who would've thought that it would spared me from a big lost of points. The second round was a little better as everybody started to understand the value of a culture. I still retained my pharaoh lead. Roberto got himself a nice pile of Niles and a flood. Maria and Chris collected monuments. In the third round Chris came close to challenging my lead in Pharaoh but I used a god tile to retain it. In the end it was experience that help me win this game.
Me (47), Chris (35), Roberto (34), Maria (32)

Al's: We played this quick game while we waited for E&T finish. Chris had trouble picking the concept up so we helped with some of his decisions. It appeared that we pushed Chris's limit of learning new games. The group mind helped Chris tie Maria for the win. The E&T game finished with a bang. Al was really irked at Steve who for all his whining, managed to spank everyone. Al went to his room to cool off and everyone else started leaving, game night over!
Maria (28),Chris (28), Roberto (23), Me (23)

Ilise's: After dinner we broke out the "6 Nimmt!" for a quick game while we waited for more to show. Taught Sandy and Steve the rules. Sandy had a rough start but once she played a few rounds she got the hang of it.
Sandy (22+0+0+12=34), John (0+5+27+4=36), Steve (9+16+16+11=52), Annette (7+25+8+14=54), Matt (28+0+21+6=54),Me (22+16+14+11=63), Ilise (6+27+9+32=76)

Ilise's: Another new game for Sandy and another victory. Beginner's luck or sandbagger? Hmmm.
Sandy, John, Me, Steve, Annette, Ilise, Matt

Ilise's: We split up into two groups to play Settlers and Puerto Rico. The surprise was that Ilise chose to play Settlers.
Starting order John, Matt, Me
Looks like like all of us went for the factory strategy but John and Matt got to it before I could. Just like my previous PR game, I had to go for Office and Markets. I pulled one boner forgoing a craftman with three gold. John jumped all over it, getting the three gold plus the five gold for the producing all goods. After that he had all the money he could ever want. John built the Guild Hall and Fortress. Matt didn't get his factory going as well as John did but he didn't suffer from any money shortage. Matt built the Residence and I got to build the Custom House. I chose to end the pain by taking the mayor to end the game.
John (49), Me (39), Matt (33)

Ilise's: Played a couple game of Zirkus while we waited for the others to finished their game.
Game 1: Me (63), John (47), Matt (42)
Game 2: Me (41), John (40), Matt (40)

B20: After many attempts I finally got to play this game. Dave took the good side and I got to be Sauron. Not really knowing the game pieces, I randomly placed my pieces. If I had read the special abilities of the pieces I would done a slightly different set up. I was pretty agressive attacking white pieces. I found Frodo but he proved difficult to kill. I submitted when I realized that I could not stop Frodo from advancing to Mount Doom.
Dave F

B20: I've been interested in playing this game for quite a while, so I asked Eric to teach it to me and he agree. We also got Dave to join us. This is a game were one must balance several variables to succeed. Producing goods makes money but causes polution and to produce goods, you need workers and resources. Each turn, starting with the start player, players will select from stacks that have three actions. Actions allow the player to reduce polution levels, generate goods, auction resources, hire/fire employees, etc. Once in a while an industrial accident will occur and any player not in the green zone will suffer problems. Well I got off to roaring start, cranking out goods but quickly ran into polution problems. I concentrated on my pollution reduction capablitity. Eric went for reducing goods requirements and Dave followed my path in pollution reduction. I ran into problems after an industrial accident that resulted in me taking a loan. Near the end of the game, I paid off my orginal loan but had to take another loan to pay final turn cost. Arghh.
Eric (58), Dave L (50), Me (24)

B20: Got a game of traumfabrik going and I got off to a smoking start, finishing two movies in the first round. This game had very dynamic actor contest. Dave L picked the lead initially but Rich took control in the second round. Dave F had actor lead in the final part of the third round. I took it on the final lot so I could get first pick and increase my chance of finishing my final movie. I finished six movies but won no awards. Rich took the Drama and Comdey awards, Dave F has the worst and Dave L had the Comedy.
Dave L (76), Me (74), Rich (69), Dave F (66)

B20: Staring Order Eric, Jim, Me, Rich, Adam.
Adam and Eric went over the rules for Jim. Got a nice starting hand having a couple similarity among all my profession cards and even luckier with my purchased profession. I only need three buildings and two freedoms allowing me to buy some bonus cards. I used them to get a best work and bonus points during one turn. On my last auction round, I picked a presitge card but it didn't pay off.
Adam (59), Rich (56), Jim (49), Me (49), Eric (48)

Al's: My worst play of Ra that I have ever had. I found myself in a situation that I couldn't get out of it. After the first round I found myself with the one, two and three sun chips. I called Ra every moment that I could but never seemed to win a high chip. At the beginning of the third round I had the one, two and four sun chips, a slight upgrade. I ended the game with the least in sun chips. I was amazed that I was only twenty points behind the leader.
Eric (42), Gregg (39), Jim (28), Terry (28), Me (22)

T&K's: Closer for the night. I picked up big stacks in the early rounds but on the later rounds I would bail out with one card. I got a full set, a double and the rest were singles.
Me (28), Eric (22), Gregg (22), Terry (15), Jim (14)

SOG: I made a lucky glance to spot Rob's new house and it seemed like I was the only one to get that lucky. While we waited for people to arrive, we played a silly game. Players vie for control of the seven continents with cards that range from 1 to 9 in value. Each turn a player plays a card on one of the available continents or a special card. If the sum of both players' cards on the continent reaches ten then the player takes control of the continent and applies the special ability of that continent. First player to get 4 continents wins.
Me (4), Rob (2)

SOG: I went over the rules for Rob. He got off to a good start getting dominance in red, blue and brown tiles, and a nice wall to boot. I hoarded money, choosing to wait for a buying streak. Rob started having wall problems allowing Mike and I to catch up on tile lead. I didn't have a good wall setup so I started to fall back during the second round. Mike lucked out and got the perfect tile to merge two of his wall segments for an uber-wall of twenty. The final round came a few turns after the second scoring round.
Mike (140), Rob (134), Me (111)

SOG: While we were playing Alhambra several people called cause they were lost. They all arrived as we finished the game of Alhambra. One group settled into a game of Tichu while the rest of us got a game of Medici going. We went over the rules for Steve. I was the leader after the first round by winning the weight race and getting leads in two commodities. In the 2nd round, I irked Matt when I went for a three card load that contain cards that he wanted. I wanted them for weight since I was going first in the weight race. I finished the second round taking a load that I didn't help my weight race but I needed to it to retain my lead in a commodity. I fell way behind and winning the weight race during the third round only helped to make my score better than it really was.
Rob (102), Steve (98), Chris (97), Matt (84), Me (79)

SOG: Next up was a game of exploration. I've only played this version once so I had Matt go the rules. Matt had an ugly start going for '?' tiles a couple turns in a row and got all the bad ones. I concentrated on littering the board with my scouts since they would go to the exploration part of the board which I figured would provide plenty of points. I had a bad streak of luck in which I paid for tiles but could never place them, basically losing nine gold and three turns. Even though I eventually got all twelve of my scouts I only got two chips. The trouble was I got my scouts in there too early allowing the others to attack my hut leads. We notice the mechanism for getting money seemed broken. The rule is a player with less than four gold at the beginning of his turn must roll a die. The player gets the result of the roll while other players get the roll plus one gold. It seemed who ever got stuck rolling for money would roll for money until another player went on a spending spree or got the priates.
Rob (77), Matt (67), Steve (66), Me (44)

SOG: Taught Rob and Steve the rules for the game but during the first game it appeared that they didn't understand some of the rules. Both Rob and Steve played four sets of trios with Rob using fives for one set. Matt finished the first game by playing the gala but Rob squeaked it out. Rob wanted to play it again now that he understood the game. This time there was no more than one trio per player. Once again Matt ended the game with the gala and Rob beat him by one point.
Game 1: Rob (65), Matt (64), Me (60), Steve (57)
Game 2: Rob (55), Matt (54), Steve (42), Me (35)

SOG: I was gonna head out but I was tempted to play another Knizia game. Simple game with a 65 card deck that has five suits of cards; 7x Threes, 9x Fours, 11x Fives, 13x Sixes and 15x Sevens, each suit also has a doubler card and an hoser card which discards all cards of that suit. Mechanics is simple; play a card, draw a card. A scoring round occurrs when the number of cards for a suit played equal the value of the suit (3 Threes or 4 Fours, etc). All cards of that suit are scored and any other played cards are discarded. Per Matt's suggestion we played four rounds. Great filler too bad it's OOP.
Steve (47+30+34+52=180), Rob (33+56+42+22=167), Me (50+27+46+44=163), Matt (55+47+42+36=153)

Camp Ganska: I had the old crew come over for a few lunch time games. Guillotine was high on Holly's request list.
Holly (28), Craig (24), Me (18)

Camp Ganska: With the arrival of Dimitri we played our lunchtime fav, Wyatt Earp. After a few rounds Dimitri was one shy of a win, too bad cause on the next round he was the focus of everyone's attention.
Me (30), Holly (25), Dimitri (25), Craig (16)

Camp Ganska: Battle First Bull Run
Holly and Craig had to leave so I convinced Dimitri to try Battle Cry. He took the Union and I controlled the South. I made several attacks on his right flanks and was able to destroy one of his infantry troops with my cavalry. He responded by blowing away my cavalry with a bombardment attack. My next attacks were on his left flank and I got some lucky rolls, which destroy more infantry. To end the game I did a forced march to take the hills and was able to wipe even more of his infantry.
Me (6), Dimitri (2)

GSG: Attended another session of GSG. There were plenty of people for two games. One of them was Duel of Ages, I quickly joined the other group. Metropolis looks and plays like the progenitor of Big City, plastic buildings, 9 regions of 10 lots, etc. Unlike Big City, players are allowed to make deals to trade lots and share large buildings. About half way thru the game we realized that we were playing the game wrong. We were building more than the allowed one building per turn. Phil offered me a sweet deal and I accepted. That move allowed him to build the Shopping Mall for big points (38), the winning difference.
Phil (82), Me (65), Mark (62), Eric-4 (59)

GSG: New game for most of us. It's an area control game. Simple game, Each turn a player plays one of his five cards then draws a card from one of two stacks. Brown cards give advantages to opponents but provides the player with stones. The white cards helps the player but cost stones. The only requirement is that if a player has more than seven stones he must play a white card. After the stockpile of stones are gone, a scoring round occurs. The game is normally played in four round be we stopped after three. The game felt chaotic.
Eric-4 (40), Me, Mark and Phil (30)

GSG: Mark pulled out an old classic. Went over the rules for his son Z. Made the ranger my initial secret bid After the second round I was looking good but my backed creatures started getting knocked off. Even my secret bid was taken out. At least at the end I was able to whack the troll which had Eric's heavy backing.
Phil (11), Eric-4 (9), Mark (6), Me (5), Z (0)

GSG: Mark pulled out Quandry and I was about to hit the road. I wasn't looking forward to some word party-like game. When the chips hit the table I paused, they were nice looking chips and it wasn't a word game. Simple game really! There are five different colored chips, with six tiles, zero through five, in each of the colors. The tiles are dealt out, and then players take turns playing a tile and taking any available chip. When one color has all six tiles played on it, then the game is over, and players use the last tile played in each category to value their chips. Midway thru the game I realized that this was Flinke Pinke which was a game I'd had been wanting to play. I had planned to use my rage deck and some centimeter cubes to play this game but now I want Quandry.
Mark (27+15+20+26=88), Eric-4 (25+12+26+18=81), Phil (26+16+22+14=78) Me (15+17+29+14=75),

GSG: Phil left and the other group was still playing Duel of Ages. Mark said this was a good three-player game. This is a bidding bluff game in a way. Each player begins with five bid tokens, a double bid token and a risk chip, which increase the payout by 1x. At the start of a turn, each player receives 11 cards. The deck is comprise of 5 suits and each suit has two 'No' cards which when played removes two cards of that suit. On each round, a player places two of the cards on the board and may make a bid on how many cards of an item will be played this turn. Each suit had eight possible bids and no players can share a similar bid. The easiest to achieve and the lowest payouts are the '4 or less' and '5 or more' bid, which pays out one. The hardest and best payouts are the '1 or less' and '8 or more', which pays out five. When players are down to three cards, players will select two of the three cards to play simultaneously. The round ends and players receive points for correct bids, which are marked on a scoring track. If a bid is wrong, the player loses the token. A player will reacquire all of his tokens if he ends the turn with one or less tokens. The game continues until all suit columns have a token above four. Players sum up all their tokens above four for the final score.
Man, I had a hard time figuring out this game. I couldn't see how the bidding worked and I lost most of my bidding tokens in the first round. Wouldn't you know it; it's a Knizia game. Medici, Modern Art and now, Members only. The game took a longer than expected mainly cause I wasn't the only one having problems. I started figuring out some of the bidding concepts and at one point I had a one-point lead! The games didn't seem like it would ever finish and it was many due to one suit that never seemed to score what players had expected. In the final round, I only had two token left so I didn't have too many opportunities to score points.
Eric-4 (33), Mark (30), Me (17)

MVGA: Played a quickie while we waited for more shows. This was a game of steaks. Several players collected lots of color and paid the price for it.
Me (26), Rich (23), Anton (20), Eric (20), Dan (17)

MVGA: Starting Order Eric, Aton, Rich, Dan, Me
Wow, two games of this in one week and pretty much with the same people. Once again I spent big bucks to get the initial builder. This time I picked up a Prestige card very early and it was a decent one. The game developed into a very balanced game as everyone had at least one jester, builder, and a recruiter card. I made one mistake that gave Eric a winning advantage. I used my recruiter card to take one of Eric's works that was to my left and he immediately used his recruiter card to build it again. Rich in the sixth round gave up 5 points for cash thinking he was going to battle me for a lake since it had become apparent that both of use need the lake. I chose to get an extra builder instead of fighting for a lake. Eric got the two best Prestige cards that paid off 16 total points.
Eric (62), Rich (59), Me (56), Dan (53), Anton (52)

MVGA: Staring order Dan, Me, Eric, Anton, Rich
Ugh I played on horrible game. My initial buys were the indigo plant, sugar mill and small market. I was setting my self up for factory which I was able to buy. Eric too built the factory. I was just stuck in the wrong postion. When crafting I never seemed to get all my goods and when shipping I usually spoiled goods. Rich had become a shipping god going corn whore! His final shipping VP count was an amazing 41. Eric (factory) and Anton (Trader) seemed to work hand in hand, very nice technique. Eric built the Guildhall and City hall, Anton got the Residence and Fortress and I got the last big building, Custom House.
Eric (66), Anton (62), Rich (55), Dan (46), Me (42)

B20: We had a late start at B20; it must have been the traffic. I taught the newbies and Eric arrived just in the nick of time. Nick got off to a good start but ran into wall problems. During the second round I was able to buy a buildings just about every turn which helped me get a huge lead by sharing leads in most of the buildings. I was able retain my leads but my lack of wall length almost cost me the game as Nick made a strong comeback. Eric wasn't so luck this time.
Me (98), Nick (97), Dave L (90), Eric (81)

B20: The late arrivals had settled down to play so when we finished nobody new was available. Eric push for Age of Steam, we all agreed. Eric went over the rules for Nick and Dave L. I still paid attention to Eric since this was only my third game. It appeared that Dave didn't pay enough attention because he was bankrupt after the 2nd round. He seemed relieved. Eric proceeded to school us in the game. He had no problems hooking up cities for multiple jumps. He was in the positive income zone after the fourth, it took Nick and I till turn six to get to that point.
Eric (93), Me (57), Nick (46), Dave L (bankrupted)

B20: Dave F pushed this one. Quick and easy, each player gets 15 chips to start. Each turn, players bid for available buildings, equal to the number of players. The player can match, raise or pass. If he passed he pays half his bid and takes the lowest available building. The last player in pays his entire bid. After several turns of the bidding phase, play proceeds to the sell phase. Money cards are placed in the center equal to the number of players. Each player simultaneously plays one of his buildings. The player with the highest value building takes the highest value money card and so on. Repeat until all buildings are sold. The player with the most money (a bidding chip count as one) wins.
I picked up the concept quickly. I figured I'd bail out first to pick up the first building and save my money for the later rounds. I lucked out and the best building was in the last round and I had the most money.
Me (63), Eric (58), Nick (39), Dave F (36), Kyle (28)

B20: Another quick game while we waited for Kelli and Mike to get back from a food run. A card is drawn from the draw deck until a joker card or a pair is in the available pile. Players bid cards to win the pile. A winner of the bid can play four of a kind to score tokens. Jokers may be played to finish a four of kind. A scoring round occurs after the token pile is used up, the player with most jokers loses 5 points
I only won bid but I was able to play fives and twos. Dave was the unlucky one with the most jokers.
Me (7), Dave L (6), Dave F (2)

B20: Dave F went over the rules for the newbies, Kelli, Mike and Dave L. I placed a lot of pressure on myself, since I didn't want to come in last. Kelli picked up the game quickly understanding it a little better than Mike and Dave. She had the best first round. After the first round I understood why Kyle was flipping out the first time I played. There were several times when Mike and Dave paid way too much for a painting even after we told them of the potential value. I had the advantage over Dave F, the only other experience player, since he was to my left and therefore all the newbies to my right. Several times Dave L offered great deals offered and I scooped them up.
Me (534), Dave F (440), Kelli (387), Mike (332), Dave L (245)

B20: Broke in my new addition. 10 dice with blanks, pins, 'X' and '/'. For each frame, a player rolls all ten dice. If an 'X' is rolled on the first roll it is a strike, otherwise faces with blanks and '/'s count as downed pins and score. The player then rolls the remaining (non-scoring) dice. If a '/' is rolled it counts as a spare otherwise count the blanks and 'X's as downed pins. Play ten frames and score as in real ten-pin bowling. No skill, lucked based game but a good game to play with the little ones. Colton loved throwing the dice.
Colton (135), Tony (97), Me (111)
Me (161), Colton (144), Tony (118)
Tony (150) , Me (129)
Tony (146) , Me (142)

2-day: Two-player day at Chris's. I showed Chris that a Rage game is a very useful deck; we used it to play Schotten Totten. I won by claiming three adjacent locations.
Me (3), Chris (0)

2-day: This game has been sitting in my box since I bought it. Chris was interested and I proceeded to go over the rules for both of us. Chris was able to acquire a couple trading post early while I encountered a couple adventure planets for free resources. I had a nice run; defeating pirate events that gave me a large lead in the fame points. Chris on the other hand had problems defeating even the weakest pirate. The sector exploration involved the use of memory cells, which Chris didn't quite enjoy. The game came down to that could find one of the few remaining colonies.
Chris (10), Me (8)

2-day: Battle: Pea Ridge Me (Union), Chris (Confederacy)
It seems that the cards and dice like the north a little more. I started off with a Hit and Run raid, forcing one of his Calvary unit to retreat off board. The battle raged on my left flank as the south tried to take the hills from me. I used forced march to regain position and mowed down a couple infantry units. We both failed on back-to-back sniper attacks on each other's generals. With my left flank secure, I started attacks in the center, destroying a Calvary unit with a bombardment attack. I sent an infantry unit with an attached general to lure some units within range of my canons. The sacrifice worked, I won the game.
Me (6), Chris (1)

SSG: Went to the Barnes and Nobles at the Walpole Mall for my first session of SSG. There were several people from B20. We broke into groups and I settled with Eric B for a game of Paris, Paris. I just don't get this game but I hope that enough plays of it should help the strategy seep in to my brain. Charles was a newbie so Eric B went over the rules while I finished my Starbucks coffee. This time I concentrated on getting position not on my secret tour, hoping that in the later turns I would take over those spots. It didn't work, the best grouping I got was a 3 while Eric and Joe both had a grouping of 5. Charles got the bonus for most huts removed, 5 points for him.
Joe (41), Eric (35), Charles (32), Me (21)

SSG: Lucy joined us for a game of Daytona 500. It looked like Formula De with an oval track. No dice though, the game is driven by cards. Everybody gets a set of cards. These cards have list of movement value for certain cars. When a card is played, the cars are moved the number of spaces listed in the card in list order. A car must use up all of its movement, if possible. Using this knowledge each player beginning with the start player will select a car. With four players, the start player and the player to the left have two cars. In turn order each player plays a card, moves the cars. It continues this way until all cars cross over the finish line. Payouts are made based on placing.
We played four races to balance out the game. I enjoyed this game better than Formula De for the way it handled movement, even with Eric's insistence that we make noise when moving the cars. It allowed more thinking and screwage rather than just rolling a die.
Joe (1,010,000), Me (850,000), Eric (810,000), Lucy (600,000)

SSG: A press your luck, die rolling game, ala Can't Stop. This game was not like Sunday's love fest with the battle cry dice. I got a good start but I was a little aggressive and rolled two 'X', losing two spots. I should have learned my lesson there and stopped after a couple of rolls. But no!! I had to push it. I could have started playing conservative but the other players were already far ahead of me so the only way to win was to push it.
Joe (20), Lucy (17), Eric (15), Paul (14), Pete (11), Me (8)

Dimitri's: Just had to show Dimitri this silly game. Plus it helps me as I inch closer to 100 games for this month.
Me (181), Dimitri (144)

Dimitri's: Dimitri wanted to give this game another try. I got off to a quick start with a double voyage card and a double attack card. In addition to a four city lead, I also picked up the temple lead. We fought over a couple cities but the temple lead helped me recover quicker.
Me (10), Dimitri (4)

Dimitri's: Dimitri started off with a good hand getting three of five victims and several sets. I finished first and hosed Dimitri by the hand he was holding. The next two hands were all mine.
Me (116), Dimitri (62)

GSG: Taught Matt and Steve how this play this quick filler. Mark played a trio after his third draw but unlucky for him I was able to get the Gala on the twelveth draw!
Me (47), Matt (34), Mark (27), Steve (26)

GSG: Mark has sooo many games that we found ourselves unable to select one to play. Matt pulled out Armada to take a look at while I asked about Marracash and MacMulti. We finally settled on Marracash. This is a game about setting up shops so that it will attract tourist and make the player money. Mark went over the rules for all of us.
A player has two actions per turn, move a group of tourist or auction a shop. The only restriction is if a player first action is an auction then the second action must be an auction.
Auctioning a site; the player selects a site and begin an open auction. If the final bid is less then 500 then the player gets a commission of 100 otherwise the commission is 200. The winner opens his shop by placing his marker on it.
Moving a group of tourist. Select a group of tourist and move them to adjacent location. Any tourist that matches an open shop's color is removed from the group and placed in the shop. The first tourist is worth 100 with each additional tourist being worth 100 more than the previous, with a cap of 500. A player that moves a tourist gets a cut of the profit depending on the value of the tourist.
After both actions are complete the player must fill any empty entrances with 2 to 4 tourist. The game ends one turn after the last tourist is placed on an entrance. The player with the most money wins.

We newbies had a hard time figuring out the value of the shops but it soon become apparent the exterior shops were worth more than the interior. 500 also seemed to be the start bid, mainly so the auctioneer would get his cut. I had two red shops which probably was a mistake since that meant I could only really score big points in red. I eventually got an interior green shop and I made it pay off. Also made it a habit of moving tourist to other people's empty shops since it was pretty much a 50-50 split.
Matt (5775), Me (4300), Mark (2925), Steve (2025)

GSG: I was in the middle of teaching Steve how to play Lost Cities when Mark said we were going to playing Bang! I put the game away while Mark went over the rules. I got to sherriff card so I was the start player but the game was interrupted by the arrival of food. So it was another twenty or so minutes before we got back to the game. We played with version two of the Bang! Some revision were turn order is clockwise, the sheriff gets an extra life, jail is at most one turn, and no beer allowed when down to two players. James, Bruce and Steve came out shooting and sadly they picked on their own kind. James was sufficiently weakened by the attacks and Mark got him with the Indians card. I took out Steve with a long-range shot but forgot to take my bonus cards for killing an outlaw. Bruce played the dynamite card, which looped around the table four times before taking out Mark. Bruce got rid of my mustang so I figure he was a bad guy and took him out with my volcanic. I figured Penny was the Renegade so I went gunning for her. Luckily for me she was able to avoid my shots because she turned out to be one of my Deputies. Eric destroyed my Volcanic and I knew who the bad guy was and so did Penny.
Me (Sherrif), Penny (Deputy), Eric-4 (Renegade), Bruce (Outlaw), Mark (Deputy), Steve (Outlaw), James (Outlaws)

GSG: Play two quick hands for Katzenjammer blues. Looks like Dave F forgot to tell us about one rule on Friday. Apparently a player may play 4 jokers for zero points to get rid of the jokers.
Mark (5+9=14), Eric-4 (5+5=10), Me (5+5=10), Steve (0+6=6)

Al's: We played with all expansions and the original farmer rules since it tends to make the game better. Al started the farmer battle early when he placed his uber meeple. Several players tried to match but I went for minimize its strength and concentrated on farming my own area. I got a couple of monastery early but never surrounded them. I suffered from lack of meeples because of that. I was able to complete a cathedral city by myself for 27 points and three commodities. Tufo also succeeded in building his own cathedral city for 24 points. Maria had the lead but sputtered at the end as Al and I scooped up most of the farmer points. Al and I tied for red cloth; Tufo had the wheat and Rich the beer.
Al (114), Me (107), Tufo (101), Rich (95), Maria (84)

Al's: Staring order: Tofu, Me, Rich, Dave
With the others starting a game of Settlers I figured I break in my copy of Goldland. I went over the rules for all.
Staring order: Tofu, Me, Rich, Dave
The game was pretty easy to pick up. Initially everybody went off to their own direction. Tufo got off to a strong start getting a couple of the adventure chips. Dave took to doing double adventures to take away tofu's chips. Once I noticed that Tufo was getting close to the goal tile I took his route. Rich was on the other side of the board so he had to reach the goal tile by himself. Dave and I got to the temple for the two gold coin bonus. Tofu was close but didn't have enough resources to pass a blocking adventure tile. Dave and I split most of the gold coins. Tofu got an amulet but only with a turn left. This was my one hundredth game of the month!!!
Dave (23), Me (21), Rich (20), Tofu (18)

Al's: I convinced Dave and Chris to try Cartagena since the other guys were still playing the marathon game of Settlers. I had good card draws and always seemed to get the right cards for big jumps. It didn't hurt that Dave and Chris would also leave me sweet jumps.
Me (6), Chris (3), Dave (3)

Al's: Early in the game, I collected money cards so that when the first scoring round has arrived I found myself in dead last. My collecting paid off, as I was able to take a lead in two of the building types and shared in two others. We had less then 10 tiles remaining when the 2nd scoring round came. I had two wall chains of 6 plus but could not merge them. By the time the third round arrived, Dimitri had succeeded in surrounding his Alhambra with walls.
Dim (97), Me (95), Chris (80), Roberto (62), Maria (67)