| Acquire 90 mins | ||
| Player | Posn. | Points |
| Matt | 1 | 49300 |
| Dave D | 2 | 37700 |
| Steve H | 3 | 31700 |
| Mike | 4 | 20000 |
According to the records, the last time we played this was 10 January, so we just managed to get 2 plays in the year, which is odd since I think everyone likes the game and we have 3 copies among the regular membership of this year.
The game followed a normal sort of pattern with all the chains formed followed by a wait for the first mergers to happen. I made that merger with Luxor taking over American despite having no interest in American (I think I had one share) because I had in my hands the tiles to make a chain followed by a swift merger elsewhere on the board, unfortunately 4 of my tiles were then unplayable and the only other playable tile would have stopped the play just mentioned. So I played the merger in the hope that the opportunity would still be available when it cam back to me. As it happened it worked well as Mike, who was short on cash followed by merging The newly enlarged Luxor with my Festival, where he was second.
After that Luxor continued to grow and Matt, Steve and Mike competed for it's shares, with Matt winning out over Steve. I contented myself with majorities in many of the smaller chains. Matt ran out a comfortable winner while I (somewhat to my surprise cam in second). I made a mistake late on when I enlarged Imperial where I had the majority and allowed Matt to have it take over American, leading to my dropping to 3rd place in the holdings, when Steve and Matt exchanged their American shares. I don't think this would have made a difference to the placings however.
| Industrial Waste 70 mins | ||
| Player | Posn. | Points |
| Dave D | 1 | 54 |
| Mike | 2 | 50 |
| Steve H | 3 | 45+ |
| Matt | 4 | 45 |
This was a longer game than some with 3 players all reaching 20 on the growth track on the same turn. Both Matt & I were vulnerable to an accident at one point but got away with it and were able to get back in to the green zone. Steve suffered from money trouble and at one point had 2 loans outstanding, managing to pay one back before the end.
Next meeting 2 January
Two of my all-time favourite games, a great way to finish off the year. Sadly I just couldn't pull key tiles all game through in Acquire, and never got a majority shareholding bonus so was always going to struggle. I prefer Industrial Waste as 3-player, because the player starting 4th (as I was) is at a slight, but not game-breaking, disadvantage. I had to rely on the others making mistakes and me, of course, not making any (which I find very difficult!). Dave played very steadily throughout, so I was never going to catch him.
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