Session Report – 4 August 2010

After 3 the week before, we were up to 10 this week. We split the group 4, 4 & 2.

We played St. Petersburg, which I had put back into my bag after playing a couple of weeks ago. We included the New Society expansion but left out the Banquet as it was Donald's first game, Colin I think had played before.

This game seemed a low scoring affair, which could be explained by the fact that the big points scorers among the aristocrats came out late in the game, with neither of the Mistresses of Ceremonies appearing at all. Steve won on the strength of his buildings which he was increasing during the game; Colin did well with Buildings early on but did not develop this as the game progressed. I did well with workers and aristocrats, which weren't scoring enough points, but my buildings were not scoring enough until too late in the game, I was able to catch Steve up a bit in the end game scoring and leapfrog Colin, but may aristocrat advantage was not enough to make up for the points lost earlier.

Donald enjoyed the game despite coming last and was talking about getting hold of his own copy.

Saint Petersburg 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	88
2	Dave D	73
3	Colin	63
4	Donald	42

Next up was Race for the Galaxy (including all expansions, but with no takeovers) and Donald made up for any disappointment in St. Petersburg with a comfortable win, building a nice engine mainly based on Rare Elements with good capacity for building prestige. None of the rest of us did very well, Steve taking second place from Colin by virtue of early points he gained as sole (or joint) prestige leader in the early stages, Colin had a powerful military and won the highest military goal, but his tableau points were low. As were mine, I played Contact Specialist very early on which quickly turned into a liability when the only military worlds I was drawing were Alien ones, which the card does not affect, in retrospect I might have been better playing some of the military developments I had, but was put off because of the penalty from Contact Specialist. The bulk of my score (about 12 points came in the last round of the game, adding a veneer of respectability.

This is a game I need to play more than I do, and I think I'll be spending a bit of time the AI, now Keldon has updated it for Brink of War (See here).

Race for the Galaxy 60 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Donald	53
2	Steve Pe	39
3	Colin	37
4	Dave D	33

Also played was Chicago Express. According to the records this was the first play of this this year, which surprised me as I thought it had been played more often. I know Mike and others are big fans of the game, although I can't say I care for it much. One of the reasons for this is that I have issues with its origins, although there are other issues as well, the main one being that shares are worthless at the end of the game, which to me is ridiculous and destroys any connection the game would otherwise have with its theme.

This reminds me that I shall have to dig out Steam over Holland, or organise a game of something like 1861.

Chicago Express 75 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mike	66
2	Andy	63
3	Dave F	52
4	Andrew S	35

Next up was Medina, which is an old game that I think Andy picked up second hand. I have no knowledge of the game at all with the exception of pictures I have seen on the geek at one time or another.

Medina 80 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Andrew S	35
2	Andy	33
2	Mike	33
4	Dave F	29

Dave & Ben played Twilight Imperium, this being the second edition of the game, rather than the more recent 3^rd edition, which adds in enough to make it unplayable in an evening. Dave won this game playing the Haken, while Ben played the Nor (my apologies for my almost certain misspelling of these names as I haven't looked at the game and have only typed by what is sounded like Dave said).

Twilight Imperium (2nd. Ed.) 100 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave C	N/A
2	Ben C	N/A