Session Report – 19 January 2011

10 this week and the split was 5/5.

On one table we played Power Grid, the first game of the year, this using the Russia board. In our first try with this board, we had eliminated the eastern area; while this time we discarded the area in the south West.

I ended up buying the 3 oil plant which seemed good by virtue of the cheap starting oil price on this board in addition to the going first when buying resources. Of course that also means going first in city placement, which I don't find so advantageous. I started in Kazan with Paul to my west, Steve Perkins& Donald to the North West. Steve H started in the east amongst the group of cheap connections around Kemerovo. In the second round I was fortunate to pick up the 33 wind plant powering 4 cities, which left me in a good position.

A number of the high value plants found their way into the market early on and on the following turn Steve H picked up plant 36 (3 coal->7), unfortunately he spent too much to buy any fuel and was left to power 1 city that turn using the 13 wind plant. Steve did not really recover after this as his lack of cash severely limited his early expansion.

This game moved on quickly and it became clear that Paul was my main rival. Paul actually finished the game when I did not expect it, although I would have ended it on the same turn. Paul could only power 14 cities and was working on the hope (expectation) that I had less money than I did. As it happened, when it came to my build (I was going last) I still had available the 20 spots in the southern cities around Ufa which Paul had built in early on. None of the other players had been able to fully occupy these cities with their cheap connections, so I was also able to build to 15 (and power them) to win.

Power Grid 90 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	15
2	Paul	14
3	Donald	11
4	Steve Pe	11
5	Steve H	10

After this we played 7 Wonders, we could probably have done with a little longer game considering how much time we had to spare, but there seemed to be nothing around for 5 players. 2 games were played, although I left after the first.

7 Wonders 35 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Paul	66
2	Steve Pe	54
3	Steve H	53
4	Dave D	48
5	Donald	46
7 Wonders 30 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Steve Pe	66
2	Donald	57
3	Steve H	48
4	Paul	38

Over on the other table was Colosseum, last played in February 2009. I don't care for the game, it seeming to be typical of the Days of Wonder paradigm of a lot of flash and little substance. I seem to recall my major problem with the game being the limited number of shows meaning that if someone else pinched what you wanted you were screwed. According to Mike, the game was played with the "Intense Auction" and "Fixed Pairs" variants. I don't know about these or whether they would go anyway toward addressing my issues.

Colosseum 150 mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Claire	87
2	Dave F	76
3	Nigel	73
4	Mike	55
5	Andrew S	51