I played Concordia with Gordon, Steve Pe and James. James was new to the game and I had not played for some time, I get the impression that none of us would be considered in anyway expert. I did not start the game with any fixed strategy, although having managed to start by grabbing a Cloth city and being able to get another before that long, having got an extra Architect card, I decided to pursue the other 2 cloth cities and also picked up the Weaver card, which would get me 20 points at the end of the game and give me a good supply of cloth throughout, the problem was I couldn't always sell the cloth because I need to use my trading actions to buy things, particularly Brick, which I had to buy a lot of as I only had one brick city. Apart from the Weaver and the Farmer(which I picked up relatively late in the game) I ended up pursuing a strategy that allowed me to score reasonably well over all the Gods. I had a good last turn, being able to add 2 Food cities (to go with the Farmer), which also added presences in 2 provinces.
Of the others, Steve scored heavily in Mars, having picked up a number of Colonist cards and got all (or 5) of his colonists on the board, I don't think he added much at the end of the game. Gordon picked up a Wine city at the start and proceeded to pursue those, getting the Vintner card, he like Steve was not able to gain much out of his last turn. James seemed to pursue a balanced strategy and ended up ending the game, placing all his 15 houses and getting the Concordia card for 7 points.
Of the couple of new games played, Fresco is a few years old now and I've always thought that its paint mixing mechanic sounds quite interesting, but the worker placement aspect of the game is what scares me away. Dead of Winter is a new game that seems to have been the subject of a lot of discussion, I confess that the Zombie theme does not appeal, but other aspects do seem intriguing.
| 27/08/2014 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fresco - 90 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Lee | 65 |
| 2 | Steve W | 59 |
| 3 | Rachael | 58 |
| 4 | Stan | 54 |
| Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game - 120 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 3 | Mark W | - |
| 3 | Chris S | - |
| 3 | Steve H | - |
| Concordia - 150 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Dave D | 135 |
| 2 | James S | 130 |
| 3 | Gordon | 128 |
| 4 | Steve Pe | 123 |
| Caverna: The Cave Farmers - 150 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Jaime | 68 |
| 2 | Jonathan M | 57 |
| 3 | Bob | 57 |
| Suburbia - 60 Mins. | ||
| Posn. | Player | Score |
| 1 | Stan | 124 |
| 2 | Lee | 68 |
| 3 | Steve W | 52 |
| 4 | Rachael | 48 |
Full details for August 2014
Monthly list at BGG for August 2014
The theme is very interesting in Dead of Winter,, it has an odd cross between being highly thematic and integral, but...It doesn't 'feel' like a game about Zombies, it feels like a game about Survival.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Zombies are an ever-present threat and building up around the board, within a turn you find yourself fretting about the food shortage, the need to gather fuel and tools to deal with the current crisis hitting the colony, the dilemma of whether to give up the medicine you're hoarding due your secret objective to save a dying friend, and the fact that maybe, just maybe, one of the people at the table with you is setting up to betray everyone.
In any case, Plaid Hat are going to be doing a whole series of crossroads games (The way the crossroads provide narrative is very cool btw!), with the next being 'Lost in Space' if that's more your style. There's also 'Feudal Japan' and 'Summer Camp' which will probably happen after the space one.
Oh, aaand..Session Report:
http://christopherjeromesmith.co.uk/2014/08/29/halesowen-board-gamers-23-270814/
Our game of Condcordia was a good fight. Close end scores. I'll keep it in my bag for a few weeks so it is available for a re-match.
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