Monday night is games night! I was joined by Greg, Spencer and Vin. We decided to have a go at Tigris & Euphrates - a game I bought some months ago but had not yet played due to my neurological problems. Having read through the rules several times I felt up to giving it a go. Spencer had played it once before but didn't remember it that well. Vin and Greg had heard good things but had not played it.
We spent a good 40 mins trying to understand the rules but decided that we'd probably fair better just getting stuck in. I have to say that this is a good, abstract game. There are enough elements to make strategising challenging and, on a first play, it was often impossible to work out what your opponents were trying to do. The game lasted about 2 hours - slowed down I think by quite a lot of rules checking. Vin won in the end having 11 of each colour of victory cubes. Spencer was second, I was third and Greg limped home in last place.
I struggled to score blue points as I drew only 3 blue tiles during the entire game! Vin did very well by being the victorious defender in many battles which he didn't instigate... similarly Greg lost mainly because he was the defeated aggressor in these clashes. Vin did manage his goes well though to maximise his scoring.
In retrospect I got too attached to a kingdom as I failed to realise how fluid the game was. Just as I was starting to have a game plan I realised we were almost out of tiles and would finish in a couple of rounds! Despite this I did really enjoy it and would happily play it again. I did find it mentally fatiguing as I had to take in a lot of new information and apply it to a new context - activities my brain currently finds hard. Still, it was well worth the effort.
The next day I realised that the four of us could have finished the game of Britannia we started a few weeks ago....doh!
Showing posts with label britannia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label britannia. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Monday 5th March 2007
Before Monday Night is Games Night Lisa and I enjoyed two quick hands of canasta. The first hand was pretty close. Lisa won it with 1010 points to my 560. This brought her total to 3155 and mine to 1710. In the next hand I went out really quickly due to picking up the deck at a good time! I scored only 975 points but forced Lisa to lose 190 points! (It's rare that I force her into a minus situation!). This put me back in the game with 2685 points to lisa's 2965.
Greg, Spencer and Vin then arrived and we set up Britannia. I played this once before and won (!) despite being fairly clueless about what I was doing. Still, it had been good fun. This is a 'sweep of history' game. Each of the four players represents several races who invade England sometime between the Roman occupation and the Norman invasion of 1066. The fortunes of the different races wax and wain roughly in accordance with history (although last time I managed to still have the Brigantes hanging around when the Normans turned up!). Every so often a race scores points depending on which regions they hold. Points are also scored for whacking the romans and killing opposition leaders - heroic figures who turn up occasionally.
As I had previously been victorious I was selected to play the Romans. This is quite hard as, although you have 4 subsequent races whereas everyone else has 4 in total, the Romans are your only really good one. Therefore you have to score most of your points early in the game and watch everyone else catch up and possibly overtake you later on. That said, I managed to amass 113 points with the Romans, which I think is quite good!
The Romans pretty much stayed out of Wales which allowed Spencer to consolidate his position there with the erm... Welsh! A little later and there was an epic struggle between the Angles and the Saxons for control of most of England. I did fairly well wresting control of most of Scotland from the Picts.
In the end we stopped playing at the end of Round 7; about halfway through. It had taken us 3 hours to get this far and we decided to conclude on another evening.
Scores thus far are:
Greg : 74
Spencer: 84
Paul: 143
Vin: 63
But we've got along way to go yet!
Greg, Spencer and Vin then arrived and we set up Britannia. I played this once before and won (!) despite being fairly clueless about what I was doing. Still, it had been good fun. This is a 'sweep of history' game. Each of the four players represents several races who invade England sometime between the Roman occupation and the Norman invasion of 1066. The fortunes of the different races wax and wain roughly in accordance with history (although last time I managed to still have the Brigantes hanging around when the Normans turned up!). Every so often a race scores points depending on which regions they hold. Points are also scored for whacking the romans and killing opposition leaders - heroic figures who turn up occasionally.
As I had previously been victorious I was selected to play the Romans. This is quite hard as, although you have 4 subsequent races whereas everyone else has 4 in total, the Romans are your only really good one. Therefore you have to score most of your points early in the game and watch everyone else catch up and possibly overtake you later on. That said, I managed to amass 113 points with the Romans, which I think is quite good!
The Romans pretty much stayed out of Wales which allowed Spencer to consolidate his position there with the erm... Welsh! A little later and there was an epic struggle between the Angles and the Saxons for control of most of England. I did fairly well wresting control of most of Scotland from the Picts.
In the end we stopped playing at the end of Round 7; about halfway through. It had taken us 3 hours to get this far and we decided to conclude on another evening.
Scores thus far are:
Greg : 74
Spencer: 84
Paul: 143
Vin: 63
But we've got along way to go yet!
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