As Dave Barry would say, sounds like a good name for a rock band, or maybe a Fox primetime soap (a la The O.C.).
What is it about games that is so fun? I spent over 12 hours out today, some of that was travel, a hour or so of that was dinner. The rest of it was listening to Diplomacy rules, Lunch Money, Guillotine, Settlers of Cataan, Magic: The Gathering, a round of Poy Poy, and Apples to Apples.
The main part of it is the inherent social interaction. While it's "just a game," it also brings out each player's character. Their style of play greatly mirrors their train of thought, especially in a situation with a fairly even playing ground as far as simple rules. Anyway, the rest of this entry recounts the details of the more intense games mentioned above. It's probably not all that interesting, especially if you don't know how to play either of these games.
Settlers played with James, Bill, Drew, and Thomas:
As a note, we did not follow the standard rule of alphabetical placement of the numbers. Instead they were placed randomly. Consequently, rolls of 4 and 8 were turns of drought, and adjacent 3s and 6s were randomly changed, but adjacent 10s lay on the board.
Initial settlements largely favored one half of the board, with Thomas being the main settler on the other half. These initial positions gave Thomas sole control of adjacent brick mines, and James control of the adjacent 10s on forests. Drew controlled wheat and sheep, and Bill had large control of wheat, sheep, and ore. Thomas jumped out to an early lead on a near monopoly of brick production; as evidenced by his longest road and first to new settlement. In the process of this, along with a direct race to settlement between James and Drew, James' middle settlement was cutoff from further expansion, and James put at a severe disadvantage. Bill took especial exception to Thomas' early lead and refused to trade with him and used his soldier development cards shut down Thomas' brick production and steal his resources. With brick production slowed dramatically, and wool production at last increasing, they built a lead: Bill on the strength of his development cards, and Drew on the strength of his trade agreement with James, which allowed tariff-free use of James' wool port and Drew' wheat port. Sensing that Drew was becoming a bigger threat, Thomas was eventually able to buy Bill's soldiers to move the thief. With brick back in production, and a more easy trading relationship with James and Drew and Bill's concentration on Development Cards and Cities, Thomas was able to amass the necessary resources to upgrade a settlement to a city, and finish the game with one a final settlement, and using the only development card he bought along the way, a Market card.
Winner: Thomas with two cities, three settlements, a Market development card, and the longest road (9).
Magic played with Alissa, Amber, Thomas, Matthew, and Amy:
Amber jumped out to an early lead using her life giving creatures and spells to get to 32 health, while attacking Matthew down to 8 heath and Thomas down to 13. After the rise of Thomas' Shivan Dragon, Thomas took a nasty hit to save his dragon knocking him down to 7. But allowing him to soon gain a second Shivan Dragon. With an additional Barbarian Horde and land clearing sorcery from Matthew turned the tide wass in Thomas' favor. At this point, Thomas eliminated Amber and Amy, and set about attacking Alissa with some good help from Matthew's attack nullifying land. Crucially, Alissa decreased Thomas' health to 4, and killed one of Thomas' Dragons with a spell, and on her last turned enchanted the other Dragon with a -3 to player if the Dragon attacks or blocks. However, Thomas summoned a 5/2, immediately playable creature in to kill Alissa. But this left the door open for Matthew's two 1/1 creatures and a 2/3 creature to end Thomas' reign of terror and take the game.
Winner: Matthew
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