11 Jan 2009 Session Report: The One Which We Played Settlers!

Mun joined us this afternoon for games. Hopefully, we will be able to get a regular session on Sunday going.

For some reason, we have been playing the same games for the past few sessions and today was no different. However, we managed to squeeze a game of Settlers in between Glory to Rome, Agricola, Stone Age and Galaxy Trucker.

I gained the upper hand in Glory to Rome again and took the game with 21 points to Van's 15 and Mun's 10. I'm increasingly convinced that the key to the game is efficient hand management. I make it a point to avoid 'thinking' (drawing of cards) unless the 'think' action reaps me at least 2-3 cards.

Van complained that the game ended too abruptly with me claiming the last 2 in-town sites to end the game. I took a quick lead in building completions and decided to end it while I was ahead. While I agree that it is rather easy to end the game by a building spree, that isn't much different from the use of the Catacombs (which ends the game immediately). I guess part of challenge of the game is ensuring that you are consistently in or near the lead so that you can benefit by initiating the endgame or discourage your opponents from taking the risk to do so prematurely.

We proceeded to Agricola at my request though I'm sure the other 2 were keen to play it too. I decided to use the Interactive deck this time round since we concurred that the 'Wet Nurse' occupation in the K deck seemed somewhat overpowered. We drafted in the same means as before and we were off to our farms! The game ended with Van and I tied with 31 points while Mun had 23.

Cards in the I deck were comparatively underpowered to the ones in the K deck. Van and I were struggling to feed our family members for most part of the game. Mun managed to obtain a generous supply of food but failed to extend/renovate her house and grow her family which proved costly. 

Mun and Van indicated a preference for the K deck, which is understandable because part of the thrill of Agricola is seeing a well-built up farm. With the weaker cards, it always felt there were many things to do yet too few actions to complete them. Nonetheless, the I deck while weaker came across more balanced than the E deck, which had a couple of comparatively stronger cards the last time we tried it. Perhaps we will attempt the drafting variant with the deck in future.

Van requested for the evergreen Settlers of Catan next and it was nice to take it out for a game since it hadn't seen many plays since we purchased the 4th edition. I guess we have also leveled up in terms of the weight of games we play but nonetheless it was nice to revisit the game which kindled our interest in euros every once in awhile. Van won the game with a victory card draw for her final point. I made the mistake of not robbing her of the longest road when I had the chance and instead opted to build an extra settlement instead.

The game played quickly as we typically play the tournament variant on BSW where we start the placement with a settlement/road, followed by a city/road and finally and extra road. This is my preferred variant as the build-up with the basic two settlements drags the game out and the lack of resources at the start feels rather tedious.

Mun finally got her win during our play of Stone Age taking it convincingly with a score of 178 while Van and I took up the rear with 153 and 147 respectively. Despite obtaining all 8 different green civilization cards, I was caught unawares by the civ card deck running out and ended up without an opportunity to trade in my 7 remaining gold for a corresponding building. It seemed that we drew down on the civ deck particularly quickly today leading to the quick game.

The last game of the night was Galaxy Trucker. As it was late, we only managed two ships - boards 2 and 3. Mun was substantially slower than both Van and I during ship building which was allegedly due to brain exhaustion (*wink*). She had to abandon the second journey due to the loss of all her crew. I pipped Van by a mere 8 points thanks to me taking advantage of the numerous slaver and abandon crew events in accumulating cosmic credits.