Wednesday 4 January 2012

January tales.

In an astonishing feat of restraint I had managed to avoid buying any new games over the Christmas period, telling myself that come January I would pick up some bargains. Unlike the Bristol brigade, who seem to be able to introduce a new flavour every week (It only seems that way), tonights fare was served up favourites from last years table and not a turkey in sight. After I managed to tear Paul away from my two rather playful new kittens, he graciously or unwisely offered me first choice of game.

Totally disregarding Paul's open dislike for card based games I unboxed Dominion (Intrigue) to see if his mind could be changed. I chose a party time style set of decks to see if the freer play would help Paul enjoy the game. Dominion is one of those games for us that always needs a rules refresher. Even so some of the cards had us a little confused due the use of the word "Gain" and early progress was slow. Suddenly it all clicked and we were racing through our decks with a barely a pause. (Save for Boris shinning up my leg, clambering onto my laptop and onto the table for a good nose round).

In the games dissection afterwards we noticed that Paul and I had selected differing strategies, with him only using a Bridge, Pawn, Upgrade combination where as I tried a bit of everything but stuck mainly to Great halls and Nobles with a few pawns thrown in for good measure.

Somewhat surprisingly the game ended a dead heat, 58 points each. Checking the rules the only other differentiator was the amount of turns, which was equal. Therefore, the rules declared, we should rejoice in our shared victory. So we rejoiced.

Next up Paul's choice Ticket to Ride. I tried the accepted card hoarding method and really long route, whereas Paul set about adding fistfuls of tickets and creating a sort of explosion effect in the middle of the map. Paul's bravado paid off even it nearly backfired on him. His superior haul of tickets beat my massive chain which nearly reached from the west coast to the east and back again.

Paul - 109
Chris - 94

There was just time to fit in a game of Aton. The game was actually closer than the final scores reveal, but my last hand of 4,4,3,3 was too powerful for Paul to defend.

Chris - 49
Paul - 29

Honours even for the night then and so we rejoiced again. On the journey to the train station I promised Paul some new games for the New Year. It's a tricky thing getting well balanced two player games so any suggestions are welcome.....

3 comments:

  1. Alhambra is fun with two. You play a third make-believe player ("Dirk") who is fairly competitive. I also like Inka, though Andrew was less enamoured of it...

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  2. Alhambra is a good shout actually. I think Paul liked that when we played.

    It should be noted also that Paul really liked dominion this time, so maybe there's hope :)

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  3. My two-player discovery this christmas was Mr Jack, which I got in a trade just in time for the hols. A brilliant deduction game where one player plays Jack the Ripper, the other the investigator.
    Jack has assumed the identity of one of eight suspects, and must evade capture for eight rounds, or edge towards an exit and escape into the night to win.
    The Investigator can win by correctly accusing Jack, but may only make one accusation in the whole game, so must whittle down the suspects with care.
    It's very tense and extremely clever, and plays in about 30mins.
    Don't know if it's in print at the moment, but does turn up on math trades and ebay.

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