We split into two groups of three. Joe was keen for more dice action and so he, Steve and me decided on a game of Lords of Vegas. Sam, Anja and Jonny chose Tinners' Trail for their evening's entertainment. I'll leave it for one of them to fill in the details of their game later.
But on the other half of the table, it was all about glitz and glamour as the three of us engaged in turf wars over some prime real estate along Sunset Strip. I made the early running, thanks to a purple casino that paid out a lot early on, but before long my tiny little two-square casinos weren't doing it any more, and Joe and Steve both overtook me.
Despite some desperate trading (hence the title, since brown casinos became pretty desirable late in the game), and a fair bit of luck on gambling, I couldn't close the gap on Lucky Joe or Steve and his glittering Golden Palace right on the strip which was bound to pay out, and it did. Joe spent too much money trying to gain control of any casinos he didn't already have, and when that didn't work and the game ended in the next round, it left Steve in a fine position to win on a tie-breaker since he had the most money.
Steve 44
Joe 44
Andrew 26
The results for Tinners' Trail:
Sam 154
Anja 113
Jonny 107
And they had a short spell on TransAmerica while we finished off Lords of Vegas
Sam 1
Anja 3
Jonny 12
| Points | ||||||
| Sam | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Joe | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Adam | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 13 |
| Steve | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 14 |
| Andrew | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 16 |
| Anja | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 17 |
| Jonny | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 18 |
| Quentin | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Hannah | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
Tinner's Trail was a close thing until round four. Anja engineered herself into good position with mines early on, while Jonny made the running on investments. My ill-conceived two-mine salvo looked exactly that, but my bacon was saved by snapping up a productive mine for a pound on the end of the time track, a trick I repeated at the end of round two. Allied to some lovely tin prices, this put me in pole for the endgame.
ReplyDeleteLords of Vegas was a lot more fun this time — although it was new to Steve, Andrew and I had a better grasp of the open trading aspect, which added in some canniness.
ReplyDeleteAs Andrew mentioned last night, the endgame can feel like it drags a bit, when you seem to have lots of money and not much to do with it.
With hindsight, it is probably worth holding on to your money, as the way the scoretrack works means ties are likely, in which case money might win you the game. So perhaps we were all over-thinking the last few rounds.
I really enjoyed High Society too — it seems to gel a bit more now. Hate those negative card auctions, agonising.
Wow, that's a Quentin-esque run Steve! You just need to do well in two more games and you can retire for the season...
ReplyDelete(I'm not going to encourage Sam to do that though, as then where would we play?)
ReplyDeleteAndrew you left off High Society — wasn't that leaderboard?
ReplyDeleteI thought it wasn't, since Jonny wasn't there and Anja was learning as she went along. So I forgot about it. But now I remember. I won. Hurrah!
ReplyDelete