Tuesday 19 March 2013

All the way to Santiago

Tuesday night rolled around again like a collection of cardboard looming over the horizon, and Joe, Andrew and I (Sam) joined Steve and Anja at their house for pleasures of the abstract. With Anja's bump also looming over the horizon, there was much anticipation of a future GNN recruit before he was even out in the open. But he'll probably rebel (and play Warhammer instead).

We began with a very abstract game indeed - Scripts and Scribes (the dice game, apparently there's a non-dice version) a companion piece to perennial GNN stalwart Biblios. As explained in unnecessary detail in a previous comment by me last week, players are trying to get the most of five different resources, and the play proceeds through dice-rolling and passing the dice around the table until they're all used up. Joe was unconvinced, stating that "it's not Biblios" while Anja liked it for the same reason. What a rich tapestry us gamers weave! In any event my wheedling into favour with the abbot did me well, as did a sudden discovery of three green books near game end:

Sam 62
Steve 39
Andrew 39
Anja 38
Joe 33

Cubes!


Now what? After surprisingly little debate we conclusively went for the oft-unplayed Santiago, a game of irrigation and bribery. Players are trying to raise crops but to do so they need the water to come their way, and that's where the canal overseer/master/captain - I've forgotten the correct term - comes in, and the canal overlord is the player who bid the least that round (and hence picks up the crappiest field to place). How well the players are doing is evident on the board if you care to add it all up, but there's so much going on that we never got around to it until the end. As it was my last round role of canal despot proved enough to squeak a narrow win:

Sam 42
Anja 41
Andrew 40
Steve 37
Joe 29

More cubes!


Though neither game felt particularly long we realised 11 o'clock was fast approaching, and the expectant parents elected to call it a night.







Points
Sam1 1 1 1 3 7
Steve4 2 1 1 2 10
Andrew3 3 2 2 1 11
Hannah41 1 2 3 11
Anja2 3 4 2 1 12
Adam2 2 3 2 4 13
Will1 1 25 5 14
Joe5 4 3 3 2 17
Jon3 5 15 5 19
Quentin 15 5 5 5 21

10 comments:

  1. Hmm, Sam is just one win away from the perfect score of all ones. And Joe, speaking as someone who's been there, it's always a bit embarassing to be below the people who still have red fives on their scores. Still, there's another week still to go!

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  2. Ooh, the perfect five... But what if I did win the first game next week but then lost the second? The perfect 5 would be no more than a fleeting concept, passing between the spaces of form tables in the interfog.

    I was confident in Scripts and Scribes but in Santiago I had no idea who'd won until we counted up. Nice to play that again but boy, it's a little tense. Or agonising, as I think more than one player described it last night. But as agony goes, it was good value.

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  3. Thanks all, enjoyed both of those games, sorry there wasn't time for a nightcap too but we're early birds these days. :)

    I also have to commend the great snackage brought by Joe and Andrew in the form of unfeasibly large pretzels and pick and mix which even themed with Santiago (well with bananas, but thankfully not potatoes!) I wonder if we could from time to time arrange 'theme' game evenings with matching playlists, drinks and snacks, or is that a little kitsch for some?


    Hope to see you all again soon, but if the little gamer arrives we'll be reading the blog with avid interest.

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  4. I think themed evenings are an excellent idea - the kitsch-er the better! When we played Cuba I made sure the correct music was playing, though we didn't smoke stogies and drink rum.

    Santiago is great, though I'm rueing my poor performance. It's interesting in that there is no luck whatsoever - it's all about clever bidding, and keeping an eye on what the other players are after, so as not to waste your money. It's the kind of game I want to play again immediately, to try and better understand the strategies.

    Since you start with 10 pesos and get 3 at the end of each of 9 rounds, doing nothing for the entire game would leave you with 37 points at the end - making my score even worse (I'm reminded of Hammy's assessment of my 7 Wonders performance at Stabcon 2011). So it's clearly a game of tiny margins. I massively overspent towards the end of the game.

    Anyway, great fun thanks S&A, and good luck with the important upcoming stuff!

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  5. Interesting point about points Joe. If you passed every round you'd get the canal overseer at least twice and pick up cash that way too. Plus if the tiles came out as they did last night you'd have a small presence on the board - so you'd be well into 40+ points. I'm beginning to think our scores were a little desultory!

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  6. Now I wish I hadn't pointed that out - I could have blindsided the lot of you next game!
    Not sure it would entirely work; but it certainly gives a bit of context on all the money that gets thrown around. That and not paying more for a tile than it's going to net you at the end (though this is only clear towards the end).

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  7. You know, that bid I put in for the last canal might not have been so clever, since I stayed the same, points-wise, but gave Sam four points. I should've offered two escudos, which would have meant we both would have got two points... and Anja would have won the game!

    Hmm, this game's deep.

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  8. No, wait... I would've won. I think.

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  9. Well you wouldn't have necessarily got the canal if you only bid two. I could have bid three myself and put it somewhere harmless, thus depriving you of the two point raise - but also myself. So maybe you would have won...

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  10. (also myself of 3 points/escudos, to clarify)

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