Friday 1 March 2013

Merry Princes, Mr Florence

You know, there's something odd about Thursdays, Joe and I remarked as we took the long route to Steve and Anja's. It almost as if they come around a lot slower than Tuesdays.

But this week, after colds continue to play havoc with the fixture list, five of us convened in Easton with Adam making up the numbers, and Sam absent having only just recovered from illness.

We began with a new game, given to Steve by his workmates as a leaving present. Apparently, buying thee board games involved a non-gamer going into Area 51, which seemed to be a bit of a traumatic occasion for them. One game, Spartacus, was too complicated and hadn't been learnt, so instead we went for a card game by Uwe "Bohnanza" Rosenburg, Sole Mio.

Anja had read half of the rules, so we set off, not entirely sure what we were doing but nevertheless enjoying calling out the cards we were playing in an Italian accent. But then, as more rules were read, we learnt that we'd been playing the rules wrong. Not slightly wrong, where we could stumble on and make do, but really quite wrong, needing a whole new start.

We didn't start again. We were too keen to begin tonight's main event, namely Princes Of Florence. I haven't played this game since the pre-blog days, and Joe and I needed a reminder of the rules. Steve went into this game complaining how bad he was at it and how he was bound to finish last.


He got off to a lightning start, leaping into an early lead with his jesters. But as was often noted, this is a game that doesn't take kindly to errors. We allowed Joe and Steve to take back their goes once they realised they'd made a mistake, although Joe decided that on reflection, his mistake was probably what he wanted to do all along.

I made a spirited attempt and wasn't far off the pace halfway through, but I ran out of options by the end of the game, and found myself with nothing to do in the last round. Anja saw both of the prestige point bonuses go up in smoke as she failed to achieve either of their criteria. As such, we both came last.

Rival bars of chocolate stare each other down over a game of "Princes...


Adam came in third, but it was a tussle at the top between Steve and Joe. Steve the pessimist just nabbed a win on a money tie-breaker.

Steve 61
Joe 61
Adam 55
Andrew 53
Anja 53

On the form table, Steve gains a "1" and loses a "6" and so, like a spaceship catapulted around Jupiter's field of gravity, he's launched up the the table to take top spot with just one month to go until the end of the season.







Points
Steve1 1 2 2 4 10
Sam1 3 1 2 3 10
Joe2 3 2 3 1 11
Hannah41 1 2 3 11
Anja4 2 1 2 2 11
Adam3 2 4 2 2 13
Andrew 4 4 1 3 2 14
Jon3 5 15 5 19
Quentin 15 5 5 5 21


And on the monthly Division, we see that Sam has taken first place from me in terms of points, while Joe has gained top spot in points ratio from Anja. James holds onto his first place in the Olympics table.


3 comments:

  1. Princes of Florence - or Romantic Tetris, as it is sometimes known - is a game I'd like to revisit too. And designer Wolfgang Kramer did Maharaja: Palace Building in India, a highly thought-of game that sits unplayed in my cupboard... must get it to the table.

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  2. PoF isn't a game you could accuse of not taking itself seriously - in fact it's about as free of actual 'fun' as it's possible to get and still be a hugely rewarding gaming experience. Amazing to think that it was the spark of Colosseum, a game which is known for laugh-out-loud moments.

    The other game it put me in mind of, as we were driving home, was Railways of the World. There are some similarities - an auction at the beginning of the round, hidden end game bonuses, and the ability to exchange points for money at any time (in the shape of bonds in RotW).

    Actually the similarities don't end there: track-laying is the corollary of building buildings and freedoms, the infrastructure that allows you to score points by delivering goods/building works. And the increasing ceiling for points is there too - engine size vs Princes imposed minimum.

    But whereas with RotW you are all poring over the same space, vying with one another for routes and getting literally entangled, PoF abstracts this into a game of fighting with your own lousy sense of spatial-awareness, against a backdrop of dwindling necessities. It's tough, and chewy, and I can't imagine wanting to introduce any but the hardiest gamer to it. But I enjoyed it.


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  3. Including mine and Paul's creations (and not including poker) GNN have now played 171 different games since the inception of the blog!

    That's right, I counted them.

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