Extreme Biblios

Us gamers - us real gamers, who prioritise games above the things most sentient humans do - are a little like hurricane chasers. We get a sniff of a vacant couple of hours and we immediately converge upon them, eager to test our wits against each other or, as was the case with 7 Wonders tonight, surf a wave of jam to victory.

I'm talking about myself and Andrew of course, who meet on an almost weekly basis to battle it out. So while Adam wasn't checking his texts, Dan was turning in early and Joe was rolling around in his swimming-pool-sized dice arena (see prev. post), we sat at the kitchen table and discussed our options. I had a mild hankering to try out Campaign but Andrew mooted Arkadia and I readily agreed. No-one else has really bitten with this yet but it's a firm favourite with Andrew and I.

With a brief glance at the rules on a couple of finer points we were away, building buildings and placing workers to the manner born. Last time we played it it was a full-on Tuesday night session and I was obliterated as I held back from placing workers (by Andrew in fact, I seem to recall). But I was sure there was a value in that strategy and pursued the same path again, hedging my bets until an opportune scoring moment came up. I don't know if it's a failsafe approach - it certainly wouldn't be with more players - but it paid dividends a couple of times, and it was enough to secure me a win:

Sam 144
Andrew 91

Andrew chose the second game, and it was another perennial: 7 Wonders, which in a two-player has an additional level of strategy. Like Alhambra the game itself supplies a third player (we also call him Dirk) and each (real) player takes turns deciding what Dirk will do: a chance to prevent your opponent getting their hands on a productive card, dispose of a potential danger or just get Dirk to buy things form you. It was exceedingly close, and despite my plethora of blue buildings (38 points!) I wasn't certain of victory until I very luckily picked up (from Dirk's hand) a cost-effective military card in the very last round to get me ten points:

Dirk, in the baby chair. Forgot to build his monument.

Sam 62
Andrew 57
Dirk 23

We packed in one final game - Biblios. By this point we were both slightly tired and a little drunk so I can't remember how the extreme Biblios gag came about. Rest assured it was hilarious.

Sam 8
Andrew 6

Our gaming yen sated - until Tuesday.