Sam, Joe and I came prepared, for a selection of games that could be played by almost any number from two up to eleven. There were seven of us to start with, and so Joe tempted us with a new experience: Panic On Wall Street. The game of investment and deal-making.
It was a lot of fun, but also quite frantic. There are five rounds, and only two minutes during each round for actual wheeling and dealing. Within these one hundred and twenty split seconds, your plan must be executed.
It’s effectively two games in one. The managers were competing against each other to see how much they could get from the investors. The investors battled according to how well their firms do in the stock market.
Joe invested big style in the volatile but potentially lucrative red shares. This turned out to be a mistake, and mid-game saw him with only $10,000 to his name. Green shares looked like the safe bet, and Hannah and I did well on them in round two or three, before Sam swooped in to close out as many green shares as possible in the following rounds. The plan worked perfectly. Meanwhile, Joe recovered enough to take an impressive second place.
Investors
Sam $615,000
Joe $365,000
Andrew $355,000
Hannah $280,000
Managers
Adam $485,000
Lizzy $360,000
Miles $255,000
We suspect that neighbours Adam and Sam had a little insider dealing situation going on. They certainly seemed very chummy as they celebrated with a feeble high five, just glancing off each others' little finger.
Next, Lizzy retired for the evening, and while we pondered our next game, Sam got out Cube Quest. The new craze that’s sweeping Sam’s kitchen table is a kind of war flicking game, with knights. Joe repeated his “Sir Butteo” jokes from a previous post on this blog. We didn’t laugh, per se, but we all appreciated the effort he put into that pun.
We played three games. Sam beat Adam in a bit of an epic, picking off Adam’s king last, Joe beat me, after flicking a cube deep into enemy territory where I couldn’t get rid of it, and the Adam beat Sam, sending a cube down a narrow avenue of opportunity to take out Sam’s king. An addictive, fast-moving game that, Sam estimates, has been played seventeen times in the last 48 hours.
Then we split into two groups of three. Hannah, Miles and I played Maharaja in the front room, while it was a clash of the Titans in the kitchen, where Sam, Adam and Joe chose to do battle over Tinners’ Trail.
I explained the rules to Hannah and Miles, and noted that Miles – much like his relative, Adam – seemed to grasp concepts frighteningly quickly and make sensible points (plus, he chose yellow for his playing pieces). Hannah, too, got into the swing of things. At one point, she quickly got up, checked something in the rule book, and then put it back down without saying a word. Quite unnerving.
I was doing fine until the closing rounds when both Miles and Hannah chose to take my character card making it difficult to plan ahead. In the end, they completed all seven palaces, but Hannah won on money. I trailed in last.
Hannah 7 palaces and 16 money
Miles 7 palaces and 1 money
Andrew 6 palaces
Next door, Tinners’ Trail had turned into Adam’s Parade. According to all concerned, he took the lead from the start and never looked like letting go. Sam came second and Joe third in a high scoring game.
Adam 154
Sam 127
Joe 114
And then they played Biblios. Joe’s run of non-wins continues.
Sam 6 (wins on tie breaker)
Adam 6
Joe 2
We stumbled out into the night, with Joe crying “Will I ever win at Biblios?!” into the warm summer night. That is probably something we will never know...
And as for the Form Table... Jeez, guys, did anyone realise how close Adam got to the Perfect Five? Just foiled by a tie-breaker on Biblios! We gotta keep an eye on this guy.
| Points | ||||||
| Adam | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Andrew | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11 |
| Sam | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 14 |
| Joe | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 14 |
| Hannah | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
| Miles | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 |
| Lizzy | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 |
Yes Adam realised - didn't you hear the howl of rage from next door?
ReplyDeleteI liked Panic: more a party game than a Tuesday nighter, but worked well with the seven present I thought. Eleven would be mayhem, as you pointed out Andrew: and with an auction of seven new businesses each round, might start to drag...
I'm a bit rusty at Tinners (ho ho). The fine art of timing the auctions eluded me, and a poor tin price in the final round didn't help matters. It was generally a resource-rich game, with decent prices for all but the last round.
And Biblios - my nemesis. One day I will win ... one damned day.
Lovely evening, thanks Han and Ad, and nice to meet you Lizzie and Miles - you were impressively unfazed by such an onslaught of geekery!
Yes, I enjoyed that a lot. I think my favourite of the night was actually Cube Quest - flavour of the month - but Panic on Wall Street was fun and it's always great to play Tinner's. Adam was fairly waltzing his way through the mines as Joe and I scrabbled around him. I forewent my usual tactics of steampumping and embraced the adits early, before realising why I usually avoid them.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently sitting on the train with a light-hearted driver who is describing the stations as 'Ecstatic Exeter' and 'Tantalising Taunton'. It's quite funny to me, but then I've only had about 4 hours sleep.
Panic was fun, although I think it might be quite simple once you have the maths worked out...
ReplyDeleteI think there could be some depth to Cube Quest - how about scattering some rice or other small stuff under the mats to make it even more tactical? You could have hills to launch from or ramparts to hide behind!
In Tinners Trail the adit in round two did stifle Sam's development when prices were high, although the prices stayed high after that so he got the highest round-total in round three thanks to the adit... Joe was also looking good until he took the adit in the third round, so maybe some day we'll get to a point where no-one takes an adit at the start of a round? The boat and miner remaining on the board at the end of round four was unusual too...
Thanks to Lizzie and Miles for such enthusiastic joining-in as well.
Yeah, but round three is a bit late in the day, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteBloody adits. Anyway, here's to 'Naughty Newton Abbott' and 'Prestigious Plymouth'. He didn't mention Totnes at all - maybe he tripped on his tongue there in his youth.