Thursday 13 February 2014

Wonderdom.

On seeing Dominion being drawn from my bag James looked as if he had eaten a tasty looking blackberry only to slowly realise that it had been the cosy residence of a flatulent grub.

This elaborate game of multiplayer solitaire hadn't seen the light of day since I introduced him to the seedy underworld of euro games. However, when I refreshed the rules James quizzically enquired as to why it had seemed so complicated originally. How far he's come....! By the end his opinion had completely switched and was hoping we could have another crack soon.

I selected the Victory Dance set of 10 which allowed for plenty of victory points. Normally my main tactic is to gather as much money as possible quickly and then buy up all of the Provinces but the allure of the Kingdom Cards such as Masquerade, Ironworks and Bridge drew me in. Across the table James was collecting mostly money. In the end James had spotted a neat victory point earner in the Duke which a point for every duchy in your hand. I thought I had bought some as well but I hadn't. James won quite comfortably although it felt like it was going to be closer.

James - 80
Chris - 65

Next up was another card game in the form of 7 Wonders. The two player variant includes the virtual 3rd player Dirk who is generally used to stitch up your opponent by giving him cards you know they want. The choice can be agonising as well as the fact that he gets cards for free first before purchasing from other players. James asked the question what would happen to our league if Dirk won... We decided that it would fall to our relative positions.

In a tactical game involving a good deal of stitching up my win came about in fairly fortuitous circumstances. In the final round I had a choice of the Arena (3 gold and 1VP for each wonder built) and the Craftsman's Guild (2VP for each of my opponents grey cards). Due to my miscalculations i thought they were worth the same because I thought the Guild gave 1 point instead of two. I decided to pick the guild because I thought guilds were nicer. (True story). At the count up James's strong sense of fair play compelled him to point out my error. Had he not done so he would have won due to money count back.
Well done James :)

Chris - 51
Dirk - 48
James - 47

Dirk's shock 2nd place was down to his really strong showing in sciences, which of course we were only too glad to sling toward him...

5 comments:

  1. I dearly wish I hadn't spotted Chris' points-totalling error. I'd have gone to bed a happy, of none-the-wiser champion. But once spotted, I'd have never slept well again if I hadn't pointed it out. Curse my spotting eyes. It all got a bit Chuckle Brothers then with the win announced in a 'to me, to you' style.

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  2. A rather sheepish hooray from me.

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  3. Dominion and 7 wonders! now I am envious...

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  4. I think 7 Wonders is great for two. It's usually really tight and has swung on the last card from Dirk's hand when Andrew and I have played it before.

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  5. I prefer it in all its glory, with 7 or even 8 players!

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