Oxford Plus Gaming

In attendance:
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Rick Appleton
Simon Canter

No Adrian tonight unusually. Four players though, so perfect for Caylus, which we haven't managed to play in a while.

Caylus
Simon had played once before, as had (I think) Rick. We needed a quick refresher, but I think everybody quickly remembered how to play. I decided to eschew the building track for a change, and build an early Mason. Rick and Ralph did play on the building track, and it worked out quite nicely for them.

Early on, Simon lagged behind a bit. Midgame, he and Rick both built a few wooden buildings which got used a lot by other players, and Simon caught up. Rick started winning favours and used the building track to put up stone buildings and moved into the lead. I was accumulating gold, and was in a position to build a blue building before game's end. Chances are though, that it wouldn't have been enough, as Rick's lead was about 14 points by that time.

Annoyingly, we didn't manage to finish this week either. With only four players, and no lengthy instructions, there really is no excuse - we were just playing too slowly. As it was, at 11pm Rick announced he had to catch his bus home, and we were unable to complete the last two rounds. Everybody else had up to that point been couinting on finishing at 11:20 instead. Normally, Adrian would have been able to give Rick a lift home...

So that's two weeks in a row we've been unable to finish. I'll have to make sure it doesn't happen a third time..

In attendance:
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Adrian Barnard
Simon Canter
Simon Waldman
Rick Appleton

Oh dear. Two whole weeks between updates. Sorry about that.. :-) Anyway, six players is often a little awkward. There aren't that many games which work well with that number, so often you have to split into two groups of three - and there aren't so many games which are all that good with three either! Fortunately, by sheer chance I had brought one of those games which does work with six players: Martin Wallace's marvellous Princes of the Renaissance for the first time in a long long time.

Princes of the Renaissance
The Simons and Rick had not played this game before. We'd brought it out on aTuesday before and I thought it should be possible to finish, even with six. Alas, this was not the case, as for some reason the game went on far longer than I was expecting - and that wasn't with any of the players playing particularly slowly either.

I went with my normal strategy of going for the family which gives a bonus on bidding to be condottierre - even chossing fourth, I was surprised to find it still available. I paid 24 for one of the Milan tiles which also gives a condottierre bonus - a fair price, given our previous games, and was slightly miffed when all the other Milan tiles seemed to go for no more than 12! Adrian amassed a large army. Usually when he does so, he tries to get the Pope - annoying everybody else, but never putting him in contention to win. This time, he used his army to fight battles, and was collecting a worrying number of laurels.

I had explained before the game started that PotR is not a game to be played nicely - the more Machiavellian you can bem the better, and I was pleased to see that the threee new players all took that to heart. In particular, Rick quickly learned that "Steal Influence" tiles can be used to extort influence out of opponents, and in one memorable move, stole influence from Ralph even after Ralph had paid a bribe not to be the target!

The time just flew by though, and we had to call a halt to proceedings just before the end of the second decade. It was annoying to have to finish at that point, because I really wanted to see how the third decade was going to play out. Ralph had a very good set of tiles and a decent army. Adrian had a bigger army and plenty of laurels, and Simon C was accumulating merchants. I was probably out of the reckoning after having overpaid for an early tile, and Rick had made himself everybody's enemy! Oh well, we'll have to bring this one out again when we've got an afternoon to spare and less time pressure. I think the new players enjoyed it, and they certainly contributed to a very interesting three hours.

Adrian adds:

I think this Tuesdays game with six players has to be one of my
favourites. The more players it has the better it gets. Regrettably the
longer it gets too, I'd venture to suggest that it can't be run of an
evenings gaming with six Machiavellian characters all vying to win. We
got pretty much through the second decade, Huw had fallen over for
once!!! The tactic of getting bonuses towards being the leader of
defence or attack had fallen fowl of bidding very high for a required
tile - and gaining it, but then leaving him very short for pursuing any
other tiles conducive towards its optimal functioning. Which kind of
left that field open for me, to compete in on a reasonably even footing
for once. All the same, I never did quite have as much military as I
wanted and sorely missed out on being the Pope whom was snatched up by
Rick on both occasions offered. I was doing well on collecting laurels
for victories, never getting much money for them but defending the
little city while having interests (tiles) in it was still boosting my
ratings and I'd endeavoured to get the same city tiles as the 'good'
players this time such as to hold out hope of support here and there.

I think I was shining enough to get picked on a disproportionate number
of times for theft and treachery, but then being in the lead I'm told by
those who frequent that position tends to mean a disproportionate amount
of ammunition is fired your way. I always make a point of standing up to
extortion too, never did I offer any incentive not to Rob me, so often
the buck stopped there as the extortionist would look a little toothless
just saying "Oh! Okay then." To a flat "No" I was still amused that
others around me had breathed a sigh of relief that their payments of
sometimes up to half of the penalty had avoided the 'full' weight
landing on them. The extortionist meanwhile was rolling in cash or
influence extra to what he'd had before to use against all. I stick with
the "No" reply any day, but look forward to getting such tiles in future
given there are so many other generous players out there I can threaten
to gum to death! My favourite play of the evening was extortion,
followed by hitting that party anyway! Rick's getting himself a
reputation here.

Time gentlemen please! Why does everybody tell me I've got a strong
position whenever we don't finish a game!!!? I'd planned to build up the
cheap cities by purchase of influence tiles, get crossbowmen having
gained their boost tile and war myself upwards gaining laurels as I went
with an all out bid to finally be Pope too, but we'll never know. Still
an excellent event all the same, which is why I renewed with Oxford
group this time.

In attendance:
Adrian Barnard
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble

Only the three of us again tonight. Fortunately there are a couple of maps on Age of Steam which work well with three players. Ireland is probably the best of them, but we've played that one quite a bit, so this time, we tried the Scandanavia map. We had played it once before, but many many moons ago.

Age of Steam (Scandanavia map)
The rules for this map are not much changed from the basic game. The ferries from the Ireland map are there, but the biggest change is the "Move by Sea" action. We quickly read the rules, set everything up... and stared blankly at the map. The distribution of cubes was such that there only appeared one viable starting location, and even then it wasn't clear where else you could go. I took an extra share in the first round and the other two didn't want to get into a pointless bidding war with me. Taking first build, I grabbed the Copenhagen-Helsingborg ferry. Adrian grabbed another ferry, and Ralph spent a while deliberating about which was the least worst starting position, before setttling on the bottom of the map.

Both Adrian and I were able to get some moderate shipping in early with Ralph slipping behind. However, by early midgame, he had built his locomtive up to a 4 link, and was able to ship all along the bottom of the board twice, for an income of 8 (twice) while I was shipping for no more than 6, and Adrian no more than 4. (One notable play involved Adrian shipping by sea a purple cube which I was relying on. When it came to pay my bills, I was one short, and had to move back on the income track from 8 to 7.) This gave Ralph a comfortable lead which he was never to lose.

With Ralph having finished building along the bottom of the board, I built out from Malmo to stop him expanding there. I still had some cubes I could ship for long routes at the end of the game, provided I could build the track in time. Ralph was now forced to compete in Denmark with Adrian.

Ralph did get his train up to a 6 link first, and started shipping big, which gave him a big lead. As I hoped by the last couple of turns his shipping was running out. I was on his tail and managed to complete my tour of north Sweden to give me some long routes at game end. In fact, I'd managed to close up to being only one income behind Ralph on the last turn.

Scoring: I'd taken one more share than Ralph, so I needed 6 more links built to tie. As it happened, Ralph had built the most links in the game as well. Final scores: Ralph 114, Huw 106, Adrian 80.