Reef Encounters of the Second Kind

Ed had another game day. We had seven people today so we broke up into two tables (4 and 3). Mike and I wanted to play a meaty game (he suggested Reef Encounters). Thankfully, John decided to play with us. The others went off to play fluffy games. We have played Reef Encounter before. So we only needed to figure out what the expansion offered. And it is three things. The first is an additional set of tiles. They are tiles that can be one of two colors (depending on which side is up), tiles with a blue shrimp on them, tiles that count as two when eaten, rock tiles, deep water tiles, and crown of thorn tiles. The second thing are action cards which give you special, one time abilities. And the third thing is an extra shrimp that can help you protect your coral.

This is definitely a game that I will play again. The cards are mostly pretty powerful and they are easy to get. So I am wondering just how much they will affect game play. I will hold off reviewing this until I get more plays under my belt.

Age of Steam: Northern California

Next up on the meaty table was a new Age of Steam variant. It was one that none of us have played, but was one that Mike said “had good reviews”. When we set up the board and looked it over, I knew that this game was going to be extra tough. There were not many good deliveries at all. Everyone started the game by taking one extra share while Ed decided to be different and took two. I ended up bidding enough to go second with Ed going first. So, I waited to see what direction Ed would go. He chose Urbanization, I went for first build, Mike took Locomotive, and Jon camped on turn order. Since I had first bid, I decided to go for the obvious route of connecting San Fransisco to Half Moon Bay. Ed connected Santa Cruz through Scotts Valley to Los Gatos (urbanized to New City C). Mike took a risk and connected San Jose to New City C. Jon saw a brutal opening left by Ed and connected Santa Cruz directly to New City C. This allowed Jon to deliver the black good sitting on Santa Cruz to New City C before Ed could upgrade his train to handle two city deliveries. This essentially took Ed out of the game (although I will give him credit for playing the game to its completion).

I was left alone for most of the game. And I finally broke even after the halfway point in the game (which is a good accomplishment in this game). My only flaw was that I built too many 7 length connections to deliver goods. I was only able to deliver goods that went along 5 of my tracks and one of Ed’s. Jon was able to mostly keep up with me and was finally able to deliver some 5+ goods. He also benefited from other people using his track (unlike me). Mike was never able to deliver long chains. The best he could do was length 3 goods.

Settlers of Catan

With six people, we broke out Settlers of Catan. Instead of using dice, we used the new deck of dice with events. The events (when they happened) were mostly bad. I liked the deck of dice because it evens out the rolls. All but 5 of the 36 dice combinations will be rolled. With dice, you can have improbable events happen like never rolling an eight (this would suck for your houses on that 8 tile).

I tried to go for different numbers when I placed my initial two houses. Unfortunately, my numbers were not the best (9, 6, 12 and 3, 5, 10). It was the best that I could do going fifth. When I could finally build my first two roads, I picked a spot off to the right. So I was extremely worried when John built there as well. Fortunately for me, I was able to build my house there first. And I was able to grab and keep the longest road from Jon. But Jon was too much the powerhouse in this game and he easily won.

Tichu

Paul wanted to play Tichu, so I stayed late and happily obliged. Paul made the mistake that all new players to this game make. And that is not calling Tichu when you have a Tichu hand. But that skill takes time to acquire. I could have called Tichu one more time in this game but I did not when I thought that it was likely that there was a bomb out there (there was: Ed had a 10-bomb, sigh). Ed’s Tichu call was stopped by two bombs. He could have handled one bomb but not two.