Games Played August 6, 2006

One key to happiness – GAMES

This is a very busy time of year for our family, and time for gaming is at a premium. We did not have the opportunity to game last weekend, and only had time for three games this weekend.

Our first game for the day was Settlers of Catan. It was another unusual game for us, with all but three of the development cards being purchased before the end of the game. I bought 10 of them, including one Monopoly card, one VP card, and 8 Soldiers. Joel bought 9 cards and got 3 VP cards in that group. In addition to being a great game player, he also has a good share of luck. My VP card acquisition rate was 10%, while his was 33%! I did manage to get and hold the Largest Army card, with all those soldiers. Sue grabbed the Longest Road card fairly early in the game, and held it until the last turn, when Katrina managed to steal it from her and win the game. Results: Katrina first; Joel second; Mason, Dan, and me (tied) third; Sue last.

I requested we play Oasis again, after a long absence from our gaming table. I like this game, but have not done really well for quite a while. I acquired a large number of green squares, but could never manage to grab even one multiplier chit for them, which was a major loss. I was building a pretty nice camel herd, but Mason managed to seal off my area, which hurt, also. I was certain I would be the low scorer, and possibly would set an all-time low. However, when the counting was done, I was most surprised to find myself in third place, although quite a ways back from second. Katrina just ran away with it, scoring 110 points, with Dan in second place, 20 points back from her. In fact, each place was about twenty points behind the one ahead of it. We were all surprised about the wide spread. That’s one of the interesting aspects of this game, in my mind – you never know who will win until the scoring at the end of the game. You can see what each player has on the board, but unless you have a great memory and can keep track of four other player’s acquisitions, you do not know how many of each type of the multiplier chits each person has. I had the fewest total number of multipliers, but still finished third, so that is not the best predictor of final scoring. Results: Katrina first; Dan second; me third; Mason fourth; Sue last (with a new low score of 43). It was not a good gaming day for Sue. Sue and I have won Oasis once each, while the other three have each won it twice in our gaming, since acquiring the game in 2004. I believe only Dan and I occasionally request to play Oasis, so it doesn’t get a lot of time on our table.

We wanted to play a game with the whole family, so we finished with Bohnanza. It has now been played by us 94 times in the past five years, tied with Trumpet for most popular game in our family. It, no doubt, will soon become the most-played game in our collection. With seven players, we use all the cards, and twice through the deck goes very quickly. Results: Mason first; Joel and Dan (tied) second; me fourth; Katrina and Sue (tied) fifth; Natalia last. The spread in scores was 6 gold to 11 gold, so only five gold separated seven players. We have had closer games, but even this range shows how competitive we are.

We had a fun time, as usual. We hope to be able to game next weekend, but our schedules are still quite busy and changeable. I think Australia will have to wait until things settle down, and we have more time to relax and learn a new game. Oh well. . . someday.

--- Gerald … near Denver, Colorado
aka gamesgrandpa -- A grandpa who is a mile high on gaming