Saturday, November 18, 2006

Game Night - Nov. 17, 2006

Friday Nov. 17, 2006 - Gamers Inn
I arrived at the Inn this week and there were already a few guys there, so I brought out Colloretto. I've been playing this a bit online and wanted to see how different it was against live folks, instead of bots that I beat all the time. Noah and Miles Antwiller, Jason Sato, Jerry George and I were all playing. We only played 1 round as a number of folks were piling in while we were playing. I finished in second I believe. Next I broke out Power Grid and we decided on the Italy map. I was joined by Noah, Miles, Jerry and Matt Cullinan. As usual, I hated my starting spot the second I picked it and it turned out to be as bad as I thought. Now, about six months ago, I vowed not to play Power Grid with Jerry anymore. He doesn't seem to "get" it, and usually spends the mid and end game just annoying everyone by spending all his cash buying out the resources, rather than keeping up with everyone. This game was more of the same - at least he wasn't slowing down the game. Miles pulled out a good win.
The main event for the night ended up being the planned game of Manifest Destiny. Jason, Noah and I were joined by Rob Smolka and Dion Garner. Manifest Destiny is a game which is very similar to Age of Renaissance - its something of an empire builder with technologies and a whole lot of "raping the leader". What it doesn't have is anywhere near as much book keeping and its about a 3 hour game instead of 8. I enjoyed the game quite a bit, but made the mistake of moving up too quickly near the end of the game. Dion then played 3-4 cards that easily took me right out of the running. Overall, I really liked this game and would play again, but its probably not something that would come out more than once a month.

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