Game Night

Friday, July 18, 2008
We are rapidly approaching the sale of my house (and thus my move back to Arizona). I decided to try and head down to the Game Shoppe for one last game night. Brian Gomez and Karen Zimmerli were going to meet up with me, as was Mike Garrett (though Mike wasn't sure what time he'd be able to get there as he was returning to town from a trip to Canada). Brian and I had worked out a trade too, so I was going to get a new game for one of my extra copies of an Age of Steam map. At any rate, I got there and Mike ended up being about 30 minutes away, so I pulled out Wabash Cannonball to teach Brian and Karen. As I have learned already, Wabash is not that great when played with new players vs experienced, but I didn't mind playing a teaching game. What happened right off the bat was that I ended up winning a share in Penn (red) for like $12 or $15 - something far far too low. I realized I'd need another share of something, as red was going to dead end pretty quickly. Karen bid up yellow (C&O), so I let that go. I bid up blue (B&O) and let Brian have green (NY). I started expanding both blue and red and then watched as Brian drove green to cut off red. Having no funds, I pretty much gave up or red and concentrated on making blue's value higher. I put up shares of yellow and green, but Brian and Karen didn't want to surrender control of their companies, and it wasn't until that third or forth share of each company that I finally captured some other share. Brian and Karen mostly concentrated on "their" companies, and so I ended up having the only share of blue the entire game. - basically earning me an average of $13 or so each dividend. The game went about as I expected for a three player "newbie" game. This one should really be more interesting when I finally play with folks that have played multiple times (and not just Mike Garrett, but a whole group of folks that have played).
Mike had finally arrived, so we were trying to figure out what to play next. The Shoppe had a copy of Ticket To Ride: The Card Game sitting out, and since Brian and Karen knew the game, I asked to be taught. All I knew was that it was a bit like Mamma Mia and had a memory aspect. Well, that's kinda true. You place train cards into a stack and then at the end of the game, use that stack to complete tickets. There is a slight amount of memorization of what you've been able to turn over into your pile (there is not a shared pile, but rather each player has their own stack to complete tickets) but its not as nearly tough as Mamma Mia. Its light and fast, and I'll probably try to grab this online to complete and order or something.
To finish up the night, we played a game of Medici. Turns out I remembered the auction incorrectly when I taught/played this at the Geekway a month ago - its a one and done, not round and round auction. A well. One and done and its still fun. And I did even better than when we had been in St. Louis.