After missing last week, I was very anxious to get back to game night this Tuesday night.  Of course, when I got there and saw the crew already into our Game of the Month!, Acquire, I was a bit disheartened (especially since it was the gorgeous "all-plasticy" 1999 edition, which was like salt in the wound).  Thankfully, after browsing through the shelves of games for a bit, a few other gamers arrived and we started up a game ourselves.

Acquire

To start with, we pulled out my totally non-pimpy 2008 "all-cardboard" edition of Acquire.  Again, it was a bit of a surprise that neither Adam, James, nor James' brother Chris had ever played before, so I explained the rules and we got into it.  Before long, hotel chains popped up all over the place.  We bought shares like madmen, and soon all found ourselves totally broke.  So for 2 or 3 rounds, there was this sense of tension as we all wondered who would be able to cause the first merger.

As it turned out, the Tower chain was eventually connected up to one of the growing powerhouses on the board (American, I believe).  I had made an educated guess that Tower would be one of the first acquisitions, so I had bought a lot of it and took the $5000 major investor bonus.  I traded in a few shares for American stock, but held onto most of it and therefore was the major investor both other times that it was started and consumed throughout the game.

Using that money, I started a cascade where I then picked up the majority or second-place majority in almost every chain just before it was gobbled up by larger chains.  As the American, Imperial, and Continental chains all became safe and grew into the 20-30 tile range, I eventually started converting more and more stock into those companies and picked up extra stock whenever I could.  Eventually, I managed to cause the last merger, ridding the board of all but these three chains and triggering the end of the game.


In the final tally, I was again either first or second in all these chains as well, and won the game by over $20,000. 

Time: 70 minutes
Score: Me $52.2k, James' brother Chris $31.1k, Adam $30.1k, James $15.3k
Ratings: Me 8.5, James' brother Chris 8.5, Adam 8.5, James 6

As before, I had a great time with Acquire.  Obviously, I was pretty unopposed in this game, but I think that it was mostly due to everyone else's inexperience with the game.  It's not that complicated or anything, but there is definitely a little learning curve in understanding how you need to invest in companies that will be consumed in order to power your cash flow.  James was quite frustrated (calling me a "cheating whore" as a result), because he had invested his early money way too broadly, and was so neutered that he only took one investor bonus the whole game long.  

Through this session, I might be starting to see a few imperfections in the game (a possible runaway leader and how bad tile draws can really screw you over), but I still had a great enough time with it to actually raise my rating by a half-point.  We played for 70 minutes, but I was so "invested" (heh, heh... get it?) in the game all along that it just flew by.  I'm glad that we've still got 2 more weeks of it as GotM!  
 

My stock certificates near endgame... along with my final wealth!

Tigris & Euphrates

In making my resolution to play my favorite games more often, I had also brought along Tigris & Euphrates this week.  It was our very first Game of the Month! way back in April 2007, and it is one of my only three "10's" (along with Princes of Florence and Pandemic).  James had played it once or twice before, and he was the one that actually suggested playing it next.

Adam and James' brother Chris were new to Tigris & Euphrates, but I think that reviewing the rules was good for James and I as well.  I used my spankin' new copy of Start Player, and since Adam had the curliest hair, he went first, placing a leader and tile onto the bottom-right corner of the board.  James started in the upper-right corner, his brother Chris started in the upper-left corner, and I therefore tried to keep to myself by choosing the other open corner in the bottom-left.  In the first few turns, my hopes of keeping to myself and building a red monument were dashed when Adam came after me like a monkey on a cupcake*. 

Running away with my tail between my legs, I then tried unsuccessfully to attack him back with an internal conflict, only to be rebuffed when he unloaded 3 Temple tiles from behind his screen.  James, meanwhile, was quietly racking up points in building two monuments.  After obnoxiously pointing out what a serious threat he was, I proceeded to get all medieval on his heiney (actually, all "ancient" on his heiney would be more accurate) through devious use of a catastrophe tile on the one temple attached to two of his leaders.  Later on, I again used another catastrophe tile to again block off his leaders from the monuments, so I racked up a goodly number of red, blue, and especially green cubes in the process.

As the number of treasures started to dwindle, I grew anxious.  I was at only 4 black cubes, and looked to have little opportunity to get many more.  I knew that Adam had racked up some serious points in conflicts against me and others, but I wasn't sure about how balanced his colors were.  James, likewise, had probably accumulated the most cubes of anybody, but most of them were in red and green.  James' brother Chris... well, he had trouble with the conflicts and in remembering how to score points, so he didn't do so hot.  In the end, I didn't see much way to improve my situation, and when I had the opportunity, I linked up another couple of kingdoms and claimed a treasure to end the game.


It was extremely close, but through using all three of my treasures to add to black, I took the win by two points over Adam.

Time: 53 minutes
Score: Me 7 (7B,7R,9U,13G). Adam 5 (5G,6R,6U,8B ), James 4 (4B,4U,9R,10G), James' brother Chris 2 (2B,3R,3G,4U)
Ratings: Me 10, Adam 8, James 8, James' brother Chris 7

I was wondering if my opinion would be different after so much time, but it wasn't.  Tigris & Euphrates is just as tense and exciting as I remember, and I plan on bringing it a few more times as well over the next month or two.

Cold War: CIA vs. KGB

I haven't played this game for about a year and a half, and other than the fact that it's a 2-player only game, there's no good reason why.  After T&E, Adam and I squared off with this little card game and tried to recreate the major battles of intrigue and influence from the Cold War.  Adam chose the CIA, and from the very beginning, he beat me like a rented mule.

On the very first turn, I lost my Director when he accidentally incited civil unrest and was summarily abandoned to die.  It didn't get much better, as turn after turn, Adam would either out maneuver me or I would "bust" by going over the stability level.  At one point, I even won one of the special power conflicts that let me discard it to bring back one of my agents, which I used on my director of course, only to lose him again when he destabilized another country two turns later.  

On the last turn, Adam made great use of his still very alive Director to win the conflict and pick up the extra 10-point objective from the bottom of the deck to hit 100 points exactly.   It was ugly, and when the end mercifully came, Adam had beaten me by whopping 65 points.  Goodbye perfect game night!

Time: 45 minutes
Score: Adam 100, Me 35
Ratings: Adam 9, Me 7.5
 
Cold War: CIA vs. KGB is a crapload of fun.  For such a simple blackjack variant, the theme is very well-integrated and believable, and there are lots of opportunities for clever card play and luck-pushing.  Of course, there's a lot of "luck of the draw" as well, but most of the time you have the opportunity to mitigate it somewhat with the powers of the cards.  The one exception to this are the 1-population objectives (which are the ones that have the special powers you can use if you discard them later).  Since you can only recruit 1 group for these conflicts, you're essentially just playing War (which is neither Cold nor Hot, and pretty much sucked as a game right after I turned 4 years old) for the round.  Of course, in this session, these seemed to be about the only objectives that I could win, so maybe they're not so bad after all! 

The only other issue I have with Cold War is that it can run just a little too long for what it is.  Again, in this game, since Adam wiped the floor with me, it didn't take as long and was pretty entertaining (in a bumbling, comedy of errors sort of way - for me at least) all the way through.

Other Games Played

Acquire
Time: 65 minutes
Score: Chip $35.7k, Steve $34.1k, Alton $28.5k, Josh $24.6k, Britt $21.5k, Chris I $18.5k
Ratings: Chip 7, Steve 8, Alton 8.5, Josh 8, Britt 8, Chris I 8

Galactic Emperor
Time: 121 minutes
Score: Chip 32, Alton 28, Britt 28, Chris I 28, Josh 28, Steve 20
Ratings: Chip 7, Alton 8.5, Britt 8.5, Chris I 6.5, Josh 7.5, Steve 9

Infernal Contraption
Time: 40 minutes
Score: Josh - WIN, Chris I - LOSE
Ratings: Josh 7, Chris I 7.5

Top Race
Time: 40 minutes
Score: Alton $420k, Josh $370k, Chip $240k, Britt $210k
Ratings: Alton 8.5, Josh 8.5, Chip 8.5, Britt 7.5


These two didn't even finish the race!

*My ubiquitous Everybody Loves Raymond reference