Gwen wanted me to come with her after dinner to pick out a bridal shower gift for someone at church, so I was about 15 minutes later than normal getting to game night.  A game of Carson City was just getting under way, but it was full, so I was left out in the cold for a while.  I watched a little bit of the wild-west action, but finally got into a couple of other games to fill the time. 

As it turned out, though, this was the closest game of Carson City that we played all month long.  Alton got his very first win (in Carson City, anyway) by having the tie-breaker advantage against Chris, ending it's reign as Game of the Month! on a high note for the man who actually owned the game.

Time: 80 minutes
Score: Alton 41 (+ initiative), Chris 41, Ken 38, Chip 36, Michelle 30
Ratings: Alton 8.5, Chris 7.5, Ken 8.5, Chip 7.5, Michelle 8


Alton and Chris tie, but the old man had the advantage on the initiative track!
Unspeakable Words

Mark and I pulled in two CCG'ers to join in a quick game of Unspeakable Words.  I had absolutely terrible luck, and even in spelling the ironic word to the right, I lost my last sanity and was left gibbering.  Mark, however, sped his way to 100 points and still had the most sanity of everybody.

Time: 18 minutes
Score: Mark 100, Jamie 84, Bandon 83, Me 79 (and totally nuts!)
Ratings: Mark 8, Brandon 8, Jamie ?, Me 7

Cutthroat Caverns

The game of Carson City was still early on, and I thought that Cutthroat Caverns would go over well with this crowd, so we gave it a try next.  Tom joined us, so we made a 5-man attempt at getting the Sacred Item of Unimaginable Marvel out of the caverns.  I jumped out to an early lead, partially because I knew the game best, and partially because Jamie and Brandon were going after each other like monkies on a cupcake.  Brandon took the worst of it and got very unlucky with several monster attacks, so he bought a farm about halfway through. 

I continued to do well, and in the end won it by a mile.  Tom was in a pretty good position to get some points in the last round, at least until he too gave up the ghost. 

Time: 64 minutes
Score: Me 22, Mark 6, Jamie 2, Tom - Dead, Brandon - Dead
Ratings: Me 7, Mark 7.5, Jamie ?, Tom 7.5, Brandon ?


I think that I like the idea of Cutthroat Caverns more than actually playing the game.  It's pretty fun and all, and it definitely has its moments of tension and hilarity, but it moves just a little too slow and takes a bit too long for what it is.  I always make sure to remove any encounters that delay the game, because that can really ruin it.  I'd like to think about shortening it by an encounter or two, but I'm afraid of screwing up the difficulty balance too much.  Maybe I could try 7 encounters but step up the difficulty one level (to the next-highest number of players) and see how that worked.  

Still, it's not a bad little game, especially when playing it with those with heavy RPG backgrounds.

Roll Through the Ages

My main goal for the evening was to play Macao, and Chip said early on that he wanted in on it.  But after Carson City finished up, he jumped into a game of Settlers, so I killed a little time with Kenny and Tom playing a quick game of Roll Through the Ages.  

I got ahead in cities early, then used Agriculture and the thing that lets you sell food for coins to get all the big developments that I wanted.  Of course, it also helped that I rolled 5 or 6 "pestilences" in a row (3 skulls, which cause all your opponents to gain 3 disasters).  So by the end of the game, it wasn't even close. 

Time: 28 minutes
Score: Me 37, Tom 17, Ken 3
Ratings: Me 8, Tom 8, Ken 9

Macao

We had the game all set up and ready when Chip finished his other game, so we could jump right into the rules explanation.  None of us had played before, but I think we got most everything right anyway.  At the beginning, I felt like I was hopelessly behind.  Kenny was able to activate several of his cards and never had to take any negative points from being overloaded.  Tom activated a card early that gave him a point and a gold each turn, so he had a distinct lead in money the whole game.  And despite having the Captain activated (which gives a point when you move your ship 2 or more spaces), I was the slowest to get out of the docks.

The one thing I did focus on some was in picking up goods and claiming quarters in the city.  So once I was finally able to put together a few good turns to activate a few more cards and get my ship moving, I was also able to start delivering some goods.  I activated a couple of cards just in time to double two of the shipments, but both went into the 3-point spots (netting 6 points for each) rather than the already-filled 5-point spots.  On the last couple of turns, though, I was able to connect all my city quarters into one big chain, and that 12 points added to points from a couple of cards I had also activated (two of the Baronesses) was enough to push me past Kenny for the win!

Time: 117 minutes
Score: Me 58, Ken 54, Tom 49, Chip 48
Ratings: Me 8, Ken 8, Tom 8, Chip 8

Macao took a little longer than I'd expected, but the cool thing is that it didn't feel that way.  If anything, it's one of those games where you wish you had a few more turns to make things fall into place. 

I had heard a lot of cool things about the "wheel of time" thing or whatever you want to call it, and I definitely think that it lives up to all the buzz.  The balance of getting resources sooner versus getting more later is really cool, and it takes an interesting mix of planning and luck to get the cubes together when you need them.  Of course, activating certain cards can help you pick up extra cubes (or ignore them), so there are always a ton of opportunities to build combos that build strength throughout the game.

And there are certainly a lot of ways to score points.  I don't have any real good idea about how variable the different strategies for the game are, or if it will always be more about balancing them all, but I'm very interested in finding out.  It was hard for us to see the value of money early on, or how we'd be able to move around to all the different foreign ports, but after just one play I've got a number of ideas about how I could work to use both avenues more efficiently. 

So anyway, my initial impression is that I'm going to really like this game.  But if I have one reservation right now, it's because of how many cards there are in the Building/Person deck.  Not every card is going to show up in every game (unlike the Office cards, which all see play sometime).  So even if you know what cards are in the deck, you can't plan a strategy to use any particular one or ones, because they may never come out.  Right now, I can't decide if that's a cool way to enhance replayability and force flexability, or it's an overly-random limitation to strategy.  Hopefully, I'll get several more chances to find out.


Other Games Played

Can't Stop!
Time: 40 minutes (for 3 games)
Score: Mark - 2 wins, Chris 1 win
Ratings: Mark 9, Chris 9

No Thanks!
Time: 25 minutes (for 3 hands)
Score: James 103, Alton 116, Michelle 161
Ratings: James 8, Alton 8, Michelle 8

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 102 minutes (for 5 games)
Game 1: Alton 60, Chris 49
Game 2: Mark 75, Alton 52, Chris 49, Ken 33
Game 3: Alton 65, Mark 39, James 38
Game 4: Mark 79, Alton 51, James 39
Game 5: Mark 71, James 57, Alton 57
Ratings: Mark 10, Alton 10, Chris 10, James 10, Ken 8.5

The Settlers of Catan
Time: ?
Score: Chip 10, James 6, Alton 5, Michelle 4
Ratings: Chip 9, James 7, Alton 10, Michelle 9

The Stars Are Right
Time: 26 minutes
Score: Ken 11, Chris 9
Ratings: Ken 8, Chris 7