Monday, December 24, 2007

The sun god hates us (Antike, Ra x2, Palazzo)

Last year, in early January, I talked about my favorite games of 2006. I'm sure I'll be doing it again for 2007, but i'll wait until the year is actually over. I mention it only because this week we played one of the two I had decided were my faves for that year, Antike, and I realized (with some sheepishness, that it was the first time since october 2006! (the other, Railroad Tycoon) hasn't been played since Dec. 2006). Do we have too many games if our FAVORITES from last year only get a single play?!!! Hmmm.

Anyway, Antike was up first. Still quite engaging for a chess-like civ builder. Turns are ridiculously snappy, and everything flows very well. I started in Italy, Shemp in the north and Luch in the east. As the early turns were devoted to expansion, I expanded slightly northward but concentrated on getting the triremes out. Luch also went north, leaving behind him an expanse of virgin territory (which he continued to plunder until the end of the game). This left Shemp in a tight spot because he was really forced to deal with possible conflict on two fronts early on. I drew first blood when I attacked Shemp about 2/3rds of the way through the game. That success netted me 2 cards (14th trireme and 15th city). A few more battles ensued, and I managed to win the game by snatching the last unclaimed advancement right from under Shemp's nose.

Next was two games of RA. The sun god was in a pissy mood that night, though. The tiles came out in strange combinations and any player who tried to go long was destined to fail. I entered the 3rd age of our first game with only the 10 points I started with... but fortune smiled on me and I took the game on a massive haul of buildings. In our second game, Luch found himself using only 1 or 2 of his 4 sun tiles in 2 consecutive eras...

We ended with Palazzo. This was a game on the list of "games which were introduced during Shemp's absence", so after a brief explanation we started (Shemp's eyes were glazed over, as everyone's eyes tend to glaze over when explaining the rules to this one. Seriously, for such a simple game the rules manage to sound both complicated and random no matter how hard I try). Shemp won by a large margin, due to two five story/ single material buildings. It seemed to be well received, though I personally am not sure that I like it very much.

Not sure if we'll have another session before the New Year. If not, have a happy holiday!

1 comment:

  1. 1) My eyes tend to glaze over during the reading of the rules to any game. Seriously. I just want to play, and I'll just suck up all the dumb things I do.

    2) Palazzo was a fun one! Not sure what you don't like about it. My only problem with our session was due to pacing, I think. Palazzo would be a good candidate for a night of Conan Brain Gaming.

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