Yahtzee for geeks (Alien Frontiers, Vikings, 7 Wonders)

We finally had a nearly normal week at wags, with three people in attendance and everything! It was my pick, but we weren't sure how long we would have so I kept it to relatively short games.

Alien frontiers

Shemp hadn't played this yet, but it,s rather simple so it didn't take too long. Alien frontiers has been a bit of a disappointment for me.... I enjoy it, but not overly. I hadn't yet played it with more than two, and the added interaction and blocking was welcome, but the downtime that comes with it was not so great. In this session I felt that the interplay on the planet was somewhat missing, though. In my last game with Kozure, we had taken advantage of the alien tech cards and their abilities to move space colonies around on the planet and this had added substantially to the game in my opinion. This session, we were mostly just placing them and leaving them be.

Anyway, Kozure managed to win this one. I was in the running, and Shemp was going the "tech king" route which probably would have payed dividends if the game had a lasted a little longer.

Vikings

Tonight was also our second session of Vikings and WAGS. I had been looking forward to playing this again because I had enjoyed the design. Shemp has built his collection out of games that are simple yet engaging straight euros (Carcassonne, Acquire, Transamerica, Santiago, etc). There is a nice mix of straightforward design and tough decisions that makes it a light puzzly auction game.

This one came down to the wire. Kozure and I were tied on points, but he had more left over coins for the win. Shemp looked like he was running away with it at the beginning, but this is one of those games that leaves much of the points for endgame bonuses so it can be unpredictable.

7 wonders

Another game of 7 Wonders. This is consistently enjoyable and I don't see that changing. I might sleeve the cards, because they are starting to show wear ( a problem in hidden card selection games!). We all played uncharacteristically, with me going after military and eschewing science, Shemp doing science and Kozure competing with me in military. It's one of those games where you are rewarded for not doing what the others do, but at the same time once begone down a path it's hard to change it.

With no one else going after science, Shemp managed to accumulate quite a bit. It,s hard to beat an unopposed science strategy.... Shemp won.