CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 02/12/2010

1.    Due to the snow and other commitments we only had 7 players in attendance this week. On Table 2 Mike led a game of the new release “LONDON” and introduced Luke to the game.  Because of the need to explain the mechanisms this game took over 2 hours to complete but all the players enjoyed it. Paul used his buildings wisely and this enabled him to obtain 3 shops at one point, all earning him good money. He had planned to use this to pay off the loans he had taken out. He also had several buildings which did not flip so they were active for some time, and this kept his poverty points low.  Mike, Roger, and Luke maybe built too many stacks in their building display and kept gaining poverty points as a result. Mike thought he had a chance of being the one with the lowest poverty points at game end and he thought this might bring him into contention but Paul even managed to achieve that in his last turn. This meant that when all loans had been repaid, and victory points tallied up he ran out a clear winner with 60-odd points to Mike’s 35, Roger’s 21 and Luke’s 19. A classy victory for Paul but maybe the others have learnt a bit about how the cards inter-relate.

2.       Whilst this was going on Table 1 had 3 players playing a game of “PUERTO RICO”, a club favourite. In a tight finish Richard was victorious with 49 points and Robert and Tony tied on 46 points.

3.       As Table 2 had still not finished the 3 other players turned to “COSMIC ENCOUNTER”, an update of a fine game from the past. Each player is the leader of an alien race. The object of the game is to establish colonies in other players' planetary systems. Players take turns trying to establish colonies. The winner(s) are the first player(s) to have five colonies on any planets outside his or her home system. A player does not need to have colonies in all of the systems, just colonies on five planets outside his or her home system. These colonies may all be in one system or scattered over multiple systems. The players must use force, cunning, and diplomacy to ensure their victory. In another close finish Tony was victorious this time.

4.       As Table 2 had still not finished Table 1 played another game of “COSMIC ENCOUNTER “to finish the session. This time Richard came out on top.

Games played and Winners were:

Puerto Rico Richard Piesse;

Cosmic Encounter game 1 Tony Simons;

Cosmic Encounter game 2 Richard Piesse;

London Paul Bulpin.