1. 9
members in attendance meant we split into 2 tables. On table 1 Mike introduced
3 other players to “TROYES”, the hit
of last year’s Essen Game Fair. The game theme relates to players employing
citizens to various activities within the city, with the aim of gaining
influence, building the cathedral, defeating enemies that attack the city and
other sundry activities. By these various methods they will gain Victory
points, these being the object of the game. The difference with this game is
that it uses dice as ‘worker placements’ but with the ability to buy dice from
other players, making for a game with multiple options. The city contains 3
principal buildings and a cathedral, upon which are marked locations numbers 1-6.
In a turn players retrieve the coloured dice, 1 for each citizen they have
currently placed in the principal buildings and they throw these dice and place
the result in their own district. They receive income and then 2 event cards
are turned over. These are resolved and some players will lose influence, money
or citizens as a result. They then have to defeat the raiders that are
attacking the city and for each raider they defeat they receive more influence.
The players then get to perform actions of choice in turn order. This will often
involve recruiting a tradesman, placing a citizen on the card for VP’s at the
end and then ‘doing the effect’. The latter means compiling a group of
like-coloured dice, buying from others if required, and then dividing the total
spots on the dice by a figure on the card to perform the effect ‘n’ times…i.e.
total of 12, divide by a figure of 3 means you get to do the effect 4 times. In
this example you can get 4 lots of money, 4 lots of influence, 4 lots of
building etc, the combinations are many. Players have to manage their level on
the influence track as well as their money in order to maximise the dice that
are thrown. They need to populate the
principal buildings in order to gain more dice to throw next turn, so there’s a
lot going on. It’s a bit overwhelming on the first play through and the game
took over 2 hours to complete. Mike had plenty of money early on and used it to
buy others players dice to good effect. Tony recruited an Archer and used this
to gain lots of Influence points and to combat event cards, which he kept.
Freya concentrated on getting citizens in the buildings so she had the most
dice to throw but other players kept buying them from her, so she was cash-rich
but didn’t get to use many for herself. Paul pursued a strategy of using money
to buy influence. The game lasts 6 turns and scores were close until the game
end scoring when Tony gained 6 VP’s for
the high number of Event cards he had accumulated. Final positions were Tony,
Mike, Paul and Freya. Mike would like other members to try the game to give
their verdict upon it.
2. Table
2 saw 5 players playing “SEAFAHRERS
SETTLERS” with 3 expansions. This was only Kevin’s second attempt at the
game and this was rather daunting. Jerry and Poppy were more familiar with the
game and put up some resistance but Robert, who owned the expansions, used his
knowledge to good effect to emerge the victor. The game took over 2 hours to
play so the expansions add to the game length considerably, which may not be to
everyone’s taste.
3. Table
1 completed their evening with a 5-player game of “MANILA” the game about racing
punts up the river to deliver goods and reaping the rewards. Tony and Freya
used the pirate options to great effect and on 3 consecutive occasions
they plundering a punt to grab the spoils. This meant that the other players
became very poor so it screwed the game towards the other 2, but in no way did
that diminish the enjoyment, with much laughter generated during the game. In
the end Tony gained money to the value of 192, with Freya second on 145,
normally enough to win the game easily, so back luck Freya !!
4. Jerry
and Poppy had to leave so Robert and Kevin finished with a game of “7 WONDERS”, the most-played game in the
club. A different experience with 2 players, in which little Military was used.
The eventual winner was Robert, his second victory of the evening.
Games played and
Winners were:
Troyes Tony
Simons;
Seafarers of
Catan Robert Piesse;
Manila Tony
Simons ;
7 Wonders Robert
Piesse.
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