CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB - 06/01/2011

1.    9 Players returned after the festive break. On Table 1 Tony led a game of “MUNICIPIUM” by Reiner Knizia. Based upon a Roman theme players are each in control of a powerful family and try to strategically place their family members in the various institutions throughout the municipium and gain the support of the citizens: Scholars, Merchants, Soldiers, and Priests. At various times during the game, if a player has the most influence in an institution, the player can exert the power of that institution and gain the support of certain citizens. Meanwhile, the praefect moves around the municipium and players strive to have the most influence in the institutions that he visits, thereby earning his favour. Each of these institutions have unique powers, and players must decide how and when to use them. The player best utilizing their power will become the most influential family in the municipium. A slightly confusing game that needs another outing. The winner was Lucy.

2.       Table 2 used the games that Santa had brought the Piesse brothers. The first of these was “ACQUIRE”, a classic game about building hotel chains, acquiring shares in them and then eventually merging the chain with other hotels to make profit. In a tight finish Mike and Roger both made the mistake of not investing in shares in the largest chain which gave the majority holding to Richard and denied them both a share of the final dividend. This proved costly as Luke was able to make a lot of money from his holdings and swept to a late victory.

3.       Table 1 played the race game “JAMAICA”, which has been reviewed before. Once again Lucy prevailed, maintaining her good standard from last year.

4.       As table 2 were still playing Acquire table 1 played a silly card game called “FELIX” as a filler. In this game based upon the old pub game of spoof you try to predict the outcome of what cats have been secretly put in the sack. The player who stays in the auction until the end of a round gains all the cards. However if there are dogs present instead of cats they ‘chase ‘ away the high-scoring cats, so the prize may not be worth as much as the winning player bid. After the game duration of 10 rounds Paul was the eventual winner.

5.       Table 2 then started on another Piesse offering, this time a 5-player game of “SETTLERS OF CATAN”. This took over 2 hours to complete as the competition for resources was fiercer than usual for this game. Mike looked out of it when all the other players ganged up on him and Richard looked favourite to win as he was near to completing the Longest Road. Near the end Mike and Roger both had 9 points but Richard was still looking good on 8 points. However some successive dice rolls of the same number gave Mike enough multiple resources that he could trade in on his turn for the necessary cards to upgrade a  settlement to a City to reach 10 points. A lucky win.

6.       To finish their session table 1 played a couple of games of “DAVID & GOLIATH”. Tony won the first game and Geoff the second.

Games played and Winners were:

Municipium Lucy Newbury;

Acquire Luke Williams;

Jamaica Lucy Newbury;

Felix Paul Gulpin;

Settlers of Catan Mike Oakes;

David and Goliath game 1 – Tony Simons;

David and Goliath game 2 – Geoff Williams.