Gentlemen,
Pete,
Paul, and Tom--oh wait, Tom realized late in the night when he saw a
Facebook post by Pete about game night that he was not in fact
here--joined me for game night. Insert facepalm emoji here.
We
dined on pizza and corn chips with salsa, cheese dip, and tex-mex dip;
plus chocolate cookies and chocolate covered peanut butter filled
pretzels. And the official beer of game night, of course.
The
big news is that we reached a new level of Uber-Nerdiness with the new
board that Paul 3D printed, including a new robber! Kudos Paul, although
I fear this advance in Game Night technology is the signal that I will
not in fact ever marry again. Ever.
The
new board caused some uncertainty as we adjusted to the new visual
inputs. Paul forgot the desert hex he printed. So we had to use the
original. The major problem is that the ports could use some color to
match the resource hexes for the resource-specific ports. Perhaps Paul
will paint them a bit. Otherwise, outstanding look! Obviously no
plexiglass shield over the board. Maybe Saran Wrap?
Red is brick, green is sheep, olive is wood, gray is rock, and yellow is wheat.
We also had more imported Canadian dice in the mix from my August trip.
Anyway,
Pete was a city-building machine all night. He blitzed to victory in
game one, and coined the Beej Rule, wherein you block me if you even
think I might try for the longest road. "Ow, my nipples!" was a valid
response to that outrage.
Game
two was in Pete's hands and all he had to do was get one more point.
Then Paul took Pete's longest road. And the Pete Tide receded. Luckily, I
was able to trade to get a city improvement on my turn and, with a
point card down, pass Pete and Paul by and reach 10 points. It was
highway robbery pure and simple.
Game
three was following a similar pattern as Pete urbanized rapidly in a
small area around three coastal hexes--how did he get resources in the
first place?! I had but three settlements for much of this game, unable
to get 3 rocks and 2 wheat at one time, I kept buying development cards
to avoid too many cards should the robber come up. I was able to get
enough knights to get the largest army. And as Pete waited for his turn
where he had both a Plan A and a Plan B to win, I traded 2 sheep for a
rock in my one and only use of my sheep port the entire game to build a
second city, leaving me with 7 points--and I had 3 victory point cards
facing down. Before my turn it was actually amusing to listen to Pete
and Paul discuss how I surely had one point card and possibly two.
If God thinks he made up for my June Canada trip intervention, He is wrong. Amazingly, Pete did not yell "Ow, my nipples!"
Also
in either the second or third game--I think game 3, I was the first to
make use of the Peter Clarification on playing a development card when
you want, even before the resource roll. I played a knight to move the
knight to a more valuable Pete resource hex to have a better chance of
denying him a city upgrade to win the game. Had I rolled a 2, I would
have been very upset.
We wrapped up earlier than usual to watch Season 3 Episode 8 of Game of Thrones. It was a good episode. I'll leave it at that.
Anyway,
fun evening. I am honored to host. September game night will be at Casa
Beej. Remember that October game night will be at Casa Joe.
