August 2017 Game Night

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.

Beej