Gentlemen,
Joe hosted game night in South Lyon yesterday, joined by myself, Paul, and Pete.
Pete and I arrived for the pre-happy hour pub visit and were primed for destruction by the sober Paul.
We
dined on hot dogs with chili and condiments, cookies and peanut M &
Ms, and potato and corn chips with assorted dips. And Labatt Blue (not
Light!! The calories! Arghh!). And Paul had his specific dietary needs
met with actual Girl Scout thin mints, with disparaging comments on my
Keebler ersatz versions made (so cookie shaming is okay now?).
I'm
going to say this right off the bat. Be afraid, gentlemen. Be very
afraid. Pete was a virtual terminator--the P-888 model, apparently,--who
destroyed us all in the three games we played. And in each game he
gained the largest army. I told Pete he should write the recap given
this record, but he declined. So my Beej-centric review will commence as
usual.
In
game 1 I hoped that a solid base of wood and bricks but very weak rock
could provide victory with a staked out empire and trade for rocks. Pete
managed a strong base in everything but sheep including a very good
rock supply and rode that to victory with the longest road and largest
army (apparently riding down the road raping and pillaging as it went).
Joe was SO CLOSE with harbormaster and 10 points. Paul and I brought up
the rear with 5 points, with my only glory being a single city.
Surely
game 2 would be better, I thought. And it was. This time I had rocks
but a weak brick source that didn't hit until the end of the game,
making my oddly high supply of wood on repeated 5 rolls (and Paul whined
about that a lot) useless and mere 4:1 bank trade currency. Sigh.
Still, I had three cities and 9 points, including a victory point. Joe
had 6, Paul had the harbormaster card, 4 cities, and 10 points! But Pete
had 11 points and won the game. Although oddly, my picture of the game
doesn't show who had longest road. Pete and I both had 7 road segments.
Did he have it and win with 13 points? Or did I have it and--perhaps
because of front-loading my drinking--not notice I had won the game
because I didn't notice I had 11 points? Oh good grief. That can't be.
There is no way I could have missed that. I was sobering up by that
point so I could drive home. I MUST have been trying to get longest road
from Pete and he simply bounced the rubble with his point total. The
show off bastard. (Oh wait, I meant to just think that.) Anybody
remember for sure? Anyway, the recorded outcome stands with no asterisk
even if I was too dumb to declare victory when it was within my grasp.
Stuff (possibly) happens. Pete wins!
In
game 3 I was in sad shape penned in with my 8 rock failing to supply me
with any cities. Joe late in the game cut off my last outlet to a build
spot. Ouch. And I could have built to stop him but was hoping to get
the resources to build the roads and settlement in one shot to prevent
him from going his alternate route to block me. Oops. Pete road his
sheep empire and heavy rock presence on 8 (his two cities dwarfed my
single settlement production). Joe had 7 points including harbormaster.
Paul had 8 points and was threatening harbormaster. I had 4 settlements,
the longest road, and was praying for time to exceed Pete's largest
army and somehow do it fast before I lost my longest road--which had an
end point well shy of Pete's building options. And all while trying to
get the remaining point deficit met with VP cards or cities. My only
glory was taking Pete's longest road which led him to proclaim victory
while the rest of him looked at him puzzled until we realized he didn't
know I had taken the longest road from him. But the largest army took
care of that in short order with the usual killing of chickens and
whatnot. And all this despite Pete robbing himself twice in a row
earlier and then doing it late and STILL having the cards in his hand to
promote a city! So it was 11 points after all.
We
wrapped up early because someone "had a lot to do this morning." Joe
made coffee with his fancy machine. And we did watch season 4, episode 9
of Game of Thrones with an epic battle at the wall. But with none of
our special visual dietary needs met. The night wrapped up at the
ungodly early hour of about 12:30 or so. Joe offered us lodging if we
had to.
Pete forgot to bring umbrellas but Paul didn't have his usual Baileys with Joe, so no joke potential lost.
Also
Pete complained that Chef Joe should really be capable of better
cuisine than hot dogs. The spread was tasty so what's up with that food
shaming? Saaay ... was that actually a jab at your mild mannered usual
host for the taco bell feast we had in February? Harrumph. Although I
did wake up at 4:30 AM with gut wrenching stomach pains last night.
Sadly, I'm getting old and can't handle junk food like I used to. Curse
you Father Time.
Also,
if someone knows Tom's new email, tell him to send it to me! My
last game night reminder bounced back so his address looks as dead as if
it had tried to stand up to a rampaging largest army under Pete's
banner.
Much fun! congratulations Pete. We'll be back to Casa Beej in April.
