2004-12-01 RussCon Report

Game Results

Carabande was indeed played at the table, as predicted last week.

The first game of Attika was crazy: I totally brainfartednd placed a tile which left a clear path of 3 hexes to a 2nd shrine for Marty, which he immediately exploited and won. Most embarrassing - apologies to Jeffles and MarkH for my stupidity! The second game I was in, all 3 of us failed to realize that by placing a tile, Clayton only needed 2 buildings to reach a 2nd shrine and win, so none of us prevented him easily doing just that. The third game I managed to connect 2 shrines. I begin to doubt the conventional wisdom that more games of this are won by getting all buildings out than by connecting shrines... Also in the last game, we all agreed that judging ranks by number of buildings on map seemed quite dubious, since someone could really be in a much better position even though they have fewer buildings on the board. So we just said all three of the losers tied for second. It makes one ponder how to determine ranks in games where one person achieves victory. In RoboRally we sometimes keep playing (like a real race) to see who gets to the finish 2nd, 3rd, etc. You could do the same in Attika, but that seems less pleasing for Attika. I also ponder our using gold to determine ranks in Drakon - again, someone with 4 gold may not truly be better off than someone with 3 gold who is next to a 2-gold room. But these are the sorts of questions that have no clear-cut objective answer.

Whatever mojo I once had for Ricochet Robot seems a distant memory now. Both Chad and I only gained 1 chit, against the unstoppable juggernauts Ben and Jeffles.

I had a pleasing win in Saint Petersburg, wherein I got a Library (7 VPs) early on and another building as well, defying the conventional wisdom that big buildings are not the way to win. It helped that halfway through I got the Mistress of Ceremonies, of course. The later 3-player game of Saint P was crazy and played intentionally "fast", supposedly to complete in 15 minutes or less, but apparently it actually took 25 minutes.