2012 The Winter Edition. "Halfling does not make Jungleboy's day" ... Jungleboy is not impressed ... Scoring the other end game features actually gives me the win, so I think Jungleboy forgave me as I stopped him from overtaking me by 20+ points had he shared 'The Field'.
Yes I did
In the end it won you the game so it was certainly a valid and good move to make. But if you hadn't placed it, I would have won the game, and I needed all the wins I could get by that stage!!
Some random thoughts from me:
- We played much quicker than expected, but in hindsight maybe it would have been nice to have spent 5 minutes after each game discussing the game and the strategy and digesting it all before moving on to the next game.
- I basically always play 2-player games, so maybe that was one reason why I did so badly throughout the day (as well as having excellent opponents, of course!). Along the same lines, the competition was brutal. Twice (winter edition and travel edition), I was extremely close to winning, only to come last.
- The timelapse is great, I love the ending! For some reason I also really like how the boxing and unboxing of each game turned out.
- The City is great with four, I think that was my most enjoyable game of the day. Plus I love how the walls completely surrounded the city, that that hadn't happened in any of my previous plays.
- It was my second play of New World, and that's the spin-off I'm most interested in of the ones I don't have. What I like about the surveyors is that it's a new mechanic that is felt throughout every turn and the whole game - unlike, say, walking in Over Hill and Dale, which is nice and all, but is just a small addition. So that makes New World feel like a very different game rather than just the same game with one or two changes.
- It was my second play of H&G, and while this is a very popular spin-off, I don't think that much of it for some reason. I much prefer Ark of the Covenant for a quick vanilla-type game. Maybe it's because I like history a lot more than pre-history!
JT Atomico and Curt setting up for New World:
And some quick thoughts on the new games I played:
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Discovery: I like not having roads and I like the simplicity of three scoring features in three different ways (a bit like Limes, although it's four in that case). The art is a bit too pastel-like for me but it was a pretty interesting game nevertheless. I could be tempted to buy it if I come across it in a store.
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Cardcassonne: As Halfling noted upthread, we all liked this. I really liked it, so I might get it. The decision about when to play your meeple can be agonising and always seems difficult. Four players seemed like a really great number, because you know that if you don't place your meeple on the row you want, it will probably be gone by the time its your turn again. The fact that buildings encourage taking different rows each turn and animals encourage taking the same row each turn is also a smart mechanic.
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Dice Game: This is a pretty weak game. It was nice to have a break from tile-laying during the Carcathon, but there's barely a game in it.
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Gold Rush: Even though I won this one, I wasn't too taken with it. There were some interesting new mechanics but for some reason these just didn't stand out for me. Colt Express and Saloon Tycoon will have to scratch my old west itch instead!
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Over Hill and Dale: This is a pleasant game with a couple of nice little additions, but at this stage of my Carcassonne 'career', it doesn't feel different enough to warrant buying.
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Star Wars: Not a fan. The Risk-like challenge for features just didn't do it for me.