Game Session 3.7.04

Steve, Richard and Jo arrived just before 12 noon and after introductions, Jo had’nt met Tina, and chat we started our session about 12.30.

SAINT PETERSBURG
First up was Saint Petersburg, I had the Rio Grande version. None of us had played before so we all knew as much as each other about the strategy necessary. Jo was the start player and quickly built up a good buildings collection and garnered good VPs from them all game. Money seemed tight for all at the start I concentrated on getting a good worker base to up my income level. Richard didn’t have more than 3/4 workers for a lot of the game. I don’t think there was much strategy going on as this was a first play, anyway at the end I had 100 ruples left but not a lot of VPs.....erm, I think I will need to rethink my game plan next time.

Final Scores:
Jo 127*
Steve 108
Richard 98
Colin 93
*denotes start player

Game Rating (0-10)
Colin 7.5 Jo 9 Steve 7

GOA
Goa is a game that I have read lots about on Boardgame Geek. But the analysis of the auction system has baffled me more than enlightened me! So I did my own thing and hoped it was’nt drastically wrong. There are many roads to victory in this game and Steve seems to favour the expedition card route and Jo followed him down this avenue. I went for colonist development early to get those colonies going, although this didn’t quite work out as you will see. Richard seemed to be developing his tracks fairly evenly. To be fair Steve romped away with this game, developing 2 tracks to the 10 pt level and having all 4 colonies plus those expedition cards to give a very good score of 51. The rest of us all tied for second spot maybe more by luck than judgement. I never got any tracks to 10pts, fatal I think if you have hopes of winning. And I only got the last colony because I drew an expedition card that let me harvest colonists instead of spice. I got it on my last action. Richard was also struggling for that last colony and got his also as his last action. A couple of things to note was that Steve only had one extra action card the whole game (the only time he had he flag), ne never took the money action at all and only bought his own tile in the auction once. Good game.

Final Scores Boards(B) Colonies(C) Bonus(Bo) Expedition cards(Ex) Money(M) Total(T)
Steve 30B 10C 3Bo 8Ex -M 51T
Colin* 21B 10C 5Bo 1Ex -M 37T
Jo 16B 10C -Bo 11Ex -M 37T
Richard 23B 10C 1Bo -Ex 3M 37T

Game Rating (0-10)
Colin 9 Jo 8 Steve 9.5

By the way this game took quite a long time and we had to break with 2 rounds to go for refreshment. The interval gave us time to review the game board so far and re-evaluate our strategy if necessary. Not really anything we could do as Steve had almost won the game by now!!

DIE SIEBEN SIEGEL
This trick taking card game by Stefan Dorra finished of the day. I picked this game up in a game shop in Bad Ischl, Austria when I could’nt find the game I really wanted. Anyway its not a bad closer. Again it was the first play for everyone, so not too sure what the best plays were. The usefulness of the saboteur was debated but Jo could’nt resist and grabbed it to find out if he could scupper everyone’s plans. Richard also dabbled with him (the saboteur that is, not Jo), and they both seemed to have some success keeping their negative points down. Steve on the other hand had a strategy implosion and gathered minus points very easily much to his disgust. Bit of fun anyway.

Final Scores after 4 hands
Colin -9
Richard -14
Jo -14
Steve* -17

Game Rating (0-10)
Colin 6.5 Jo 6 Steve 6

All in all a very enjoyable day which came a close about 8.30. Must do it again soon.