Tuesday 4th October - Tikal

Back to four players this week, and Garry chose Tikal as the game this evening. This Wolfgang Kramer/Michael Kiesling game won the Spiel des Jahres in 1999. One of a series that also includes Java and Mexico. I think we had all played this before except Garry and it was his copy on the table. Steve quickly ran throughthe rules with some clarifications from Richard reading the rulebook. Basically you lay a tile on the board then you have 10 action points to place explorers on the board, dig temples or treasure, build a new camp or swap treasures you have acquired with other players. The stack of tiles are numbered on the backs with letters A through F and as the game progresses 3 volcanoes will be turned over which triggers a scoring round. Temples are scored by the player with the most explorers on them, treasures are scored in sets of 1pt for 1, 3pts for 2 and 6pts for 3.
Steve was the first one to build another camp deep in the jungle, Richard promptly tried to find ways to seal his exits off. Garry had placed a 3 value temple hoping to build a camp near it later but I managed to get there first, luckily it was adjacent to a 4 value temple as well. Both of these had very expensive or no access for the other players so I was able to dig them up to 10 and 6 respectively. Richard declared that he hadn’t got a hope of winning so obviously you know who won this very enjoyable game. He had occupied quite a few temples and scored heavily in the 3rd scoring round and at the end.

Final Scores
Richard 95, Colin 87, Garry 79, Steve 72

Essen draws ever closer and the disappointment I have at not going now gets more accute. But I do have the week after Essen off from work so if Richard is able to get all the games on my list I will be able to drawl over them. LOL!!!!

Happy Gaming!!