Tuesday 8th August - Nautilus

Tonight saw a guest appearance of Jo, who joined us at Steve's to play the 2002 Kosmos game Nautilus, designed by Brigitte and Wolfgang Ditt. I had never played before but all the others had, so while we waited for Jo who was running a bit late Richard went over the rules. Ah...well, that is after Steve had printed them off of the Geek, Richard had left the rulebook at home. Doh!!! Anyway, this is a game about undersea exploration, building habitats and research modules and launching subs to explore. The look of the game is fantastic with all the components being very colourful. I won't go into the rules too deeply, you can look them up on the Geek if you have to, but after my first playing I can see that each turn offers multiple options at every phase of the game. This can lead in my experience to analysis paralysis, as was the case here. I must admit that I had lost interest about halfway through and my turns were very perfunctory. I mainly play games for an enjoyable, social experience and these types of games, especially after a days work, just seem like hard work. I'm sure a lot of people find them immensely enjoyable, fair enough. In the end it turned out to be a fairly close game between Steve, Richard and Jo. My score reflecting my interest. Steve and Richard tied for first place, but a subsequent email from Jo clarified the tiebreaker situation, money in hand at the end of the game.

Final Scores
Steve 90+7 money (97), Richard 90+5 money (95), Jo 84+9 money (93), Colin 60+10ish (70ish)