Rowan Tree and Red Thread

We played a relatively quick game of Race for the Galaxy last night with alaimacerc. Homeworlds were Galactic Developers for Alai, Epsilon Eridani for sammywol and Old Earth for me. With the Galactic Developers out, and Alai getting down Investment Credits in the first turn it was always destined to be a Development heavy game, which didn't suit my Consume strategy too well. I managed to catch up a bit in the mid- to end game with the 6-pt development that gives you points for having one of each colour of world and a spread of exactly one of each kind of world but it wasn't enough to overcome the power of the combo power of Alai's Galactic Developers, Investment Credits and Terraforming Robots, which gave him handy bonuses on both Develop and Settle phases. The Galactic Federation was the icing on his cake at the end. Sam suffered from not getting any useful 6-pt developments out, which hurt her score. The final scores were a convincing Alai 35, Myles 29 and Sam 21.

To ease the sting of that defeat we played a quick game of Roll Through the Ages. What a disaster! Or rather what a load of disasters. I don't remember seeing a game with quite so many droughts, famines, invasions and pestilences before. My poor people were starving most of the way through the game and even the distraction of (part-)building the Great Pyramid didn't keep them happy. Final scores were a bipolar Alai 28, Myles 17 and Sam 16.

Alai now has to promise to lose miserably at the next game or he won't get any more almond fingers.