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Geoffs Diary

3 Oct 2006

Baron

The players were Will (who shall henceforth be known as Captain Spatula for being far too cunning for his own good) playing as Iningo Montoya, Paul Grogan as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Stuart as the Yellow Knight and myself as Woman with a Parrot.
The game opened with three towers having been placed in the first three turns - a very hotly contested piece of value 1 land. The struggle for this land was mighty indeed, but eventually it was claimed by Montoya. He was only able to hold it for a brief while before the Sheriff came in and took the land from him in a spectacular turn which took him from last to first. Fortunately for the rest of us the Sheriff was unable to keep up his expansionistic ways by virtue of running out of towers, allowing the others a chance to build up some land - he was still able to put several spokes in the works by ensuring few baronys stood any chance of opposing him.
As the game progressed Montoya was able lay claim to several respectable towers, and ensured that his losses were but trifles, it was with this he was able to seize the lead, and even the additional honour the Sheriff garnered by placing in the mandatory bonus fun spots (aka where the tile touched four others) were insufficient to recover the lead. Meanwhile the Yellow Knight was attempting to carve himself out a territory of his own - however he was having some problems with sneaky negative point tiles devaluing his property. Guess people just don't want castles that sink into the swamp...
Elsewhere the Woman with a Parrot was having difficulties of her own; clearly appointing a parrot as chief military advisor was a foolish mistake, for she had only managed to lay claim to territory on the outer edges of other empires, and was unable to consolidate any of them into baronies. Soon the game drew to a close, and the only thing left to do was put a spoke in the wheels of your opponents, sadly the only suitable candidate was the Yellow Knight, and a cursed land soon entered his territory, but it was not enough to drive him out of third place. Victory lay with Montoya, with the Sheriff not too far behind.
Straggling further back was the Yellow Knight, and further below that one woman and her parrot sat wodnering where it had all gone wrong.

 

Mesopotamia

This game opened with the sinister red tribe and the not quite so sinister yellow tribe making great efforts to build the temple. Meanwhile the blue tribe set about expanding their territory and the green went exploring. Yellow and red rapidly expanding the temple, greatly increasing their mana, while yellow also set about consecrating some of the land. The red leader instead decided he would simply steal the resources of others and make use of their temples for his own benefit.
Blue took a slower approach, gathering a steady income of mana, but being unable to increase their maximum at that time, they did, however, have a prolific presence on the board. Green explored much of the game, and was able to rapidly place all their huts, allowing them to turn to the matter at hand - making their offerings. Yellow was able to gain an early lead, and it took the combined efforts of all three tribes to stave off his victory - teleporting him to the far reaches of the map more than once simply put off the inevitable.
Luckily for blue he was able to exploit the situation to his advantage and snuck in his remaining offerings while the other tribes fought amongst themselves. However even this stealthy move was only just enough, had he waited a moment longer yellow or green would have capitalised on the hesitation and taken victory for themselves, with red only a turn behind.