How do you pronounce Amyitis?

Image via WikipediaGames night saw most of the regulars involved in seasonal events elsewhere and it was just the Tuesday duo of myself and Crabro who sat down at the table.

We considered another game of Age of Empires, which we have been enjoying, and we also had a look at Steam which I'm sure we will want to play more than once, but eventually we decided to draw a line under the recent spate of plays of "The Works" bargain loot by playing the last unplayed game of the batch: Amyitis

Undaunted by the fact that neither of us knew how to pronounce its name we struggled for quite a while with learning the rules (at least a two cup of tea problem) but once the game was underway felt that at its core it wasn't actually all that complex. In fact any given turn for either player consists of deciding whether to move x steps on the Mesopotamia sub-board or to "Recruit" by turning one of six cards over. The only other option is a pass.

Naturally it is a bit more complex once you take into account the different destinations on the sub-board, the "planting" on the Gardens of Babylon board this can entail, and the specialisms of the "recruits", but essentially it comes down to two options or pass.

At the end of the game Crabro worked out that the options we would optimally choose in our last turns would inevitably lead to an honourable draw. Unfortunately I noticed that this was not the case and my conscience would not allow me to ignore that a final scoring of the temples area of the Babylon board would decide the tie. I hadn't worked this through and when we did it decided it in favour of Crabro by one point. Had I known this I'm afraid I would still have felt it necessary to point out that we hadn't finished though, so I must grin and bear the loss. Crabro generously pointed to the fact it was a learning game and that the tie was fair but, as I have pointed out before, I am quite happy to lose (and do all the time especially with my Frankenstein's monster: the Goldstone Gamers) as long as I feel I have been a competitive part of the game.

On occasions I have been involved in a badly taught game where I have been one step behind the action all the time ignorant of nuances of the game which had been withheld and  I have found this a miserable experience. Losing a game that I have enjoyed and contested keenly though, is no problem at all. This one I definitely enjoyed and I'm pleased to say, that with three exceptions (Ming Dynasty, Ys and Royal Palace), we have got from "The Works" a solid stash of bargain games we enjoy and to which we will return. Not that those three could be said to be bad games either but we just didn't enjoy the experience of playing them ourselves.