Bets and backstabbing

This Thursday we were five, with the Professor absent and there being no need to split this week we all debated what to play together. Despite some games having been brought along by MaOldie and Crabro, for some reason I can't remember, we ended up playing two old favourites from my own collection beginning with Citadels.

This was a favourite with the Goldstone Gamers too, incorporating as it does some nice opportunities for backstabbing. Each turn players adopt a character and either take money or cards and "build" one or more of the cards in front of them if they wish. The game ends when someone builds their eighth building and then score the value of their buildings plus a bonus for having all the colours represented and one for being first to build eight. Complexity is added by the powers of the adopted characters who can, for instance, do extra builds, rob or assassinate other characters or destroy an opponent's building.

 

I spent a rather frustrating time with only duplicates of buildings I'd already built, in my hand (you can't build more than one of one type) and only red and green buildings. Eventually I did manage to build eight including all the colours but still came last (I think Mrwendell won, with Crabro second, Petra Pan third, and MaOldie fourth).

I could have managed one place better if I had finished the game one turn sooner. As it turned out allowing the game to run this extra turn did me no good at all. Despite last place I enjoyed the game and for once didn't get robbed or assassinated. I wouldn't mind playing this one more often.

The same could be said of the second game "Winner's Circle", a game by the famous Reiner Knizia which I had only played once before despite it being simple and fun.

Once of the reasons is the choice of realistic colours for the horses in this race betting game. The range is white to black via grey and several very similar shades of brown. In some lights this makes the horses frustratingly difficult to distinguish from one another. This was not a particular problem at my table and the game moved at a good pace, fitting the remaining time nicely.

 I had a terrible first two rounds, in both cases backing, and being penalised for backing, the last horse. I made up considerable ground in the third race ending up with about seven hundred and fifty dollars...everybody else was by now on over one thousand, however.

A golden oldies evening that I enjoyed a lot. I hope some more of these games we haven't played for a while get the chance of an outing in coming weeks.