After Action: September 6th

We had a short crew tonight, but got in a couple of fun games. We also got to enjoy Jerret’s birthday and some Chinese food, so it was a merry night indeed.

We started with Ticket to Ride Europe. We started out with most of us (Jennifer, me, and Jerret) building in France and West Germany, with Dad hiding out in Russia. Our paths tangled a bit but diverged pretty quickly; I headed north to Sweden, Jerret headed north to Edinburough, Jennifer headed into the Alps, and Dad expanded to the west.

As the game progressed, Dad and Jennifer tangled in the Baltics, while Jerret followed my double tracks through scandanavia and tunneled over to Petrograd. I headed south into Spain essentially alone. The game started to wind down with a lot of players very low on trains when Jerret finally triggered endgame. We totaled the score, and it looked like I’d won. Then we noticed that I’d used a station (Stockholm to Petrograd) and Jerret hadn’t– which was enough to swing the victory to him. Well fought!

We turned to Metro next. This was Jerret’s first time playing, but after a few rounds he was quite close. The first game ended with huge gaps between the players– Dad well on top, then me, then Jerret. We tried another game, which was close throughout… until Dad played a cross piece that greatly extended three train’s lives (they all crossed that one tile). He won by about 20 points, while Jerret and I were within a point or two of each other. Jerret pointed out that the delay while planning your piece’s placement was one of the longest game delays of any game we’ve played together. I agree and find it interesting– you’d think Carcassone would bog things down longer, but I guess which plays are good is clearer at a glance.