gaming in photos

20 Jun 2009. Through the Ages. This is what we call the "Michael combo" - Michelangelo, the Hanging Gardens and St. Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo (whom we call Michael as if he's an old friend) can give a big culture boost in Age I and II. Ideally you also get some more advanced temples which have more happy faces. He can be a game decider. In this particular game I manage to make this combo, and indeed this contributed significantly towards winning the game. He wasn't that big a factor in Age I, and early Age II, because Michelle had also built some theatres and had good culture. However towards the latter part of Age II, Michael started to pull me further and further ahead, and Michelle never managed to catch up (even though Michael retired by the end of Age II).

Le Havre. This game went pretty well for me. I managed to focus well on two areas which I wanted to focus on - building ships and shipping goods, and the steel industry. I had many industrial buildings, and later managed to build the Bank, which rewards points for industrial buildings.

The view from Michelle's side of the board. She worked more on grain / cattle / leather industries. She bought and built many craftsman buildings in the game, and used the Marketplace often. The Marketplace lets you collect 2 different goods, plus 1 more for each craftsman building you own. Eventually she could take all 8 different goods when she visited the Marketplace.

Galaxy Trucker. Do you notice the mistake? I built a purple alien life support (the purple structure on the lower right connected to the two cannons), but forgot that it needed to be connected to a cabin (white round thing) for it to be effective. So it was wasted, and I couldn't employ a purple alien (+2 to firepower).

Michelle's spaceship. She couldn't find a suitable cannon, so her front cannon pointed right, which is funny.

Lord of the Rings with Battlefields expansion. We tried this many times and still could not win it (this is a cooperative game). I can't recall how Han and I managed to beat it when we played it. Michelle played Sam, and Sam died at Shelob's Lair (2nd last scenario board). I played Frodo, and only managed to reach space 54 on the Mordor board (last board). Unfortunately I was overtaken by events. The event marker reached the last space. Game over.

The battlefield board for the Mordor scenario board. We used Aragorn (hex with 3 sword & axe icons) and Legolas (hex with 2 sword & axe icons) to create a traffic jam for the enemies (the round tokens) to slow their advance. If an enemy needs to move but is blocked at both possible destinations, it doesn't move. This play also redirected the enemies to the exit point on the lower left, as opposed to letting them wreak havoc in the central spiral.

21 Jun 2009. Through the Ages. James Cook stared longingly at the opponent's five colonies (dark green cards) across the table. This was a frustrating game for Cook. I got him as my leader, when neither Michelle nor I had many colonies. After I got him as my leader, every time there was a colony to fight over, I kept losing it to Michelle, despite the power of Cook, the strength from my Navigation special tech, and the strength from my colonisation cards. Cook was probably cursing for being employed by me, a lousy boss who couldn't give him enough support to capture more colonies.

Columbus: So what have you done for your country? I fully utilised my power and captured this nice fertile territory for the motherland. I hand the reins to you, and what have you done? Nothing! Not a single new colony! You were just leeching glory from the old colony.
Cook: (his constipated expression said it all)

These were all the resources available to Cook for colonisation, but every time a colony appeared, Michelle had just enough to beat me to it. Mostly it was because she had a much stronger army.

Michelle's five colonies. I guess I should be thankful that I denied her Cook. Else she would be earning 10 culture points per turn just from Cook!

My civilisation at the end of the game. Victory for me.

My Pyramids is upside down because of the Ravages of Time event - one Age A wonder loses its power and instead generates 2 culture per turn.

Michelle's civilisation. She has been getting Robespierre more often than not lately, using his ability usually only once. We gave a slightly rude Cantonese (a Chinese dialect, spoken in Hong Kong and southern China) adjective to these one-time-use leaders like Robespierre and Columbus - 赵完松. This phrase is often used in the context of you making a girl pregnant and then irresponsibly dumping her.

The other part of Michelle's civilisation.

This was the first time I hit 30 culture points per turn. However later on I checked and found that I may have miscalculated. Oops... Don't tell Michelle.