Session - 7 Wonders & Citadels

7th of August 2011 (Sunday)

Game(s) Played:
7 Wonders


Citadels



Player(s):
Da Panda
Milo
Nitsuj
Mo

Session – 7 Wonders
Tee-pically, we started an hour late. Someone had to bathe, another person had to eat and others needed transport. Add that to the fact that most of us are now full time, hardcore employees of the economy, I feel our game sessions are getting shorter and shorter as most of us need to show up for work not acting like zombies the next morning. You hear that Playas!? Come on time dagnabbit!

Anee-way. We un-shrink wrapped my brand new copy of 7 Wonders together, truly it was a glorious moment (well, for me at least). Milo seemed to enjoy punching out the components whilst I fished out the cards that wouldn’t apply to the 4 Player game. Game explanation went by pretty quickly and I spent more time focusing on the usage of resources (which somehow confuses most new Players). I explain the concept using the idea of workshops / mines, whereby if you don’t have a resource, you can pay 2 coins to a neighbour who has that particular workshop / mine to rent it for one turn to produce the resource you want. This usually eliminates the normal wrong perceptions that resources are discarded when used or I can’t use that resource after another Player buys it from me.

The explanation for technology scoring always seems to fly over people’s heads and this round was no exception until Mo scored 18 points for technology then everyone sat up and paid attention. And we were off!

As usual, 7 Wonders is nearly impossible to report on because things move pretty fast and you only pay attention to yourself and your immediate neighbours to your left and right. Nevertheless, here’s an attempt at doing so:

[Game 1]
Milo and Mo were my neighbours for both rounds and very kindly provided me with all manner of raw materials which helped me build enough of a technological base to get free upgrades of high value civic (blue) buildings. Mo placed a lot of focus on military might and won most of his engagements, earning a solid 14 points and inadvertently scored 18 points through randomly building technological cards and the guild card that gives a free tech symbol. Da Panda played it simple by sapu-ing all the civic buildings, earning her 26 points in total whilst Milo did a little of everything but had forgotten (or didn’t listen to teaching session) on building her wonder for which she scored zero.

This is Da Panda’s Civilization

You can see the sudden increase in civic buildings here for Da Panda

Mo just before his technological boom which you can see... ...

Here. Right opposite my tableau

Milo enjoying her variety of colours. I believe she misunderstood technology sets to be different coloured card sets which probably gave rise to this multi-coloured civilization

Mo took this game with his military points, complete wonder plus high tech bonus.

Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (58 Points)
2nd – Nitsuj (45 Points)
3rd – Mel (42 Points)
Dead Last – Da Panda (41 Points)

[Game 2]
This round, I didn’t build any raw material buildings which I came to regret in the last three turns of the game. With everyone enthusiastic for technology cards, I just couldn’t establish a strong enough base to get free upgrades in Age II thereby spending the last three turns of Age III just discarding cards because I didn’t have enough money to build anything. There were a few times I gave up tech to boost military but it didn’t pay off in the end. I had to rely on civic buildings to get free upgrades and score some points there.

Mo went full on technology, earning a remarkable 31 points which constituted most of his score. Melody totally gave up on military and spread her scoring equally between civic buildings and technology cards. Da Panda stuck to her guns and kept scoring through civic buildings and an overpowering military force.

A funny thing happened during the game where Mo asked what does a card with three arrows mean and then the next turn having passed the card in his hand to Da Panda, she asks the exact same question and then... yes you guessed it, Milo asked the exact same question in the next turn! Sigh.

Milo with her “correct” technological sets

Da Panda with her winning Civilization. Tee-pically, only the winners civilizations were photographed

Da Panda took this game with her military points, complete wonder plus civic buildings.

Results Of Game
Winna – Da Panda (59 Points)
2nd – Mel (48 Points)
3rd – Mo (38 Points)
Dead Last – Nitsuj (36 Points)

A complete reversal of roles from the previous game. All in all, 7 Wonders was most enjoyable and we were actually prepared to go for one more but Da Panda suggested we play something else which prompted Milo to request for Citadels which she has been doing for some time now. I’m usually reluctant to play with 3 Players but since we had the full ensemble today, we put 7 Wonders away and opened up Citadels.

Session – Citadels
Let me just say something before I start. Don’t play Citadels or anything that is slower after having played 7 Wonders. The pace feels like its slowed down to an absolute crawl because of the stark difference in speed.

[Game 1]
When you play Citadels with less than the full ensemble of characters, picking the Thief or Assassin is always a dicey affair because you may waste your ability choosing a character that was not picked in the current round. Granted the chances are slim but you don’t really want to waste your turn doing nothing with your character’s ability.

Having said that, the Assassin didn’t really get much play, being the character card that somehow got picked to be out-of-play each turn. Each time Da Panda became the King some of us shouted “Bersih! Bersih!” and obligingly I took the crown back each time... We’re just weird in that way. Mo must have gotten an unshuffled hand (tends to happen with my decks these days) as all his buildings were special buildings. I primarily focused on blue buildings first to protect myself from the Warlord’s destroying abilities then with a sufficient base capital expanded into building gold buildings. Da Panda used the Warlord & Magician to cruel effect on Milo who responded in kind by destroying two of Da Panda’s buildings. At the end I had too many high cost buildings to destroy and predictably chose the Architect for my final character because of one of my special building which gives me points for cards in hand.

Thankfully Da Panda picked up the Assassin that round because she was the only one who didn’t guess rightly that I had picked the Architect, enabling me to take the game.

We have yet to try the alternate characters provided by the Dark City expansion, think we will definitely do that in the next game.

Results Of Game
Winna – Nitsuj (34 Points)
2nd – Mo (30 Points)
3rd & 4th – Milo & Da Panda (23 Points)