Bringing back the Nerdy Recap

Lords of Waterderp

Juan just KILLED everyone.  Key here was intrigue cards, he played lots and lots and lots and got pretty good benefits.  Buildings did not play a huge role, on turn 2 we had a selection that just sucked.  So these became road blocked till they were bribed enough to make it worth getting.  

My game got screwed when I saw an opportunity to cascade quests.  I completed quest #1 which rewarded me 4 thieves and a quest.  Which I grabbed a quest from the board and immediately completed.  Whoops.  Should of read the quest closer.  Check that.  I should have read that period.  Quest took like 7 dudes and netted me ZERO points immediately, and two points per intrigue card played from here on out.  I had like 6 moves and 1 intrigue card left when I got this.  Whoops.

Truth is Juan won by 30 points and this had no bearing on the outcome, but playing better means I could have gotten within 10 of the leader.

Alhambra

I won!  Hooray!

I provided more evidence that longest wall wins.  I don't totally believe that, but allowing for exaggeration for effect it is absolutely true.

Anecdotal and with no actual statistics to back this up:  The player with the longest wall wins at least half the time.  Of the remaining wins, at least half of those are won by a player with a very competitive wall; defined as no more than 1 or 2 off the pace in rounds 1 and 2 and no more than 3 behind for end game.  A good wall total is a function of how many players are in the game.  Last night at a 4 player table, 15 was the longest and 7 was the shortest.

Now I had some tenets I played with last night too.

#1)  I cared very little about which suit the tiles were in during round 1.  Early on, you just want to get tiles in play.

#2) If there was an efficient exact change buy, I got it.  In 4 player, chances are every buy is going to advance your game.

#3) If something really helped and I had the money I bought it and said hell with efficiency.  The timing really worked out well because in all 3 rounds an inexact buy was followed by the scoring phase.

An interesting facet was that I didn't win a single color at round 3, but finished 2nd in half the suits and 3rd in the other half.

No Thanks!

My Eeyore like braying about taking the low valued cards proved justified as I got my ass kicked 3 games in a row.