So, last week I did a few things.
Tuesday, I went out to Mundelein for board games with
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and the motorola crowd. We played scepter of Zavandor. I came in 3rd of 4, and had a great time doing it. I blame it on being stuck with the druid (and not really knowing how to play him). I think the knowledge of dust income is the first knowledge everyone should get. Maybe. Artifacts is another key knowledge.
Wednesday, I had immediately-after-work dinner with medium bigwigs at my agency who were visiting town. Then went to a very disappointing green drinks on alternative energy. They had a PV salesman, a lawyer of some sort, and the guy getting a renewable portfolio standard through the illinois legislature. I care about the technical side of these issues. The politics and marketing make me faintly nauseous. I left early.
Thursday, I went down to hyde park to a discussion group on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I represented the office lesbian’s viewpoint on the matter. I want to get to know the office lesbian better, she sounds really cool. Not counting the moderator, I was by far the youngest there until Richard and his friend Justin arrived near the end. It was an enjoyable experience. Everyone there was very, very liberal on that topic. Still, it’s always nice to chit chat with ones fellow choir members.
I chilled out a bit friday evening, then the weekend happened. I did end up soloing pride on sunday. I enjoy walking against the course of the parade. It’s like fast forwarding through a porn or something. Very, very commercial. Lots of politicians and various alcohol floats. It was funny to me that one of the most ridiculous jiggling manflesh floats I saw was by RedEye, the throw away tripe rag put out for commuters by the chicago tribune.
Then board games, not excessively attended, perhaps ideally attended. I taught St Petersburg and Tichu. Both were well received. Excellent. I learned a thing or two about St Petersburg. Tichu was also most interesting. My partner (
) and I were seriously down. Then I channeled
. I grand tichued sight unseen, pulled off a grand tichu 1-2. Then the voice of caution kicked in. I looked at the cards before grand tichuing. We again 1-2ed. We went from trailing with 315 v 785 or so to winning the game in two hands. It was fun.
And now it’s monday. My night to chill, pay the bills, do some laundry etc. More suburban board gaming tomorrow. (Arkham horror!) Wednesday, I’m checking out the twin spirit tribe’s “tribal fusion dance” (wow, that sounds really lame…), thursday, well, we’ll just say I have plans, and leave it at that. Then friday, it’s back to Ohio, for dad’s welcome back from Iraq party. Fun, fun, fun.
When I played Scepter of Zavandor, I came in dead last, but had a ton of fun doing it. I’d do it again. 🙂
Ok, so I’ve only played once, but here’s how I see it. With the druid, you have to work for affordable rubies as fast as you can. Ignore everything else. Let other people waste their time with emeralds and diamonds. First get to 4 saphires, one opal, getting ranks in ruby-knowledge ASAP. Once you can buy your first ruby advance up the cheap gems track until your ruby comes within reach. Then finish off cheap gems, and then the ruby track, and fill your pentagon. You should be ready to begin end-game artifact purchasing and hand building once this is done.
Playing the kobold (?) who starts out on the ‘more gems’ track, I knew I needed to use that to build out an income on more cheaper gems, which is why I went after emeralds as soon as I could, bought the ‘extra spaces’ artifacts, and ignored rubies until I was already pulling in two concentrated cards a turn.
The ‘cheaper gems’ guy has a similar strategy to follow. I think the artifact, the income, and the free card players have the toughest time of it. I’m not sure that the free cards really pay back what you have to put into them, the income accelerates your early game but isn’t worth as much later on, and the discounts on artifacts aren’t as large a differentiator given the cash-suck that artifacts can be. I’m not sure that that many of the artifacts are really worth the cost of buying. Not that that stopped me….
I have your grand tichu right here. 😛