So I finally got over to my friend’s house again, to get some game time in. It had been far too long since I had made it there, due to conflicting schedules, a bad headache, and some stupidity on my part. But we all made it last night.

We started with a quick 3 person game of Ark of the Covenant, a variant of Carcassonne, which was so much fun the outcome was is blocked from my memory. Or it could be my brain damage acting up again. Whatever.

When our fourth got back from his Good Samaritan work, we turned to a game of Lunar Rails. Another of the many variants of Empire Builder, this one has some interesting changes. Like being able to build completely around the moon, going off of one side and coming back on the other. That is one of the most important aspects of the game, but is also one of the hardest go keep in mind when planning runs.

If you are interested in seeing where the various cities are place on the map, here are a couple of pictures: Near Side Far Side I would not usually worry about this, but is really hard to find good maps of Luna on Google for some reason. They make the cities really hard to see.

I went first, and was planning on running a small payoff of fish from Farside to near Mare Nectaris, then pick up the Circus there (We actually use a variant of the Circus rule. Yes, a variant of a variant. Fun times.) for a double Circus run back to Verne and Mare Ingenii. I wanted to turn over the low paying fish delivery, which I might not be able to do easily if I started with the double Circus run and got good cards heading off some other direction. What I didn’t plan on (Which was stupid of me I know, but again I blame my brain damage.) was Linda going second and starting in Mare Nectaris with a Circus run to the Northwest Near Side.

Needless to say, I had to make a few changes. So I went for a solo Wheat run to Mach, then headed up to Mare Moscoviense for a quick delivery and to pick up Workers. The delivery gave me a Solar Collectors run to Mare Crisium, so it was a build to Kulik for me. Then a build to Hertesprung, where I had finally realized I could pick up the other Circus and deliver it to Mare Ingenii. (This is also where I realized I could have started the game with that Circus for the double run, then went right on to the Fish delivery. Brain damage I tell you. And 3 hours of sleep Thursday night, that didn’t help.)

While I was screwing up my beginning game on the Far Side, Linda was turning over some quick cards on the Near Side, in the small towns between Mare Nectaris and Sinus Iridum. She didn’t get any big payoffs, the Circus to Sinus Iridum being the biggest, but she was cycling cards quickly and had a decent network there. Dan and Dave both started on the Far Side, in Apollo. Fortunately, one needed Aluminum and the other Solar Collectors, otherwise it might have gotten nasty.

They then both headed for Near Side, by different routes. Dan went west, through Mare Ingenii to Balmer and Tranquility Base before taking the remaining cheap routes in the NW that Linda hadn’t grabbed. Dave went north through Hertesprung, to Lorentz, then east to Near Side near Sinus Roris, where he was planning on building through the plains to Hayn, then down to Gauss.

This is where everybody hit a bit of a snag. Dan delivered to Sinus Iridum, and drew a calamity. Linda had drawn the Lava Flow card that prevented movement and drawing in clear spaces, which had stopped Dave’s building in the north of Near Side for a turn and encouraged me to draw to Mare Moscoviense, which didn’t really hurt him, and actually helped me in the long run.

But this time, Dan drew the Moon Quake card that prevented movement or rail building over Alpine, crater walls, and rills and valleys.  Linda lost a few movement, having mostly clear track, Dave was the same, getting caught by a crater wall, I was sitting right outside the crater around Hertesprung, so lost all of my movement, but Dan was really hurt.

His next delivery, was in Pythagoras, only 6 moves away. But he did not have the money to build into the city until he made his delivery in Sinus Iridum. And now he could not draw in because of the crater wall there. He would lose the rest of that turn (No change there, he would have to lose it anyway because he couldn’t draw until movement was over.), the entire next turn (The card doesn’t go away until the end of his turn so no drawing.), then the entire next turn again (Not being able to draw until after movement was over.) This was a really big time sink, so he decided to re-do his entire plan and head east again.

This was the turning point of the game really. I had the Solar Collector run and was thinking about doing a Diamond run to Sinus Roris, since I was going to need to get that way sometime. My initial build had ended just south of the crater wall at Tsiolkovskiy, so I was going to be near that anyway, and it would get me closer to the Golden Spike award. (What can I say? We likes our variant rules.) Then I got to Mare Ingenii. And drew Diamonds to Tranquility Base. Hmm, 33 million at Mare Crisium, 25 million at Tranquility, then 38 million at Sinus Roris. Picking up 2 more major cities and placing me just outside of Mare Nectaris. Yeah, that sounds very good, even moving at 10.

So I chugged to Tranquility Base, after the delivery to Mare Crisium and turned over the Energy Shortage card. Chemicals to any major city for 20 million? And I was 8 outside of Sinus Iridum, 2 out of Archimedes, and needed to build anyway to reach Sinus Roris. All the others could make the delivery. But they would all need to use their next turn to get the product, then deliver on the next. I drew 10 to get to Sinus Iridum and Archimedes, and spent 10 to upgrade to a 12 speed train.

I delivered the Chemicals and finished building into Sinus Roris, and extended my track through Russell and around to the Far side. Next turn I delivered the Diamonds to Sinus Roris and picked up some KREEP to take east for a delivery and finished connecting to Hertesprung for the Golden Spike bonus. In four turns, I made 136 million.

The game was not over at this point, I had spent a big chunk of that money building rail, but I was far in the lead, and the others never got close after that. When Dan drew the tax card, I had 205 million, Linda was just ahead of Dan with 75 million, and Dave was in last with 55 million. Even the 2 meteor showers Dan drew, one after the other, both of which hit my track, didn’t slow me down. I had just went over the destroyed track moving away from the areas hit.

The Decompression and Wildcat Strike I drew on myself did slow me down for a couple of turns, but not enough to matter. Dan was the king of Calamities for the night though. After the Moon Quake card early, he drew both Solar Flares cards, the southern hemisphere Cosmic Ray card, the earlier mentions Meteor Showers, and for his final draw of the game, Airlock Operator Strike. Every one of which, hit him.

The Airlock Operator Strike was especially irritating because of the circumstances. He also drew the Food Shortage card, which pays 20 million for the first person that delivers food to a major city. I was sitting in Mare Crisium with fish on my train, and the 20 million would give me 254 million for the game on my next turn. Dan was in Hertesprung, 2 away from Wine in Michelson, which would keep me from getting the 20 million and help him out big time. But he couldn’t pick up the Wine, because of the Airlock Operator Strike.

So I won the game with 254 million, Linda was second with 165 million, Dan was third with 163 million, and Dave was last with 105 million. I have to say, this was an example of luck making the game a run away. After my initial bad decisions for my start, I had good runs and ran them well. But the 60 million from the various bonuses I got, just because I was in just the right place for them, put me way ahead of the others. The last one for instance. I had the winning run on my train and would have delivered in 3 turns. But all the other players also would have made deliveries in that same time, with at least Dan making it over 200 million.

Most times, the luck is spread out more. But this time, Dan got stomped on, and still did well despite that, and I had it good putting, me way out in front. But Lady Luck is fickle, so it will even out in the future.

Well I finally had a pretty good night at the gaming table last night. I was late getting there, and they had Eurorails set up. This was fine with me, we had not played it in quite a while. Last time was Lunar Rails, which I am attempting to erase from my mind as much as possible.

I had a tense start, choosing to deliver cattle to Lisboa. It took all 50 million to build the track, but I could then take cork up to Holland along the same track, and pick up cheese there to take to Warsaw. And once there, I could take the swine back to Madrid, unless I had some other good draws to take care of from those deliveries.

The trip worked out very well, leaving me with enough money at Warsaw to upgrade to a 12 speed train for the run back to Madrid. Unfortunately I was stuck with one card that was worthless, containing runs into Italy and Britain. The third was a fruit run back to the middle cities, so I had a run back out of Spain.

While the single runs work okay, they do not really do enough to get you ahead in the game. Especially if it is a run from Wroclaw to Madrid. The payoff is good, but it takes a long time to make it, even going 12. Linda was keeping up doing multiple short runs, even taking the time to make a couple of runs into northern England. Dan was doing some good runs with tobacco and marble, with rail from Kalingrad to Porto and Lisboa.  Dave started strong, building from the Berlin area out to Madrid, but he didn’t get any good cards from Madrid back. He had the same problem later in the game, and ended up dumping his cards something like 10 times over the course of play.

I finally started pulling away with a double run of china and tourists to Madrid. I got a quick cork run to Toulouse as well as a fruit to Warsaw, and when I got there, a run of oil to Madrid and pigs to Holland. One more run back from Madrid to Berlin, and then another double run back to Madrid and Sevilla ended the game.

I would not have needed to hit Sevilla, but Dan pitched his cards looking for runs and turned over the Tax card, putting both of us back below 200 million. So I had to pay Dave 4 million to run on his track to Sevilla. And then the turn before I did that, Linda flooded the Loire, so I had to sit there an extra turn before I could rebuild it and finally win. They kept doing things that delayed me. It was almost like they did not want me to win the game.

It was not too late, so we then broke out Ticket to Ride for a couple of quick games. We use the Megagame version of the USA 1910 Expansion because we really like the extra tickets that are available. I kept 4 out of the 5 tickets, with a lot of builds on the East Coast, which is always tricky in a 4 players game. (And just plain nasty with 5 players.) But I started building from Portland to Pittsburgh, only building on the east coast when someone else built in one of the areas I was going to need.

I had just complete the Yellow and Orange 6 train tracks from the west coast, when I checked my cards to see if had kept the card that had Chicago in it. I had kept that card, but I discovered that I had not kept the Portland to Pittsburgh card. I didn’t mind the points from those builds, but the time and cards I spent on them really hurt. I finished the rest of my builds, but the wasted time kept me from getting drawing more tickets, while the other 3 had been doing just that after finishing their original builds. So I did the only thing I could, used up my trains to end the game and catch the others with unfinished routes.

While I managed to do this, catching all of them with unfinished cards, it wasn’t enough to give me the game. I ended up barely in third, with my 4 low point tickets.

We then played one last game of TTR, and again I drew the Portland to Pittsburgh ticket. I only kept 3 tickets of the first 5, not wanting to try St. Louis to Miami or Washington to Boston, going with Portland-Pittsburgh, Vancouver-Duluth, and Calgary-Santa Fe. I figured I could connect the northern cities in my route to Pittsburgh, then build south to Santa Fe for the last ticket. I would avoid most of  the congestion of the east coast and finish my routes fairly quickly so I could draw more tickets.

What actually happened was Dave and I got into a blocking war. Not because we were trying to hurt each other, but because we both needed to connect to the same destinations. I blocked his build from Duluth to Chicago, he blocked mine from Winnipeg to Duluth. Then it got really ugly.

We both managed to finish our routes, at least the ones that we were butting head over, but it took much more time and trains than I was originally planning. I drew more tickets, quickly discarding the east coast ones (LA-Miami? I couldn’t get even as far as Nashville, if I had possessed the trains.) but lucking out with a Calgary-Dallas draw. In two turns, I was there from Santa Fe, and only had 2 trains left, ending the game.

Linda got the Globetrotter bonus, massive coverage on the east coast giving her several complete runs on her ticket draws, and I got the Longest Train card, from the meandering I was forced into by my conflicts with Dave. I also got 60 points from my tickets, putting me at 144, enough to win the game. It was a very competitive game, and we all had fun on it.

So it was a very good game night for me, not as much for my friends. But the next time we get together, who wins will be up in the air. We are all very evenly matched at these games, so we never know how they will come out. Which helps keep them fun.

Went to visit friends last night, like I try to do most Fridays. We generally play games and visit, and eat cheese. The cheese is important. We have only been doing it a couple of decades now, so we already know what everybody thinks about most things, but we say it anyway.

Last night was not a good night at the table for me. While waiting for others to show up, three of us played a game of The Ark of the Covenant, a variant of Carcassonne. It was made a bit more interesting because we were playing on an end table, the large table being used by the children for a game of Killer Bunnies.

The much smaller space made it much easier to decide to close off the castle holding bubba. (The prophet piece. I had to look that up, we never call it that. Big meeples are bubbas, in all the games.) The turn before I played a piece to share sheep with another player, who had more than me, the third player put down a piece to block it. At the endof the game, the third player ended up winning, with me second, and the other player last. If I had managed to share the sheep, I would have won the game.

When everybody showed up, we started a game of 6 player Empire Builder. This is very rare for us, we usually only manage to get 3 or 4 people at a time there, because 2 of us live over an hour away, and the others mostly have lives. We really wanted to make it a game of Iron Dragon or Lunar Rails, but one person had only played once before, and we were getting a late start because of the Killer Bunnies game.

I went first, and because of the 6 players, I decided not to try the sugar run to Chicago I had. I figured it would be too expensive to get through the Rockies since others would grab cheap routes. So I took a shorter double run of Lead to a couple of places in Mexico. Then I watched everybody else build East of Kansas City. The entire eastern half of the US was packed.

That is an example of how the decisions I made worked for the rest of the game. I am not bad at these games, I won the Empire Builder International championship at the Puffing Billy tournament at Origins this last year. But lately I am getting my butt kicked at our weekend games. Good thing I am the only one from them that makes it to conventions.

But it was a fun night, even though I was just over $100 million when the game ended. And the 5th place person had almost $200 million. It wasn’t even close.

It was a pretty good weekend, except for the parts that weren’t. I guess that technically fits all weekends, but at least most of this one was good. Well okay, most of it wasn’t really good. It just wasn’t bad.

Went over to see friends in Indiana Friday night. This is a pretty regular thing, we try to get together every Friday, although we do sometimes have scheduling problems, like holidays, vacations, or illness. We have been doing this for years. Actually, we have been doing it for a couple of decades at this point. We started after college graduation and have kept it up ever since. Even when I moved to Virginia for five years, the others continued getting together. We originally got together on Saturday nights, but moved it to Friday nights earlier this year because it worked better for work schedules.

Why do we go this, for over 20 years now? Well, for one, we like each other. We don’t agree about a lot of things, like politics or religion, but we still like spending time together. We show up, usually at Linda’s house, and spend several hours talking and playing games.

Guess I forgot to mention the games. That is how we started hanging out during college. Sort of. Most of us met and became friends and started playing games there. We had heard about some sort of game dealing with wizards and dragons and wanted to try it. So we found some Basic Edition Dungeons & Dragons and basically taught ourselves how to play. Our DM at the time was not the best, but we still enjoyed the games.

From there, we expanded to board games, especially Risk. We also played other thing, like Rook, Shogun, and Civilization. We were pretty open to playing about anything, as long as we enjoyed it.

Getting older did slow us down a bit. Jobs made it harder to find the time, I lived an hour away from the rest of the group, then I moved to Virginia. But the others kept getting together and playing games. We went to Gencons (before it was in Indy), Origins (I still get to this one as much as possible), and a local game con. One of us died very suddenly on a Saturday morning, a few hours before we got together, leaving his wife and 3 daughters. And still we get together as much as possible.

These days we mostly play train games. We started with Rail Baron, then moved on to the Empire Builder games. We own all the versions and like playing them, but the India version is pretty much our favorite. Well, I am not liking it all that well after the last 2 weekends. My game both weekends was poor to say the least. But that is how it goes sometimes, you just don’t get the cards you need when you need them.

We also played a couple of games of Ticket to Ride using the USA 1910 cards. We like that version because of the large number tickets available, making each game so different. We also play the Switzerland version on occasion. It can get pretty cutthroat, but is still fun. I did manage to win one game of Ticket to Ride, but again failed miserably at the second.

So it was mainly a losing effort Friday night. An hour drive, got my butt kicked at multiple games, then an hour home. Lots of fun. Wish we could get together this week, but the holiday schedule makes it impossible.

Saturday was more fun. I drove to Kentucky and participated in an orienteering event put on by the Orienteering Cincinnati group. It was marginally closer than the event the IndyO people were running. Considering how badly I did, the less time I had to drive to get home, the better.

I do not expect to do extremely well at the events. I left myself get too out of shape over the last year for that. I go to get out of my house, get some exercise, and basically have a fun walk through the woods. But that doesn’t mean I want to do badly on the course. And this time I did. I was doing the orange course and read the map wrong at the first control. (A minor mistake, after all, how important is reading the map at an orienteering event.) So I found the second control first, realized what I had done, and had to go back to the first control, then back to the second. Given my slow speed, this was a real problem.

So I walked through the woods, occasionally frustrated, usually sweating, and trying to find the shortest way between two points. Since I like the straight line definition, I did some of the sections the hard way. It was mostly fun, except for the cramps I had most of the time in my quadriceps. I didn’t warm up enough before starting, and it was a chilly day. They were painful, and driving for over 2 hours getting home didn’t help. Which was why Sunday was not a fun day at all.

Which pretty much leads me back to my first paragraph. It was a good weekend. Except for the times it wasn’t.