Oh no, you changed your user icon. Now I will never know it’s you.
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Having a weekend with family. My cousin and my husband’s brother are both military and coincidentally stationed at the same place so we’re visiting both. We spent some time with my cousin and her parents today (in town also visiting) and played a couple games of Archaeology. Everyone had a good time with it. Then it was back to my husband’s brother’s. Most that family was out at various activities today but we played a few games of Uno with the brother and his youngest kid (age 11). We’re hoping to get in some games with more of the family tomorrow before we have to head home.
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Sad part is I can’t even remember what it used to be.
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So tonight, we decided to have a bit of a game night after dinner. Started at about 8, with Ark Nova. I rocketed up the attraction track and climbed steadily on the conservation track, thanks to an absolutely ungodly number of sponsors. Won this one, 37-34. Got stupidly lucky at times, I had everything I needed to be more than halfway to BOTH my final countdown cards by the time we went on our first break.
Of course, a rematch was offered. Challenge accepted. Since we didn’t reshuffle the deck, lots of the sponsors were already gone, so the game played rather differently. Wound up focusing a lot more on research icons this time. Didn’t help, as I lost 22-25.
So we were split after two games. This could not stand! One quick break to allow Maryse to take a shower and we were off! Once again, no reshuffling, so we’re down to the dregs. We were both moving along briskly, I was focusing a lot on conservation projects (and once again, getting stupid lucky, as I kept drawing Australian reptiles when these were two of the basic conservation projects), and I managed to call the end-game at JUST the right time, when she didn’t have enough money for her usual shenanigans. Won the game 25-3.
So all in all, those three games took us maybe 5 hours, and not a minute of that was boring or unpleasant. 
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Gaia Project. I seem to play this, then after a few months want to play Terra Mystica, then after a few more months back to this. I think I prefer Gaia Project because it’s not as obvious what to do to win (Terra Mystica- get the tile that gives you points for building dwellings then go to town).
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Shadowy person leaping between buildings, viewed from the ground. Not that you need to change chibi DD.
OT: We had a birthday party for our older kiddo yesterday, and after presents and some socializing we broke out an oldie, but goodie: Sheriff of Nottingham. We had one player completely new to the game, so I didn’t include any of the expansion material, other than maybe some contraband promo cards.
Went over well. My wife demolished us! She claimed 5 apples in the first round, getting her bag back only to have contraband in it, and then claimed 5 apples again the next round (after dumping one during the market phase), got called on it only to have been telling the truth. Additionally she was really good at calling out people lying about their bags. So she won with 189.
Our new-to-the-game friend came in second with 157. I tied with one of our other friends at 143, and her husband brought up the rear with 92. People were feeling bad for him near the end and were basically saying “I think you have contraband in here, but take it back anyway.” 
One person had to leave, and we weren’t feeling like anything requiring much mental processing, so we brought out Crossing, which is a great filler. A minute to teach, probably less than 10 minutes to play, and very quick rounds. We played twice, with my wife winning both games.
Fun day. Hoping to have a Halloween game day in a couple weeks with some Mansions of Madness and/or Cthulhu: Death May Die.
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Got in more games with the family this morning before heading home.
Flamecraft - adorable intro to resource management and worker placement mechanics. Played with husband, his brother, the brother’s wife, and their youngest daughter. Everyone enjoyed it until the youngest didn’t win in the end and threw a fit. Kids will be kids.
Scattegories - went with something lighter and got the oldest daughter to play as well lots of silly arguments over what counts or not for a category, standard for this sort of party game.
The Golden Ticket - oldest ducked out and middle daughter subbed in for this one. It’s a light strategy game themed around Willy Wonka/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Never played before. It was cute. I could see some gamers hating it because of the victory condition. You spend all game collecting chocolate bars then at the end everyone checks their bars for golden tickets. Whoever has the most tickets wins. Which means you can collect 20 bars and get no tickets and someone else could objectively do worse, only get maybe 3 bars and win if they got lucky in getting golden tickets on those chocolate bars. Highly thematic but maybe too much luck for some people. Since all I wanted was to have fun with the nieces and their parents, it was perfect.
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You could just track the number of bars and call that your score.
A Touch of Evil does something like this: you spend the game gathering resources for the boss fight, but if the boss fight is going badly you can run away and try again later. As opposed to London Dread in which you have to decide at some point that now we have enough dice to go into the endgame…
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My wife and I played Everdell yesterday. She was never able to get an engine going, so I won, 61 - 35. Had a great last couple of turns, which got me 11 points.
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Found this strategy guide - read up! How to Win at Monopoly ® - a Surefire Strategy
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I’ve seen one—I think it was linked from the Wikipedia page but I can’t find it now—which pointed out that its strategy not only increased your chances of a win but make it more likely you wouldn’t be invited to play again, which is the real win.
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It’s been a while since I played the old MoPo, but I thought the Monopoly Dice that the modern editions have made the game faster and less painful.
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Although I haven’t played it, I’m told Monopoly Deal isn’t bad—only loosely related to the original game, but it might encourage people who feel positive about the name.
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I had people swear that Monopoly Deal is fun. I would be keen to try if someone brings a copy
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Kingdom Builder Big Box 2nd edition - played with a German girl whose favourite game is KB. Guess who won?
Still great. Albeit, more rukes up front than I would like
Schadenfreude - more games of this and it’s pretty fun. You want to score, but not too fast nor too far, otherwise, the table will be more than happy to feed you with points.
Decent at 3, but best to play with 4 and 5.
Thurn and Taxis
Railways of the World + Western USA - we played with the epic Transcontinental game where we start at Eastern USA board and then the Western half opens up when the Eastern game “ends”. Lessons learnt - I will be playing with the faster game rules next time.
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I see money in the middle of the board. Is that because of the atrocious Free Parking house rule that just makes the game even longer?
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Obviously I hate Monopoly, but I love asking people if they know the edge case rules for Monopoly. Like when are you allowed to build a house? And what happens if two people want to biuld a house but there aren’t enough left? I shame myself.
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I thought the way to win Monopoly was to lose all your money as fast as possible, so you are out of the game and can go do something else?
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The correct way to play is to wait until your cousin gets a monopoly and then you flip the board in disgust.
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