Gaming in Genf - Day 1

As always when visiting Geneva, we spent our evening playing some games. Well, game in singular this time. Doris and Ryan had recently bought a new game called "The Pillars of the Earth," which is a licensed product, based on the Ken Follett novel of the same name.
The idea of this game is that in the year 12xx the king commissions the building of a cathedral in Knightsbridge, England. The players each take the role of a person with a building company or whatever they had back then. There are then three phases to the round, the first where workers are sent out to collect raw materials like wood and stone, the second where players place their builders on various points of the board to take certain building actions and the third where the points are counted.
These three phases are repeated six times until the cathedral is complete, at which point the player with the most points wins.
I must say, this could be my favorite game at the moment, there is very little left to luck, lots to do at every point in every round and it was a close game every time.

Here you can see us as we first started out, followed by an image of the sisters, deep in thought as they planned how to spend their valuable resources.

Near the end of the game, Doris thought that she had come up with a genius strategy, one that would give her many many points and possible win the game. However, Claudia immediately pointed out that she had mis-read her card and in fact got zero points for her effort.

Look at the first photo, where the evil gloating joy of Claudia can be seen as she crushes Doris hopes and dreams of victory, then in the second image, the anguish and suffering of the Doris as she moves her points marker back to last place.

In the end, it was a little shocking that RYAN was the big winner. Ryan had been having a streak of bad luck lately as far as games go and he was very pleased with this win in a brand new game. The final standings were.

1. Ryan
2. Fraser
3. Claudia
4. The Doris