Gaming night

We have just returned from a very nice visit with the Joneses in Geneva this weekend. Lots of sunshine and fun was there. As much fun as everyone waiting on Liam hand and foot can be, I personally enjoy when he pops off to bed and we can play some board games.

On Friday night, we got to play one of my personal favorites, Pillars of the Earth. I have shown this one in the past on the blog, but to remind you, players are each heading a building company in 13th century England. A cathedral is being built and you gain points by managing resources and contributing to the construction.

It is a fun game of managing your workers to gather resources, recruiting craftsmen to build those resources into points, and managing gold to pay for stuff. Quite strategic, with just enough luck thrown in to make it interesting.

Here is the game in the early going. Everyone is thinking hard about what they will be buying... wood... sand... more masons? more carpenters? hmmmm
A close up on the board in the penultimate round. You can see that our hero (ME) as the green player has built up a healthy lead. However I was pursuing a sub-optimal strategy that left me almost no gold for the last rounds... I was getting outbid on all the big points craftsmen by the gold saving Claudia and Doris....As it turned out, slow and steady did win the day. My plan of ensuring I had a couple of points every round instead of saving up for a big push at the end worked out. Claudia as the yellow player actually caught up to me in points, also finishing the final round with 44, but she blew all her cash getting there. I had my paltry 3 gold in the bank which broke the tie and crowned me winner!
Not a crushing victory by any stretch, but it was worthy of me performing the traditional 13th century victory dance.