What I Played Today: April 17

Here I Stand, Final Fantasy XIII

I spent over 10 hours playing a board game today. We barely made it halfway through the game, with the leader 1 solid point away from victory, so we just called it. The game was a six player wargame called Here I Stand, and it was a real interesting experience, although I’m pretty sure that I did something wrong somewhere, because I came in dead last.

The game started out good for me. I was playing the Hapsburgs, who control a lot of territory at the beginning of the game and get more cards to play each turn than most. I used these extra cards as collateral to the English player, giving him a few cards in exchange for him bothering French for me while I came around the Mediterranean and scrapped up points there. I was so focused on getting keys down there than I kinda flubbed the diplomacy and spread myself a bit thin trying to control so many key locations.

By the third turn, everyone turned on me, and fast. I found myself staring down three fronts, and all of the cards that I needed to handle the threats were suddenly gone. I lost four key locations and my leader, and my fast victory suddenly went all to hell, and I plummeted to last place. Meanwhile, while France and England bickered and suddenly turned on each other, the Ottomans and the Protestants charged ahead and were neck and neck in the league.

After a futile attempt to take back one of my capitals, it suddenly became clear to everyone that I was the only one capable of stopping the leading players’ march to power. I agreed, in return for the power to accidently burn all their ships, and managed to stall the game further, taking out a lot of key points and slowing down the march of Protestantism, but it was clear my actions weren’t doing much, and it had been ten hours, so we called it, giving the victory to the rampaging Ottomans.

It was a unique experience, although I find out I don’t like negotiation games with people I barely know. I think I flubbed a lot of the diplomacy just because I was more than willing to take deals, for reasons of “wanting to seem like a cool guy,” but more than likely turned out to seem like a sucker. Once I found out that England was playing everyone and getting more cards than me, it was too late, and I was screwed.

I also played Final Fantasy XIII for some time tonight, and man it is getting long in the teeth. I’ve been running around without plot or boss fight for about an hour, and I’d like to know where they’re going with this, instead of this constant grind to get much needed experience points. I did see an awesome looking monster, but that and a dollar gets me a cup of coffee.