7 Wonders, Ascension, Battlestar Galactica, Taboo
Unexpected game day today, where I went to play with the Tuesday night group for the afternoon. We started with a game of 7 Wonders, which I like but hadn’t played in months. As it turns out, everyone else either had played it way too much (because it hosts a lot of players, so it was popular at the store) or didn’t like it much, but the game plays fast, so it was over quickly. I did not win, focusing on only building things that were free to me so I didn’t have to waste time collecting resources, but it didn’t work, and while I found a workaround that allowed me to build the best victory card in the game, it wasn’t nearly enough.
I also finally played Ascension, which is…fine. I really don’t understand why the first thing anyone says about the game is that it was designed by a professional Magic player, because the gameplay isn’t exactly revolutionary and frankly seems like it’s easily unbalanced. All the cards come from a common deck, and come out pretty much at random, so you have little control over building a strategy, because the cards that will be available to buy and the cards you’ll have in your hand are completely out of your control. The game looks great, and I like the different factions, but it doesn’t seem exceptional, and I’m confused why the designer’s “credentials” are so regarded.
Battlestar Galactica, baby! We set up and were ready to go. There was a lot of Cylon envy on the table, so of course we got the popular players, Baltar, a Cylon leader, and then I picked up Ellen Tigh, because she is the most destructive as a Cylon. So I was a bit guilty of it too. The game started fine, as it usually does, although the Admiral made a lot of strange decisions, including sending us to a destination I’ve never seen before, where you lose half your fuel but the next jump takes half as long. Neat card…if you can handle it. The Cylon leader jumped on board, and we immediately brigged her, because we couldn’t be sure. I wish we hadn’t, because she went into full aggro after that, being really mean.
Then the card flip, and I somehow didn’t get to be a Cylon, but only because there was one Cylon in the deck, and it went to the one person whose been a Cylon every other time we’ve played. She tried to play it cool, but made some really unfortunate decisions that made me certain she was evil, including refusing to be executed when the other option was much worse, and spending a turn in which we were in deep trouble scouting ahead, which was not at all useful. I tried to lobby to get her into the brig, but the quorum wasn’t convinced (because I have a reputation of not being trustworthy, wonder why), and she flips and we are in deep, being pushed back down the jump and then getting quite a few crises that didn’t move us forward, so we languished and died in space. The new expansion really requires you to have multiple pilots, because if you lose a pilot to the toasters, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have all the civilian ships get exploded. I tried to pull our bacon out of the fire, but no luck.
Then a game of Taboo, a game where you guess things. It went about as well as every guess things I’ve played, fun enough, but eventually it gets a bit nervewracking as you worry about if you’re going to get things right or not. There were some moments of culture clash with my partner where we weren’t on the same wavelength, but we eventually got it together. There was also a hilarious moment in which one team got the word “Joe,” which is the name of one of the guys playing with us. So the describer says to effect, “That guy over there.” The guesser misinterpreted the clue and assumed the describer was talking about her neighbor and guesses “Douchebag,” which was probably the worst possible thing that could be said that wasn’t actual profanity. The room erupts in laughter, and we have a story that she will be unable to live down. Hopefully nobody’s feelings actually got hurt.
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