The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s Place.
Present: Mark, Brian, Alex, Brad, Paula, Paul.
Played: Carcassonne, Caylus, Amun Re, Princes of Florence, Master Labyrinth.

A rare but welcome appearance by Mark.
Pics by Brad, except for the Master Labyrinth ones at the end.

Carcassonne: I didn’t get to see any of this one, but Brian proudly presented me the following results:
Brian: 71. Brad: 58. Paula: 51. Alex: 50.

Caylus: No participation in this one again for me while I managed fatherly duties. I did get a spectator’s view for maybe a good, but discontinuous, 45 minutes or so towards the end.
It can actually be quite interesting to take the position of a detached observer once in a while in a game like this, to see the relative merits of various plays and the consequences of different turn tactics. As an active player, especially in a game like Caylus with so many “moving parts” (which I’ve talked about here before), one is focussed so intently on their own strategy and perceived needs that strong alternative plays can often be overlooked. I watched as
Alex jumped on the bonus points Favours track, picking up only 1, then 2 points at first - apparently so trivial as to be not worth the trouble. But by the end of the game only another two or three turns later, he’d made it to the end of the track for a tidy total of 15 extra points, nearly 30% of his entire score.
I also watched in dismay as Mark selected the ‘build a brown building’ tile (don’t know what it’s called), not once, but twice without having the necessary resource cubes with which to build the tile entitled to! Perhaps this is an easy trap to fall victim to, as the mind has registered an earlier choice to gain cubes from another tile, not taking into account that the cubes won’t be delivered until too late in the turn!
I’m only slightly miffed that I didn’t get to play this one. But since it is now in the collections of both Alex and Pat, I expect I’ll see it again some time soon…
Approx 30 minutes rules; 115 mins game time with 5p.

Results: Alex: 52. Brian: 48. Brad and Paula: 41. Mark: 26.

Princes of Florence: We split into two groups of 3p at this point, with PoF running at the other end of the table.
Approx. 105 mins total.
Results: Alex: 58. Paula: 52. Brian: 44.

Amun Re: Because this one gets played so infrequently I effectively had to go through an entire rules review before we could start. Before I realised it was three-quarters of an hour later, and we still had not yet revealed the first three region cards! However, once underway Mark, the token newbie, took to ancient Egypt like he’d been there before…
Bidding for regions in this game is a fascinating process - perhaps more tricky for 4 or 5p, but certainly tense enough with three. There’s a trade-off between getting the region you really want versus spending as little as possible to keep enough cash back for the Sacrifice and the all-importat purchasing and harvesting phase. I actually got this balance wrong early in the game and overpaid for one region at a time when I really needed to hang onto some cash. I did this because I was holding a particular bonus points card, and really needed the region to reap those points. The trouble was that this was only turn 2, and to complete the set needed was going to require another very specific region in the following turn (which of course I didn’t get). So I overpaid in the hope of getting an extra 3 on the points track, when I might (in fact, would) have been better off just spending the money on extra pyramid blocks.
Mark succeeded in getting the most pyramids bonuses for both the old and the new kingdoms, but really had no competition in this. I focussed my pyramid building on simply trying to get equal sets across all three regions, and I don’t think Brad’s intentions were any different. By the end, Mark had chosen the best combination of regions for bonus cards and harvest value, paid the right prices, and got the best return for his pyramid investments. He looked like the clear winner from the halfway point of the game.
45 mins rules rehash; 78 mins game play.

Results: Mark: 46. Brad: 30. Paul: 27.

Master Labyrinth: Mark brought this set with him which came in handy as the perfect way to end the night with something light and short for the remaining die-hards (three of us). There’s quite an elegance in the design of this game, although I only wish the movable rows and columns were slightly better distinguished from the non-moving ones.
All three of us noticed that from a completely random starting arrangement of tiles, a well-ordered pattern emerged by the end (only vaguely distinguishable in the low-res pics here). Apart from trying to move your dude onto the scoring chips, one is also trying to make it difficult for opponents, so I would not expect so much order to arise like this. Must be an emergent property of the game.
10 minutes rules; 30 mins game play.

Results: Mark: 136. Paul: 114. Alex: 105.