We had two new games to try, Amun-Re, the new boardgame from Reiner Knizia, and Clans, a great, simple, fast boardgame. Letīs start with Amun-Re.
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Hereīs the boardgame at the start of the game. We all chose the colours and went at it. Notice the nice bits, especially the pyramids at the right side of the table. |
We began the game by choosing the provinces and bidding for them. There wasnīt any bidding war at this early stage of the game so everyone got their own provinces and started to earnestly build pyramids in them in order to rake up the points.
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Hereīs the game at its early stage. As you can see almost everyone had at least a pyramid in their provinces. I was concentrating my efforts on a single province, while everyone bought farmers in order to have a large profit in the later phases. |
The sacrifices to Amun-Re were not large, so this hurt us in the income phase, as each farmer only payed up 2 gold coins each farmer. We started to get short on cash.
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Hereīs the game right before the end of the old kingdom. Red would manage to build four pyramids in one single province to score up high points but the game was well fought and at the end of the old kingdom everyone was close in points, without any clear advantage. |
After the end of the old kingdom, all farmers were removed and the pyramids and building stones remained. It was at this point we started to win lots of money, even though the sacrifices to Amun-Re were still low, which meant low income from the farmers. But because we had a low value in the temple, it meant we could earn further income from provinces with a camel. That rose our earnings tremendously.
In the new kingdom phase, we tried hard to get back the provinces we lost. My province with 4 pyramids was waiting for me to recuperate it back. Unfortunately it went to another player and I lost 4 pyramids.
The sacrifices to Amun-Re were getting lower and lower and so the income from the farmers were decreasing, to the point of only 1 gold coin per farmer at the last turn. There was a small bidding war in the last turn to get some provinces that offered free power cards, but it didnīt dent our money too badly.
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Rui misinterpreted the rule about sacrificing to Amun-Re, so he decided to sacrifice me instead of money. Thankfully the other players caught the error in time and convinced Rui that the sacrifice was to be money and not me. |
So the game came to an end. The scores were far more widespread, as Artur played lots of Bonus power cards to score up high. I didnīt played any bonus power cards, in fact had only 2 power cards, so I saw my position slipping into last.
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Hereīs the game in its last stretch. Lots of pyramids everywhere, in fact every province played had a single pyramid in it at least. Artur had 3 complete sets of pyramids, 3! I was lucky to have one. |
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Bling bling bling! Artur has lots of money cards and power cards! What a lucky bastard! |
So in the end these were the scores:
I got a pitiful last place. Obviously I need to play more to avenge myself.
After the game of Amun-Re we quickly setup for a game of Clans. We quickly setup the board and started playing it. Clans is a nice and fast boardgame and we clocked it at 20 minutes, probably even less, such was the speed of the game.
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This is we setting up the board. Itīs a bit of a pain having to spread out lots of wooden huts across the board. 60 huts to be precise. |
The game played fast, and everyone started to move huts without making the other players suspicious of the colour that each player had secretly chosen. Rui founded the most villages in the game and got 7 chips for the trouble, each chip being worth 1 point. The reds had a good start and remained ahead during the whole game. Thankfully, the colour I had picked was red, so this was good for me.
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This is the game at its early stage. No villages had been founded yet. |
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Hereīs the game at a later stage. Lots of villages everywhere. |
At the end, red won. Nelson ended up last, even behind the tribe that had no human player! We forgot to write up the scores, but we did manage to write the scoring positions.