Settling in at Settlers

So Sunday me 'n Paul have planned to spend the day at Settler's Cafe, whatwith it being RM5 for the entire day there ought to be a good crowd. Warned Paul to gimme a call when he's ready should I sleep the afternoon away. Anyways, was forced up at 1pm becos' me phone was hidden in a pocket somewhere in my room and Chiyo was singing away annoucing the arrivals of SMSes. So in the end got up, prepped up and headed of to pick Paul up and make our way to Settlers for some lunch. Speghetti carbonara. Good. Very good and generous.

We'd set up our iPod and speakers (love you guys it's a great prezzie) in the store and started playing battle music from Final Fantasy, One Winged Angel, music from Heroes all this while while playing our games. Of course, we didn't realise that the music we've been playing was of a particular genre until Zach yelled, "Do you have anything else except game music in here?"

Which leads to the first game of the day. Risk Godstorm. Yes yes Ivan already has this game but we've yet to try it out. Not too big a Risk fan as am not so bloodlusty nor warmongering, but enough so to try the game. As it is, this Risk variant is based on deific mythology (which is always flavourful and interesting) from Norse, Egypt, Greece, Babylon and the Celts. So asides from just armies conquering lands and continents you also have gods running wild.


God of Death not scary? How about being butted by a war elephant?

When we first started setting up we were told the game ends after 5 turns. "Most people think five turns is too short, but you wait and see la." Hmmm. Okay. Set up armies, let my people's faith bring forth Hades, and send the god storming all over Asia Minor preventing enemies from reaching their version of heaven. Muahaha. However, it seems even Hades is afraid of plagued lands and it took a brave soldier to set foot into that territory to smite the enemy. Hmmm.

By turn 3 one fellow was feeling war weariness already while we controlled Asia Minor, another Atlantis and the fight for Germania was waging on between Egypt and the Celts (surely you can guess which civilization I was?). However, us Greeks couldn't help but notice that heaven was being overcrowded by the Egyptians, Babylonians and Norse, and thus had to secure our own altar back into the world. Of course it was somewhere around this time when we found out we were playing the rules wrong, as we've been getting Miracle cards regardless of whether the deity of said Miracle card was in play or not. Nevermind. Play as is. In the end at Turn 5 (phew!) the Greeks held out! All praise!

Next up, while waiting for free kaki three of us decided to Settle at Catan. No Cities, no Knights, just plain ole Catan. The Settlers? The Greeks, the Norse and the Babylonians from Godstorm. It was here where we came up with the 3-Player Theory for SoC: in a 3-player game, one player will definitely suffer badly and not progress much in the game. This time it happened to me for the first time.

After that there was a table setting up Niagara. Having read Hengky's review we'd thought we'll give the game a go, and it was a nice full 5 players paddling up and down the river getting jewels. Being the erratic player that we are, we'd like to call about foul weather to speed up the river currents to send boats over the waterfall. Playing 2 games in all, we won the first through collecting jewels while for the second one we learn that it isn't easy to steal jewels as we like to. Good simple fun to rest the brain though, this game.

...hmmm, it's true what Paul said. Methinks we did 6 games at Settler's but only remember 5...

Could it be Nanaca Crash that made our sixth game? Maybe...

Just before leaving Settler's for dinner (with kind invitation from Paul) we saw Zach being trashed at Blokus by a bf-gf team. Must be wary when playing 4 player games against a couple when you and your friend decided to be honorable and not gang up. While at Pauls, he intro'ed me to Guillotine. Guillotine be a simple card game where nobles of various points are lined up before a guillotine, and each player chops the head off a noble and collect points. After 3 rounds the player with the most points win. Of course, there'll be action cards to shift the order of the nobles in line, add points, deduct points, take 2 nobles at once etc. Simple fast game.


Back from dinner, Gary intro'd Dvonn. Goodness, it turns out to be another braindraining game. You could say it's made for analysis paralysis peeps who enjoy killing people at chess or checkers. It's a simple enough game where you place the Dvonn pieces, stack them about by jumping on other pieces and aim to make the largest stack with your colour on the top. Sounds simple? It was, until Zach played and literally wiped out more than half the pieces on the board by cutting of their connection with the red Dvonn pieces. I was so drained that I lost to him in 7 turns while Paul managed 14 turns.


Last game of the night was Thurn and Taxis. Objective, make mail routes, establish postal stations and earn points. The map was separated into different coloured territories where points were earned if you had a station in all the cities in said territory. Points were also earned if you made longer routes of 5 cities or more, or if you had a station in every territory etc etc. The thing here: the game uses a diminishing point system! Must focus and plan strategy! Not good for erratic players like us as we get distracted quickly.

We never really got to finish the game too...at 10.30pm the rest of the gang joined us to drag us out for DotA.