I met the two Ollis for games today. We played San Juan, where I did the rare choice of pursuing producing as a career. That backfired, especially when I didn’t get a large building. At least I won my first game with Olli M., using a more old-fashioned purple strategy.
Our bigger board game this time was San Marco, which I’ve really ached for to try with three players. It was better than with four. It was also a very balanced match: the final scores were 56-55-53. I though Olli H. would take it thanks to his awesome board presence (over ten cubes more than me and Olli M. had), but we managed to foil his majorities in the end. It was quite exciting. I was also reminded of the immense beauty of San marco art. The board is a real gem.
We also expanded our minds with Black Vienna, my favourite deduction game. We played a timed game and when the chips ran out, nobody knew it for sure. Olli H., however, guessed correctly (he had a 33% chance). Me and Olli M. had the same two right and the same one wrong.
Our two playings of Don demonstrated a reason to keep the possibility of selling of owned cards in the game: I was completely locked out of the game. With merely four chips, I couldn’t get anything, while the Ollis kept throwing money at each other. That was nasty, fortunately the game was fairly short. The second game was more interesting and eventually came down to a tie-breaker, first for me.
3 responses to “Afternoon games: San Juan, San Marco”
I have seen crushing victories by people who just produced a lot in San Juan.
My failure to win wasn’t because of producing, it was the lack of Guild Hall or Triumphal Arch. With one of those, I might’ve won.
If you can imagine this, I’ve owned San Marco for almost two years (discount sale at Funagain) and I’ve never played it. Every time I consider it, I think the game is too difficult to teach. Or at least it requires a lot of patience to learn. One day, though . . .