Tag Archives: Ascending Empires

BEBGC Meeting Recap 02/20/16

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Attendees: Matt Ackerman, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Ed McGran, Neil Meyer, Dave Olson, Gary Pearson, Ben Samuelson, Kirill Sapunov, Jeramee Scherer, Byron Varin, Theresa Varin, Phillip, Nicholaus

Games Played

Ed (Dracula), Ben (Lord Godalming), Phillip (Dr. John Seward), Jeramee (Van Helsing), and Dave (Mina Harker) played Fury of Dracula. The hunters had Dracula on the run from eastern Europe to Spain and back to eastern Europe. In the end Van Helsing had him cornered and under attack, but he Dracula was able to survive and escape, winning the game!

Kirill, Michael, Chris, Byron, Nicholas and Theresa played King of New York. After a hard fought game, Chris was crowned King!

Matt played Hostage Negotiator, but he was unable to successfully complete the scenario.

Neil, Matt, Theresa and Nicholas played Ascending Empires. Matt won with the largest empire.

Michael, Chris, Byron and Kirill played Kings of Air and Steam. King of Air and Steam Chris won with 146, Michael was just behind at 137, then Kirill at 128 and Byron at 118.

Gary, Kirill, Michael, Chris and Byron played Bohnanza. Chris rounded out his triple crown performance and was crowned king of the bean farmers.

Byron, Gary, Theresa and Nicholas played Ca$h ‘n Guns (second edition). Byron was the winner.

Jeramee, Dave, Phillip and Ed played Defenders of the Realm. The realm was successfully defended!

Michael, Ben, Chris and Kirill played Concordia. Ben handily won with 149, Chris and Michael were tied with 127 and Kirill had 99.

Club Business:

The club voted to purchase Dead of Winter and Xia: Legends of a Drift System, and Ed McGran offered to donate a copy of Forbidden Stars in exchange for 2 years of club dues.

BEWC Meeting Recap 12/15/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Chris Cregan, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, and Joe Kauffman

Club Business: Nominations for 2013 officers are open.

Games Played:

1,2) Michael and Jim started with two quick games of Lost Cities with Jim winning both decisively.

3) Chris, Michael, and Jim played Kingsburg with all of the To Forge A Realm expansions, with Chris just edging out Jim 46 points to 44 points.

4) Greg, Chris, Michael, Jim, and Joe played Lungarno, where Michael won with 31 points, but the battle for second place was closely fought – Jim had 26 points and the tie breaker of most extra tiles over Chris (also with 26 points) and Greg just behind with 25.

5) Greg, Chris, Michael, Frank, Robbie, Jim, and Joe played a full 7 player game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. Chris’s money heavy strategy combined with the gamer guild gave him a 69 point victory over Joe’s 68 points from a diversified strategy.

6) Chris and Jim broke of to play Twilight Struggle where history was rewritten. Chris won as the soviets by VP in turn 3 helped by claiming dominance in Asia and three scoring cards coming up that turn.

7) Greg, Michael, Frank, and Robbie finished up with Ascending Empires. Greg went on the offensive early and squabbled with Frank allowing them both to collect victory points from shooting each other’s ships out of the sky. Michael meanwhile was left mostly alone to colonize and then build cities on planets in each of the other quadrants. An endgame attempt from Robbie to steal one of Michael’s planets turned into an opportunity for him to earn more victory points from the back and forth combat, and the game ended with Michael having a comfortable 31 point win with Greg in second at 23 points.

BEWC Meeting Recap 7/21/12

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Attendees: Greg Chandra, Michael Feinberg, Frank Fulton, Robbie Fulton, Jim Halloran, Dave Olson, and Alex Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played:
1) Michael and Jim started with one round of Lost Cities that Jim one decisively.

2) Michael, Jim, and Dave tried out The Adventurers: Temple of Chac, which was a fun light diversion. Dave suffered at the hands of the temple, first falling into the lava and then after just barely avoiding going over the waterfall, his replacement explorer was mowed down by the boulder. Michael was well ahead and got took the safe road over the bridge and out of the temple first, but Jim did well collecting treasure in the river on his way out and ended up with a bigger haul and the win.

3) Michael, Frank, Robbie, Jim, and Dave played Shadows over Camelot, with Greg joining in about halfway through when he arrived. Shortly after that, Michael completed the Lancelot quest, but instead of the expected win (and 2 life point recovery), it was a tie, causing Michael to lose his last life point and be out of the game. Things didn’t go much better for the knights for the rest of the game, with catapaults building up and quests steadily being lost. Ultimately the forces of good lost and it was revealed that Greg was the traitor.

4) With Michael out of Shadows, he and Alex played Innovation. Alex got off to an early lead in score and achievements, but Michael was building a large tableau and was able to pick up most of the late age achievements, leaving them tied at 5 each. Both players were only missing one or two clock symbols to satisfy the empire achievement, but Alex got there first (on a draw and meld from Michael’s dogma effect) and he won the game.

5) Greg, Michael, Dave, and Alex played Ascending Empires where all of their flicking skills left a lot to be desired. Greg went early into orange tech, deploying his battleship and expanding deep into Alex’s quadrant. Michael went into grey tech, but spent most of the mid game fighting for grey planets into Alex and Dave’s quadrants and it was close to the end of the game before he managed to hold one long enough to build a research station and max out the tech tree. While Alex was set upon from two sides, Dave mostly stayed in his own quadrant and attempted a strategy of mining his planets for victory points. Ultimately Michael and Greg both tied with 28 VP (to Dave’s 21 for third), but Michael won the tiebreaker of developed 7 levels of tech while Greg had only developed 6.

6) Greg, Michael, Dave, and Alex finished off with Stone Age. At the end of the game Michael was leading in points on the board, helped by a 42 point 7 gold building buy, but Alex had been piling up the cards and handily won, 179 points to 136.

BEWC Meeting Recap 2/4/12

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Attendees: John Boyle, Dan Carey, Michael Feinberg, Ryan Frans, Brandon James, Joe Kauffman, Michael Kelly, Dave Landon, Karen Landon, Dave Olson, Jay Olson, Alex Wright, and Elaine Wright

Club Business: None.

Games Played
1) John, Dan, Michael F, Joe, Michael K, and Dave L played Battlestar Galactica with the Exodus expansion – using the new characters and cards, the cylon fleet board, and the final five loyalty cards. Even though it turned out there was no cylon in play at the beginning of the game, the system really beat up on the humans, but spread the damage out so that none of the dials were in the red at the halfway point, causing Michael K’s Boomer’s to side with the cylons when he received the sympathizer card. After the cylon fleet wreaked havoc on the civilian fleet and Dave’s Baltar revealed himself as a cylon things were looking quite grim for the humans. Suspicions were also also high, as there should have been one more cylon player, but almost miraculously the humans were able to hold on for the final jump to Kobol. The human victory was dependent on a really luck break though – with the exodus expansion the loyalty deck includes one extra card to account for possible executions and against the odds, it was the last cylon card that was not dealt out.

2) Brandon and Karen played three rounds of Wings of War: Dawn of War, with Brandon winning two and Karen one.

3) Dave O, Joe, Alex, and Elaine played Small World where Alex won with a commanding 107 points due to his pillaging gypsies.

4) Michael F, Michael K, and Elaine played Agricola, allowing Elaine to break her Agricola loosing streak when she beat Michael F by 1 point.

5) Joe, Dave L, Karen, and Alex played Ra with Dave winning.

6) Dan, Brandon, Dave O, and Jay broke in the club’s new copy of Ascending Empires, with Dan being the inaugural victor.

7) Lack of table space exiled Dave O and Alex to the kitchen for a head-to-head match up in Hannibal, where reportedly Dave’s Carthaginians marched all over Alex’s Romans.

8) Michael F, Ryan, Brandon, Joe, Michael K played a second round of Battlestar Galactica with the Exodus expansion, this time also adding in the personal goal loyalty cards. This games started almost the exact opposite from the first, with the humans having the easiest time any of us had seen, with resource dials actually going up instead of down. Things started to change after Ryan fulfilled his personal goal and had to draw a new loyalty card, which was a cylon. After some subtle working against the humans, he revealed himself, sending Michael F’s Starbuck to the brig, where he ended up stuck for the rest of the game. While it was unlikely any of the resource dials were going to be depleted, Galactica was accumulating damage and things were looking unexpectedly tight for the humans. Mike K then unexpectedly used Helo’s moral compass ability to force a bad choice on a crisis card, making it clear he was a cylon just before he revealed himself. With two cylons each using the basestar bridge to do two points of damage to galactica, plus potentially moving the jump track back, it didn’t seem like there was much change left for the humans who only had two players not in the brig. Some lucky rolls however allowed Brandon’s Adama to nuke most of the cylon fleet into oblivion and a well timed draw of a repair card allowed FTL control to be repaired, letting Joe’s boomer jump the fleet to Kobol just before the next cylon turn which would have destroyed Galactica.

9) Karen and Dave finished the day off with a game of Metro.