Primordial Soup for the Soul

A quick post me thinks to bring us all up to date. After the tomes that I have been churning out everyone will no doubt be relieved to see that this post will be short, well that is the intention.

A collection of 7 debated which games to bring to the table this week and after much polite Britishness we settled for ‘Primordial Soup’ played by Jimmy, Matt, Rachel and Adam. And Cuba played by Ollie, Luke and Tom.

Adam won the ‘P-soup’ with an aggressive eating strategy that allowd him to not be hit by the general peeks and dips that other players suffered through. Jimmy played a long game and planned his points well being beaten at the end by the smallest of margins. Matt languished in third never reproducing enough to real compete with Adams eating strategy. Rachel was last due to her inability to avoid Adams hungry grasp. Jimmy had top protection and was unaffected by Adam, Matt had a 50/50 chance of survival so all things considered Rachel was the object of Adams machinations and mastications.

After carefully setting up Cuba and choosing it ‘to see how this plays with 3’, we were joined be Jack ‘Sgt. Slamtastic’ Shannon and Levan (the spelling of all names is purely guesswork). Ollie was not bothered by the mayo chip infested students and allowed them to freely touch his game and we began a rules session led by Luke and supported by Ollie. Ollie was the more accomplished player and through the game cultivated a much better maximisation of opportunity and resources. Tom sitting to Ollies right had opportunities to ship rum before him unless Ollie was first player (which I believe happened possibly twice). However despite several rum ships appearing near the beginning most of the powerful rum ships did not materialise and cigars and products where the resources of choice in the middle rounds. Levan was next in the pecking order comfortably moving away from Jack by reason of 2 points per building at the end of the game. Levan used the 1 and 2 VP buildings well and had he more Cuba experience would surely have accumulated more points that he missed with minor mistakes. Luke sporny **** that he is purchased the building that created 2 blue cubes a turn only for the VP per blue cube law to be proposed in round two. Where upon he bought political influence +2 votes and passed the law. He then proceeded to acquire the veto sanction and allowed the powerful VP per blue law to remain in effect for the entirety of the game. Where others gained resources and then converted and then shipped taking for most 2 turns Luke just sat back and got small reward followed by small reward. By the end of the game he had acquired 9 blue cubes and was getting substantial VPs through doing nothing. In the end the distance between 1st and 3rd was twenty odd points. Had the laws been completely different other strategies would no doubt have been adopted but clearly the points margin was a reflection of how early that card arrived and was not removed. Its just a shame Luke couldn’t have got the golf course as well as then the real points would have a racked up.

The Cuba table finished within 5 minutes of the ‘P-soup’ table which meant that we were able to chat and pack away as a group which made a nice change.