Terra Forming Mars and Odin’s Ravens

On Friday evening DK, Tiger-King and myself  turned up at Steedo’s for a game of Terra-Forming Mars. 

This would be my second play of the game, so I thought I’d try a new strategy of trying to gain as many points as quickly as possible - rather than the last time I played by placing lots of woods and cities …. Unfortunately we were rather lack lustre in actually placing any forests or cities until the end. DK went for Jovian/Venusian strategy as we were playing the Venus expansion. Steedo’s and Tiger-King’s strategies were more difficult to spot - but then they have more experience of the game (50 plus online games for Speedo apparently).  

The early and mid game board above. 

Tiger-King kept stealing plants from DK in game which slowed the production of forests (and Dr Pepper in real life). The main picture shows the scores at the end of play - where my strategy of grabbing every point I could on the way had put me in the lead, with Steedo and Tiger-King in joint second. The insert picture shows the scores after final scoring, with Steedo and Tiger-King tied for first place - Steedo taking the win as he had the most money … a lowly 3rd for me. There is lots of nuance in game and obviously my plan was flawed - especially as some of my cards where played too early before cities were placed, so missing bonuses, which also impacted my Corporation’s special power of extra money for any city placed.  I also think I should have just bought some cities and forests for cash - but I forgot I could do that. A good game but I had a troubled night after overdosing on beige snacks …

Then on Saturday Steedo and I played a couple of games of Odin’s Ravens (and most of a bottle of port) after a trip to a proper good real ale pub (Jail, Bass, Wicked Wolf and others on draught). Odin’s Ravens ended with honours even (although a little slow this morning).