Owen found his way back across the pond—with a long layover in Paris—and once again joined us for game night. Ben decided to bring Reiner Knizia’s Tigris & Euphrates game. This is just as well since I left all of the games I was going to bring sitting on the table at home. Many consider this game to be Knizia’s masterpiece game. While I’m not ready to say that, I do think it’s a thought provoking tile placement game that takes a few times playing it to get your head around just what strategies to use.  (Mike still needs another game or two.) Each player has four leaders representing farming, trading, religion, and government. Each leader has his own color too. You use the leaders to get victory points in the various colors. The tricky part is that your score at the end of the game is determined by the color that you have the lowest victory points in. This forces you to garner victory points evenly in all colors.
Since this game takes deep concentration, wily tactics, a firm grasp of the rules, and a little luck to win, I was doomed to failure from the start. As the game progressed, several things became apparent: Owen was having dreadful luck, Mike was struggling with all of the requirements above, and Ben was leaving me alone. That, coupled with some fantastic luck at drawing tiles, made me a contender for winning the game. I did try to unintentionally break the rules a few times. I quickly learned that you cannot “assassinate†another players’ leader with a catastrophe tile though try as I might.
I although I had done well the entire game beating back the hordes of the aggressors; I still wasn’t sure if my final tally was good enough to win. It turned out it was, and by a good margin at that. Ben promised we would play this game again soon, before we all forget the rules again.
Chaos Steve