Puerto Rico and Ice Towers

When I got to last night’s Games Club, most people were already playing something, so I just chatted. At one point I was moved to figure out the theoretical maximum number of points a victor could win in Puerto Rico.

( Short answer: fewer than 265 )

I did eventually get to play two games of Puerto Rico, one with five players and one with four. In the first I made the stupidest Puerto Rico mistake ever: I picked up the wrong large bonus building when I bought one, and didn’t notice for a couple turns. This cost me three points, and almost the game. I wound up tying with another player for first on victory points, and winning on the goods-plus-money tie-breaker. This was a game where I got a good money pump set up early (I got coffee going early, then got an Office, and a Large Market, and then a Factory with four goods going), but didn’t have much victory point chip flow (only producing one of each good for most of the game).

I taught a bunch of people how to play Ice Towers, and we played four games, adding players each time till we had seven for the last. By that time all the newbies had discovered stodgemeyering (or whatever the Icehouse slang is for holding back your pieces till other players have committed; Google isn’t finding it for me), so the last game was excruciating.

On the way home I turned 38.

Thanks

Thanks for the birthday wishes, holyoutlaw, annathepiper, redbird, supergee! I’m planning to celebrate tomorrow with bugsybanana and my family, so today I just relaxed reading and sketching at Ground, something I don’t have time for during the week anymore.