Gina, Joe, Kevin, Louis and I kicked off Saturday evening with The Manhattan Project. After grabbing the University that provided three scientists for the cost of one, I decided that I would focus on espionage. Joe and Kevin were building bombers and fighters like crazy, while Louis and Gina were diligently expanding their engines.
When Gina started the first Bomb Design, I was able to pick a simple Plutonium bomb to start my game. With the help of my espionage, I was able to mine enough cake to produce a few plutonium to build and then test the small bomb. This put me on Joe’s radar, and he bombed my reactors into rubble after only one use. Luckily Kevin decided to buy a few reactors, and I was able to buy another of my own. After getting a nice big plutonium bomb from the design stack, I was able to use Kevin’s and my remaining reactors to gather up the plutonium needed. I was going to have to wait two turns to recall my scientists before I could build it, but Kevin was nice enough to recall first. This sent my two scientist back to me and I was able to use them to build my bomb and get a bomber to load it into for the winning points.
We then played Railways of Europe with Gina sitting out. My baron rewarded having the most connected cities, and there were four service bounties available in the first round. Joe won the bid to go first, and built into Madrid for that service bounty. That left me building from Athens to Constantinople for that one. Since those two cities could easily swap cubes, I was looking for two other cities to connect to get two more colors for the Passenger Lines bonus. I ended up building into Paris from Essen and then Berlin to Amsterdam.
Kevin was working from Moscow into the center and Louis had built into Paris and was heading south. I was able to get the Passenger Lines bonus, while Joe got both the Speed Record and a Service Bounty to Marseilles. By the end, Kevin, Joe and Louis were making 4-5 point deliveries, while I was doing three at a time. I did end up getting a couple four point deliveries, but an easy Service Bounty for Louis gave him a bit of a bonus. Joe was trying to get the most total links, while I was trying to connect cities, and I ended up squeaking out a win in that category. It wasn’t enough, though, as I finished in last with Joe, Kevin, and I all within one point and Louis ahead of us by five.
We finished the night with Eminent Domain. I followed Louis into a warfare strategy, and I wanted to work production and trade. My planets were too expensive to quickly conquer, though, and while Kevin piled up a ton of planets, I was barely able to get three. They did synchronize well, though, with one production and one trade planet. I scored twelve points from trade, but I didn’t have enough time to catch up. Kevin had colonized a bunch of planets with two prestige planets for a final winning score of 27.
