Tuesday, January 9, 1996

Merchant of Venus Game (1/9/1996)

Players: Anne, Christine, Joshua, Paula, Mike, & Scott

A rather enjoyable game of Merchant of Venus. Mike got off to a fast start by servicing a short route (with additional demand) for Bionic Perfume, and Joshua got lucky with an Immortal Grease delivery of relatively short length (from the left-middle to the top-middle). Christine and Scott went exploring, Scott in "the cloud" and Christine toward the lower- right of the board. Anne followed Joshua to the upper-left and then veered off to discover strange new worlds along the top edge of the board.

Two trips through the supernova slowed Anne considerably, but she did build a factory once she'd discovered a great run from the top-right to the top-center; but alas, her two trips past the supernova may have cost her too much time for the money she made. Once Christine had discovered most of the right side of the board, she then left it alone and scooted along the bottom of the board, picking up relics and opening telegates along the way. Scott muddled around in the upper-left quadrant, while both Mike and Joshua delivered profitable runs in the same area (just good enough to beat Scott there).

In the classic speed versus payload debate, Joshua upgraded to a Transport, while Mike and Scott opted for Freighters. Christine stayed with her scout and she and Scott proceeded to service the long-neglected right side of the board (which was teeming with goodies). Mike delivered nearer the center and actually ran out of Freighter runs pretty quickly. Joshua used his Transport -- loaded with red and yellow drives -- to make an Immortal Grease run every turn (and to drop off some Servo-Mechanisms on the way back). In fact, he often got some demand when delivering the Grease.

At this point, Paula joined the game and delivered two runs then left. (It was the Blizzard after all, and she needed a way to kill a few hours -- would you have said no?) Joshua masterfully avoided detection as the leader by pointing out Scott's lucrative payloads and Christine's growing stack of cash. Mike was beaten to many potential deliveries, trying to go too far in a Freighter when faster ships were on the way; I'm not certain where Anne went wrong, but she did say that she lost on purpose to avoid having to write anything for this game summary. Mike's last ditch effort to stop Joshua failed when he could not steal a factory from him, and Joshua barely beat Scott and Christine to victory -- though barely counts only in horseshoes and hand-grenades (and we don't play with either).

A word from our winner, Joshua

"A Transport with a red and yellow drive allows you to make a run EVERY turn with 2 holds open for cargo. This can lead to big bucks when there are a lot of players in slower ships trying for the same runs. A word to the wise: Lasers and Nova Balls seem to appear at around $1700 (in a game to $2000), so make sure your properties are protected by then."

Scott's words to live by:
- Don't let others identify you as the leader (especially when it's not true)
- Roll well or face the consequences
- If Grease is Immortal, why did the demand for it keep coming up?

No comments:

Post a Comment