Dominant Species

A brief post.

Animals: Hans (Green), JC (Black), Isuru (Blue), Jun Yet (Red)

JC: Isuru was busy AP-ing so I posed for the shot while waiting xD!

JC: Whoaa!! If I remember correctly, this is Jun Yet hoarding loads of the sun adaptation!

Quite dangerous to adapt too many of one type in case Blight comes about =S..

Reptiles huddling at this corner after eating up the insects hehehe.

JC: I'm very happy here because I got to adapt to 2 water and that really helped me get more flexibility =D!

This game was just about the competition between insects and reptiles. Really. He killed my reptiles, and I kill his insects, then he kill mine, then I kill his.

JC: Hmm... What should I do... Kill or be killed? Breed or not? Definitely must dominate!!

My 4 sun adaptations paid off, coupled with well-timed abundance in the last turn, I was able to claim dominance in many tiles.

Patrik had to go so Hans took over.
JC: Hans is deep deep in thought......

This is just to highlight the points difference between reptiles and insect in the end hehe. Patrik was so shocked to find out that he lost the game :P
The ice age scoring game me a lot of points. Take that, Patrik!

Isuru - Amphibian won this game. He stayed in tundra tiles and scored crazy amount of points in the last few turns :O Actually, that has been his strategy in all his previous games lol, but it works!

Hmm.. Insects, mammals and reptiles have yet to emerge as the dominant species in the games we played so far... I wanna try playing mammals next time!

Dominant Species (Again)

Kam sau: Junyet/JC (Insects), Pat (Reptiles), Jo (Arachnid), Niyi (Birds), Hans (Amphibians)

JC: Hehe. This is the first time I've paired up with Jun Yet even though we could play one more player

I've always liked insects! We picked our animals randomly this game.

Everybody getting into position, ready to kill each other. This game is gonna end bloody.

Insect (green) was among the first to gain access to a sea tile. Unchallenged, insect dominated there for the first few rounds muahahaha.

It almost seemed too good to be true.... Well Amphibians glaciated my starting tile, wiping out all the grass elements there accidentally in the next wasteland phase. Not life-changing, yet.

I purposely left only 1 grass element on my precious sea tile so that nobody else can survive there.

Ok this was quite random, Terence came over to have some durian while we're playing the game lol.

Insects (green) is happy to be in the sea and desert hehhe. Nobody has decided to disturb me... yet.

 Yikes. Someone played blight on my tile. Suddenly all my species there are endangered :O
Bummer.

Post-apocalyptic scene.

Insects were wiped off the face of the earth in one go. Culprit: Arachnid (Jo, Red)!!!!!!!!

A desperate attempt to regain my position. I made my insects breed there, hoping that I can place a grass element somewhere on the tile via Wanderlust or Aquatic domination card. But Arachnid purposely took whatever I wanted to take, even though it does not benefit her!

Now that's how a real boardgame is played.

WAR.

 But it was too late, insects only have 3 species left. Dang.

Now even the amphibians came over. No chance at all at dominance, with amphibians and water elements around.

Niyi, now finally playing Birds, is doing her thing again. This quickly became her signature move.

Patrik (Reptiles, black), suffering from AP during his last migration action. :P

Arachnids (red) and Reptiles (black) practically has dominance over the whole board. Reptiles major in tundra tiles and Arachnids major in annihilating Insects and taking over their home. :(

My insects will haunt you till the end of time.

Insects with 113 points, 3rd place. Lost because of lack of dominance. End game dominance scoring from Ice Age gave Reptiles and Arachnids at least 30 points each!

Scoreboard:
Arachnids: 2 victories (JC, Jo)
Birds: 1 victory (Isuru)

Post mortem:Perhaps I should have adapted to more elements.. Poor survivability in the mid game really destroyed my chance at winning! I only have 2 grass and 1 meat then.. And certainly things went down the drain when Arachnids took away all the grass elements on my side of the board and put her grubs there.
Luck wasn't on my side too I guess, there was no grub for me to adapt to when I needed one. But I guess I have no chance against Arachnids on tiles with grubs anyway even if I've adapted to grub. Don't mess with spiders.

Dominant Species

We're back for another round of the fight for survival.

Animals: Niyi (Mammals), Pat (Arachnids), Isuru (Birds), Junyet (Reptiles), Jacelyn (Amphibian)

Briefing everybody about the coming Ice Age.

   

Too bad Nick came home late, he was quite interested in the game hehe but coincidentally we always play when he's not free.

Early in game the Reptiles (red) had to compete with Mammals (white) and Arachnid (black) for space. Earth is too small for all of us!

That's Niyi doing her classic  bird eye's view move. Though ironically she's not the one playing as Birds. Err, Jacelyn wasn't the Birds too.

JC: Apparantly, this actually gives you a great view and a good idea of what's going on =D! I tried it but it didn't work that well for me =P!

Hans came to join us later after studying  :P

Even Patrik started doing Niyi's move too. Note that the Bird player was Isuru. He was doing his double migration action again, which needs a lot of calculation I suppose. But to all of us he's suffering from analysis paralysis hehehe.










JC: Isuru really calculates precisely before he migrates or even spawn his birds because he makes sure that the Arachnids and whoever is at the competition area will not be able to wipe him out.

It might take him some time but he was precise in making sure that he gets to conqueer the tundra!!

Scores were quite tight mid-game

Picture courtesy of Hans hehehe.

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Isuru did a very smart move, he migrated to everyone's tile and piggy-backed on everyone's domination scoring. Though he did not have access to Domination cards, he had a very strong position in the game because he practically gets points whenever someone dominates a tile.

By the way, that's his AP look :P



My hands are a wee bit too big for the tiny weeny cubes and element disks.



JC: Trust me, he wasn't posing for this =P! He was actually AP-ing xD!

Hence such a clear shot when normally it would've been blur if he had moved =P!

Somebody is planning something evil at the tile I was on.

With more and more Glaciation tiles coming up, Birds (yellow, Isuru) had more places to go. Isuru scored a LOT of points just by staying in the tundra tiles, and it was extremely difficult to dislodge his position.

JC: Oh yeah! He also adapted to everything! That helped him survive relatively well in the tundra and being able to move 2 spaces meant he was able to maximize his tundra points!! Grrr!!

Birds were already  way ahead of others right before Ice Age. Unstoppable!

Needless to say, Isuru won. It was quite an impressive win. +1 victory to birds!

Score board:
Arachnid: 1 victory (JC)
Birds: 1 victory (Isuru) 


Post Mortem:

As Reptiles, I should have adapted more elements since I have a free regression action. I rushed domination to grab the cards early on, and by the time I wanted to adapt, all the slots have already been taken.

Rawr. Next time, Isuru. Next time.

Test Run: Dominant Species

Animals: Junyet (Mammal), Jacelyn (Arachnid), Jo (Reptile), Hans (Insect)

Got my copy of the game last week when I went back to KL. Really appreciate BGC ppl for always accomodating to my last-minute buys hehehe.

JC: Actually Jun Yet should be the one holding the box =P! Anyway, the box is really awesome!

It's very smooth yet shiny and I can see it withstanding the forces of nature already!

No wonder it can contain all those 6 animals with all the elements inside =)

Theme:

Animals trying to survive the ice age.  



No, not this one. It'd be cool to play as those animals though.



The Game:

 ...is basically area control game with worker placement element. As usual, winner is determined by victory points.  The rules can be confusing at first (dominance vs domination) but Hiew's concise reference sheet helped clear the terms up pretty well. 

What I like:

• What I really like (and forgot to take picture of) is the different animals, each with different characteristics and play style.
• Easy to learn and teach.
• The board is very nice to touch hehehe.
• Difficult choices from time to time (which leads to AP)

Nyeh:

• It's very hard NOT to AP most the time.
• Takes forever to finish a turn when game end is near.
• Your girlfriend will strike back with vengeance when you kill her animals.

 JC: I agree =P! Loads of AP and since I was an arachnid, I brought out my extra limbs to take revenge on Jun Yet for killing so many of my Arachnids!

Yeap, I killed 17 of her species on board in one go.



 

Their puzzled look at the start of the game.

 Jacelyn's black spiders and Jo's blue(?) reptiles were EVERYWHERE. My white mammals and Hans' green insects were forced to take shelter in a corner :P

 That look means that she's gonna slaughter us all. Really.

 Mammals decided to stay in the tundra with the penguins, to avoid conflict. On hindsight I should have done this earlier, it gave me a lots of points in the last 2 turns.



Most of us went one round around the score track.

Jacelyn went 2 rounds. 200 points! :O

I like this game :)

JC: At first, it was really sad to see my animals die the second time we played DS and that was hard for me but after another game, I think I've overcome my attachment to my creatures =).