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Rebecca Hebner and Roni Breza |
Perrianne Lurie and Winton Lemoine |
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David Platnick, Randy Buehler, Redie
Smith and Chris Senhouse. |
Kevin Breza, Doug Covell, Lauren Bohaczuk
and Andrew Emerick |
Fresh Blood ...
The Final consisted of four players who had never experienced
the WBC Egizia last round before, demonstrating that the
game still has plenty of life. Eric Wrobel, Andrew Emerick, and
Richard Shay all made the semis with a single first-heat win,
and Robert Murray squeaked in as the third alternate with a second
place followed by a win. There were no double winners in the
heats, as those who contested the second heat after skipping
the first proved to be formidable competition, winning five of
the seven tables in the second heat.
Eric took an early lead in the Final, after drawing the first
seat. He cleaned up in the first trip down the Nile, snagging
both a 3 and a 2 stone quarry, making the powerful strength boost
each turn permanent, and even got into the Sphinx. Richard worked
on improving his position on the stone and grain tracks, while
Andrew decided to simply start laying bricks, building in all
three sites.
Turn 2 proved a difficult puzzle for the players, as three
very desirable cards showed up far downriver, between the second
and third building sites. They were the +2 Sphinx card, and a
pair of 3 stone quarries. Eric was first, and passed on jumping
down for the goods, electing instead to build in the Sphinx.
Robert also decided against going immediately down, instead picking
up three green food positioned directly in front of the +2 Sphinx
card. Richard likewise passed on the opportunity, going instead
to the +1 stone +1 grain track, signalling his intention to slowboat
his way down, picking up more things in exchange for not getting
the best things. Andrew also didn't want to go down the river
that far, deciding to take a 2 stone quarry further up the river,
which allowed Eric to get the +2 Sphinx card to go with his Sphinx
build that round. Eric and Robert ended up picking up the pair
of 3 stone cards. At the end of the round, when it looked like
Eric had two outs for his food troubles, Robert headed to Heliopolis,
moving the water ring up and deactivating Eric's 6 red food,
and Andrew jumped downriver to scoop up the field upgrade to
eliminate his other option. Eric thus starved four people for
eight points.
In the third round, Eric was forced to choose a field first
to try and solve his food troubles, and in response, the rest
of the table made their collective 3 moves in less than 10 seconds,
with everyone choosing the Sphinx, shutting out Eric with his
+2 Sphinx card. Andrew picked up a third quarry, bringing his
stone production to a healthy 8, Richard continued to slowboat
and build in the obelisk, and Robert also gained a third quarry
and boosted his crew strength to make use of the green fields
he acquired. The third round ended with Andrew in the lead with
27, Richard 23, Robert 19, and Eric 17. Those are reasonable
gaps for the Turn Order advantage that Eric and Robert will derive
from it, so the game was much closer than those scores imply.
In Round 4, Eric uses his Turn Order advantage to gain the
very powerful move upriver card, which he used to enter the Sphinx
that he skipped to get it. Richard continued to hammer the bottom
of the stone and grain tracks, producing additional stones and
points for his effort. Then an interesting play occurred when
the time to build at the graves and obelisk arrived. Richard
used his 3 and 4 temporary crew strength cards to build both
the 6 and 7 steps of the obelisk, and Robert followed up by building
the 8th level. It's extremely unusual to see so much building
in the obelisk, as the graves provide a natural bonus, while
the obelisk does not.
In the fifth and last round, Robert gained the build first
in each site card, which allows a player to not worry about being
shut out of any building site. Regardless, it was a standard
fifth round, with all players racing down the river to build
in as many sites as they could. Andrew headed to Heliopolis,
moving the water ring to green and threatening to make Eric starve
again, but Eric responds by moving upriver to shift it back down
to yellow. Andrew had the final round come together extremely
well. First, he was able to redraw a Sphinx card he threw back
last round, the eighth level of the obelisk, which is worth nine
points, and then he was able to just barely build both a 5 value
grave tile, bringing his graves bonus to 5, and the ninth level
of the obelisk, which is virtually unheard of, to make an additional
seven points on the "4 blocks in the obelisk" card.
Robert, who was holding the "9th level of the obelisk"
card was thus freed from having to build it himself, and picked
up additional grave tiles instead. Down at the Pyramids and the
Columns, Eric fell one strength short of building the second
column, which cost him the 10 points on that card.
Going into final scoring, it was an extremely tight game,
with Andrew at 68, Robert 63, Eric 62, and Richard 61. Andrew
was able to flip over the most impressive set of Sphinx cards
though, with the high-scoring 2 bricks in each site (10), four
stones in the obelisk (7), 8th level of the obelisk (9), bottom
of the stone track (4), and joker strength (4), for a total of
102. Robert took second with 95, missing 4 bricks in the columns,
but making blue crew strength (6), most brown fields (8), in
addition to the biggest and hardest to achieve Sphinx card in
the game, the 9th level of the obelisk (11). Richard took third
with 88 on 5 bricks in the obelisk (9), and both cards for number
of people in a track (5 and 5). Eric trailed with 81 after missing
both most green fields and 2 columns, making only the 1 column
card (6), black crew strength (9), and yellow crew strength (4).
Attendance was stable even with a full table of new finalists,
so Egizia seems established as a solid Century event.
It's a fun game and the worker placement restriction that requires
you to always move downstream is a great mechanic. We look forward
to seeing even more of you next year.
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Matthew Craig and Eric Freeman |
GM Andrew Emerick and his fellow finalists. |
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