Game Report: Andy T, Tom M-J & Dave M-J

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A nice little Sunday afternoon game... The three Empires start a respectful distance from each other. Tom tries to the break the no attacking in the first round rule and receives a harsh warning message from Andy (the intended target).

Dave drops quite an early nuke on the States which kicks off a long running battle between the two brothers. Andy turns evil and hangs back, his Empire slowly spreading from Indonesia to Greenland, extorting money from the other Empires with a vicious hand of Terrorist cards.

Tom invades Dave's Africa and builds a strong outpost, Dave backs out but takes Australia and moves into Nowhere. Tom keeps pushing through Africa toward the Middle East. Andy joins in the fight for real and hits Tom hard with terrorists in the Americas. Dave drops another nuke and Andy losses the upper hand of being evil.

When Andy gets close to a ten cities victory, the others work together for the first time in the game. Andy's down to four cities and almost bankrupt because of those damn environmentalists.

Everyone calms down a notch and consolidates their positions, Tom has now lost the Americas completely but managed to take most of Asia by pushing through the Middle East. The brothers concentrate on each other again: petty border skirmishes kick off. This gives Andy enough breathing space (and some very lucky oil rolls) to build his Empire back up again, moving in some nice space in Africa after he nuked it. Keeping his head down and trying very hard to not look like he was about to win Andy T sneaks in with a ten cities victory... His first! Five and a half hour game... Nice.

Game Report: Andy T, Big Dave, Nick G, Andrew, Andre and Lady (sorry!)

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Six player game and a trip to London, War on Terror is on the move...

A nine o'clock kick off and everyone's in high spirits. Lady joins us after the first turn and the board is already looking cramped. Andrew drops a nuke in his second turn and sets the tone for the evening.

Dave and Andy T make a pact and decide to leave Greenland as a buffer zone between them. Dave is looking good, hitting a massive seam of oil in the North Americas and Canada (Thunder Bay).

Then things kick off in the Middle East between Nick and Andy T. Andre keeps a low profile but builds steadily. Andrew lucks out with South America as it's a barren place, strikes out for Africa which doesn't go down well. Within four or so turns he turns Terrorist. Lady joins him moments after.

A fierce battle continues, Greenland is no longer a peaceful place, and at one point Dave's Empire is brought to its knees. Nick keeps tension high with war cries on every dice roll. Outright cheating and theft on the Terrorist's part ensues; the bank has to be re-located. Nick's bank is 'The bank that likes to round up'.

Madness takes the game. At a couple of points it's looking close to victory for the various Empires, everyone has a shot. Twice we could have World Peace; twice human nature carries on the fight. 3am... Six hours into the game it descends into Chaos as Andrew sprinkles the board with ALL of the terrorists that he bought earlier in the game. All remaining Empires decide to let anarchy go for it. Simultaneous suicide.

Game Report: Andy T, Andy S, Mark & New Orleans Dave

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Four player game and an afternoon kick-off! Our first 3pm start... And boy, is it a corker...

Mark decides straight away that anarchy is the only way forward and turns his initial two villages terrorist at the start of his first turn. In confusion, this causes Andy S drops a nuke on Dave which cripples his empire and within a turn he joins the terrorists as a failed state.

Andy T tries his best to fund the terrorist player and it buys him a turn. Together, Dave and Mark turn their terrorist attention on Andy S and unleash seven shades of shit. The board is a radioactive mess before even the first crops are in.

Andy T backs out of the deal with the terrorists as soon as he can and sides with World Peace. The Andys form a truce and concentrate on the terrorists. After their initial burst of terrorist energy, they get a shitty run of cards. Mark turns his initial two villages terrorist at the start of his first turn. They've been broken. Another few turns mopping up the stragglers and after two and quarter hours the Andys are in a position to declare World Peace. The terrorists are working on us, trying to turn Andy S to their cause. Andy T spots a challenge and backs out of the deal. Possibly not a wise decision as Andy S has two nukes. BOOM! CRACK! Andy T's Empire is looking pretty ropey, Andy S turns and the terrorists get a second wind with the sudden influx of cash.

Andy T fights on figuring that the 1.5 billion in his hand will serve him well. An hour later he surveys his empire, a few towns, a handful of villages.... fifty thousand in his hand. Then a good run of terrorist cards and several hostage situations... The terrorists bring the final Empire to its knees... Bankruptcy! Terrorist win: three and half hours in total.

Game Report: Andy T, Andy S, Mary & Hamish

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4 player game. Interesting start as it looks like Andy T's got the Americas to himself whilst the other three empires are looking a little cramped in Northern Europe and Asia.

Andy S makes a run for it though and in a couple of turns has raced through Africa, Australia and colonised the Middle of Nowhere. Mary tries to make an escape through Iceland and gets a toe hold in Northern America, which Andy T regards as an aggressive act and there's some minor clashes between the two Empires.

Hamish seems to be happy with a decent sized chunk of Asia. The 'balaclava of evil' gets passed around pretty quick, both the Andies have a short spell of being Evil and then Mary takes the evil reigns for quite some time. Despite (or possibly because of) this Mary never really gets beyond a couple of towns, her Empire being a testing ground for everyone's weapons.

Andy T spots an opportunity, nukes Nowhere and takes it from Andy S, knocking out a few other cities with terrorists at the same time. Andy S doesn't take this too well and fires off a nuke in response, regaining Nowhere a turn later.

Mary starts talking about turning terrorist but after a couple of strikes against Hamish he turns terrorist minutes before her. The two remaining Empires make some kind of truce while they adjust to the dynamics of Mary and Hamish unleashing terrorist hell against both of their Empires.

A few turns in and Andy T stabs Andy S in the back with another nuke and some funding of the terrorist cause. But Andy T is stabbed in the back by the terrorists a turn later when they switch their attention back to his growing Empire.

Andy S caves in and joins the terrorists, with a large wad of cash to fund the black tide. Andy T is crippled within minutes, from five cities down to one... down to several towns... down to eight or so villages. Cash drying up as the oil runs out and the globe is a radioactive mess. Fighting off hijacks and kidnaps he barely scraps through a couple of turns before the terrorists bankrupt him with yet another kidnapping.

A five hour game and a terrorist victory. Terrorist players need a little more tactical incentive, but it's getting oh-so-close...

Game Report: Andy T, Andy S & Tom M-J

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3 player game. 8 o'clock kick off and we unleash the maddest game known to existence... Andy S's second turn and he drops a nuke on China, a peace loving Empire that had only just grown thumbs. BOOM! Tom M-J's three villages are wiped clean off the board and we've got a (slightly miffed) terrorist player from the start.

All hell breaks loose for a couple of hours, nukes, dirty bombs, a few suicide attacks and the globe looks shagged.Then it's all out carnage, every man for himself. Tom nearly bankrupts Andy S with a political kidnap, but Andy sends in the troops and pulls it off. Andy T fancies his chances for a couple of turns and then Tom's anger against Andy S seems to wane and he switches the focus of the dark forces. Suddenly Andy T's empire consists of three villages: Iceland, India and Japan are his... He almost joins Tom on the dark side but instead fights back to the soundtrack of the A-Team in his head.

All hell breaks loose for a couple of hours, nukes, dirty bombs, a few suicide attacks and the globe is looking shagged. At 1am we decide that the situation hasn't changed for a while and call it quits. The situation being that we're all going for each others throats so much that neither of us build up an empire of any decent size to really get cracking, everyone being skint from that first nuke onwards. And Tom is spreading the evil force between the two of us, keeping us both weak.

After some post game chat we decide to knock out an empire on a dice roll and play the end-end game for a bit. Andy S joins Tom on the dark side and we crack on, Andy T not fancying his chances with 10m shillings and a couple of towns... Three full turns later and again the terrorists are trying to bankrupt an Empire: a plane hijack. Andy T tries his luck by sending the troops in. They fuck up. It's a political disaster and his Empire is bankrupt... The terrorists win...