Charterstone Chronicle, Game 9

Alas dear reader, these entries will probably continue to get shorter and shorter. Not because of waning interest in the game, but as we are quickly approaching the conclusion of the campaign and with no major new mechanics introduced in quite awhile, to pontificate would be to repeat myself. At this point I pretty much know how I feel about Charterstone; its strengths, weaknesses, overall quality of game design, and who I would recommend it to. But, these will all wait for the post campaign post.

We also have all but set the final placement order at this point, at least by pairs with the possibility moving around within the three subsets. 1st and 2nd place will go to Daniel and Megan, 3rd and 4th to me and Caralee, and 5th and 6th to Danielle and Amanda. I would be shocked if anyone is able to rise or sink out of their grouping.

This game was played with the candle on the table. As campy as it was, I love random little Legacy game mechanics like this. We managed to finish before the candle burnt out, although the last few turns were played in a rush as people feared it was getting close. Either way, the game ended in something of an occupation of the little town of Faulkner.  Next game will be somewhat close to the first game in feel, with everyone reduced to two workers. It will also probably be fast given that you have to give up influence to grab minions, and I expect the payoff will be fairly substantial given the importance of minions in this game thus far. I'm a little annoyed that as the owner of the Charter that specializes in influence reclamation, I can't charge people for it this game with my own minion placements.

Daniel was pretty hamstrung during game 9, with fuel shortages covering two of his buildings. Megan by comparison had none, and using her persona that allowed her to pick up a worker when bumping an opponent's worker, I think was able to complete the game without ever having to pick up. In any event, it was a pretty solid game for almost everyone. Megan finished in first, and everyone except Amanda wrapped up this game in the 50-79 point range. I came in second again myself.

The defining characteristic of this game was persona usage. Caralee spammed out her shoemaker and I think got almost all of her personas in play by the end of the game. Basically everyone else decided to fill out a second persona on their box's glory track recently and had at least the two in play. It was really fun to see the interplay of them all, and for my part I feel like I didn't appreciate the power of certain personas early enough. Rapidly Charterstoning in this game isn't a good strategy for building access (indeed, it seems to end with other people snatching your 20 point buildings which has happened to me, Daniel, Dani, and Amanda). However, early access to the strong late game personas has made a big difference for players able to leverage them. I had my Gambler out as one of my personas this game, and he netted me a whopping total of 8 VP (I think expected was ~5 based on game length and my placement). I got lucky this game, we'll see if that luck holds next time.

I was able to get out two of my twenty point buildings, but abroad Caralee built the 20 point version of my income building and Megan built the 20 point version of my Peril building. This blew but those were lower priority buildings. This was the first game I made extensive use of my "Buy friends! -> Trade them in for VP!" set up, and it worked quite nicely You really need the final versions of these buildings to make it work efficiently though. Each charter has a unique card they combo off of, but some seem better than others. In particular, comboing off of building, assistant, item, and friend cards seems weaker than comboing off of treasure and visitors. I think I prioritized general supply buildings too much early at the expense of cramming out my 20 point building. Well...kinda. The Junkyard has been amazing combined with robots. The portal though....I don't think I've used once. Although I'm sure if I put it out for a game I would see some trolly uses of it. The windmill was great when I built it but then I acquired lots of other ways to regain influence and it has since idled.

I have one twenty point building left in the general deck, which I intend to acquire next game and build over one of my cheaper ones. I don't know if I will be able to get more than that though, save swiping one of Amanda's twenty point buildings whenever she puts them out. For fun comparison, I have 109 points in buildings currently and Danielle has 108. In contrast Megan has 164, with eight of the twenty-point buildings in her charter. Megan is also sitting on Daniel's twenty-point statue to build in one of our last games so she doesn't lose access to her market in the interim, and so she will end at 181 points. It's hard to see anyone beating her on that front.

At this point though, I'm ready for the big reveal or twist. The Forever King has been made foreboding and ominous this entire campaign, so when do we rise up against him? Will he begin to overtly terrorize our pleasant little town? Only time will tell.