Recap: Operation GamerWife in the Era of Gold
Image via Wikipedia.org
The battles continue, but momentum is definitely on my side in Operation GamerWife. This week, I had the opportunity to catch the Wife away from baby duties (which had been taken over by a new grandma). I brought along the Rivals for Catan. We had played the basic game once before, but now it was time to get into the meat of it and try some of the scenarios. First up, the Era of Gold.
Rivals for Catan. Unwilling to get clobbered by the other player with the strength advantage, I invested early. I had the strength advantage by the second or third turn and never lost it. Did it help me? No, not really. First, the event cards were drawn infrequently. In our entire game, we went through the deck only once. And, in Era of Gold, there just aren’t as many mean cards as in other eras.
The Wife, however, headed straight for the trade advantage and never lost it. And oh did that come into play. The trade die came up from time to time. Probably not any more often than the events (we had a lot of celebration), but it always seemed to come at just the time that would hurt me most. Curses! Plus, I forgot how important trade is to the Era of Gold. There are cards that you can play with the trade advantage, and it adds a new trade ship race to the event deck. I cannot overemphasize how disheartening it was to draw an Event card and see that it once again benefited my opponent. I had hoped that, with the strength advantage, most events would benefit me.
I can’t really lay it all down on the dice. The Wife simply adopted a better strategy and maximized her hand to greater effect. I made a few poor decisions that really cost me and she took advantage, like a gamer should. And that was really great to see. The Wife can be competitive, but she often likes doing things the “nice” way. Rivals isn’t too spitey, but it definitely has some attack cards. And it was really good to see her getting in there and taking advantage of them.
In the end, she out rivaled me with a final score of 12 to 9. I may have lost the game, but I think I’m winning the Operation GamerWife war.
Also Played. Nuns on the Run, Sentinels of the Multiverse.
