Harrowed Halls

It’s been a few months since we played Endeavor, so we broke it out again. Endeavor is a game of world exploration and empire building. You represent a European empire colonizing the Mediterranean and shipping to all parts of the world to increase the empire’s glory and status in Industry, Culture, Finance and Politics. For all of its many pieces and parts, it’s easy to play and relatively fast. The first five or so turns go pretty fast, it wasn’t long before there were only a couple of turns left in the game. Those last couple of turns take a while though, because each player has built up the ability to take many actions during their turn.

In our game, we all started off with slightly different strategies. Some failed (Ben’s). Others succeeded (everyone else’s). Although most thought I was going to blow everyone away with my Glory Point total (victory points), that was not the case. I did win—just barely. I ended up with 45 points, but Mike and Owen were right behind me, both tied at 42 points. Ben ended with a lackluster 33 points. I pick on Ben sometimes in these write-ups, but I have to thank him for his part in my win. He made two crucial moves towards the end of the game that either hurt Owen directly or forced Owen to take action other than what Owen might have wanted to do. I think, seeing how close the final scores were, that I would have lost otherwise. Thanks Ben!

Chaos Steve

This week we played a new game called Endeavor. As the game description reveals, Endeavor is a game of world exploration and empire building. I had seen this game on ThoughtHammer and suggested it Owen. Why did I suggest it to Owen? Because it has both of Owen’s weaknesses when it comes to games: a good rating at geekDo AND it had tons of components.

(BTW, this week wins for containing the most web links.) 

The game is played over 7 rounds and each round has four phases: Industry, Culture, Finance and Politics. During the Industry phase you build new factories that either increase a particular facet of your empire or allow you additional actions in the Politics phase. During the Culture phase, you gain new workers for your empire. The Finance phase allows you to free up Factories to use again during the current round. Finally the Politics phase is where you can take various actions (Ship, Occupy, Attack, Draw or Pay). Using your actions you expand your control over cities and shipping lanes. At the end of the game, these garner you Victory Points; called something else completely in the game rules, but I forget what.

This looks to be a very fast playing game. Three of the four phases are very quick, and then there are only 7 rounds. What we discovered, though, was as you progress through the rounds and more opportunities open up on the board, the Politics phase for each player takes much longer as you decide just what to spend your actions on.

We all enjoyed this game very much. As the game progressed, I could see that Mike was managing his empire very well, Owen was planning for a big finish, and Ben was floundering in a flood of empiric bureaucracy. (Ben attacked my cities during the game. You should not attack the cities of the person writing the write-up.) In the end, it was Mike and Owen* who tied for the win; each having 56 victory points. I came in second with 51 points and Ben had some number much lower that shall be lost in annals of time. He would be embarrassed if I actually noted the number of points—dreadfully low, actually.

*After we finished the game, I had made some reference to Mike and Ben tying for the win. This brought me no end of grief from both Owen and Mike. But I got it right in the write-up!

Chaos Steve