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The Hawaiian idol inspires expansion. |
Designer Kevin McPartland watches
Dave's island empire grow. |
Aloha ...
The
second Conquest of Paradise tournament at the
WBC began Friday afternoon in the Demo area. A nice crowd gathered
to listen to the game's designer describe how to play the game. Most
of those folks followed to Conestoga Room 3: a private room just
for us, off of the main gaming room. Some familiar faces were
spotted from last year, but many new faces as well. This year,
the tournament had a total of 32 players; dwarving last year's
turnout.
The Mulligan round had four full 4-player games - yes, exactly
16 players showed for the round; this would not be the only time
the numbers worked out just right. Some highlights: One game
saw Tonga draw some terrific islands in exploration: Hawaii,
Tahiti and Hawaiiki! But despite the fact that there
was no combat (the only battle was turned away by judicious play
of an Arioi card), Tonga did not win: Hiva won with a point-and-a-half
margin of victory. Another game saw a victory by Hiva in a dramatically
different manner: a last-turn attack gained Hawaii, getting just
enough points to tie the front-runner, and then win on the tie
breaker! In another game, Samoa won despite losing
their home islands to an attack by Tonga.
The first round had even more players - five games going this
time. In one of the games, Tonga declared victory,
but the play of Severe Deforestation forced the game to continue. Hiva
then attacked Tahiti successfully, beat off a counter-attack,
and won the game. In another, Raiatea made a final attack
that came down to the final throw of the die; he won the battle,
and the game by a single point. Other games were quiet development
competitions; all players found good prospects while exploring,
and felt confident in winning through superior economic might;
the winner of these close games ran their island empires more
efficiently than the others.
The semi-final round again had exactly eight players (one
of the winners of the nine earlier games had another commitment)
so there were two full games and both were nail-biters! The game
at Table 1 opened with an early attack by Raiatea against Hiva,
but it was beaten back. This began the first of many
rounds of intense negotiations, as all four players tried to
define their areas of interest. Tonga explored a lone
hex, right in the middle of the other three players, and revealed
Hawaii (!) just to distract them! Two of the players
attacked into the known islands to find expansion room. The
last turn saw two attacks: Tonga sacked Samoa's home islands,
burning all the villages to look like less of a threat to the
others. Raiatea made a surgical strike against Hiva,
gaining enough points to win the game - or so he thought; instead,
Scott deBrestian's Tonga ended up winning by half a point!
The game at Table 2 saw an epic victory by David Cross playing
Tonga. His exploration was not going well, and his
cards suggested a martial strategy; but his first attack was
a complete failure, rolling seven 1's in nine attempts! Exploration
continued to fail Tonga, finding just three atolls and the rest
open ocean - not a single useful island! Through diplomacy,
threats, and well timed attacks, Tonga ended up controlling three
home island groups and won the game by one point. And
he had a lot of fun with that Cannibalism card, too!
This set up our Final. Half of the players would
have been returning 2008 finalists, but defending champ Mark
McCandless made the agonizing decision to forego defending his
title to expand his realm of accomplishments by play in another
Final - which proved to be the correct decision! The
Final followed a completely different course from the semis. All
four players were having successful explorations, and quietly
developing their empires. There was only one battle,
an attempt to knock down the leader a bit. But then
suddenly, Samoa turned over his cards, and revealed just enough
for a victory, by two points over Charles Drozd's Tonga. Nick
Smith had won the coveted Hawaiian idol! And he even
agreed to pose for a picture with the winner's wood plaque.
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