Seaside just came in. Now I have two (count them, two!) whole sets to play with at the table.
First, I love the little silver and gold coins. Most other places would have cheaped out and put more cardboard in. I was really surprised.
So I played a couple of games from the book with my son. We started with High Seas, and I won. Those duration cards are really an interesting change to the game. I was cycling my deck so, sooo much faster with them in it. I should have bought more islands. I love how you can now thin the deck without giving up the points. My son pulled a pirate ship and had it up to +4, but we embargoed the pirate ships, putting an end to his buying them. I bought a couple of wharfs, and then embargoed them. No one got any curses, we just avoided buying the embargoed cards. I didn't need them once I got my deck going, and my son...I don't know what his strategy was. But then again, I don't think he knows either, he's just a very intuitive player.
Now, normally, he only likes to play one game and then go find something else to do. But he's also competitive. So when he lost the first game, he wanted another set up so he would have a chance to win. So we set up Buried Treasure. (Except when I unpacked everything, I accidentally swapped Treasury with Treasure Map, so we had Treasuries instead...)
I lost that one. I just couldn't get things moving fast enough to catch up with him. I know what I did wrong, though: I succumbed to 'new toy' syndrome, and did like I used to do. Which was to buy OMG ONE OF EVERYTHING! TOO COOL! So I got to play with Lighthouses (One of my current favorites), caravans, wharf's, Tacticians, and Outposts (among others). I almost got a double tactician off. At least until my son pointed out that if you play one tactician, you have to discard the other before you get the benefits. Duh. I'll claim it as a senior moment.
And for the record, last nights games were the first ever where I managed to buy two provinces in one turn. That felt really cool.
