Altiplano

Our game of Altiplano was epic. My fellow players showed their class in every possible way, while I watched that wonderful kind of board-game nastiness unfold: the kind that makes you laugh while realising that something valuable has just vanished from in front of you.

At the table, the game quickly became about resources and controlling them. There was resource hogging with real determination, as if everyone had a personal contract to deny the others whatever they needed. The interaction was not subtle; it was plainly there, in who got there first, who collected what, and who left everyone else scrambling.

And naturally there was the tension around scoring, with Ioannis Prodromos—always ahead—asking the truly vital question: “If I score below zero, do I win?” I do not know whether that is strategic genius or a complete breakdown, but it was exactly the level of energy the session needed.

The verdict: fisticuffs and alpacas. And once we declared ourselves ready for complexes, we set up Mare Nostrum: Empires as well. In an unprecedented crisis of conscience, everyone had read the game—except me, because I had read the previous edition. Because bitzitzitzi.