I Own This Town

Liz's dad was home alone this Saturday, so he invited people over for food and games. We planned on doing just that. We stopped off for lunch and played Zombie Fluxx before getting there. It was a dull play for me since I never picked up a goal card.
When we got there, Tom was in the middle of a show and Liz and Becky got busy making food. I got busy taking a nap. After waking, eating and cleaning up, we were good to game. Tom wanted to play...

Lords of Vegas 2-4 players
I had just gotten this game from Sarah and Darrin for my birthday. In fact, I had almost purchased it on Amazon before heading over to see them. Thank goodness they texted me to meet up with them soon enough.

The game is set in the early days of Vegas. Everyone starts out with 2 random lots on the board and no money. On a player's turn, a card is drawn from the deck. On this card, it will tell you 2 things. It will tell you what new property you get and what casinos will pay out. After claiming this lot everyone gets paid: 1 million for each lot owned and then payouts for casinos matching the color on the card. I'll get back to that. After getting paid, you can use what money you have to build a casino on a lot you own, sprawl onto a lot no one owns, remodel a casino you own to a different color, reorganize a casino you aren't the boss of, or gamble at someone else's casino. This explanation seems to be falling apart so I might end it short. It works better when you explain while playing, which is what I did. There are two things I want to add. When you get to buy a casino, you add a die of you color with the board indicated pip value and a border color of your choice. If another player builds a casino of that same color next to yours, it becomes one casino. The larger pipped die is the boss of the casino. Now back to the card from the deck. I said "...then payouts for casinos matching the color on the card". Each player still gets paid for the parts they own. They are paid based on the pip value. But also, the boss of each casino of that color gets points based on the size of the casino. I would stop there, but there is one more thing that makes this game unique. The scoring track is not a normal track. Eventually the track makes 2 point jumps and eventually 3 point jumps and so on. The reason for this is to force the players to make bigger casinos. Once you reach the 2 point barrier you can't score for your 1 point casinos. If you score a 5 point casino, you move 2 spaces since you can pass two 2 point barriers (the extra 1 point gets lost).

Now, to our game. Tom actually started out in the lead. He had a lot of 1 point casinos. Each of us slowly gained some ground on him. I was able to nab a 3 point casino and quickly caught up. Eventually, Tom got waylaid by the 2 point barrier which wasn't a problem for me. I took a commanding lead before things got ugly (i.e. things got fun). A lot of fighting for casino control and sprawling and the occasional gambling ensued. In the end, I was just past the 4 point barrier and the other were just passing the 3-point barrier. We all had a blast. I feel like I'll be needing the expansion soon to allow for 2 more players.

We followed up with Formula D. We went with a 2 lap race this time. In the beginning, Liz was trailing all of us. Near the final turn of the lap, she pulled way ahead. Tom got a flat and fell behind. Becky revved up and caught up with Liz after the pit stop. I shot out a little later and went into high gear to get in their faces. Tom was lagging by a lot. I took a risk mid lap that caused me to blow up on the turn. This left it wide open for the sisters. Tom got bold as well to have a fighting chance and blew up on the turn after my rotting carcass. Becky had a few unlucky rolls on the last turn and Liz drove home to victory. I'm so pumped for a 3 lap race.

Tally: 74/162  Bonus: 21/50