7 Ages Report: 4th of July Weekend (Monday)

Well, I got to give 7 ages a go for the first time today on the tail end of this glorious three day weekend. Ben, Brian, and Jon were the other participants in our marathon game that lasted on into the third age before we all called it. The ending was just plain crazy and probably the best part, making me consider playing again. It went something like this:

Ben was winning coming into the final stretch when we agreed on the ending age in advance. He had a seven point lead over myself with a mere two empires (his attempt to start the Franks had been hit by a Shooting Star). The two empires he did have, however, were the largest--the Huns, 10 territories, dominating China and India--and second largest (tie)--the ancient Iranians(!), 7 territories in northeastern Europe. Brian was the first player for the final turn and would win all tie-breakers. Between the two of them, his empires were in a position to score roughly 6 points.

-And then the cards started raining down on poor Ben. First I caused an Earthquake in the Hunnish empire, disordering 4 areas and dropping it to third largest nation on Earth for purposes of scoring. I followed this up with a failed attempt at causing an Uprising among the Huns. Next I played the dreaded Empire Collapses card on the Ancient Iranians. Their entire empire went into disorder, meaning it would score no points.

This ended my Civilize action, so Jon then decided to use Vizier to retrieve the Empire Collapses card. He agonized over whom to use it on, since he was too far behind Ben to have a realistic shot at overtaking him for the win. He decided to target me instead. First he hit Japan with Fires, plunging all of Japan's land territory into disorder. Then he unleashed the Empire Collapses... but I used my long-hoarded Blowback card to retarget it on the Huns! Thus the Huns were reduced to six areas, all in disorder.

So Ben ended up being the victim of a Shooting Star, Earthquake, Uprising, and two Empire Collapses all on the same turn. As a result of all this, Ben went from having the two largest and most powerful empires on the board to owning not a single territory that wasn't in disorder. Around this time, I was laughing my ass off when the disembodied spirit of Michael drifted out of the game board and proceeded to choke the life out of Jon, the nearest victim. His body fell over limp and I wondered to myself how an unemployed game junkie had mastered astral projection (my question was self-answering). Brian was next and took a Dr. Pepper up the nose, for a full frontal lobe pounding. I then noticed Ben was gone as I heard the sound of tires squealing outside. I gave Michael a timid smirk and whispered while in the act of wetting myself:

“I betcha’ you were pissed reading this report until you got to the end!”