Unusual session of Small World

Started the New Year off just the same as the Old Year ended, with a game of Small World, but with considerably more success.

It was also an odd game, as neither the Young General nor the Old Warrior declined a race!

Yes, we went the entire 10-turn 2-player games with the same races.

In the case of the Old Warrior this seems to have been a very defensible position, as the Hill Elves were a very profitable combination. The immortality of the Elves always makes them formidable, and the Hill power added a fairly stable and easy-to achieve 2-3 coin bonus every turn. We were playing with the Expansions, including the Leaders.

The Young Warrior, meanwhile, had grabbed the Dragonmaster Orcs right off the top of the pile and was having a grand time with them. Eventually, though, it became clear that the long-term trend wasn't in their favor, as they were losing orcs occasionally while the Elves stayed as strong as ever. Additionally the Orcs were reluctant to ransom their leader from the Elves (very orcish behavior, that), no doubt wanting to avoid the cycle that the Elves fell into, of losing and ransoming their leader every turn, which was also costly.

Making it hard for the Young General was that none of the other Race/Power combos looked all that great for dealing with the Elves either, and he was wary about losing a turn to decline while the Elves were busy scoring away. Still, he probably should have done it in order to at least shake up things a bit and try to change the course of the game. As it turned out, the Hill Elves took the Old Warrior to a solid victory, earning 95 coins (might have made it to 100 if it wasn't for all the ransom paid for the Elvish leader) while the Dragonmaster Orcs ended with 73.