March 2025 Gaming

I knew March was going to be a big month for gaming, considering the Terminal City Tabletop Convention weekend.

However, I had no idea how big it would be!

Last month, I had 20 plays of 14 different games, and I thought it was good.

I knew March would be better…but my mind was blown.

Literally!

Well, figuratively, but still…

That’s right.

I had 44 plays of 33 different games in March.

That’s, like, an infinity of numbers higher!

But anyway…

Here are the games I played in March 2025.

And here they are in grid format. There are two pictures!

Many thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats app for these pictures and numbers.

With that many games, I’m sure there were a bunch of highlights, right?

Let’s take a look.

First, as usual, I’m not going to talk about the 14 (!) new to me games, as they will get their own posts (yes, multiple posts, as there are just too many for one).

First thing of note is that I got another play in of my favourite new to me game in 2024, Civolution!

This game is just so good. Point salad, and it can definitely be hard to really concentrate on one or two things that will get you points.

I felt like I was doing that this time too, as I didn’t think that I was getting a good card engine going, I wasn’t roaming the map or procreating that much. My starting action update was “Explore” and I think I explored once before using it to do a Lucky Find a couple more times.

What’s with that?

But towards the end of the game, I had an Income chip that let me roll the pink dice for a chance to procreate and I realized that tribes were worth double points at the end. I also succeeded in getting some good in-game points and scoring a lot in a couple of the scoring rounds.

I ended 2 points behind the leader.

But I had a scoring card in my console and he didn’t. That card gave me 6 points and I won, 194-190 (the new player was behind at 166, but considering my first two games were in the 130s, that’s pretty good!)

I felt like my game was disjointed but I bettered my previous scores by 60 points, so I must have been doing something right.

This game must be played again, and soon.

Another fine thing was that I got my 2nd play in 2025 of my favourite game of all time (at least for now), Ark Nova.

Both 2025 plays were without the Marine Worlds expansion, unfortunately.

Thanks, Cal!

Shouldn’t happen again, as it is now punched and sorted.

I did terribly in this game. I love it, but I’m not good at it. Not sure why.

But it was still a blast and I’ll always strongly consider playing it (depending on whether playing something else would be good for the blog or some other consideration).

Also, in my annual quest to get every Garphill game I own played at least once a year, number two in 2025 was Scholars of the South Tigris at TCTC.

No, no drinking!!!

Anyway, I translated a lot in this game, and it paid off! It helped to have translated scrolls that chained together a bit.

It wasn’t a huge win, but it doesn’t have to be huge to be…well, huge.

Especially beating Tartan “he who only translates once but loves the tech tracks”

It was satisfying.

Scratching another Garphill game off the list needed to be played…stop drinking!!!!!

That would be Viscounts of the West Kingdom.

Once again with both expansions.

The only way to play!

This time, I managed to not only get the castle strategy to work well, but I actually beat James!

Barely, but I did.

In the “Blast from the past” category, we have my first play in almost exactly three years of Santa Monica.

I’ve still only played this twice on the table, so no review of it yet.

Though I do have a few Yucata plays in, so maybe I can?

It was a close one, and one I really enjoyed.

Not sure why this doesn’t hit the table more, other than maybe the fact that it’s a pretty big box for not a lot of components.

There was also the apparently annual play (or at least two years in a row) of Empire’s End at TCTC (the last play of it was at last year’s TCTC).

I evidently was a good teacher to at least player, because he destroyed all of us.

Fitting since it’s a game of managed destruction!

As usual, I had my monthly Combat Commander game, where I once again won, meaning that I have a bit of a buffer (I’m two games above .500 in my career).

That’s always fun, but it’s also a given.

There’s just so many games that I could be talking about, but I don’t want to drone on and on. (Editor: “Too late!”)

Plenty of new to me games, a lot of old favourites, a few that haven’t been played in quite a while.

It was a stellar month, and April can only be a lot less, since there are no conventions that month.

I’m hoping to at least keep to February’s level next month, but we’ll see.

What did you play in March?

Let me know in the comments.