This was our second go at Caylus, this time with four players, all of whom had played before. Unlike last time, this was a much less cut-throat affair as the person claiming the free Provost move tended to move him forward way down the track. The game also saw many more stone buildings built, particularly as I built the stone mason on the first turn and Nige next built the double stone production building. I decided to try and get the valuable Prestige buildings into play by building the lawyer and upgrading to a residential building. Unfortunately, the bailiff was moving so quickly (2 spaces every turn except one) that the game was virtually over by the time I was in a position to build my first blue building. Mark K and Mark G were concentrating more on castle building than Nige and myself and they got some very useful royal favours: mainly income and victory points. Mark G also made good use of accumulating gold for end of game VPs and this proved the critical factor with Mark G racing well ahead of the rest of us.
This game played much quicker than previously, partly as a result of there being fewer players, partly due to our greater familiarity with the game and partly due to the “jet-propelled†bailiff. We finished in about 2 hours 15 minutes. I found the game to be even more enjoyable than last time and rate it a very strong 8. There are still lots of different strategies to be tried out. I was a bit disappointed that the game didn’t last long enough for my prestige building strategy to work but next time I’ll know better and either ditch that route or try and slow the provost down.