I'm behind, so I'm just going to write briefly about our game session nearly two weeks ago.
Jaywowzer joined us. We let him pick this time, and he asked to play Perikles... we were happy to acknowledge.
This was our first five player game. The impact wasn't major, other than seeing the persians used more regularly. On the other hand, the experience felt more watered down than our first few games. Not sure if the bloom is coming off the rose, or if I just prefer it with fewer players. Actually, now that I think about it, it's probably the number of players. In any game where players are all playing in the same sandbox, more players means more things change before your turn comes up (which means less control/ more chaos). In Perikles, having less control didn't feel right.
I tried to see what would happen if I simply stuffed the board with cubes and left them there (since they are worth a point each at the end of the game, it seemed like it might work... it takes a lot of 3-5 point battles to make 30 points!) However, I was too single minded: I won only two statues, and one of those was worthless. I won very few battles with the persian armies. All in all, I think I came in 3rd or 4th.
Not sure what Jawowzer thought of it, but I think he liked it.
We then played a hand of For Sale! Not much to say. Fun. Light.
We capped the evening with the return of Jungle Speed. I was at the top of my game, and won (though I jockeyed for first with Luch for several turns before winning).
Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Die Marathon - The War and Peace of Euros Continued (Die Macher)
Chapter I: Wherein Anna Pavlovna Greets Vasili Kuragin
Sorry, wrong tome.
Die Macher. Aside from the 18xx games, there is no other Euro that I know of (remember, I state emphatically Euro) which takes as long or as much brainpower as this monster. What do I think of it? It's long. It's involved. It's actually pretty engaging - you generally don't have your attention wander. But it is long.
That said, there is a lot of elegance to many mechanics, especially with regard to play balance and scoring. On the other hand, the Valley Games edition suffers from a number of iconic and graphic issues - to borrow a term from computing, the user interface is sometimes quite poor.
For example, two major issue icons (Nuclear Power and Economic Development) are very similar at first glance, and a third, the Global War on Terrorism, can appear similar when viewed from across a table. The coalition icon is somewhat vague, the State chits and State cards might have been consolidated better as a single item, and so on.
I could go on but it's late and there are better things to try to document.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Going First
Since bidding for first player is a distinct phase and can cost one a lot of money, I thought it best to try to remember why you would want to go first rather than last.
If you go first: You can place media markers first. This could score you the critical plurality in a State.
If you go last: You can often pick up opinion polls in upcoming states for cheap. You can see what your opponents do in terms of altering their party platform and placing party meetings. You also win ties if you get 50 votes if two or more players score 50.
Generally, unless you really, really want media dominance, you want to go last.
Don't Fall Behind in Party Membership
Party membership both gains you income and scores points at the end of the game. Do not fall behind. In both games we've played, I've lost by a fair margin, to a great degree due to not keeping up with national opinion . Party membership = important.
Key Issues (Issue Coincidence Doubling)
These are only removed by the use of the shadow cabinet. Do not try to think otherwise. I think this game this ability was used much more often than in previous games. Also, do not place Key Issue markers on a card more than a turn in advance, where they can be removed easily. I made that error, placing a key issue on a state effectively two turns in advance, the final result of which was that it was not only turned into a standard issue, but removed entirely by the time we got around to scoring it. Do not do that again!
Typical Starting Player Bid
This game, the typical winning bid for starting player was between 3,000 and 5,000 Euros. I have no idea whether this is typical or not. The highest bid, which was something like 11,000 over the next competing bid, was my bid of $18,000. It did end up netting me a 48 seat state and the resultant media marker placement, so that probably got me a lot of points.
General Game Design Note
Try not to have more than seven phases in a turn. Die Macher has 10, with several of those steps effectively having between one and three sub-steps. Yes, politics is a complex subject, but the sheer number of steps in the game cause it to seem more complex than it is. This game design might have been edited more rigorously to condense and amalgamate some of these steps, perhaps.
Opinion Polls
Poll bidding ranged from an average of 5-10,000 euros in the earlier rounds up to 20,000 in the mid-game and all the way up to 48,000 and 69,000 in the endgame. As a humorous side-note, the 48k bid was useless for the bidder (Me) and netted a one point (!) party membership increase. This exorbitant expenditure was only exceeded by Ouch's bid of 69k which resulted in a 0 point membership increase.
First Round Bidding
One of my many errors in play this time around was overbidding for pretty much everything on the first state. Although it was a high seat state (42, I think?) I bid too much on first player, I bid too much on opinion polls and a few other aspects which escape me at this hour. When you don't know what the national issues will be, it's just not worth it.
Chapter II: Wherein Kozure Questions His Own Deep Strategy Skills
Playing this game again has reminded me that I tend to do poorly at games which require deep strategy and branching path computational skills. Tigris and Euphates, El Grande, Chess, Taj Mahal, Maharaja and a number of others fall into this category. These games also happen to be ones I tend to not like much. Notable exceptions are Tikal (which I tend to do fairly well with) and Power Grid (which I usually score in the middle to high end, but not win), so I'm not sure what distinguishes the play of these games from the others.
All in all, though, I am just poor at strategy. This weakness extends to strategic-level wargames as well, so it's not a Euro thing - it's strategy in general.
This confuses me somewhat, as I don't do badly at tactical wargames, and there are many Euros which I'm pretty good at. I have noticed a definite trend in that I do well at games which are introduced for the first time and then slip in the scores with additional plays as the other players become familiar with the game. It seems that my own particular dash for gaming is dealing with the unexpected or the unfamiliar. Most of the time.
Anyhow - at some point in the future I'll have to try to piece together what it is about these specific games which make me a poor opponent vs. other games where I hold my own. It'll probably give me some insight into my own personality.
For the moment, though, I'll just buck up and adopt a fatalistically optimistic approach to deep strategy games - yeah, I may have a poor track record, but this time, I'll do better.
Attitude is everything, right?
"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist- I really believe he is Antichrist- I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you- sit down and tell me all the news."
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.
*cough cough*Sorry, wrong tome.
Die Macher. Aside from the 18xx games, there is no other Euro that I know of (remember, I state emphatically Euro) which takes as long or as much brainpower as this monster. What do I think of it? It's long. It's involved. It's actually pretty engaging - you generally don't have your attention wander. But it is long.
That said, there is a lot of elegance to many mechanics, especially with regard to play balance and scoring. On the other hand, the Valley Games edition suffers from a number of iconic and graphic issues - to borrow a term from computing, the user interface is sometimes quite poor.
For example, two major issue icons (Nuclear Power and Economic Development) are very similar at first glance, and a third, the Global War on Terrorism, can appear similar when viewed from across a table. The coalition icon is somewhat vague, the State chits and State cards might have been consolidated better as a single item, and so on.
I could go on but it's late and there are better things to try to document.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Going First
Since bidding for first player is a distinct phase and can cost one a lot of money, I thought it best to try to remember why you would want to go first rather than last.
If you go first: You can place media markers first. This could score you the critical plurality in a State.
If you go last: You can often pick up opinion polls in upcoming states for cheap. You can see what your opponents do in terms of altering their party platform and placing party meetings. You also win ties if you get 50 votes if two or more players score 50.
Generally, unless you really, really want media dominance, you want to go last.
Don't Fall Behind in Party Membership
Party membership both gains you income and scores points at the end of the game. Do not fall behind. In both games we've played, I've lost by a fair margin, to a great degree due to not keeping up with national opinion . Party membership = important.
Key Issues (Issue Coincidence Doubling)
These are only removed by the use of the shadow cabinet. Do not try to think otherwise. I think this game this ability was used much more often than in previous games. Also, do not place Key Issue markers on a card more than a turn in advance, where they can be removed easily. I made that error, placing a key issue on a state effectively two turns in advance, the final result of which was that it was not only turned into a standard issue, but removed entirely by the time we got around to scoring it. Do not do that again!
Typical Starting Player Bid
This game, the typical winning bid for starting player was between 3,000 and 5,000 Euros. I have no idea whether this is typical or not. The highest bid, which was something like 11,000 over the next competing bid, was my bid of $18,000. It did end up netting me a 48 seat state and the resultant media marker placement, so that probably got me a lot of points.
General Game Design Note
Try not to have more than seven phases in a turn. Die Macher has 10, with several of those steps effectively having between one and three sub-steps. Yes, politics is a complex subject, but the sheer number of steps in the game cause it to seem more complex than it is. This game design might have been edited more rigorously to condense and amalgamate some of these steps, perhaps.
Opinion Polls
Poll bidding ranged from an average of 5-10,000 euros in the earlier rounds up to 20,000 in the mid-game and all the way up to 48,000 and 69,000 in the endgame. As a humorous side-note, the 48k bid was useless for the bidder (Me) and netted a one point (!) party membership increase. This exorbitant expenditure was only exceeded by Ouch's bid of 69k which resulted in a 0 point membership increase.
First Round Bidding
One of my many errors in play this time around was overbidding for pretty much everything on the first state. Although it was a high seat state (42, I think?) I bid too much on first player, I bid too much on opinion polls and a few other aspects which escape me at this hour. When you don't know what the national issues will be, it's just not worth it.
Chapter II: Wherein Kozure Questions His Own Deep Strategy Skills
Playing this game again has reminded me that I tend to do poorly at games which require deep strategy and branching path computational skills. Tigris and Euphates, El Grande, Chess, Taj Mahal, Maharaja and a number of others fall into this category. These games also happen to be ones I tend to not like much. Notable exceptions are Tikal (which I tend to do fairly well with) and Power Grid (which I usually score in the middle to high end, but not win), so I'm not sure what distinguishes the play of these games from the others.
All in all, though, I am just poor at strategy. This weakness extends to strategic-level wargames as well, so it's not a Euro thing - it's strategy in general.
This confuses me somewhat, as I don't do badly at tactical wargames, and there are many Euros which I'm pretty good at. I have noticed a definite trend in that I do well at games which are introduced for the first time and then slip in the scores with additional plays as the other players become familiar with the game. It seems that my own particular dash for gaming is dealing with the unexpected or the unfamiliar. Most of the time.
Anyhow - at some point in the future I'll have to try to piece together what it is about these specific games which make me a poor opponent vs. other games where I hold my own. It'll probably give me some insight into my own personality.
For the moment, though, I'll just buck up and adopt a fatalistically optimistic approach to deep strategy games - yeah, I may have a poor track record, but this time, I'll do better.
Attitude is everything, right?
(But good opinion polls don't hurt, either)
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Life Aquatic (Entdecker, Race for the Galaxy)
Five months ago, I went to a local math trade and played an oldie called Entdecker by Klaus Teuber. I liked it, but thought it was too long. Still, the mechanics stuck with me and so I figured I'd try to trade for it. And now, here it is...
Entdecker
Many comparisons to Carcassonne were made by the group throughout the explanation. I had the same feeling myself before I played the first time, but unlike the WAGSters, I didn't feel that way by the end.
Why?
There is a physical disconnect in Carcassonne. You draw a tile, and place it anywhere. Carcassonne is essentially an abstract, after all. In Entdecker, tile laying represents the exploration of the sea. You pick a spot to start, invest in your voyage and set sail. The tiles are placed as a representation of bringing your boat into uncharted waters. The tile matching mechanic may be the same as Carc, but being able to place it is not guaranteed. It's meant to complement the question mark tiles as a way to simulate the uncertainties of sea exploration. For me, the risks and rewards of exploration are well represented and it provides a distinctly different experience despite the tile laying similarities.
Also, it looks pretty cool as the board fills up.
The whole "discovery of the native tribes" aspect to the game helps to give the game another dimension which once again separates it from the lighter Carcassonne. (Don't get me wrong, I really like Carcassonne. In fact, I'd pick it over Entdecker given if I had to pick only one. I'm just saying that they are fairly different games)
In the first half of the game, we discovered a gigantic island which Bharmer dominated, launching him into the lead. As is often
the case in this type of game, his lead was attacked by the rest of us. His scouts exploring the native tribes were quickly outnumbered, stripping him of the endgame points. I won the game, mostly because my scouts gave me points.
I AM still concerned that those endgame points make the rest of the game unimportant. Otherwise, it's a good game and I'm glad I got it!
Also, with our group the game played in a very reasonable 1.5 hours. That made me happy.
Race for the Galaxy
We finished with another game of Race for the Galaxy. Not much to say except I had a hard time getting things going again. Kozure, on the other hand, seemed to be far more in control. Luch was just learning, but seemed to be doing well. It appeared that Kozure was way ahead, and Bharmer was firmly in second. That's how it ended, too, but I at least managed to come in third by playing a couple of 6 cards just as the game ended. Despite the fact I suck at it, I'm really enjoying this one.
Over the course of the game, it did occur to me that I do still miss some of the interaction of Puerto Rico. While I still feel that Race is much better in this regard than San Juan, I still miss the jockeying for limited real estate on the ships and trading house. Maybe an expansion will feature cards played to the centre of the table which multiple players can play to? I think that would be very interesting.
Entdecker
Many comparisons to Carcassonne were made by the group throughout the explanation. I had the same feeling myself before I played the first time, but unlike the WAGSters, I didn't feel that way by the end.
Why?
There is a physical disconnect in Carcassonne. You draw a tile, and place it anywhere. Carcassonne is essentially an abstract, after all. In Entdecker, tile laying represents the exploration of the sea. You pick a spot to start, invest in your voyage and set sail. The tiles are placed as a representation of bringing your boat into uncharted waters. The tile matching mechanic may be the same as Carc, but being able to place it is not guaranteed. It's meant to complement the question mark tiles as a way to simulate the uncertainties of sea exploration. For me, the risks and rewards of exploration are well represented and it provides a distinctly different experience despite the tile laying similarities.
Also, it looks pretty cool as the board fills up.
The whole "discovery of the native tribes" aspect to the game helps to give the game another dimension which once again separates it from the lighter Carcassonne. (Don't get me wrong, I really like Carcassonne. In fact, I'd pick it over Entdecker given if I had to pick only one. I'm just saying that they are fairly different games)
In the first half of the game, we discovered a gigantic island which Bharmer dominated, launching him into the lead. As is often
the case in this type of game, his lead was attacked by the rest of us. His scouts exploring the native tribes were quickly outnumbered, stripping him of the endgame points. I won the game, mostly because my scouts gave me points.
I AM still concerned that those endgame points make the rest of the game unimportant. Otherwise, it's a good game and I'm glad I got it!
Also, with our group the game played in a very reasonable 1.5 hours. That made me happy.
Race for the Galaxy
We finished with another game of Race for the Galaxy. Not much to say except I had a hard time getting things going again. Kozure, on the other hand, seemed to be far more in control. Luch was just learning, but seemed to be doing well. It appeared that Kozure was way ahead, and Bharmer was firmly in second. That's how it ended, too, but I at least managed to come in third by playing a couple of 6 cards just as the game ended. Despite the fact I suck at it, I'm really enjoying this one.
Over the course of the game, it did occur to me that I do still miss some of the interaction of Puerto Rico. While I still feel that Race is much better in this regard than San Juan, I still miss the jockeying for limited real estate on the ships and trading house. Maybe an expansion will feature cards played to the centre of the table which multiple players can play to? I think that would be very interesting.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Drivin' the 5 (The Kaiser's Pirates, Railroad Tycoon: Rails of Europe)
Luch finally made it back. For at least one session, it was a party of five.
Drivin' the 5 (5 Wagsters?, Mazda 5? Swedish Betrayal?)
The Kaiser's Pirates
Since we didn't get a chance to play a full game last time, we tried again this week. It's supposed to be a 2-4 player game, but we couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't scale to 5. Having played, I don't think it made much of a difference.
So, how does it stack up after a second play? I'd say my feelings haven't really changed from the first attempt. The nature of most "Take that!" style games is that the results are mostly random. You play the game for the fun of playing, not because there is a deep layer of strategy involved. Most of these games rely on humour to get them by (ex: Munchkin, Killer Bunnies), The Kaiser's Pirates relies on a wargame veneer. As I said last week, the fact that every card has multiple uses helps to avoid the stretches of frustrating "waiting for the right card" that often happens in card games... in this case, no matter what the card text actually says you can usually at least use the card to make an attack as the English navy. Still, there are a number of factors which keep it from being a great game for me:
1) Drawing one card per turn isn't enough. It takes a couple of cards in tandem to get anything interesting going on, yet you can only draw a single card no matter what. This leads to either a lot of waiting or completely random "play the last card you drew" style play. Neither one of them feel like they work within the intentions of the game.
2) It's way too long for what it is. There is nothing that happens in the second half of the game which makes me feel like it's any different from the first. Without any sort of "arc", the long play time just felt repetitive.
(Although these two issues are by far the most serious problem of the game, they also seem rather easy to solve. When we play this next time, I suggested we simply draw two cards at the end of each turn instead of one, and drawing three cards if a player skips their turn. The game will play in half the time and fun stuff will be easier to accomplish)
3) Losing pirates isn't that hard, yet it can be devastating to your ability to succeed. I happened to get targeted a fair bit throughout the game, and therefore lost a fair number of ships. I realized that once your pirates are gone, they are very difficult to replace. Problem is, the only way to score points is to sink merchants and once your pirates are gone, so is your ability to score points. This seems wrong. (I know that shooting down pirates also scores points, but unless you have merchant ships, they don't count. Therefore, once you lose your pirates, you end up in a vicious cycle where you can only attack merchants for points but can't attack merchants because you have no pirates). The odds of this happening to a player are made worse by the fact that the easiest move, to attack using the english navy, can only be directed vs pirates AND pirates are worth 3-4 times the value of merchants. I'm not sure that my situation would happen in many games, but if it does it would feel kind of broken.
Anyway, despite my comments I would look forward to playing again with the modified drawing rules. As a shorter game with more cards in hand, I'm sure it would be fun.
Railroad Tycoon: Rails of Europe
Boy, as I wrote up my rant last week about how good of a year it was turing out to be for new games, I didn't expect I'd be writing here again with yet another hit. Rails of Europe is an expansion board for Railroad Tycoon and from our initial play I'd say it takes everything I enjoyed about RRT and strips away most of what annoyed me. I really liked the game before, but I love it with the expansion.
The board is now much more reasonably sized. There are no sections that you look at and wonder why anyone would go there. In fact, with five players the opposite is true... the whole play area felt like the north-east in the original board. Players are constantly bumping into each other and fighting for resources and stations into each city. It was an intense experience which felt superior in every way to the original. I imagine I'd only choose to play the original board again if playing with 6 players, or for variety I suppose.
Other minor changes also had a positive impact:
- The major lines are all available from the beginning, which takes that particular element of chance out of the game. Ultimately, I liked the change. It prevents a person from making an accidental winfall when the right card comes at the right time. Still, the downside is that there was the POTENTIAL in the earlier major line card mechanic to force players to look at the board in a new light, not to mention giving a player who's options were exhausted a new goal to pursue. With all the major lines known and static, a "best strategy" might emerge (although the random cube distribution does help prevent that). To keep things lively, it might be fun to randomly remove a few of them at the start of the game, just to see it's impact on strategy.
- The victory point track starts reducing income earlier. This means that the balancing mechanism kicks in at a time that it can actually have an impact. I know during our game, I was actually forced to time some cube deliveries so that they wouldn't cost me too much income. It was an added challenge which I enjoyed.
- Getting two barons at the start of the game, and picking one, is obviously a better way to handle them. I'll also suggest we do this on either map.
Anyway, I built a north-south network which went from Coppenhagen through Berlin to Rome and Naples. I upgraded my engine all the way to 7 and spent the game delivering 5-7 point deliveries due to fortuitous initial distribution and very lucky draws on new industry cards/ actions. Shemp was leading through most of the game, but his east-west tracks put him at odds with Bharmer and Luch, so I guess that slowed him down some. I overcame his lead on the last few turns and won the game.
It's worth mentioning that a couple of random moves by Luch wound up mattering quite a bit to Kozure. For lack of anything better to do with his last few turns, Luch kept building tracks to nowhere. Kozure, who had the baron looking to build the most links, ended up losing his bonus because of it.
Ah Luch, it's good to have you back.
Drivin' the 5 (5 Wagsters?, Mazda 5? Swedish Betrayal?)
The Kaiser's Pirates
Since we didn't get a chance to play a full game last time, we tried again this week. It's supposed to be a 2-4 player game, but we couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't scale to 5. Having played, I don't think it made much of a difference.
So, how does it stack up after a second play? I'd say my feelings haven't really changed from the first attempt. The nature of most "Take that!" style games is that the results are mostly random. You play the game for the fun of playing, not because there is a deep layer of strategy involved. Most of these games rely on humour to get them by (ex: Munchkin, Killer Bunnies), The Kaiser's Pirates relies on a wargame veneer. As I said last week, the fact that every card has multiple uses helps to avoid the stretches of frustrating "waiting for the right card" that often happens in card games... in this case, no matter what the card text actually says you can usually at least use the card to make an attack as the English navy. Still, there are a number of factors which keep it from being a great game for me:
1) Drawing one card per turn isn't enough. It takes a couple of cards in tandem to get anything interesting going on, yet you can only draw a single card no matter what. This leads to either a lot of waiting or completely random "play the last card you drew" style play. Neither one of them feel like they work within the intentions of the game.
2) It's way too long for what it is. There is nothing that happens in the second half of the game which makes me feel like it's any different from the first. Without any sort of "arc", the long play time just felt repetitive.
(Although these two issues are by far the most serious problem of the game, they also seem rather easy to solve. When we play this next time, I suggested we simply draw two cards at the end of each turn instead of one, and drawing three cards if a player skips their turn. The game will play in half the time and fun stuff will be easier to accomplish)
3) Losing pirates isn't that hard, yet it can be devastating to your ability to succeed. I happened to get targeted a fair bit throughout the game, and therefore lost a fair number of ships. I realized that once your pirates are gone, they are very difficult to replace. Problem is, the only way to score points is to sink merchants and once your pirates are gone, so is your ability to score points. This seems wrong. (I know that shooting down pirates also scores points, but unless you have merchant ships, they don't count. Therefore, once you lose your pirates, you end up in a vicious cycle where you can only attack merchants for points but can't attack merchants because you have no pirates). The odds of this happening to a player are made worse by the fact that the easiest move, to attack using the english navy, can only be directed vs pirates AND pirates are worth 3-4 times the value of merchants. I'm not sure that my situation would happen in many games, but if it does it would feel kind of broken.
Anyway, despite my comments I would look forward to playing again with the modified drawing rules. As a shorter game with more cards in hand, I'm sure it would be fun.
Railroad Tycoon: Rails of Europe
Boy, as I wrote up my rant last week about how good of a year it was turing out to be for new games, I didn't expect I'd be writing here again with yet another hit. Rails of Europe is an expansion board for Railroad Tycoon and from our initial play I'd say it takes everything I enjoyed about RRT and strips away most of what annoyed me. I really liked the game before, but I love it with the expansion.
The board is now much more reasonably sized. There are no sections that you look at and wonder why anyone would go there. In fact, with five players the opposite is true... the whole play area felt like the north-east in the original board. Players are constantly bumping into each other and fighting for resources and stations into each city. It was an intense experience which felt superior in every way to the original. I imagine I'd only choose to play the original board again if playing with 6 players, or for variety I suppose.
Other minor changes also had a positive impact:
- The major lines are all available from the beginning, which takes that particular element of chance out of the game. Ultimately, I liked the change. It prevents a person from making an accidental winfall when the right card comes at the right time. Still, the downside is that there was the POTENTIAL in the earlier major line card mechanic to force players to look at the board in a new light, not to mention giving a player who's options were exhausted a new goal to pursue. With all the major lines known and static, a "best strategy" might emerge (although the random cube distribution does help prevent that). To keep things lively, it might be fun to randomly remove a few of them at the start of the game, just to see it's impact on strategy.
- The victory point track starts reducing income earlier. This means that the balancing mechanism kicks in at a time that it can actually have an impact. I know during our game, I was actually forced to time some cube deliveries so that they wouldn't cost me too much income. It was an added challenge which I enjoyed.
- Getting two barons at the start of the game, and picking one, is obviously a better way to handle them. I'll also suggest we do this on either map.
Anyway, I built a north-south network which went from Coppenhagen through Berlin to Rome and Naples. I upgraded my engine all the way to 7 and spent the game delivering 5-7 point deliveries due to fortuitous initial distribution and very lucky draws on new industry cards/ actions. Shemp was leading through most of the game, but his east-west tracks put him at odds with Bharmer and Luch, so I guess that slowed him down some. I overcame his lead on the last few turns and won the game.
It's worth mentioning that a couple of random moves by Luch wound up mattering quite a bit to Kozure. For lack of anything better to do with his last few turns, Luch kept building tracks to nowhere. Kozure, who had the baron looking to build the most links, ended up losing his bonus because of it.
Ah Luch, it's good to have you back.
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