Welcome to 2009 - CYLON!

Introduction

Herein lies a twisted tale of deception and surprise. Enter if you dare.

Third game of Galactica for me, Agent Easy and Luch, but Bharmer and Shemp weren’t around for the introduction in December. The three of us who have played before feel pretty comfy with the rule set and strategies, so after what I think is a pretty concise and clear rules explanation, we set up and begin a five player game.

First player is determined. It’s one of the new players, "Bharmer". He’s never seen the re-imagined show, though he’s familiar with the rag-tag fleet concept from the old one. He picks Gaius Baltar. I open my mouth to say something, but then I think - ‘this will probably make it more fun for him’, so I close it. Political leader category down. He stares at the picture of everyone’s least favourite ladykiller for a little bit and says - ‘he’s a pretty good looking guy. Sorta looks like me.’ Surprisingly, this is pretty accurate.

Next player, "Luch" takes Chief Tyrol. Good: safe and important support role is covered.

I ("Kozure") take Starbuck. I’ve previously played Apollo and Tigh, but I gravitate towards pilot types anyway and I figure we need one.

Next player takes Saul Tigh. "Shemp" hasn’t played before and has seen neither the old nor the re-imagined series. He asks whether the Battlestar and the Vipers are intentional Star Wars rip-offs or if it’s just a coincidence. I explain in as short a time I can the whole Star Wars - Battlestar Galactica - Star Trek: The Motion Picture relationship. Short story, yeah, they’re rip-offs. Curiously, he takes Tigh because "he looks like John McCain," which is funny because Shemp’s political views are almost diametrically opposed to McCain.

The choice of categories is pretty wide open for the final experienced player, "Agent Easy". I figure it would be best to take Roslin so that the newbie won’t have to make the political decisions, but I try not to influence people about their character choices unless there’s an obvious hole in our skill card set. There isn’t, really - we’ve got piloting covered with Starbuck, tactics with Starbuck and Tigh, engineering with Tyrol and Baltar, politics with Baltar and Tyrol, leadership with Tigh and Starbuck. We’re a little weak in politics and leadership, since Baltar is more likely to "go toaster", but I figure we can handle it. Agent Easy picks Sharon ‘Boomer’ Valerii. I’m a little surprised, since that makes for two people with higher chances of being the cylon, but whatever. Easy says he wants to try his hand at piloting, so I don’t argue.

Turn order, in case you’re keeping track, is: Baltar > Tyrol > Starbuck > Tigh > Boomer. I make a comment that the seating and character choices may end up being very problematic if Baltar and Boomer turn out to be the cylons.

Loyalty deck is shuffled and dealt. I’m a toaster. Frak me. Well, I’ve only been one once before, so this should be fun. Tigh is the Admiral. Baltar is President.

Skill cards are drawn, board is set. We’re good to go.


Act I - "Uh, I think we should jump now."

The first few turns are pretty typical. I jump into a viper to fight off the raiders doing my best to be a good little human. Unfortunately (or fortunately, from my point of view) the first three crises we draw are green-yellow, and we whiffle on them all, despite the fact that I’m actually contributing greens when I can so as not to draw suspicion. I’m doing a little mental happy dance that the pathetic survivors are getting pummelled so early on, but the skill card draws seem to show (inconclusively) that someone else is sabotaging. It could just be poor initial card draws as well, so I’m not convinced there’s another cylon yet.

We’ve lost morale and food, but we’re not doing horribly. A jammed assault puts more contacts on the Dradis, but we... er... the humans are holding their own despite the onslaught. We’re slowly advancing the jump track, a few more crises with a mixture of successes and failures. By the time we reach the -1 jump, there are a lot of raiders in the air as well as heavy raiders and both basestars. It’s starting to get hairy. Good... good.

It’s bad enough that there is general consensus we should try the early jump. I offer to throw in a card to add +2 to the die roll. The jumping player rolls an 8 so he would have made it anyway without my card helping. There’s the usual relieved sighs as the board is cleared. We jump to a deserted system (jump progress 2). Safe... or so the puny humans thought.


Act II - "Toga Party on Colonial One!"

After the jump, someone draws a Virus crisis, so we have a boarder. My turn’s up next. I say, truthfully, that the boarder is a threat but we should also get some CAP out there. There is grumbling around the table. I shrug and say "OK, I’ll hit the Armory, then." Unluckily, I roll a 7 and kill the cylon boarder. Frak. I figure that should throw some of the heat off me, though.

Everyone is suspecting Baltar quite a bit, mostly for some slightly odd behavior before the first jump. There’s a little suspicion on me, for reasons I can’t make out, since I’ve been almost choirboy-innocent for every action - I haven’t even tried to sabotage anything yet. A player turn or two later though, I actually screw up trying to sabotage a crisis check being conducted by Tigh that would probably make me stand out like a neon light if he had actually counted the cards he put in.

Tigh asks me about which cards I put in. I say I put in leadership cards. He says "card..s?" emphasizing the ‘s’. I realize in a heartbeat that I actually only put in one piloting card and the only other pilot, Boomer, has curiously abstained from the check after I threw in, but to correct myself would be doubly suspicious, so I say as earnestly as I can "yeah, two cards." There is a single piloting card as well as two other cards which sabotage the check. Tyrol had also abstained, so all of the leadership cards must have really come from Tigh or the destiny deck, and there were too many for all of them to be from the destiny deck.

I see a moment of suspicion flash over his face, but curiously he gathers up the cards and puts them in the discard without comment. The rest of that portion of the game is mostly quiet as players gather cards and scout, and the next jump happens without much incident. I use my Destiny ability to bury a pretty tough morale crisis (though I know there are worse coming, I don’t complain when a consensus is reached that we should do it anyway). We do lose a few points on morale and food, but population and fuel are where we’d expect. At one point, something happens, I can’t recall what, which tips suspicion on Baltar into the red, and he gets brigged. He makes some initial pathetic attempts to get out, but fails. The only thing that stands out in my mind is we failed a few times as a result of piloting cards that I didn’t put in, so I’m guessing that Boomer is the other cylon. At the same time, Tigh strangely jaunts over to Colonial One on the pretext that we’ve been doing poorly on Political checks, so he wants to pick up some cards there. Strange. Tigh is spending maybe one turn in three being drunk. He announces jokingly that there is a toga party on Colonial One. Another stand out is two Riot crises in a row, which is hard to cope with.


Act III - "Secret Cylon would be a good band name."

Coming out of the next jump into a cylon ambush (now making our jump progress 5) ["Thanks, Admiral," we chorus], I immediately want to get out into space again to fight my (fellow) Cylons to put on the best possible show of loyalty. The loyalty cards are dealt in the Sleeper Phase and Boomer is brigged per her character card (there is some confusion during the sleeper phase when I realize I put the sympathizer card in when I should not have. We resolve it by removing Tyrol’s revealed sympathizer card and giving him the remaining loyalty card).

I launch, but Tigh is after my turn and I note, out of the corner of my eye, that he and Boomer exchange glances for a moment as if agreeing on something. On Tigh's action, I’m brigged - it’s almost futile for Starbuck to try to avoid being brigged by Tigh, but I have to do something. No one helps me stay out. I guess I haven’t been convincing enough and Tigh and Boomer have decided I’m a toaster. Them being right doesn’t make it any less annoying.

Another cylon attack crisis. The Galactica takes damage but is quickly patched by Tyrol. Starbuck, Boomer and Baltar are in the brig. A launch raiders icon comes up in one Crisis, a second cylon attack in the next. The Galactica has a mass of contacts on her starboard front quarter - this is literally the most raiders, heavy raiders and cylons I've seen on the board, ever. Suddenly, Boomer reveals on the second turn of her internment and offs herself, popping up cackling on the Resurrection Ship.

With tonnes of raiders on the board and Cylon-Boomer puppeting them from the Cylon Fleet, things hit the fan quickly. We lose three Civvies in short order with only redshirt vipers out there - two of the Civilian ships turn out to be the double resource ones. We have three damaged vipers and one destroyed, the rest are in the air. Once again, I’m cackling internally, all the while playing the innocent injured party. Morale is at "2" - all the other dials except population are also in the red - 3s and 4s.

President Baltar finally manages to spring himself from the Brig using a combination of high skill cards and the card that reduces the target difficulty. Starbuck is the only one left in the brig.

Then we have a crisis check. I put in my card which would help the humans, just so that it would be apparent that I’m still innocent and would have time to put in the coup de grace at just the right moment. The revealed Cylon-Boomer has already spent a bunch of his skill cards in other crises, so he doesn’t spend any on this check. We should pass.

The cards are revealed. Three spoiler cards. Crisis failed. Sabotaged again.

I’m gob-smacked. I’m the only other possible cylon other than Boomer, but with the cards distribution as it turns out (I can’t remember the distribution or the participants), the only possible culprit is Tigh. I figure someone frakked up royally and played the wrong colour, but no-one owns up. I say nothing.

Finally, we get to a point where the next crisis will kill us if it hits morale, the fleet is being decimated and we’re nowhere near jumping. It’s my turn. I languish in jail, claiming to be unable to spring myself (entirely true, actually). Tigh’s turn the crisis card flips - it’s the one that is a -2 morale hit if failed. Somehow it gets around to me and I’m the only one who can help it succeed. Obviously I deep-six the check with a high off-suite card and the humans surrender due to morale being in the toilet.

I look up. There are five confused faces. I flip my loyalty card. Cylon...obviously. Boomer is already revealed, but dutifully shows two "you are human" and one cylon card. Baltar flips. Both human. Tyrol flips. Human. Tigh flips... Cylon.

I blink. There are one too many cylons.

I reach over and grab Tigh’s card. Yup. We read it right. Boomer’s card we saw earlier. Mine is right too.

Baltar says, in a wounded voice, "Uh, I thought there was only supposed to be two cylons."

I am baffled, "So did I," I say apologetically.

We never do figure out how it happened, but apparently I somehow shuffled an extra cylon card into the initial deal. This is especially baffling (and galling) to me because I thought I took extra care with preparing the Loyalty deck because the first four-player game we had with a different guest player-teacher, he accidentally left a cylon card out, and we were missing a cylon as a result.

Nonetheless, the evidence is there: I obviously frakked up the Loyalty deal somehow. Three of the five players had been cylons from the very start. The humans never had a chance.

Civilization: The Rulings

The rules for Sid Meier's Civilization: The Boardgame are notoriously unclear on many topics. I thought I'd spend some time trying to find "official" answers to rules issues, and failing that, provide links or background to unofficial answers. Where neither official nor unofficial answers exist, I wanted to record our own gaming group "ruling". Part of the problem with this is that the old Eagle Games forum on SMC:TB, which contained many official rulings from the designers, went down with the crash of Eagle Games. There is actually a new Eagle Games forum, but it has only a few scant questions. I'm trying to use the Wayback Machine to recover what I can. Otherwise, I'm taking cues from the Civ forums at BGG.

Issues that came up last night:

Q:Are units exhaustible?

A: No. If a player builds more units than are available in the game, find some way of marking or indicating additional units.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/314732

Q: Do you have to pay current era prices for units/improvments/techs from previous eras?

A: No, for units you pay that era's price, but you may only purchase the "best" of that era.

For improvements, you pay the price of the era it dates from.

For techs, you pay half price (and get any associated Wonders, as usual).

You get the "royalty" payment appropriate to the era it comes from.

Question found in archived Wayback Machine forums: "Q: If you go into a new Epoch are you alowed to buy old Units from old epochs? At which price? and how much licence you have to pay?

A: Yes; see p. 24 Purchasing Military Units. Players may always purchase the "best" unit, of each type (e.g. infantry) from each era. The price of the unit depends on the era it is from, as does the fee received by the owner of that technology." Source: - TFK - official Eagle Answers - culled from Wayback Machine.

Also: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/34017

Q: Can a fleet stop another fleet from moving through or unloading units into a space?

A: "Armies loaded on ships are not allowed to disembark if the fleet they are being transported on has been stopped after moving one or more spaces."* SMC:tBG Rules Version 2.0

*This is actually from the Standard (not advanced rules) but is such a standard convention in most wargames of this scale and complexity that it can be assumed that Eagle just forgot to include this rule in the Advanced section.

This actually didn't come up as an issue this time, but may next session, given the number of amphibious landings about to take place. Units which are "stopped" can be land or sea (but land or sea units cannot stop air units).

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/32471

I'm certain there were some other rules issues. Post them here as comments and I'll append them.

OTHER CRITICISM

A guy at BGG took the time to collect and organize criticisms levelled at the game. I figure if we ever bother to play this game again, we agree on a set of revisions that address the issues mentioned in this thread:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/64795

(reproduced here in part for the very lazy, but the link above has in-depth descriptions of the problems mentioned )

1) random exploration markers at start, luck factor
2) bookkeeping / tracking production
3) combat too slow, tedious, random, bad mechanic
4) shared tech tree
5) only one of each happy & production improvement
6) no vps for techs
7) takes too long to play
8) no government
9) runaway leader dynamic
10) resource trading is too complicated / confusing / time consuming
11) city improvements become obsolete
12) city improvements aren't worth their cost
13) hyperexpansion strategy
14) plague too harsh in later eras
15) tech tree problems - ancient->middle too profitable, currency not purchased

Princes of *Teh Suck* (Goa, Princes of Florence)

It all started innocently enough...

Goa was the carry-over game from last week. I had mentioned last time that I would try to see what could be done by advancing the money and ships track, since I never seemed to use them much. With the extra money, I was able to make a couple of very strong bids. Of course, the money goes to another player, so I'm not convinced it's a good strategy in the long term.

It was a ridiculously close game. 35, 35, 35, 34. Kozure won the game with the most money as the tie-breaker.

Next we played Princes of Florence. Well, it may be more accurate to say we played some game using PoF game pieces. What it was we actually played is anyone's guess.

You see, we couldn't find the rulebook. PoF is one of m favorite games, and we've played it quite a few times as a group, so it shouldn't have been such an obstacle. Little details were hazy, though. We weren't sure what the starting money was. We figured it must have been roughly 1800 florin. We were wrong (it's 3500). Things went downhill from there.

In the first auction, everyone felt poor and Luch picked up his Jester for 200 florin. We should have packed up then and there, but we didn't.

During his second turn, Kozure realized he had made a mistake. He and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to reconstruct his previous turns, though in the end neither of us were really sure our conclusions were correct. Again, we should have just started over, but we didn't. Incidentally, we discovered later that our calculations were entirely off.

I normally do very well at PoF. This night I sucked. I was constantly having to spend prestige points to be able to afford my actions. I couldn't set myself for future actions to save my life. On the 5th round, I won a jester in an auction on purpose, just before I remembered that what I NEEDED was a park. That move meant I couldn't satisfy one of my prestige cards and couldn't complete more than one work over the next 2 rounds. I briefly calculated I lost 22 points.

Lastly, Bharmer realized (in a weird flurry of activity) that he was both miscalculating his prestige score AND scoring works as though he had features he didn't. It was at this point we came to the conclusion that the results of this session were entirely fictional and that it was impossible to determine the real winner. There was a fit of slightly maniacal laughter amongst the group as we tried to understand what had gone so wrong.

I *think* Luch played the whole game correctly, and so we declared his second place finish as the win.

We will be playing Princes again next week, if only to redeem ourselves.

Oh, and just to rub salt in the wounds we found the rules as we were putting away the game...

Terakh, Tikal and Tan Tuan...er... San Juan

Or, "How Bharmer Kicked our Behinds Repeatedly"

First up was Terakh, the light strategy game with a fantasy/magic theme. I enjoy this game for its combination of chess-like strategy with a few wargame-y aspects like attack and defence modifiers, asymmetrical player powers and to-hit rolls. The designers have done a good job of finding the right balance between simplicity and theme for a game of this size and intended investment of time.

I came out swinging and dealt some pretty good hits quite early, eventually knocking both Ouch and Bharmer down to 2 and 1 points respectively (with a little help from Ouch), remaining at 3 points myself. Bharmer was in a tight spot, sandwiched between the two of us (an unfortunate but common occurrence when you're the third player to place in a three player game) and was attacked from both sides. I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself, but then Bharmer laid both Jason and I low with two successive Plague (?) cards, which reduce all Elders by one point unless they are already at one point or on a purple tria. Then the Terakh Crisis hit, which promptly killed Ouch and I, leaving Bharmer standing. So, after about 50 minutes of play, the game winner was decided by a dice roll. Normally, not my ideal ending, but a fun game and all the more impressive to see Bharmer win after being knocked down so thoroughly earlier in the game.

Tikal followed. For the first time in about a half-dozen or more plays, I think we actually managed to remember to place a new hex tile at the beginning of each player's turn, rather than forgetting and placing it afterwards, or not placing one at all, or remembering a turn or two later. This simple rules error has been the bane of our Tikal-playing careers, for some reason, we never got into the solid habit of remembering to do it at the right time.

So, this time we really cracked down on each other, heaping scorn on people who forgot.

Despite this revolutionary advance in gameplay, Bharmer pulled away early on and remained in the lead for the rest of the game. He grabbed at least two three-sets and three (or more) two-sets of treasure by the end (something like that, I can't remember), having scored between 12 and 21 points on treasure alone almost every scoring round but the first. I fell behind initially but eventually regained a little ground with treasure and careful positioning, though in the end it wasn't enough. Bharmer scored somewhere in the 110-115 range, I scored in the 85-90 range, and I think Ouch was 70-75 range. My personal mistakes here were failing to block Bharmer as often as I was able to block Ouch, and not getting in position to take treasures first before Bharmer. Our Tikal games are typically closer than this, so this substantial victory by Bharmer was pretty embarassing for both Ouch and I. Bharmer was helped substantially by placing almost every treasure site save one (as I recall), so luck of the draw did enter into it, but not to detract from his victory; he did play quite well.

At this point, Ouch had to leave, claiming the need to retire early.

With only about half an hour left in the evening, we turned to the only short two player we had on hand, San Juan.

What a shambles. Bharmer thoroughly trounced me, scoring something like 48 to my measly 21. I was completely outclassed in every category, failing to build even a single 6 building.

In my defence, I never actually drew a six-building to begin with, but I still played horribly. I missed several opportunities to build silver mines due to bad planning, and invested too many cards in the chapel before I had cards to spare. I was beaten by Bharmer's good play and my own poor judgement and timing.

I build a coffee roaster early, but my second build, a black market, and third build, the archive, were poorly chosen. I added stupidity to mismanagement by building a chapel fourth. I did have some poor draws, but this was a hole of my own digging. I had built all of seven (eight?) buildings when Bharmer plunked down his twelfth. Bharmer did well with the production building + guild hall combo, and also managed some other 6-point building bonuses, including a bunch from his palace.

I limped to the finish line, my only uncertainty about the victor being whether he doubled or tripled my score in the end.

This remains a decent game, and very elegant in its size, playing time and complexity. I remain somewhat leary of the problem like mine; once you fall behind you are almost certainly doomed against any player of competence - and it is not terribly difficult to fall behind due to bad early draws. Still, I deserved to lose that one.

And that, my fellow WAGSters, is why I vote that Bharmer not be allowed to play any more.

Just kidding. Mostly. Well... sorta.

Die Bharmer, die!

Note: Play this More Often than Once a Year...

Vampire: Prince of the City.

Last time we had this out (according to the blog) was March 9th, 2006. Strangely, almost exactly a year ago. Somehow I thought it had been longer. I guess we've just gone through a lot of games since.

As before, we (well, I) made some rules errors. The rulebook, as atmospheric as it is, is poorly phrased and organized in many cases, which makes for quick location of critical rules difficult.

Concerning Re-rolls: Any card or ability which specifies re-rolls allows re-roll of any dice involved in the challenge or contest, not just those belonging to the player. This is covered under the heading "Dice" in section 3.6. This may have made a difference in Shemp's strategy at one point.

Torpor arising from Resolution Phase loss: Agent Easy was sent into torpor in the last turn of this game because he only had one vitae remaining. This is incorrect... the vitae is lost if the game continues. (section 5.5 - Resolution Phase). This is my error in reading the rules. Fortunately, it would not have made a major difference for this game (though it would permit Easy to place second instead of fourth). It did make a major difference in our first game, so we should definitely remember this.

Where to draw from: For some reason, I told people in this game we drew from the bottom of the deck. I must have confused this game with another, because no where in the rules does it mention this. I can't recall the game where you draw from the bottom, but I know it happens somewhere. In this game, you draw from the top, and put event cards into play as they come up.

Cards in play cannot be put back into the hand. During the game, I lost two zones (harbor and mercantile district) which made it impossible for me to maintain my Labor Union Domain. Thinking it was legal, during my next Resource Phase, I put the Labor Union Domain card back into my hidden hand. This is illegal. Cards must be discarded outright or otherwise lost - they cannot be put back into the hand in normal rules. I used this card later for its one point value which enabled a event to be beaten (the one where Shemp and I were working together) so this had a moderate effect on the game. My mistake.

I am sure there are other rules we got wrong, but I was nonetheless really pleased to be able to get this one back on the table. It is very atmospheric and bloodthirsty - I'm not usually a bloodthirsty player, but one lovely benefit of games is acting out impulses that otherwise aren't socially acceptable.

A very important lesson to learn from the layout of this rulebook: Try not to use more than three to four typefaces on the same page (a generally good graphic design rule, I'm told) ... This rulebook uses five or six... a script-like (and therefore not easily scanned) font for major headings, a bolded, indented serif font for its sub-headings, Casablanca Antique (a "distressed" serif font) for headings of summaries and expositions and a sans-serif font for the summaries and expositions themselves. In addition, the examples are given in italics, and there are often very large blocks of italicized print.

This makes for a very visually dense rulebook, which makes for rapid location of certain rules difficult. Don't do this if you want an easily played game.

I'd really like to play this game again soon while the rules are fresh in our minds. Unfortunately with 5 players, the suggested play time of 2 hours for 6 turns is not feasible - even with five experienced players, I think 3 hours for 6 turns is more realistic.

So, let's play this one again soon, shall we?

Oh yeah, Bharmer won. Kill the leader is vicious in this game!

Four Corners of Gaming

This week's theme was "Connect Four"; games which work well with four players. Agent Easy had informed us in advance he would not be attending, so we were prepared. We began the evening somewhat late with Blokus, a game that really doesn't work well with any other number than four. While we were waiting for the inestimable Bharmer to tear himself away from work, we tried the three-player variant of Blokus, which requires three players to take turns placing the fourth colour's shapes.

As seems to be the case in many games we play where there is an "automated" or "group controlled" extra player, the red "bot" won. Shemp came in second, so I suppose technically he won. Bharmer tried to argue that since we were playing his seat until he showed up, he won. I don't think this would stand up in a court of law.

At this point, the suitably four-cornered vegetarian lasagna was ready. We dug in over an actual four player game. Ouch (or Luch, or Hapi, or whatever he's calling himself these days) tried an innovative but ultimately unsuccessful compressed strategy of ignoring the usual dash for the centre area and concentrating instead on placing his own pieces largely in his own corner. Bharmer did quite well for his maiden foray into the game, catching on quite quickly as is usual for him. It came down to a relatively close match between Shemp and I - I squeaked through to win by finding a way to place my pieces which I don't think many people saw until the endgame. I put down all of my pieces. I believe Shemp was second with something like 7 or 8 squares remaining. I usually do middling well in this game, so I was pleased to take the laurel.

We moved on to Vegas Showdown. This game continues to improve with additional plays, at least for me. The bidding is competitive without being overly frustrating or overlong, the mat tile-placement strategy is challenging without being convoluted, and there are definitely several strategies for success. I think that four players is probably a sweet spot for this game because with five you might have a lot more "thwarting" due to being outbid in auctions (there isn't an additional premier tile slot in a five player game). I don't recall playing this with five players yet, though we might have when Jaywowzer came by, so it's hard to say.

I won by a margin of 8 fame (I believe), taking something like 64 total (?), with Shemp giving me a definite run for my money. I often ignore income (revenue) early in the game, concentrating on quick fame grabs. Since the restaurants and lounges often give quick fame boosts from events, building them early on is one definite strategy which helped me out. I often fall behind in revenue, but this game I managed to have a fairly substantial income by the end of the game. Also unusual for me was my achievement of filling both Hotel and Casino sections and connecting the two entrances, something I haven't been able to do in all but one of my sessions with this game. I usually come in second or third in this game lately, so it was satisfying to win it as well. Four points from three-quarter finished red corners and the bonus points from the Famous Chef card probably put me over the top, but I did quite well in all categories.

Due to my incorrect reading of the rules, we played with the renovation rule incorrectly - forcing players to take one renovation action to remove tiles and a second to place previously removed tiles. This affected Shemp and Ouch adversely. We will review this rule again next time we play - I believe the correct reading is "remove 0, 1 or 2 tiles, then place 0, 1 or 2 tiles" with no limitations on replacing tiles which had just been removed.

This game has become one of the long-term favourites in my collection. Definite top 10 material, and quite possibly top 5.

We've taken to using 11.5 gram clay composite chips to substitute for the plastic chips provided with the game. It definitely improves the feel. If I could mount the player mats on more sturdy material, I think the overall impression of the game would improve even more.

My winning streak ended with a horrendous crash as we finished the night with TransEuropa - the version of TransAmerica set in Europe. I am not very good at this game at all - I have consistently played poorly with it, and last night was no exception. I was the "game ender" in both sessions. I think Ouch won the second game and Shemp won the first. I enjoy the simplicity and speed of this game, but I do feel that the random card draw can have a significant affect on one's odds of winning, even over three deals. For instance, in the first game, I was dealt Oslo twice. As far as I can make out, aside from Madrid and Bilbao, it's one of the most inaccesible locations, especially if no one else is dealt Stockholm or Malmo. Bharmer decided to leave a little early so as to catch up on rest, so we were playing with only three, which is not optimal for the game system (or so I gather).

I am getting better with additional plays and I do enjoy the game, but I am not good at this one.