We played on Shemp's new Big Table. It's so big, it makes Railroad Tycoon seem reasonable. No. Really.
Railroad Tycoon
Our friend Agent Oral joined us for what was supposed to be a party of 7 but turned out to be a foursome (Bharmer and Luch were absent and my sister's fiancee, Pablo, got cold feet). We explained the game, along with the auction variant we play with (a For Sale! style auction to determine player order). We then debated what type of card variant we should try (the original method of laying out 2x #of players + 1 every turn seems limited). We went with 2x # of players + #players each turn. That was too many cards, so we'll try something else next time ... maybe start with cards=# of players + 1/2 # of players every turn afterwards? We'll see.
Shemp and Kozure fought over the north-east. I split my attention between the central-east and the Chicago area. Oral went south to capitalize on a service Bounty in Mobile. I built a nice little network which gave me a nearly endless supply of 4 link deliveries, but it was only good for second place... Kozure finished the giant East-West twenty pointer and ran away with the victory. Railroad Tycoon continues to be a very fun game. As soon as we can come up with a better card distribution method, it'll be that much better.
Citadels
Citadels hasn't been played at WAGS in ages. That's not by accident, with 4 or 5 players it's not very good (because of the way it works out with the card removed, the player who sits to the right of the king gets really screwed). However, since Agent Oral had to leave, we were left with 3 and I quite like it as a 2 or 3 player game. I HEAR it's good with 6, 7 or 8, but I've never played. Ironically, I brought it since I expected a big crowd, but I was happy to play it with our small one.
Kozure caught himself in a few instances of out-second(triple)-guessing himself into mistakes. I made the mistake of taking the King and Merchant too predictably and getting assassinated. Shemp made the fewest mistakes and, appropriately, won the game.
Anyway, I had a pretty good run in won games last year, but this year seems to belong to Kozure. With Railroad Tycoon tonight, I think he's won 3/4s of the games played. Time to take him down.
Showing posts with label Railroad Tycoon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Railroad Tycoon. Show all posts
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Friday, March 30, 2007
Playing Favourites
There is a unfortunate trend in modern society to try to "top ten" everything, from books, to songs, to stupid dog tricks. Although certainly fun, it also over-simplifies and narrows the qualities of things - a movie might be admired for its direction, while lacking somewhat in a script, or a book might have a fantastic set of characters, but lacks pacing - as examples.
As widespread and reductive the trend is, one thing that "top ten" and "best of" lists and articles force you to do is really sit down and evaluate what you really like about something. After listing to a number of Board Game Geek "GeekSpeak" podcasts over the past few weeks, I've decided to come up with my own answers to their "hook", as well as defining a few other favourites.
Derk and Aldie's "hook" is to ask an interviewee about their favourite game for two, three, four, five and six or more players. They usually say that for the six or more player category, that you can also specify a "party" game.
Understanding that preferences can change over time, here are my game favourites:
Favourite Game for Two
Hard question, since I play wargames, many of which are intended for two players. My favourite Euro for two at the moment is Lost Cities. My favourite wargame for two is a toss-up between Firepower, which is an all-time favourite, and the newcomer, Twilight Struggle, which is sort of a "weuro" (Euro-game mechanics with a wargame-like feel). Forced to choose, I would go with Firepower, just because with only three plays of Twilight Struggle under my belt, I can't really call it a favourite with conviction yet. I also enjoy Zero! for two, but I prefer it with four. Combat Commander: Europe was making a strong play for this category to displace Firepower, but after additional plays, the bloom is off the rose for me - I still enjoy it, just not as much as Firepower.
Favourite Game for Three
Three is a very difficult number for games, for balancing reasons - it's too easy for two to gang up on one. I actually don't own many games which work for three. Probably Tigris and Euphrates, even though it's not one of my favourite games in general, and Colossal Arena, which is a little light for my tastes. China is also good, but I'd rather play Tigris and Euphrates over China unless time was limited. In the wargame category, Doom is a lot of fun for three. I haven't really played many others which work for three - Axis and Allies: D-Day and Axis and Allies: Pacific being the principal ones, neither of which being stellar in my opinion. None of the answers feel satisfactory for me with three.
Favourite Game for Four
Another hard call but for the opposite reason of three-player games, because of the sheer volume of games which work well with this number. Probably Power Grid as the front runner, with Tikal and Princes of Florence coming in very close second and third respectively. A dark horse in this category is WildLife - with additional plays, it may creep up past Tikal and Princes of Florence to vie with Power Grid for first place. Louis XIV may do the same, once again, more plays would determine the eventual winner. I think a lot of people list El Grande in this category; I like and appreciate El Grande; it's just not something I jump at playing. In the wargames, my favourite four-player game is Zero!/Down in Flames series, pretty much hands down. I love that game. Duel of Ages is not exactly a pure wargame, but I enjoy it for four as well.
Favourite Game for Five
At the moment the clear winner for me in this player-category is Railroad Tycoon. It's unbalanced, somewhat random and has a number of other flaws, but I just love it, conceptually and during game play. I also like Ticket to Ride for this number, but it's a little light for me. I also like Draw Poker (I prefer draw poker to Stud variants) for five or more, but in the board games category, Railroad Tycoon wins out. I used to love Shogun (Milton Bradley version) and Axis and Allies in this category as wargames, but I played those to death in my teens. With additional plays the new Shogun (Dirk Henn) may also feature as a "waro" (a wargame with Euro-mechanics).
Favourite Game for Six
Until I play more six-player non-party games (doesn't happen often, really) it's probably Railroad Tycoon again. I'd like to be able to say Twilight Imperium, but having only played it three times, and only once with six, I can't really say for sure. Same with Civilization - I've never actually played it with six, but I imagine it would be terrific (if long). Bang! works well with this number, if a shorter game is needed. Firepower works well with almost any number, but I'd love to try it with six sometime, with each player controlling a squad. Duel of Ages is a lot of fun with six as well.
My favourite party game for six at the moment is Wits and Wagers, which is really quite good for almost any group of adults and I've played a lot. I've only played Times Up twice, but I really enjoyed it then, so additional plays of Times Up might bump Wits and Wagers out. Same with Werewolf, which I've only played on three evenings (with one or two plays each evening). I've heard Smarty Party mentioned a lot in this category, but I've never played. A close second in the party games category would be Things... which is a lot of fun with the right group of people.
Derk and Aldie also typically ask the following quesions:
Favourite Book
Hard question, for the reasons I listed at the beginning of this piece. The books I've probably read most often is the Narnia Chronicles, followed closely by "The Lord of the Ring". I'd have to say "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco.
Favourite Movie
My favourite movie is Blade Runner, for reasons which are too complex to go into here. Close runners up are Aliens, Apocalypse Now, Seven Samurai and Once Upon a Time in the West.
Favourite Word
I enjoy the sound and the meaning of "sibilance". Similarly I enjoy "serendipity" as well. Probably "sibilance".
Not on Derk and Aldie's list is favourite TV show...
Favourite TV Show
Another difficult choice. Almost a dead tie between DaVinci's Inquest, Band of Brothers, Deadwood and Firefly. Of those, probably Deadwood and Firefly and if I had to pick between them, Deadwood. Fantastic cast, direction, writing, acting... just fabulous. All of them are great. If Firefly had gone another season or two, it might have been Firefly. As it is, there isn't quite enough depth with just the 14 episodes.
I'll probably be shot if any fellow Browncoat reads that.
In any case, I'm burning up the last minutes of my lunch hour, so I'm going to finish playing favourites and turn it over to my fellow WAGSters for comment.
As widespread and reductive the trend is, one thing that "top ten" and "best of" lists and articles force you to do is really sit down and evaluate what you really like about something. After listing to a number of Board Game Geek "GeekSpeak" podcasts over the past few weeks, I've decided to come up with my own answers to their "hook", as well as defining a few other favourites.
Derk and Aldie's "hook" is to ask an interviewee about their favourite game for two, three, four, five and six or more players. They usually say that for the six or more player category, that you can also specify a "party" game.
Understanding that preferences can change over time, here are my game favourites:
Favourite Game for Two
Hard question, since I play wargames, many of which are intended for two players. My favourite Euro for two at the moment is Lost Cities. My favourite wargame for two is a toss-up between Firepower, which is an all-time favourite, and the newcomer, Twilight Struggle, which is sort of a "weuro" (Euro-game mechanics with a wargame-like feel). Forced to choose, I would go with Firepower, just because with only three plays of Twilight Struggle under my belt, I can't really call it a favourite with conviction yet. I also enjoy Zero! for two, but I prefer it with four. Combat Commander: Europe was making a strong play for this category to displace Firepower, but after additional plays, the bloom is off the rose for me - I still enjoy it, just not as much as Firepower.
Favourite Game for Three
Three is a very difficult number for games, for balancing reasons - it's too easy for two to gang up on one. I actually don't own many games which work for three. Probably Tigris and Euphrates, even though it's not one of my favourite games in general, and Colossal Arena, which is a little light for my tastes. China is also good, but I'd rather play Tigris and Euphrates over China unless time was limited. In the wargame category, Doom is a lot of fun for three. I haven't really played many others which work for three - Axis and Allies: D-Day and Axis and Allies: Pacific being the principal ones, neither of which being stellar in my opinion. None of the answers feel satisfactory for me with three.
Favourite Game for Four
Another hard call but for the opposite reason of three-player games, because of the sheer volume of games which work well with this number. Probably Power Grid as the front runner, with Tikal and Princes of Florence coming in very close second and third respectively. A dark horse in this category is WildLife - with additional plays, it may creep up past Tikal and Princes of Florence to vie with Power Grid for first place. Louis XIV may do the same, once again, more plays would determine the eventual winner. I think a lot of people list El Grande in this category; I like and appreciate El Grande; it's just not something I jump at playing. In the wargames, my favourite four-player game is Zero!/Down in Flames series, pretty much hands down. I love that game. Duel of Ages is not exactly a pure wargame, but I enjoy it for four as well.
Favourite Game for Five
At the moment the clear winner for me in this player-category is Railroad Tycoon. It's unbalanced, somewhat random and has a number of other flaws, but I just love it, conceptually and during game play. I also like Ticket to Ride for this number, but it's a little light for me. I also like Draw Poker (I prefer draw poker to Stud variants) for five or more, but in the board games category, Railroad Tycoon wins out. I used to love Shogun (Milton Bradley version) and Axis and Allies in this category as wargames, but I played those to death in my teens. With additional plays the new Shogun (Dirk Henn) may also feature as a "waro" (a wargame with Euro-mechanics).
Favourite Game for Six
Until I play more six-player non-party games (doesn't happen often, really) it's probably Railroad Tycoon again. I'd like to be able to say Twilight Imperium, but having only played it three times, and only once with six, I can't really say for sure. Same with Civilization - I've never actually played it with six, but I imagine it would be terrific (if long). Bang! works well with this number, if a shorter game is needed. Firepower works well with almost any number, but I'd love to try it with six sometime, with each player controlling a squad. Duel of Ages is a lot of fun with six as well.
My favourite party game for six at the moment is Wits and Wagers, which is really quite good for almost any group of adults and I've played a lot. I've only played Times Up twice, but I really enjoyed it then, so additional plays of Times Up might bump Wits and Wagers out. Same with Werewolf, which I've only played on three evenings (with one or two plays each evening). I've heard Smarty Party mentioned a lot in this category, but I've never played. A close second in the party games category would be Things... which is a lot of fun with the right group of people.
Derk and Aldie also typically ask the following quesions:
Favourite Book
Hard question, for the reasons I listed at the beginning of this piece. The books I've probably read most often is the Narnia Chronicles, followed closely by "The Lord of the Ring". I'd have to say "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco.
Favourite Movie
My favourite movie is Blade Runner, for reasons which are too complex to go into here. Close runners up are Aliens, Apocalypse Now, Seven Samurai and Once Upon a Time in the West.
Favourite Word
I enjoy the sound and the meaning of "sibilance". Similarly I enjoy "serendipity" as well. Probably "sibilance".
Not on Derk and Aldie's list is favourite TV show...
Favourite TV Show
Another difficult choice. Almost a dead tie between DaVinci's Inquest, Band of Brothers, Deadwood and Firefly. Of those, probably Deadwood and Firefly and if I had to pick between them, Deadwood. Fantastic cast, direction, writing, acting... just fabulous. All of them are great. If Firefly had gone another season or two, it might have been Firefly. As it is, there isn't quite enough depth with just the 14 episodes.
I'll probably be shot if any fellow Browncoat reads that.
In any case, I'm burning up the last minutes of my lunch hour, so I'm going to finish playing favourites and turn it over to my fellow WAGSters for comment.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Enjoying Ameritrash (Robo-Rally, Railroad Tycoon)
If last week was about excellent eurogames, this week we played some of our favorite "Ameritrash" (I actually dislike this term, but whatever)
We started with Robo-Rally. As usual, I chose a "short" course... "Chess" I think it was called. The board layout features a large double conveyor belt which surrounds an alternating grid of single spaced empty squares and single conveyor belts. 2 flags.
With 5 players, I didn't expect things to be too crowded (it is a course designed for 5-8 players). I feared interaction would be minimal. That didn't happen.
Right out of the gate, Shemp committed the mistake I normally make, he mistook his robot for a different one. Poor Twonky flew right off the edge of the board.... My path went smoothly, with one exception: By the end of the first turn I had been shot so many times my first register was locked! Trying desperately to get out of the line of fire didn't help. By the end of the second round I had four registers locked. I was on the double conveyor belt, and for the rest of the game I circled the other players, unable to get off (Having only a single register left open meant I was only being dealt one card, and it was a "turn left" card ON EVERY ROUND until the end of the game). Oh well, I find this game fun even as a spectator so there you go.
There was some good competition for the first flag. I beleive that Brian, Luch and Kozure all achieved it within a few phases of each other. Shemp wasn't too far behind. In the race for the second flag it looked like bharmer had it in the bag until a bad card draw left him spinning his wheels for a turn. Luch stepped in and bumped him off course... inadvertedly correcting bharmer's path and leading him to victory...
Well, such is life in Robo-rally.
Railroad tycoon came next. I decided to try a variant I had come up with which I felt might address a few of the minor complaints I have with the game... namely that the player to the left of the auction winner is often at a large advantage and that cards don't refresh with enough frequency. The variant is pretty simple: Players bid for turn order, not just first place (Over the course of the game, we settled on a method stolen from "For Sale!". Bid goes from player to player according to the previous round's turn order. Bid starts at $1000, and the first player to drop out goes last, second player goes 2nd last, etc. Half of your current bid goes to the bank, rounded up, when you withdraw). Also, a number of cards equal to the number of players is turned up every turn.
It took a bit of getting used to, but I think the turn order modification is a winner. It didn't make an enormous impact in the game, but I definitely felt that players were earning their advantages a bit better. One nice thing I hadn't anticipated: Since bid order is determined by last round's turn order, the player who went first is less likely to be able to lead again (since he/she bids first, the value of the bid will always be higher than the other players). It turned out to be a nice balancing mechanism.
The change in rate for revealing action cards also worked reasonably well, but it wasn't perfect. Having that many cards turn up every round certainly kept the game interesting by injecting good reasons to compete for turn order into the mix, but it also led to every card getting turned up before the end of the game. On one hand, this means that players can reliably count on all the major lines eventually coming out and plan accordingly, but on the other hand it begs the questions: "if all the major lines are going to be revealed anyway, why not just start with them all revealed"? and "Is the game better when everyone knows all the major lines will be revealed"?
In the end, I think I'd like to try the next game with a different rule for the cards: Split out all the major lines and reveal a number equal to the number of players. With the remaing cards, reveal a number of cards equal to the number of players minus 1. I think this would do a better job of keeping each game fresh (by alternating the available major routes), but keeping the auctions interesting throughout the game.
In this session, I had the tycoon card for building a western link. I decided to focus on a section of the east coast to start off and build a bit of income before heading west. Kozure and I wound up trying to carve our own little section of that area, but we coexisted reasonably well. Bharmer was further south, Luch went central and Shemp was all about Chicago.
Early on, things were looking good for me. I grabbed the hotels for New York and Chicago, and both were proving to be quite lucrative for me. Shemp, in particular, couldn't help but give me points on most turns. Unfortunately for me, all routes out of chicago were snapped up by Shemp and Kozure, leaving me with the unfortunate prospect of giving one of them points every turn when I built the western link. I did eventually head out there, and since I was raking in the cash it wasn't onerous to build the tracks and the western link to give me a lucrative 4 link run for Kansas City to Chicago via Kozure's link. OF course, since Shemp had tied up most of Chicago and had a very good network out of there, he actually profited more than I did from the western link... but I hoped that my lead was big enough to give me the win (and increasing my lead over 3 players seemed worth it, even if Shemp might catch up a little). That's when Kozure steady progression west paid off: he picked up a major line (washington - Chicago?) worth 10 points and a second (New York - Kansas + western Link) for 20. The lead I had evaporated. I should still have been within striking distance, though. Sadly, my delivery network went dry and I couldn't catch up! Very well played on his part!
A very fun evening. There is some chance we'll be playing next week, but in case we don't I wanted to wish anyone reading this a happy holiday and new year!
We started with Robo-Rally. As usual, I chose a "short" course... "Chess" I think it was called. The board layout features a large double conveyor belt which surrounds an alternating grid of single spaced empty squares and single conveyor belts. 2 flags.
With 5 players, I didn't expect things to be too crowded (it is a course designed for 5-8 players). I feared interaction would be minimal. That didn't happen.
Right out of the gate, Shemp committed the mistake I normally make, he mistook his robot for a different one. Poor Twonky flew right off the edge of the board.... My path went smoothly, with one exception: By the end of the first turn I had been shot so many times my first register was locked! Trying desperately to get out of the line of fire didn't help. By the end of the second round I had four registers locked. I was on the double conveyor belt, and for the rest of the game I circled the other players, unable to get off (Having only a single register left open meant I was only being dealt one card, and it was a "turn left" card ON EVERY ROUND until the end of the game). Oh well, I find this game fun even as a spectator so there you go.
There was some good competition for the first flag. I beleive that Brian, Luch and Kozure all achieved it within a few phases of each other. Shemp wasn't too far behind. In the race for the second flag it looked like bharmer had it in the bag until a bad card draw left him spinning his wheels for a turn. Luch stepped in and bumped him off course... inadvertedly correcting bharmer's path and leading him to victory...
Well, such is life in Robo-rally.
Railroad tycoon came next. I decided to try a variant I had come up with which I felt might address a few of the minor complaints I have with the game... namely that the player to the left of the auction winner is often at a large advantage and that cards don't refresh with enough frequency. The variant is pretty simple: Players bid for turn order, not just first place (Over the course of the game, we settled on a method stolen from "For Sale!". Bid goes from player to player according to the previous round's turn order. Bid starts at $1000, and the first player to drop out goes last, second player goes 2nd last, etc. Half of your current bid goes to the bank, rounded up, when you withdraw). Also, a number of cards equal to the number of players is turned up every turn.
It took a bit of getting used to, but I think the turn order modification is a winner. It didn't make an enormous impact in the game, but I definitely felt that players were earning their advantages a bit better. One nice thing I hadn't anticipated: Since bid order is determined by last round's turn order, the player who went first is less likely to be able to lead again (since he/she bids first, the value of the bid will always be higher than the other players). It turned out to be a nice balancing mechanism.
The change in rate for revealing action cards also worked reasonably well, but it wasn't perfect. Having that many cards turn up every round certainly kept the game interesting by injecting good reasons to compete for turn order into the mix, but it also led to every card getting turned up before the end of the game. On one hand, this means that players can reliably count on all the major lines eventually coming out and plan accordingly, but on the other hand it begs the questions: "if all the major lines are going to be revealed anyway, why not just start with them all revealed"? and "Is the game better when everyone knows all the major lines will be revealed"?
In the end, I think I'd like to try the next game with a different rule for the cards: Split out all the major lines and reveal a number equal to the number of players. With the remaing cards, reveal a number of cards equal to the number of players minus 1. I think this would do a better job of keeping each game fresh (by alternating the available major routes), but keeping the auctions interesting throughout the game.
In this session, I had the tycoon card for building a western link. I decided to focus on a section of the east coast to start off and build a bit of income before heading west. Kozure and I wound up trying to carve our own little section of that area, but we coexisted reasonably well. Bharmer was further south, Luch went central and Shemp was all about Chicago.
Early on, things were looking good for me. I grabbed the hotels for New York and Chicago, and both were proving to be quite lucrative for me. Shemp, in particular, couldn't help but give me points on most turns. Unfortunately for me, all routes out of chicago were snapped up by Shemp and Kozure, leaving me with the unfortunate prospect of giving one of them points every turn when I built the western link. I did eventually head out there, and since I was raking in the cash it wasn't onerous to build the tracks and the western link to give me a lucrative 4 link run for Kansas City to Chicago via Kozure's link. OF course, since Shemp had tied up most of Chicago and had a very good network out of there, he actually profited more than I did from the western link... but I hoped that my lead was big enough to give me the win (and increasing my lead over 3 players seemed worth it, even if Shemp might catch up a little). That's when Kozure steady progression west paid off: he picked up a major line (washington - Chicago?) worth 10 points and a second (New York - Kansas + western Link) for 20. The lead I had evaporated. I should still have been within striking distance, though. Sadly, my delivery network went dry and I couldn't catch up! Very well played on his part!
A very fun evening. There is some chance we'll be playing next week, but in case we don't I wanted to wish anyone reading this a happy holiday and new year!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Stop Bharmering (Railroad Tycoon x2)
It's not every day that a new word enters the English language. Wednesday was one such day. The word has proven so useful at describing something we gamers face all too often that once we came up with it, we found ourselves using it constantly.
It describes a player who doesn't know who's turn it is, particularly when it's his/her turn.
The word, my friends, is "Bharmering".
Use it once, and you'll wonder how you got along without it. I'm sure by this time next year, it will be a part of the basic vocabulary of gaming.
Poor Brian (heretefore know as "Bharmer"). He certainly isn't guilty of Bharmering more often than anyone else, but he had the misfortune of committing the error just as we were saying there should be a word for it. So it is.
Anyway, the game last night was Railroad Tycoon. Bharmer had never played, but since he managed to beat the group in his first outing of Power Grid, we felt he was up to the task of jumping right in. Luch dominated the game by taking control of the red cube rich north east. I did my best to stop him, but to no avail. Kozure worked on the south east, along with Bharmer, and linked to chicago along another line. Shemp started in the south and worked his way up to the west of the mountains. I really wasn't doing anything productive, building short lines everywhere, missing out on the hotel in Chicago (as well as my Tycoon's bonus of 2 points per link out of there), and wasted an effort trying to reach Toronto to claim a service bounty before Bharmer. Overall, the race for 2nd, 3rd and 4th place was tight but Luch won decisively. Bharmer trailed pretty badly for 5th place, but he was hampered the entire game by some unwise early decisions due to inexperience.
We played a second game, now that everyone was familiar. I got caught up in a ridiculous bidding war against Luch for the 1st move. I think I quit at $22000! The starting cards were potentially quite lucrative, though, so it wasn't entirely insane. Luch started in the North East again, but the board had a very different distribution of cubes than the last game, so it didn't prove to be such a huge advantage. Most of the red cubes started on the red cities... the board was described by Kozure as "goods poor", due to this type of distribution. I played a much better game this time, establishing a good medium sized route early on near Cincinatti and grabbing a few card bonuses. I also slowly built a route from New York to Chicago (to satisfy my Tycoon bonus). Chicago became a nightmare of crossing tracks as the area was heavily developped by Kozure, Shemp and myself. Everyone was having a pretty good game this time, with most players neck and neck. I was trailing, but my east-west goal was fairly long term (and expensive... I was taking shares like they were going out of style).
A funny thing happened in the end. One of the most common criticisms of the game manifested itself for the first time: The big 20 point bonus card revealed itself on the 2nd last round, and I was the only one capable of fulfilling it (having already made the connection from New York to Chicago). I had already planned out my last 6 actions... I would upgrade my engine to 6 (2 actions) and then ship the 4 red cubes from New York to Chicago for 24 points. I was therefore not even considering going for the bonus, since I'd be sacrificing the easy deliveries in order to do it and the cost would be higher. Then, on the last turn, a government land grant came up. No one took the card, so on my turn I was able to cheaply go to Kansas, claim the bonus and still make a few deliveries. I went from last place to a win!(though by a single point). Had the card not come up, I would have still vaulted to 2nd place with my long term strategy coming to fruition, but I'm happy to say that in the end the bonus did not swing the game entirely.
Anyway, it was a fun night. I really enjoy the game despite it's design flaws. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be worthwhile removing the "Railroad Executive" cards from the start pile, since they seem to come up fairly often and allow the start player to rack up significant points (and, no, the auction doesn't balance this out. If the start cards are so good that a real bidding war errupts, the player to the left of the start player is the real winner).
I have a feeling we might be doing more of this type of evening in the future... playing the same game twice instead of a number of games... should be a good way to get a more in depth appreciation for the bigger games we play. I'm looking forward to it.
Until then, stop Bharmering.
It describes a player who doesn't know who's turn it is, particularly when it's his/her turn.
The word, my friends, is "Bharmering".
Use it once, and you'll wonder how you got along without it. I'm sure by this time next year, it will be a part of the basic vocabulary of gaming.
Poor Brian (heretefore know as "Bharmer"). He certainly isn't guilty of Bharmering more often than anyone else, but he had the misfortune of committing the error just as we were saying there should be a word for it. So it is.
Anyway, the game last night was Railroad Tycoon. Bharmer had never played, but since he managed to beat the group in his first outing of Power Grid, we felt he was up to the task of jumping right in. Luch dominated the game by taking control of the red cube rich north east. I did my best to stop him, but to no avail. Kozure worked on the south east, along with Bharmer, and linked to chicago along another line. Shemp started in the south and worked his way up to the west of the mountains. I really wasn't doing anything productive, building short lines everywhere, missing out on the hotel in Chicago (as well as my Tycoon's bonus of 2 points per link out of there), and wasted an effort trying to reach Toronto to claim a service bounty before Bharmer. Overall, the race for 2nd, 3rd and 4th place was tight but Luch won decisively. Bharmer trailed pretty badly for 5th place, but he was hampered the entire game by some unwise early decisions due to inexperience.
We played a second game, now that everyone was familiar. I got caught up in a ridiculous bidding war against Luch for the 1st move. I think I quit at $22000! The starting cards were potentially quite lucrative, though, so it wasn't entirely insane. Luch started in the North East again, but the board had a very different distribution of cubes than the last game, so it didn't prove to be such a huge advantage. Most of the red cubes started on the red cities... the board was described by Kozure as "goods poor", due to this type of distribution. I played a much better game this time, establishing a good medium sized route early on near Cincinatti and grabbing a few card bonuses. I also slowly built a route from New York to Chicago (to satisfy my Tycoon bonus). Chicago became a nightmare of crossing tracks as the area was heavily developped by Kozure, Shemp and myself. Everyone was having a pretty good game this time, with most players neck and neck. I was trailing, but my east-west goal was fairly long term (and expensive... I was taking shares like they were going out of style).
A funny thing happened in the end. One of the most common criticisms of the game manifested itself for the first time: The big 20 point bonus card revealed itself on the 2nd last round, and I was the only one capable of fulfilling it (having already made the connection from New York to Chicago). I had already planned out my last 6 actions... I would upgrade my engine to 6 (2 actions) and then ship the 4 red cubes from New York to Chicago for 24 points. I was therefore not even considering going for the bonus, since I'd be sacrificing the easy deliveries in order to do it and the cost would be higher. Then, on the last turn, a government land grant came up. No one took the card, so on my turn I was able to cheaply go to Kansas, claim the bonus and still make a few deliveries. I went from last place to a win!(though by a single point). Had the card not come up, I would have still vaulted to 2nd place with my long term strategy coming to fruition, but I'm happy to say that in the end the bonus did not swing the game entirely.
Anyway, it was a fun night. I really enjoy the game despite it's design flaws. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be worthwhile removing the "Railroad Executive" cards from the start pile, since they seem to come up fairly often and allow the start player to rack up significant points (and, no, the auction doesn't balance this out. If the start cards are so good that a real bidding war errupts, the player to the left of the start player is the real winner).
I have a feeling we might be doing more of this type of evening in the future... playing the same game twice instead of a number of games... should be a good way to get a more in depth appreciation for the bigger games we play. I'm looking forward to it.
Until then, stop Bharmering.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Choo-choo-choosing (Settlers of Catan, Railroad Tycoon)
Not only did JayWowzer, our occasional visitor from California, join us on this cold Toronto evening but so did Shamus… a brand new player! It's always great to meet new people, and I hope he enjoyed it enough to come back (he'll always be welcome, but WAGS can be an oppressive* and intimidating* place, so he may not want to!)
* WAGS is neither oppressive or intimidating, but we ARE geeky. Oppressive and intimidating sounds cooler, though.
Being new to the group (and german games in general), we started him off with the "mandatory german intro game"… Settlers of Catan. Kozure, JayWowzer and I set up the board and explained the rules. We used the suggested starting layout from the rules to level the playing field and ensure a balanced game for everyone. We also used the "tournament rules" I read about at BGG, starting everyone with a city and a village. Shamus seemed to catch on pretty quick, so we dove right in
One awkward aspect of introducing new players to eurogames is that you want them to have fun, so there is sometimes a sense that you might have to play "sub-optimally" so they don't get trashed. I shouldn't have worried... In his very first game, not only did Shamus play a very tight game BUT HE WON.
Impressive…. Most impressive.
Shamus won by building on his lucrative patches of land, connecting a few ports and establishing the largest army. JayWowzer built up the coast of Catan, running away with longest road and founding quite a few villages and cities along the way. Kozure was building his own little empire on the opposite side of the board (he made a run for longest road near the end but never made it). I started in the center and eventually was blocked from any paths for expansion. Still, I had 3 cities and 2 VP cards in hand, so I was hardly out of contention. I spent the endgame buying development cards in the hopes of surpassing Shamus' largest army or gaining a few more VP cards. When he won, it was close. All scores within 1-2 of winning.
Next up was Railroad Tycoon. By now Luch had arrived and Tili wanted to join us (baby Kozure had gone to sleep). I was initially concerned that a 6 player game would take too long, but the whole thing wrapped up in 3 hours including rules explanations!
Many of us had played at least once before. Shamus, of course, hadn't and JayWowzer only had experience with Age of Steam.
Last game I kept getting beaten to the punch by Kozure when attempting to get the operation card bonuses, so I resolved to be very aggressive on those this game. I started by bidding enough to go first and quickly grabbed the card which gave me two actions. With those two actions I built a link to (?) and made a delivery… netting me a bonus for making the first delivery AND for claiming the "Service Bounty" card (first delivery to that town). It was a very lucrative first turn which put me in the lead and I worked the rest of the game to stay there! (unfortunately, the other 5 didn't feel like letting that happen).
I next set my sights on the first delivery to Mobile and grabbed that soon enough. I was getting worried, though. The folks building up the East Coast were upgrading their engines and starting to make longer deliveries. At this rate, my lead would evaporate quickly and I wouldn't have much in the way to catch up.
As an aside: I may have been more effective than last game with the operations cards, but I was having some serious lapses with my track building. On a few occasions, I built less efficiently than I could (placing 2 tiles where I could have placed 1, etc). Lucky for me, on one particularly terrible mistake (I was laying 4 tracks where I only needed 2), JayWowzer "suggested" I should reconsider... Thanks!
While I spent the entire game connecting the mid to lower half of the board, Kozure, Shamus and JayWowzer continued to battle for control of the East Coast (Luch was also involved, but he started south and moved north as opposed to the rest of the group). Tili spent her time in disparate areas, focusing on the Detroit/ Toronto area and the South East. Some of the action eventually moved over to the Chicago area, but the big dollars never really made it there (and no one built a Western Link).
Hotels played a big part in the game. My Baltimore and Atlanta netted me quite a few points, and Shamus had a goldmine one in New York. Luch has the distinction of holding the record for most shares issued, ever (22). Kozure has the similarly dubious distinction of "most shafted this game", for having his attempt at completing the "Major Line" from Atlanta to (?) blocked by Luch. A double blow, as it also prevented him from potential long deliveries after the fact.
In the end, it was a race between myself and Shamus for the win. Clearly, this guy has a knack for these games! I did win, as I had fewer shares and a good setup for a large number of 5 link deliveries for the end run, but he was not far behind. Most of us didn't fulfill our Tycoon cards… I think the only exception was Tili (most money).
I enjoyed myself quite a bit. This is a great game to accommodate new and experienced players alike. The cards available and goods cube distribution really shape the game, making it develop differently each time so far. I was also pleasantly surprised that it works just as well with 6 as it did with 4. If they had only thought a bit more about the board (design and production values), and the functionality of some of the bits, this game could go from great to truly exceptional.
Since JayWowzer is the only WAGSter to have tried both this and Age of Steam, I hope he can chime in with some comments on his experience.
* WAGS is neither oppressive or intimidating, but we ARE geeky. Oppressive and intimidating sounds cooler, though.
Being new to the group (and german games in general), we started him off with the "mandatory german intro game"… Settlers of Catan. Kozure, JayWowzer and I set up the board and explained the rules. We used the suggested starting layout from the rules to level the playing field and ensure a balanced game for everyone. We also used the "tournament rules" I read about at BGG, starting everyone with a city and a village. Shamus seemed to catch on pretty quick, so we dove right in
One awkward aspect of introducing new players to eurogames is that you want them to have fun, so there is sometimes a sense that you might have to play "sub-optimally" so they don't get trashed. I shouldn't have worried... In his very first game, not only did Shamus play a very tight game BUT HE WON.
Impressive…. Most impressive.
Shamus won by building on his lucrative patches of land, connecting a few ports and establishing the largest army. JayWowzer built up the coast of Catan, running away with longest road and founding quite a few villages and cities along the way. Kozure was building his own little empire on the opposite side of the board (he made a run for longest road near the end but never made it). I started in the center and eventually was blocked from any paths for expansion. Still, I had 3 cities and 2 VP cards in hand, so I was hardly out of contention. I spent the endgame buying development cards in the hopes of surpassing Shamus' largest army or gaining a few more VP cards. When he won, it was close. All scores within 1-2 of winning.
Next up was Railroad Tycoon. By now Luch had arrived and Tili wanted to join us (baby Kozure had gone to sleep). I was initially concerned that a 6 player game would take too long, but the whole thing wrapped up in 3 hours including rules explanations!
Many of us had played at least once before. Shamus, of course, hadn't and JayWowzer only had experience with Age of Steam.
Last game I kept getting beaten to the punch by Kozure when attempting to get the operation card bonuses, so I resolved to be very aggressive on those this game. I started by bidding enough to go first and quickly grabbed the card which gave me two actions. With those two actions I built a link to (?) and made a delivery… netting me a bonus for making the first delivery AND for claiming the "Service Bounty" card (first delivery to that town). It was a very lucrative first turn which put me in the lead and I worked the rest of the game to stay there! (unfortunately, the other 5 didn't feel like letting that happen).
I next set my sights on the first delivery to Mobile and grabbed that soon enough. I was getting worried, though. The folks building up the East Coast were upgrading their engines and starting to make longer deliveries. At this rate, my lead would evaporate quickly and I wouldn't have much in the way to catch up.
As an aside: I may have been more effective than last game with the operations cards, but I was having some serious lapses with my track building. On a few occasions, I built less efficiently than I could (placing 2 tiles where I could have placed 1, etc). Lucky for me, on one particularly terrible mistake (I was laying 4 tracks where I only needed 2), JayWowzer "suggested" I should reconsider... Thanks!
While I spent the entire game connecting the mid to lower half of the board, Kozure, Shamus and JayWowzer continued to battle for control of the East Coast (Luch was also involved, but he started south and moved north as opposed to the rest of the group). Tili spent her time in disparate areas, focusing on the Detroit/ Toronto area and the South East. Some of the action eventually moved over to the Chicago area, but the big dollars never really made it there (and no one built a Western Link).
Hotels played a big part in the game. My Baltimore and Atlanta netted me quite a few points, and Shamus had a goldmine one in New York. Luch has the distinction of holding the record for most shares issued, ever (22). Kozure has the similarly dubious distinction of "most shafted this game", for having his attempt at completing the "Major Line" from Atlanta to (?) blocked by Luch. A double blow, as it also prevented him from potential long deliveries after the fact.
In the end, it was a race between myself and Shamus for the win. Clearly, this guy has a knack for these games! I did win, as I had fewer shares and a good setup for a large number of 5 link deliveries for the end run, but he was not far behind. Most of us didn't fulfill our Tycoon cards… I think the only exception was Tili (most money).
I enjoyed myself quite a bit. This is a great game to accommodate new and experienced players alike. The cards available and goods cube distribution really shape the game, making it develop differently each time so far. I was also pleasantly surprised that it works just as well with 6 as it did with 4. If they had only thought a bit more about the board (design and production values), and the functionality of some of the bits, this game could go from great to truly exceptional.
Since JayWowzer is the only WAGSter to have tried both this and Age of Steam, I hope he can chime in with some comments on his experience.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
I'm gonna build my track annoying! (Railroad Tycoon, Diamant)
Happy New Years!
Not surprisingly, our first WAGS session of the year saw new games received and/ or purchased for the holidays. Railroad Tycoon was a present I received from my wife, and I was REALLY looking forward to trying it out. It was Shemp's pick, and he had envisioned a train themed evening including RT and Ticket to Ride (with a call for snacks that were "easy to transport, like trail mix").
We layed the whole thing out. I had been told that the board was big, but Kozure's table isn't exactly small... Unfortunately, it still didn't fit! The width of the board hung over by about 2 inches. I had also heard about the difficulty in distinguishing blue and purple cities. Oddly, we didn't have too much trouble, the problem seemed to be that Eagle used a dark purple for blue and a magenta for purple. What confused us was that the purple cubes were virtually identical in colour to the blue cities! I don't think it really led to any errors, but we were certainly checking things twice as we played.
No matter, the game was FUN. The theme of railroad empire building is very succesfully realized in the game... Decisions regarding where to lay track, how to assess the state of supply and demand on the board, when to upgrade engines, whether to issue shares or wait, etc results in a very engaging game. The cards and "tycoon" roles seem to successfully create variety and tension in the game. All this, and the result is still extremely approachable. I think Kozure summed it up best: The game is simple without being simplistic.
As the rules warned us not to let the North East be controlled by a single player, all of us but Luch jumped to that corner to start. I snagged a New York - Albany - Boston - New Haven route early on (with the Boston Hotel), and felt very comfortable in my position. However, Kozure made very shrewd bids and kept stealing bonus cards from under my nose, giving him an early and comfortable lead. Meanwhile, Shemp picked up the New York hotel (dramatically impacting my prospects for deliveries in that corner) and built a terribly expensive link across the mountains towards Toronto. Luch set up in the South-East and expanded without much opposition, picking up a good number of bonus cards very cheaply because of it. Before long, I was last and so I tried to make up for it by trying out the "Western Link" feature (encouraged by the fact that my "tycoon" card required one for bonus points). I didn't plan ahead very well, however, and built a rather direct 2 link path from Chicago to Desmoines. I therefore only had a steady stream of 2 point deliveries to show for my $30 000... not enough to catch up (and made worse by the fact that Shemp had crossed over to Chicago as well, and was benefitting far more from the generated Western Link cubes than I was). Shemp aslo managed to accomplish the long route from New York to Kansas City, giving him 20 points! Luch continued his domination of the south, grabbing many points along the way. Ultimately, though, Kozure had the biggest trains and the longest routes. He pulled in a lot of points on very few shares.
He won by quite a margin.
It was a great game, and I'm definitely looking forward to a rematch! (fun fact: Kozure had only 3 shares at the end of the game, Luch had 4, I had 5, and Shemp had 16!!!! Still, he did something right because he came in 2nd...)
The game didn't take too long considering it was our first (a little over 2 hours), but between our late start and eating it was already 10:15pm. We didn't have time for Ticket to Ride, so I pulled out Diamant. I had purchased this in anticipation of our New Year's Eve party, where lighter games for large groups would be very useful. It turned out to be a hit, and the short playing time makes it easy to slip in when it's getting late.
Diamant is a "push your luck" type game where players take on the role of intrepid miners on the search for gems in a dangerous set of 5 caves. The trick of the game is that for every card which is turned up, all players must secretely and individually decide if they will get out or keep going. Getting out means that all gems aquired are permanently kept, but staying in means potentially getting quite a bit more. If the same disaster card turns up twice, any players still in the cave lose everything they've accumulated so far!
I quite like this game. It does what it sets out to do perfectly... Be fun and fast. It's all about managing luck, and outguessing your opponents. There are a couple of mechanics which come toghether to make this really work:
1) The simultaneous "in" or "out" decision keeps the game fast even with 8 players.
2) The gems left behind acts as incentive for people to go back, adding another level of things to think about when deciding whether to leave or push on.
3) The fact that gems are shared equally means that there is the real potential for a huge score if everyone pulls out but 1 and a large gem tile is pulled up. This "carrot" led many unfortunate adventurers to their doom.
It all add up to a simple, chaotic 15 minute game which feels a little like gambling, where reading the intentions of your opponents and pushing your luck can make you win big or totally blow it. Highly enjoyable for what it is... We played 4 times!
Railroad Tycoon: 9
Diamant: 8
Not surprisingly, our first WAGS session of the year saw new games received and/ or purchased for the holidays. Railroad Tycoon was a present I received from my wife, and I was REALLY looking forward to trying it out. It was Shemp's pick, and he had envisioned a train themed evening including RT and Ticket to Ride (with a call for snacks that were "easy to transport, like trail mix").
We layed the whole thing out. I had been told that the board was big, but Kozure's table isn't exactly small... Unfortunately, it still didn't fit! The width of the board hung over by about 2 inches. I had also heard about the difficulty in distinguishing blue and purple cities. Oddly, we didn't have too much trouble, the problem seemed to be that Eagle used a dark purple for blue and a magenta for purple. What confused us was that the purple cubes were virtually identical in colour to the blue cities! I don't think it really led to any errors, but we were certainly checking things twice as we played.
No matter, the game was FUN. The theme of railroad empire building is very succesfully realized in the game... Decisions regarding where to lay track, how to assess the state of supply and demand on the board, when to upgrade engines, whether to issue shares or wait, etc results in a very engaging game. The cards and "tycoon" roles seem to successfully create variety and tension in the game. All this, and the result is still extremely approachable. I think Kozure summed it up best: The game is simple without being simplistic.
As the rules warned us not to let the North East be controlled by a single player, all of us but Luch jumped to that corner to start. I snagged a New York - Albany - Boston - New Haven route early on (with the Boston Hotel), and felt very comfortable in my position. However, Kozure made very shrewd bids and kept stealing bonus cards from under my nose, giving him an early and comfortable lead. Meanwhile, Shemp picked up the New York hotel (dramatically impacting my prospects for deliveries in that corner) and built a terribly expensive link across the mountains towards Toronto. Luch set up in the South-East and expanded without much opposition, picking up a good number of bonus cards very cheaply because of it. Before long, I was last and so I tried to make up for it by trying out the "Western Link" feature (encouraged by the fact that my "tycoon" card required one for bonus points). I didn't plan ahead very well, however, and built a rather direct 2 link path from Chicago to Desmoines. I therefore only had a steady stream of 2 point deliveries to show for my $30 000... not enough to catch up (and made worse by the fact that Shemp had crossed over to Chicago as well, and was benefitting far more from the generated Western Link cubes than I was). Shemp aslo managed to accomplish the long route from New York to Kansas City, giving him 20 points! Luch continued his domination of the south, grabbing many points along the way. Ultimately, though, Kozure had the biggest trains and the longest routes. He pulled in a lot of points on very few shares.
He won by quite a margin.
It was a great game, and I'm definitely looking forward to a rematch! (fun fact: Kozure had only 3 shares at the end of the game, Luch had 4, I had 5, and Shemp had 16!!!! Still, he did something right because he came in 2nd...)
The game didn't take too long considering it was our first (a little over 2 hours), but between our late start and eating it was already 10:15pm. We didn't have time for Ticket to Ride, so I pulled out Diamant. I had purchased this in anticipation of our New Year's Eve party, where lighter games for large groups would be very useful. It turned out to be a hit, and the short playing time makes it easy to slip in when it's getting late.
Diamant is a "push your luck" type game where players take on the role of intrepid miners on the search for gems in a dangerous set of 5 caves. The trick of the game is that for every card which is turned up, all players must secretely and individually decide if they will get out or keep going. Getting out means that all gems aquired are permanently kept, but staying in means potentially getting quite a bit more. If the same disaster card turns up twice, any players still in the cave lose everything they've accumulated so far!
I quite like this game. It does what it sets out to do perfectly... Be fun and fast. It's all about managing luck, and outguessing your opponents. There are a couple of mechanics which come toghether to make this really work:
1) The simultaneous "in" or "out" decision keeps the game fast even with 8 players.
2) The gems left behind acts as incentive for people to go back, adding another level of things to think about when deciding whether to leave or push on.
3) The fact that gems are shared equally means that there is the real potential for a huge score if everyone pulls out but 1 and a large gem tile is pulled up. This "carrot" led many unfortunate adventurers to their doom.
It all add up to a simple, chaotic 15 minute game which feels a little like gambling, where reading the intentions of your opponents and pushing your luck can make you win big or totally blow it. Highly enjoyable for what it is... We played 4 times!
Railroad Tycoon: 9
Diamant: 8
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