With 8 this week, we split into 2 groups of 4.
First up on our table was Workshop of the World. As the previous game we played at the club, this was a close affair. We did not run into quite such problems with spending all the money as in the previous game, I was pre warned and I was able to warn the others who were new to the game about being careful with their money.
I thought that Dave was going to win some way out but was surprised by the narrow margin of victory, which thinking about it was explained by Dave having spent somewhat more money during the rail age. I was surprised to see Donald so close at the end as he was lagging at the end of the Canal age, having spent that time getting used to the game. In the rail age he managed to put together a sizable connected series of Railways which earned him the points to bring right up although not quite close enough.
Posn. | Player | Score |
1 | Dave C | 111 |
2 | Dave D | 110 |
3 | Donald | 109 |
4 | Ben C | 97 |
After that was Forbidden Island, which is very much a simplified version of Pandemic by the same author. It's an OK game and plays slightly quicker than its predecessor, but Pandemic does seem to have more to it, particularly with the variations added by the expansion.
Posn. | Player | Score |
1= | Dave C | L |
1= | Dave D | L |
1= | Donald | L |
1= | Ben C | L |
Over on the other table was Steam Barons. This is an expansion to Steam and requires the base game to play. The game does seem to be substantially changed by the addition of the expansion, so I have recorded it in the stats as a separate game, contrary to what I'd normally do, I'm still thinking about that though and might yet change my mind.
In this version of the game players do not control railways for themselves, but instead control companies that, in turn, control the railways. Companies are controlled by the ownership of shares in a similar way to an 18XX game, although glancing through the rules, the way in which shares are acquire is somewhat different, as is the way that shares become available, only being issued by companies when they need the money.
Posn. | Player | Score |
1 | Mike | 102 |
2 | Andy | 88 |
3 | Andrew S | 83 |
4 | Colin | 60 |
I enjoyed Workshop of the World, and it's very gracious of DaveD to compliment the extent of my rail network. I should state, however, that this success was partly built on my taking a gamble on the last turn. None of the cities available suited me, whilst DaveC, DaveD and Ben could all make use of at least one card each, the fourth being no use to anyone but, as all its links had been completed, it afforded me an opportunity to discard and draw a wild card. I therefore bid zero and stayed at the back of the turn order. Being left with the only card that had any possible use, I discarded it and drew Glasgow, which fitted nicely into my network, netting me, with the connections made, I think a total of fourteen points. If I had not drawn the perfect card, I would have been somewhat adrift of the lead. In this case I was lucky, but I wouldn't have bet a pound on the percentages.
ReplyDeleteRe: my last comment: the 14 points includes my end-of-era demand bonus for Glasgow.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember what the demand for Glasgow (Blue) was? I didn't think it was that high and you would have foregone whatever bonus you would have got from the city you discarded (which I again don't remember). That said Glasgow was definitely the best draw you could have made as it allowed you to connect it to Dundee (or was it Edinburgh?) for 6 (7?) points that you wouldn't have got otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking that I maybe should be making a few notes of some of these games at the time to assist in writing about them.
Ah. I'd misremembered and thought Glasgow was red, thus giving me one for industry placed, two for links placed to Carlisle, nine for new city links: Glasgow four, Edinburgh three, Carlisle two, plus two for the red demand tokens I'd put in. So I wasn't quite as far behind as I thought as we went in to the last round - though thinking about it, the two Carlisle-Glasgow links would also have netted me four at game end, which I'd forgotten.
ReplyDeleteSteam Barons.... hmmm.... really not sure about this one. Whilst I perhaps warmed to it a bit more than Steam (no pun intended), there's a bit of scope for analysis paralysis because under certain circumstances one can exactly calculate the expected gain from share purchases, and the last couple of turns can be very odd because there is no replenishment of goods. Andy E said the game flows better when a company goes bankrupt, which we didn't let happen, but I'm not sure I want to devote the time to another game of it to find out if that is true.
ReplyDelete