Friday, June 6, 2014

After Action Report – Board Game Night @ Comic Quest, June 5, 2014



I went to Board Game Night at Comic Quest on Thursday.  There was a good crowd at the event.  There approximately 20 people at the event and up to five games being played at any one time.

I played four games that evening.

The first game I played was Trans America.  Trans America is a game that is deceptively easy to learn but is very difficult to master.  In Trans America the players are required to connect up five different cities in different regions of the United States.  The players start building track from their starting post.  If they connect up to another player’s track, they can build off of that player’s track as well as their own.  In this way players wind up helping each other out while trying to achieve their own goals.

It has been a couple months since I last played Trans America.  I noticed that I have not managed to find a winning strategy for this game yet.  I not won a game of it and I am usually the most experienced player at the table when I play it any more.  In the first round I tried to place my starting post directly between my farthest east and farthest west cities to see if it would work.  The idea was to build evenly between the cities and pick up my other cities along the way.  I did not get to all of my cities that round and ended up losing four points.

In the second round I decided to place my starting post between my blue and red cities.  Since my yellow city was directly between these two cities it seemed like a good idea.  This time it did work out for me.  I connected all of my cities first this time.  One of the players ran off the end of the score track and ended the game.  Unfortunately did not stick the other player with enough points to give me the victory and I ended up in second place out of three players.

The second game of the night was Streetcar.  In Streetcar the players need to set up trolley track in New   The first one to complete these two tasks wins the game.
Orleans that connects up two to three fixed locations on the board to their two terminals and then drive their trolley along the track from one terminal to the other.

In the first part of the game, the players need to build their track.  They start the game with five track tiles.  They place two track tiles on to the board.  They must connect to existing track and may not dead end into the fixed locations on the board or the edge of the board.  After they have placed their second tile they then draw back up to five tiles.  During the tile placement turn a player may upgrade a tile that has already placed with a new tile as long as the connections that the existing tile had are maintained.  The tile that is being replaced is taken by the player that is doing the upgrade.  Upgrading a tile counts as one of the tile placements that a player makes during their turn.

When the first tile is placed next to a fixed location, a stop is placed on the track.  When the player is running their train along the track later in the game they must stop their movement any time they go into a stop with one of these stop signs.

After a player has connected their fixed locations and their two terminals with track the player may start to move their train along it.  The player may move their train one more space than the last train was moved but must stop their movement when they reach one of the stops signs on the board.  The first player to reach their end terminal wins the game.

It had been years since I had played this game.  I got my card with the fixed locations I needed to go to.  It seemed that it was going to be an easy enough game.  Then I started to get my replacement tiles and I began to realize how much trouble I was going to be in.  I could not get tiles that were remotely what I needed and as I tried to make do with what I was getting and hope for better tiles it just kept getting worse.  When I finally got everything connected and had a drivable route I was the last player to start my streetcar out from the terminal.  I ended up in last place out of three players.

The third game I played was On the Underground.  On the Underground is a network development game.  The idea behind the game is the players are trying to help the passenger to move around London using the lines that they develop for the underground transportation system they have.  Depending on the number of players in the game each player receives the pieces that represent the lines that they can develop.  In a two player game each player gets four lines, in a three player game each player gets three lines and in a four or five player game each player gets two lines.  

During each turn the player may add up to four lengths of track to the board.  They may start a new line or add to one of their existing lines in any combination as long as they are adding to one of the ends of their track.  The player may collect branch marker instead of laying track at a cost of one track per branch marker.  Branch markers are the only way that a player my add side track to their lines at a cost of two branch markers per branch in the line.

After the player places their track the passenger is them moved to up to two of four possible destinations.  Where the passenger goes is determined by a number of factors including trying not to have to walk and taking a few lines as possible to the destination.  The destinations available for the passenger to go to come from the destination cards.  Destination cards are divided into two colors, gold and white.  Four destination cards are face up during a player’s turn.  When the player has placed their track, the passenger moves to the most convenient gold destination then to the most convenient white destination from there.  If there are no cards of one of the colors showing the passenger moves to only one destination.

Points are scored by building track to certain train stations and termini as well as for connecting types of shopping areas on the board.  They are also scored when the passenger moves along one of their lines.  The game ends when there are no longer destination cards available to fill up the four face up destinations.

I played this game last week and was successful in winning it so I figured I would give it another try to see if it was a fluke.  This time I decided to be less ambitious in trying to enclose a space with my track and was successful in building an area that had five stations inside it.  I was also able to connect two set of commercial products for another six points.  This became the anchor of my track for the first half co the game but as the game progressed I found that I was making more points with my two side lines than I was the initial track I built.  This was because one of the other players built a line across the board and as a result got much of the cross town traffic to go along that track.  However with the tack points I was able to get during the game, I was able to get the win.

The last game of the evening was Bazaar.  In Bazaar the players are gem traders trying to fulfill gem orders from demand cards in competition with the other players.  They do this by using two trading boards that represent the exchange rates for the market.  For example one red gem can be traded for two blue gems.  The players use the exchange to fulfill the demand cards as efficiently as possible to maximize their points.
This time the game worked out for me.  I was able to get my first set after the second trade and there was no stopping me after that.  I was able to consistently get a set every 3 or four turns and ended the game with five set.  I won this game by a pretty good margin.  I think it will be a while before I can repeat this performance.

As a side note this was the tenth time I played the game this year and is the first game where I have reach 10 plays.

My stats for the event:

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