After Action Report – Strategic & Adventure Game Association @ El Toro Public Library, September 14, 2013

The Strategic Adventure & Game Association event was very well attended for a second Saturday.  Second Saturdays are when we compete against two other local events.  There were 19 gamers in attendance with four games being played at one time.

The most popular game of the day by far was Bruges, a new game from Z-Man Games.  It was played six times during the day.

I was not one of the people that played Bruges.  For me it was a day filled exclusively with train games.

The first game that I played was Nippon Rails.  Nippon Rails is one of the games in the Empire Builder family.  It is theme around building a rail network and delivering goods in Japan. 

Like in all games in the Empire Builder family, the players own railroad companies that are competing to build rail lines and move freight from one city to another based on a set of demand cards that they have.  Once a demand on a demand card is completed the player discards it and draws a new one from the deck.  Included in the demand card deck are a number of disaster cards which include things like derailments and river floods which impede the player’s progress to victory.

The unique feature of the Empire Builder family of games is the free form building of track that it allows.  The player uses special crayons that are included with the game to draw their track on the board.  Between games the marking from the previous game are erased from the game so that in the next play of the game the players start with a fresh board.

I had a strong start getting a strong set of cards.  My biggest problem during the game was that I got hit by event cards that caused me to lose turns on five separate occasions during the game, which really hurt even though I was getting demand cards that worked very well with the rail network I was developing.  The continual hits from the event cards wound up taking their toll and I game in second in the game.  I was two turns out from winning the game myself when it ended so if I had not been an event magnet I would have had a good shot at winning.

The next game is 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.

The game was over in only three rounds.  I did fairly well in the first two rounds and only lost four points total.  In the third round actually reached all of my cities first.  The leader lost a point.  The third player in the game managed to end the game by going past the post.  I ended up in second place again.

The third game of the day for me was Empire Builder, the flagship game of the series.  It is a game of rail building and goods transportation in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

The basics of the game are the same as Nippon Rails so I will not go into them again and instead go directly into the game play.

We had five players in the game which is something that does not happen very often.  Two of them were new players so the three experienced players focused on teaching the game.

I was dealt a decent set of cards at the beginning of the game and started building from the west coast toward the east figuring that I would be able to improve my situation from there.  I turned out to be very wrong about that.  During the second turn in the game when I was delivering my first load, the event cards started to mess with me again.  I was hit with a derailment and lost the load that I needed for a later delivery.  Not only did that make me lose a turn, I had to spend the next three turns going back to pick up the load I lost and getting back to where I was.  This killed my game. 

I continued to get hit by event cards in this game as well but had the added bonus of getting mediocre demand during the rest of the game as well.  This made it impossible for me to recover and I lost the game badly taking fifth place.

The last game of the day was Santa Fe Rails.  Santa Fe Rails is a network development game that was design by Alan R. Moon a few years before he created Ticket to Ride.

In Santa Fe Rails, the players are trying to influence the routes that five major railroads take across the western United States by trying to maneuver the track that is placed for the railroads to go through certain cities.  The cities that each player cares about are determined by which ones they draw from the deck during the game.

During the game players gain points for connecting new cities in a rail network and at the end of the game they will get points for each different railroad that connects  to the cities that they have played in front of them.

Game play is simple.  The players draw their hands up to four cards.  They can choose from the city deck or the special cards to the side of the deck.  The special cards allow the players to place branches in the rail lines, build extra track or improve some of the cities.  Once the player has filled their hands the chose a card to play and turn them over at the same time.  The players then place track in turn order twice.  The turn order them shifts to the left and the next round begins.

The game ends when all the tracks the five railroads have are used up or there is no legal placement for the track from those railroads.

I started the game by focusing on laying as much track as I could to try to get as many first to a cities bonus points as I could.  Unfortunately the other players were doing a better job of that than I was so about a third of the way into the game, I changed over to playing out as many city cards as I could.  I figured I could get a lot more points doing that than I could get in bonus points.  When I changed to this strategy I also focused on getting as many railroads connected to the cities I was playing.  By the end of the game I was in the strongest position when it came to city control.  I wound up winning the game handily.

My results for this event are:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Nippon Rails	1	-	1	-	-	-	-		2.00
Tans America	1	-	1	-	-	-	-		2.00
Empire Builder	1	-	-	-	-	1			5.00
Santa Fe Rails	1	1	-	-	-	-	-		1.00
Totals	4	1	2	-	-	1	-	-	2.50

Z-man Games Press Release - Bruges - Anatomy of a card

From the Z-Man Games Website

Bruges - Anatomy of a card

With so much information included on one card, it may be hard to understand what everything means. This is why we are explaining everything you will find on the cards and what each item depicted on the card does.
 
The five actions that you can see on the right side of the card are always the same and appear on all cards, regardless of their color.

Each card allows you to use one of these actions.

1. Take 2 workers: place the card in the discard pile and take 2 workers of the played color. In this case, purple.

2. Take guilders: Place the card in the discard pile and take a number of guilders from the bank. The number of guilders taken is equal to the value of the die of the card color that was rolled at the start of the current round.

3. Discard 1 Threat marker: Place the card in the discard pile and discard 1 Threat marker of the color of the played card. By discarding a Threat marker, the player gains 1 point.

4. Build 1 Canal token: Place the card in the discard pile and add a Canal token on the correct colored space in your canals. You must build canals in order; you may not skip a space. Furthermore, you must still pay the number of guilders showed on the space you wish to build your canal.

5. Build 1 House: Play the card face down in front of yourself to show that you have built a house. You must pay 1 worker of the color of the house you wish to build.

The next action that is possible with a card is to recruit the Person you see on the card. In this case, you would first need a House for him to live. The House does not have to be of the same color as the Person you wish to place in it. You would then need to pay his price written in the top left corner (in this case 9 guilders).

Ok so that is all that information on the Person side of the card?
 
Let's start from the top! In the top left corner, you will find the price (in this case 9 guilders). Under that, you will see a little number. This number represents the number of points that this person is worth at the end of the game. After the pictures of the Person, you will find one of these symbols:

1. The Worker icon: People with the Worker icon can be activated once per round by paying a worker of the respective color in order to perform the action written on the card.

2. The Arrow icon: People with this icon have a "one-use" effect that is used when the card is placed in a house.

3. The Infinity Loop icon: These People have effects that are constant throughout the game. Some effects are used each turn (such as "once per round, take 2 guilders); others come into play with a specific action (such as "whenever you choose to take a Worker as an action, take 3 workers") or specific phases in the game (such as "during phase 1, you may refill your hand up to 6 cards).

4. The Laurel icon: People with this icon are used only during the final scoring. They can have advantages such as "at the end of the game, for every 2 workers you have, get 1 point".

Under one of these icons, you will then have the name and ability of the person. In this case, we have a Prince. Paying a worker will activate his ability. By doing so, the player would obtain 1 point and 2 guilders.
Finally, at the bottom of the card, you will see the group to which this Person belongs. Some cards will give advantages if you have certain groups present on the table, so keep that in mind.

Well there you have it! That was a more in-depth look at the anatomy of a Bruges card!

Z-Man Games Press Release - Bruges – What’s it all about?

Bruges – What’s it all about?

Today, we take a more in-depth look at what Bruges is all about. Back-story Belgium, 15th Century. The first stock market opens its doors. All of Europe has set its eyes on the wealthy and influential city of Bruges. In this game, your objective will be to gather influence with the local merchants, bureaucrats, nobles, and the many others that rule this beautiful city. With their help, you hope to gain prestige, reputation, and power. But you must be careful, as disasters lurk nearby. Ruse, tactical thinking, and a little luck will allow you to pull ahead. And, if that is not enough, the shadier denizens of the city will be more than happy to help. Lets first take a look at the board Around the exterior, like you see in most games; you will find the scoring track. Interesting thing about Bruges, you don’t start the game on the 0, but on the 5 point space. Then, inside that you will see some little spaces numbered 1-5. These are the Canal spaces. Each player has two sections of the Canal that they can decide to use, or not, throughout the game. In the middle of the board, you will find spaces numbered from 1 to 12. This is the reputation track. The higher you go, the more points you will gain at the end of the game. To the right of the board, you will find the spot where you most put the dice. The dice are rolled at the start of each round, but we’ll get to that later. That’s it for the board, now let’s get into how to play. What one round of Bruges looks like Step 1 – Draw: Player will draw 5 cards from the two different decks available. You will want to choose cards that have the right color for your needs. But you will only be able to see the first card of each deck. Step 2 – Roll the dice: The dice are rolled and placed in their reserved area in order from the largest to the smallest. Step 3 – Distribute Threat markers: Threat markers are distributed to all players. You will get a Threat marker of the color of each die that has a value of 5 or 6. Step 4 – Advance Reputation: Players decide if they wish to advance on the Reputation track. They do so by paying the total cost of all dice values of 1 or 2. So if there is one 1 and two 2’s, it will cost 5 guilders to advance on the track this round. Step 5 – Play cards and perform actions: Each player will play one card at a time, performing one of 6 possible actions (Take 2 workers, Take 1-6 guilders, Discard 1 Threat marker, Build 1 Canal token, Build 1 House, Recruit 1 Person). Once all player have taken four actions, this step ends. Step 6 – Verify majorities: At this point, players verify whether one of them has a majority and can therefore flip their corresponding Majority marker that will allow them to gain points at the end of the game. Players can have majority in three sectors: Reputation, People and Canals. Step 7 – Change the start player: The Start Player banner is passed to the next player in clockwise order and a new round can begin. Well, there you have it. You now know a bit more about how to play Bruges. More info about the game still to come.