After Action Report – Strategic & Adventure Game Association @ El Toro Public Library, September 28, 2013

The attendance for the SAGA event on Saturday was light.  There were only 11 people in attendance but there were 4 games being played at any given time.  I am not sure why the attendance was lighter than normal for a fourth Saturday, but from what I could gather most of the events over the last two weeks have had very light attendance.  It may have something to do with people having new schedules now that school has started up again or because it was a particularly nice day yesterday.

Even with the low attendance I was able to play six games, which made it a good day for me.

The first game I played was Australian Rails.  Australian Rails is one of the games in the Empire Builder family.  In the Empire Builder family of games 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.  In order to win the game, the player must be the first to have track connecting a number of major cities on the board and have at least $250 million dollars.  In the case of Australian you need to connect 3 major cities plus the city of Perth on the opposite side of the continent from the other major cities.

I had a fairly good starting set of cards with thereof the same type of load going to the same general area.  I would need to spend very little money for a decent payout.  Unfortunately the player before me was able to take one of the loads before I was able to get it and I was only able to get two of the load.  It still got me a decent amount of money and I was able to get to my next few delivery points and accumulate enough cash to complete upgrading my track and building my track.  At that point in the game the cards started to turn against me and I was not able to get enough lucrative loads to be able to win the game.  I came in third but the scores were very close.

We then decided to play a game of Martian Rails.  Martian Rails takes the science fiction and fantasy elements from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and other authors and brings them to a rail game.  There are canals with water and forest and jungle terrain on the board, cities are called thing like Barsoom and Hinkston Creek, and you even have loads like Roddenberries and Thoats.

This game worked out really well for me.  I started with a great set of cards that gave me the opportunity to build my track in one of the best areas of the map and I was able to start generating cash quickly.  Even with a little bit of struggling with the cards in the middle of the game I was able to scratch out a victory, which was my first for this game since I started reporting my games.

Then came India Rails, which of course takes place in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.  The only added rule for this game is the ability for transporting pilgrims from one region to another for a minimal payment inside India.  I believe that this feature was added to help offset a couple of major disasters that can destroy a player’s game if they do not have the cash to build back track and they do not want to sacrifice their current hand.

My starting set of cards suckered me into starting my track on the east coast of India, which I am not convinced is the best place to have a rail network.  Things started out well enough.  I was able to upgrade my train quickly and build track to some of the most optimal locations, but then the cards stopped cooperating with me.  I struggle through the rest of the game and ended up in third place even though I started out with such a commanding lead.

I then decided I would play some games with a couple of people that were new to the event.  The first of those being one of my favorites:  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 game started out slow for me.  It was looking like I would have the same problems I had in my last few games, but then I was able to claim my second card with no gems left, which kept me in contention with the other players.  I was able to do the same thing on my final card and propelled my way to victory.

After that we decided to give Lost Cities:  The Board Game a try.  In Lost Cities: the Board Game the players are trying to complete archeological expeditions.  The farther along on an expedition track a player gets, the more points they score.  The player must be careful when starting an expedition because if they do not move at least four spaces on that track they will lose points. 

The players move along the track by playing out cards in the color of the expedition in front of them in ascending order.  The deck of cards has five colors.  Each color has two cards ranging from 0 to 10.  When a player plays a card in front of them it cannot be lower than the last card they played in that color.  Each time the player places a card in front of them they move their explorer up the expedition track.  As an alternative they players may discard a card that can be picked up later may other players instead of drawing from the deck.

The round ends when 5 player tokens are moved 7 or more spaces up the expedition track or when the deck of cards is depleted.

On each expedition track there are bonus tokens available that give out extra points, allow the player to move an extra space up the track, or give the player a monument.  The monuments are worth additional points at the end of the game.

We played the game with a variant rule where the player may choose to play the cards out in either ascending or descending order.   The order must be determined when the card is placed.  We decided to play the short game because we knew we did not have enough time to play a full game.

I had a bad game.  Much like the first round in the game that I played on Thursday, I chose to place my card sets going the wrong direction of the way I was getting cards.  Add to that I was only able to two expeditions started and to the point that I was able to get points for them.  I did manage to get a score over 100 and come in second but the winner over double my score.  I was definitely being too choosey about the cards I was using and when I was using them.  I may have done better if I had played more aggressively.

This left us just enough time to play a quick game of 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.

I played the worst I had played this game in a long time.  My problems arose from trying to play quickly so I was not placing my starting post in optimal positions each turn.  Add to that the cities I had to connect were not in great locations that other players were building to and I had a wonderful recipe for disaster.

I managed to lose six points in the first round and managed to seal my doom by going into negative territory and ending the game.  I came in fourth in this game.

My stats for the event are below.  It is also good to note that I recorded my 100^th game play since I started keeping track back in April.  Unfortunately that game was Trans America.  I hope that does not curse my next 100 games.

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Australian Rails	1	-	-	1	-	-	-			3.00
Martian Rails	1	1	-	-	-	-	-			1.00
India Rails	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	3.00
Bazaar	1	1	-	-	-	-	-			1.00
Lost Cities: Board Game	1	-	1	-	-	-				2.00
Trans America	1	-	-	-	1	-	-			4.00
Totals	6	2	1	2	1	-	-		-	2.33