After Action Report – Strategic and Adventure Game Association @ El Toro Public Library, October 26, 2013

It was a good day for gaming with the Strategic and Adventure Association at the El Toro Public Library.  There was a wide selection of games available and a good number of gamers to play them.  The attendance for the event was 22 people and there were 5 games being played at any one time during the event.

I had a crayon rail day with all of the games that I played being part of the Empire Builder series.  This series of game is my most favorite game and even though I try other games all the time I will always go back to these even though based on my track record with them I should avoid them if a just want to win games.

For those that are unfamiliar with the Empire Builder games here is a brief description of how they are played.

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.

The first game I played was India Rails.  India Rails is the version of the game that 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.

I had a fairly good start to the game I was able to build from the northern part of the map to the center and get payouts that were able to help me extend my track  after another couple of sets I was able to get most of my track built and upgrade my train.  Unfortunately I started to get cards that would not work for me.  I discarded my cards a number of times losing my turn each time in hopes of getting a better set that would work with my track and had no luck.  As opposed to sitting in one place and losing more time I worked on a card that would work from the set I got in hopes that something would break loose if I moved to a different part of the board.  By the time that I started to get the synergy flowing again it was too late and I came in third.

The second game was Martian Rails.  Martian Rails takes the science fiction and fantasy elements from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and other authors and brings them to the 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.

Again I had a promising start and was able to set up some prime track early in the game I was slow in upgrading my train.  The main problem I had in the game was settling for poor cards thinking I could work my way out to them to turn my game around.  Again my strategy failed me and I to another third place in this game.

The next game of the day was the original game that the rest of the series sprung out of, Empire Builder.  Empire Builder takes place in North American and includes Mexico, the continental United States, and parts of Canada.

Unfortunately my game turned out just as badly as the first two games of the day.  The last few times I played Empire Builder I would force myself in to a southwestern route mostly because in my mind this route tends to be the most successful route.  This time my cards were leading me to a northern route so I figured I would give it s shot to see if my game improved.  At first it was working out well for me but then the cards started to turn on me.  It would happen at the worst possible time when I was in the middle of the board.  I was then need to find at least one card that would get me to one side of the board so that I could try to get a set of cards with a good payout.  My game started to get back on track and I was about to get to my next large pay out that would have got me close to the lead and the game ended with me in third place again.

The final game of the day was Nippon Rails.  Nippon Rails takes place in Japan.  It is the game that introduced the tunnel rules that were added later the Eurorails.

I did manage to fair a little better in this game.  I was able to get my track build out quickly but sacrificed upgrading my train until too late in the game and even though I was getting good cards during the entire game I was still behind by a few turns and took second place which while being a improvement over the rest of the day was not the victory I had hoped for.

My stats for the event were:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
India Rails	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	-		3.00
Martian Rails	1	-	-	1	-	-	-			3.00
Empire Builder	1	-	-	1	-	-	-			3.00
Nippon Rails	1	-	1	-	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	4	-	1	3	-	-	-		-	2.75

If you are Interested in Purchasing Any of These Games: