After Action Report – Games Gathering @ Brookhurst Hobbies, November 2, 2013

I went to the Games Gathering at Brookhurst Hobbies on Saturday.  Attendance was a little lower than normal.  There were 20 – 25 people there with 4 to 5 games being played at any one time.

I was only able to play one game at the event.  Mostly because it was a new game that everyone was trying to learn.

The game was Patchistory.  Patchistory is a strategic game where the players are developing civilizations through three eras of play.  Each player starts the game with a 2 x 6 grid city which provides them a set of resources during their turn.  

At the start of each turn four cards with additional resource spaces, open land, water, heroes and wonders that cover a 2 x 2 space are dealt out.  The hero and wonder cards give the owner special powers.  The resource cards provide additional resources for the owner to collect.  The players take turns bidding on the cards until each player receives one.  The players them add the card to their city.  The card most cover a space on the current city or be covers by an existing space.  The only spot that cannot be covered are water spaces.  The player can expand their civilization to fill a 5 x 5 space during the first era, a 6 x 6 space during the second era, and a 7 x 7 space in the third era.

After that the players use their political points to perform diplomacy with anyone they have a trade route to or an alliance with and build things like ne trade routes and buildings.  Any leftover political points the player turns into votes for the end of turn scoring.

Once call the building is done the player moves their workers around their city to take advantage of special resource spaces and up trade routes.  When this is completed the players collect their resources and feed their workers.  Play moves on to the next turn.

Each era lasts five turns.  At the end of an era the players must upkeep their heroes and wonders and end of era scoring happens.

At the beginning of the game the players get 3 scoring cards.  The scoring cards give points to players based on who has the most of a certain items like metal or political influence.  At the end of each era they are required to turn in one of their scoring cards to be scored.  The players then vote on which of the scoring cards are scored by using the political points they turned into votes.  The score card that receives the fewest votes is removed and the others are scored by giving points based on the votes.  The player with the most of the resource receives victory points based on the number of votes the card received.  In a four player game the player with the second most gets half that number, the player with the third gets no points and the player in last loses half the points.

At the beginning of the game I had decided I wanted to try a trading strategy and try get trading routes going to each of the other players.  I also wanted to get out all of my workers as quickly as possible to be able to work the trading routes and special spots in my city to be able to maximize my resources.  I did not realize how expensive doing that would be in both building and upkeep.  By the end of the first era I was only able to get two workers going a supported.  Cash was also tight for me so many times I was not able to get my first choice in city expansions which slowed me down a bit.

During the second era I was able to get and support a couple more workers which let me work my two trade routes and keep some bonuses going in my city.  Cash was still an issue but I was able to make due.  I managed to still get usable city expansions.  During the end of era scoring one of the other players shot ahead in points which concerned me.

In the last era I focused on moves that would get me more point. I get two more workers and was able to score 7 – 10 points a turn which was narrowing the gap a little.  It was the end of game scoring that helped.  I had the most in 2 of the 4 options and a lot of votes.  I was able to clean up on points during the round and add a few more points in end of game scoring.  I did end up in second with only six points between me and the winner.  The other two players were around 40 points behind me.

My stats for the event are:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Patchistory	1	-	1	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	2.00