After Action Report – Game Day @ The Duck Club, January 12, 2014

My gaming weekend concluded with the biggest gaming event in Orange County:  Game Day.  This is the first time in over a year that I have been able to go to the event.  During 2013 they scheduled their event on the second Saturday of the month with conflicted with one of the gaming events that I hosted and another event.  The hosts of that event thought that they would get better attendance if they had their event on a Saturday instead of a Sunday.  Unfortunately they chose the wrong Saturday of the month and actually go fewer people to go to their event because of the schedule conflict.  Because of this the moved their event back to Sundays, which I like because it gives me another opportunity to play games each month.  There were around 40 people at the event and 8 games being played at any one time.

I was able to play three games at the event.

The first was Russian Railroads.  In Russian Railroad the players take turns placing workers on actions on the board.  These actions consist of building factories, upgrading trains, moving pieces up the rail or industrial track, and purchasing engineers.  Once all of the players have placed their workers, the round is over and everything is scored and the game moves on to the next round.  The game lasts seven rounds.

To review my discoveries about the game thus far, there are two good strategies to the game.  The first is to focus on building two of the rail lines trying to maximize the advantages you can get from them to gather as many points as possible.  The other is to focus on building factories and only build the track you need to gain bonuses to complete building a full set of factories.

I have also determined that there is importance in collecting some engineers especially if their abilities help you reach your goals.  There is also a 40 point bonus at the end of the game if you have the most engineers.  In order get engineers you must make sure that you go early in the turn order by using one of your workers to make sure you are the first player in the next turn.  The plus about using the worker in this way in Russian Railroads versus other worker placement games, is that you get to reuse the worker at the end of the round on another action.

I tried the Transiberian railroad strategy again, but this time I was not competing directly against another player so I had much better results.  I was able to get my final upgrade in track going on the Transiberian rail line about halfway through the game and get it moved 8 spaced forward by the end of the game and with 4 doublers and the track bonus which allowed me to be 10 points per space instead of 7 points per space, I was able to get 140 points out of that track alone.  In addition, I was able to get 4 conductors and get the 40 point end of game bonus as well.  Unfortunately this was not enough to propel me to victory, but I did come very close.

The second game I played was Yunnan.  In Yunnan the players are tea traders in ancient China.  As the person in charge of the trading company you are trying to get your tea to the farthest markets in order to make the most profit so you can build your wealth and prestige.  You have to watch out for the inspector in the provinces because they will send an unlucky trader back to the home province where they will earn less for their tea.

Yunnan is a worker placement game.  The players take turns placing their worker in order to purchase more workers, better horses, more border passes, greater influence, and structures or to become traders.  Once the players have placed all of their available workers they the move the workers they have made traders along the trade route.  They can only send them as far as they quality of their horses and their border passes will allow.  After the all of the traders have been moved, the players then receive their income which they can convert to cash or victory points.  The game ends when someone reaches 80 victory points.  In addition to converting income to victory points, the players can receive three victory point gift if they make some of the early deliveries of tea in the provinces farther along the trade route.  The can also get 12 victory points for each tea house they establish.

This time I had a strategy determined at the outset of the game.  I planned to focus on maxing out my workers, getting the best horses, and having the most border passes as quickly as possible.  It worked out fairly well for me as I was able to get my income machine going very quickly.  It was not enough though and I lost out of winning by a few points because one of the other players had 10 more end of game bonus points than I did.

The last game of the day for me was Euphoria.  Euphoria is an interesting worker placement game.  The premise of Euphoria is that you are leading a team of workers and recruits to become the leader in a dystopian world.  The player’s workers are represented by dice. The higher the number on the dice the smarter the workers are and if you have 16 or more smarts in workers available you will lose a worker.  The recruits are cards with special abilities that the player keeps and uses during the game.  Each turn the player can place a worker on the board and take that action.  Actions include getting resources, using the resources to find artifacts, get more workers, dig tunnels to other factions, build markets, recover their workers, get more workers, or place prestige.  If a player had any dice that are the same number they may place them in a single turn.  The key to winning the game is to gain prestige.  The first player to place all 10 of their prestige markers wins the game.

A player can place their prestige on markets they have helped build, on recruits that they have in factions that have a high enough influence, or paying the cost and placing the prestige directly on the faction.

I started out the game thinking that as I did with most worker placement games that I get having more workers is better, so I spent my initial effort trying to get at least one more worker.  I then started to get the basic resources I needed to get the building materials I needed to build a part of a market.  After we had gotten all of the markets done, I managed to roll too high when I recovered my workers from the board and lost one.  To add to the insult this was the first time in the game I was able to roll doubles.  I then spent a number of turns getting the worker back, which most likely was a mistake.  After having gotten 5 prestige markers out by this point of the game and being on par with the other players, I started flounder and was able to place only one more prestige marker by the end of the game and end up in last place.

My stats for the event:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Russian Railroads	1	-	1	-	-	-	-	-		2.00
Yunnan	1	-	1	-	-	-	-			2.00
Euphoria	1	-	-	-	1	-	-			4.00
Totals	3	-	2	-	1	-	-		-	2.67

By the end of the third event in four days, it looks like I have shaken off most of the doldrums  of the first week of the year, but we shall see what happens on Thursday.

If You Are Interested In Getting These Games: