After Action Report – Games Gathering @ Brookhurst Hobbies, January 4, 2014

I went to the Games gathering at Brookhurst Hobbies on Saturday.  The turnout was lower than normal.  Instead of the 20+ people I have come to expect, there were only 15 people there.  There were 3 games being played at any one time.

I was able to get three games played during the event.

The first was India Rails from the Empire Builder family of 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.

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 an okay start to the game.  I had two good cards in my set going the same direction plus an additional low paying card that I could pick up on the way.  I was able to use these cards to build a modest amount of track and upgrade my train fully.  After that I spent the rest of the game struggling to get the track I needed and get a set of cards with decent payoffs.  To make matters worse one of the other players kept getting great cards that went with his track and was able to crush me and the other player.  I came in third out of three players.

The second game I played was Boxcars.  In Boxcars the player are rail barons that are moving product from city to city in the country and collecting fees for doing this.  Each time they make a delivery, they have the option to purchase a railroad or upgrade their train.  If they upgrade their train the player may move along their track faster.  If they purchase a railroad they then can collect fees from the other players when they use the track during the rest of the game.  The first player to reach the money accumulation goal and get back to their home city wins the game.

At the start of their first turn the player must roll the dice and look up the city on a chart to determine where their home city is.  Then they roll the dice again to determine their fist destination city.  At the beginning of any turn where the player had reached his destination, they must determine their next destination using the same method.

After a player gets their destination and on any turn they did not reach their destination, the player rolls two dice and moves along track to their next destination.  They will need to pay fees of $1,000 to use bank owned track or $5,000 - $10,000 to any player that owns track that they use.  The player fee is determined based on where they are in the game.  If they player reached their destination, they are paid out and may make a purchase and the turn moves on to the nest player.

The first time I played the game it felt like an endurance trial.  The game took close to three hours to complete.  This time I played it only because we used the smart phone app that determines shipping destinations and pay outs.  This sped up the game a lot and we were able to complete it in under an hour. 

I tried to use my learning from the first time I played and tried to buy rail lines that connected to each other and my home city so that I had a chance to win the game.  Unfortunately I did not get the rolls I needed to complete my deliveries very quickly so I was only able to tread water during the second half of the game and as a result ended the game last out of three players.

The final game of the day of me 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.

This game started out badly for me.  I was able to hold my own for the first round and only lost two points, but in the second and third rounds I managed to lose four points each.  At this point I knew the game would be over in the next round unless I was able to pull off a win.  I was able to do this and the other players lost a good amount of points.  In the next round I was able to hold my own again and one of the players scores dropped just below mine and in the final round of the game I was able to again maintain my edge and ended the game in second place.

My stats for the event:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
India Rails	1	-	-	1	-	-	-	-		3.00
Boxcars	1	-	-	1	-	-	-			3.00
Trans Amercia	1	-	1	-	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	3	-	1	2	-	-	-		-	2.67

If You Are Interested In Purchasing These Games: