After Action Report – Thursday Night Gaming @ Paradise Perks, February 6, 2014

I went to Thursday Night Gaming at Paradise Perks again.  There were around 25 people at the event with 6 games being played at any one time.  I was surprised by the number of people at the event since this was the first time we have had rain this year.  Generally people try to avoid driving in the rain but I guess the draw of being able to play games overrides not just my one common sense.

I was able to play two games one of them I have played a number of times the other one was new.

The first game I played 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.

This time things worked like clockwork for me.  I was doing my standard Transiberian strategy moving the black track forward as quickly as possible and not worrying about getting a train until the second or third turn when better trains would be available and other people would be less interested in grabbing them at that time.  Then toward the end of the game I made the mistake that cost me the game.  I was able to get a bonus chip for the first time and I chose the end game bonus card.  I should have chosen the track point enhancement at that point.  If I had I would have won the game because the two turns of scoring at the higher point values would have gotten me more points than the end game bonus did.  I ended the game in second place.

The new game that I played was Sail to India.  Sail to India is a game of exploration.  The players are Portuguese nobles who are trying to find the best trade route to India from Lisbon.  During the trips they need to use trade goods to finance their expeditions, set up strongholds, churches, and markets, and explore new lands.  The players get two actions during their turn.  With these actions they can hire a worker, move a ship, establish a building, purchase a technology, or go to market.  All of the actions cost money except of going to market which is the only way to make money to pay for other things in the game.  The game ends when the second player has hired their last worker or India is discovered.  The person with the most victory points at the end of the game wins.

I started the game unclear of the mechanics of the game.  For some reason I was not able to picture them in my head so the first thing I did was improve the speed of my ships and start an expedition.  As the game progressed I started to get a better idea of what was going on and started to accumulate points getting 5 – 6 workers on market goods and going to market.  This would get me the cahs that I needed to by technologies and keep getting me more workers.  I was also able to control 3 of the 4 markets by the end of the game for which I had an end of game victory point bonus for.  The mistakes I make were many.  The biggest of which was I ignored the churches and stronghold which would have given me some advantages and end of game scoring and I did not pay attention to the technologies early enough to get a second victory point bonus card.  Even then I manages to finish the game in second 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
Sail to India	1	-	1	-	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	2	-	2	-	-	-	-		-	2.00