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

The Thursday night gaming event got what appears to be its current draw of 25 people.  There were four games being played at any one time.

I was able to play two games at the event.

I started the night out with a new game for me called Packet Row.  The players run shipping companies in New York City in the nineteenth century.  They are competing to get contracts for shipping cargos to Europe and expand their wealth.  The player that has the most comparative wealth at the end of the game wins.

During the game players take turns being the Harbor Master.  The Harbor Master controls which of the four markets can be purchased from.  The four markets are the Bank, Guild Hall, Docks, and Market.  The Bank is where the players can get more money.  The Dock is where the player can hire ships, the Guild Hall is where the players get shipping contracts to fulfill and the Market is where the players get the goods to fulfill the contracts.

After the Harbor Master picks a market, the players decide whether or not they are going to purchasing something from that market or wait to see if another market will open later in the turn.  Once a player purchases an item in the turn they are out of play until the next turn.  The turn end when the Harbor Master purchases an item regardless of whether or not the other players have purchased something.

The goal in getting things from the various markets is to fulfill shipping contracts.  In order to fulfill a shipping contract the player must have a ship and the amount of goods needed to complete the shipping contract.  Once the player completes the shipping contract they will receive the amount of money on the contract ranging from 15 - 35 dollars.

You have to be careful not to overextend in the game because once the cards in a market are depleted that market may not be purchased from for the rest of the game.

The game seemed simple enough with each player starting the game with a contract I thought it would be easy to get another contract going to the same destination and complete them at one time giving me a good boost toward winning the game.  Unfortunately that was not the case.  I underestimated how quickly the card would run out in each of the markets and so I was being picky about what and when I was taking items for the markets.  As a result I found myself with two contracts going to the same place and a ship to that location but no goods because I was being beaten out on the good I wanted when the Market came up and not taking any goods.  This happened at the time that the Guild Hall was running out of contract and I had nothing to show for my efforts.  I picked up a contract to another destination in desperation hoping that I could complete something before the end of the game.  Strangely enough that last contract was the first one I was able to finish.  By the end of the game I was only able to complete one other contract of the two I got early on in the game.  I ended up in fourth place out of five players.

The other game that I played was Notre Dame.  Notre Dame is a worker placement game where the players each run a neighborhood in Paris.  They are trying to build up their neighborhoods and keep them free of the plague rats that are infesting the town.  The player who can use the influence in their neighborhood to gain the most experience points  wins the game.

The mechanics of the game are centered on a deck of nine cards that the players can take during each turn the players takes three of those cards from their deck, keeps one of them, and gives the other two to the player to their left.  The player then takes the two cars that they got from the person to their right and take one of those and give the final card to the person to their left.  From the three action cards that the player has selected, they choose two of those actions to do during their turn.  When they play the action cards the player places a worker on that section of their neighborhood and gains the benefit.  The benefits range from getting more workers, money or victory points, moving a carriage around the city to get victory points to placing a worker in the cathedral for end of round points.  The game continues for nine rounds that make up three turns (three rounds in a turn).

It had been a number of years since I played this game.  From what I remembered having a lot of workers was good and being able to get victory points during each round was always the best ways to go even if it meant that you got hit with a plague a number of times in the game.  I was able to get a good machine going by focusing my actions on so that I kept a number of workers in a section sot that I doubled or tripled the effect when I took the action later.  I was able to end the game in second place.

My stats for the event:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Avg.
Packet Row	1	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	4.00
Notre Dame	1	-	1	-	-	-	-			2.00
Totals	2	-	1	-	1	-	-		-	3.00