I hosted the Strategic & Adventure Game Association game
Day at the El Toro Public Library on Saturday.
There were 18 people in attendance and up to five games were being
played at once.
I decided that starting with this month’s event that I would
institute a score keeping protocol for the group where we would start keeping
track of the results of the games that were being played at the event with the
idea of providing prizes at the end of the year for the best players. This used to be done as part of the Orange
County Board Gamers group until the organizers did not have time for it so I
decided to institute it on a smaller scale.
The plan is to do this across the So Cal Game Connection meetup group which
I and another event organizer started.
Participation is voluntary so any information I get from it will most
likely be incomplete but I still think the exercise will still be worthwhile.
I was able to play four games from the Empire Builder family
at the event.
To review, in the Empire Builder family of games 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.
In order to win the game, the player must be the first to have track
connecting a number of major cities on the board and have at least $250 million
dollars.
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.
The first one was Australian Rails. Australian Rails is one of the games in the
Empire Builder family. In the Empire
Builder family of games 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. In order to win the game, the player must be
the first to have track connecting a number of major cities on the board and
have at least $250 million dollars. In
the case of Australian you need to connect 3 major cities plus the city of
Perth on the opposite side of the continent from the other major cities.
This time when I played the game I tried to develop track
from north to south on the east coast then across the continent to Perth. I did this the last time I played and ended
the game in last place. I figured that I
would do better this time because I felt like it was a more deliberate decision
on my part where the last time I played the strategy I was doing it
reluctantly. It worked out for me better
than I expected. I was able to build my
north south track very quickly and after upgrading my train, I was able to
build out my western track. I was able
to win the game with a reasonable lead.
The second game was Empire Builder. Empire Builder is a game of rail building and
goods transportation in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. 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.
In Empire Builder I decided to try something a little
different because I had the cards for it.
I built my initial track from Mexico to the north with the intention of
connecting to Seattle with a stop in Chicago as part of my first run. I was curious as to how it would work
out. Experience with the game told me
that it would most likely end up in failure but I gave it a shot anyway. It actually worked out for me quite
well. I believe it was because I had a
good middle card to Billings that really help things out. After I was done going to Seattle, I was able
to build the rest of my east coast track an pick up Atlanta and New York City. I won the game with a significant lead.
The third game was British Rails. British Rails takes place in England,
Scotland and Wales and is played the same as other Empire Builder games. There are no special rules in British Rails
that set it apart from Empire Builder except that the players get 3 build turns
at the beginning of the game in a standard game and 4 build turns in a fast
game.
I was the first player in this game and was able to get my
prime initial build which happened to work with the cards that I had. In the case of this game I was able to
connect all of my major cities before I completed my upgrades. The cards I got worked out well for me. And I
was able to again win the game with a significant lead over the second player.
The last game of the day was Martian Rails. Martian Rails takes the science fiction and
fantasy elements from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and other authors and
brings them to the game. There are
canals with water and forest and jungle terrain on the board, cities are called
thing like Barsoom and Hinkston Creek, and you even have loads like
Roddenberries and Thoats.
This was the game I had the roughest time with. I had a solid track infrastructure going from
the beginning of the game but I always felt like I was behind everyone
else. The track that I built in this
game was a modification of the track that I built in the last game I did go
west to east but I went around the Valles Marineris to the north instead of
through it. The game ended me in third
closely behind the second place player.
Other games that were played at the event were The Hanging
Gardens, Kingdom Builder, The Little Prince, Prosperity, Scharfe Schoten,
Splendor, and Terra Mystica
My stats for the event:
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