After Action Report – Board Game Night @ Comic Quest, July 10, 2014

I finally attended a gaming event in July after being away at Amine Expo last week.  My first event for the month was Board Game Night at Comic Quest.  There were around 30 people at the event with six games being played at any one time.

                      

I was able to play two games at the event.

The first game was Alhambra.  In Alhambra players are trying to build the best palace complex by acquiring buildings that enhance increase its value.  The more expensive the building the more versatility it has in the way of being able to build more additions to the complex.

At the beginning of the game the players start with a single fountain tile that all buildings that are build must have a path to or they may not be placed, and 20 – 28 coins to be able to purchase buildings with.  Coins come in denominations of 1 – 9 in one of four different currencies.  There are four different buildings that will be up for sale during each players turn, the currency that is used to purchase the building is dependent on where it is placed in the market. 

The player may perform one of three actions during their turn.  They can purchase a building, take more coins, or take a tile from their reserve / redesign their palace complex.  If they purchase a building for the exact amount during their turn they may take an additional action during their turn.

There are three scoring rounds during the game.  During each scoring round the player with the most of one of the types of building scores they points for that type of building.  In the first scoring round, only the player with the most buildings of a type gets the points.  In the second round the players that have the most and second most score points for the type of building.  In the third round the top three players get points.  In addition each player scores a point per segment for their longest wall.

This time when I played I did not really focus on a strategy at the beginning of the game and it showed in my performance.  Instead of focusing on a particular strategy I just started purchasing tiles that I could when I could.  As the game progressed I managed to be get ahead in three of the low value types of tiles and not have enough of the tiles from high value set to even get third place in the end of the game.  What is worse I did not build enough continuous outer walls to boost my score enough to make up for the defect.  (I had five points in walls during the last scoring round which is what I normally have during the first scoring round.)  The bottom line is that my performance was an example on how you should not play the game.  I ended the game in fourth place out of five players.

The other game that I played 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.

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.

I started the game building from Los Angeles east. 

My goal was to deliver sugar to Detroit and Raleigh.  Having accomplished that, I needed to work through a couple of low pay out loads which helped me build out to two major cities. 

After I was done with this I had built out to five of the six major cities I needed for victory conditions and had upgraded my train completely.  I also had a decent set of cards that would take me to the west coast which I took advantage of which I figured out whether Mexico City or Seattle would be the final city I built to.  It was not until after I had made my way back to the east coast that I got cards that help me make the choice to build to Mexico City. 

It took two more runs back and forth across the continent for me to get the money I needed.  I managed to win the game by meeting victory conditions on the same turn as my opponent and having more money than he did.

My stats for the event: