We had a great turn out for the Game Day at the El Toro
Public Library. 26 people were there with six games being played at any one
time.
I played three games at the event. Two games were 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.
The first game I played was Nippon Rails. Nippon Rails takes place in Japan. It is the game that introduced the tunnel
rules that were added later the Eurorails.
In Nippon Rails the strategy I like to go with is with my
first set of cards to start at one end of the board and get as far down the
board lengthwise as I can before I turn around and take loads the other
direction. The idea behind this is the longer
a distance that a load of cargo needs to go the more it pays out when
delivered. I will many times concentrate
on building most of the track I will need for the entire game before I get my
first upgrade, which I would almost never think of doing in any of the other
Empire Builder games.
With my first set of cards I was able to build from Tokyo
north to Hokkaido, which is what I prefer to do at the beginning of the game I
was then able to build out some additional track that would help me bet to a
could more destinations but did nothing to help me fulfill my major city
requirement in the game. I did however
get to upgrade my train twice.
After I delivered the next two loads I started building the
rest of the track I would need for the game and moved back towards the north as
I finished the southern portion of my track. Once I got to the north
again. I was able to decide the best way
to connection the two portions of my track and made a run down the entire length
of Japan.
As I was starting to make my way back north with my winning
loads, the game ended. I was able to
take second place out of three players.
The second game I played was Eurorails. Eurorails is set in Europe from Kaliningrad
in the east to the western shores including the United Kingdom and
Ireland. The goal in Eurorails is to
collect $250 and for the player to have connected six of the seven major cities
in the game. In the current edition of
the game the option of building the Chunnel between France and England is now
available. The cost is prohibitive and I
would not recommend it unless there are four or more players in the game and a
player is spending most of their time moving to and from England.
In Eurorail I tried something I normally does not end with a
win in the game. My initial build was
into Scandinavia. This is something I
would usually never do during any game of Eurorails I played let alone at the
start of a game. This because even
though the payouts for deliveries up there are very good, the number of delivery
opportunities there compared to Spain are not very plentiful. I only did it because based on the cards I
had this was my best option to start the game and instead of tossing the cards,
I wanted to see how it would go expecting that I would come in last place. I then compounded the problem by building
over to Britain. (No I did not build 16 ferry.
Even I am not THAT crazy.) Based
on the cards I was getting my choices appeared to be good ones. I was able to quickly upgrade my train and
build to five of the seven major cities I need to win. My momentum continued and I was able to complete
building all the track I required and was very close to winning the game when I
had to start tossing sets of cards to find one suitable card that would let me
win the game. I was not able to find it
and ended the game in second place out of four players.
The last game I played was Strozzi. Strozzi is a game where the players try to deliver
the most of three possible commodities to ports in order to get victory
points. The game takes place over three
rounds. During each round the players
take turns turning over ship cards and deciding whether to claim them or
not. Each of the ship cards has a speed
that the ship goes, and may have some or none of the following: commodities to be delivered, prestige, and/or
research tiles.
Each player has three flags which they can use to claim
ships. One flag give the players and additional
ware of their choice on the ship. One
flag increase the speed of the ship it is on by one. The third flag is a pirate flag which allows
the player to steal a ship from another player.
During each round a player may claim up to three ships, one
to deliver in to each of the three ports.
In order to claim the ship, the player places their flag on the ship
that they wish to claim. When a player
claims a ship the other players in the game may opt to use their pirate flag to
steal the ship from them if the flag is available to them otherwise the player
who claimed the ship places the ship in a port to deliver the cargo.
Points are scored at the end of the round for who had the
fastest ship in each port and who has delivered the most of the port’s resource
up to that point of the game. At the end
of the game points are scored for who has the more of each of the three types
of research tiles. The person with the
most points wins.
Even though Strozzi has been around for a while, this was
the first time I had a chance to play it.
I focused my efforts during the game on trying to win the speed points
in all three ports and then on the commodities being delivered to the
port. The thing I ignored was the research
tiles. This proved to be a mistake. I was able to keep up in score during most of
the game, I had gathered no research tiles so as those points were added to the
score I fell further behind the other players and ended the game in last place
out of four players.
My stats for the event:
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