Sunday, August 24, 2014

After Action Report – Strategic & Adventure Game Association Game Day @ the El Toro Public Library, August 23, 2014



I hosted the Strategic & Adventure Game Association Game Day at the El Toro Public Library on Saturday.  There were 21 people at the event with five games being played at any one time.

I played three games at the event.

The first game 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.


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.

As part of the final preparation for those that were heading out to attend Railcon next week, we played the game using the standard rules for the game instead of the fast rules that we normally use playing the game during the rest of the year.

I ended up with a set of cards that had two loads going from Houston into Billings and Boise in the northern Rockies and another load from there back to northern Mexico.  From there I built out to the Atlanta area and then from Boise down to Los Angeles.  I eventually built to Seattle and New York City as my last two major cities as the game progressed.  I was able to keep a good amount of cash flowing into my hands throughout the game but did not get a game changing set of cards to help propel me to victory.  I ended up in third place out of three players.

The second game I played was Russian Rails.  Russian Rails starts in the Soviet Union era and can extend to after the fall of communism.  The board includes the western half of the Soviet Union extending east to Alma- Ata in what is now Kazakhstan.  The game plays similarly to all of the other games in the Empire Builder family.  The game was the first to add bonus deliver cards in a big way to the game.  It also has a unique hazard card that causes the fall of communism which takes away 20% of all of the player money and adds a toll for people entering Russia from the other countries that used to make up the Soviet Union.

In Russian Rails I got what I consider one of my more preferred starts.  I had loads that when from Alma-Ata in the east to the middle of the map and had a return load that would take me back to the east.  Once I made my first two deliveries I had gotten another card that had a load going to the east which made things even better.  From there I extended my track west to Vilna as I had a good set of load going in that direction and during that set of builds was able to secure connections to all but one of the major cities I needed.  I eventually got cards that made me decide that my last major city should be Kiev and built there.  I made two more trips across the board and won the game.

The last game of the day was Trans America.  Trans America is a game that is deceptively easy to learn but is very difficult to master.  In Trans America the players are required to connect up five different cities in different regions of the United States.  The players start building track from their starting post.  If they connect up to another player’s track, they can build off of that player’s track as well as their own.  In this way players wind up helping each other out while trying to achieve their own goals.

Since I had been having troubles the last few times I played Trans America I decided to try a different strategy to see how it worked for me.  During the post placing phase of the game I placed my post directly in the center of the three cities that I had that were closest to each other.  This strategy seemed to work out better for me than my previous strategy in that would lose two or less points per round and I even won one round but it was still not enough to make the difference and win me the game.  I again ended the game in third place.  I will need to try something else out the next time I play it.

My stats for the event:



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