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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