I finally got to scratch my railroad gaming itch.  Lately, I've been thinking about Age of Steam / Railroad Tycoon a lot.  I've read a lot of articles on Boardgame Geek.  I've looked (and even purchased) some of the Age of Steam expansions.  I even read up on 18xx, and ordered a copy of 18(something), although it won't be delivered for weeks.  I've done everything except actually play a game.  Fortunately, that changed Saturday at Allen's house.  What follows is a quick session report, sans pictures. 

We started off trying the latest Alea big box game - Notre Dame.  I was pretty stoked about trying it, but...  Meh.  I felt like I was just mindlessly pushing cubes around.  The draft mechanic was interesting, but it felt immensely tactical and not at all strategic.  There was little in the way of player interaction.  And if I really wanted to do something, I had to hope I either drew the card, or got passed it.  I'd say it's better than Pillars of the Earth, but only marginally.  I decided early last year not to "collect" the Alea series, and only buy the games I really enjoyed.  I'll try Notre Dame a couple of times again, but I'm pretty sure this is one I'll skip.

Next up, the main event of the day was Railroad Tycoon.  The players were Allen, Jay, Mark, Jeff B, and me (Jeff C).  I drew one of the "most money" tycoon cards, which meant if I had the most money at the end of the game, I would get an additional 7 points.  I didn't have to worry about being share-conscious, like I normally am.  Among the opening card draws was a Railroad Executive card - one of the cards that grants an additional action.  The others were mostly hotels and a couple of service bounties, plus two major line bounties - from Toledo to Baltimore and Atlanta to Richmond.  Only Allen would complete a major line - the latter Atlanta to Richmond line.

Jay and I were the main bidders for the Railroad Executive, and I wound up taking it for a good price.  I used it to claim a spot in the Northeast and take the Baltimore hotel, intending to make the first delivery for a good jumpstart.  Jay joined me in the Northeast, while Allen chose to start around Atlanta, and Mark and Jeff B starting in the midwest.  My railroad executive play gave me a good head start, and I was able to grab the Speed Record bonus for making the first 3-link delivery.  Mark beat me to the New Train bonus (level 4 engine).  All players pretty much stayed in their starting locations, with me and Jay sharing the bounty of the New England area, Mark and Jeff B fighting over Cubes between the mountains and Chicago, and Allen being left alone to do what he wanted in the Southeast.

Mark and I had a sizeable lead going into the late game.  Allen, through his Major Line bonus, as well as some large deliveries was able to partially catch up, but it was too late, and it was a battle for first between me and Mark.  It came down to the wire, in a very exciting finish.

On the last turn of the game, Mark pulled ahead of me with some large deliveries.  I knew I would be counting on my railroad executive (most money) to give me the bonus points, but I only had a rough idea of how much money everyone had.  I suspected Allen and Mark had more cash, but Mark burned most of it upgrading to a level 7 train, leaving Allen as my only competition.  I had $40k, and figured Allen had maybe a few thousand more than me.  If I issued too few shares, I would lose the potential 7 point bonus, as well as the shares I issued to get most money.  If I issued too many, I risked sacrificing points during the final income reduction.  So I chose to issue exactly 2 shares for $10k, taking me to $50k.

It turns out, Allen had $45k.  I issued exactly the right number of shares to get my 7 point bonus.  One fewer share, and we would have tied for most money, leaving me without my Executive bonus.  After income reduction, I wound up winning by a single point.   That's right - one point.  If I would have issued one less share, I would have lost by 5 points.  If I would have issued one more share, I would have tied for first.  But by issuing two shares, I hit the sweet spot of most money, and won by a single point.  It was a satisfying win.

If the game had gone on longer, Mark (and Allen) would have crushed me.  I was running out of deliveries, and would have needed to rely on Urbanization, hoping to get cubes that could be delivered.  Mark still had 5 and 6-point deliveries available to him, and Allen had room to expand to more.

I'm looking forward to playing again.

As a postscript, we finished the afternoon with a game of Lifeboats.  That's one I'll probably never play again.  We botched one of the rules, thinking we needed to fill every empty spot on a boat to sink it, which probably drastically affected the results.  However, I found the game incredibly unsatisfying.  I like negotiation, but only when they support good game mechanics.  This game was pure negotiation, and was a bit too much for me.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Christina and I were married in March.  We've been slowly going through the hundreds of pictures from our wedding, and I thought I'd post a couple of them here.  Since this is mostly a gaming blog, the cake is of particular interest!

 
The Groom's cake:  A meeple cake!

Both the cakes together

Me and my lovely new wife

The happy couple

Karl got me thinking about cameras lately.  His company is taking its employees on a cruise next month (lucky SOB), and he was wanting some info on cameras.  I'm still using my beloved Canon Powershot SD300.  It's served me well over the years.  It's a wonderful, portable point & click that gives nice results for its size and price.  I know the entire line has been successful, and there are numerous newer versions than mine, with larger viewscreens and image stabilization features.

I used to take a lot of pictures at game nights, and you can see a lot of those in the gallery section of the site.  Over the past year, I've slacked off a lot and have missed some memorable events, like epic Arkham Horror nights, countless Twilight Struggle duels with Jay, and all-day gaming sessions at Allen's house.  I made a commitment last month to start taking more pictures, but so far it hasn't panned out.  I'll recommit myself here to taking more gaming pictures and posting them on the blog.  After all, that's one of the main things I enjoy about other gaming blogs.

Even though I'm generally happy with my SD300, it does take some bad pictures sometimes.  (or rather, I take bad pictures with it, sometimes)  My main problem is taking pictures of an entire table of gamers, under indoor lighting.  Indoor lighting tends to be yellow-ish, and unsuitable for pictures without flash.  But the flash on the SD300 is rather harsh, and tends to bring out the people playing the game, but obscure the view of the table.  This is also a problem when I try to take macro (or at least closeup) pictures of game components.  The flash isn't an option, but yellow light bulb lighting doesn't make for a good picture.  My best pictures seem to come from game conventions, where the overhead lighting is bright, white, and fluorescent. 

But I can't complain too much.  For a point-and-shoot, it takes pretty good pictures.  It performed exceptionally well on our honeymoon:

The bay at Anse Chastanet resort in St. Lucia

A view of our beach

We did play one game on the trip - Settlers Card Game

If anyone knows a good web resource on basic photography with point & shoot cameras, I'd be glad to hear about it.  Hopefully this won't send me down the path of reading up on photography, and ultimately spending too much money on a new camera that I really don't need.

After all the wedding and honeymoon hullabaloo, things have settled down into a (somewhat) normal routine.  We've moved Christina into my apartment, and have managed to pack a lot into our a storage shed we rented especially for that purpose.  For the curious-minded, yes - I did pack a lot of games into the shed.  However, I only packed games I have for collectable purposes, and games that I didn't expect to play in the next 6-8 months.  95% of the games I've played in the last 12 months are still in my gaming closet.  There are a couple of games I doubt I will play before the year is over, but I could bring myself to put in storage.  (That means you, Paths of Glory!)

Since things have slowed down, I've been able to go to a couple of gaming sessions - the aforementioned Cafe Brazil Tuesday gaming group, and a regular Friday night get-together at Jay's house.  Here are some random thoughts from the games I've played:

Himalaya
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3800

This was my first play of this little gem from 2002.  The scoring is clever.  There are 3 different scoring methods players must balance - religious influence (area control #1), political influence (area control #2), and economic influence (comparison of economic VPs).  At the end of a 4-player game, whoever has control of the least amount of religious influence ('stupa' points) loses.  Between the remaining players, whoever has the control of the fewest areas of political influence ('delegate' points) finishes next-to-last.   Then, between the final two players, whoever has the most economic influence (# of yaks in their herd) wins.

During the game, players are represented on the board by a plastic yak token.  They program the 6 actions for the current turn with Robo Rally-like decisions.  (minus the random cards)  Then players move around the board, competing for gathering limited resources, which they can collect and deliver to pre-defined destinations to fulfill a specific order.  For instance, one village on the board might need two salt and one tea.  If you deliver those resources there, you can collect the reward, letting you score points in two of the different scoring types.  The game is played over 12 turns, with 3 incremental scoring rounds to give extra influence to the biggest resource collectors.

I found the scoring mechanism to be very interesting.  Players must balance the different scoring options, as they need to not come in last in any of the various scoring types.  Our game played much longer than the recommended 60 minutes, but could be sped up with quicker play.  I definitely want to play this one again, and might wind up buying my own copy.

Although I thought I was competing for first place, I wound losing the tiebreaker (# of yaks) during the political influence scoring, so I came in third.  It's important to try to track how many yaks the other players are collecting, since this is the only hidden victory point information in the game.

Leonardo da Vinci
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21920

Leonardo was a much-anticipated game for me.  I sat on my copy for months before finally playing it last week.  After a full game, I'm not sure what to think about it yet.  At its core, the game is an efficiency engine that lasts a predefined number of turns.  The goal is to maximize your resources to produce inventions which give money to the players who complete them.  Most money wins.  Multiple players can complete the same inventions, but more money is paid to the players who complete them first.

The basic mechanic of the game is an auction for various actions.  But rather than bidding money, players bid by placing workers on the actions, like Caylus.  Only here, multiple players can place on the same action.  The player who places the most workers on an action gets to take the action for free, and the remaining players can take the action by paying an increasing amount of money.  One trick is that once workers are placed on a space, they cannot be increased.  (with one exception)

Inventions get completed by spending resource cards (like wood, rope, glass, etc.), along with the most expensive resource - research weeks.  Each invention requires a number of man-weeks, which your workers must accomplish by being assigned to your laboratories.

Initially, I was very excited to play this release.  However, I was underwhelmed with the game as a whole.  Just when things get started and your efficiency engine gets into full production, the game ends early with a final two turns of zero-decision gameplay.  I'd like to try this game again, and hopefully I'll warm up to it.

In our game, I fumbled around misunderstanding rules & strategy both.  I wound up in last place.  However, later reflecting on the scoring, I had scored myself zero points when someone beat me to an invention.  I think I neglected to give myself the 2nd-place scoring for my final work.  Still, Jay clobbered us with his mechanical men.

Goa
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/9216

Why don't I play this game more often?  It's a really great game.  I played a 3-player game with Jay and Dave.  It was Dave's first time, and he had trouble with the once-around auction mechanic.  My strategy was an early-game colony / late-game expedition card collection.  I wound up with 3 colonies, matching 3 & 2 card symbols, and scoring 4 points for a duty tile for a victory.  I know the Dallas Gamers got burned out on this game, but I've only played it a handful of times.

Taj Mahal
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/475

What can I say, this is my favorite game!  I had my sights set on a trade good victory, but never could pull enough elephants or win the purple special card.  I settled for palace chains after a few turns had passed, but was not able to optimize that strategy due to a lack of dual-color cards.  This was the first time I felt a little hosed by the cards, which I've never considered a problem in Taj.  Dave played a great game with a balanced strategy.  It helped he kept the +2 bonus card for most of the game.

Lexio
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/19184

Underwhelming.  I was hoping this would be a good Tichu alternative when we had 3 or 5 players.  It was incredibly dull with 3 players.  The decisions were much less interesting than in Tichu - probably because there were no trump Dragons or bombs.  The scoring was easier to explain than in Tichu, which is promising for non-gamer groups.  I see the potential for the game to play better with 5 players, so I'll try this again.  I am disappointed that my set has red, green, yellow, and white tiles, rather than the blue that I've seen in most pictures.

YINSH
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/7854

Jay and I played a couple of games of YINSH, and he beat me in both.  I remember being good at this game before, but maybe it was beginner's luck?  I felt like I made a few boneheaded moves and was punished for them.  Good abstract game, we should play this one more often.

I'm back from an intentional hiatus.  The early part of this year was gearing up for my wedding March 17th (St. Patty's Day).  I'm happy to report that everything has gone well, and Christina and I are now happily married.  We honeymooned in St. Lucia for a week, and had the most relaxing vacation.  Pictures of the wedding and honeymoon will follow.  Married life isn't much different than single life, except now I have a wonderful woman to come home to at the end of every day.  I don't think that will ever get old. 

Needless to say, I haven't been gaming much lately.  In March, I played exactly nine games, an all-time low since I've been logging games played on BGG in 2005.  One of those games was on my honeymoon, when Christina and I tried out the 2-player Settlers of Catan Card Game.  (we both enjoyed it)  The other 8 games played were during my bachelor party.  Rather than the drunken Vegas trip I was hoping for, I opted for a day of games & poker with Dallas friends.  It was a great day with some fun games, culminating in a 3am game of Tichu.

Some other news from Dallas:  our Borders gaming location closed.  For those that don't know, there's a group of gamers called the Dallas Gamers that has traditionally met up at the Borders bookstore at Coit and Arapaho.  Each Tuesday night, the group would draw anywhere from 20-30 people to game in the cafe at Borders.  People would trickle in after 5pm and go right up until the store closed at 10.  I've been attending for the last 2 years.  But in March, our group was notified that the Borders would be closing, and the Dallas Gamers were without a home.  The email discussion list was aflurry with activity, and it was ultimately decided that we would start meeting in two different locations - an East and a West location.  Both locations wound up being hosted at long-time Dallas favorite, Cafe Brazil.  This is a local chain of restaurant that offers a bistro-type feel, and encourages student & artist types to hang out and drink their bottomless cups of coffee.  So far, it's been a great fit.  I heard last night that on the first Tuesday we were there, Cafe Brazil had their biggest Tuesday night of business ever.  We make sure to tip well and order food, so the restaurant has an incentive to welcome us.

Although I'm going to miss Borders, the new location seems to be perfect.  I'm a little disappointed we split into two locations, and I'll miss some of the gamers that head to the West location.  However, last night we had a healthy crowd with around 20 gamers by the end of the night.  And the best news, they're open until midnight, which means 2 extra hours of gaming.

That's all for now.  I got to play two new games last night - Himalaya and Leonardo Da Vinci.  I'll give some thoughts about them soon.  My new goals for Q2 2007:  Write more on the blog, and start taking pictures of game nights again.