We chose Canal Mania as our main game. Since we were all new to it, it seemed like a fair way to round off the season. It's a little bit Railways Of The World, and a dash of Ticket To Ride, with a hint of Brass thrown in for good measure.
First, you pick up contracts for routes and you play cards in order to build them (a la Ticket To Ride). You then ship goods cubes around the network (hence the Railways of the World reference) and there are lots of fiddly rules that don't make much sense and are easy to forget (a bit like Brass).
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| Sam's green ship glares at a cube |
Perhaps its similarity to other games was Joe's undoing, as he began with the very RotW-style tactic of finding a corner to himself and trying to exploit it. But he did not realise that using other people's networks is not a last resort as it is in RotW, but is a necessary way to score points. He was soon in last place and found himself falling further behind as the game went on.
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| Sam in 2nd (green) and me 3rd (black) with Joe (red) off in the distance |
Adam did well. In retrospect, that was to be expected: if you mix together three games that Adam's good at, you get another game that Adam's good at. Sam looked ill and confused for most of the first half of the game but once Adam was far enough in the lead, he started combining his network with Adams to claw his way into second place.
Adam 68
Sam 57 (wins on tie breaker)
Andrew 57
Joe 38
After this, we chose Call To Glory as a nice way to round off the evening. I wrote about how I thought this would be a different game with two players, and so it was. Certainly, the games were much shorter, meaning that holding onto to your hand was a bad idea. It seemed better to put your cards down quickly and see if anyone would beat you before all nine suits were showing and the game was over. In the end, it was Sam who ruled the roost, with the previous Shogun (me) reduced to the status of a bum. Oh the humiliation!
Sam 106
Adam 84
Joe 72
Andrew 67
Which leads us to the final scores. On the form table, Sam just falls one result short of the perfect five, but his end-of-season form is impressive. Adam rises to second after being stuck mid-table for some months.
| Points | ||||||
| Sam | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Adam | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
| Steve | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
| Hannah | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 11 |
| Anja | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 12 |
| Will | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 14 |
| Andrew | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 15 |
| Joe | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 19 |
| Jon | 3 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Quentin | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 21 |
And in the Division, it's been a topsy-turvy season, with both myself and Joe in pole position at one point. But as the season closes, we see that Sam wins on both Points and the Medal Table, but there is a new name engraved on the GNN Hall Of Fame, as Anja stakes her claim to immortality by taking Points Ratio with clear blue sky between her and second place.
On the Bracknell front, it was a close run thing but Chris just beats his rival James in terms of points, while James wins according to the medal table. Also, Chris takes the prize for most points scored in a season out of everyone: in the last three months, he has clocked up an impressive 1,799 points in all of his games.
Congrats to our glorious winners! And there's no end-of-season break for us hardy gamers. The whole thing starts all over again in seven days time!
I have become the board game equivalent of Buzz Aldrin. "Second is next best after first!"
ReplyDeleteAs chuffed as I am with my points haul as we all know the True Champion is the Points Ratio King - or Queen, in this case: well done Anja! And also Steve for being runner-up in that category (Points Prince?)
ReplyDeleteThanks to all our participants and Andrew once again for running the blog and stats.
I liked Canal Mania. Even though I went through my usual period of confusion during a first play, I feel like I could play again and have a semblance of control. I'm not sure I could say the same of Brass. Call to Glory - I like some things about it, but overall it just feels too long for what it is. And it's not... fun. The key ingredient seems to actually be the spoiling tactic of outscoring somebody, though there are other aspects as well.
I might try doing the next season sober.
Well done everyone, another fun season. I do like the sound of Canal Mania, would like to try that out soon. I must say it's pleasing to finally appear somewhere in the hall of fame, I've been a long time in the wilderness. :)
ReplyDeleteHope to manage a few visits during the next season, new little games player permitting.
Yes I liked Canal Mania too - I'm intrigued by the key difference to Railways in that you need to build where others are building to benefit from goods shipping. My isolationist strategy was clearly my downfall.
ReplyDeleteI've read that the endgame can drag as players ship all the unshipped goods. That and the stuff in the rules about what to do if the canal basin is dry (ie all cubes are on the board) makes me wonder if we were playing it exactly correctly...
I like Call to Glory, but I agree it does lack a certain spark. Interesting, in that the game is very solid mechanically, and very straightforward - yet it somehow isn't quite the sum of its parts.
Thanks Andrew for all the adding up and everything.
That's odd, eh? The way we were playing it goods cubes were very transient.
ReplyDeleteAnja, you're never in the wilderness to us, even if you are in Easton. Let us know when the little cube pusher arrives! (I'm sure there's a joke to be had about pushing here, but you probably don't want to hear it)
As far as I can tell we were playing correctly - there's a suggestion that people may leave cubes rather than ship them in order to score more for a longer haul, so perhaps we weren't doing that enough.
ReplyDeleteSam's copy is the first edition - here's the rule-changes and tweaks for the second ed. - looks intriguing, particularly the junction contracts, and simplified scoring.
2nd Edition Canal Mania
Looks interesting Joe. I'd be into getting the 2nd edition, even if the board still looks boring.
ReplyDelete