Sam was a little late, held up by the train, so Joe, Adam and I began with a little non-leaderboard appetiser, Timeline. In this game, players have four cards describing inventions/events, laid out for all to see, and they have to place them alongside or inbetween other inventions/events, according to their year. I enjoyed it, with my recent interest in history, and I came first. Joe came second and Adam came last, foiled by not knowing that the first crop circle was in the seventeenth century.
Then Sam arrived, still unable to shake off his cough, and we decided on Railways of the World. We chose the Mexico map because it encouraged conflict, and the evil glint in Adam's eye told us he was in no mood to discuss it. Plus, it fitted on the table.
Sam spent big early on, and shared the south with Adam. Joe and I had a corner of the north each. My best move was the first thing I did, as I picked up a card giving me a point whenever someone delivered goods to Mexico City. It must've got me twelve points during the game.
Joe's cunning move came midway through the game, when he started to upgrade his train far in excess of the number of tracks he actually had. Adam and I said we thought this strategy was a bit strange, but it paid dividends for him, as he shipped his cubes around his and Sam's network. Sam was too far back to be a rival, and so it proved to be an effective strategy against his main RotW nemesis, Adam.
Joe 50
Adam 48
Andrew 40
Sam 28
After this, it was still (relatively) early and so we contemplated one more sizeable game. Kingdom Builder was a new game to the GNN table, from the designer of Dominion. This game involves building up chains across a hexagonal landscape. It reminded me of Hacienda, with multipliers and such like to boost your score. A score that is impossible to add up until the end of the game. There is a special score track, but it is pretty redundant until the game ends.
 |
| Any idea who's won? Nope. Me neither. |
Turns out, I did okay. Not sure how, but linking buildings seemed to help. And so did, according to Adam, my low-alcohol ale.
Andrew 51
Adam 44
Joe 43
Sam 41
During this game, Joe's small yappy dog came downstairs and started clawing at the door wanting to go out, making curious mewing and growling noises. Charlotte explained that the dog had been upset by something she'd heard on TV. We wondered what it could've been. The death of the Venezuelan president perhaps?
All of this conjecture is second place, however, to the news from the form table. After two fourth places, Sam takes an almighty tumble and was heard to bemoan his insistence on moving GNN back to Tuesdays.
| Points | ||||||
| Steve | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| Joe | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 11 |
| Hannah | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 11 |
| Anja | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| Andrew | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 13 |
| Adam | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 13 |
| Sam | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 13 |
| Jon | 3 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 19 |
| Quentin | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 21 |
A lovely evening, thanks chaps.
ReplyDeleteAmazing that we could have 4 player Railways done and dusted in about an hour and a half - I wonder if the US map would have been significantly longer. The greater number of cities might lead to more prevarication, I suppose - oh and I just checked, the game ends when 14 cities are empty, rather than 10 with 4-player Mexico, so I guess the answer is yes.
Actually we played that map recently didn't we? I'll shut up.
I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new British Isles map soon. I wonder who the rail barons are - Richard Branson?
Kingdom Builder is one of those games with deferred gratification in terms of scoring - no-one has any idea how anyone is doing until you tot up the scores at the end. This is compounded by the fact that the scoring criteria will change each game, as will the special tiles. These last foxed me; the icons are completely opaque, and there is clearly some strategy to the order in which you use them each turn, which evaded me. But it may have been the whiskey.
I'd like to play it again - easy enough to knock off in under an hour now that we know what we're doing, and one of those games where the game accelerates towards the finish, as everyone is able to place more pieces each turn.
Despite limping in last I enjoyed both games - Railways more so, but I'd be interested in trying Kingdom Builder again. Andrew's right; it's very Hacienda-esque. And a little bit Terra Firma-esque.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with Tuesdays is I'm kind of shattered from two days teaching and the journey back to Brizzle, but I'm happy to come and get pasted in the main if I can pick off the odd result here and there! It works better for me than Thursdays. Plus thanks to Adam and Andrew's generosity of spirit, I arrive with chips and beer in front of my seat (plus rock salt from Joe, nice touch...)
Thanks chaps.
- See how I blame my shitty gameplay on fatigue? I don't even know if I believe it myself...
ReplyDeleteIt was the cough wasn't it? Every time you came up with a fiendish strategy you distracted yourself!
ReplyDeleteI liked both games. I think Kingdom Builder's scoring was completely transparent - just very complex (I struggled to add up my own score at the end) - whereas it wasn't until Joe revealed his railway baron card that we knew he'd won ROM. And that I shouldn't have urbanized that last city.
I don't like that form table much at the moment by the way...
I hope that on the British RotW one of the barons is Dr Beeching, and you get a bonus if you have the least number of links.
ReplyDelete