Railways of the Seven Wonders of the World

A hastily convened evening at Sam's featured Andrew and myself and commenced with Seven Wonders.

I battled both a plate of chips and handful of cards early on, while Andrew battled everyone and Sam tried not to pick up the wrong set of cards.

In the final analysis Sam just shaded the military and blue points cards, Andrew won on the wonder and money and my late surge into green science cards gave me hope and in the end it was as close as its possible to be:

1st: Andrew 50
=2nd: Adam 49
=2nd: Sam 49

After that we felt like a more meaty main course and Railways of Mexico was unpacked, Sam tearing the brand new cards from their shrink-wrap like some starved card-eating creature.

I thought I'd got a great start, bidding high for starting player and getting two bonuses straight away to cover the expenditure, but Andrew played a card that gave him points for one of my tracks and Sam quickly boxed me in and hoovered up resources left right and center for the four cube delivery bonus.

Sam dominates the south

Andrew's starting gambit of being nowhere near Sam and I meant he streaked into a mid-game lead while we slugged it out wacky-races style (Sam, you'll never know how close I came to overturning the table when you took that yellow for one point when it was worth four to me!)

Ya gotta speculate to accumulate...

As the board emptied of goods Sam leapt into the lead by investing heavily to complete long-distance routes. This time he didn't spend so freely as last time, but he still ended the game with seventeen bonds to Andrews six and my five, crippling his cash-generating capabilities. My monopoly of Guadalajara combined with a lucky break on a delivery bonus card meant I scored four or five points with all of my last six turns while Andrew just looked forlornly at the board wondering where all the cubes had gone.

I broke away at the end while Sam's bonds dragged him down to third place:

1st: Adam = 80
2nd: Andrew = 59
3rd: Sam = 57

And so we departed into the muggy evening, with Sam's plaintive cries of "Biblios? I've got to win something tonight." ringing in our ears...