Thursday, September 07, 2006
Tuesday 5th September
In attendance:
Adrian Barnard
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Only the three of us again tonight. Fortunately there are a couple of maps on Age of Steam which work well with three players. Ireland is probably the best of them, but we've played that one quite a bit, so this time, we tried the Scandanavia map. We had played it once before, but many many moons ago.
Age of Steam (Scandanavia map)
The rules for this map are not much changed from the basic game. The ferries from the Ireland map are there, but the biggest change is the "Move by Sea" action. We quickly read the rules, set everything up... and stared blankly at the map. The distribution of cubes was such that there only appeared one viable starting location, and even then it wasn't clear where else you could go. I took an extra share in the first round and the other two didn't want to get into a pointless bidding war with me. Taking first build, I grabbed the Copenhagen-Helsingborg ferry. Adrian grabbed another ferry, and Ralph spent a while deliberating about which was the least worst starting position, before setttling on the bottom of the map.
Both Adrian and I were able to get some moderate shipping in early with Ralph slipping behind. However, by early midgame, he had built his locomtive up to a 4 link, and was able to ship all along the bottom of the board twice, for an income of 8 (twice) while I was shipping for no more than 6, and Adrian no more than 4. (One notable play involved Adrian shipping by sea a purple cube which I was relying on. When it came to pay my bills, I was one short, and had to move back on the income track from 8 to 7.) This gave Ralph a comfortable lead which he was never to lose.
With Ralph having finished building along the bottom of the board, I built out from Malmo to stop him expanding there. I still had some cubes I could ship for long routes at the end of the game, provided I could build the track in time. Ralph was now forced to compete in Denmark with Adrian.
Ralph did get his train up to a 6 link first, and started shipping big, which gave him a big lead. As I hoped by the last couple of turns his shipping was running out. I was on his tail and managed to complete my tour of north Sweden to give me some long routes at game end. In fact, I'd managed to close up to being only one income behind Ralph on the last turn.
Scoring: I'd taken one more share than Ralph, so I needed 6 more links built to tie. As it happened, Ralph had built the most links in the game as well. Final scores: Ralph 114, Huw 106, Adrian 80.
Adrian Barnard
Huw Morris
Ralph Grimble
Only the three of us again tonight. Fortunately there are a couple of maps on Age of Steam which work well with three players. Ireland is probably the best of them, but we've played that one quite a bit, so this time, we tried the Scandanavia map. We had played it once before, but many many moons ago.
Age of Steam (Scandanavia map)
The rules for this map are not much changed from the basic game. The ferries from the Ireland map are there, but the biggest change is the "Move by Sea" action. We quickly read the rules, set everything up... and stared blankly at the map. The distribution of cubes was such that there only appeared one viable starting location, and even then it wasn't clear where else you could go. I took an extra share in the first round and the other two didn't want to get into a pointless bidding war with me. Taking first build, I grabbed the Copenhagen-Helsingborg ferry. Adrian grabbed another ferry, and Ralph spent a while deliberating about which was the least worst starting position, before setttling on the bottom of the map.
Both Adrian and I were able to get some moderate shipping in early with Ralph slipping behind. However, by early midgame, he had built his locomtive up to a 4 link, and was able to ship all along the bottom of the board twice, for an income of 8 (twice) while I was shipping for no more than 6, and Adrian no more than 4. (One notable play involved Adrian shipping by sea a purple cube which I was relying on. When it came to pay my bills, I was one short, and had to move back on the income track from 8 to 7.) This gave Ralph a comfortable lead which he was never to lose.
With Ralph having finished building along the bottom of the board, I built out from Malmo to stop him expanding there. I still had some cubes I could ship for long routes at the end of the game, provided I could build the track in time. Ralph was now forced to compete in Denmark with Adrian.
Ralph did get his train up to a 6 link first, and started shipping big, which gave him a big lead. As I hoped by the last couple of turns his shipping was running out. I was on his tail and managed to complete my tour of north Sweden to give me some long routes at game end. In fact, I'd managed to close up to being only one income behind Ralph on the last turn.
Scoring: I'd taken one more share than Ralph, so I needed 6 more links built to tie. As it happened, Ralph had built the most links in the game as well. Final scores: Ralph 114, Huw 106, Adrian 80.
# posted by Huw @ 3:57 pm 
