Railroad Tycoon - Gamer's meetup 06 Sept 2005

Yey! Another episode of gamers meetup!

I took off from work on the dot today, despite being slightly behind schedule in my work just to get a nice seat at the location. And this sessions seat was good indeed.

I got there pretty early, and so managed to play a game called Lost Cities with Sonic.

Lost Cities
This is mainly a 2 player game, and the aim is to start expeditions to gain points. Each expedion that is started requires an investment of -20 points, and players are supposed to use 5 sets of coloured number cards to make +ve points out of their expeditions.

Sonic got the grasp of the game very quickly, and managed to beat me soundly by running me out of time. (Once the numbered cards in the draw pile is ehausted, the gme ends) The second game was mine though, as Sonic overextended his expeditions and ended up with few precious points. At this time, Miss L. came along and I had a game with her. This game too I managed to win, by throwing a lot of red herrings her way (Sonic was being a fish-munching Zhuge Liang). We were then joined by Mr A., and off we go for a game of Blockus.

Blockus
This is a game of blocks, where your aim is to put as much of the blocks you own on the playing board, and prevent other people from doing so. The rules are simple, but the play is pretty deep. Those who hate geometry better stay off this game.

I got the Blue pieces, Sonic has Green, Mr A. Yellow, and Miss L. Red. The game started with each of us racing towards the center of the board, and Sonic managing to block Yellow from developing too far. I was eyeing Red's territory while she was busy enroaching on Green's, and blocked Yellow from getting too far into my own. However, the insidious Green managed to utilize gaps on the board to sneak past Yellow's blockade, and ended up gaining a foodhold on mine! No other player managed to use Green's technique for the game. It was a total rout.

We were then joined by Miss E (I claim credit), and off we go for a game of Niagara Falls. I managed to steal a pink gem from Sonic, and had a comfortable lead with 3 gems in my pocket. Sonic had 2 gems, Miss L had 2, Miss E. had 3 (multiples) and Mr A, had 3. My canoes were laden with the last 2 gems that I needed, but alas, they were stolen by Miss E. Sonic too lost a boat trying to prevent me from winning the game, but all effort was to no avail as the unassuming Mr A. won by sneaking in the last gem past the rest of us. There were also interesting oments, like people move teir empty canoes downstream as they do not want their gems stolen.

We then went on to play Ticket to Ride: Europe
This is a rail building game, where you are given routes to complete, and each track that you complete also nets you points. Players can choose to do one of the folloiwing three actions on each of their turns: Get resource card, Lay a track, or build a station. The person with the most points at the end of the game wins.

This was an amusing game. Sonic somehow managed to get himself hemmed in between the tracks being built by the two ladies, unable to construct his masterplan smoothly. (Being his normal self, he had picked a pretty ambitious route to complete first) I was happily developing my own tracks in East Europe before Miss L. built a track that distrupted my network. Mr A. was often losing tempo when it comes to resource gathering to Sonic, and I somehow got pretty lucky in terms of colleting wild cards. The first person to take a huge lead was Miss E. She had managed to complete a 20 points route, and had a comfortable lead. Unfortunately, she was not ambitious enough to go for anoter route card soon enough, and was overtaken by Sonic when he completed his 21 point route! By this time I had completed one minor route, and was eyeing the longest track on the board, which yields 21 points. Mr A. managed a good showing, but was not very lucky with his resources. Nearing the end of the game, I was collecting green cards, denying Sonic of a needed color, and finally overtook him by completing the 21 point track. Europe belongs to me~!

This was a very nice group. We managed to keep Mr E. long enough for all the games (he initially said he had little time), and we had two pretty ladies, who are not slouches at boardgames (Miss L. got second in Tickets to Ride and did better than me and Mr A. at Blockus. Miss E. was pretty close to winning Niagara Falls, and she's a first time gamer.), at the table! What more could a boardgaming wolf ask for?