Age of Steam India (7 August 2010)

Jarratt organized games are our place on Saturday.

Masters Gallery
Jarratt was expecting Nigel to show up, so we played this while we waited. The second and third rounds finished very quick, hence low score, Jarratt and Travis were going neck and neck. But Travis made out like a bandit in the last round.

Travis   7 18 39 84
Jarratt 12 19 40 70
Anne     7 18 32 68
John B  15 20 34 65
Ian      6 14 33 60

Age of Steam Expansion: India
The points of difference for this expansion include a single black city, once you deliver black cubes you keep them. You can either expend two black cubes for an income point or keep to the end for 3 VP each. There are no new cities and $15 sea links that are one link but two income points for cubes delivered over them. This was the second time that Jarratt, Anne and I had played this board, while the first time for John and Travis.

I started in the north west between Srinagar and Delhi via Amritsar and delivered two cubes for four income, but things went down hill after that. Jarratt started between Jodhpur and Porbandar, next door to me. While John built between Bhopal and Varanasi, hemming me in to the south. Anne started in the north eastern corner of the board and Travis had the south to himself.

John got himself into trouble and I bailed him out because if I let him go under Jarratt would have benefited too much. That put Jarratt into the lead. I later made a deal with John that I regretted as he did better out of out of it than I did. I split my network and missed a good black cube move. On the other side of the board Anne's plan to deliver yellow cubes for six was falling apart as we were blocking her out of all the yellow cities. Travis lagging behind in income but also in shares.

In the north west we were running out of cubes. Travis built one of the $15 sea links and was delivering black cubes over one of Anne's links, he over took John and Jarratt (once you took his lack of shares into consideration). They had used all their shares by the end of the game.

Travis  81
Jarratt 75
John B  74
Ian     71
Anne    55

It took a long time, but I enjoyed it more than the first time I played. I now have to learn to resist temptation and start in the south.

Overall it was Travis's evening.