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4 juin 2008 3 04 /06 /juin /2008 15:02
I originally tried to post this yesterday, but instead of typing it up in a separate program like Notepad, I foolishly wrote it directly into the Overblog form, and the system decided to temporarily crash and eat my post when I tried to put it up.

On Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the initial playtest, I once again was able to get Metro Pittsburgh onto the table, this time with a different group, consisting of 2 of my primary playtesters from Montreal who had played extensively with the original timed urbanization rules from that map. I once again forgot my camera...I promise pictures of playtest #3!

In terms of rules, I merely tweaked the map. I took a few cubes away from the starting board set, and I revised the auction roles, removing Repopulation and splitting the Engineer into the normal build 4 track role and the new free bridge role. In terms of the way these changes worked, I was pleased. The cubes were a bit tighter, which I wanted, and the free bridge role, while still the consensus #2 pick because of its money saving powers, was weakened slightly. In the first playtest, it was often possible to take that role with one intention, and then to use the other half of it if the track building phase threw an unexpected curve ball at you. Splitting the role maintains its usefulness, but weakens it slightly, which is a good thing. I want to insure that Locomotive maintains its powerhouse function in this map so that winning the auction has a real value.

In this particular playing of the map the urbanizations mostly ended up in the western downtown area, and fairly heavily in the south. This was a different texture from the first playtest, where a heavy amount of urbanization was centred in the east. The western area became very congested as a result, and the map ended up with a tighter final score because of my more experienced foes. I ended up losing by 1 piece of track to Alex, who was playing his customary slum lord role, taking out only 8 shares over the course of the game while I had issued 13. The blue city was of particular interest this game yet again, as it showed up very late, on round 8, when most of the non-blue cubes had been cleared off the map.

Thus far, I'm extremely happy with the way the map is playing. Of the various ideas I have in my head and in the initial development phase, this is the one that feels like it is not going to have to be changed extensively over the course of its development. The map will likely receive changes here and there, and some of the rules can be revised, but out of the gates this one is playing quite smoothly. I attribute this to the fact that I have already played with a variation of these rules, albeit on a smaller scale, and as a result, knew largely what I was getting into when I first started work on this design. This contrasts to stuff like the CCCP map, or the new team-based map concept I have in my head, which are tackling more virgin (to me) territory.
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2 juin 2008 1 02 /06 /juin /2008 17:38
I managed to get in a playtest of Metro Pittsburgh last night. I foolishly forgot to bring my digital camera along, so I have no pictures to post, but I can give a brief report of how the game went:

The central urbanization mechanic works almost exactly as I expected it to. In our playtest, most of the cities ended up being urbanized in the central triangle area and the east, which is not surprising statistically because only about 1/3 of the towns are away from the central area. The lonely blue city did end up being stuck in an interesting spot though, the top left corner, and a bit of a race developed to build there.

In the first playtest I opted to give us 15$ to start with and to cap the shares at 20. In reality, the 15 share limit seems fine with the 15$ starting cash. The terrain on the map is tough, and it tends to create a constant need to spend the money that is coming in, even into the late game. The map started out with First Build, First Move, Loco (standard), Engineer (4 track or free bridge), Stroll and Repopulation. Repopulation is definitely getting the axe because it is too similar to Stroll in practice, and the map already seems like it has too many goods. I might cull it back by 2-3 before the next playtest. I have to come up with another role to replace Repop so that there are at least 6 role to choose from right now. One of the playtesters astutely suggested a mechanism to change either the particular city or the location of the to-be-placed urbanized cities, but I'm torn about that. It's a neat mechanical idea, but it reinjects power over the urbanization that would create some in-system chaos, and I'm not sure if I want that in this particular map. The most likely short term fix is to split the Engineer into two roles: 1 to place 4 track, and 1 to get the free bridge. The only risk here is that almost all of the roles are useful, and the auction has problems again. Loco is still almost explicitly the best role for the early game, but the free bridge is effectively 6$ in the bank, so it's not a bad second choice. I will probably end up toying with the auction again to see if I can come up with some solution beyond the normal tweak.

Overall I'm pleased with the first playtest though. I am relatively optimistic that the development of this map will be shorter than Montreal, mainly because I was able to base the initial draft off of things I already learned using the central mechanic (albeit on a smaller, more limited scale) while designing and developing Montreal.
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14 novembre 2007 3 14 /11 /novembre /2007 17:36
Cette apres midi, je n'avais trop envie de me mettre dans mes copies et comme ludovic faisait le malin sur les forums du monde entier avec la nouvelle carte en solo d'age of steam, j'ai été contrainds d'ouvrir l'une de mes boites pour voir de quoi il retournait...
On choisit ici l'option la plus facile pour se chauffer avec 5 cubes noirs et 17 cubes rouges
Mise en place :


Les cubes noirs pénalisent le score de 10 points chacun, autant dire qu'il faut les transporter...

007.JPG

A la mise en place, les cubes noirs à l'extrémité ouest de la carte me font un peu peur. Tranporter des noirs, c'est se gacher des revenus, d'où tension....
Sans compter que l'action locomotive coute 5$. Je ne choisierai jamais de payer 5$ pour prendre ingénieur, n'en voyant pas l'utilité par rapport à l'action locomotive

Au tour 1, je prends 2 titres, achete une locomotive et paie 13$ en construction, je fais deux déplacements rouges à 2 et je dois 2 dollars à la banque. Je choisis l'option construction et locomotive en meme temps, c'est risqué, mais ca rapporte un double 2, ce qui dans le jeu à plusieurs est très puissant. For de cet expérience, je ne m'en prive pas ici, on verra bien....


Au tour deux, je m'inquiete en me disant que je dois continuer mes voies, mais j'oublie que je joue tout seul et qu'il n'est pas nécessaire ici de lutter...., je ne prends pas de loco, j'émets deux titres supplémentaires, paie 10$ en construction, fais deux déplacements rouges et me retrouvent à 8 sur l'échelle des income, et un équilibre assez facile . J'ai peur quand meme que mes titres me portent préjudice à la fin de la partie, surtout que j'ai pas mal de montagnes à traverser, mais bon... A noter que je néglige pour ces deux premiers tours les cubes noirs, ce qui est nécessaire, vue ma position sur les titres et que j'ai absolument besoin de revenir à l'équilibre vite.
CONSTRUCTION :
010.JPG
DEPLACEMENT :


Au tour 3, j'émets 2 nouveaux titres , je n'achete pas de locomotive et ne peux dépenser que 6$ en construction, je déplace encore deux cubes rouges afin de gagner des sous cette fois, je me place pour être capable de déplacer les cubes noirs au noir plus tard (sans doute au prochain tour.)
CONSTRUCTION :
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DEPLACEMENT:
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Au tour 4, j'émet encore deux nouveaux titres (ca commence sincérement à m'inquiéter, mais j'étais bénéficiaire au tour précédent, c'est juste que mon score final va en patir grave...
J'achète une autre locomotive et construit pour 11$, je me retrouve à gagner 3$ grace à deux déplacements de rouge à 3 chacun. Je n'ai toujours pas au tour 4 déplacer un seul cube noir... mais je suis bien placé pour le faire, je me focalise sur les gains pour l'instant...
A noter que je n'ai pas assez d'argent pour construire directement une voie complexe afin de pouvoir relier le nord de l'ile à partir de la ville au bord sur de la carte et celà me contrit séverement... Je n'aurai pas du construire au tour 1 la tuile complexe qui m'a couté 4$ , mais une de 3$ . Cette petit liaison ne me servira pas de la partie....
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Au tour 5, j'émets seulement un titre, je n'achete pas de locomotive, et je construits plein sud pour 6$.


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Je regrette encore cette tuile complexe qui m'aurait bien faciliter la tache pour rejoindre la ville au centre.. Je devrais la remplacer perdant ainsi des dollars et aussi une tuile de construction si je l'avais construit directement..
On arrive au milieu de la partie, j'en profite pour transporter mon premier cube noir qui ne me rapporte absolument rien ! je stagne donc dans le revenu, et touche 3$

018.JPG

Au tour 6, j'émets 2 titres, achete ma 4ième locomotive et construit pour 10$ vers cette fameuse ville au centre de la carte....
Je ferrai ainsi deux déplcament à 4 avec ces deux cubes rouges


Ma position sur l'échelle des scores avant réduction



Au tour 7, j'achete ma derniere locomotive de la partie en éméttant mon dernier titre, je construits pour 6$ pour relier le nord de l'ile
022.JPG

J'ai pu relier le nord de l'ile, pas par la liaison qui était prévue au départ, mais en faisant le tour au centre .
Grace à ces deux déplacements à 5 chacun , j'empoche un bénéfice de 11$
023.JPG



J'adore les macros ...

Au tour 8, pas de locomotive, ni de titres, je construits pour 9$ et relie le bord ouest de la carte et les deux fameux cubes noirs qui m'inquietaient en début de partie...

026.JPG

027.JPG
Je ne transporte pas ces cubes noirs pour ce tour , mais me débarasse des cubes noirs qui étaient pres de la capitale

028.JPGMes bénéfices tombent à 7$ à cause de ces cubes noirs....

Au tour 9, aucune loco, aucun titre, je construit pour 8$ et ainsi relier les deux derniers cubes rouges que je transporterai de la partie, encore deux cubes à 5 qui me permettent d'empocher 17$ à l'avant dernier tour. Mais je vais reculer grave sur l'échelle au tour suivant... A noter que les deux cubes rouges plus au dessus ne pourront pas être transporté. Je construits quand même pour faire des points de voies... Je terminerai ma boucle au tour suivant

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Le mur de cubes rouges après déplacements...
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Ma position à l'issue du tour 9 et avant la réduction de -6 pour ce tour


Au tour 10, pas de titre, pas de loco, pas d'ingénieur évidement mais je construits pour 9$ quand meme et recoit un revenu de 10$

032.JPG

Aucun revenu pour ce tour, et ca fait mal , je recule encore mon pion de 4 cases cette fois pour atteindre 25

Le détail de mon score....

033.JPG

J'adore cette carte, quel challenge modulable en plus, vivement la prochaine partie et c'est en plus hyper addictif, surtout si on commence à se lancer des défis par internet.....








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1 novembre 2007 4 01 /11 /novembre /2007 20:05

I am always exited when i open the caracteristic boxes of the winsome games particularly when they contain a new expansion for my favorite game : Age of Steam (Did i tell you that i find  my forth copy of the basic game last week for 35e ?...)
This expansion is a three player map ...
I read the rules of this new map as soon as i get it (two hours after i bought the sets from J. Bohrer in ESSEN...) and i was surprised that straight lines cost $10 and curve lines cost only $3. CIties are very closed from each others but you have to spend $10  to connect directly two cities or $6 to connect with two curve lines... interesting...
More over, Winsome games have improved their design with green plain hexes and colored cities.

overview-of-the-fourth-turn.jpg
So a very expensive map and a very clever cost system with only 6 cities. We supposed that the forth city was purple, but it was not clear at first glance. So we add a purple disc on it.

Yellow-purple-domination.jpg


We understood the rules that we could build an incomplete curve line and the next turn, we can redirect in a straight line for the cost of a redirection $3$, but it is not clear that's probably why we did not run out from curve lines.


We understood that connecting a town costs 0$, but it was not clear for our poor english, never mind, all players have played the same game, with the same rules... ;-)

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The game ends in turn 8 instead of turn 10

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A flipping view of Pittsburgh...

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Six cities,but many dices for each of them because we fill up the entire good supply.

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The last turn, with only 6 cubes

fin-de-partie.jpg
We did not undersand the background of the map (bridges, tunnels...)   Pittsburgh is for us a kind of flatland....

flatland.jpg


Nice game, with many questions about how to build, and to connect, how to use engineer .
Tought decisions with the special action urbanization  and a hightinteractive map with many possibilities of blocking players... some killing actions when you build an incomplete line and no possilities to reach the cityi in the next turn
no on chooses the new action that reduces the building costs of straight lines... but we played as newbies this afternoon.. tired by too many tests of other maps

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17 août 2007 5 17 /08 /août /2007 23:44
I had the pleasure of playing the Spain map by the Steam Brothers last night with my regular play group, this being the last session prior to my move up to East Lansing, after which my AoS playtime is going to be greatly diminished.

For those who aren't familiar with the map, Spain's main features include its New City seeding (i.e.: all of the New City tiles except for the blue one are randomly placed on the board with the aid of a 12 sided die prior to the start of the game), the Insurrection action (which removes the New City tiles, destroys the goods present, and makes the city effectively colourless), and the team based play.

The initial city rolls placed most of the cities in the south, leaving the north quite barren. The colour placements were particularly irksome, as the colours were clustered together, making longer deliveries more difficult.

The teams were myself and Alex versus Sean and Jesse. The basic strategies that each team used were different. Sean and Jesse built their networks together from the start of the game, gathering their strength in the SE portion of the board. Alex started working in the west, which in the abstract, appeared to be the strongest area of the board because of the goods. I built north of Sean and Jesse, attempting to interfere with their access to the blue cities in the NE, and hoping to link up with Alex later in the game.

In the early going, Jesse and Sean seemed to play a fairly balanced strategy. Neither of them was issuing more shares than the other, and they were helping each other when it was convenient. On our team, I was issuing shares aggressively to finance my track building, while Alex was keeping his total down. Both teams were regularly using each other's track to facilitate maximum income and strength, and there was a lot of negotiation and discussion going on about track builds and goods shipments.

I think it's important to note here that in the rules, the scoring for this works as follows: sum the team incomes, the team with the highest sum finishes first and second based on their individual scores. We seemed to completely eschew that 1st/2nd distinction though, and were playing the map purely for team sums, which brought out some unique dynamics (I think largely because our group has a play for 1st mentality, and the team play doesn't seem to work well unless the team score actually IS what matters).

The story of the map basically was that Jesse and Sean were able to get ahead on the Locomotive track by being able to win the role, and by the mid-game they had enough money to repeatedly take the role to deny it to our team. Their networks also ended up being more effective, as they set up combined circle routes earlier, and were able to run big routes continuously in the late game. In retrospect, I probably should have advised my partner to issue more shares (he finished a few behind the other guys) to go after the role more aggressively, because it would have easily added on several income to our combined final score.The Sean / Jesse team prevailed in a landslide because of their engine superiority.

I think my final thought was that I liked the idea here, and I wouldn't mind playing the map again, but the team play seemed to add a huge amount of length to the game. This was not nearly as apparent in the other team map that we played, Golden Spike. I don't know if that was just because GS has a more restricted board and fewer options (probably is a huge part of it), or if it was just the pure team mentality that we were using, but Spain dragged a bit, and lasted much longer than a normal 4 player game does for our group.

I think I would be much more likely to play this map again in the future with solo scoring (no teams) simply because I like the Insurrection idea and the New City seeding, but found that the amount of time that the team play added to the mix was just too much.

As a solo game the map would be very nasty indeed though. Locomotive is so far better than anything else in the auction that inflation would probably be a major factor. Insurrection is useful, but not in the way that one would think. In our game it was being used much more often on cities within our own networks to clear the path than it was offensively. Some of this might have been because of the way the New City tiles were rolled out, but in any case, I found the role less powerful than Urb, and while it is interesting, and I like the reverse flow (i.e.: fewer cities as the game goes, destruction of goods) I didn't find the role to be particularly powerful either. Perhaps more plays would change my mind.

On a final final note, like most of the Steam Brothers maps, the scale on this is a minimum 4, and it would probably be at its best with 5. The map is just big, and there are a lot of goods to go around. Insurrection also means that it is easier to make cubes in bad locations useful.
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6 août 2007 1 06 /08 /août /2007 13:08

During summer holidays, i have plenty of time to play with my friends at my favorite game Age of Steam, even to imagine new expansions . But today, we want to come back in Iraq, to adjust the bonus rule of black cubes (oil).
Brice (purple), Guillaume (yellow) and I (black) flew to Bagdad. I roll three dice to place 4 cubes in the first oilfield in the North, 2 in the middle and 6 in the South... We will play with the veteran variant and we will throw only two dice in the production phase to supply goods !!
Brice builds in the South with the first build action, Guillaume, in the West, and I build in the North. I deliver two cubes for 4 incomes in the first turun and nobody tries to stop my development in the North. I choose the Engineer action in the second turn, but that was a big mistake, because i do not deliver any cubes at this turn. In the same time Guillaume links Bagdad that has 3 colors (yellow, red and blue). There are very interesting purple cubes, but they stay in Koweit that is a purple city. I think Guillaume has noticed that point because he urbanizes in purple in the West of iraq. In turn 3 and 4, Brice stays alone in the South with potentially 6 black cubes, but he has not enought locomotive to deliver them in USA. He builds a very clever network and in turn 5 begins to transport his first black cube in USA. As my network is the North, i realize it could be very difficult to stop the black deliveries of my friend. Guillaume builds near Koweit to ennoy his brother Brice and i do the same. 



The new action US Army was not choosen till turn 7. I urbanized in Black near Brice's oilfield to reduce his income when he deliveres black cubes and i choose the enginneer action in turn 7 to link Bagdad with the middle oilfield and with my network. I deliver my two last black cubes. Guillaume and Brice fights for the purple cubes in Koweit . But Brice and his nifty network is unbeatable in the south...
016.JPG

In the last three turn, interesting cubes are very rare and we fight for the US army action that allow a cube to pass throught a city of its own color (only one time!). I have too many shares to win but i can hope a second place with my 7 black cubes. Brice has transported 6 black cubes but he is too far way on the income track (near 45 in the last turn before tax reduction!). Guillaume has only 1 cube that he stole me in Bagdad in the turn 9. He said "that cube allow me to be second" I realize he was right...
In the rules, each black cubes transported outside Iraq gets 3 VPs. 

017.JPG

Players                       Guillaume yellow)    Alban(black)  Brice(purple)
(Income - Shares)          75                        48               93
Track                           23                        32               24
Black Cubes*3                 3                        21               18
Sub total (without b.c.)   98                        80              117
Total (with b.c)             101                      101             135

To win the game, i solve this stupid equation to know how much one black cube should increase your income:
X is the bonus for each black cube:
117 + 6X < 80 + 7X
X>37.... If we attribute 38 VPs for each black cubes, i will win the game !!!! ;-)))
But my players disagree, i don't know why..... We think that 3 points are enought, but we notice that it is very difficult to transport black cubes outside Irak. That is that i wanted. It is also difficult to focus his network only on black cubes. US Army is a very powerfull action in the last turns.
015.JPG

I hope many gamers will enjoy with playing this expansion that is not so innovative than New york city subway in the reverse side but still a very interesting challenge with the new action US Army, and black cubes.

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28 juillet 2007 6 28 /07 /juillet /2007 16:39
Hi all,

I'm going to be posting semi-regularly on this blog with Alban now, and hopefully we'll be able to create enough content to make this an interesting stop for Age of Steam fans. My main interest in Age of Steam is as a fan, I've played the game regularly for a few years now, and I fortunately have a core group of regular players who also love the game, so it spends a lot of time on my table.

My contributions to this blog will likely be in the form of expansion mini-reviews, short session reports, and general reaction to news in the AoS world. I will also share information about future expansion design that I do (similar to what was detailed in my Geeklist: www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/1650/, but at this point it is hard to say how long it will be before I get another expansion into the active design phase. I have the start of a board and some ideas for AoS - Michigan, but I have not fleshed them out much at all, and I don't know if I'll have time to work on it in the coming months.

Anyway, enough with the introductions, here's a tidbit about John Bohrer's Switzerland:

Session Report - AoS: Switzerland

Switzerland is a map that I have had lying around for some time now. It was released at Essen 2005 with Austria and the Netherlands in a limited set of 80 by John Bohrer / Winsome. The other two maps have been re-released (Steam Brothers and Spielbox insert respectively) but Switzerland hasn't been yet.

The map is intended for 3 or 4 players, and as my core group is regularly 3 right now (one person in the military, another working at a Summer Camp and rarely around) we decided to finally pull it out.

The map itself is somewhat restrictive. There are a lot of hexes that can't be built on (representing mountains) and there are also a plethora of thick black lines. The rules changes are somewhat subtle, but create some interesting interactions...track costs are high ($4 per hex) and there are rainbow cities.

In our playing (Myself, Sean, Alex), the initial cube setup left some easy 2 ships in the Zurich area (eastern part of the board, full of cheap links) but nothing else was remarkable. I managed to win the first auction, took Locomotive, and was able to build a network near Zurich to get my income up to 4 during the first round. Sean and Alex each instead opted to start in the west, as there are two rainbow cities there, which are easy to locate at the end of one's line.

So the game progressed like this: Sean snuck into my area of the board just enough to connect to Zurich. Alex, meanwhile, was sitting on Sean's southern border, and blocking off his track access a bit. The two of them were constantly jostling for First Build because of how intertwined their networks were. They were also always taking Urb, a role that I was generally ignoring. Meanwhile, I was building circular routes in the NE section of the board, which were just enough to keep me at decent profitability.

Unlike normal AoS, I was actually keeping my shares down, Sean was taking a lot (this is a complete reversal of our normal play tendencies) and Alex was keeping as low as possible (his usual play style).

By about the mid-game, I realized that I was starting to run into trouble. I didn't have access to very many good deliveries anymore, and Sean and Alex, each with a rainbow vortex at the end of their lines, were having a much easier time keeping the income train rolling. Alex was a ways back from both Sean and I in income, but the networks developed such that Sean was occasionally having to hand him an income.

By round 5, some tunnels were auto-built, and this gave me an opportunity to build a VERY long link to the SE portion of the board which took 3 rounds to complete. During this period, Sean and Alex were each continuing to scrap over links in the west, with Alex generally getting the better of it, and he was gaining on both of us.

By the end game, I had just enough cubes to keep my income going up, but not at a consistent 6 pace. Sean and Alex were each able to keep the 6 ships coming, and Alex was getting the better end of it because of constant 1 income gifts from Sean. The final score saw Alex out in front by a several income margin and I was marginally ahead of Sean. (Yes, this takes into account track count, track is worth more in Switzerland).

My overall thoughts:
A tough map with some strange interactions. The heavy use of black lines seems like it will lead to rather predictable and samey track building patterns in the long run, but for occasional play they are quite good, because they lead to races and, perhaps most strangely, make First Build a very desirable role, even with only 3 at the table. I don't think the map is amazing, because the rules changes are not significant enough to make it really stand out from the pack, but I enjoyed playing it, and wouldn't hesitate to pull it out again in the future.

I think this expansion highlights some of my aversion to heavy thick black line use. I like how they can artificially create tighter corridors and races in certain parts of the board, but I think I dislike them because they shrink the map so much, and, functionally, because they can be hard to see once track has been built around them. This means it is hard for players to be able to see if they can build complex track to get through an area.
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