Playing At The World - "Rise Of Empires"

I talked about the luxury of having access to a large gaming group in my last post and the last game night I went to really backed this up. When Andrew did his usual Monday morning roll-call we looked like the walking wounded. Mike was "out for two weeks", probably because his current assignment with C.S.I.S. keeps him hopping, Andrew was acting as the parental heavy lifter in lieu of a sick spouse, Chad was spending quality family time and was otherwise indisposed and Dean was desperately trying to remember what the phrase "work / life balance" means.

This left me, Kris, Jeremy and Matt to forge on. And forge on we did. It was Kris's pick so he invited us down to the cafe for a mystery game. When we arrived he told us that we were going to play Rise of Empires.

Here's publisher Mayfair's synopsis on this Martin Wallace-designed, area-control civ game:

Don't just make history-guide it! Take the reins of a developing civilization, choosing the resources and development paths that will lead to the fastest expansion, as you claim and defend territory on a map forging an empire that eventually encompasses whole continents.

Rise of Empires play is divided into three eras. Choices made early in the era are repeated late, so your decisions must have both short-term and long-term benefits to be successful. This process requires tough decision-making and promotes an atmosphere with nail-biting suspense. Victory points are rewarded for building cities, having an empire, for progress in science, and for trading goods.

Rise of Empires breathes new life into the civilization games genre! Balance gold and food, war and agriculture, territory and technology to forge an empire that is destined to rise above all other nations!

Lookin' to read the full encyclopedia? Then click on the following link to get the rules.

COLORS 

Me...Blue

Jeremy...Yellow

Kris...Red

Matt...Green

FIRST ERA

We let Kris go first since, in theory, he knew what he was doing. He kicked things off by procuring a City for four Gold and three Food which gave him two built-in Victory Points every turn. He was also the first to claim a Territory Tile, starting with a Forest and then adding a Plains later on. To bankroll this aggressive campaign he took a Trade Action to earn more cash monies. Next up he went with a Progress Action, developing an "Iron Axe" that helped him wring more Resources out of his previously-secured Forest. Finally he took an Empire Action and established his holdings around the Middle East and the Holy Lands.   

Jeremy picked up a City for two Gold which gave him one recurring Victory Point. Next up he used a Territory Action to develop a Plains Tile, which added one Player (I.E. population) Cube and two Food to his supply. He then selected an Empire Action and established a tidy l'il domain centered around the Balkans and Constantinople. Later that Turn he snagged a second City for another sustained Victory Point, but this one cost him two Gold, two Food and a Resource Disc. For his last Action he took an "Iron Weapons" Progress Tile which helped to improve his future military efforts.

I kicked things off by establishing my civilization in Egypt. I probably should have seized a second region but I didn't wanna draw needless attention to myself. Next up I took a "Calendar" Progress Token, hoping to leave more options for myself in the "B" phase of the Turn. I then spent one Food and one Gold to construct a grand City for an ever-renewing Victory Point and then picked up some extra cashola via a Trade Action. Finally I performed two back-to-back Territory Actions, ending up with one Mountain and one Town, which gave me some bonus peeps, a few extra Benjamins and some always-valuable veeps.  

Matt had no qualms about getting aggro, swallowing up Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean via two separate Empire Actions. After scoring more Gold via a quick Trade he went on to acquire a "Ships" Progress Token which he used to wring extra assets from his island holdings. Next up he snagged a Mountain with a Territory Action which promised to bump up his Player Cube count. 

In the "B"-side of the Era, Kris and Jeremy got into a l'il slappy-fight over Constantinople. Kris also added an "Agriculture" Progress tile to the mix which helped improve his Food production. He also picked up a slew of new Villages, giving him the resources needed to power those new Victory Point-generating Cities.

After inventing his own "Iron Axe", Jeremy went nuts with the civil planning, adding two additional Cities, one which cost two Gold and two Food for two ongoing Veeps plus THE FREAKIN' COLOSSEUM which doled out an insane six Victory Points at the end of every Game Turn for two measly Player Cubes and two Resource Discs. To power all of this expansion he also conquered a Forest and an Island Territory Tile for added Resources, Player Cubes and Food.

After doggedly re-enforcing my turf I decided to expand into the Mediterranean. I then settled another Mountain range which gave me some young, pristine, unbroken bodies to exploit as well as a new Town and a Field to feed them with. To exploit my new-found Mountain ranges I decided to tap into the "Mining" Progress development to get more Resource Discs. All of this gave me enough incentive to add a new City, which cost me one Gold and a Food for an extra Victory Point.

In addition to beefing up the defense of his home regions, Matt decided to horn in on my turf in Egypt. To facilitate this he picked up an Island Territory Tile for more Food and drones. After using a Roads Progress Tile to optimally re-arrange all of his block-headed minions he made sure to keep every hooligan fed via the "Agriculture" development.

SECOND ERA

After walking away with the first player token I quickly snapped up a new City which gave me two recurring Victory Points for the initial cost of three Gold and a sustained Food cost of one. I also picked up the "Navigation" Progress Tile which let me overwhelm North and South America with a bunch of ignorant, pushy, destructive assholes. Instead of making enemies with a military offensive I just used an Empire Action to re-enforce my current position. Next up I traded a Resource Token for some badly-needed funds via a Trade Action and then scored four cheap Victory Points by spreading the taint of "Religion" all over my realm like a pompous, self-righteous, know-it-all.

Matt pulled off a few more bold military moves, eventually striking directly into the heart of Central Europe. He then augmented this strategy by settling another Island and then declaring a state of "Diplomacy" with Jeremy to quell any thoughts of retribution. During the "B" side of the Second Era he was quick to recognize the intrinsic value of the "Printing" Progress Tile. This gave him the priceless freedom to ignore additional Gold costs whenever he choose an option further along the Action Display track.

In one fell swoop Kris used an Empire Action to take over the uncontested India. To help populate his expanding realm, he performed two Territory Actions and added two more Fields to his collection. By this time he was running a bit low on funds so he kicked off a timely Trade agreement for three Gold. With four Fields now at his disposal he snatched up the "Steam Pumps" Progress tile, which promised four Resource tokens during the Income Phase. He then snagged one of the best Era Two City Tiles for four Gold and three Food which gave him three Victory Points at the end of every Turn. During the second half of the Second Era he also picked up the "Farming" Progress Token which gave him three bonus Food and St. Paul's Cathedral for four Gold, four Resources and three Player Cubes. This gave him an obscene ten Victory Points over the next three Turns.

Having first dibs on the Progress Tokens, Jeremy quickly snatched up a "Port", which gave him the ability to interchangeably convert Gold, Resource Discs and Player Cubes. Next up he took two Territory Actions in a row, developing new stretches of Forest and Plains. To help aid his future military schemes he then invested in the "Mercenaries" Progress Token and dropped three free Player Cubes into Eastern Europe. A last-minute Trade Action gave him a chance to replenish those exhausted coffers right at the end of the Era.               

THIRD ERA

Matt took the vanguard in Era Three, going right after Kris with an Empire Action. By the time he was done, all of India and China had fallen under his sway. To celebrate, Matt then constructed Big Ben for eight Gold and a sustained cost of three Food but it promised a whopping six Victory points during the last two Turns of the game. After snagging a Victory Point slot on the Trade Track, he then kept his slack-jawed population nicely distracted with the "Shiny Objects" er...the "Football" Progress Token. He ended the first half of the Era by investing in more Island Territories and then employing a Trade Action to replenish all of the cheddar he'd just spent building the UK Parliament.

Desperately low on Resource Tokens, I took the "Steam Pumps" Progress Action and then added another Plains with a follow-up Territory Action. My rivals were quickly snapping up the best Cities and Wonders, but I did manage to build the Tower of London (presumably on the banks of the River Nile!) for six Gold and a sustained two Food in exchange for five Victory Points over the next two Turns. Hoping to keep pace with my rivals I took a high slot on the Trade Track for a healthy little dollop of Victory points. Next up I placed an Action Disc on the Empire Track, which let me liberate the long-held Holy Land from the infidel Kris. Another Empire Action let me drop some re-enforcements down on the board as insurance.    

Jeremy used an Empire Action to boot Matt out of Central Europe and then conquer the vast steppes of Russia. He then used this same Action later on to avenge his loss against Kris in Turkey by sneaking into his opponent's back door (?) via the Middle East. As if that wasn't enough win for one Turn, he also used a City Action to snag Westminster freakin' Abbey for seven Gold and four sustained Food in exchange for two more hits of six Victory Points. Next came the procurement of the "Fertilizer" Progress Token which gave a nice boost to his Food production. He then took a Trade Action to score some major dinero and then used the spoils to bankroll a charming l'il palazzo for four Gold and two perpetual Food for four Victory Points over the next two Turns.  

Kris spent an Action Token to claim one of the high-tier Victory Point rewards along the Trade Track. Next up he took a Territory Action to add yet another Field to his booming "Steam Pump" enterprise. Then, via an Empire Action, he drove Jeremy out of Turkey and then barricaded himself up within the oil-rich boundaries of Saudi Arabia. Noting the vastly-increased appetites of his exploding population, the "Fertilizer" Progress Token came next, bestowing a timely windfall of three free Food. Kris then purchased a humble little two-up, two-down split-level for two Gold and one Food which offered three enduring Victory Points. Finally, he set himself up for the second half of the Era by picking a Trade Action to replenish his Gold reserves. 

Matt may have had some initial success with his aggressive military strategy but his lack of balance started to hurt him. He kicked off the second half of the final Era right by scoring one of the top tier Victory Point Trade results and then taking a Town Territory. After raising some bread via another Trade Action and then jumping all over the "Chemicals" Progress chit (giving him four Resource Discs), he used his "Printing" development to get the jump on one of the most advanced Wonders of the game: Sputnik. In spite of the steep cost of two Gold, seven (!) Resources and two sacrificial Cubes, the sixteen Victory Points that came along with inventing this thing gave his current score a massive shot in the arm. Matt finished up with a widespread Empire action: challenging Jeremy in Central Europe and the Balkans and then gettin' all up in my grill in Egypt.

In contrast to Matt, my early investment in Cities served me pretty well. I started off with an Empire Action to evict Jeremy out of the Balkan states. Even after a Trade Action gave me a bunch of Gold I still didn't have enough Resources to buy that valuable City I wanted, so I took a Territory Action to snag yet another Plains with the intention to "Steam Pump"-ing it into oblivion. Unfortunately Jeremy got to the City I wanted first and I had to settle for a dump which gave me only two crappy Victory Points for two Food. I then dropped the "Ideology" Progress token which gave one last-minute Victory Point for each of six different Regions I occupied.   

Jeremy used his first Global Action to kick Kris out of Turkey with three Player Cubes. He also got the jump on everyone, snatching up the amazing Windmill Wonder for one Gold, six Resource Discs and two Player Cubes. In the end this would net him a redonkulous fourteen Veeps! To make this acquisition even more valuable, Jeremy then added the "Electricity" Progress Tile to double the Victory Points on any one of his Cities! Three guesses as to which one he ended up picking. Next up he scored a high slot on the Trade Track and then took another City Action, picking up another development which cost four Food for three Victory points. He then capped off this fine turn with an eleventh-hour Global Action to establish a second-place presence in both the Middle East versus Kris and South America against me.

Alarmed by Jeremy's surge, Kris tried to fight back with the options still available to him. Anticipating an expensive turn, he kicked things off with a timely Trade Action. Irked that both Matt and Jeremy had already snatched up the most valuable Wonders, Kris was forced to pay three Player Cubes and four Resources to Smash the Atom for twelve Victory Points. Next up he used a Global Action to swarm the Middle East with four Player Cubes, achieve dominance versus Matt in India, bolster his hold over Saudi Arabia and then lock in a second place presence in the Holy Land against me. He then opiated the masses by busting out the "Television" Progress Token, scoring five Victory Points during the final tally. A Trade Action allowed him to ring the Victory Point dinner bell one last time while the "Hail Mary" acquisition of a Town Tile helped mitigate his massive end-game expenses.

FINAL SCORES

MATT - 112

ME - 124

KRIS - 144

JEREMY - 162

REVIEW

PROS

• Fine components all around. The board itself looks aged and vaguely neoclassical. Some might bitch that it's a swamp of earth tones but at least it looks tasteful and the art quality definately is heads and shoulders above Nations. Yes, the map is heavily abstracted but at least you don't hafta spread it out over two ping-pong tables. Also bonus points for accommodating the Turn Order Track and the Action display right into the design of the board. The Display board is functional, clear and compact. The Progress, Territory, City and Empire Tiles are all well-made and the iconography is crystal clear. This makes calculating your expenditures and rewards at the end of any given turn super-easy.    
• Yay for Player Aids that actually aid players! The rules themselves are extremely straightforward and we rarely found ourselves rooting through the manual to puzzle something out. As a result, the game's pace never felt draggy or protracted.
• Of course, the original conceit here is the Action Display which plays out from right to left and then reverses order for the second half of the turn. Participants who've been studying the Player Aid and have a good plan in mind can really take advantage of this mechanic.
• The player in last place gets to go first next turn, which helps to keep everyone in the game right up to the very end. 
• The three Eras and the developments that go with it really give the game some thematic flair. Yes, the Colosseum could end up in China but Rise of Empires is a civ game first and an historic game second. A very, very distant second.
• The economic engine at the heart of this game is very elegant. Sure you can go nuts settling Forests and Mountains and building vast Cities and Wonders, but you gotta make sure that your plebes don't go hungry and the coffers remained topped up! Mercifully you can cut funding on older developments at the end of a turn in lieu of more efficient stuff. 
• Combat via the Empire Tiles is also abstracted, but perfectly suitable for a game like this. Kudos to Martin Wallace for designing a civ game with little to no luck.
• It's fun to experiment with tactics. You can go nuts with military moves but this could end up being costly, especially if you make a lot of enemies. You can invest in a lot of Progress Tokens but you can't neglect your City development. Snapping up Territories and Wonders is all well and good, just make sure that you have the cash flow to pay for it. Between agonizing over specific Actions and setting up your strategic priorities for the next Era, there are plenty of interesting decisions to make.   

CONS

• The Player Cubes and the Resource Discs are super-bland. Plastic figures and l'il ore nuggets or oil blobs would have been a lot more thematic and intuitive. One more components-related gripe: Tiles from previous Turns have no home and have a tendency to sprawl all over hell and creation.
• Even after a single play I know that Cities and Wonders are the key to victory. Matt tried a Food / Player Cube / Global strategy but found out (all too late) that the Victory Points the rest of us were earning every turn from Cities and Wonders were piling up quick. He rallied quite well at the end of the game but the damage was already done. Needless to say, if I ever play Rise of Empires again, I'll do whatever I can to snag the best Cities and Wonders as quickly as possible.
• The game was very simple, almost too simple. You're not guiding a specific, historically- accurate civilization so I had very little emotional connection to my horde of l'il wooden Cubes. As a result, the experience felt kinda hollow to me. A general barometer of how much I liked a game is how quickly I write up the corresponding blog entry and let me tall ya, I dragged my ass on this one, folks. But, I must confess, the more I wrote about Rise of Empires the more I liked it. 

***

If you want a quick and easy civilization-building game that only takes two-to-three hours to play and won't leave you bickering over rule semantics, Rise of Empires fits the bill.

It won't blow you away or dazzle you with innovation but it does what it says on the tin and gives you a perfectly enjoyable night of gaming.

Rise of Empires scores four pips outta six with a major tilt up towards Sputnik "booping" and "beeping" overhead!

 

***

Wanna distract your own horde of serfs with "Football", "Religion" and "Television" while engaging in an aggressive war over oil...er, Resource Discs? Then click on the photo below to learn more about Rise of Empires and help sustain this blog reach a new Era of success!

Hammered in Halifax: "A Few Acres of Snow"

My early childhood obsession for chess invariable led to a passion for wargames.  Unfortunately many of those classic Avalon Hill / SPI titles were burdened by rule books so dense and impenetrable they made the Magna Carta look like a Papa John's pizza flyer.

When games like Settlers of Catan, Tigris & Euphrates and El Grande exploded on the scene in the mid-to-late 90's I could foresee a time when innovative Euro-style mechanics would be grafted onto my beloved olde skool wargames.  I imagined that these elegant hybrids would have all the flavor and theme of the average hex n' counter grog-fest but with key mechanics and rules boiled intuitively down to their simplest intent.

It didn't take very long for my prediction to come true.  Over the years we've since since such inspired titles as Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, Commands & Colors: Ancients, Hammer of the Scots, Combat Commander: Europe, Memoir '44, and Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! Russia 1941-1942.  All of these games involve card-driven mechanics, excellent components, innovative design and most importantly: they're all a blast to play.

The latest entry into this evolutionary wargaming subset is Martin Wallace's A Few Acres of Snow.

Although I was initially put off by the same designer's pedestrian-looking but still awesome train game Steam, I was immediately taken by A Few Acres of Snow.  After reading the game's full deets on the Treefrog Games website, I really couldn't wait to try it:

"A Few Acres of Snow is our latest two-player only game.  It covers the long struggle between Britain and France for control of what eventually became Canada.

"The game involves a deck-building mechanism which may be familiar to those people who have played another certain award winning card game.  Each player starts with a small set of cards.  Cards come in two general types, location cards and empire cards.  You can add an empire card to your discard pile simply by taking one as an action.  

Adding a location card is a little more involved.  Each location card has a list of locations that it connects to and the transport type required to move to each of those locations.  To take control of a neutral location you would have to play a location card with that neutral location on it, then a card that has the correct transport symbol, and then possibly a card with a settler symbol on it if required. You then place a cube in the location and add the location card to your discard pile.

"Players take it in turns to perform two actions.  There are a range of actions available, such as settling new locations, besieging locations, trading fur, launching Indian raids, and building fortifications.  There are also cards that allow you to perform actions to manage your deck, such as getting rid of useless cards and drawing additional cards from your pile.  You can also place cards in reserve so that you can use them at a later point in time.

"The game ends if a player manages to capture his opponent’s capital city or he has managed to place all of his village or town pieces on the board. In the latter case points are calculated to see who wins.

"The game can last from between 30 minutes to two hours, depending on how well players pursue the victory conditions."

Looking for the game's Encyclopedia Internetica entry?  Click on the following link to peep the full historical account right hur.

***

On our last game night, while Dean and Andrew were throwing down in their latest Blood Bowl contest, Chad and I had a chance to try this approachable little gem

We started by randomly selecting sides.  I drew the French and Chad played the British.

After playing a few introductory rounds with Mac to get a feel for the game, Chad seemed to know how imperative to was for the British to be aggressive.  He quickly managed to establish settlements in the neutral locations of Deerfield and Albany.

This I could tolerate, but as soon as he made a play for Halifax a line was drawn in the sand.  I immediately initiated a siege in our home city and soon the battle lines were drawn.

      
Thanks to some timely "Home Support" I managed to use a deadly combination of Infantry, Ship Symbol cards and some powerful Siege Artillery to wrestle control of Halifax away from Chad.  My opponent quickly responded by settling both Baltimore and Richmond then Fortified Pemaquid.  He then turned New York into the sort of fortress that Snake Plissken would be hard-pressed to break into.

I tried to keep pace by settling Fort Niagara and Fort Frontenac.  Then I got right up in Chad's grill by  crossing the St. Lawrence River and snapping up the strategic location of Fort St. John.

With Settler Cards popping up for him like meerkats, Chad spent the next turn consolidating his holdings.  The Villages in Pemaquid, Albany, Deerfield and Baltimore were all upgraded to Towns.  For his final renovation, he turned ol' Beantown into a wicked awesome fart, er, fort.  

Meanwhile, frustrated by my own dearth of willing Settlers, I had to content myself with establishing a Village in Fort Beauséjour.  Acquiring this site was actually kinda cool, since I've personally visited this same site several times in the past.  It's always fun to play a board game that references your own back yard, ain't it?

Realizing that I wasn't going to win with an army of Settlers, I began to ponder alternate avenues of exploration.  This involved getting more free cards into my deck and making friends with the Native population.

Even though I'd acquired two more neutral Settlers, they weren't coming up in tandem with other key card draws, making the task of Settling and Developing new Locations a genuine pain in the arse.  All I could do was sandbag Fort St. John on the vanguard and build a Village in the wilds of Detroit.

In addition to beefing up his infrastructure, Chad was secretly laying plans for another siege.   After ushering Norfolk into Town status, he pulled a Military Leader and several Regular Infantry Cards from his Reserve pile and then launched a vicious sea-borne invasion of nearby Port Réal...er, Royal.

Totally unprepared for this incursion, I quickly cut my losses and conceded defeat.  To ensure that this key location wouldn't easily slide back into French hands, Chad cleverly allocated just enough resources to settle the site with a Village and then threw down an imposing Fortification.

I was better prepared for the second phase of Chad's attack, which targeted our old stomping ground of Halifax.  In the end, we fought this siege to a standstill, leaving the city as vacant as Stalingrad for several turns.  Chad finished this exemplary turn by snapping up Cumberland with a Village.

Although I wasn't able to pull out a victory in either battle, it did free up plenty of resources to allocate elsewhere.  I settled the unpronounceable region of Michilimackinac with a Village, turned Gaspé into a lovely little tourist Town and then reduced Detroit to a drug-addled urban warfare zone policed by Robocop.

Better yet, I made another incursion on the English side of the St. Lawrence River by constructing a Village at Osweego.  Between this settlement and Fort St. John I was now well-within Raiding distance.  Led by some stalwart Coureurs de Bois, my allied Native groups launched a series of deadly attacks against Albany.  Chad was forced to scramble for a bit as he was forced to contend with this unexpected insurgency.

At this late stage in the game, I couldn't help but feel as if my mid-match momentum was waning.  After acquiring a cadre of his own Natives, Chad started to repel my guerilla tactics.  After transforming St. Mary's into an incorporated Town he promptly set his sights on Nova Scotia.

He went on an absolute tear throughout the region, upgrading Port Royal into a Town, dropping and then Fortifying a new Village in Halifax and then landing a fresh batch of Settlers in Canso.  As if that wasn't bad enough he even initiated an eleventh-hour siege of Louisbourg.    

Despite the fact that I busted out the ol' Siege Artillery again, Chad quickly gained the upper hand in the fight thanks to a veritable mob of Infantry and Rangers.  Convinced that the battle was a foregone conclusion, I concentrated on scoring some last-minute Victory Points wherever I could.  This involved upgrading both Fort Niagara and Fort Frontenac to Towns and launching another reasonably effective Native Raid.

Thanks to these last few desperate actions, I managed to trigger the end game before the Battle of Louisbourg was resolved.  All that was left to do now was tally up the final scores.

***

END GAME SCORING

SETTLEMENTS

ME...14 points

CHAD...9 points

CITIES

CHAD...48 points

ME...38 points

MILITARY SPOILS

Me...14

Chad...4

FINAL SCORE

Me...66 points

Chad...61 points

***

POST-GAME NOTES

This final score came as a bit of a surprise to both of us.  Given Chad's many Town upgrades and his eventual acquisition of Nova Scotia, we both thought that he had this game in the bag.  

But in retrospect, the final score does make some sort of weird sense.  Armed with considerably more Settlers, Infantry and Ships, the mobile and expansive British army really needs to go after main French holdings such as Montreal as soon as possible.

My early expulsion of Chad from Halifax put him off-stride long enough to achieve expansion parity.  At the height of my growth, I'd managed to capture and/or settle no less then eight new Villages.  In spite of Chad's late-game military surge, my outlying sprawl and somewhat effective Raiding campaign gave me a slight edge.  

REVIEW

This game is freakin' phenomenal.  Whereas the deckbuilding mechanic in Legendary feels kinda clunky and pasted on, it's much more organically integrated here.  I think the real-world military and settlement goals in A Few Acres of Snow makes this one a lot more thematically flavorful.  Although its definitely not a hard-core military sim the game still feels historically evocative.  

The deck you end up assembling during the course of the game works well for every action.  Chaining these cards together actually feels as if you're guiding a Bateaux filled with Settlers across Lake Erie to establish the Village of Detroit.  Every siege feels like an attritional tug of war.  And when you pull a handful of Natives from your deck all at once you find yourself slavering for your next turn so you can launch a far-flung Raid on your enemy's closest outpost.  Indeed, the game completely out-Dominion's Dominion.        

But there's a down side to all of this.  Several times during our game Andrew looked up from the Blood Bowl pitch to make an off-handed remark about implementing the "Halifax Hammer" strategy.  Since I barely pay attention to Andrew at the best of times, I thought that he was referring to our online Blood Bowl PC league of the same name.  After the game he explained what he was on about.  

As it turns out, A Few Acres of Snow has a design flaw so egregious that even designer Martin Wallace had to admit was crippling.  This so-called "Halifax Hammer" strategy calls for an approach not unlike Chad's late-game run in Nova Scotia and, by all accounts, it virtually guarantees a win for the Brits.  I don't want to reveal the full strategy here, just suffice to say that it involves the early settling of Halifax with an eye on quick sieges in both Louisbourg and Quebec.  Anyone interested in reading more about this strategy can take a peek here.   

After playing A Few Acres of Snow once I'm not sure if this is indicative of a game-breaking design flaw or an armor chink exposed by the same sort of losers who play Halo only to expose lame advantageous flaws.  Sadly, if the designer was forced to come out and admit that there's a problem, then there's probably a pretty serious fucking problem.

In Wallace's defense, a perfectly-balanced wargame scenario should be scarcer then a decent reality show.  I saw someone on Google + the other day bitching that the "Pegasus Bridge" scenario in Memoir '44 is "unfairly slanted towards the Allies".  Well, of course it is, you dumbass!  If Richard Borg hadn't put the Germans behind the eight-ball in this scenario it wouldn't have been historically accurate.  This is why I always encourage people to play this scenario once, then switch sides, play it again and the person with the highest total Victory Medals wins the game.  

By this same philosophy, A Few Acres of Snow should be slanted towards the British.  In fact, using our own game as an example, I'm confident that if I hadn't given Chad a bloody nose early on in Halifax I probably would have lost.   

Honestly, everything else about this game is so damned good that I'm hesitant to completely flatline my score.  Having said that, if future plays reveal that the "Halifax Hammer" strategy is clearly insurmountable then I'll definitely be forced to temper my rating.

But until then I have to say that A Few Acres of Snow is nothing short of brilliant and, as such, it scores five pips out of six.  

***

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Give Me "Steam"

The big problem with a lot of board games is that the cover art and subject matter gives people the impression that the box is filled with meeple-shaped Dramamine tablets.  Case in point:

 
Sorry, but I've never had a train fetish.  This might as well be a picture of a paper clip sitting on a white tablecloth for all I care.  This is a real pity since this bland exterior does absolute nothing to sell the truly stellar game contained within.

Here's an overview right from the conductor's mouth:

"In Steam you build railroads and deliver goods along an ever-changing network of tracks and stations.  You build the tracks, upgrade towns, improve your train, and grab the right goods to make the longest, most profitable deliveries.  Score your deliveries and add to your income or victory points, balancing your need to invest against your quest to win the game.

"Steam contains a beautiful, double-sided game board.  The map on each side depicts terrain, towns, and cities at the start of the railway age.  The map of the northeastern USA and neighboring Canada is ideal for 3 or 4 players.  Use the map of Europe's lower Rhine and Ruhr region when playing a 4 or 5 player game.  You can play Steam on any number of current and future variant and expansion maps, so we include pieces for 6 players.

"Steam is the culmination of Martin Wallace's classic railroad game series.  It contains a brilliantly balanced standard game, and a very rich, elegant basic game.  Both offer you unparalleled flavor and fun."    

Looking to run train on yourself?  You can read the game's full rule book by choo-choo-choosing the following link.  

Color Selection

Andrew...White

Chad...Orange

Me...Black

Mike...Green

Here's how the board looked upon initial set-up, just prior to us screwing around with its Zen-like simplicity.  Oh, and for the sake of full disclosure, we played the Basic Game and not the uber-auctiony Standard game.  

Right off the bat, Andrew seemed to realize the importance of an upgraded locomotive.  By the end of Round Two, his trains had the ability to move across three rail segments.  This served him very well in the construction between Philadelphia, New York, Albany and a refurbished Amsterdam.

I tried to create a circuitous route between Scranton, Philadelphia and New York but high-spending Andrew plunged himself into debt in order to to snatch up the line between the Big Apple and the home of Philly Cheesesteaks.  After noticing that I had the potential to score three big Veeps by delivering a blue shipment along the same route, I started to upgrade my locomotives.  Around the same time I also realized that the two purple cubes sitting in Scranton were probably going to collect dust for a little while.  

Chad also was quick to invest in speedier locomotives.  This allowed him to envision and then exploit a three-segment track running from Albany to Boston via Hartford.  

For the longest time, Mike resisted the temptation to spruce up his locomotives.  Unfortunately, this kept him limited to purple and blue single point cube deliveries along one-track routes like Albany to Hartford and Boston to Maine.  Indeed, Mike seemed pretty leery about burying himself in debt, which meant that his northern route between Ottawa and Valleyfield went incomplete for awhile.  

By the time the fourth round was over, Andrew had transformed his locomotives into five-track crusin' Maseratis.  He also weaseled his way back onto my turf by constructing a two-segment route from Amsterdam to Syracuse via Utica!  As a second affront, he also began laying a length of track from Syracuse to Kingston!  Jerk!  Although this put him into serious debt, he managed to dig himself out somewhat by transporting one blue cube from Amsterdam to Philadelphia for four big points and then  smuggling one of my yellow cubes out of Philadelphia to Albany for three.  Even after all of this clandestine shipping, he was still -2 in the hole.  

Although it cost him a bundle, Chad managed to keep up with Andrew in the locomotive upgrade race.  A single, inexpensive segment laid between Albany and Amsterdam immediately gave him the ability to transport one red cube all the way from Amsterdam to New York for four points.  Chad also started to build a track towards Plymouth but didn't want to sink lower then -1 in debt so he stopped two hexes short.

Frustrated that three cubes (two yellow and one purple) were virtually stranded in Maine, Mike turned his attentions up north.  Instead of investing in expensive locomotives, Mike funneled all of his profits into building abbreviated tracks.  He started by completing the route between Ottawa, Valleyfield and Montreal, which eventually allowed him to deliver two red cubes for four points.  After working on some tentative routes between Montreal, Burlington and an Urbanized Sherbrooke, Mike somehow managed to claw his way back out of debt.  

Unlike Mike, I really thought that long-range locomotives would be the key to victory.  As such, I put priority into getting mine up to four speed, just one behind Chad and Andrew.  But like Mike, I was also playing the game w-a-a-a-a-y too passively.  My first crime was building railroad tracks without deviations.  Although this tactic was relatively inexpensive it also prevented me from branching out to new towns and cities with ease.  My second goof was allowing Andrew to box me in.  After that, all I could really do was make tracks along the only route still available to me: Scranton to Syracuse via Binghamton.  Eventually this allowed me to stay out of debt by shipping a blue cube from Syracuse to Philadelphia for four points and a purple cube from Philly to Scranton for two. 

                          

Over the next two rounds, Andrew continued to spend money to make money.  First off, he drove himself into six points worth of debt in order to attain the highest possible locomotive speed.  Then he  completed a major line from Kingston, Smiths, Ogdensberg and Ottawa, wisely leaving one junction open to create an inevitable circuit.  To pay for all of this, Andrew horked one of my red cubes and sent it off to New York for five points!  

Now completely painted into a corner, I did what I could to eke out some space.  At first I tried to branch out from a completely different location (specifically Amsterdam) but Mike threw me a curveball by diverting his northern line from Burlington towards Rutland and erasing my sole entry into the town.  I tried to bounce back by building a three-segment route from Scranton to Harrisburg and a two point track from Binghamton to Towanda, but without any resources to ship it was all for nought.  To generate some fresh resources, I upgraded Binghamton with a Gray City Tile and then stocked it with purple and yellow cubes.  Andrew had already performed City Growth on Philadelphia, which gave me an opportunity to move the lone gray cube there up to Binghamton for three points.  Because I had very little payoff after all of that frantic development I ended up being two points in the hole.       

Chad kept up his furious pace with Andrew, scoring six-movement-point bullet trains as well.  Even though he completed a three-segment rail line to Plymouth and a two-track route to Bridgeport this didn't translate into a lot of shipped goods at first.  But at least he accomplished something that I'd failed to do, which was create some jumping off points in far-flung corners of the board.  First off he placed a one-tile track in my territory between Syracuse and "New Binghamton" effectively blocking Andrew's intended access to the city.  Then he curb-stomped Andrew right in the knutz by linking Ottawa with Smiths using a single tile.  Unfortunately, Chad's lack of income hit him pretty hard, leaving him at -4 on the Debt-O-Meter. 

After defending his sole access into Rutland, Mike concentrated on linking Sherbrooke to Maine via Rumford.  Even though he had access to more uncontested resources then Andrew or myself, Mike's lack of mobility was beginning to hamstring him.  After producing more goods in Maine, Mike was still limited to only one or two point shipments.  Thus, one yellow cube went from Maine to Sherbrooke and a blue cube came back the opposite way for two points apiece.  There was also a shipment of one yellow cube from Montreal to Sherbrooke.  Although this only gave Mike a total of five points, it also buoyed him back up to -2 monies and kept him out of financial ruin.

      

The last few turns of the game were all about delivering goods for "Hail Mary" points and dropping one and two-hex railroad tokens like leftover Scrabble tiles.  Andrew got five points for shipping a gray cube all the way from New York City to Syracuse.  I also got a small windfall out of the deal when Andrew snubbed Chad and used my Syracuse to Binghamton line instead of his.  The rancor between Chad and Andrew at that point was so toxic that neither of them were willing to concede so much as an inch to one another.  

Exiled in my own little corner of the world, I couldn't lay down any new routes even if I wanted to.  After my proposed track from Amsterdam to Rutland got scrapped, I knew that my only hope to generate points now was through Urbanization.  But even after I upgraded Harrisburg to a purple city my earning potential was still pretty anemic.  I did manage to sneak a lone grey cube out of New York and send it to Binghamton, but this was via Scranton and it only resulted in two measly points.  After shifting one purple cube from Scranton to Philadelphia for two points and another from Binghamton to Scranton for one I realized that I was taking three moves to accomplish what Chad and Andrew were doing in one.  

Chad might not have earned a lot of points during the last few rounds, but certainly set himself up for a killer endgame.  First up, he did me one better by constructing a last-minute route from Amsterdam to Rutland by refashioning the latter into a red city.  He then scored three points with a blue cube transported from Hartford to Amsterdam, four points with a similarly-colored cube sent from Plymouth to Albany and a whopping five points via a gray cube that went from Bean Town to Plymouth Rock.  

Stuck behind the Appalachian Mountains with no branching tracks to work with or towns to link up to, Mike did what he could to score a few 11'th hour points.  But since his range was still stuck at three, even this was a challenge.  Rewards came to him piecemeal: Sherbrooke and Montreal traded red and yellow cubes for one point apiece, Maine sent a red cube to Boston for a point and Sherbrooke got a yellow cube from Maine for two points.  Without any matching destinations nearby, several of Mike's gray and purple cubes ended up going unclaimed.  

At game's end we added all of the Income and completed rail link bonuses to our Victory Point tracks.  Here was the final result:
   

FINAL SCORES

Andrew...36

Chad...36

Me...28

Mike...24

The player with the highest income value broke the tie.  As a result, Andrew was declared the winner with a +2 income!    

***

I was actually quite impressed by Steam; the mechanics of the Basic Game are simple yet thematic.  For example I really like how turn order was determined by the actions you take.  Even though some of the options are clearly more powerful then others, this is offset nicely by putting players who pick them at the back of the turn order.  As a result, the odds of any player getting to use one of these powerful actions twice in a row is pretty slim.   

I also dug the spacial relations challenge provided by the railway track tiles.  During this first game, I was constantly buying straight-away tracks just because they're cheap.  In retrospect, this was pretty myopic since branch-off tiles give you the chance to strike off towards new towns without re-starting a track from scratch.  Although going into debt feels appropriately scary such boldness is a prerequisite to victory.  The economic system really drives home the theme that heavy investment in infrastructure is key to securing those precious end-game returns.        

Several strategies become evident as you play the game.  Are you going to put yourself in hock to crisscross the map with far-reaching rail lines?  Or will you eke out a small yet resource-heavy region of the country and concentrate on developing the area's commercial potential?  Whatever tactics you decide on, there's a genuine sense of evolution during the game.  I love watching the rail lines, cities and production routes develop.  The board, Railway Track hexes and Action Tiles all contribute to the sensation that players are olde tyme rail barons out to make a fast buck.  

Unfortunately, the rest of the components do very little to enhance this theme.  The cute l'il train tokens featured in the sessions photographs are a misnomer since Andrew had to buy them separately.  In fact, the "trains" included with the game are small, round, flat, lame-looking colored wooden discs.  Also a tad weak-sauce are the nondescript "Goods Cubes" which are supposed to represent the vagaries of "long term delivery contracts".  *YAWN!*  If the designers had opted to use representations of "real" raw materials instead, this would have been a lot more evocative.

Regardless of my issues with the components, this is still a rich, immersive gaming experience that will have you chomping at the bit for your turn to come back around.  In fact, when it comes to jacking up your opponents with New City tiles or heading someone off at the pass with a series of deviously-played track segments I get the impression that we've only begun to scratch the strategic surface.        

While you're playing it, Steam certainly builds up a head of its namesake and I'm pleased to award the game five pips out of six on the ol' Die-O-Meter!

Want an excuse to dress up like a conductor and throw your friends out of a second story window after they fail to produce their "ticket" on demand?  Well, right now you're shit outta luck 'cuz Steam appears to be out of print.  Keep watching this space for an update!