Are you thinking about becoming a travel agent? Are you sure? Before you set your feet on the path of this wonderful career let me tell you a tale of four travel agents, Dan, Wade, Allen, and Jason. And there attempts to control the tourist trade on the small tropical Island of Azule. This is but the first portion of the story, going only through the first hurricane season but it will give you an Idea of the trials and tribulations that you may face.
(note: sentences that end with a number in () will be show be explained in game terms after the session report)

It all started so wonderfully with a mutual agreement of compromise and hope with Jason opening up Fass Peninsula to the tourist trade with much promotion. Unfortunately his power of persuasion or some crappy flyers didn’t bring the interest that he had hoped and only one tourist came to his call(1) This was not a problem for the slick talking, fast moving Dan who expounded upon the virtues of the tropical climate, wonderful shore and the wonderful chance of seeing schools of dolphins at Fass Peninsula and so many a tourist did come.(2)

Meanwhile Wade was gathering his financial resources in order to make a push towards opening the center beaches for the tourist trade, as well as hoping to fool those suckers into buying cheep rum, sandals, and booze.(3) with the purchase of a rickety “dock”.(4) Allen opened the western portion of the island and mango grove with much fanfare and the hope of successfully capturing the hearts and minds of the travelers of the world with the thoughts of mangos, cliffs and the obligatory beaches. Alas he too failed at convincing the world that mango groves was the place to go and Dan once again swooped down and captured the market with his slick talk and most stimulating multi media slide show presentation, (5).

This pattern continued with nay a pause. Wade focusing on selling the suxers, uhmm.. tourists cheap rum, inexpensive sandals and the most expensive crap trinkets you could possible imagine and receiving the local Azule currency known as (VP), Jason and Allen opening up tourist spots and then Dan, the much more experienced travel agent, scooping in and stealing there tourist trade and when that wasn’t working sending his agents to encourage jellyfish swarms, shark attacks and dysentery in any province that he didn’t control(6). There was danger and clouds growing on the horizon however with Jason giving Dan false weather reports(7) and Allen praying to the hurricane gods for a hurricane to wipe the smile off the smug face(8) of Dan, the travel agent extraordinaire, Dan seeing the growing clouds and even worse the growing danger of Allen and Jason started a massive building project on the east coast of Azule, with a hurricane spot plane and massive levees to reassure his valued customers(9) that there truly was no danger, not on Azule, Hurricanes? Pshhaw.. Those never hit this part of the island but just in case…. And so finally with much suppressed glee Jason and Allen got there wish and a Category 3 hurricane came rolling in on of course the east side of the island that was controlled by Dan.(10), But the much more experienced Dan’s renovation and urban renewal projects succeeded at keeping his wonderful customers safe and was reward with much more of the local currency(VP). (11). And thus ended the first hurricane season in the island of Azule. There were two more and Dan did finally get is come upence with Wade the cheap peddler of goods rising from obscurity to be the master of the tourist trade in the Island of Azule but that my friends is another story for another day.(12)

So now that the story is done this is how the game is played.

The game is a card driven game (CDG) in development by Wade Broadhead (denverarch) , in which just like in most of these types of games, the cards are used to purchase stuff, trade stuff or play the card as an event. Unlike most though Ops points need not apply. This is the gist of the mechanics. Each turn you are allowed to do four actions. Which are draw a card , purchase an item, trade trade-goods cards or play a card as an event. You can do multiples of any of theses choices. That in a nut shell is the game there is more too it of course but this gives you an idea of the game.

(1) Jason opened up the game by playing three cards from his hand to purchase the land, and place one tourist. (this is an area control game, only having one tourist was a bad idea and it was ripe for a take over.

(2)Dan did just that he played 2 tourist cards and took control over that section of the island.

(3)Wade did a different strategy he spent his first few turns just drawing cards. And

(4)build an expensive dock on turn one(6 cards) which increased the value of his trade goods, then started trading every chance he got

(5)Once again someone purchased land without the tourists to back it up, and once again Dan swooped and and grabed it.

(6)Then the game proceeded every time Jason or Allen tryed to get a foothold dan would play "screw your neighbor" cards like jellyfish and shark scare to scare off there tourists and keep control for himself
(7)Jason started to get a grasp of the game and played cloud cards on the zones Dan had the most tourist. In this game you place clouds in certain zones of the map, increasing the odds that the hurricane will hit that portion of the island. In this instance Jason played a card to move a cloud to a zone controlled by Dan in order to increase the probability of the hurricane hitting Dans portion of the island

(8)Allen mean time was playing every cloud card he could get in and placing them again on Dans portion of the islands in hopes that he could get the hurricane to come before Dan was ready for it.

(9)Dan seeing the danger started building leevees and a hurricane spot plane which increaces the odds of his tourist suviving and him getting point for there survival. Each improve ment decreased the die roll for him to roll by one. He placed almost the max of 3 so he had to roll a 4,5,6 to escape destruction if his portion of the island was hit.

(10)Allen played the 6th cloud and a hurricane was formed. he rolled the die and becuause all but one of the clouds was in dans area all he had to roll was greater then one to hit the area of his choice.If had rolled a 1 however the hurricane would of hit him instead because the other cloud was in his section of the island.

(11)The hurricane hit dans improved portion of the island and he rolled a 4 just succedding and keeping the hurricane from causing his tourist to flee and earning VP for the tourist that stayed.

(12)This ended the first of 3 hurricane rounds Dan was in the lead but with this games screw your neighbor mentatlity this wasnt for long. Wade won out in the end.