|
-
Chief EGG Head
United States
-
Last weekend was one of EGG's Game Days. We had the biggest turnout ever with well over 40 people, that's pretty darn good for a sunny, summer Saturday in Oregon!
The geeklist is here EGG Game Day June 25 games played with contributions from attendees.
The highlight of the day for me was being able to play the prototype Age of Industry Expansion #1: Japan and Minnesota. I believe the maps are shipping soon (fingers crossed). AoI has taken a while to grow on me. It's big brother Brass has been one of my all time favorites since KenH first taught me how to play. The first few times I played AoI, I wasn't that impressed because Brass just seemed to do everything so much better. After a few more plays and adjusting my strategies I began to appreciate AoI for itself and the fact that it may be slightly easier for new players to learn. The original maps are fine but it was great to see the new ones.
First we played Japan. The main differences here are that track is worth $3 instead of $2 and the number of shipyards that can be built. In addition coal and iron seem much less important since the shipyards allow a lot more free importation of those resources. I had some difficulty formulating a long term strategy with this map. Jeff aggressively went after shipyards followed by Gordon (who was playing his first game) in building shipyards. I initially built a port in the north but Jeff beat me to the shipyard and I kind of floundered from there. I got caught in a loan death spiral having to take loans to pay my interest and never recovered still carrying 1 loan to the end of the game. Gordon built some key rails in the middle of the map with lots of points on both ends and this carried him to the win, just edging out Jeff. The $3 track is more lucrative for sure in the end game.
The Minnesota map is has some key changes to the basic rules as well. Certain areas/colors give different benefits. The brown iron range of Northern Minnesota put an extra cube on iron mills built there and pay an extra $2 income when flipped. The blue areas let you build cotton mills without using coal as hydropower is used instead. Coal can only come from the demand track to be used as a resource and coal can only be built in Chicago. Distant markets accept iron. The entire Chicago area counts in the end game as one large area for purposes of calculating the value of the rail links. The Twin Cites area counts as separate ones. The biggest change is that iron and coal can only be sold to the distant market as part of a sell goods action.
Jeff and I played a 2 player game. We didn't remove any cards at the beginning of the game but the next time I play a 2 player game I will take out 10 or so cards, otherwise the game is not as interesting in the final round or two because everything has been built. Still this was a hard fought game and with the selling of coal, iron and cotton some huge profits were made. Jeff again somehow managed to make the most of the shipyards but I think I bested him in cotton mills. We both sold the same amount of coal and iron. I eked out a win because I think I started making profits a little sooner than Jeff or perhaps due to my familiarity with Minnesota having lived there...at least that was Jeff's theory 
|
|
|
