Game: Age of Steam Expansion - Austria, Switzerland & The Netherlands

Thread: Age of Steam Netherlands session report

dedefortin — 2008-04-29T03:02:21+00:00

With 6 players the choice of maps is more limited and the Netherlands map was our choice for tonight. We had good experience in our last games on this map with many new rules that keeps the essence of the basic game. Adrien was trying this map for a first time. Adrien (and the other players) had a tough time when trying to figure out the relation between the map and the demand display but that's one of the fun part of this expansion.

On turn 1 Adrien took a big risk when he decided not to take any share. He was lucky since there was still a free link available when it was his turn to build even if he was last. Mario did remember the last game on this map and choose the engineer action and builded two links. Mario started in the west, Nathalie and Pierre in the Amsterdam region, Marc-Andre in the center and MArtin in the eastern area. Adrien finally decided to take 2 shares on turn 2. The battle was fierce around Amsterdam and only Pierre and Marc-Andre managed to build toward the eastern part of the map. We soon realized that Adrien was missing our company since he was absent for 2 or 3 weeks and he decided to make a new friend in Mario when he blocked him in the western region. Mario wasn't sure about the intention of his new friend. Adrien then won the initiative on turn 4 and again choose the first build action. Marc-Andre was happy that the loco action was still available and he then took the lead. Turn 5 was very exciting as MArc-Andre started the bet at 15$ as he didn't think that Martin would bet all his money but he was wrong. As expected Martin choose the loco action and was able to catch up Marc-Andre. On last turn Martin took the swap action to harm Marc-Andre since the game was very close at this stage. Pierre had a quiet game but he made big deliveries in the end.

We had a very close game and interaction was great. There is space enough for many players. The new rules are easy to learn and there are well adapted for the thematic of the Netherlands map. For the first time in our AoS playing history 3 players were tied for first place !

Final score:
Marc-Andre: 69
Martin: 69
Pierre: 69
Nathalie: 67
Mario: 65
Adrien: 58

Thread: Age of Steam Switzerland session report

dedefortin — 2008-04-20T18:35:03+00:00

Switzerland is one of our favorite two players map. This Winsome map wasn't made at first for 2 players game but after some tries on it it worked very well. Even if the map is larger than usual for 2 players map, there is many mountains hex that give less room to build a big network. So we used the rules for this map combining them with the 2 players turn order rule from the Austria map.

Martin began the game in connecting Basel and Chaud de Fonds through a purple urbanization at Biel. Pierre had to take the first build action to build to deny Martin urbanizing in the powerful Zurich region. On turn 2 Pierre took the locomotive action but Martin saw that Pierre was up for some nice shippings so he took the first build action to deny Pierre in connecting the purple city of Biel. On turn 3 Martin took the loco action expecting big deliveries but as in the precedent turn Pierre took the first build action so Martin couldn't connect Solothorn. So Martin was forced to make 2 deliveries of 2 income each so he wouldn't back up on the income track. If someone ever tells me that the first build action is not useful when playing Age of Steam, I'll invite him in one of our games. Pierre had the initiative on turn 4 and 5 and he took the urbanization action twice so Martin wouldn't urbanize Solothorn to complete his network. So Pierre urbanized around the Zug area to give him some nice loops. This was a hard blow to Martin's game but when playing against him a game is never won until the final score is set. At the end of the game Pierre again was able to choose the urbanization action and put a new city on Biel and was able to connect it through Berne.

Again we had a high tension game. Each turn is critical and it's important to take a look at the other player possible move. Switzerland is definitly one of the best map for 2 players in our group. Very nice discovery that we made.

Final score:
Pierre: 112
Martin: 96

Image

d0gb0t — 2008-01-17T21:45:39+00:00

Image

d0gb0t — 2008-01-17T21:44:52+00:00

End of a 2 player game with my selfmade austria map version

Image

d0gb0t — 2008-01-17T21:43:47+00:00

Thread: Age of Steam Switzerland session report

dedefortin — 2008-01-03T23:29:55+00:00

This was day of experiment so after modifiyng the Japan so it can be played with 2 players, it was Switzerland's map turn. In our last game on the Switzerland, we were 4 players and it was very tight and the southern part of the map was almost skip for building since it was too expensive to become profitable. This gave Martin and I the idea of trying this map with 2 players, and guess what, we would play this map with the turn order rule of Austria. No other modification of the rule was necessary since some parts of the map, especially in the south, are so expensive that we were not anxious about having too much space.

Pierre began the game with the urbanization action and a link between Lausanne and Berne and Martin started in the east with engineer action and he was able to connect many cities. On turn 2 we both took 3 shares and Martin had a great turn when he was already able to ship 2 goods for 3 income each. The game was beginning to be exciting when Pierre tried to deny Martin in linking Basel but Martin took the first build action and then Pierre urbanized this important town. Fighting continued on turn 4 when Martin took the loco action because he tought that he would connect La Chaud des Fonds and make 2 deliveries of 4 income but Pierre choose the first build action to connect Aaron first and deny Martin in connecting the green city. Game was pretty tight at this stage and we took our last 2 shares available. In retaliation for the last build of Pierre, Martin placed a complex tile north of Basel so Pierre couldn't make a nice loop in this region that would have give him an edge. I don't remember the last game where we were left with almost no money to begin a turn but this was the case today. Pierre couldn't continue one of his link that he builded earlier to block Martin so Martin took control of some of these links and that was one of the main reason why he won the game by slight margin. We were so close that the final scoring was decided by number of tracks.

This is the most exciting 2 players game we ever had. There was continual fighting over the main choke points and no player had it easy. First build action was vital and we were both near bankruptcy. We made almost no modification and it worked great for a 2 players game. I strongly recommend this map for players who're looking for a good 2 players map.

Final score:
Martin: 99
Pierre: 93

Thread: Re: Austria building question

John Bohrer — 2007-05-08T13:53:06+00:00

Please see
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/165056

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Austria building question

lexen — 2007-05-06T18:47:04+00:00

To build, Pay 4 to place or replave track. only finished track may be build.
When we played we used the normal 3 or 4 with engineer rule so you could build up to 3(4) tiles as long as the connections were completed.

The board filled up very fast every time we played so that halfway during the game nothing much could be build anymore.... (with the exception of a urbanisation and then build towards that)

Most of the time building the 5 link town was impossible because there is no 4 link town to upgrade from. and building the 5 link proved very difficult because of this...

So are we playing this right or are we doing something wrong?
thanks fr any info
Cheers
lexen

Thread: Re: So, how about Switzerland?

John Bohrer — 2007-04-07T15:09:06+00:00

When I license off either expansion, Isaac, you will be the first to know!

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: So, how about Switzerland?

Verkisto — 2007-04-05T18:54:43+00:00

Austria's going to be reprinted with three other SteamBrothers maps, and the Netherlands is now available through Spielbox ... will Switzerland become more available to Age of Steam nuts any time soon?

For that matter, how about the Eastern US and Canada map?

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

John Bohrer — 2007-04-01T13:13:08+00:00

stray_flux wrote:
John Bohrer wrote:
We will gladly send off replacement rules, but only to those who reserved and bought one of the 80 numbered sets from us at Essen. You did not. Nice try, fella...

I guess if you buy this off someone else you loose the right to get replacement rules... hmm...

Not at all. Each game has a serial number on the front. Simply tell us the serial number and we will contact the original owner and confirm the sale.

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

stray_flux — 2007-04-01T04:20:24+00:00

John Bohrer wrote:
We will gladly send off replacement rules, but only to those who reserved and bought one of the 80 numbered sets from us at Essen. You did not. Nice try, fella...

I guess if you buy this off someone else you loose the right to get replacement rules... hmm...

Thread: Age of Steam Netherlands session report

dedefortin — 2007-03-30T02:50:55+00:00

We all remember our last game on this map and it,s why we we're anxious to play it tonight. We really had a tough time on our first play and most of the players tonight were decided in not making the same mistakes they made last time. The rules look quite simple at first look but as the game progresses it's becoming very challenging. The small map that show the type of good that you can ship makes your decision harder as this new mechanic is not always obvious at the beginning. We hope that we would be able to control our play better than our first game.

Most of the setup of goods was made of purple and yellow goods. Most players didn't take many shares as they remember their last experience on this map. Nathalie started the bets at 2 and Pierre followed at 3. The other players went down as they didn't have enough money. Pierre choose the important engineer action to connect 2 cities to allow him to make a shipment for 2 income. Pierre and Marc-Andre started in the Amsterdam area, Martin in the center, Nathalie and Mario in the east and Sophie in the south. As soon as round 2 Martin and Marc-Andre took no additional shares and they put high pressure on the other players. We knew that it could be a turning point with the kind of map we were playing tonight, money is the key to win on Netherlands. So on turn 3 every players made an effort and nobody took additional shares, and it stayed this way for the rest of the game as no more shares was taken. Marc-Andre and Martin had the lead at this time. Sophie was shocked again when some of her cities demand good were swapped. She tought that she would live in peace in her area but with the kind of players we have around this table you know they wouldn't let you alone, they care too much for you On turn 5 the bets went very high and even Pierre had to overbid his turn order at 9$. The leaders were now being catch by the rest of the group and the pace of the game suddenly became very slow as we all studied the demand map carefully. Action like additional income and first move were almost as important as the loco action or swapping action. Even if Martin had a loco of 3 only he managed his way into the leading group.

As said earlier tight money was the key for the win. Marc-André and Martin understood this right form the start and he spend his money very carefully in the beginning and it paid him. This map was appreciated as the new mechanic are working well with this thematic. There is enough spaces for everyone and even if there always seems to be too many goods on the map it's very challenging as you're trying to make the most out of your loco. It's useless to pay for a high loco if you cannot ship with his full potential. This was our second game on this map and we still haven't find most of the tricks so it should be back soon on our table.

Final scoring:
Marc-Andre: 76
Pierre: 71
Martin: 67
Nathalie: 59
Mario: 51
Sophie: 49

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria map, new edition by the Steambrothers

jmilum — 2007-03-16T00:02:07+00:00

d0gb0t wrote:
a special hex tile for the austria map? can anybody show me how it looks like?

you can see it here (blue town, 5 exits as cortex said)

]]>

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria map, new edition by the Steambrothe

CortexBomb — 2007-03-15T14:59:20+00:00

It's a dedicated 5 exit town marker.

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria map, new edition by the Steambrothe

d0gb0t — 2007-03-15T08:01:04+00:00

hi all,

a special hex tile for the austria map? can anybody show me how it looks like?

greetz
der ingo

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

caesarmom — 2007-03-11T15:09:29+00:00

John Bohrer wrote:
caesarmom wrote:
Suffice it to say that I've been crying myself to sleep about it every night since October...

Gee, Mom, we all feel really bad about this... So the really nice guys at the Steam Brothers are sticking Austria into their next set of maps (they are such good boys) just so you will not keep crying yourself to sleep every night. You can order it right now at Boards & Bits:
http://mustbuygames.com/product_info.php?products_id=19771
The quantity is limited, so try to get your order in soonest, OK?, and get a good night's sleep.

John
Pittsburgh

Thanks! Already pre-ordered. Yay!!!!

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

John Bohrer — 2007-03-08T21:59:20+00:00

RoSKoMaNTe wrote:
Thank you very much, John, I'm going to pre-order right now.

Ciao,
S.

The Steam Brothers deserve all the thanks, Sergio. They are the folks doing the nifty Steam Brothers graphics and all that hard manufacturing work!
I hope you enjoy their new set of games, I personally love the Mexico expansion, it is one of my favorites.

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

RoSKoMaNTe — 2007-03-08T12:47:18+00:00

Thank you very much, John, I'm going to pre-order right now.

Ciao,
S.

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria map, new edition by the Steambrothers

dedefortin — 2007-03-06T05:46:50+00:00

Hi Isaac
Yes the special hex tile will be included in this kit.

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria map, new edition by the Steambrothe

Verkisto — 2007-03-05T21:26:32+00:00

Didn't the original release of Austria include a special hex tile? Will that be included with this release?

Thread: Age of Steam Austria map, new edition by the Steambrothers

dedefortin — 2007-03-04T04:30:01+00:00

Steambrothers is proud to announce the release of their new expansions maps for Age of Steam.

This edition will include 4 new maps: Mexico, India, Spain/Portugal
and Winsome’s Austria map (which was available only at Essen 2005). This last map combines the excellent 2-player rule set John Bohrer with the Steambrothers' design. Many thanks to John for his incredible support!

Austria and the 3 other maps of this kit will only be available at our excellent partner, Boards & Bits (www.boardsandbits.com).

Enjoy!

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

John Bohrer — 2007-03-03T20:14:53+00:00

caesarmom wrote:
Suffice it to say that I've been crying myself to sleep about it every night since October...

Gee, Mom, we all feel really bad about this... So the really nice guys at the Steam Brothers are sticking Austria into their next set of maps (they are such good boys) just so you will not keep crying yourself to sleep every night. You can order it right now at Boards & Bits:
http://mustbuygames.com/product_info.php?products_id=19771
The quantity is limited, so try to get your order in soonest, OK?, and get a good night's sleep.

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

CortexBomb — 2007-03-03T19:38:39+00:00

Well, so far this is known:

Austria is being reprinted as part of the new Steam Brothers 4 map set.

I'm also assuming that the AoS map that is going to be packaged with Spielbox is going to be one of the two remaining maps from this set, as that map is confirmed to be one of John's designs, and I would be surprised to see him actually give away a fully tested, previously unreleased map simply as a promotional item.

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

caesarmom — 2007-01-29T14:22:44+00:00

If you're compiling a wait list, please add me as well! I was extremely disappointed to miss out on the 2-player map last year but consoled myself with the knowledge that it should be picked up by Warfrog for an Essen 2006 release. Suffice it to say that I've been crying myself to sleep about it every night since October...

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

John Bohrer — 2007-01-22T14:41:51+00:00

Sorry for the delay, guys, I should have some information in a few weeks, OK?

Thread: Re: Now that Essen is over...

RoSKoMaNTe — 2007-01-17T12:37:24+00:00

John,

please... we are waiting for words from you.

Ciao,
S.

Thread: Age of Steam Switzerland session report

dedefortin — 2006-11-14T03:54:11+00:00

Switzerland map was the only map we didn't play from this expansion from Winsome game. Netherlands on Austria had some special rules that added a great challenge to this great game and we expected the same feeling with Switzerland. At first look the map looked very tough with many restrictive hexes, the cost to build is also greater than the basic rules.

I supposed that's why we all took additional shares to begin the game and we did the right thing. Martin won the first bet and choose locomotive and made 2 nice deliveries for 4 income. Martin began with the link Zurich- Basel, Mario started east of Zurich, Nathalie began in Geneva and Pierre from La Chaud de Fond. On turn 2 players were all short on money and they had to take 3 shares. Martin began to build a very nice network that would make many nice loops and at the same time he blocked Nathalie in attempting to go east toward Zurich. Nathalie fought back in next turn and she pass in front of Martin and she was able to connect Zurich by taking first build, at the same time she made a kill on Martin when she didn't allow him to finish his nice loops. martin was still able to do a nice network but it wasn't as efficient as he planned. During this time Pierre continued his network toward Geneva and on turn 4 he betted high to have loco action and make 2 deliveries of 5 income. He was forced to give some income to Nathalie but it seemed inevitable on this map as there is not much room to build. At this moment we all had a hard time as the costs were still very high and the income wasn't very high. We all had to take many shares and we were at 15 shares very fast. First move became very important in some turns as ressources were becoming very scarce and the production didn't produce much in 3 consecutive rounds. Pierre was the only player to make some money in the end and he was able to buy back some shares as one the new rule allowes it.

As expected the game was very tough and we will need more try on this map to fully exploit it. 4 players seems to be the maximum number of player, I'm anxous to try this map with 3 players. As money was very scarce we were not able to build in the southern part of the map. I suppose we'll have to learn some more tricks in playing Age of Steam so we do enough money to allow us to build in this region. Maybe that's why we had such a tough time in the north as people didn't put enough effort in building to the south. The green cities are very important as they allow you to ship goods of any color to these cities. Zurich region is interesting at start as there are many cities that you can connect in one turn. That's when you play this kind of map that you feel that there is still lot of things to learn in this game. This proves that AoS still has this great replayability specially with these kind of maps.

Final scoring:
Pierre: 87
Mario: 63
Martin: 62
Nathalie: 55

Thread: Now that Essen is over...

boomtron — 2006-10-25T01:07:33+00:00

Jon,

Can we look forward to these maps being reprinted?

Waiting expectantly,

Luke

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria session report

medievalbanquet — 2006-10-05T17:21:40+00:00

Cool, thanks guys!

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria session report

dedefortin — 2006-10-05T16:34:27+00:00

Hi Andrew
You can take a look on ebay.de . Right now that's the only way to find them. But as Karl has written, you should wait for some news from John Bohrer after Essen.

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria session report

krainer — 2006-10-05T16:23:12+00:00

Don't give up hope yet... the issue of AoS expansion boards being officially published/republished has not completely bitten the dust. From what I understand, some rights issues are being settled and some new boards and reprints still have a decent chance at being produced. John Bohrer of Winsome expects to have some news after Essen this year, according to some of his posts here on BGG.

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria session report

medievalbanquet — 2006-10-05T14:29:27+00:00

deacondavid wrote:
If memory serves, this was one of the Winsome set from last year's Essen. Sadly, Warfrog have decided not to publish any more expansions for Age of Steam, so you'll have pry someone's hands off of one of the 80 that were made. Of course, we can hope that some other arrangement for a second edition could be reached (since I would really like to try the two-player Austria map), but I am not holding my breath...

Thanks David. It's what I thought, sadly.

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria session report

deacondavid — 2006-10-05T14:20:07+00:00

If memory serves, this was one of the Winsome set from last year's Essen. Sadly, Warfrog have decided not to publish any more expansions for Age of Steam, so you'll have pry someone's hands off of one of the 80 that were made. Of course, we can hope that some other arrangement for a second edition could be reached (since I would really like to try the two-player Austria map), but I am not holding my breath...

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Austria session report

medievalbanquet — 2006-10-05T11:25:32+00:00

Good report. Anyone know where I can get this map?

Thanks,
Andy

Thread: Age of Steam Austria session report

dedefortin — 2006-10-05T04:25:17+00:00

This was our second play for this 2 players map. We appreciated our first game and as there isn't many maps for this number of players we gave it another try.

On turn 1 Pierre had the initiative and he choose loco. action and Martin took first build to block Pierre from building the Vienne/Linz connection. Instead Pierre began with the Graz/Klagenfort link. Next round Martin choose loco but Pierre took first build action and denied Martin the Linz/Salzburg link. This was a hard blow to Martin and it took him several turns to recover as he had to wait until next turn to build this link. Pierre's network was split in two but he was finally able to connect them when he urbanize a purple new city east of Vienna. On turn 5 Pierre urbanize a black new city NW of Link and he made 2 deliveries of 6 income. During this time Martin took first build to connect Innsbruck and make deliveries at 5 income. Game was close and when Martin was kind enough to push Pierre ahead of him to have a bigger income reduction, there was only a 1 points difference at this time. Last production was very important as Pierre's cities received many goods to make nice deliveries of 5 and 6 income.

Even if Martin made a nice comeback Pierre finally win the game because he had many points from his money left at the end since there was 1 point for each 20$ left at the end. Second experience on this map was great again. As in game 1 there was no room for error as in a chess play. Game went very fast even if there was many tough choices to do. Seems to have a great replayability and we'll try it again soon.

Final scoring:
Pierre: 160
Martin: 140

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

RoSKoMaNTe — 2006-09-30T12:30:57+00:00

Thank you very much, John.

Ciao,
S.

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

John Bohrer — 2006-09-29T11:10:13+00:00

Hi Guys,
Regarding a further print run of this expansion, I will know more after I get back from Essen in late October. Just hold on for another month and I will have some news, OK?
John

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

RoSKoMaNTe — 2006-09-25T07:44:03+00:00

Hi.

I quite quote Luke's sentence.

I want, as many others, only a chance of buying and playing the new maps. Printed by you (with a bold "SECOND SAD EDITION" sentence), by Warfrog or by anyone else.

I didn't buy this maps in Essen 2005 (my fault, I decided to wait for the reprint) and I'm late for this year's ones.

So, are we condemned to never play Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Eastern US and Canada?

John, please HELP!

Ciao,
S.

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

boomtron — 2006-09-22T16:59:05+00:00

Hey John,

Is there any chance of these getting reprinted, by Warfrog or anyone else? Im a big fan, and I have all the other published map sets, but Im worried that this one might not become available.

Thanks
Luke

Thread: Age of Steam Austria session report

dedefortin — 2006-09-21T03:32:29+00:00

Since Pierre and Martin had the chance to play together we decided to try the Austria map. It seems bizarre but it's rare that we can play games with 2 players only. The map is very small and the new rules are very simple.

Even tough, there was deep strategy right at the start of the game. Pierre was first on turn 1 and choose loco but this wasn't a good decision since he din't have much money left and this blocked him in second turn. Martin was able to take the lead very soon with this error from Pierre. Pierre tried hard to come back but Martin played an almost perfect game. Money was very scarce and even on turn 4 we had 3$ and 6$ to build and pay expenses. Then Pierre tried to cut Martin's network in two but during this time Martin was able to connect important cities in the east with many goods. Instead it was Pierre who had a split network. We played so many games of AoS and we return too often to bad habits of trying to block the other players instead of playing the best for you. Hope this time I've learn my lesson.

We really like this map. It's the first time we played such a good scenario with 2 players. We appreciate the fact that we were able to plan our game 1 ot 2 turns in advance because you were able to know which player had the initiative for the next turn. There was some hard thinking like a chess game but were surprised to see how fast it went.

Final scoring;
Martin: 1st place
Pierre: last place

Thread: Age of Steam Netherlands session report

dedefortin — 2006-09-21T03:07:29+00:00

Tonight everybody seemed ready to try a new map of Age of Steam. We had no idea what kind of game we would have since we didn't heard many comments. Netherland map can be played with 7 players but we were only 5 for this game. The map is very small and we even had some doubts at first of how we would be able to play with so many players on this map. You're able to build 1 link per turn but you must be careful at the beginning because money is scarce and you don't want to take too many shares since it will cost you many victory points at the final scoring.

Martin was the only player to issue 2 shares on round 1 and it was bad for him since he took the loco. action but he could only build 1 link. Pierre had a good start with the engineer and loco on turn 2. The bids were very low during the first turns. Even if they were in the last places there seemed to be good action left for these players.Mario started in the west, Pierre and Marc-Andre in the center, Martin and Nathalie began in the east. We found it tough to build only 1 link per turn. Many players continue their build in the center of the map where there are many interesting cities with many goods available and there is no turn order action. On turn 3, Nathalie pushed Mario to 11 income but she said she was sorry, she didn't intend to do an evil move On turn 4 Pierre was able to ship 2 goods for 5 income each and was the leader at this time. Pierre didn't push hard enough and was passed by Mario who took first build to build in front of Pierre who was forced to give income to other players until the end of the game to make big shipments. At this time no one nedded to issue share and money was plentiful, we never tought this moment would arrive so soon with such a tough start. With his nice network and Nathalie who was giving him 1 income for each shipment Mario had a good lead and he was able to take the action that allow him to swap the color of 2 cities. So it was benific for him and the same time he could block other players. Marc scroed big in the end when he builded long link to make many victory points and passes Pierre for second place.

We really appreciate this new map. Interaction was great and we had to use the other players tracks often. The new actions are very simple but fit this map very well. This map is very tough since you're so close to other players that you have to think longer before making any decisions. We're not used of looking at the small map provided in this expansion that show you the color of each city. Everybody definitly wants to play this challenging map again soon. As in other excellent AoS expansion maps it was almost like a new game for us where we keep the good basic rules.

Final scoring:
Mario: 103
Marc-André: 89
Pierre: 82
Nathalie: 81
Martin: 70

Image

BigWoo — 2006-09-15T11:10:43+00:00

Age of Steam - Expansions Austria, Switzerland & The Netherlands (Winsome edition)

Thread: Re: Austria

John Bohrer — 2006-06-15T02:30:25+00:00

eratos wrote:
I feel I should apologise for a comment I made regarding Winsome games stance on publishing rules to their games. I remain somewhat disappointed that John would not supply me with replacement rules for my copy of the game, but he claims he would do so if I had bought my copy directly from him in Essen. As I bought my copy through an unofficial deal this didn't help me.

If you had one of the 80 numbered sets and if you told me the serial number, I would have known who the original owner was, asked them if they sold it and then sent you the rules. Note that the Austria rules are on the same sheet of paper as the Switzerland/Holland rules. You can't lose 'just the Austria' rules!

Well, given your ardor for the game, I can't be too upset if you bootlegged it. Your girlfriend Polly sounds pretty sharp, too. Lucky guy.

I will put you on my contact list for reservations for next Essen's Winsome set, if you are going to Essen. It looks like we will have two new AoS expansions (don't ask me about them until September, when we announce them to Spielbox) plus two new games, one by Hanno Kuhn and one by Han Heidema.

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Austria

eratos — 2006-06-13T22:10:07+00:00

Well, my girlfriend finally finished marking her allocation of SAT papers, and having not played a game for some time was up for something meaty - she suggested Age of Steam. I have been dying to try out the official 2-player variety of this great game, and we were not disappointed. This shines well over and above the unofficial 2-player variants for other maps, and is well worth your pennies.

I started with a 3 hex link from Wien to Graz which goes through 2 towns, which coupled with the locomotive action taken saw me make 2 shipments for 3 on the first turn (You get 3 opportunities to move goods per turn on this map, not 2).

This did admittedly burn up a lot of my starting capital (You start with 15$ and never issue any shares - this does have the side effect of keeping expenses down of course) but I was confident that the extra income would be useful. In fact, with each track build costing 4$, the extra income wasn't immeidately useful, but come turn 3 I was able to start outbuilding my opponent.

Mid game where Polly had her double-turn (With no turn order auction in the 2-player game you simply have the 'initiative' alternate except on the 5th turn, so the first player to act goes ABABBABA over the course of the 8 turns) she made an amazing build, uding a 3-way town to connect up Innsbruck with a foreign market (this map's replacement for urbanisation) and also connect to Salzburg in the same turn. As you aren't allowed to leave unifinished track, this move totally flabbergasted me, and allowed Polly to quickly reach shipments of 5 or 6 where I struggled to find a 6 for the entire game.

The pivotal turn was turn 7 where I got somewhat greedy, opting for Engineer in order to build an extra point's worth of track, not realising that permissible track placements were somewhat thin on the ground. With Polly building first, she played exactly where I had in mind, then to my horror I realised that with the special town-5 tile already used, there were no more legal builds on the entire map!

This turned out to be crucial as Polly finished 1 income ahead of me, equal on money (20$ = 1VP at the end of the game - although I finished with more money it wasn't enough for a point) and had ultimately placed 1 more track piece than me, giving her the win 162-158.

I feel I should apologise for a comment I made regarding Winsome games stance on publishing rules to their games. I remain somewhat disappointed that John would not supply me with replacement rules for my copy of the game, but he claims he would do so if I had bought my copy directly from him in Essen. As I bought my copy through an unofficial deal this didn't help me. Still, I have now had the chance to play my copy of the game, and find it truly impressive. Impressive enough that should this 2-player map be reprinted by Warfrog or another company I will glady pick it up at this year's Essen.

(Edited as I remembered the final VP score wrongly)

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SkiBoy — 2006-05-11T12:34:53+00:00

Austria Map - Getting crowded around Vienna!!

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

John Bohrer — 2006-05-11T02:16:51+00:00

eratos wrote:
It gets worse - you can't even get replacement rules from anywhere if you lose your copy. I really and truly can't understand not even having replacement rule sheets for sale! How much effort would it be to print off another page of A4 and mail it to the UK?

We will gladly send off replacement rules, but only to those who reserved and bought one of the 80 numbered sets from us at Essen. You did not. Nice try, fella...

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

eratos — 2006-05-03T08:01:50+00:00

It gets worse - you can't even get replacement rules from anywhere if you lose your copy. I really and truly can't understand not even having replacement rule sheets for sale! How much effort would it be to print off another page of A4 and mail it to the UK?

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

lexen — 2006-04-02T14:49:53+00:00

Yes, 2 players are possible, in fact the AoS: Austria map is only for 2 players. The rules are supplied with the expansion.

if they only print 80 of these darn things it's very hard to get your hands on one...

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

woundwart — 2006-02-26T15:10:42+00:00

For an excellent list of AoS expansions see Cortex Bombs exhuastive list
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/5009

Thread: Re: 2 player possible?

John Bohrer — 2006-02-21T13:18:47+00:00

lexen wrote:
I was just wondering how the 2P gameflow works with this... and what the rule changes are to accomplish this.

Yes, 2 players are possible, in fact the AoS: Austria map is only for 2 players. The rules are supplied with the expansion.

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: 2 player possible?

lexen — 2006-01-11T15:09:01+00:00

I was just wondering how the 2P gameflow works with this... and what the rule changes are to accomplish this.

Thread: Re: Variant rules of the Austria map?

John Bohrer — 2005-12-22T13:31:45+00:00

masque wrote:

In a different thread, you label the character of some of the expansion maps (e.g. Resilience: Korea, Antiquity: Italy). What adjective would be adequate for the Austria map? (And, while I am at it, in what sense does the Italy map showcase Antiquity? I own the map, but don't quite get it.)

Thanks for the compliment, Mike. As for Italy's character, it is the most ancient region historically yet shown on our Winsome/Warfrog maps, dating to the Roman Empire 2000 years ago. The cities were all urbanized long before the advent of the railroads, so no Urbanization Action in the usual sense! No new cities are placed in the game. Instead, this action is the eternal quest to eliminate (or at least reduce) corruption. Of course, this quest is not limited to the history of Italy, but the Italians found the concept delightful and this map is for them. The most important element for me in my AoS maps is that the locals find it enjoyable and reflective of their national (or regional) character. I hope that you like Germany!

By the way, the definitive character of the new maps?
Austria: Empire
Switzerland: Finance
The Netherlands: Commerce

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Re: Variant rules of the Austria map?

masque — 2005-12-22T01:40:46+00:00

the rules are largely unique to the history of Austria in several ways

Thanks for answering, John. I really like how you try to capture the 'spleen' of the country in question just by tweaking the original Age of Steam system. This brings some subtle flavour to a game that can otherwise seem a little dry.

In a different thread, you label the character of some of the expansion maps (e.g. Resilience: Korea, Antiquity: Italy). What adjective would be adequate for the Austria map? (And, while I am at it, in what sense does the Italy map showcase Antiquity? I own the map, but don't quite get it.)

Cheers
Michael

Thread: Re: Variant rules of the Austria map?

John Bohrer — 2005-12-15T00:32:56+00:00

masque wrote:
Perhaps the new rules can be used/adapted for existing or 'scratch built' scenarios.

Cheers
Michael

Sorry, Mike, but the rules are largely unique to the history of Austria in several ways. For example, the cartography:
Austria is shown in its modern shape as is dictated by our policy, but during the development of the railroads Austria was a big empire. Consequently, I modified Urbanization to highlight, for example, routes from Hungary to Serbia, even though neither is explicitly shown on the map. It is hard to explain, but when you eventually see the game you shall understand.

John
Pittsburgh

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SkiBoy — 2005-11-11T21:09:31+00:00

Switzerland mao - end of game Zurich connections

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SkiBoy — 2005-11-11T21:09:31+00:00

Switzerland map - Near end of game

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SkiBoy — 2005-11-11T21:09:29+00:00

Switzerland map - after early placements

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SkiBoy — 2005-11-11T21:09:29+00:00

Switzerland map - Beginning of game

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Knut Krummnacker — 2005-10-16T15:19:07+00:00