Game: Age of Steam Expansion - North Eastern USA / South Africa

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Malachi — 2008-05-18T00:07:05+00:00

End of a 5 player game, yellow wins

Thread: Age of Steam South Africa session report

dedefortin — 2008-05-01T02:54:08+00:00

Another 6 players AoS map was needed for tonight and the South Africa expansion was choose. We played this map several times and it often results in very tight game as many players want to connect the middle city at the same time. This part of the map has many choke points and it's usually very exciting. The cities in this region ar every important since they have more goods and they give you some money when you connect them.

Thanks to Pierre, the set up of good was awful so it wasn't a surprise that Mario betted 6$ on turn 1 for the urbanization action. The set up was so tough that Pierre and Marc-Andre didn't ship any good on turn 1. The initial build of the player after the first round was the following: Mario in the northeast, Pierre in the east, Adrien in the southeast, Martin in the south, Marc-André in the southwest and Nathalie in the northwest region. Turn 2 was very suffering as there wasn't many interesting goods to ship. Adrien won the bet at 9$ for the urbanization that he placed right in the middle of the map, many of his neighbours were happy. This bet was tough on Adrien since he had to back up 3 at the end of the round. Mario was satisfied as he won the loco action with his second place. Everybody was struggling as there were still far from having a profitable company. The bets of turn 3 also went very high as Mario won the loco action for 9$ and shipped 2 goods for 4 income each and he was now well ahead with 16 income. Martin decided it was his turn to obtain the loco and he won it and made 2 big deliveries of 5 as he was able to have many nice loops as the networks of Marc-Andre and Mario. Many players still had a tough time as they had to take many shares to survive and continue their network. Marc-Andre was grateful when he finished in second place position with his turn order as Mario choose the urbanization action. Mario tought he had a shot for first place and he decided to urbanize Martin. This was probably the turning point as Mario didn't help himself much and he would regret this move in the last turns. The game was far from over as we had a classic battle for initiative between Mario and MArc-Andre as they bet all their money but Mario would win this auction and take loco to deny other players from taking it.

I didn't write much about Nathalie in this report but she had a quiet but efficient game with a nice network connecting many cities in the middle of the map even if she started in the Namibia region. She finalle won the game by a slight margin over MArtin. This was one of the toughest game we played on this and the money the players had to spend during the initiative round were very high.

Final scoring:
Nathalie: 63
Martin: 59
Mario: 50
Pierre: 48
Marc-Andre: 42
Adrien: 19

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mdu2boy — 2008-04-17T23:11:21+00:00

From Bobby Tweak's game night

Thread: Re: NE USA, Production

sgraber — 2007-04-29T12:26:47+00:00

We played a 6 player game on Friday evening without production and all the goods were gone by the end of the game. With 6 players, the map wasn't too crowded, and the map was a lot of fun, but production was defninitely needed.

Thread: Re: NE USA, Production

dedefortin — 2007-04-29T02:02:17+00:00

There is no Production on this map. The Production action is replaced by the speculation action.

Have fun

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: NE USA, Production

sgraber — 2007-04-25T21:32:07+00:00

Does this map play without any Production? Or does Speculation also include the Production option?

Thank you for your help,
Steve

Thread: Re: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

Malachi — 2007-04-05T22:38:18+00:00

Well, I need to figure out how to not want/need an extra turn or two.

Thread: Re: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

Verkisto — 2007-04-05T20:00:51+00:00

I need to figure out how not to flame out like I do. =P

Thread: Re: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

Malachi — 2007-04-05T03:13:53+00:00

Doh, I fixed the score error. Green had 103 not 104. I was working from memory when I wrote the report, since my pad was in the other room.

While you could have made my connection between black 3 and white 4 slightly more expensive (probably by $3), you couldn't have stopped me from getting it at all, and since it took me two turns to build anyway, I don't think it would have made a huge difference. You do need to develop your offensive building skills, though. They can be very valuable.

Thread: Re: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

sparr0 — 2007-04-05T02:56:21+00:00

For clarification, I wasnt quite as new to the AOS rules as my first-time-ness might imply, since I had played Railroad Tycoon once, and in retrospect they are extremely similar games.

I believe those scores are incorrect. At the end we observed that correcting the speculation mistake (see below) would have put me 3 points higher, leaving me one point behind Verkisto, so I am pretty sure I ended 4 points behind him, not sure if it was 104/108 or 103/107, but the scores you read aloud at the end of the game certainly were not 104/107.

Also, I did use Malachi's last-turn blue speculation for a 3 point net-gain, by making a blue 3+1 delivery instead of a red 4(me)+1(Verkisto) delivery.

In my defense, we played the Speculation rule incorrectly the first time I tried to use it, sticking me with a random color instead of my choice. This didn't cost me first, but it may have cost me second. I could have gotten one more income at the cost of giving Malachi one more as well, which would have put me a single point behind Verkisto at the end AND given me a few extra dollars in the mid game that I may have been able to turn into another few points somehow.

Now, as to strategy... I made the poor decision to compete directly with Verkisto at every turn in the early game. I should have branched off to the west as he went north instead of following. Getting there even a couple of turns sooner would have made it worthwhile for me to stop Malachi from locking up all of the delivery options on that side of the map. Also, at least twice I made poor decisions on track placement in cases where I could reach the same goal for the same price while cutting one of you off, including the Black3-White4 connection that Malachi shared with me.

All that said... I can't wait to play again. I have nothing to compare this map to, so I can't speak of it specifically, but I definitely enjoy AoS.

Thread: Re: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

Malachi — 2007-04-03T22:58:21+00:00

Hmm... I suppose, but you were getting to where I put C late in the game. I urbanized the red new city on the second turn of the game. =)

Thread: Re: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

Verkisto — 2007-04-03T20:47:21+00:00

I underestimated the usefulness of Urbanization on this map, since the red and purple cities were already dense in the west, and I didn't see much use in trying to do anything more than connect to one of each. In retrospect, I should have urbanized the town that turned in to the black C city to a red, thus giving me more options to move a red good.

On a side note, I think I'm getting better at placing my track in a more protective fashion. I should have worked harder at preventing you from locking me out Cincinnati, though.

Thread: NE USA: Decent 3 player map

Malachi — 2007-04-03T05:14:47+00:00

I played blue, verkisto played yellow, and sparr0 played green. Verkisto and I both have many games of AoS under our belt, but had never played this map. Sparr0 had never played AoS before. We managed the while thing in about two and a half hours, including rules overview.

Verkisto made a big push to up his link throughout the game. Both Sparr0 and Verkisto started on the east coast, so I started in the west. We all had access to two link deliveries, although sparr0 and Verkisto were fighting over the same goods.

While Verkisto dominated the locomotive action, I dominated the urbanization action. We pretty much alternated as start player with sparr0 settling for last place (and issuing fewer shares in the process).

Sparr0 tried to reach west at the same time that I tried to reach east. Due to all of the competition, I only managed to connect directly to one blue city. I got locked out of a direct connection to the yellow cities.

Every urbanization except for the G city (which Verkisto picked up on the second turn to deliver some black goods from the coast for three) was mine. I used the cities to control my delivery chains and create additional opportunities for my network. Early in the game I noticed that the white 1 city (Detroit) had a pair of blue goods and three purple goods. I figured that I could deliver the purple goods for four each and the blue ones for six, eventually, so I worked to lock the other players out of the area. My locomotive suffered in the process, but I managed to keep up well enough.

I did one hostile urbanization (C) in the south to break two long black cube deliveries that Verkisto was lining up out of white 3 (Wheeling).

Toward the very end, locomotive and urbanization were useless because we were all maxed out on links and there were no new cities left to urbanize. I exploited speculation a couple of times, while sparr0 and Verkisto fought over engineer and first move.

Both Sparr0 and Verkisto sort of flamed out a turn or two before the end, managing some weaker deliveries in the last two rounds and giving me a few additional income bumps. I ended the game by outbidding the other players in the auction (I had 1 dollar more than Verkisto) to take speculation and boost myself with two seven income deliveries with blue goods when neither sparr0 nor Verkisto could use the bonus.

As is typical for me, I still had some goods I could have delivered for six (or seven). I tend to plan a little too long range in AoS, but it worked out okay this time.

For a new player, sparr0 put in a solid showing. He made a couple of mistakes, but overall he caught on quickly and managed it all with four fewer shares than it took me.

]]>

The scores:
Blue: 124
Yellow: 107
Green: 103

edit: corrected green score from 104.

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Malachi — 2007-04-03T04:08:07+00:00

End of a 3 player game

Thread: Age of Steam South Africa session report

dedefortin — 2007-03-29T04:35:09+00:00

Another game with 6 players and we choose the South Africa map as we had many fun games with this map. Since many games we put the goods of Angola and Rhodesia on the good display so they are not drawn randomly. It's a small change but the players appreciated it.

Thanks to Pierre, set up of goods was awful. So the bets went high for round 1 as no one wanted to be the last player to build. Laurence started in the northeast, Marc-Andre in the northwest, Martin in the southwest and Nathalie, Pierre, Mario in the south. Situation was already critical and the bets went high. Martin went to the center of the map and connected 2 cities and Nathalie and Mario connected the same cities so Pierre was entirely cornered and could only build toward the east as your network as to be continued on this map. Round 3 was very agressive again and Marc-Andre blocked Martin so he couldn't finish his loops. In the next round every players betted except Pierre and 3 players betted twice. Martin made a nice comeback when he urbanized the yellow city. Laurence also had a nice game with her high loco and she shipped 2 goods at 5 income. Pierre was now entirely blocked and couldn't connect any interesting cities before the end of the game, his aim was now to avoid bankrupcy. The game was very close for first place between Marc-Andre and Laurence until the last turn but the game was still fun for the other players as they fighting to improve their rank.

South Africa expansion game was very tough tonight for most players but it was fun and the win came in a different way. There is no starting position that is more powerful than other and the winners always come from a different startup position. Even if some players would say that money is plentiful, I don't remember a game on this map when we had too much money. Money is usually spend during the betting round when you have a chance to improve your position.

Final scoring:
Marc-Andre: 65
Laurence: 60
Martin: 52
Nathalie: 51
Mario: 30
Pierre: 24

Thread: Age of Steam Northeastern USA session report

dedefortin — 2007-02-27T02:57:57+00:00

Martin, Marc-Andre, Mario and Pierre were ready for a big fight tonight and we choose the Northeastern USA map as our battleground. This map looks simple but it's always challenging specially with the new speculation action. It seems powerful but it attracts many friends and when it's your turn to ship many goods were already shipped by other players.

Martin won the initial bet for 2$ only and as usual he choose the loco. action. He started on the east coast with Marc-Andre as his neighbour. On the western side Mario and Pierre started to fight early in the game as they had parralel networks. On second turn, Marc-Andre choose urbanization action and Martin took the first build action as he expected and urbanization on Albany but Marc-Andre was forced to urbanize Binghamton instead as he didn't want to give a free city to Martin. Pierre began a link from the east and was preparing to connect the eastern and western side of the mountains. On the next turn Marc-Andre went for the sky when he took 4 shares and he began the bet at 6 ! He was preparing some big delivery with an urbanization and the connection of the southern cities. Against all odds Pierre took first build to connect these southern cities and decided to wait to complete his link to the west. Marc-Andre wasn't prepared for that as he thought Pierre would finish the link he began in the precedent turn. On the next turn Marc-Andre was more reasonable and started the bets at 2, There was some fierce fighting between Marc-Andre and Martin for the purple goods that could be shipped to Montreal. Martin also deny Marc-Andre in doing a nice loop in the east. Pierre finalky finished his link through the mountains and took no share on turn 5 when the other players were still taking 2 or 3 shares. Pierre took the speculation action on the blue goods and made some nice shipping even if Mario stole some of ''his'' goods. During this time Marc-Andre and Martin were trying to connect the western part of the map to have access to some critical goods that would give them big deliveries. In the last turn Pierre won the bet because he had more money than Martin and choose the speculation action to protect himself. This last action secured his lead and he finally won by a small marginover Martin.

Game was very exciting. Martin and Marc-Andre had a strong start but they were catched later and the game was very close until the end. The players fighted all game long to improve their position.

Final scoring:
Pierre: 96
Martin: 87
Mario: 70
Marc-Andre: 69

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

CortexBomb — 2007-02-12T18:10:51+00:00

The latest postings by John Bohrer, who, AFAIK has control over the publishing schedule for the original game, indicates that the original Age of Steam game will be reprinted in 2008, in a batch of 3000, with the only difference being that the wooden player disks will be replaced with small plastic train bits.

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

clearclaw — 2007-02-12T18:00:20+00:00

gamesbook wrote:
Which seems to be out-of-print at present?

Yes, Age of Steam is OOP. There are promises of a reprint sometime next year. Maybe.

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

gamesbook — 2007-02-12T17:48:50+00:00

RPardoe wrote:
..you will need to get the base game for the rules, track tiles, and tokens necessary to play ...
Which seems to be out-of-print at present?

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

RPardoe — 2007-02-12T16:10:22+00:00

And to complete the story - the other 2 maps are Age of Steam Expansion - China / South America.

If you don't have anything (and your response above indicates you are just starting w/ AoS) - you will need to get the base game for the rules, track tiles, and tokens necessary to play on the 4 Steam Brothers Maps.

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

Verkisto — 2007-02-12T14:35:14+00:00

$55 for four maps = $13.75/map

This is about the going rate for expansion maps at the moment. The Bezier maps are $25 for two, which is just slightly beneath this price.

It looks steep, but it's the number of maps you're receiving that makes the price so high.

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

gamesbook — 2007-02-12T14:20:36+00:00

dedefortin wrote:
Hi Derek
This isn't a complete game. You need the the game Age of Steam. The price Boards and Bits is asking for is for 4 laminated AoS expansion maps, new good display and the rules for each map.
Thanks - this does seem a bit steep... but I assume you know your target market! I think I am better off looking for the original for now.

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

dedefortin — 2007-02-12T13:51:53+00:00

Hi Derek
This isn't a complete game. You need the the game Age of Steam. The price Boards and Bits is asking for is for 4 laminated AoS expansion maps (South Africa, China, Northeastern USA, South America), new good display and the rules for each map.

Have fun

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: Is this a complete game?

Goodsound — 2007-02-12T13:47:23+00:00

Age of Steam Expansion
As the title says it's only an expansion. Maybe an expensive one, yes, due to small print run.

Thread: Is this a complete game?

gamesbook — 2007-02-12T13:00:19+00:00

The asking price is $55 (Feb 2007) - so I am wondering: is this a complete game with rules, pieces etc as per the original (although on a different board)?

Thread: Age of Steam South Africa session report

dedefortin — 2006-12-22T04:28:44+00:00

With 6 players on Age of Steam, most players suggested the South Africa map. In the past, we had some nice experience with this number of players on this map. The new rules are very simple but it is usually very challenging even if there is some bonus in linking some cities. The 6 players were; Francois, Sophie, Marc-André, Pierre-Luc, Mario and Michel.

It is the first time we had a setup like this in which 4 players started in the central southern part of the map. Sounds like this would be an interesting game. Indeed the game became exciting when many players had to struggle to avoid being blocked on the coast. Mario was able to build ahead of the other and connect Pretoria. Pierre-Luc was on the verge of connecting this same city but Mario in a spectacular move builded a ''S'' first ahead of Pierre-Luc to deny him in connecting Pretoria and at the same time Mario didn't connect a town of Pierre-Luc. So, Mario secured his shippings because the other player couldn,t even stole his important good on Pretoria. That's a move we will not forget for a long time. Marc-Andre decided to go for a low share strategy and he had a small network but it was very efficient. It was enough for him to take the lead and win the game. Special mention to Michel who finished on second place not far from Marc-André.

Everyone had fun on this map. Interaction was great and it was very tense until the end. Mario's ''S'' move was spectacular and Marc-Andre was quite proud of his ''novice''. At least another player was beginning to learn some of his tricks

Final scoring:
Marc-André: 69
Michel: 63
Pierre-Luc: 53
Mario: 52
Sophie: 44
Francois: 44

Thread: Re: Speculation action in NE US map

darky — 2006-12-08T00:35:56+00:00

Hi

Extra income effectively goes to the player moving the selected good.
In our group, we call Speculation action the poisonous gift. Because, at first, you choose the action for you but it attracts all other players and at your turn, no good left...

Ciao

Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: Speculation action in NE US map

CortexBomb — 2006-12-03T04:09:32+00:00

The person who ships the good gains a single income bonus, this is regardless of anything else. So, for instance, it is hypothetically possible for a person to ship a good for a delivery length of one, using someone elses' track, and still gain 1 income (the bonus) for doing so.

The person who selected the action does not get anything for selecting the action as such.

Speculation creates "runs" on goods, particularly in the early going and tends to create rather nasty shortages in short order!

Thread: Speculation action in NE US map

HDTVDave — 2006-12-03T03:53:00+00:00

Hi,

We just played the NE US map for the first time last night. A question came up about the speculation action.

An example is the easiest way to ask the question...

If player A chooses speculation for purple cubes, then each purple cube shipped this turn generates an extra income point. Who gets these points? If player B ships a purple cube, does player B get the extra point, or does player A get it (for choosing speculation).

My first read was that player A got the income, but someone else read it and interpretted it the other way, and after reading it, rereading it, reading the French, debating, etc. We concluded that player B would get the extra income and played this way.

After the game, we discussed it, and we concluded we think it would actually be a better idea to have the extra income go to player A. What was the intended rule?

Thanks.

Dave

Thread: Age of Steam South Africa session report

dedefortin — 2006-10-05T03:38:08+00:00

It seems as our warm up was done with our game of AoS on the Russia map we began a game on the South Africa map. We didn't play this scenario often with 6 players and we were eager to try it.

Set up of good was tough and the most of the players began their game in the southern part of the game. Every players took 2 shares at start except Pierre who went for 1 share only. On turn 2 Martin was able again to choose the loco action and at the of this turn he had a loco of 5 ! Nathalie was almost blocked when Sophie made a nice build with the engineer action and she linked cities. Center of the map was really crowdy as 4 different players linked Bloemfontein. Game was very tense and everybody was quiet most of the time. On turn 3 Mario and Adrien had to take 4 shares to survive and the bets went at 9 and 8 for the first 2 players. Pierre had only 6 shares at this point so I suppose that's why Martin urbanize Pierre with a Blue New City, thanks Mother Teresa we can always count on you. At the same time Martin was able to finish this turn with a loco at 6, I don't remember the last time a player had a loco so high after 3 rounds of play. Players in the east had a hard time and Sophie and Adrien each took 4 shares to build and bet. Mario and Sophie blocked Mario in several places and he had tough time after this. Martin was able to connect Walvis Bay and make 2 deliveries of 6 income on this turn and he was on the way to victory.

It finally turned great with 6 players on this map even if the set up of goods was not great. There was enough space for all the players even if some turn were tough for some players.

Final scoring:
Martin: 84
Pierre: 64
Mario: 47
Adrien: 35
Nathalie: 33
Sophie: 30

Thread: Re: Mountains cost

darky — 2006-10-04T14:52:12+00:00

Hi

The difference in the type of mountains is just esthetic in order to have diversity in the design.

If something change, it's always specify in the rules.

Martin

Thread: Re: Mountains cost

IcemanQc — 2006-10-02T04:01:01+00:00

Mountains costs always the same $4 even they do not have the same color.

Thread: Mountains cost

Ludo le gars — 2006-10-01T13:11:26+00:00

Hi,

We tried your South Africa map on friday but we had a difficulty with the cost of the mountains : it's written $4 per hex but there are two different colors of mountains hexes ? Are there differents costs ?

Thanks,

Ludo
http://lgimet.over-blog.com

Thread: Steambrothers reprint Northeastern USA, South Africa

dedefortin — 2006-09-08T02:57:38+00:00

Hi Age of Steam brothers (and sisters)
Since we had so many requests we decided to do another reprint of our first extension kit of 4 maps (China, South America, Northeastern USA, South Africa) They will be available through Boards and Bits. (www.boardsandbits.com) They offer good service and have reasonnable price.

Have fun

Pierre and Martin
steambrothers

Thread: Age of Steam Northeastern USA

dedefortin — 2006-08-24T03:31:46+00:00

Another classic Age of Steam with 5 players, Pierre, Nathalie, Martin, Mario and Marc-André. With so many expansions available we're taking more and more time too choose a map. We realized that we're not playing the same expansions too often and we're never bored about a scenario since there is some weeks or months between 2 games on the same map.

Marc-Andre choose first build in the east with the cheap links between New-York, Philadelphia and Boston. Martin and Mario also began in the east and Nathalie and Pierre builded in the west. On round 2 Pierre began the bet with 6 and every other players overbid him and he had to take last place and pay nothing but Mario was in a worst position when he had to pay 4$ for fourth place. This turn was so tight in money that 3 players had to back up their income in the expense phase at the end of the round. In round 3 and 4, Marc-Andre began the bets at 6 but no other players overbid him on he was the only player to pay, at least he had the action he wanted. Marc-Andre and Martin fought a hard battle to find a way to connect Montreal and Toronto. At first Marc close the 3 exits out of New-York and Philadelphia and Martin had to build in the mountains to connect Albany. Then Marc took the cheapest exit from Toronto and Martin had to build first to be able to connect Montreal since he needed the ''unique tile'' of 2 coexist gentle curves. It was a memorable fight between these 2 players and the other players were not sad when watching them. Mario was the first to cross the Appalchain mountains and it paid him big when he use the speculation action for yellow goods. Even if Nathalie shipped some of the blue goods in the west, Mario was able to ship most of them. Pierre finally builded a long link to the east to connect Washington and he also shipped some blue and yellow goods from Canada.

This was a tough scenario but there as enough space for 5 players. We appreciated the interaction between players and the speculation action was again very exciting. In game of 5 or 6 players the bets are now beginning at 6 most of the time. I just remember our first games of Age of Steam when we were impressed when someone began at 2. Then Marc-Andre had the good idea to start 4 or 5. Thanks Marc-Andre for making this game easier and easier to play

Special mention to Mario who won his fifth win of the day.

Final scoring:
Mario: 82
Pierre: 70
Martin: 61
Nathalie: 47
Marc-André: 47

Thread: Age of Steam South Africa session report

dedefortin — 2006-08-17T02:49:53+00:00

Since Steeve had just learned Age of Steam some weeks ago, we tought it was a good time for him to learn a new scenario. He had done very well in his last games so we didn't worry for him. With 6 players we decided to go for the South African map.

Set up of goods was really tough and the bets for the first round went very high. Mario choose urbanization and builded in the northeast, since Pierre had the most money with Mario he also began in the east and Martin and Nathalie in the south, Marc-André in the west and then Steeve choose some action by building between Pierre and Mario. The bets for second round went very high since there were many players in the east and that you could be trapped if you didn't build fast enough. It was the first time we had 5 players in the east and we begun to feel uncomfortable with so many cities left without any exits. Vereeninging was linked by 4 different players. Even if the eastern region has a difficult terrain I suppose this region was still attractive for most of the players. In the following rounds bets also went very high as the loco. action was important for many players. Pierre even had to take more shares to bet even if he had the turn order action. Marc seemed to have an easy game in the west but then Martin began to look after him to slow him a bit and then take some goods. Martin then decided to fight Pierre and Marc André at the same time, he urbanize Pierre with a red city to deny him shipping many red goods at 5 income and he also deny Marc-Andre in linking Angola by a clever placement of some acute curves.

In the end Marc and Martin were very close for first place and Marc choose urbanization in last turn to flush some tiles on Martin's network and at the same time allowing him to ship 2 goods at 4 income. Game was very tough as usual on this map. The first two players didn't shipped goods for more than 4 income. I promise I'll never build in the east again

Final scoring:
Marc-André: 67
Martin: 54
Pierre: 48
Steeve: 41
Mario; 33
Nathalie: 9

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puppi — 2006-07-04T06:04:25+00:00

Thread: Age of Steam Northeastern USA session report

dedefortin — 2006-06-16T03:15:09+00:00

With so many expansions available for Age of Steam we're always glad that we don't have to play the same map too often. Another interesting fact is that even if you played the same map in a short lapse of time, it will always be different since the number of players, the initial set up and the strategy will be different. With 6 players on this map we knew it wouldn't be easy.

Martin used his first build to connect 3 eastern cities at a low expense, Marc and Adrien started in the southwest, Nathalie in the Northwest, Pierre in the northeast and Laurence in southeast where she blocked 2 cities for herself. After the first rounds Marc was ahead of everyone and we were on the verge of giving hom the game since Pierre and Martin were very close, Laurence blocked the 2 cities in the southeast and Nathalie was building to th east. At one time it looked like there were 4 players in one quarter of the map and Marc was alone in his area. Then Marc tried to shut off the last 2 exits of the eastern cities to the west but it cost him a lot and he had a hard time to connect both ends of his network through the apallachian mountains. Pierre was able to connect Montreal to Toronto to give him acces to many yellow and blue goods and this was the turning point.

This game was really exciting and almost everybody at some point had a chance of winning. Speculation action was choosen wisely and added great interaction between players. Even if we played this map many time, we were surprised to see new strategies.

Final scoring;
Pierre: 73
Martin: 60
Nathalie: 53
Marc-André: 48
Laurence: 42
Adrien: 32

Thread: AoS South Africa session report

dedefortin — 2006-05-31T02:55:23+00:00

It was a long time since our last play on South Africa map and every players were ready for this very challenging map. The map may look easy at first with many goods available but each turn is very important since there are some very important links that allow you to connect some city and get the special bonus.

The 4 players were very reasonable and they started in different coastal city. Martin in the east, Pierre in the southeast, Marc-André in the south and Mario in southwest. As usual second turn was already very important and some players had a hard time to connect their cities. We were then caught in the middle of the map and there were several fights to allow players to continue their network. Marc-Andre seemed to have a difficult start but he decided to bid very low and during this time the 3 other players bet very high for loco, urbanize and first build. We tought scoring wuld be very close but Marc-André had so few shares at the end that he won quite easily.

As expected the map was challenging and tension was very high all game long.

Final scoring:
Marc-André: 99
Mario: 90
Pierre: 90
Martin: 78

Thread: Age of Steam North Eastern USA

dedefortin — 2006-03-15T03:33:39+00:00

Pierre, Nathalie, Mario and Martin were happy to play this map tonight. From our last experience it was a very challenging map with the speculation rule that add interaction between players.

Pierre and Nathalie started in the west, Martin in the east and Mario on both sides. Mario's build was very agressive and Martin had an easy beginning since Mario was occupied to build on many fronts. Mario was the first to build across the mountains but at a high cost and was forced to take first build action to make sure he wasn't blocked by Pierre or Nathalie. Martin decided to build to Montreal and had a nice loop with many goods that were shipped for 6 income. It's not often in our group that we can say that a player had an easy win and Martin did it.

Even if Martin had a good lead over the other players, we had a good fight for second place. Mario was very agressive in blocking Pierre and Nathalie in the Pittsburg and Niagara region but his network was splitted and he had to give some income to Pierre and Nathalie. Northeastern map was again appreciated by players because of the good interaction.

Final scoring:
Martin: 104
Pierre: 84
Nathalie: 79
Mario: 78

Thread: Age of Steam South AFrica

dedefortin — 2006-03-07T03:52:45+00:00

South Africa expansion was choosen by Martin, Laurence, Nathalie and Mario. Everyone in our group seems to like this map, when we find it difficult to choose a map, South Africa map makes our choice easier.

The beginning of the game was rough since the first bet was won at 9$ ! First and second better were not even betting for same action ! Nathalie started on the Western coast, Laurence in the south, Martin in souteast region and Mario in the eastern coast. The game was almost tied for the first 4 or 5 rounds. Everyone had good network. Laurence and Martin did many loops and it paid them. In the end Laurence could have hurt Martin with a purple urbanization but Mario was the victim instead. Then Martin could not be stopped even with his small network.

It was a very close game and everyone had a good chance of winning for many rounds. Even if some starting spots seems stronger than others, we find out that the winners are always from a different starting city. Once again everyone enjoyed their game on this map.

Final score;
Martin: 102
Laurence: 96
Mario: 75
Nathalie: 62

Thread: Northeastern US session and first impressions

rupes — 2006-02-07T04:38:26+00:00

With plenty of time left in the evening, we decided to try the Northeastern US map on the other side of the board. This map has all of the yellow and blue cities in a very tight clump in the southeastern corner of the board, with red and purples cities occupying the other three quarters of the board. Mountains separate the two city groups, and the red and purple cities are not all that close to each other. The blue and yellow New Cities are not available, and the existing blue and yellow cities only get two goods on the production chart. There is only one rules change, but it's a big one - the production action is replaced with Speculation. When a player speculates, he chooses a color; all deliveries of that color are worth one extra income to the delivering player for that turn.
This time, when we looked at the map, the general feeling around the table was that this would not be an easy game; there were barely any worthwhile-looking moves. I once again won the first auction and started with locomotive-two delivery-engine upgrade. I was somewhat surprised to be allowed first build; I built the easy route from Boston through New York to Philadelphia. Jeff started his track around Philadelphia; Marty started in New York with me, but urbanized Albany to a purple city and joined to it; Mike started alone in the red-purple area by connecting Cincinnati and Wheeling. The second turn proved the difficulty of the setup. I managed to deliver a 3 and a 2, but Marty (who had been counting on one of the cubes I ran) was held to a 2 and a 1 and lost three income, Jeff was only able to make one 1 delivery, and Mike wasn't able to make any deliveries at all. At the end of turn 2, the incomes were 7, 3, 2, and 2, which I think is the lowest I've ever seen. The next couple of turns, however, revealed the weakness in my position - I had no real long-term cube prospects, and I was building and speculating desperately to get any worthwhile deliveries. Meanwhile, Jeff (who had struck out West from his initial position) and Mike were starting to develop effective networks. Marty, who I think may have been tired at this point, kept taking one share too few and sliding back on the income track, and quickly ceased to be a factor in the game. My only hope at this point seemed to be a race for Detroit, which had several juicy yellow cubes that I could have delivered for six. Unfortunately, Jeff - starting the race from Pittsburgh - had a much easier build than I had from Ottowa, and he not only won the race but managed to deliver the yellow cubes for 7 each with speculation. However, after this, Jeff discovered that he simply had nothing left to deliver, and was reduced to 3 runs for the remainder of the game. I finally spotted a way out of my hole - Kingston had been urbanized and had a couple of black cubes on it, and I still had sole control of Boston with two black cubes. I urbanized and joined up Quebec City, giving me two 5 deliveries from Kingston; on the final turn, I was able to join to a black city in Altoona and deliver the Boston cubes for 6. This left me an (income-share) behind Mike, who had been making solid deliveries ever since the hitch on turn 2; however, I was surprised to discover that I had build six more track than he had, which was enough to give me to win.
This is a nasty, nasty map. The layout of the yellow and blue cities makes it difficult to deliver a cube of either of those colors for more than three within that area, and the closest red and purple cities are five hexes away. The only red and purple cities within three hexes of each other are Cincinatti-wheeling and Wheeling-Pittsburgh. I never thought I'd miss the production action, but the inability to replenish cubes really hurts; I think on this map, more than any other I've played, you really need to plan out where your deliveries will come from on the first turn. I would only pull this map out with a group of experienced players, but I think it's a welcome addition to the advanced maps.

Thread: South Africa - session and first impressions

rupes — 2006-02-07T04:35:27+00:00

Jeff, Marty, Mike, and I started the evening with South Africa. This map's distinguishing features are a mountainous center, a set of yellow cities along the south coast, and two foreign areas to the north which accept nothing but produce a cube every turn (and are expensive to reach). The only rules changes, other than a changed production chart for the dark cities, are that all railroads must be contiguous to a coastal city, the engineer may be used to halve the cost of a link, and - most significantly - each interior city gives money to each player who connects to it.
Our initial cube distribution was clearly abnormal - the coastal cities, which included all of the yellow cities, had only four cubes on the production chart that were not yellow or purple. I was able to win the first turn auction and start with my favorite opening - locomotive, 2 delivery, upgrade to three train. I started with a connection between Cape Town and Middelburg through Beaufort; Marty connected Port Elizabeth to Middleburg, while Jeff and Mike started off further east. On the second turn, Marty was able to beat me in the auction - I had little cash after winning the first one - and had to make a critical decision between first build and locomotive. When he went for locomotive, I was able to grab first build and connect Kimberly and Bloemfontein by the shortest routes. I pounded on my engine size as hard as I could while connecting up both Vereeniging and East London to Bloemfontein via Bethlehem; this left me with a six train and a huge number of six deliveries on turn 4. The other three players started working to take away my deliveries, but with the yellow city already urbanized there was little that they could do; I was able to hook Walvis Bay and Angola, with yet more yellow and purple cubes, into my network and delivered all sixes (except one five) from turn 4 on for a clear win.
This map didn't feel particularly unusual; the money for the black cities is a nice bonus, and needs to be allowed for, but I didn't feel that any wildly different strategies were needed. This isn't meant as criticism; I think that South Africa is a solid map that would be appropriate for most groups. The mountainous terrain is a bit harsh, but building through it will almost always lead to a cash bonus, which takes some of the sting off.

Thread: Re: action speculation ?

colotibou — 2006-01-01T22:04:39+00:00

Bonjour Pierre,
merci beaucoup de ta réponse.
Bonne année et meilleurs voeux à tous là-bas !!!
Claude

Thread: Re: action speculation ?

dedefortin — 2006-01-01T21:22:30+00:00

Bonjour Claude
Je confirme que l'action Speculation remplace l'action Production pour toute la durée d'une partie pour l'extension Nord Est USA.

(For the Northeastern USA map, I confirm that Production action has changed and is replaced by the Speculation)

Merci

Thanks

Pierre and Martin
steambrothers

Thread: action speculation ?

colotibou — 2005-12-31T12:02:15+00:00

Bonjour,
dans les extensions, je constate:
- Amérique du Sud...l'action Turn order est remplacée par l'action el Presidente pendant tout le jeu.
Sur le goods display,la case turn order a disparu, remplacée par el presidente
-China.... L'action ingénieur a changé. Cette action permet désormais diplomatic pressure...Ainsi le joueur qui a choisi ingénieur peut poser 4 tuiles ou utiliser diplomatic pressure.
Sur le goods display, la case ingénieur indique bien Ingénieur ou Diplomatic Pressure
-Nord-Est des Etats-Unis....L'action production a changé.Elle permet désormais spéculation...
Sur le goods display, production a disparu, laissant place à Spéculation.

J'interprète peut-être mal le changement de production aux N-E des Etats-Unis....Pour moi, production est remplacée pendant toute la partie par spéculation. C'est-à-dire que Production n'a pas changé mais a disparu au profit de spéculation, le joueur qui choisit spéculation n'a pas le choix les deux actions, prod et spéculation mais il ne peut faire que spéculation.

Pour un ami, il y a le choix car il n'est pas dit dans la règle: production est remplacée par spéculation pendant toute la durée de la partie.

Qu'en pensez-vous?
merci beaucoup
Claude

Thread: Re: Extra income question

dedefortin — 2005-12-29T04:34:11+00:00

Hi Jon
1) For the northeastern USA map, you receive the bonus in income.

2) For the South Africa map, you receive the bonus in money.

Pierre and Martin
steambrothers

Thread: Extra income question

jonpfl — 2005-12-28T12:39:54+00:00

All,

For the NE map, it states you get a bonus of 1 income for speculation power. Does this mean you get an extra gold OR an extra gold and move up on the income track? I assume the latter.

The same question applies to the S Africa map in regards to getting the bonus income upon completing a like to an inland city. Is it just gold OR gold and move up on the income track?

Thx
jonpfl

Thread: Re: Recommended number of players?

dedefortin — 2005-12-27T02:43:04+00:00

We recommend 3-6 players for South Africa and 4-6 players for North Eastern USA

Pierre and Martin
steambrothers

Thread: Recommended number of players?

jonpfl — 2005-12-26T23:17:35+00:00

All,

Anyone know the recommended number of players for both maps?

Thx
jonpfl

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godongi — 2005-12-15T14:51:21+00:00

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godongi — 2005-12-15T14:51:21+00:00

Thread: reprint Age of Steam: Northeastern USA/ South Africa

dedefortin — 2005-12-14T20:31:19+00:00

Hi Age of Steam brothers !

All expansions are sold.

But you guy shows such a great enthousiasm for our work that we decided to make another 50 copies of our package of 4 expansion maps.

And the best is that you could receive them for the new year because they’ll be ready to ship this friday.

The price for the package of 4 expansion maps for this reprint will stay at 40$US+shipping.

If you order before december 30th, you’ll save the increase in shipping fee from Canada Post (that occured each january 1st).

Here are the details for this second reprint

We sell 50 packages of maps

The package included:
- 4 maps (2 X 2-sided maps). The style is the same as Warfrog but laminated

set 1: China/South America
set 2: Northeastern USA/South Africa

- 4 set of rules (1 for each map)

- 4 new Goods Display (1 for each map)

Each kit (4 maps, 4 sets of rules and 4 new good display) will be sell at the price of 40$ in US money.
To this, add the shipping fee:
USA and Canada = 9,00$ US
Europe and other countries = 11,00$ US
(these shipping rates are valid until december 30st)

Payment can be made by PayPal or Money Order
The package will be ship at the reception of the total amount of the order.

You can send your order to steambrothers@hotmail.com

And again, thanks to all of you

Cheers,

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: cube allotments

dedefortin — 2005-12-06T05:26:31+00:00

You're correct Jeremiah, some cities get three goods on set up.

Thread: cube allotments

texasjdl — 2005-12-06T03:59:49+00:00

Hi,

I just got the maps today, and I read over the rules sheets that come with them. I just wanted to make sure that I got the initial cube allotment correct.

In the rules for South Africa, for example, it says that there are cities that get one cube, and then every city gets two cubes. This indicates that every city gets two cubes, but some of them get three. Since this is a rule that is on several of the maps in the package, I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly.

Thanks!

Thread: Re: Northeastern USA & South Africa, China &South America, maps

dedefortin — 2005-11-29T19:45:01+00:00

Hi
Only 5 kits left for this 1st edition of our 4 expansions maps !

Pierre and Martin
steambrothers

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darky — 2005-11-22T16:14:16+00:00

Feel the exotism of the gold fever

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darky — 2005-11-22T16:14:16+00:00

Here's the playground of WallStreet