Game: Age of Steam Expansion - 1830's Pennsylvania / Northern California

Thread: Re: NorCal - Segments vs. Links: Another San Jose question

clearclaw — 2008-08-20T22:30:53+00:00

toulouse wrote:
JC is correct.

Bugger.

Thread: Re: San José and segments

rockusultimus — 2008-08-20T21:46:06+00:00

jack208 wrote:
Is this consider a 4-link delivery, with 3 pts to Red and 1 pt to Blue?
Yes.

See this thread for further info:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2574221

Thread: Re: NorCal - Segments vs. Links: Another San Jose question

rockusultimus — 2008-08-20T21:27:40+00:00

Clarified.
Thanks so much for the quick response!

-Costas

Thread: Re: NorCal - Segments vs. Links: Another San Jose question

toulouse — 2008-08-20T21:26:03+00:00

JC is correct. You can move a good between cities within San Jose without using track for free meaning it does not cost a locomotive link nor do you receive income for it. However, the starting city is counted as having been visited, and the good may not move back into that starting city.

Hopefully that's clarified.

Ted

Thread: Re: NorCal - Segments vs. Links: Another San Jose question

clearclaw — 2008-08-20T21:08:03+00:00

rockusultimus wrote:
But when the rules say other goods can be moved freely between San Jose cities at a cost of zero segments, does this mean for zero income or does it also mean for zero engine links?

It means both.

Does moving a good directly from one San Jose city to another, without going out on a players track, count as one link movement?

Not unless it traverses a track tile.

Thread: Re: NorCal - Segments vs. Links: Another San Jose question

Demarryl — 2008-08-20T20:35:03+00:00

I'm trying to keep this thread from dying before someone sees it!

Thread: NorCal - Segments vs. Links: Another San Jose question

rockusultimus — 2008-08-20T19:15:35+00:00

The rules for San Jose specifically state:
San Jose red goods can be delivered to an adjoining San Jose city for zero income, or may be taken out of the city and back into a different San Jose city for the number of segments traveled. Other goods can be moved freely between San Jose cities at a cost of zero segments (but may not move through the same segment twice).

In another thread, Ted Alspach says the following:
toulouse wrote:
...each "hex" of San Jose is a separate city in terms of conventional AoS rules (which are applied here) so that move would not be allowed.

This essentially means that no one can claim ownership of the three mutual borders of the three San Jose red cities.

But when the rules say other goods can be moved freely between San Jose cities at a cost of zero segments, does this mean for zero income or does it also mean for zero engine links?

Does moving a good directly from one San Jose city to another, without going out on a players track, count as one link movement?

Image

thorndor — 2008-06-10T02:38:13+00:00

Northern California Board with Cubes: Setup and Ready to Play

Image

thorndor — 2008-06-10T01:58:09+00:00

1830's Pennsylvania Board with Cubes: Setup and Ready to Play

Image

thorndor — 2008-06-10T01:22:23+00:00

Complete 1830's Pennsylvania Board

Image

thorndor — 2008-06-10T00:39:42+00:00

Complete Northern California Board

Image

Malachi — 2008-01-22T04:07:15+00:00

Northern CA 5 player end game (2 bankrupt)

Image

DavidNorman99 — 2007-12-23T11:34:06+00:00

Front of the Pack

Image

DavidNorman99 — 2007-12-23T11:32:48+00:00

Pennsylvania map information

Image

DavidNorman99 — 2007-12-23T11:31:30+00:00

Information on California Map

Thread: Re: Santa Cruz delivering ship good directly to Sacremento

rockusultimus — 2007-11-09T20:31:34+00:00

OK, that's a reasonable explanation. I can appreciate that this is a very rare occurence. Thanks Ted.

-Costas

Thread: Re: Santa Cruz delivering ship good directly to Sacremento

toulouse — 2007-11-09T19:00:57+00:00

You know, a six (or less) link from Santa Cruz to Sacramento is certainly possible, but so unlikely given the typical economic constraints of the map and the fact that it's so unlikely to be able to avoid any specific color going across the map, that I decided it wasn't worth being specific on that particular issue. Whoops.

Links in Age of Steam happen instantly...since you really aren't delivering a specific good at a specific time, you're just setting up the delivery route (which is why it increases income instead of just giving you cash). That means that you are able to deliver the cube in the Santa Cruz port to Sacramento. So in your example, you would be able to deliver the black cube to Sacramento, and then the red cube could be delivered to Sacramento the following move, etc.

rockusultimus wrote:
The rules say that Sacremento accepts the goods color of the cube closest to Santa Cruz. But when does that actually change?

In tonight's game, I actually had a 6-link route from Santa Cruz to Sacramento on the last turn. The cube next to Santa Cruz was black, the next was red. Could I have delivered the black cube to Sacremento? Or would Sacremento immediately change to a red city the instant I took the black cube off?

I suppose it sounds rediculous now that I'm spelling it out, I think it should be the latter. But I'm wondering if anyone else has ever run into this?

Thanks!

Image

mdu2boy — 2007-11-09T14:45:09+00:00

From Bobby Tweak's game night

Thread: Santa Cruz delivering ship good directly to Sacremento

rockusultimus — 2007-11-09T04:56:01+00:00

The rules say that Sacremento accepts the goods color of the cube closest to Santa Cruz. But when does that actually change?

In tonight's game, I actually had a 6-link route from Santa Cruz to Sacramento on the last turn. The cube next to Santa Cruz was black, the next was red. Could I have delivered the black cube to Sacremento? Or would Sacremento immediately change to a red city the instant I took the black cube off?

I suppose it sounds rediculous now that I'm spelling it out, I think it should be the latter. But I'm wondering if anyone else has ever run into this?

Thanks!

Thread: Re: San José and segments

jack208 — 2007-10-20T00:52:52+00:00

Ted, what what if we move the yellow cube in White 1-2 hex using this route:
i. From White 1-2 hex to White 3-4 hex (give one point to blue)
ii. From White 3-4 hex to White 5-6 hex (zero point movement)
iii. From White 5-6 hex out to Black 3 hex using the three red segments (assuming the last red segment is connected to Black 3 hex.

Is this consider a 4-link delivery, with 3 pts to Red and 1 pt to Blue?

Note: Yes I know it may be pointless to do (i), why give a point to blue but I'm using this just as an example to illustrate whether such delivery is permissible or not?

Image

toulouse — 2007-07-23T05:44:44+00:00

Age of Steam: PA and Northern CA logos

Thread: Re: I need some rules clarification please.

fishlikejc — 2007-06-11T18:57:21+00:00

Thanks for the answers.

I believe that answered all my questions, thanks again.

Lyle

Thread: Re: I need some rules clarification please.

Excalabur — 2007-06-08T18:35:01+00:00

fishlikejc wrote:
Rule on Urbanization:
"When urbanizing a gray town, a black cube still on that town is placed in the newly urbanized city, AND one additional black cube (from the pile set aside initially) is added to that city."

Does this mean that if a black cube is delivered from the gray city, and then someone decides to urbanize it with a blue, yellow, purple or red, that a black cube from the pile set aside is not added, since the gray town lost it's original coal due to a delivery?

No. Any cube that happened to be on the town stays on the hex, and the new-and-improved city gets a black cube from the supply.

Can a person put a link between altoona and mechanicsburg, without putting a track piece on either side? I understand the rule that they have to add to it next turn or they lose it, but since it's not really connected to either city until they put a track on the city, or upgrade with gray dot tracks, can a track sit out their for a turn not connected to anything. Or is it considered connected to those cities even though no tracks are coming out of them.

Huh?

"...All track must ultimately lead back to a city..." -- AoS rule book (Approximately). So no, you can't just build track in the middle of nowhere. Nor, actually, track in or from an isolated town. I don't have 1830s Penn. handy, so I can't check on this exact situation, but this rule should solve your problems.

Third question on northern california, can you deliver red cubes to santa cruz?

Unless the Designer wants his game to be played wrong, colouring a city hex red would seem to indicate that red cubes could be delivered there. . . . (That's short for "yes!")

Enjoy

Thread: I need some rules clarification please.

fishlikejc — 2007-06-08T18:02:34+00:00

First of all, we just played the 1830's map, and loved it, and we can't wait to give it a try again. We did have a few questions though.

Rule on Urbanization:
"When urbanizing a gray town, a black cube still on that town is placed in the newly urbanized city, AND one additional black cube (from the pile set aside initially) is added to that city."

Does this mean that if a black cube is delivered from the gray city, and then someone decides to urbanize it with a blue, yellow, purple or red, that a black cube from the pile set aside is not added, since the gray town lost it's original coal due to a delivery?

Can a person put a link between altoona and mechanicsburg, without putting a track piece on either side? I understand the rule that they have to add to it next turn or they lose it, but since it's not really connected to either city until they put a track on the city, or upgrade with gray dot tracks, can a track sit out their for a turn not connected to anything. Or is it considered connected to those cities even though no tracks are coming out of them.

Third question on northern california, can you deliver red cubes to santa cruz?

Thanks for the help,

Lyle

Thread: Re: Northern California

Boycat-OH — 2007-04-18T17:55:32+00:00

Dan - I think playing this map with 5 or 6 could be excruciating! Maybe next time

And I do think the map did a very good job of allowing us all to be competitive with 4 different strategies - ultimatley our final scores were fairly close compared to some of our games.

Thread: Northern California

Boycat-OH — 2007-04-18T15:35:24+00:00

This was our first run on this map.

Final scores:

Eric: (36-15)*3+21 =63+21=84
Michael: (32-15)*3+26=51+26=77
Dan: (34-15)*3+26=57+26=83
Phillip: (30-15)*3+26=45+26=71

Eric focused on San Jose and the south east, with some late builds into the middle. Michael started from Santa Cruz and connected to SJ, with some other builds in the middle. Dan focused on the east half (started from Oakland, connected to SJ as well as Sacramento). I started out on the west half (San Francisco and Half Moon Bay) before building the bridge to Oakland. My strategy (to complete the loop after first ensuring I had a spur into SJ) failed as I miscalculated in the late game and ran out of money to build enough track segments. A quick change of strategy meant abandoning some track which helped Michael. The fact that we unusually all maxed out on 15 shares reflects how tough this map is at the start – a paucity of goods and early 2 income shipments.

Phillip:
My biggest mistake was not budgeting appropriately, resulting in my not
finishing the loop (which was my goal and would have hopefully given me some
good shipments the last 2 turns). Overall not one of my favorite maps, plus
it is not historic in nature, which often has a downside to me.

Eric:
My strategy going into the game was the dense network around SJ, figuring multiple small loops around it would provide me a lot of flexibility with delivery length (and lots of cubes to start.) I was relieved in the initial track build that I had SJ mostly to myself, but that didn't last long. And as Dan demonstrated, dominating SJ did not provide an unassailable advantage. I was lucky near the end in some key cubes still being available.

I think I recall I came out with a couple of early locomotives in this game, right up at the ceiling of how useful I think it is to take it early.

I feel this board has quite asymmetric starting positions: Santa Cruz vs. Sacramanto vs. San Jose vs. Bay Bridge are all pretty different strategies, and hard to weigh one against the other. It's not my favorite board, perhaps in part because things felt a bit spread out -- that I was only competing with Michael, and couldn't have much effect on Dan or Phillip's game.

Michael:
My strategy at the start was also simple - try and monopolise the goods out of Santa Cruz. I did this but failed to develop my route to make the black goods worth shipping and lost ground in the middle game. My thinking behind this approach was that goods were going to be very much in short supply and there was a ready made chain out of Santa Cruz that would negate this problem. As it turned out, there were a lot more goods lying around than I expected. The map is tough but enjoyable and as Eric says the asymmetric nature means that you have different challenges depending on where you start.

Dan:
This seems like one of the more unforgiving maps we've played. The combination of low initial cube availability and my starting position away from the concentration of production down in the San Jose mega-city and Santa Cruz meant that, unlike many other maps, I really had to know specifically where all of my shipments for the next few turns were going to come from ahead of time. On the third
turn, I started the auction round knowing that if I didn't manage to pull Locomotive I was going to hit the bankruptcy spiral -- and the $10 I paid for it was the absolute maximum that still allowed me to build the track I needed to pull those two 4-link shipments and stay in the game.

The short links into and out of San Jose are definitely a major advantage in this game, and I almost picked a San-Jose-based starting position with my pull of First Build on turn 1. However, the luck of getting three red cubes on Sacramento and the prospect of denying both the Urbanizer and the Engineer the quick Oakland-Hayward-Fremont 2-shipment tempted me away into claiming the bookends of OAK-HAY-FRE and a northern exit from San Jose. If I wasn't going to get to ship on the first turn, I wanted to limit the prospects for the two players who did.

On two counts, I think that Phillip's urbanization of Milpitas with a black city may have cost me the win: most obviously because it eliminated two of my track links (which would have put me one point ahead of Eric), but also because it got in the way of at least one long shipment from San Jose to Sacramento while the first cube in Santa Cruz was black.

Dan's general map review:

I liked that Production is more important on this map, but I think I would prefer that it be accomplished by reducing the number of cubes waiting to be produced instead of reducing the initial layout so dramatically -- the first couple of turns were just brutal.

I also enjoyed the idea of the Santa Cruz - Sacramento mechanic. I like the thought that someone on one side of the board can indirectly affect the possibilities on the other, and it's slightly reminiscent of the feeling of the Korea map, which I also like. I'm not sure that the execution lives up to the idea, though.

On the whole, I think this map would be more interesting with three players or a large number of players than with four. With three, the initial cube shortage wouldn't be so harsh, and the struggle over building the southern half of the map might not be quite so life-or-death. With a large number of players, you'd get to see people budgeting for dry spells and shipping every last good, which could lead to interesting cooperative/malicious use of other people's track.

Analysis of roles and bidding (note that Production is useless on first and last turns, Turn Order Pass is useless on the last turn; only 7 urbanizations are available on this map):

Urbanization: 1st for 3, 1st for 4, 1st for 11, 2nd for 5, 2nd for 2, 2nd for 2, 2nd for 3, -
Locomotive: 2nd for 2, 2nd for 0, 2nd for 10, 1st for 6, 1st for 3, 1st for 3, 1st for 4, 2nd for 0+TOP
First build: 3rd for 0, 4th for 0, 3rd for 5, 3rd for 2, -, 3rd for 1, 3rd for 2
Engineer: 4th for 0, 3rd for 0, 4th for 0, -, 4th for 0, -, -, 1st for 10
First move: -, -, -, -, 3rd for 0, -, 4th for 0
Turn Order Pass: -, -, -, -, -, 4th for 0, -
Production: -, -, -, 4th for 0, 3rd for 0, 4th for 0, -, -

Average price and placement:

Urbanization: $4.3 spent for an average placing of 1.57 in 7 auctions
Loco: $3.4+1 TOP spent for an average placing of 1.5 in 8 auctions
First build: $1.1 spent for an average placing of 2.7 in 7 auctions
Engineer: $2 spent for an average placing of 3.2 in 5 auctions
First move: $0 spent for an average placing of 3.5 in
TOP: $0 spent for an average placing of 4.0
Production: $0 spent for an average placing of 3.67

Urbanization and Loco were hard-fought over for the entire game. First build came in 3rd followed by Engineer (which was skewed by Eric bidding a mighty $10 for it to take advantage of extra track building on the last turn). First move and Production came out around equal, and Turn order pass was only taken once, the least I’ve seen it chosen in all the 4 player games I’ve played.

Thread: Re: [Review] Age of Steam Expansion: 1830's Pennylvania

Tatsu — 2007-04-12T17:25:48+00:00

TomVasel wrote:
Honestly, this makes coal such a critical resource that any player who ignores it will most likely lose the game.
Its not that you can't just ignore coal. You can't let someone else beat you to coal and stay in the game long. Once someone starts moving coal, their income is going to make huge jumps. If you have a good lead in cash, you can control the game by forcing turn order and having your choice of actions first. I think this is one of the nastier and fun maps.

Thread: [Review] Age of Steam Expansion: 1830's Pennylvania

TomVasel — 2007-04-12T14:58:27+00:00

Age of Steam, while only having 6,000 copies in existence, certainly has attracted a hardcore following. I count twenty expansions on www.boardgamegeek.com, and most of those have been printed in the last three years. One of these is Age of Steam: 1830’s Pennsylvania/Northern California (Bezier Games, 2006 – Ted Alspach). When Ted first told me about the expansion, I was pretty pleased – mostly because I grew up in Pennsylvania and was glad to see my hometown Allentown on the map.

Both maps are fascinating and have a completely different feel than the original game. This has the dual effect of making them varied and intriguing, but also extremely non-recommended for new players. Both maps are difficult and challenging, and the Northern California map especially has the tendency to drive players to bankruptcy. I think I like the Pennsylvanian map better, if only because of the unique options it presents, but both maps are very interesting and will be of high interest to enthusiasts.

The 1830’s Pennsylvania map is all about one thing – coal. To simulate the industrial revolution, ten towns on the western side of the map have one black cube placed on them with the remainder of the non-black cubes scattered on the other cities on the board – most of which are on the eastern side of the map. The map itself is covered with the Appalachian Mountains, which cost $5 to build through. There are really only two major rule changes. The first is urbanization. Players may only build one track piece if they urbanize a town into a black city, and any “gray” town (one of the coal cube towns) may not be turned into a black city. Because of this, any coal must be transported over the mountains to one of the three existing black cities or any of the new ones.

The reason this is so critical is the power of coal. Whenever a player transports coal, they may either deliver it up to twice the distance of their locomotive OR double income. Honestly, this makes coal such a critical resource that any player who ignores it will most likely lose the game. At initial setup, players can attempt to connect the clustered eastern cities, but once a player pays the heavy price to get rails over the mountains – the special abilities of coal will make their income soar! This is why the game really wouldn’t work for new players, as they would most likely underestimate the importance of the black cubes and get soundly defeated as the game goes by. Because of the terrain, mostly mountains and rivers, players will pay heavily to build almost everywhere, and that combined with the rarity of coal make the map feel very crowded. Competition is fierce – some of the fiercest on any map, and there will be a lot of jockeying for a part of the “coal network.”

Northern California is a completely unusual map –one that really needs to be played to be accurately understood. Full of hills and water, the terrain is interesting enough; but that’s just one small part of the map. There are two bridges across the bay that can be built, which initially sounds very good, but they are fairly expensive. Four of the cities on the map are yellow, two are red, and only one blue and purple city exist, making cube deliveries very tight. San Jose is actually three cities that are adjacent to each other, with no cubes initially placed in it. Cubes can be delivered to an adjoining section for zero income and can even be shipped out of one part of the city and back into another part. What makes San Jose interesting, however, is that it has all six white numbers on it, so piles of goods are going to show up there rather quickly. The map isn’t all about San Jose, however. Santa Cruz has a line of ten cubes extending from it – representing “ships”. After the two goods in the city have been shipped, players can ship the good on the “ship” closest to the port of the city. This matches up with Sacramento – in the upper right hand corner of the map. Sacramento is colored white and only accepts cubes of the color of the closest ship to Santa Cruz. This makes Sacramento a volatile city (reminiscent of the Korean map).

Urbanization is a big deal in Northern California, since San Jose is going to be shipping forth dozens of cubes. With the importance of five key cities on the board, competition is going to be heavily fierce – in fact, while I haven’t played the game with five players, I can see how that would be a nightmare after one four player game. Northern California is certainly interesting, but it can be a rather stressful game, since one small error can lose you the game; and it involves more direct competition than any other map I know.

The boards are thin poster material, with bright, colorful printing on them. Normally I prefer mounted boards, but these work well and actually fit into my bulging Age of Steam box a little better. The two-sided rules sheet (in full color) are very clear and easy to understand.

I would recommend the expansion to those who are seeking new challenges in their Age of Steam addiction. It is NOT for the fainthearted or new players, especially the very evil Northern California map. I personally enjoy the Pennsylvanian map – it’s become my second favorite map to play on (after Korea) in the game – although the coal simply makes it an entirely new experience. But that’s what’s nice about this expansion – it allows players to play a new scenario that actually feels different and isn’t just a variation on the original map.

Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games”
www.thedicetower.com

Thread: Pennsylania 1830 - Con fotos

marioaguila — 2007-03-24T18:25:55+00:00

Jugadores:

* César: azul
* Francisco: rojo
* Mario: verde

Primera vez que jugábamos este mapa, cuyo sitio oficial está aquí. Reglas en castellano aquí.

El principal cambio es que al principio del juego se colocan, en algunos PUEBLOS grises, algunos cubos negros (carbón), que deben trasladarse al Este (derecha del tablero).

Cada vez que se trasladan, el jugador escoge doblar la potencia de la locomotora o duplicar el ingreso. Una u otra.

Pues bien, yo empecé mi línea férrea en el sur (1º en construir), en la ciudad 1 negro y con destino a las montañas.
Los otros dos jugadores, empezaron a construir líneas apegados al Oeste.
Eso significó que como por mi lado no tenía muchos cubos que trasladar, tuve que emitir bastante para solventar los elevados costos de construcción por las montañas; sin embargo, tomaba la delantera en pos del carbón.
César y Francisco, en cambio, descuidando el carbón, cimentaban buenas y potentes locomotoras, movían mucha mercadería y me sacaban gran ventaja en el nivel de ingresos.

Luego se dieron cuenta de las ventajas del carbón, a partir del momento en que trasladaba cubos negros a gran distancia, usando la doble capacidad de mi locomotora.
En ese momento, Francisco siguió mis pasos, por el mismo sector centro sur y en una o dos rondas después, César, abrumado por su retraso, empezó en el norte, en la ciudad 5 blanco.

Francisco logró sacar provecho de su potente locomotora, de tal manera que cuando logró enviar su primera producción de carbón hacia el Este, duplicó el ingreso (no ocupó la opción de duplicar la potencia de su locomotora). Y eso lo siguió haciendo.
Mientras tanto, yo tenía que apurarme en mejorar la locomotora, para usar la ventaja del carbón con la misma táctica de Francisco.

Además, Francisco llegó al extremo Oeste un poco al norte de mi posición (ciudad 2 blanco), debido a lo cual quedé reducido al extremo sur del mapa.

Por su lado, César empezaba sin inconvenientes ni presiones su ruta transcontinental por el norte. Y eso le permitió enviar carbón a grandes distancias (hasta 10 de ingreso), sin necesidad de duplicar la locomotora, que ya la tenía de 5.

Al final de cuentas, yo que había abierto la ruta del carbón quedé tercero (107); César 2º (130) y Francisco 1º (175). Importante diferencia de puntos!

Mi error: no potenciar la locomotora, utilizando la regla especial de duplicar la potencia de la loco, en vez de la de duplicar los ingresos. Lección!

Por otro lado, cabe destacar la abundancia de dinero que hubo en casi todo el juego. Será que eramos solo 3; será que al vender el carbón al doble abunda el dinero...pero lo cierto es que, a diferencia de muchos juegos, ya en la 3ª ronda se ve mucha plata.

Esto me hace pensar, más que nunca, que AOS es más un juego de conexiones que financiero. Es decir, cuando hay paridad entre los jugadores, respecto de su conocimiento de las reglas y su experiencia en el manejo para no quebrar, la mayor creatividad en la construcción de las líneas y el uso de cruces, líneas dobles etc; la mayor capacidad de vizualizar reemplazos para sobreponerse a encierros; el uso espacial del mapa para adelantarse a otros jugadores en el acceso a una determinada parte del tablero (como en A través del Desierto), es más importante que el manejo matemático.

Abajo aparece el tablero final del mapa y de producción (se vació rápidamente y prácticamente nadie escogió producción para rellenarlo).
Verde (yo), por el sur; Rojo por el centro y zona Este; Azul por el norte y zona Este.

Thread: Re: San José and segments

toulouse — 2007-02-08T19:16:51+00:00

msaari wrote:
Imagine for a moment that the tight blue curve connecting 1-2 and 3-4 is red. Could red move a yellow cube from 1-2 to 3-4 through that, then back to 1-2 and from there to black 3? Does the "cube can't cross same city twice" rule apply to San Jose? What exactly means the "can't move through same segment twice" rule?

Goods can not move into a city they've already started in or passed through, and each "hex" of San Jose is a separate city in terms of conventional AoS rules (which are applied here) so that move would not be allowed.

Ted

Thread: Re: Age of Steam California - A bridge too far - Pictures

marioaguila — 2007-02-08T13:55:49+00:00

Yes, you are right. We made that mistake. it was our first play with this map...in the following we applied correctly this rule.
Thanks

Thread: Re: Age of Steam California - A bridge too far - Pictures

Boycat-OH — 2007-02-08T13:32:03+00:00

Looks like you played one rule incorrectly - you can not build the bridge between Hayward + Foster City unless both have become urbanized (ie with a city tile). Building a town there is not enough. So building that curved track that has its edge on the Bay would be illegal.

Thread: Re: San José and segments

msaari — 2007-02-07T17:15:33+00:00

Imagine for a moment that the tight blue curve connecting 1-2 and 3-4 is red. Could red move a yellow cube from 1-2 to 3-4 through that, then back to 1-2 and from there to black 3? Does the "cube can't cross same city twice" rule apply to San Jose? What exactly means the "can't move through same segment twice" rule?

Thread: Re: californication: victory points for bridges

Phelonius — 2006-09-10T23:54:44+00:00

Thanks for the quick responses. This is indeed the only expansion I have. This was the only one where both maps looked interesting.

Of course, the interesting part it that makes it the most expensive VP in the game at $10 for 1VP. I suppose its advantage (a monopoly on the NE/NW axis) is intended to balance this.

Thanks again for a great mapset, Ted. I'm looking forward to playing Pennsylvania now.

Thread: Re: californication: victory points for bridges

toulouse — 2006-09-10T18:43:16+00:00

Good catch. JC is indeed correct; each bridge link is worth 1 VP.

This was undoubtedly missed for the reason Michael stated; it isn't part of the "vanilla" AoS ruleset, but instead taken for granted due to repeated plays of Scandanavia and Ireland.

http://games.bezier.com/AOSNC.html now contains Errata for this issue. Thanks for catching it!

Thread: Re: californication: victory points for bridges

clearclaw — 2006-09-10T18:07:33+00:00

CortexBomb wrote:
I think this just illustrates one of the dangers that Age of Steam expansions have...designers often assume (I'm sure on accident) that players are aware of all of the other expansions and have played them.

Truly. This is a significant problem with my AoS:Central America map. I borrow many of the patterns used in Warfrog expansions, and condensing out the entire set of changes from the base game as versus from the base game plus Warfrog expansion set is surprisingly difficult.

Thread: Re: californication: victory points for bridges

CortexBomb — 2006-09-10T16:56:16+00:00

I agree with JC.

I think this just illustrates one of the dangers that Age of Steam expansions have...designers often assume (I'm sure on accident) that players are aware of all of the other expansions and have played them. Hence you see things that are recycled, like the sea routes/bridges or the thick black lines being reused with no reminder in the rules for people who haven't been lucky enough to play them all.

Thread: Re: californication: victory points for bridges

clearclaw — 2006-09-10T16:10:32+00:00

Each bridge is worth 1VP, just like in AoS:Ireland and AoS:Scandinavia.

Thread: californication: victory points for bridges

Phelonius — 2006-09-10T09:55:09+00:00

We just played our first game of AoS on Ted Alpach's Northern California expansion map. When we got to the Victory Point Computations at the end of the game, we weren't sure if the bridges scored any points. As Ted's rules made no mention of it, we did not score them (full disclosure: I had the bridge in question. i did, however, support the call not to score them).

The rules specifically state "Sections of Track are denoted by the seperations between Track tiles and between cities and towns." Since the bridge contains no Track tiles, I believe that we have interpreted this correctly. It is possible, however, that the bridge would score 1 point, as it is an uninterupted 'section' between two cities. (further disclosure: this one point would still have not closed the 2 point gap I needed to tie for first)

Ted's otherwise wonderful Bezier.com does not contain an FAQ on his expansions, and we could find no official (i.e. Geek Forum) posting on this topic. It must have come up for others.

What's the verdict, BGGers?

Thread: Re: AoS Pennsylvania

JasonRMax — 2006-09-07T22:46:31+00:00

I echo Matthew's comments. The coal is ridculously over=powered in this one. The only way I was able to slow Charrles down was to ship the coal over a couple of his lines to my lines before Charles could ship it all over his lines. I dislike the fact that coal, apparently, must be part of your strategy to win.

Thread: Re: AoS Pennsylvania

mfrederick — 2006-09-05T04:32:01+00:00

I'd be willing to try it again, certainly, but it seems imbalanced to me, too. I don't think 4 people can reasonably be moving coal, and I don't think there's a valid winning strategy in the east unless you get really lucky goods placement.

Thread: Re: Black Goods rule

slowcorner — 2006-09-05T04:09:37+00:00

Thanks to all who responded. Crystal clear.

Thread: AoS Pennsylvania

Tatsu — 2006-09-02T16:18:46+00:00

Players: Tademspoony(Noah), mfrederick(Mathew), JasonRMax(Jason), tatsu(myself - Charles).

The four of us sat down to play AoS and started deciding on a map. I've had the Penn/Cali maps for a while now, but hadn't gotten any play time on them yet, so pushed to play one of these and everyone agreed to try Pennsylvania. Turn order was randomized for the first turn and I was last. Mathew was first and went with a single share while the rest of us took two. The bidding was a bit high for my taste the first round and I passed, took last for free and sat back to see what would be left to me. Somehow I was able to get Urbanization. I was hoping the other players would start fighting in the south and leave me alone in the north.

Just as I hoped, Matthew and Jason began fighting over the eastern most cities. Noah was third and chose to start in the north. Mulling over my choices, I decided to chance Baltimore and try for a quick run to the coal. I used urbanization to setup a red city two hops away (giving me a good move for my first turn and some singles on the next). Amazingly I watched as I steadily built to the coal while the others ignored the west side of the map. Even Noah hadn't yet started his western line to the riches. I caught their attention by biding quite a lot to grab urbanization around turn 4 or 5. I used it build a yellow city and to increase the coal on a coal town. I then promptly shipped a piece of coal for 10. The next couple turns saw everyone scrambling to build west in an effort to slow me down. By then it was to late. I had shipped 24 and 20 in the next two turns making my lead so far out I was able to simply enforce my will the rest of the game. Realizing that money wasn't worth anything each turn, I spent the last 3 turns of the game bidding ridiculous amounts to get engineer so that the amount of track I had would be far and away superior. Not that I needed to worry. I ended the game nearly 15 ahead on the income track and with only 10 shares issued.

Jason commented afterwards that he didn't care for the map, because the coal was so powerful that it took away most of the options - players were forced into one strategy. The fact that the first person to ship coal had a huge advantage was not lost on any of us. Shipping twice as much as everyone else on one turn is easily a game breaker. I'd be willing to try this map again now that everyone knows what to expect. I don't think the coal forces a single strategy - I think players just have to pay attention and when it looks like another player is about to reach the coal, they have to be in position to use the tracks to "steal" the coal out from under them. In my group, players are very reluctant to use another players line, but I think for this map, it probably one of the best moves you can do.

Thread: Re: Black Goods rule

CortexBomb — 2006-09-01T20:06:42+00:00

slowcorner wrote:
Anyone? The response to my 3rd scenario seems to conflict with the first two responses. Or they are all true through some interpretation that eludes me.

If your engine is at 3 and you deliver a piece of coal across 6 links, 5 of them your own and 1 of them your opponent's then you will receive 5 and the opponent will receive 1.

The lack of clarity here was probably because people forgot that under your third scenario you were still presumed to only have a 3 level engine.

Thread: Re: Black Goods rule

slowcorner — 2006-09-01T19:43:56+00:00

Anyone? The response to my 3rd scenario seems to conflict with the first two responses. Or they are all true through some interpretation that eludes me.

Thread: Re: Black Goods rule

slowcorner — 2006-08-31T16:51:24+00:00

clearclaw wrote:
slowcorner wrote:
If I move a black cube 6 links, using one link of my opponent, I get 5 income, my opponent gets 2 points?

You get 10 he gets 2.

Even under the assumption that my engine level is 3?

Thread: Re: Black Goods rule

clearclaw — 2006-08-31T16:43:08+00:00

slowcorner wrote:
For example, my engine capacity is 3. If I move a black cube 3 links, I get 6 income.

Correct.

If I move a black cube 6 links, I get 6 income?

Correct.

If I move a black cube 6 links, using one link of my opponent, I get 5 income, my opponent gets 2 points?

You get 10 he gets 2.

Thread: Re: Black Goods rule

slowcorner — 2006-08-31T11:29:18+00:00

marioaguila wrote:
The rule: 2. A black cube delivery doubles the income for each player whose links the good crosses (up to 12 income total).

OK, just to rephrase and make sure I understand, 'A black cube delivery up to current engine capacity is worth 2 income points per Completed Track Segment (link), and this bonus is extended to any player whose link is used to complete the delivery. Any delivery beyond current engine capacity is worth one income point per link'(?).

For example, my engine capacity is 3. If I move a black cube 3 links, I get 6 income.

If I move a black cube 6 links, I get 6 income?

If I move a black cube 6 links, using one link of my opponent, I get 5 income, my opponent gets 2 points?

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Pennsylvania

toulouse — 2006-06-13T02:45:42+00:00

spotcard wrote:
From experience, this can be infuriating to someone who has spent lots of money in auctions and track to get to those cubes. It also makes the first move action fought over at times.

In my experience, anything that is infuriating to Clark is an incredibly good thing.

Thread: Re: Talking about California map: too hard

marioaguila — 2006-06-07T12:46:21+00:00

It's hard comparing with other maps, but don't be wrong about it...we like it very much.

Thread: Re: Talking about California map: too hard

Goodsound — 2006-06-07T10:36:08+00:00

Yesterday I had my first play on this map and it was somethat the most cutthroat game of Age of Steam I ever head (great experience with 4 players). None of us went bankrupt. Break even was reached at about two thirds of the game. It is really a map for experienced players. If it is too hard then you are too weak (no offence ) or you had very tough luck with the random distribution of the good cubes.

Thread: Re: Age of Steam Pennsylvania

spotcard — 2006-06-01T15:55:35+00:00

Competition for at least the first couple auctions should be fierce on this map, as the reasonable routes into the mountains are such a strong position. Once the board positions are settled, there is another trick to annoy the mountaineers. Those stuck in the flatlands can use the 'ship a black cube for twice your link' option to ship the black cubes out from under the noses of the mountaineers. If you hook up where their track comes out of the mountains,and can get to a black city, you give them 2-3 income and ship the rest on your own track. You get about a normal cubes worth of income, while the mountaineer gets much less than he was hoping for. And the mountaineers are usually poorly placed to ship other cubes if their black cubes are taken. From experience, this can be infuriating to someone who has spent lots of money in auctions and track to get to those cubes. It also makes the first move action fought over at times.

Thread: Age of Steam Pennsylvania

dedefortin — 2006-05-31T03:44:59+00:00

We gave a second try to the Pennsylvania map. In our first game, players tought that some starting builds were very strong compared to others.

All players started in the eastern part of the map. Pierre began his network near Baltimore and oriented his tracks to the west to prepare himself to build through town with black goods. As in our first game on Pennsylvania, the first player to ship black goods seemed very hard to catch up. Even if Pierre didn't win the locomotive action he had a very good scoring with the shipping of black goods.

As in the first game, Pierre won easily. Every player agreed that the black goods are the key to win the game. We expect our next game to be very different since we'll not let a player get alone to ship black goods, he'll have more competition from other players.

Final scoring:
Pierre: win by K-O on round 3
Martin: DNF
Laurence: DNF
Mario: DNF

Thread: Re: Talking about California map: too hard

clearclaw — 2006-05-20T00:51:03+00:00

marioaguila wrote:
Concerning a consultation on a final negative scoreboard in Northern California map (with pictures), some opinions about the tight of this map can see in
http://tinyurl.com/h5agm

Too hard for you or "just fine" for others? I find Northern California a fine and challenging map with Bay Area being its more interestinly challenging older brother.

Thread: Talking about California map: too hard

marioaguila — 2006-05-19T12:31:17+00:00

Concerning a consultation on a final negative scoreboard in Northern California map (with pictures), some opinions about the tight of this map can see in
http://tinyurl.com/h5agm

Thread: Re: San José and segments

clearclaw — 2006-05-19T00:21:59+00:00

marioaguila wrote:
Could the red player bring a yellow good from San José 3 white to 3 black in 3 segments?

Yes they could, variously via the white 1-2 or the white 5-6.

Thread: Re: San José and segments

marioaguila — 2006-05-18T23:57:35+00:00

The rules about San José Says:

"San José red goods can be delivered to an adjoining San José city for zero income, or may be taken out of the city and back into different San Jose city (e.g. San José to East San José)for the number of segments traveled. Other goods can be moved freely between San José cities at a cost of zero segments (but not move through the same segments twice"

I understod that for red goods purposes, any tile is a different city, but for other colors goods there are only one city.

For instance:

Could the red player bring a yellow good from San José 3 white to 3 black in 3 segments?

Thread: Re: Bridge question

clearclaw — 2006-05-18T23:29:22+00:00

Sure you can build the city tile(s). You can even connect them to the bridge. You just can't build the bridge itself.

Thread: Re: Bridge question

marioaguila — 2006-05-18T23:05:23+00:00

Ok, so it's not possible to put a city tile only, like we did

Thread: Re: San José and segments

clearclaw — 2006-05-18T22:29:55+00:00

Yes, they could. They would have to use the sharp curve between the 1-2 and 3-4 and then the link out to E