Game: Age of Steam Expansion - Mexico, Spain/Portugal

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thorndor — 2008-06-10T16:59:07+00:00

Mexico Board with Cubes: Setup and Ready to Play

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thorndor — 2008-06-10T16:52:39+00:00

Spain/Portugal Board with Cubes and Randomly Placed Starting New Cities: Setup and Ready to Play

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thorndor — 2008-03-07T02:04:14+00:00

Special goods display for Mexico only

Thread: Age of Steam Spain/Portugal session report

dedefortin — 2008-01-08T04:06:22+00:00

Six people to play Age of Steam and you want to have some action so you get the Spain/Portugal expansion. This expansion is played with teams and have a new action ''Insurrection'' that is adding interaction to the basic game. As in the other Steambrothers map, this expansion keeps the essence of the basic game that is already great and there is some new rules and new action to give more replayability.

The teams for tonight would be the following: Adrien/Mario, Martin/Marc-Andre, Nathalie/Pierre. We were a but sad since Martin are often in the same team when we play this map and this make very spicy games. On the original bet Mario and Adrien were first but Adrien made a mistake after Mario started at 1$ he betted 2$ instead of 4$ so most of the other players followed with higher bets instead of going down. This wasn't fatal but when playing in a team it's important to take advantage of the position of each player in the team. All 6 players began mostly on the southern side of the map since the northern area setup was awful. Nathalie and Pierre were in the western region, Marc-Andre and Martin around Madrid and Mario and Adrien in the southeast. On turn 2 Mario and Adrien corrected their mistake of turn 1 when Adrien won 1 st place with 7$ and Mario went second with his turn order. They took advantage of this by doing a nice loop to prepare some nice deliveries. Marc Andre took the powerful Insurrection action on San Sebastian to deny Pierre and Nathalie big shipping but they were still able to connect Bordeaux since there was a race to connect this important French city. Nathalie then took 3 shares on next turn to make sure she would have the loco action and Pierre was able to make a loop in the west to prepare shipping for their team . On turn 5 Nathalie betted 4$ even if she only had 6$ because she was counting on the fact that she would get back half of her bet when other players would bet later. By doing this she forced other players to spend more money for their bet even if she wasn't very rich. The game was very tough and money was scarce as players were trying not to take too many shares. Again Nathalie made a nice move in the end when she took the first build to deny Adrien and Mario in connecting France, Adrien and MArio had a very nice network but they lack some goods that they would have found in France, this costed them the game.

Nathalie's team finally won this tough game. There many battles and interaction was great as expected. Talks around the table weren't too long as we kept them open for everyone. We always play this way and the game on this map are almost the same duration as play on th other maps.

Final score:
Team 1: Nathalie: 67 ( 1st place)
Pierre: 56 (2nd place)

Team 2: Adrien: 62 (3rd place)
Mario: 35 (4th place)

Team 3: Marc-Andre: 54 (5th place)
Martin: 42 (6th place)

Thread: Age of Steam Spain/Portugal session report

dedefortin — 2008-01-04T05:04:58+00:00

When the evening of gaming seems boring in our group it's time to play the team base Spain/Portugal expansion, especially if Martin and Mario are there to form a team. As expected Martin and Mario were in the same thing and Pierre and Nathalie would compete against them.

Nathalie and Pierre began each of their network in the western region and Martin and Mario went in the southeast region. From the many games we played on this map, we learned that's it's very important not being too far from your partner. When you need some specific goods we usually prefer to give to our partner even if Mario or Martin is your teamate. Game was very agressive in the first turns. Pierre started the betting round of turn 2 at 4$ and finished last. Martin and Mario won the first places but they had to spend high and they were left with almost no money to build so Nathalie took the first build and blocked Martin in the south. Again the bets went very high on round 3 and 4 and Martin even had to overbet his partner but Pierre finally won the loco for 7$, as Martin often say'' We only live once ''. Money was very tight for everyone but the bets continued to go high for 2 turns for the loco action. The game was very close at this stage and money was the main problem. Martin and Mario had a nice network with many loops but they had to pay several time for the gauge difference to ship to or from France. Pierre knew about their problem and started the bet of turn 6 at 6$ so they would step down and this would allow Nathalie to have second place for free as she was last on the previous turn. Martin and Mario's team struggle with their loco being blocked at 5 only until the last turns but they made several nice moves as when Martin deny Pierre in connecting the northwest of the map. Martin finally won the last bet and choose the loco action. In his last shipping Pierre move Mario income to 41 in hope that the income reduction would help his team catch up with Martin and Mario but it wasn't enough.

Martin and Mario finally won the game by a slight margin. This was one of the closest game we ever had on this map. The bets went very high all game long as each turn was critical for each team. The loco action and first build actions were important but the Insurrection action was often choosen by the second or third player in the betting round. What's important was that we really had fun and we still have fun with this open table talks.

Final score;
Martin: 87
Mario: 86
Nathalie: 83
Pierre: 81

Thread: Age of Steam Spain/Portugal session report

dedefortin — 2007-07-26T02:40:52+00:00

When we want some action in our group we sort out the Spain/Portugal map. The team play makes it very fun no matter what's the final result. With 6 players attending tonight we formed 3 teams, Adrien/Mario, Marc-Andre/Nathalie, Martin/Pierre.

Martin and Pierre started in the centre of the map, Marc-Andre and Nathalie builded in the northeast region and Adrien and Mario decided to build in the southern area. Martin and Pierre were in the last 2 positions for the first 3 rounds and they had a difficult time getting back in the game. Marc-Andre was able to ship 2 goods for 3 income each in round 2 and decided to go for a long run in the next round when he choose 4 shares to be assured of winning the loco action and be able to ship big in the next round. Hopefully Martin was there to calm him and Martin's build in the southeast denied Marc-Andre of 2 big shippings. That was a hard blow for Marc-Andre and he never fully recovered from that. Martin still had a tough time since they had no loop in their network. On the contrary, Adrien and Mario had a nice network and were able to give each other many income points. On turn 4 there was a big fight between Martin and Nathalie for the loco action but Martin finally won but he had to spend lot of money for this action and he had a hard time in continuing his network. At the end of turn 4 every player had a 5 loco but in the next turn Mario won this important action to increase the lead of his team. This gave Mario and Adrien team a sufficient lead until the end of the game.

Adrien and specially Mario had a nice loop and they really worked as a team to win this game. As usual interaction was great and the negociations around the table were pleasant. The northeast area was interesting but Marc-Andre and Nathalie had to use the links to France too many time and they had to pay too much to be profitable at the end of the game. A game on this map with Mario is always fun , specially when he wins

Mario: 1 st place
Adrien: 2nd place
Martin: 3rd place
Pierre: 4th place
Nathalie: 5th place
Marc-Andre: 6th place

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

clearclaw — 2007-07-23T04:59:18+00:00

dedefortin wrote:
The city that was hit by the insurrection action is treated like a colorless city that can be connected on the 6 sides. So you only need to build to the edge.

cf colourless cities on AoS:Sun.

I suggest using a face-down tile or $25 coin to mark the black city (coin is slightly better as it doesn't change the tile distribution if you run into those limits).

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

texasjdl — 2007-07-23T02:41:54+00:00

Hi Pierre, thank you for the answer! Somehow all 4 of us missed that!

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

dedefortin — 2007-07-23T02:00:11+00:00

Hi Jeremiah
As stated in the rules for this expansion, '' Blue goods are not allowed on Bordeaux and Marseilles and on their good display''. So the situation you refer to cannot happen on the Spain/Portugal map.

Have fun.

Pierre
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

texasjdl — 2007-07-23T01:18:10+00:00

Hi Pierre, thank you for the reply.

I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but the language in your last post is less precise than the question I'm asking, so I want to make sure that we have the rule correct.

texasjdl wrote:
Additionally, when a cube is shipped from Marseilles to Bordeaux (or vice-versa), is the fee $2 or $4? We played as though it is just $2, but I would have interpreted it to be a $4 fee.
dedefortin wrote:
The fee to ship to Marseilles or Bordeaux (or vice versa) is 2$ for each good.

My question is that if there is a blue cube on Marseilles and it gets shipped to Bordeaux, does the party shipping it pay $2 or $4?

Again, sorry for asking again if I'm asking what you intended to answer.

Thanks!

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

dedefortin — 2007-07-22T21:11:58+00:00

Hi Michael and Jeremiah

The city that was hit by the insurrection action is treated like a colorless city that can be connected on the 6 sides. So you only need to build to the edge.

You don't count what would have been a stub when counting the track at the scoring round.

The fee to ship to Marseilles or Bordeaux (or vice versa) is 2$ for each good.

Thanks

Pierre
Steambrothers

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

texasjdl — 2007-07-22T18:15:14+00:00

As an additional question, do you count what would have been a stub when counting track at the end of the game?

Additionally, when a cube is shipped from Marseilles to Bordeaux (or vice-versa), is the fee $2 or $4? We played as though it is just $2, but I would have interpreted it to be a $4 fee.

Thread: Re: Insurrection Question

clearclaw — 2007-07-22T17:19:55+00:00

CortexBomb wrote:
"For the rest of the game this hex is treated as a town but now it can be connected on each of its 6 sides".

My interpretation was that it was effectively an uncoloured city.

Thread: Insurrection Question

CortexBomb — 2007-07-22T15:44:02+00:00

The Insurrection action removes a new city tile, and replaces it with a town. The rules then go on to say this:

"For the rest of the game this hex is treated as a town but now it can be connected on each of its 6 sides".

I have a question:

To connect to such a city, does one only need to build up to the edge of it (i.e.: treat it like a colourless city?) or does one need to actually pay the $3 to "replace the track in town" and build INTO the hex, like one would for a normal town?

Thread: Review: Spain/Portugal

IcemanCU — 2007-04-26T20:14:43+00:00

Age of Steam: Spain/Portugal

Spain and Portugal is part of the latest effort put out by the Steam Brothers, and it throws some interesting twists into the Age of Steam system. I'll start out by detailing the rules changes and how they affect the game, and finish up with my impressions.

Partnerships
This is by far the biggest change introduced in this map, similar to the model recently seen in Ted Alspach's Golden Spike. The map is only playable with even numbers (4 or 6), and the players play in teams of two. At the end of the game, once scores are tallied, the team with the highest combined score is the victor. However, the biggest twist is that, within the winning team, only the player with the highest individual score wins. This leads to a balancing act between helping your partner in order to stay competitive and trying to keep yourself in the individual lead.

New Cities
At the start of the game, all of the new cities except B are placed on the board in 7 of the 12 towns on the board. This leaves a board with lots of delivery destinations early in the game, and a lot of goods since each of these new cities starts with the standard 2 goods cubes. Also, since each of the new cities has the potential to be on the board the entire game, there is a much greater chance of their corresponding goods from the goods chart ending up on the board. The placement of the cities is done randomly (by means of a 12-sided die, since each town in this map is number 1-12), so large variations from game to game are possible.

No Urbanization/Insurrection
The urbanization special action is replaced by insurrection in this map, which is a nasty little action. The player who chooses insurrection immediately chooses a new city on the board and removes it from the game. Any goods cubes in the new city or on its column in the goods chart are removed from the game. The new city tile is left flipped over to its blank side with a town marker, so it still counts as a link for shipping goods. The town, from that point on, functions as a town with 6 pre-built, unclaimed exits so that players who are connected to the town suffering an insurrection don't lose their track's connectivity.

Blue Cities/France
The only blue cities in the game are in the Northeast corner of the map, Bordeaux and Marseilles. These cities are surrounded by mountains, which cost $5 to build through, and cannot be shipped through (they can only be the start or end point of a shipment). In addition, since the French rail lines are of a different gauge than the Spanish lines, the player shipping a goods cube to or from these blue cities incurs a cost of $2, which is paid immediately when the goods cube is shipped. If a player cannot pay the $2 fee, he can instead move his income marker back by two.

Thoughts/Impressions
The rules changes in this map are extensive, and they do make for a very interesting game. The partnership aspect adds a new dimension to the game, and encourages cooperation to some extent. While it seems advantageous at first for partners to build in opposite sides of the map to avoid competing in track building and goods shipment, the middle game reveals that having connected networks can help out both members of the partnership. However, near the end of the game, players need to be careful to balance the good of the team with their individual gains, as only the highest scoring player within the winning team is declared the winner of the game.

The insurrection/no urbanization change also causes some interesting situations, as players must be careful not to rely heavily on the new cities and the goods cubes they contain, since a spiteful player can remove them quite easily. However, at times this action can be a blessing in disguise, and can be used to eliminate a city that stands in the way of a long shipment. In our last game, this made a 3 income difference per shipment for one player in shipping yellow cubes. Therefore, the offensive and defensive possibilities of this action have to be considered carefully. This action adds another layer of confrontation to the game, which some players may not enjoy.

Finally, the lack of blue cities and the prohibitive costs associated with connecting to and shipping from the ones that do exist put the partnerships in an interersting position. Each team really needs to connect to at least one of the blue cities, but the player who does the connecting will face not only increased track building costs, but increased costs to ship goods to and from the city. This difference can spell the difference between first and second place within the winning partnership, so players again have to be careful to manage the good of the team with their personal good.

Overall, this map is a very interesting design that can provide a change of pace for experienced players, and yet remains accessible for those less experienced with the game. The changes to urbanization make the board extremely goods rich at the beginning of the game, but making those long shipments at the end are a challenge due to insurrection. This map is also one of the most confrontational that I've played in quite a while, being comparable to maps like Ireland and Scandinavia in that a special action lets you directly screw over other players. From initial impressions, this map seems fairly well balanced, albeit a little generous with the placement of cities. The lack of cities of one color (here, blue) is a mechanic that has been used extensively in other maps, and while it works here, it does feel a little gamey, although thematically interesting, to pay a cost associated with shipping to and from these cities.

Score: 8/10

Thread: Re: Dice Question

dedefortin — 2007-04-22T03:42:11+00:00

No there is no dice included in the shipment. We suggest a 12 sided die to place the new cities randomly on the map for the set up. You can choose any way you want to place them randomly so you have a different set up each time you'll play this map.

Have fun

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

Thread: Dice Question

jonpfl — 2007-04-20T21:59:10+00:00

All,

I just received my shipment and the Portugal map mentioned using a 12 sided die for the game. Was a die supposed to be included?

Thx
jonpfl

Thread: Re: Mexico, Spain/Portugal, India, Austria maps

dedefortin — 2007-04-10T23:10:14+00:00

Boards and Bits (www.boardsandbits.com) received our new set of maps. They are in stock and the first sets will be shipped this week.

Thanks

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers

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darky — 2007-03-28T08:52:25+00:00

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darky — 2007-03-28T08:51:51+00:00

Thread: Mexico, Spain/Portugal, India, Austria maps

dedefortin — 2007-03-25T05:48:41+00:00

Steambrothers are 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!

As in our first expansions, you will experience new and exciting actions and mechanisms in addition to this great game, Age of Steam.

We hope that you’ll have as much fun playing these as we did creating and playtesting them.

These new map sets will only be available at our excellent partner, Boards & Bits (www.boardsandbits.com).

Enjoy!

Pierre and Martin
Steambrothers